Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/08/criticizing-red-light-cameras-is-not-a-punishable-offense-oregon-concedes <comment><USER3> That's just insulting... the state says they acted unconstitutionally.. so they offered him $500 -- which is just a refund of the fine he already paid -- and asked the court to dismiss the case. After he had to pay 4 years of lawyers fees, take them to court, etc. It's just a big FU, and I have no doubt they won't change a thing if they successfully get the court to dismiss it.

If the court allows this, then the state won. They've sent their message: pay the fine, or we'll fight you in court for years, force you to pay thousands to lawyers, and maybe in the end we'll give you a refund of any fine you paid if it looks like you might win.

<comment><USER4> Most annoyingly, as someone who lives in Oregon I don't want to pay for this. I certainly want the poor guy who tried to fix something broken to be hugely compensated. However, I want whoever did this to pay for it.

I also want then to stop focusing traffic tickets on speeding and instead fine people who cause traffic jams by not accelerating when entering the freeway or go unnecessary slow. But well that's of course never gonna happen and probably most native Oregonians would be fine constantly because they drive insanely slow...

<comment><USER5> Growing up in Oregon I was always annoyed by the slow as hell left lane campers. Having spent a half decade elsewhere and recently moving back it has escalated from annoyance to blood boiling seething rage.

When I left Seattle, the state of WA was really making a push to get slowpokes out of the left lane with a media campaign and instituting tickets for people who are slowing traffic down.

I LOVE the idea.

<comment><USER6> I've felt the same way about "slow as hell left lane campers" for years and thought that maybe — if states never did anything to fix it — there might be a commercial solution to fixing this.

The idea I came up with awhile ago was to build a network of motorcyclists willing to attach a sign to the back of their bike, that reads (something like), "You're causing traffic by being in this lane at your speed - <USER2> move to right as soon as it's safe to do so." The motorcyclists would make their way in front of the slow left-laner - so that the sign is visible to the slow poke - with the hopes of persuading them to move to the right lane.

Meanwhile, also on the sign would be instructions for the other drivers out there, who witness the value the motorcyclist provided, to send a little micropayment electronically to the motorcyclist as a thank you.

Maybe this takes the form of a grassroots DIY movement where the motorcyclists handle all this themselves, or maybe there's an opportunity for a company to exist that creates the signs and facilitates the micropayments - and in return takes a cut of each micropayment (a la Patreon).

Obviously this assumes that all this can be achieved safely and legally. Thorough testing would have to be done on that front.

Let me know if anyone wants to kick around this idea further - even if just for fun.

<comment><USER7> as a motorcyclist, i have another idea

get more people to ride motorcycles. an oft-cited study [1] shows that a 10% increase in motorcycle ridership would cut time lost to traffic by 63%

1: [http://www.acem.eu/images/stories/doc/pressreleases/2011/PTW...](http://www.acem.eu/images/stories/doc/pressreleases/2011/PTW_Belgium_Study_FEBIAC_ENG.PDF)

<comment><USER8> I wonder how much this would decrease the wait times for donated organs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A number of people in this thread are accepting the position that "engineer" is defined by the State of Oregon to only mean Professional Engineer. Let's do a consistency check. Here is a job posting for an "engineer" by the State of Oregon, which is not for a PE position: [https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon/jobs/1902737/s...](https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon/jobs/1902737/software- testing-engineer-infrastructure-support-information-systems-specialis)

For contrast, here is a job opening for the State of Oregon for a PE: [https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon/jobs/1891379/s...](https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon/jobs/1891379/specifications- engineer-with-telecommuting-option-professional-engineer-1-od)

</comment><comment><USER10> I hate hearing tales of how public bodies waste taxpayers money fighting cases like this instead of focussing on the actual issues themselves. Even if the public body had done nothing in this case it would have been better than suing him.

<comment><USER11> Admitting failure is extremely hard for any human, wether it is such cases or infrastructure projects that took decades of planning and discussion: no one wants to admit that they followed the wrong path.

<comment><USER12> I can't agree with this more. It really holds us back (since the beginning). From school boards, local government, and even HOAs. Humans are so prideful, they rather find ways to defend their wrong decision than fix the underlying issue.

<comment><USER13> I don't know that it's all pride. I don't have much of a problem admitting mistakes amongst friends and most co-workers, but I've definitely worked with a few people you could never admit failure to. They were either the type of people who felt everything needed to have someone to blame and who would be punished for the failure, or people who could use any mistake as ammunition in office politics.

The government here may have refused to back down out of fear of setting a precedent that would be used in other cases where they were actually in the right

<comment><USER11> Your last sentence just makes the worst excuse ever. Doing wrong to be able to do right in other cases...

<comment><USER13> Oh it's not an excuse for what they did at all. I was just pointing out that pride might not be why they did this

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a pretty great way to stifle innovation and one of the most blatantly authoritarian programs I have seen. They are essentially saying that no one is allowed to advance technology within their state unless they adhere to their arbitrary rules including passing a test and "a work record of four years or more of technical work or engineering work under the supervision and control of a professional engineer." 4 years before you are even allowed to publicly discuss engineering! Last time I checked math and physics work the same regardless on an internship.

<comment><USER15> It's how totalitarians roll. You can't have upward mobility, you can't have a level playing field where people can take on the state and win with common sense. We need that, but it leaves the autocrats out of a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm interested in this because I know PE exams exist and there are licensing bodies for engineers. But what I've heard from most people is that they are a waste of time and money for someone holding an engineering degree unless you are the person who rubber stamps things at the end.

Does someone who knows more about professional engineering know if this law in Oregon is uncommon?

Beyond a free speech argument, it seems like the law is a bit flawed considering other related fields like science, math, and software may not have licensing.

Also, it goes as far as saying someone can't put "engineer" on their resume with solely a degree. Seems very far off the norm.

<comment><USER17> It is the same thing in Canada. "Engineer" is a protected term so that people can trust that when someone calls themselves an engineer, or does "engineering work", offering services to the public, they can trust that means something.

One difference is that the profession is 'Self Regulating', meaning Professional Engineers Ontario is a non-governmental body made up of Professional Engineers that is trusted by the government to manage the profession. The Quebec version of this organization, Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, was put under "trusteeship of the provincial government" when the government lost that trust after some infrastructure accidents [0].

The question of what constitutes "engineering work" is well defined in the Professional Engineers Act (Ontario) and would probably cover a lot of what you mentioned as 'science, math, software' not having licensing. So according to Professional Engineers Ontario, some of the types of work that those types of people could produce could require the sign-off of a Professional Engineer if it falls under the definition of "engineering work" by the PEO:

[1] _Under the Professional Engineers Act, the "practice of professional engineering" means "any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act"._

 _To determine whether you are practising professional engineering, ask yourself three questions:_

 _Are you planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising, or managing any of these acts?_ _Are engineering principles required to carry out the act?_ _Does the act concern the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment?_

As a licensed engineer in Ontario, I'm to display my licence at my place of work. I also keep another image close by to make sure we all remember not to take ourselves too seriously.

[https://imgur.com/Rd3XFyy](https://imgur.com/Rd3XFyy)

[0] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-engineers- regu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-engineers-regulate- themselves-1.3667466) [1] [http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php?ci_id=1848&la_id=1](http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php?ci_id=1848&la_id=1)

<comment><USER16> The problem I see with that law, and I believe it is possibly the same issue in the U.S. with many state laws is that, as well defined as it is, if I mix and match the terms from the definition then someone with an economics degree from an engineering school needs a professional license to do their own taxes...

"The practice of professional engineering means... any act of evaluating that requires application of engineering principles... and concerns economic interests."

It's not quite a bullet-proof concept. I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court is going to take this issue on at the time. But if I had a background in engineering and law and considered these laws in context, they seem a bit stupid. Most B.S. engineering graduates aren't professionally licensed but obviously are qualified to work and designate themselves as some type of engineer, at least on LinkedIn.

In any case, it seems the term to be protected is "Professional Engineer" or "Licensed Engineer" and not the generic title itself, and the scope should be limited by specifying what jobs require that license instead of a blanket statement. For example, "all bridges on public roads require work to be certified by a professional licensed engineer."

Edit:

In the earlier discussion, there was some debate about whether measuring the hypotenuse of a triangle is legal in public in Oregon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a clear case of using "well intentioned" laws to silence free speech. This supports the libertarian idea that we should reduce the size of government and regulation if possible, because given long enough and enough bureaucrats, fallible humans will exploit whatever mechanisms are available to them. People don't like criticism, especially when the criticism is of their work/policies and potentially threatens their livelihood, so giving them a way to easily stop critics is a bad idea.

<comment><USER19> > This supports the libertarian idea that we should reduce the size of > government and regulation if possible, because given long enough and enough > bureaucrats, fallible humans will exploit whatever mechanisms are available > to them

OTOH a perfectly libertarian system is ripe for the exploitation of fallible humans. Anyway there's a case for moderation here. I don't think shrinking the government to some ineffectual, microscopic or nonexistent size will accomplish what libertarians would hope for. Likewise having an omnipresent behemoth that controls every aspect of life isn't good either.

<comment><USER20> I think it's about time we stop throwing the baby out with the bath water when libertarian ideology comes up.

