Reverse engineering Snapchat to store files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hausdorff/snapchat-fs <comment><USER2> Already done months ago.. ? [https://github.com/tlack/snaphax](https://github.com/tlack/snaphax)

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm one of the authors.

I don't read PHP, but you're right that we're not the first to get through the API. We might be among the first to misappropriate the service for use of storing and managing arbitrary files, though.

FWIW, we did do this from scratch. I have no idea if this library has the same secret keys and stuff, but after we finished we went back and looked at other amateur audits and found the API to be basically unchanged in form between them, meaning that if they changed the API, it differed only in the specifics of the keys used, and not in say the protocol for handing server tokens and request tokens out. (I still don't know if the keys are the same between that library and our core, for example.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like kind of a crummy thing to do to snapchat, but I like the idea.

I wonder if that could be successful, like a file swapping service built on the same premise of one time only. Charge a nickel a shot or something. I have no idea why that's useful, but for some reason I think it's cool. Maybe just because it's set and forget and you don't have to worry about cleaning up later.

Does anything easy to use do that already?

<comment><USER5> I can see that working. I had this camgirl as a friend on Snapchat and must have clicked her story update about 200 times fapping to it. I bet Snapchat has thought of this too, just looking at data like mine xD

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I presuming without searching that someone has produced a SnapChat-like application that just doesn't delete photos and lets you look at them as long as you like? That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do and basically impossible for SnapChat to stop.

<comment><USER7> Hi, one of the authors here. A good chunk of the core is from my python Snapchat API([https://github.com/pencilo/pysnapchat](https://github.com/pencilo/pysnapchat)) which lets you do things like download snaps and send snaps.

You are correct that it is impossible for them to stop you from downloading the image and saving it. Images are encrypted on upload but they are encrypted using a fixed key in AES-128 ECB, so it doesn't do any good.

The simple truth with Snapchat is they cannot make it impossible to download and save the images without trusted computing support(which they wont get).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> DMCA takedown notice in 3, 2, 1, ...

<comment><USER9> If the project doesn't actually contain copyrighted code from SnapChat (and it doesn't seem to) then a DMCA takedown notice would be illegitimate and fraudulent.

<comment><USER10> But a prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act would be neither, and far worse for OP.

<comment><USER11> From a casual glance over the list of cases brought under CFAA[1], that would be completely unheard of, and seems contrary to the spirit of that law. If I'm reading correctly, it hasn't ever been used to punish someone who wrote software, only people who have used software to allegedly exploit servers. Therefore the users of this tool would be at risk, not the author.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#No...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Notable_cases_and_decisions_referring_to_the_Act)

<comment><USER10> Excuse me but did you read the README? The author clearly admits to using it: "Since Snapchat imposes few restrictions on what data can be uploaded (i.e., not just images), I've taken to using it as a system to send files to myself and others."

<comment><USER11> I was only saying that prosecuting him for creating this tool is very different from prosecuting him for using this tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If someone wanted to add mount support to this, which of these would be better?

1\. FUSE Python: [http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/fuse/?title=FUSE_Pytho...](http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/fuse/?title=FUSE_Python_tutorial)

or

2\. pyfilesystem [https://code.google.com/p/pyfilesystem/](https://code.google.com/p/pyfilesystem/)

I've seen FUSE Python used in some different projects on github, and it seems to work pretty well. I'd not heard of pyfilesystem until recently.

</comment><comment><USER13> SnapChat is already known to soft delete only, so really there's nothing new here.

</comment><comment><USER14> What types of files might one actually want to upload to their servers? This falls into the "cool" category for me more than making me want to try it (especially since you can't delete files you upload...)

<comment><USER3> Hey, I'm one of the authors. In fact you can delete a file. Just "view" it in the app and it gets deleted. What you can't do is delete it from the command line!

As for your "is this useful" question, I use it to send files to myself, my friends, and other computers, since it's a bit like asynchronous SCP. But of course YMMV.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the reply, and I can see that just a few minutes ago you clarified the wording in the readme, which was my next suggestion. Definitely a cool tool, I'll definitely try it out now that I know "viewing" it deletes the file still (makes perfect sense). I figured it'd be good for temporary file storing & sending, just was a bit worried about leaving permanent copies on their servers.

<comment><USER3> When I saw it on HN frontpage, I freaked out and started adding more customization and features. :)

As we speak I'm writing the feature that will allow you to use a config file ('~/.snapchat_fs') to configure, e.g., the encryption protocol used, which would make storing features more secure for you, the user, in the event Snapchat starts snooping through stuff you've uploaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Poor name for the package: sfs is already a filesystem type used in the embedded/musical-instrument industry (primary Yamaha). A better name would be scfs, imho.