Looking at it simply, is there a possible set of rules that reduces waste, increases efficiency of constrained resources, and reduce exploitation from within the system? Libertarian ideologues suggest that there exists such a set of such rules, and it's a dramatically smaller set than we currently have. In order to move towards that smaller ideal set, we need a ideological shift in America -- we need to admit we suck. We suck at things, and some things that we think are okay now will suck soon. American culture sells the opposite: you're great, and it's poisonous. We need to acknowledge when others are doing better than us. I think we currently suck at it because the system is working as intended: corruption for sale. I don't think that's a sustainable system for the American people. It's about time we upgraded our "infrastructure."

We need to realign our government, giving it back to those that they are supposed to be serving in the first place: the citizens. Let's start by acknowledging that Libertarians are trying to free us from that which the government has no business being involved, thus reducing waste, increasing the efficiency of constraints, and reducing opportunity for exploitation. It is not about trying to create loop holes for exploitation. It's about shifting the meta away from corruption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have been following this story for quite some time and I would like to point a major item that this article misled the reader about. First off, the State Board did not censor what he was saying, they asked him to stop representing himself as an engineer. Järlström initially sent his analysis to the State Board with a letter in-which he referred to himself as an engineer. The Board Responded by requesting that he refrain from calling himself an engineer. After Järlström continued to call himself an engineer, the Board decided to fine him.

Järlström is and was allowed to discuss his analysis all he wanted, however, he is not allowed to call himself an engineer in such a was as to imply that he is a traffic or transportation engineer.

Full disclosure, I am a registered professional traffic engineer. As such, I feel that registration is very important and serves to protect the public at large from people producing work with little to no relevant experience.

Here is an article that was previously posted on HN which includes many of the documents involved in this case. [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvapy4/man- fined-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvapy4/man-fined- dollar500-for-crime-of-writing-i-am-an-engineer-in-an-email-to-the-government)

<comment><USER22> Stop trying to use your "registered professional traffic engineer" title as a labor monopoly. It doesn't even mean you are good at your job.

<comment><USER21> It is not meant to create a labor monopoly any more than a medical doctors licence. Registration as an engineer is so that one can prove that they have the requisite knowledge and competency to perform the work required of them. Without registration, what legal assurances would you have that the engineer is capable of his job?

<comment><USER23> The same as any other job, like mine as a Site Reliability Engineer? A resume, a degree that can be validated, experience and knowledge that demonstrate competence, references, reputation, etc. Why does the state need to be the official signer-off on who can do a certain job?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The whole business of red light cameras is pretty dubious to begin with. It seems more like a tool local municipalities use to tax through traffic rather than a means of protecting public safety.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2013/08/13/211723717...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2013/08/13/211723717/a-dilemma-zone-for-red-light-cameras-safety-vs-cash)

<comment><USER25> I live in Ireland and recently my wife got a speeding ticket having supposedly been caught by a mobile speed detector van. She was pretty certain that she hadn't been speeding as she knows the particular stretch of road is notorious for hidden speed traps.

The court summons photo had the GPS co-ordinates of the vans location embedded in the corner. So I types them in to Google Maps and it supposedly showed that the van was 50 meters away from the road in a farmers field. I tried again with other mapping sources including Ordnance Survey Ireland - all produced the same result.

So our case was simple, if the GPS in the van was so inaccurate then that called in to question the accuracy of the rest of the attached equipment - including the speed detection gear.

So I built up a portfolio of documents from both government, commercial and academic sources stating that the GPS equipment in the van should have been more accurate - to at least 5m and ideally more than that. I was also able to call upon my experience having worked on various GIS systems and on the development of lone worker emergency beacons in the past.

When I spoke for my wife in court the prosecutor asked me if I was was a certified GPS engineer. I said that I didn't believe such a title existed and that I was offering evidence based on my professional experience. But that was enough to sway the judge who said that unless I had someone from "GPS" [sic] with me than my evidence counted for nothing.

Fair play to the guy in the article for putting up a fight.

<comment><USER26> If you have to do this again at any point, you will likely find more success if you attack the accuracy of the speed measuring equipment, and specifically any traceable calibration of that equipment. Calling into question the accuracy of the GPS location fix in the photo did not directly say anything about the speed measuring device. This is because the speed measurement device was very likely not the GPS locator unit that stamped the photo. The speed measuring device was likely an independent radar or laser unit. The prosecution should bring with them proof that the unit had been field tested that day to verify correct functioning andd field accuracy, and as well should bring the calibration evidence showing professional calibration of the speed measurement device. But unless you question the speed measurement device itself, they have no reason to say much about the calibration status of the device. And since most defendants argue simply "I wasn't speeding" the prosecutors sometimes get lazy and leave the calibration documentation behind. If you question the calibration and they don't have the requisite evidence, then you've got something you can use to convince the judge to rule in your favor.

<comment><USER25> The prosecuting Garda Sargeant could not provide a calibration certificate for the speed detector, but the judge still didn't care. It was just a production line

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For additional reference, here's a previous discussion on HN about this case, linked to a previous Vice Motherboard article:

"Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't" (April 26, 2017 - 267 comments) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14197512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14197512)

</comment><comment><USER28> Kudos to the engineer who decided to fight the state on its ridiculous claim. I wonder if there is anything that can be done to help avoid a repeat? It is possible for the bureaucrat(s) responsible for original decision to sue to be fired or at least demoted? If so, what would it take (media coverage, letters to lawmakers, something else)?

I am glad the results were the way they were, but without slapping someone's hand for this it will happen again next time.

</comment><comment><USER29> So companies who have an opening for a "Software Engineer" or people having resumes with "Software Engineer" titles (Which is prettty common, I mean my resume has it, most of my peers call themselves Software Engineer / SDE and some prominent people recommend this title as a mean of improving your chances to be hired, [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/) ).

All are basically violating the law? (except those who actually took the official PE exam, which apparently is available for computer science since 2013 - [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/3954...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/39541/can- software-engineers-become-certified-professional-engineers-pe) )

Basically in states like Oregon, the officials can just scan linkedin, anyone who lives in the state and has Software Engineer in their title and is not a licenced engineer, can be forced to pay a $500 fine?

Edit: I actually went and did the search, there are 18,101 software engineer titles in Oregon in LinkedIn, here's an easy $9 million for the state in fines.

My assumption that if this gets to court, since the colloquial term for a software programmer / developer is nowadays "Software Engineer" and since there was no official way to become a certified "computer science" engineer prior to 2013, this will be hopefully thrown out the window.

</comment><comment><USER30> Photo traffic tickets are just another tool for those with a monopoly on force to steal money from people. Fortunately, in Arizona the state is still required to serve in person in order for the ticket to be binding. My wife and I have got for or five of these tickets in the mail over the years. We just throw them in the trash.

<comment><USER31> > Fortunately, in Arizona the state is still required to serve in person in > order for the ticket to be binding.

Colorado as well.

> We just throw them in the trash.

This worked once for me. The second time, an off duty Sheriff's Deputy came to my house and served me.

<comment><USER30> That happened to us once I think but it was not law enforcement. They tried to have someone serve us in the evening. We just didn't answer the door

<comment><USER31> Interesting...the guy flashed some kind of metal, cop looking badge. They do give badges to lots of people these days other than police/sheriff so I guess it could've been any .gov thug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This might actually be a bigger deal than people realize. This sets a precedence of being able to submit engineering publications and work without being licensed. Sure you can't still perform commercial or public engineering works unless licensed but you can speak publicly on technical matters.

<comment><USER33> So what? I don't want to live in a society governed by titles. Real talent doesn't need to rely on titles. I have titles but so what?

<comment><USER32> I wasn't speaking of titles. I was speaking of submitting technical work on engineering related ideas. Typically this is highly regulated under U.S. state laws.

<comment><USER34> The generally-good requirement that plans are stamped by a " _Professional Engineer_ " is required by public AHJs/codes and private regulations (eg insurance), and is not under dispute here. Meanwhile much engineering work is not under this regime, but checked by market demand and testing (eg software/electronic).

As an Electrical Engineer that has little interest in power systems and isn't looking to rewire other people's houses for money, I have very little use for a PE. I still have the basic right, along with everyone else (regardless of education), to make technical judgments of _any_ situation. How these judgments are valued can (and should) be questioned, but our right to speak them cannot.

These laws you speak of are a mix of unenforced, unenforceable, unconstitutional, and unconscionable. Their actual effects are constrained between nothing (ie most people accept the concept of free speech) and the harmful thuggish behavior described in the article.

<comment><USER35> <i>These laws you speak of are a mix of unenforced, unenforceable, unconstitutional, and unconscionable.</i>

Would you say the same thing about doctor licensing laws?

<comment><USER34> Yes, if those laws were able/used to silence PhDs using the title Doctor and/or nurses giving informal friendly diagnoses.

The proper test is _fraud_ , not _trademark_ or _unauthorized subject matter_.

<comment><USER35> Are you using your own common sense for determining the boundaries of legal doctoring or are you using your State's statues?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There is a fearful symmetry between the inaccurate red light camera and misapplication of the Professional Engineer Registration Act in violation of Järlström's free speech rights.

The cameras were sold like opioids to cities promising revenues and 'safety'. I'd like to know who the elected officials who signed up for these were.

They're mostly gone in the Bay Area but they still exist up in Redding. So CA hasn't banned them statewide.

</comment><comment><USER37> Out of curiosity (and not really related to the article) but I'm kind of surprised to hear there is a formula for calculating how long(?) yellow lights are on and that it relates to a red light camera. AFAIK those cameras are hooked into the control system and only activate when the light is red, which seems like a pretty binary decision. Can someone shed some light on this?

<comment><USER38> The yellow light provides a period when drivers know the light is going to go red soon, all else being equal this light should be set to stay on for just long enough for drivers in properly maintained cars, who drive at legal speeds, to see it and all either come to a stop or pass the intersection before the light turns red. Typically formulas care about the allowed speed of cars, the expected braking capability of a car that's allowed on the road, the gradient (down hill it's hard to stop quickly!) and other factors, plus the size of the junction (a huge junction can't change as quickly because it takes time to cross the junction).

That is, Sally is doing 40mph in a 40mph zone, she sees the light turn yellow, and she's very close to the junction so she just keeps going, everything is fine. Bob is doing 25mph in a 55mph zone, he's some distance from the lights, they turn yellow, Bob stops normally as the lights turn red.

With red light cameras providing revenue there is an incentive to cut that time too short. Now Sally finds the light turned red earlier and she got a ticket. So next time Sally won't make that mistake, as soon as the light goes yellow she slams on the anchors, and somebody goes straight in the back of her - there's a traffic accident even though we invented these lights to reduce accidents. Oops.

Now a _good_ government would resist the temptation. They would set the formula to reduce crashes. But money is very tempting. Shaving a second off the time, getting $1M of extra revenue and oops smashing up a thousand people's cars, that's a good deal so long as you aren't paying for all those car repairs...

<comment><USER39> In the age of big data optimizing for the right value will be our greatest challenge.

<comment><USER40> The question becomes "what is the right value?"

Is it "optimise for most money and fewest/no crashes"?

Or is it "optimise for fewest accidents"?

I can almost guarantee it will be the first option that is selected.

<comment><USER39> Yes I should have phrased that as "In the age of big data selecting the value to optimize will be our greatest challenge."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A guy around here got rid of the things

[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/richardson/2016/07/19/richar...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/richardson/2016/07/19/richardson- suspends-red-light-camera-program-court-ruling)

<comment><USER42> > City officials said the cameras are a safety tool in order to prevent > accidents at busy intersections.

When I hear something is "for my safety", I take it to mean I'm about to lose some freedoms or some money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Hey America, maybe you should go after people "speaking about technical matters" on climate-change denial instead of this stupid bullshit.

It's not like you're doing anything useful with your first amendment rights anyway. I'm 100% serious btw, selectively enforced right to free speech is objectively _worse_. I still remember almost everybody LOUDLY and PROUDLY proclaiming "disagree with but will defend to the death" the right for a bunch of religious nuts to ruin gay people's fucking funeral, and all the fucking silence and shuffling of the feet on anything that actually matters.

</comment><comment><USER44> > a $500 fine for "unlicensed practice of engineering."

Looking this up[1], this is phrased terribly. It's claiming some title or degree that you don't have, that's illegal. Not "practicing engineering" (which sounds to me like: you measured something and proposed an improvement, which you have to do a study for to be allowed to measure and suggest to improve it).

That "state-issued license to practice engineering" is just your degree which allows you to wear a title.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering#Europe)

</comment><comment><USER45> I was looking for Mats Järlström's account w.r.t this affair, because I wanted to know more about his findings. It's here: [http://theinstitute.ieee.org/ieee-roundup/blogs/blog/mats- jr...](http://theinstitute.ieee.org/ieee-roundup/blogs/blog/mats-jrlstrm-i-am- an-engineer)

</comment><comment><USER46> What they wanted to silence him for is probably the risk that someone draws a pattern linking what happened there with this:

[https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught- sho...](https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening- yellow-light-times-for-profit/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Am I missing something? Isn't he eligible to recover reasonable attorney fees?

<comment><USER36> At this point, his attorneys (the Institute for Justice) are trying to get the law declared unconstitutional. And at this point, the state is trying to get the court case dismissed in order to avoid getting the law declared unconstitutional.

[http://ij.org/](http://ij.org/)

I don't think this is about attorney's fees anymore and Järlström won't be paying them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> From experience, Oregon law for yellow lights says you must stop if it's safe to do so. The duration of the yellow light is not relevant to your argument if you get a ticket.

<comment><USER22> You are just helping confirm the fact that Oregon is the land of dumb laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "a state law that says only state-licensed engineers can speak publicly about technical matters."

How can this law exist inside of the United States?

</comment><comment><USER50> "We have admitted to violating Mr. Järlström's rights" \-- looking forward to the followup news story where he sues the state.

</comment><comment><USER51> Hey guys, can we correct the title? It should be "Oregon punished man for Engineer claim, after criticizing their red-light cameras. He fought and won". The current title is very misleading.

<comment><USER52> I fail to see what's incorrect about the title. The fine was for publishing a technical report about red-light cameras while not being a licensed engineer. You're making it seem like they are unrelated events.

<comment><USER53> My understanding is that the fine was for referring to himself as an engineer in communication with the government. They _also_ complained about the publishing of the technical report, but that is not what the fine was for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The United States of Soviet Russia strikes again!

</comment><comment><USER55> I think the guy was out of line. I'm an engineer. I had to put at least a decade of my life, 1/8 if stats are right, into freaking hard work to earn the right to use the title, and the skill-set to not kill people while doing it.

That guy is a slap in the face to every engineer who had to work for their credentials instead of "name it and claim it" in the name of "free speech".

This is like shouting "fire in a theater" \- it causes harm. Claiming to be an engineer, and driving public opinion based on that false credibility, is dangerous. Setting a precedent for it absolutely and without a single doubt has already cost many people their lives (look at Mexico deaths from earthquakes) and absolutely and without a doubt stages for more people to lose life and substantial property.

If one falsely claims to be a police officer, and extorts a fine, it is a crime. I see this as being on the same order of harm to the society.

<comment><USER56> How is talking about this going to kill people? Does this guy get to decide how to set the traffic cameras? He is just expressing his opinion.

\+ he wasn't trying to commit a crime, he was trying to have a discussion with the state about their scummy practices. the "is/is not engineer" was just a pretext to tell him to STFU. Personally I don't think that being an engineer changes anything he said/did. If random Joe want to challenge the timing of the yellow light sure go ahead. If this guy who has worked in another country as an engineer does this... whoooaaaa... put the brakes on.

<comment><USER57> I think the argument is something along the lines of: the public hears that an engineer is making certain claims and then push for the laws to be changed. Running of yellow/red lights ends up killing a lot of people. Perhaps without this passive enforcement, more people would die.

Having read some local news about the incident, it sounds like his wife blatantly ran a light _according to the laws of Oregon_ and he attempted to get it thrown out using a dubious technical argument.

[http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2014/02/joseph...](http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2014/02/joseph_rose_yellow_light_beave.html)

<comment><USER58> _I think the argument is something along the lines of: the public hears that an engineer is making certain claims and then push for the laws to be changed_

If laws are passed based only on the claims of any person (regardless of his engineering certifications) and without any independent validation that's not the fault of the person making the claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I can see how the State of Oregon would be annoyed that an unlicensed environmental engineer would be touting his engineering credentials when arguing with licensed civil engineers, especially since the State of Oregon licenses engineers.

Engineering is a field where if you mess up, people may die, so just as we license doctors, we license engineers.

<comment><USER60> Math is universally accepted across country lines.

<comment><USER61> Don't be too confident... it was a close thing: [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state- leg...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature- once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3)</comment></comment></comment>


Sleep, Caffeine and your daily schedule? poll - <AUTHOR>

I've always been fascinated by the amount of sleep and caffeine that keeps people functioning and productive.
I think it would be cool to see:
What is your profession?
On average how many hours a day of sleep do you get? What times do you usually sleep?
How many hours of sleep do you feel you need to work optimally?
How many days a week do you usually consume caffeine?
On the days that caffeine is consumed how much and when is it usually consumed?
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>
- Software Engineer
- ~8.5 hours
- sleep from 10pm - 6:30am
- ~9 hours for optimal
- Every couple weeks will go on caffeine binges where I drink it ~3 - 4 x s per week
- On the days I consume caffeinie I Drink large 20 oz cups of coffee (sometimes multiple), try to get my caffeine in early because I am hyper sensitive to it, and it will keep me up all night:) </comment><comment><USER4> \- Software Engineer

\- ~6.5 hours from 1:00am - 7:30am (with occasional ups and downs)

\- ~7.5 hours for optimal

\- Every workday ~2-3 cups, 0-1 cup on weekend days.

\- Rarely after noon. I am an owlish kind of person, so I naturally stay late at night[1]. But if you want my brain to do _anything_ at all before ~10:00am, you have to provide: 1. Double Espresso, no sugar. 2. Very detailed instructions.

[1] No, going to bed early does not work. I can sleep before 11pm, specially if I am tired, but if I try to wake up before 7am I will be like a zombie all morning, and feel like crap by sunset.

</comment><comment><USER5> \- BPM software deployment

\- 5,5 - 8 hours - if there is less then 7 h I usually have to take a short nap in the evening to keep me going until bedtime

\- usually I sleep from 11:00 pm till 6:30am, almost every other day I jog 6 to 12 km before going to bed, I work out in the mornings every single day for about 30 minutes

\- 8,5 hours is optimal, (meaning that if I am not exhausted and I sleep uninterrupted I'd wake up naturally after 8,5 hours). Btw: ear plugs really make me sleep deeper and wake up better rested.