</comment><comment><USER16> How does one figure out the snapchat API? Presumably the network traffic is encrypted, were the secret keys extracted from the snapchat app somehow?

<comment><USER3> Hey, I'm one of the authors.

Our process was:

* Use MITMProxy to execute a man-in-the-middle attack, which lets you see all the packets in plaintext. It's a command line app which prettifies the packets in a readable way.

* From the packets we can get a lot of info, like where the packets are going, what data the fields contain, etc.

* We can also intercept the packages and mess with the fields to see what breaks when we change things.

* From here we use smali to decompile the Android DPK. Since debugging symbols are left in, this leaves a lot of info for us to look at.

* We ctrl-F for words like "encrypt" and "secret". This leads us right to the call to util android encrypt which is encrypting the images. The argument is a hard-coded secret string that turns out to be used everywhere.

* Looking through the source where that key is used we see that it's also used to generate request tokens, which validate that a request to the API is valid.

* And so on. Eventually with some more poking around we end up with the library here.

<comment><USER7> You're slightly wrong on the app side of things and the keys.

There are in fact two 'secret' keys. One is a fixed SHA256 hash used for their weird request generation and one is the fixed AES-128 key for encrypting snaps. The two have nothing to do with each other besides both being named secret.

Also it was not ctrl+f for secret as much as it is looking at the call sites for calls down into crypto libraries, from there it is simple back tracing to see where the keys came from. Debug symbols are nice but it works just as well if they strip debug symbols and obfuscate.

<comment><USER3> Meh, I literally ctrl-F'd and looked for "encrypt". Worked on the first try.

You're right about the keys though, I always forget which keys get used for what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can also just use Cycript [http://www.cycript.org/](http://www.cycript.org/)

</comment><comment><USER18> "wrote everything else." \- very nice</comment>


Slixmpp Gets Omemo Support - <AUTHOR> https://bouah.net/2019/02/slixmpp-gets-omemo-support/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to make a recommendation for future blog posts: start your post by giving a quick introduction on what you're talking about, i.e. what Slixmpp is, and what OMEMO is.

For the uninitiated, it's not clear what you're writing about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted! Thanks for the comment.</comment></comment>


Employer gave me a conference budget for next year. Can I get suggestions? - <AUTHOR> I've never looked into them before. I'm a js/c# dev, but I think we can go to conferences like Google I/O if we like. Which ones do you like or suggest I look into attending? <comment><USER2> I like to recommend going to conferences that broaden your horizons or give you a different perspective.

Going to a developer conference as a developer might seem like an obvious choice but going to an event with a slightly different though still adjacent topic might provide a better learning experience and allow you to get to know people from outside your usual circle of interest.

Design conferences are particularly intriguing for developers. I can highly recommend both Reasons to: ([https://reasons.to](https://reasons.to)) and beyond tellerrand ([https://beyondtellerrand.com/](https://beyondtellerrand.com/)). Both have a similar background and deal with design and web topics as overarching themes with talks ranging from front-end technology in general, data visualisation, to typography and art (as of lately including quite a bit of generative art).

Events like that can be very inspiring and they can provide you with insights from other subject areas that you would've never thought to have an impact on your daily work.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. The more we get pushed outside of our comfort zones, the better. It helps you improve both as a person, and in your vocation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> O'Reilly Strata Data Conference in San Jose. I attended this year and it was awesome (I guess other OReilly Conferences are equally good, but since Orailly is based in the valley I guess they can get the best speakers there), plus you get 3 months of Safari books online with it.

I always wanted to go to a hacker conference in the Netherlands that happen every 4 years (hip'97 / etc...) but I never can make it because always happens something... like getting married, having babies, etc... I guess going to Defcon would be a "safer" bet.

</comment><comment><USER5> You should definitely check out !!con. They have really fascinating and weird talks about all sorts of interesting CS and design topics. Plus, it's pay what you can and is located in New York, so there's lots of interesting stuff to do nearby.