\- I've never drunk coffee in my life, but I consume loads of caffeine in teas and yerba mate, I try to cut the intake to about 5 servings a day but when I'm at home the entire day I drink one after another like a chain smoker. I don't think a coup of strong black tea in the evening would have any effect on me. I also can't see any effects on my performance if I don't drink tea at all.

I'm 28.

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Software Support Engineer / QA Analyst / Documentation Specialist

\- ~8.5 hours

\- Sleep: 11:30 PM-12:00 AM \- Awake: 8:00 AM

\- Caffeine: 2 cups of coffee per day. One 8 oz mug of French Pressed coffee at 9:15 AM, a second around 3:30 - 4:00 PM.

\- Occasional: Sometimes have an 8oz Coke with dinner (tiny cans), and/or a cup of tea around 9 PM as well. Typically green or jasmine.

</comment><comment><USER7> \- Software Engineer

\- 8 hours

\- 3am - <USER2>

\- 8 hours feels about optimal

\- Normally don't drink caffeine at all.

\- I avoid caffeine until I need it. (during the last week or so of a sprint). During that time I'm probably averaging 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and drinking 3-4 teas and 1-2 redbulls per day, all day/night long.

</comment><comment><USER8> \- Acquisition Marketing

\- Ideal: 8 hours: 11pm - 7:30am

\- Normal: 6.5 hours: 12:30pm - 7:00am

\- Weekday caffeine: typically tea in morning and coffee after lunch. A couple days a week will have meeting coffee. Typically one coffee a day on weekends.

</comment><comment><USER9> \- Developer

\- ~9 hours, 01am-10am

\- 8 hours

\- 7

\- 3-4 espresso total 2-3 times a day

Just read "Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us", some interesting stuff on global caffeine consumption there.

</comment><comment><USER10> \- 24 years old

\- Software Engineer

\- 8 hours

\- 11pm - <USER3>

\- around 9 hours optimal

\- Diet soft drink only (~2 standard 335ml cans per day), very rarely coffee or tea, no energy drinks

</comment><comment><USER11> \- Software Engineer

\- 7-9 hours

\- sleep from 10pm - 6:30am

\- 8 hours for optimal

\- 1-2 medium coffees per week when I need it most. I do this so my body does not get use to the caffeine.

</comment><comment><USER12> \- Digital Strategist/Analyst \- ~7.5 hours, 1am to 8:30am \- 6 days \- 1 chai in the morning or soda in the afternoon

</comment><comment><USER13> \- Graduate Student

\- 12am-1am to 8:15am

\- 6-7 hours

\- 4-5 days of the week

\- 1-2 cups of coffee when I drink it

</comment><comment><USER14> Software Engineer:

Awake 6am, Sleep 11pm, typically get 5-6 hours per night. Caffeine, 1 cup of tea in the morning. Usually green.

</comment><comment><USER15> \- Financial Analyst

\- ~6 hours

\- sleep from 12 - 6 AM

\- ~two to three cups a day.

\- 21 years old.</comment>


Google Starts Selling Their Stylish Motorola Smart Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29039293

<comment><USER2> > Google's Motorola division has begun selling its highly anticipated circular > smartwatch, the Moto 360.

Haven't Motorola Mobility been resold to Lenovo ?

<comment><USER3> > Haven't Motorola Mobility been resold to Lenovo ?

The sale is in process and is expected to close by 2015, but, for now, it is still accurately described as Google's Motorola Mobility division.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. It makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: An app I made to send customizable email summaries of subreddits - <AUTHOR> https://orangered.io/ <comment><USER2> Neat idea. Some feedback on the landing page:

Since you want people to sign up, try to re-arrange things so that the sign-up section is above the fold (i.e. front and center, so the user doesn't have to scroll to see it). Condense or eliminate the orange header bar, header and "about" section to make room.

Having all of those subreddits in the listbox doesn't work, so that UI needs to be re-thought from scratch. You'll probably want something like a two-panel multi-select widget. Probably show only the most popular subreddits to start, with the ability to search for others. Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, definitely need to make the subreddit selection easier. I like the idea of making the whole sign up section visible right away too. I will work on it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. I made this over the course of a few weekends, starting with the simple idea of an automated, curated Reddit newsletter. Decided to take it all the way to a fully deployed and working service. The backend is written in Python and deployed in Google Cloud. Let me know if you have any questions.</comment>


Meet AgFunder, the online weapons platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.linamia.com/xe/board_MRWb50/558880

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my company and it showed up in my Google News Alert. Somebody needs to work on their translation software!

-Rob</comment>


Deno vs. Node (cold-start on AWS lambda) - <AUTHOR> https://matthewbonig.com/2020/07/05/deno-vs-node/ <comment><USER2> Dude, you didn't bundle the app or upload a folder with cached contents. This essentially nullifies the entire point of using Deno.

It's as if your Node function were re-installing all of it's node_modules in package.json each cold-start.

One of the major benefits of Deno is that you can run "deno bundle" which will spider all your imports and deps and create a single JS file that is the JS equivalent of an executable. Giant, 100 dependency app? "deno bundle" gives you "app.js" and just hand it to anyone and they can run it with no further tooling.

Beyond that, I'm not intimately familiar with Lambda's but if they allow multi-file uploads with relative imports, you could have uploaded the cache if you didn't bundle it:

      Deno caches remote imports in a special directory specified by the DENO_DIR environment variable. It defaults to the system's cache directory if DENO_DIR is not specified. The next time you run the program, no downloads will be made. If the program hasn't changed, it won't be recompiled either.

<comment><USER3> Downloading dependencies on cold start not only adds to start latency, but is also an availability risk. You don't want your starts to fail when the package distribution infrastructure is down.

Where possible, it's best to include everything your Lambda function needs to run in the function .zip. That means you can take advantage of all the work we do to make the scale-up and cold-start paths of Lambda highly available and reliable.

Having said that, it's very cool to see folks using Deno on Lambda, and getting real numbers like this starts an important conversation.

(Disclaimer, I work on the Lambda team at AWS)

<comment><USER4> Can we have Go support for Lambda@Edge please? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did the author not bundle their Deno project before uploading it? This would be as if they ran Webpack on Node on each start, so this isn't really a proper comparison

<comment><USER6> Isn't that just on the cold start?

Each subsequent request would not need to go through that process as long as the lambda function was warm, right?

<comment><USER5> The author didn't bundle, so it's like running `npm install && npm run build` on every start

<comment><USER7> Aside: if you're doing that in production, save yourself some headache and use `npm ci && npm run build` instead; `npm install` chooses dependencies based on your package.json, not your lockfile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So based on the comments, this post is completely incorrect and yet its front page?

<comment><USER9> People are curious about Deno and where it will go. Right now it is a new project, so we have more questions than answers.

My pet question: Will there be a CLI-local debugger with a good UX like pry+byebug or ipdb?

With the current chrome-based setup, it takes far more click-and-drag in js than in python and ruby to stick a `debugger;` in a function, run a single automated test which calls that function, and see how variables are defined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You should be using deno bundle:

[https://deno.land/manual/tools/bundler](https://deno.land/manual/tools/bundler)

</comment><comment><USER11> I like how "HOT" deno is becoming. A successor to node would be a great thing in my opinion.

That said, the fact that the author failed to bundle shows us one of the hurdles that Deno has to overcome. When the tooling is "batteries included" people need to remember to pull the little plastic tab out(bundling).

</comment><comment><USER12> Hey all. Can't believe the response this has gotten! Glad people are reading.

I wanted to address a few points that were coming up in comments:

* Yes, I failed to bundle the deps with the Deno deploy, causing a long cold-start time as it downloaded deps. I was not concerned about cold-start times. I knew that there were ways to optimize it. I decided not to, as it simplified the tests. I was very careful about making sure duration measurements were running on _warm_ lambdas. I don't believe I covered it in the blog but I stop-watched the dynamodb calls and could see them running around 100-120ms each. I was satisfied that the values I was seeing was largely due to API calls to dynamodb, and not the deno runtime.

* In re: API gateway. Yes, the cold-starts are an issue that I believe could be resolved. But _even then_ , the API calls to dynamodb are STILL substantially slower than Node and would be too slow, imo, to be worth putting behind API Gateway where low response times usually trump a lot of other concerns.

* I encourage anyone that wants to try this for themselves to check out the github repo linked in the article. It contains a CDK module you can easily run and recreate all of this in your own AWS account and see for yourself. If I was interpreting this data wrong, PLEASE tell me. The last thing I want to do is be spreading misinformation. If you find easy optimizations, I would love to see a PR and I'll update the blog with your contribution (with your approval).

Thank you all for reading this. This is the first time a blog post has ever made it on to hackernews (afaik). I'm stoked with all the interest, even if I believe some of it is because of misunderstandings because I explained the tests poorly.

-M

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a little confused how the author could come to the conclusion Deno is not ready for AWS Gateway integration, when they openly admit the main reason for this is that Deno is downloading all packages on a cold start, and that there are "probably some mechanisms to speed this up".

To their credit, the author does point out another potential flaw in the disclaimers section - the Node.js AWS SDK is optimized for node, and AFAIK they haven't released a version for Deno.

<comment><USER14> > there are "probably some mechanisms to speed this up".

Why would they publish before looking into this first? At best it's incomplete, at worst it's misinforming readers.

<comment><USER15> Reminds me of a blog post from a couple of months ago where somebody was writing about "how to do X in emacs". The kicker was they were using doom emacs and didn't understand which packages or functions were actually allowing them to do their thing, nor that doom was highly customized. After getting eaten alive in r/emacs they deleted the post.

Hopefully this guy's post stays up and gets an added disclaimer about not writing shit like this without actually deep diving and learning the software they're comparing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > The main reason for this is the Deno runtime currently downloads external > packages on cold-start. There are probably some mechanisms to speed this up, > but that's for another post.

I thought I remembered reading that there's an environment variable you set to tell Deno where to look locally for packages? Or you pack everything into the script executing? I imagine one of those would provide a more accurate comparison to Node, if those are how Deno is expected to be run.

</comment><comment><USER17> > This was my primary concern: what's the p99 duration of the Lambda function > execution.

Bundling the dependencies would very likely solve the init issue, but I wonder if it would help with the execution of the lambda function?

That seems to be what the author is mainly concerned with.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is such a fluff piece. Taken the community by storm? Noob's maybe.

</comment><comment><USER19> Could this be related to their TypeScript perf. problems?

<comment><USER10> No, it's 100% not related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hi,

We are also developing native infrastructure instruments for Deno. We will let you know when we do the first release at [https://deno.services](https://deno.services)</comment>


Show HN: United States Travel Advisories - <AUTHOR> https://observablehq.com/@camargo/travel-advisories <comment><USER2> Really cool. Didn't really observablehq would make it this easy.

Would be nice to see why the countries are on the level they are.</comment>


Ask HN: Tobacco companies are the target of health lawsuits, why not marijuana? - <AUTHOR>

Will marijuana companies become the new targets for health related lawsuits in the same way the tobacco companies have been? <comment> Lorenz-Kraft I think its mainly because tobacco companies acted in many ways very wrong.

For example: \- denying any link between smoking and lung cancer. \- added stuff to tobacco that might probably increased addiction \- etc.

There have been several "waves" of lawsuits since the mid fifties. Here is a nice comprehensive overview: [http://publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/tobacco- control/toba...](http://publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/tobacco- control/tobacco-control-litigation)

The marijuana companies will probably get the same problems if they continue the path of tobacco companies.

Greets, Chris

</comment><comment><USER2> Doctor's who toke, toke Kush</comment>


Anyone interested in 3 months of free Internet marketing - <AUTHOR>

I've got 5 e commerce sites that depend on organic search traffic to feed sales.  However, in my 2.5 years of working on SEO for my sites I've learned a lot about internet marketing in general.
I'm interested to trying to build traction for your startup; in exchange I would just like some transparency about the results of my work.  This way if I am successful I could take on clients.
This would just be testing the waters and won't cost you anything.  Blast me an email if you are interested. <comment><USER2> I'll give you a shot. My e-mail is firstname.lastname@example.com

The site is <http://www.geek-juice.net>

</comment><comment><USER3> Heck yeah, I'm interested firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> E-mail address in email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> pawel [at] bulletinburst dot co dot za</comment>


Microsoft's Lumia 950 XL looks deceivingly like a flagship Android phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2988169/microsoft-subnet/microsoft-lumia-950-xl-smartphone-android.html?nsdr=true <comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft seeks the same acclaim from the 950 XL that it won with the Surface Pro, delivering one device that serves two purposes. The 950 XL will fall short, though. Mixing the ecosystem of a smartphone with the productivity of a desktop PC is very different than mixing a tablet with a keyboard for personal productivity.</comment>


We hold people with power to account. Why not algorithms? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power-algorithms-technology-regulate <comment><USER2> > We hold people with power to account.

Do we really? I feel like the age of "the buck stops here" ended about 30 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> Engineers have to sign off that things like bridges use sound engineering principles. We could require the same of software engineers, but it would jack up the price of software, being software engineers would require much more vetting before they sign because their license would be on the line. How much more do you want to pay for software?

<comment><USER4> It depends. Is that software running some shitty web app, or my car?

<comment><USER3> The cars are probably running on shitty web apps :-)

<comment><USER4> Touché. Either way, I'd be happy to pay more for software in applications that are relatively important, and less concerned about software that doesn't have some bearing on whether I live or die. In the end though, won't there have to be something like what bridge builders have? If we imagine a future of self driving cars, however distant, it seems almost inevitable.

<comment><USER3> I've asked people to draft up sample legislation for such, and it becomes a nightmare to cover everything. Software usually has more "operational variations" (conditionals) than hardware or physical objects such that extrapolating physical engineering to software doesn't appear to work well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's written by Hannah Fry -- often seen on Numberphile on YouTube.</comment>


Ask HN: Any ideas for fun / bonding things to do via Zoom? - <AUTHOR> As many of us are working remotely now, perhaps it would be good to organise something fun to do via Zoom group chat.<p>Any ideas? <comment><USER2> \- Invite team members to show off their house/workplace or pets

\- Order coffee/breakfast/donuts for each other, or have a secret-santa-like event

\- Try taking coffee/lunch breaks together. It will help the team to vent and keep in rhythm. Banning all COVID-related topics is recommended!

\- Try playing a game! There's a lot of options for playing board games and card games remotely; I recommend something like drawsaurus [1] it's a lot of fun.

Finally, have some empathy and patience with each other. For many people it's not just WFH, but a hard situation, having to worry about elderly relatives, take care of small children, and deal with stressing news all around them; let's foster a relaxed environment of positivity where everyone can perform their best [2]

[1] [https://www.drawasaurus.org/](https://www.drawasaurus.org/) [2] [https://twitter.com/chrisalbon/status/1239927980450697218/ph...](https://twitter.com/chrisalbon/status/1239927980450697218/photo/1)

</comment><comment><USER3> We have started a virtual friday bar through a slack group call. Drink beers and chat about whatever. Nobody is going anywhere anyway, so why not?

</comment><comment><USER4> Watch funny YouTube videos is my most obvious suggestion.

I ve also done a 'show me around your house' one. But it only works if your team is somewhat extroverted!

I've also seen my S.O. team doing "bring a pet/favorite non human thing to zoom day" lots of people have favorite plants surprisingly!

</comment><comment><USER5> This week I replaced our weekly gathering with a great discussion on Hangouts Meet. Next week I will bring in my friend in Shanghai via Wechat, (it will be Saturday morning for her) and see if I can allow her to speak with everybody. The mood is improving there (while it is darkening elsewhere), so maybe it will cheer us up. Not quite sure how the audio/video will work, any suggestions to optimize this are welcome.

</comment><comment><USER6> We just celebrated one of my wife's friend's birthdays over groupchat.

<comment><USER7> Details? Tips? How did it go?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We telecasted a company wide talent show via zoom.

If you are curious, the top video entry is here: [https://youtu.be/8UFPR-O7B9I](https://youtu.be/8UFPR-O7B9I)

</comment><comment><USER9> Disco. One person djs, everyone chooses the music and dances, or just chills.

</comment><comment><USER10> Been working 10-ish years from home. When the job is finished, last thing I wanna do is stare at the screen even more..."to have fun".

<comment><USER11> I think the intention is to lighten the mood a little, so to speak, for those who are being forced to work from home due the current pandemic.</comment></comment>


Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/07/20/men-who-harass-women-online-are-quite-literally-losers-new-study-finds/?tid=sm_fb <comment><USER2> This is shitty journalism at its worst. The study presented a very conservative finding, which is that men who lose in online games are more likely to be hostile, particularly towards those they don't think are in the in-group. That is understandable.

The journalist in question extrapolated it to Reddit, Twitter, 4chan, and god knows what else. All the while making huge conjectures about how this means all harassers are low-status losers (a word used pejoratively, not descriptively).

Pathetic.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you're clear on how journalism works.

News pieces report relatively factual material. That's the first part of what you identify. But then there are _other_ kinds of writing that also appear in newspapers. [1] This in particular is from their blog The Intersect [2], which is cultural commentary focused on the Internet. It is written by their "digital culture critic". [3]

So cultural commentary is exactly this person's job. And I don't think it's a giant stretch extrapolating research about men harassing women online to... men harassing women online. Of course, you could be right: some online harassers may also be high-status winners sending out semi-literate email screeds from their mansions and yachts and whatnot.

So no, this isn't shitty journalism. It would be a shitty news piece if it were a news piece. But since it's not, I'd call it a decent commentary piece.

[1] Hopefully this isn't too big a surprise; this is literally what they tell fifth graders about journalism. E.g.: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewr...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewriting/commissionsrev2.shtml) or [http://www.dispatchnie.com/content/pages/types-of- articles/t...](http://www.dispatchnie.com/content/pages/types-of- articles/types-of-articles.html)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/)

[3] I learned all this by a) clicking on the big title at the topic of the column, and b) clicking on the writer info at the bottom. Next time if you're wondering what sort of article you're reading, those are good places to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Seems totally plausible to me. And it goes well with this paragraph from a recent Jon Ronson interview[1]:

"I once interviewed a prison psychiatrist, James Gilligan, who told me that every murderer he treated was harbouring a central secret – which was that they felt humiliated. 'I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed or humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed,' he said. His conclusion: 'All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.'"

It's things like this that make it really obvious that we're primates, hardwired for status. Not that we can't overcome it, of course. But it takes work.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/katie- hopkins-j...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/katie-hopkins-jon- ronson-interview)

<comment><USER4> That should give pause to people who attempt to shame others to enact social change.

<comment><USER3> No, no it shouldn't. The reason we have patriarchy at all is millennia of male violence. Your notion that people should avoid pushing for social change because guys may hurt or kill them is a) abhorrent, and b) exactly why we need the social change.

<comment><USER4> Where did I say that people should avoid pushing for social change? I pointed out the effect of a tool: shaming. It's bad for people and as the article says it can lead to violence.

Social change is good. Shaming is a bad tool.

<comment><USER3> Please describe three social changes you are making happen and your shame-free techniques.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting study, but would likely benefit from some additional research[0][1].

From a journalistic perspective, though, the article on the study is terrible. Not merely because of the way it jumps to conclusions from a single study (the discourse on Reddit/Twitter is likely to be somewhat different than in Halo 3), but because the article itself was about _online harassment_ , and yet the only figure they deigned to include was about the number of _positive_ comments.

If you look at the graphs for _negative_ statements[2], you find that although female voices provoke slightly more negative comments for low amounts of deaths, male voices get significantly more negative comments when the death count is higher. This is not as easily to interpret.

0\. The actual study: [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131613)

1\. For example, does this trend persist in games that are not "boys games"? We assume that the majority of Halo 3 players are men, but is there any difference between how men and women comment to perceived men and women? Why did they not include the control (playing without voice chat) as a baseline?

2\. [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=l...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0131613.g003)

</comment><comment><USER6> > "As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status," > Kasumovic writes, "the increase in hostility towards a woman by lower-status > males may be an attempt to disregard a female's performance and suppress her > disturbance on the hierarchy to retain their social rank."

I would agree with that opinion — I think we've all experienced men behaving stupidly when they overly value and then perceive a threat to their masculinity. Gaming is certainly an activity where we see that to more of an extreme.

I wonder though the breadth of the data though. Other metrics like age, or even play time, and the like may equally as telling.

<comment><USER7> On your first point, yes - this is also seen in other studies. It's known a the masculine overcompensation thesis. Willer 2011 discusses four studies: [https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/o...](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ob_04_11_willer.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Of course they are. My own findings corroborate this.

My personal theory is that the reason the tech industry is so hostile towards women is that it is mostly comprised of "nerds" and "geeks" who, being lower- status in society while usually being part of the dominant group (white men), are much more likely to be aggressive towards people not part of that group, women and people of color.

<comment><USER9> It's been quite a while that nerds and geeks are not lower status in our society.

Everyone claims to be a geek just for the hype. Superheroes movies are the most profitable, the video game industry is enormous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> People who waste their time and energy on obvious, pointless studies and cite arbitrary Halo data in their research are losers.

<comment><USER11> Halo 3 on XBox Live is absolutely representative of every person on the internet. I don't see how you could even question that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People who harass people online are losers, sure, but doing your study on XBox Live is a bit like going to the Dead Sea to test oceanic salinity levels.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems a bit of a stretch to make this statement on a study based on Halo 3.

</comment><comment><USER13> _____ who harass _____ online are quite literally losers

Did we really need a study for this?

</comment><comment><USER14> I did not read the study, but the one chart in the article (which, I assume is supposed to reinforce the message) is over - interpreted. What I see is that mm relationship status the same and mf gets better with skill. I interpret it as better men looking for women to mate with. The not so good ones do not even try. Now, if the chart was about negative behaviour then it would make sense for the article.

</comment><comment><USER15> _"As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status,"_

Stand out line. Men who deny this are mostly guilty of being unaware of their own bias, ie: guilty of being human. This can be corrected.

</comment><comment><USER16> Next they will be saying Internet Trolls are just sad, lonely people. That will set off the intertubes into a real frenzy.

</comment><comment><USER17> That graph looks questionable.

</comment><comment><USER18> And men who harass women in person are winners? I don't really see what this study is trying to imply.

</comment><comment><USER19> Let's not lose sight of the main point here: that men who harass women online are losers.

<comment><USER20> ...And let's not lose sight of the fact that people who speak in blanket statements who are suppose to be objective are generally positing a very separatist idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Women who harass men online are winners?</comment>


Emailing as a secret weapon for engagement (4 min) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/design-ux/fd22e5125065

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think about emailing? How you email to your user?</comment>


Elon Musk: SpaceX and Tesla almost went bankrupt in 2008 - iam-TJ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43365710 <comment><AUTHOR> There isn't a lot of substance in the article to back up the clickbait title. A lot of the concern about Tesla and Space X were from quotes referencing the state of the companies almost 10 years ago.

<comment><USER2> That is the substance of the article - 10 years ago, both of them nearly died. As you can see from the discussion here, a lot of people are either confused about the article thanks to the title, or love discussing Tesla's current market cap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about SpaceX (since they're private), but anyone who can read a quarterly report knows that TSLA is one downturn away from becoming insolvent. Their last bond issuance was well into junk territory, and the cash burn means they'll be forced to raise more money sometime this year. If cash becomes harder to come by they're in real trouble.

It doesn't help that they seem incapable of ramping up Model 3 production.

<comment> tuna-piano It's kind of weird. Their bond rating is pretty bad, but yet their stock market cap seems super high - 5x last years revenue (with profits of -2B). Of course, if there is risk to the bonds, that means the equity is even riskier.

Are many sophisticated investors buying the stock or is it mainly retail investors who love the brand+man?

<comment><USER3> TSLA has a ton of retail investors, which definitely helps prop up the price, but there are definitely institutional investors as well. _Everything_ is expensive these days, so one of the few ways to generate alpha is to buy the right 'priced to perfection' companies, and for some reason (that I personally can't comprehend) TSLA has a lot of savvy investors going long.

That being said, the short interest on this stock is incredibly high, making it very pricy to bet against the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _...his tunnelling firm, the Boring Company, was started as a joke because he thought the name was funny..._

 _" They will start off building a rudimentary base... then this will open up a world of new opportunities, because Mars will need pizza joints, great bars - Mars Bars..."_

And now we know what the first bars on Mars will be called.

<comment><USER5> someone pointed out to me tha all the Tesla car models so far are named: S,3,X,Y...

they guy has a bold flair...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Headline and article itself are a bit misleading. When he said "alive by the skin of their teeth" he was referencing the past, not current situation

</comment><comment><USER7> This isn't really a news article. Almost everything in here was covered in the Vance book.

</comment><comment><USER8> (in 2008)

</comment><comment><USER9> First rule of HN - "thou shalt not blasphemize the HN gods"!! Flagging a BBC story on Musk and co. is bloody low.

This article is factually accurate. Get over it fanboys</comment>


The blogger that bought 1 M usernames for 5$? FB called him and said: shhh  - <AUTHOR> http://www.whiteboardmag.com/facebook-to-blogger-shh-dont-tell-anyone-you-bought-1-million-usernames/

<comment><USER2> Hello --

Responding here as your latest post is indeed dead: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4737582> I'm not an editor, but might be able to offer some insight.

Most likely, it's not your site that is banned, but your account: you've probably been "hell banned". This is probably statistical rather than personal. 20 posts, all to the same site, with few upvotes definitely fits the pattern of a spammer. It's also possible that the post I'm responding was flagged by users: unlike the interviews (which are great), this one is weak and could legitimately be considered "blog spam".

Your recourse is to contact pg or someone else prominent in HN by another channel (email, most likely) and ask them to consider your case. Alternatively, unless your site has also been banned, it may be easiest to start again with a new account.

Personally, I think you're skirting at the edge of the rules. While much of the content you are posting is high quality, it's not clear that you are posting it because of that. As it's your own site, you certainly have a self- interest in promoting it. While not explicitly forbidden, it's definitely frowned upon to use HN for PR.

But I really do appreciate that you are not using puppet accounts to do so, and presume your intent is true. I've just reposted your Wing Sail article so you can check if the problem is with your domain, or with your account. Also because it's a good article, and deserves some attention: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4737760>

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for your answer. Yes, after reading the Rules again it became clear to me that spotted posts are frowned upon here. I also received an e-mail from someone at HN. So the good news is, we're talking :)</comment></comment>


Applist.me shares your iPhone apps. Usefull? - <AUTHOR> http://www.applist.me/

<comment><USER2> The current tendency of websites to use font-shadows to give text an engraved look is extremely irritating; it reduces readability (which is already very low given that you're using grey text on a light blue background), and makes the text look somewhat blurry. I will admit that it can look good, but only when used sparsely; using it for all the text in a page is a bit much.

Also, you might want to do some grammar-checking on the English version of the site. "We where frustrated" should be "We were frustrated," "That's why we build applist.me" should be either "That's why we built applist.me" or "That's why we're building applist.me," in "which short-link ist yours" "ist" should be "is." There are some other issues with commas, and a few places where the phrasing is awkward or contradictory ("There are no restrictions at the moment. As long as you can remember your link" could be reduced to just one sentence, and in fact either of the component sentences would work perfectly well as an answer to the question).

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this site. I think the idea is good. One of the main ways I get good recommendations is by asking friends about their top 3 apps. I've submitted my applist. Here are the suggestions I would make:

      * Use geolocation to guess at whether to show German or English.
      * Bring out the App Store selection from the preferences to the main window
          in the OS X program. Link this in to the in-website selection of German
          and English language (it's a good guess about which App Store they use).
          This way you don't need to do the next bullet point.
      * Don't rely on people seeing your .txt and .jpg in your zip file; I didn't.
          Distribute your program as a .dmg disk image so that you can have an
          image on the background of your window to tell people to change the
          preferences.
      * Might be good to have a Deutsch/English link on the applist web page.
      * Consider using the App icons in the selection list on OS X. The name
         shown on the iPhone is not always the same name as the official App
         name so identification can be difficult in the list.

Expanded scope:

      * Consider a small set of categories - just 3 perhaps - along the lines
         of 'useful' 'essential' and 'fun'.
      * Although the core idea is good and I enjoy it, the website for me is
         not very useful. I could stop writing at this point but thought I'd
         say that in an ideal world I'd like to you to 'allow me to see applists
         of people who would be my friend if only I knew them'.

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the site.

<comment><USER4> As native-english speaker who lived in Germany for a while I would strongly suggest NOT to use geolocation to pick the default language. Use the browser Accept-Language setting to pick the default - this is what it's for and most browsers send it. I can see from the headers on your site that you are using PHP, so here's a link to some PHP code that will parse the browser headers (and correctly interpret their weighting also):

[http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/use-accept-language- he...](http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/use-accept-language-header)

You can use this as a starting point to redirect to the appropriate language when none has been explicitly chosen. It's a small touch, but small touches all add up to a nicer experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like it and think it might be useful! Perhaps integrate it with Facebook (as an app) so that you can amplify it's social aspect. The design is great too.

One minor gripe is that i was served the German language version by default. Unless you are targeting 99% Germans, perhaps it should be the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of the things that irritates me to no end is browsing the app store on my device and wondering if I've bought an app I'm looking at (and deleted it or not installed it on that device). Knowing if I really am buying an app or not would be nice.

A list like this might be helpful, but I suppose I could also just store `ls ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications` in Simplenote to get about the same functionality.

<comment><USER7> I think Apple is working on this problem. The newest version of Mac/iPad app store already has an indicator when you bought an app IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been thinking about a few ideas relating to app recommendations, and I wish there were a way to do this on the device instead of running something on your computer. Having to run something on your computer is really going to limit adoption of a system like this.

That said, I think this is a good way to work with what's available.

<comment><USER9> There is not a way to do this on the device (on iOS, while not jailbroken)

<comment><USER10> Actually, I think it was mentioned that they have a method where they look at your other apps that are currently open. They make a decision based on how often you have those applications open when it is polling. It seems like a pretty good method if possible.

<comment><USER9> All you see then is process names. You can't see real CPU time, etc.

You can do heuristics, etc, but you have a huge mapping problem of programs to actual apps

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something similar for Macs in general (not just iPhone/iPad) might be useful. You can even try recommending apps to users and allow people to share their app list with each other (and not just people they know personally).

</comment><comment><USER12> Not sure who it'd help. Are you that afraid of talking to your friends directly?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's more ment to save you the time, typing a list of 100+ app-names. I'm not afraid of talking to friends. But when I met them, i'd rather won't use the valuable time to talk them through a huge list of iPhone applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> s/Usefull/Useful

FTFY</comment>


4 Questions for Tim Ferriss (mentions RescueTime, YC08) - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/small-business-entrepreneurs/2008/03/25/4-questions-for-productivity-guru-tim-ferriss.html

<comment><USER2> Okay, real-world use case: I click through to read this. Tim plugs Rescuetime. I think "crap, I need to check out my Rescuetime numbers!" So I click through and start measuring my productivity instead of reading news.yc. It's a win!

So what I need is a program that randomly sprinkles links marked "Rescuetime" throughout all the web pages that I read for fun. :)

I'm not sure I'm kidding. What Rescuetime needs is a feature where it gradually starts to play faintly annoying music, or dripping faucet sounds, or something after I've spent too much time doing something unproductive. Obviously you would not want that feature turned on by default for new users. But I would try it.</comment>


A site dedicated to showing how awesome PyCon was - <AUTHOR> http://thisispycon.com/ <comment><USER2> This site would be even stronger if it didn't mention the "sensations... inappropriate jokes... distastefully ugly backlash outside" at all.

Those captivated by that flaming (but short-burning) controversy can already appreciate the contrast. Others with negligible awareness of the controversy can just enjoy the awesomeness, without the injection of another emotionally- loaded reference.

<comment><USER3> I felt like it was good to mention it when we started out to give context. I've banned it now to a sub-page. I don't want to remove it for good so nobody accuses us of being sneaky and ignoring incidents or something like that. It's not the first thing you see when you come to the page anymore though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I must be the only one that doesn't think PyCon was tainted by Donglegate. This is TMZ for nerds.

<comment><USER5> I think you're supposed to use asterisks instead of saying the D-word now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "And if you want to say "thank you" you should do so on Jesse's Gittip page."

OK, seriously?

<comment><USER7> What is wrong with giving the organizer of the conference a tip if you think he deserves it?

<comment><USER6> Because this is about PyCon, not Jesse. With all due respect (and I respect him - he did a great job) he's not the only one who's been working to make PyCon possible and great. Not to mention the other people working on the organization, there are also the (unpaid) tutorial teachers, presenters, session leaders, volunteer developers of Python itself and other open-source related tools, and so on.

<comment><USER3> last time i checked none of them got nightly creeper calls and death threats because of their involvement with PyCon. if you know of any, i'll add them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> isn't this <http://pyvideo.org/category/33/pycon-us-2013> that site?</comment>


Show HN: Visualize how often you check your email - <AUTHOR> http://focuslist.co/escape/ <comment><USER2> I really like the concept and the UI, based just on the image on the website. I don't have an _iDevice_ though, so I can't comment on the app any further.

There are a couple of things I'd change in the text:

\- It's a [calorie] counter for your mind!

\- I'm not sure if [12-year-old] me would start learning HTML or instead just browse Reddit.</comment>


Nassim Taleb Publishes His New Book Free as PDF - <AUTHOR> https://www.researchers.one/article/2020-01-21 <comment><USER2> Direct link and discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22207006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22207006)

Interesting and saddening how HN crowd discusses the author instead of the book.</comment>


A Data-Driven Approach to Uncover the Secrets of Billion Dollar Startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alitamaseb/land-of-the-super-founders-a-data-driven-approach-to-uncover-the-secrets-of-billion-dollar-a69ebe3f0f45 <comment><USER2> Wow, I can see why the author spent 300 hours on this. All 50 points have nice graphs to support the claims and is summarized with 5 points at the end of the article. Good read in my opinion.</comment>


Plan 9 from User Space (aka plan9port) - <AUTHOR> http://swtch.com/plan9port/# <comment><USER2> Something new is the in-progress cocoa graphics layer. If you try to compile p9p on Mac OS X then you may encounter a problem compiling devdraw. I did, when I recently tried from the download. Getting the code from the repository instead fixes that with the new layer.

The default font in p9p acme is somewhat rasterized compared to AcmeSAC. I copied over the fonts from there and changed the source code to default to those. There are environment variables that can be set, but it is as easy to change the code and compile it.

In AcmeSAC I have to use `os bash --login' for some commands on the host due to the inferno layer, that is not needed when using the p9p acme, it is speedy and native.

Using the p9p command line tools in iTerm2 with split-screen and multiple windows works very well too.

</comment><comment><USER3> thanks for posting this for no reason</comment>


Firefox OS Simulator 1.0 is here - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-os-simulator-1-0-is-here/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know how I can view the html source of what is displayed on screen in the simulator.

I had a live demo [1] of Firefox OS by Tristan Nitot a few months ago as Pas Sage En Seine [2] in Paris, and it was one of the selling point that at any time the user can view the html source of whatever Firefox OS is displaying on the screen (see [1] at 55:00 approximately). This is really awesome because it means that you can always study how things work and easily improve them.

But I can't find how to do that in the simulator.

[1] <http://lacantine.ubicast.eu/videos/nitot/>

[2] <http://www.passageenseine.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> So native apps are written in HTML, right? Sounds like that would make things so quick and easy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Slow and ugly...</comment>


Ask HN: How are posts being reparented? - <AUTHOR> I've noticed twice now, and commented once about it here with a picture of the post hierarchy before the reparenting happened:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20246152
Here is the picture of the hierarchy before:
https://i.postimg.cc/W1ytffL2/hn-post-moving.png
And here is how it is now:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244726
Is it automatic, or done by mods, or is there an option to do that that I've missed or that is gained on reaching some karma threshold? <comment><USER2> The mods have some superpowers. Probably they thought that the comment makes more sense as a top level comment than as a reply to the other comment that is a link to a cached version, while the webpage was not working.

For an official reply, you can ask the mods email@example.com</comment>


MIT's Introduction to Algorithms, Lecture 16: Greedy Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-introduction-to-algorithms-part-eleven/ <comment><USER2> Greedy algorithms? Didn't they cause the financial crisis?

<comment><USER3> wtf ?

<comment><USER4> The joke wasn't _too_ bad, was it?</comment></comment></comment>


A 2001 Quote From Sergey Brin Explains Duckduckgo's Popularity - <AUTHOR> http://www.tenpoundhammer.com/2012/02/2001-quote-from-sergey-brin-explains.html

<comment><USER2> It's really tough to switch search engines when Google's results are so good the majority of the time. The crux of the problem is that you have to choose. It's more arduous to navigate to a different search engine than it is to repeatedly tweak your query until you get the results you want.

You really shouldn't have to choose search engines though. It'd be great to have the option of seeing results from multiple search engines on the same query, maybe in like split frames, it'd save so much time. I should get started on writing a Chrome extension.

<comment><USER3> Have you seen "Blindsearch"?

(<http://blindsearch.fejus.com/>)

<comment><USER2> No, and thank you, that's totally cool. It kind of illustrates the value of having an extension that does this with omnibox queries. Without the 'blind test' aspect, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think many of the DDG search results are not very good, but when that happens I just put !g in front of the query to search google instead. Other search results are pretty awesome.

<comment><USER5> The DDG !Bang feature is the reason I like to use DDG. I have it as my default search engine in Chrome and I can search just about anything without having to first load a site, enter my query, and click search. I just pop open a tab and write one simple, concise query. Using DDG as sort of a "search portal" is where I find the most value.

For reference, the !Bang list is very large. <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No one uses DDG - they must have hired a PR firm to get some BS stories planted. their results are pretty terrible for the few tests I did the last time their PR firm got something on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this blog post, I'm not from a PR firm or paid by a PR firm. I have been using ddg exclusively for a few days and really enjoy it.

Not everyone's use cases are the same, but for my normal everyday use it has had excellent results.

<comment><USER6> Complete linkbait piece then, b/c DDG is anything but popular.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seriously?

There have been several posts about it, recently, right here on hacker news, John Gruber mentioned it in his podcast the Talk show, and it was also named one of Time's best 50 Websites of 2011 [http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2087815,00.html)

How is that not popular?

<comment><USER6> Been around a long time, never caught on. Their traffic #s from compete are a joke, even if they were off by a magnitude - still shows they are stale. They should try something different than competing with google.

<comment><USER7> Hey, please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you don't mind -- I'm the founder. I'm interested why you're so negative on us. Here are our real traffic #s btw: <https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html>

<comment><USER8> I got a question: is there a way to increase the number of default results returned to a higher number?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Palantir's first open source releases - <AUTHOR> http://blog.palantir.com/2011/12/14/introducing-palantirs-first-open-source-releases/ <comment><USER2> I think these were the same crowd drawing up plans to sell the government on how to crush wikileaks amid other miscellaneous dirty tricks. ([http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-02-11/tech/30050719...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-02-11/tech/30050719_1_wikileaks- analytics-privacy))

<comment><USER3> How could Palantir software even accomplish what was claimed in the above links?

I don't see how data visualization software can be used to crush wikileaks in the manner that the article says.

<comment><USER4> I spent two years working on this problem as my masters thesis. It's possible, not trivial.

<comment><USER3> Which part? Data visualization or data visualization to crush wikileaks through defamation and ddos?

Can you elaborate? I'm just having a really time seeing how "Palantir was going to destroy wikileaks" which is what everyone says, but if you read the documents that were exposed, this doesn't really seem to be implied.

Additionally, the type of software Palantir makes couldn't really be used to destroy wikileaks in the ways claimed.

Yes, Palantir is a government contractor, but that doesn't mean they do evil things. You don't call google evil because HBGary uses google search. In the same way, I don't see how you can call Palantir evil for making a data visualization platform.

<comment><USER4> I'm looking at data visualization to prevent corporate espionage. In reality it's data theft that brought Wikileaks in to the public consciousness.

I think that most people forget/aren't aware that the data was actually stolen by a 22 year old private. In fact, he goes in front of the court tomorrow: <http://bit.ly/viXkwq>

When I say 'prevent Wikileaks' via data visualization I'm referring to preventing corporate espionage and data leaks, not destroy the Wikileaks organization itself.

It's more of an easy way to explain it to people:

Them: 'Hey what's your thesis on?' Me: 'Preventing Wikileaks' Them: 'Oh, cool' _confused expression_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> it would be interesting to see what the internal divisions of palantir are, and what are their government/defense contracts like vs. their commercial products division.

fight for government money can always get a little dirty. i'm sure good engineering happens there but they will always be colored by the HB Gary episode. plus the fact that partnering with a shady right wing corporate law firm and the HB Gary Federal clown will alway reflect badly on their general common sense judgement...

<comment><USER6> I am often very perplexed why legitimate comments get downvoted. This is one of those times. WTH everyone, this isn't Reddit.

<comment><USER7> I don't see how caycep's comment enhances my understanding of the released software. It's just a big dump of ad hominem (as are practically all the other comments).

<comment><USER8> Palantir open sourcing their software could and should be viewed through a PR lens, an action meant to build favorable reputation in the developer community. Maybe caycep could have elaborated on this more, but I understand the point: Palantir has a mixed history, so we should take the positive with a grain of salt and beware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was surprised to see Swing. Is that still a fairly common foundation for UIs?

<comment><USER10> I remember seeing a demo of their UIs when they gave an infosession at school. They look _nothing_ like Swing--as far as I could tell, all the widgets were either custom or redesigned. If I remember correctly, it looked more like MS Office 2007 than anything else.

Since Swing is "lightweight"--all the widgets are drawn in Java instead of using native ones--using it to make a completely custom UI makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Gah! Cognitive dissonance! How can I assign a good/evil score now?

<comment><USER12> Palantir is definitely True Neutral

<comment><USER13> I dunno. I definitely consider Palantir evil no matter how many open-source goodies they put out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And posted to GitHub no less. Nice!</comment>


Otto - <AUTHOR> https://meetotto.com/?hn <comment><USER2> The video makes Otto, a size compatable lock cylinder replacement, look very attractive. I've been waiting for something like this. However, what I've noticed is that electronic locks for consumers are uniformly less secure than say a Medico deadbolt. Medico deadbolts resist picking, bumping _and_ physical assault (e.g. a large pipe wrench applied to the front or attempts to drill the pin line). I hope Otto has similar capabilities.

For those fascinated by locks, I recommend bosnianbill on youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill](https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill)

<comment><AUTHOR> Medeco is a good mechanical deadbolt. It is pick & bump resistant. We designed Otto to be super secure under both physical & cyber assault. Otto has no cylinder and can't be picked or bumped or physically defeated in a non- destructive way. Otto has a steel plate behind the exterior dial.

Check our our FAQ on our security or read Sam (the CEO's) post at [https://medium.com/@sam_96607/introducing- otto-225fd8ba02f0](https://medium.com/@sam_96607/introducing- otto-225fd8ba02f0)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the answer! I'm looking forward to Otto.</comment></comment></comment>


It's not clear what the U.S. Air Force's X-37B is supposed to do - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/05/what-americas-secret-space-shuttle/137699/ <comment><USER2> Could it be for remote launching and intercepting of military satellites?</comment>


Brief Introduction to Lisp (video series) - <AUTHOR> http://answers.oreilly.com/tag/lisp <comment><USER2> Thank you for this. I have been curious about Lisp for awhile now but never really took time out of my day to look at it more in depth. This looks like it will get me started.

<comment><USER3> Another good resource for the same is Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel [<http://gigamonkeys.com/book/>]. Like these lectures its free to read online :-)

[Edited for spelling]

<comment><USER2> Thank you! This is a perfect post-introduction resource.

<comment><USER4> I also recommend this one: <http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone familiar with lisp, tell us, how good this is ?

<comment><USER6> It's a decent introduction. If you're aware how functional languages work, you might get more out of following a tutorial targeted towards more 'advanced' users. However, these videos aren't very long, so I'm sure you won't lose a lot of time by watching them.

<comment><USER7> These ray tracing videos may be more targeted towards 'advanced' users. However, I haven't seen the full videos. <http://home.in.tum.de/~lehmanna/lisp-tutorial.html></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Do You Want? - <AUTHOR>

I think a community of hackers is the best place to ask what people <i>want</i> on the internet. So, tell me, and I'll hack it if it's popular and/or interesting, since I have free time from other coding projects at the moment! <comment><USER2> Is it the best place? I question that.

Post this same message at a group of researchers, elementary school teachers, chefs, women, kids. I'd be curious how they would answer this question.

There is just so much out there by hackers, for hackers.

My 2 cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, great feedback. I'll start scouting different places asking those audiences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What do _you_ want?

Make that.</comment>


Secure, reproducible builds for NPM - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/secure-npm-ca2fe0e9aeff <comment><AUTHOR> RFC: [https://github.com/npm/rfcs/pull/16/files?short_path=5c765e6](https://github.com/npm/rfcs/pull/16/files?short_path=5c765e6)

Summarized algorithm: [https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*1b7KHDG2St5D-6jepf...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*1b7KHDG2St5D-6jepfMhNA.png)

</comment><comment><USER2> Good luck with the PR. After recent events, it's good to see ideas like this make it back upstream for serious discussion.</comment>


The Internet has no idea what arbitrage is. - <AUTHOR> http://thnkr.quora.com/The-Internet-has-no-idea-what-arbitrage-is

<comment><USER2> Even if you find a price difference between Amazon and eBay, how do you take advantage of it?</comment>