My favorite talk from this year was about implementing an algorithm for HDR photography purely in Microsoft Excel - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8)

</comment><comment><USER6> What is your budget? As that might affect what you should go for to maximize your benefit.</comment>


What Must an Educated Person Know ? - <AUTHOR> http://personalmba.com/what-must-an-educated-person-know/

<comment><USER2> Truly educated persons first and foremost understand the history of their culture, especially the history of ideas from the stone age to the present. Many skills on his lists presuppose this basic understanding.</comment>


The Secret to Apple's Ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2020/7/22/the-secret-to-apples-ecosystem <comment><USER2> Backwards. The phone does things the computer could never do, the watch what the phone cannot do, etc.</comment>


Linux Kodachi the Free Secure Operating System - <AUTHOR> https://www.digi77.com/linux-kodachi/

<comment><USER2> Buried in the notes: ".. in order to maintain the monthly cost of our VPN servers we utilize small portion of CPU resources (less than 1%) for LTC on any computer that runs Kodachi."

And the root account is enabled (with a publicly known password). Yay.

And it suggests using Daemon Tools (a virtual ISO drive) to burn it to a DVD. I'll admit it's been a very long time since I used DT but it still looks like it's just a virtual optical drive.

I honestly can't speak for their motives but this looks like amateur stuff. I personally wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot bargepole. Pick a major distribution, not a toy with dodgy stuff running on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you I hope one day you will try and like it :)</comment></comment>


Bill Gates says letting Android win mobile was his 'biggest mistake' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/bill-gates-why-microsoft-missed-mobile-and-let-android-get-ahead.html <comment><USER2> Biggest in what sense? And why should we care? If great wealth implies great wisdom, then the opinions of Bill Gates should concern us all. Personally, I'm not interested.</comment>


Major business ethics fail: Voicemail hacking corruption scandal - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jul/06/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking-live

<comment><AUTHOR> Better article summarising whats happened: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/05/editors-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/05/editors- lost-self-control-phone-hacking)</comment>


Thank goodness we don't have downmods on HN - <AUTHOR>

From time to time I have wanted a downmod button. Today there was some linkbait on the front page--something about real programmers not using abstractions or what-not--and my first thought was that the best thing to do is to ignore these posts.
And then it hit me: downmodding is not ignoring. Neither is upmodding everything else. Sure, there's some imaginary value of pushing it off the front page quickly, but if people naturally upmod the things they like, it will drop off the front page in due time.
Trying to accelerate that process for things I don't like is getting emotionally invested in them. Why give them the time of day? The very best use of our time is working on the things that matter. Downmodding stuff is not working on things that matter.
Thinking about good posts isn't either, but it's a lot closer to things that matter.
I'll stop now. My thesis is this: not having a downmod button is a good thing if you believe that you should be channeling your time and energy into things that matter. <comment><USER2> Also, this eliminates the gaming of downmods. A few downmods early in the life of a headline are very significant, so it's easy to game this with just a few cohorts. A few upmods are also significant, but this is often dwarfed by the deluge of upmods on a genuinely popular link. The action of the crowd doesn't have as strong a self-correcting effect on downmod conspiracy, because the crowd's exposure to the downmodded links is lessened.

There is a parallel in behavioral psychology: punishment can be a powerful tool, but can often backfire. So positive reinforcement is seen by many as the preferred tool.

<comment><USER3> If you're so worried about downmods early in the life of a submission, how about this:

Between P and P + H, where P is when the submission was Posted and H is some (constant?) number of hours, any downmods on the submission increment the downmod count but this has no effect whatsoever on the ranking. When we hit P + H, the downmods are made effective. An upmod on a story cancels a downmod.

Then if a story has lots of inappropriate early downmods but is actually interesting, it will get high on the front page and the mass of legitimate upmods will cancel the illegitimate downmods.

Showing the number of effective downmods (abs (- downmods upmods)) on a story might or might not be appropriate.

<comment><USER2> The simplest thing that culd possibly work: just leave the feature out. Less code that way.

<comment><USER3> Implementing that feature would likely take less characters than it took me to explain it. It's more a matter of is it a good idea at all, so unless you can come up with a scenario where we end up worse with this feature than without...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wouldn't mind a placebo downmod. Just to get those feelings out.

<comment><USER5> That's not ignoring. So you are disagreeing with Raganwald, but haven't said which of his points you believe is mistaken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This strikes me very strongly as looking for justification for something beyond our control. "I can't change this, so I'll convince myself that I like it."

Let's look at the ability to upmod a submission. Upmodding a submission expresses approval of the submission, and signals to other users that it might be something that they would find interesting. Ultimately, the goal of upmodding is to increase the perceived quality of the site.

Downmodding expresses disapproval of a submission, and, again, its ultimate goal is to increase the perceived quality of the site.

While downmodding is vulnerable to a certain amount of gaming, that is a problem with its mechanics, not its principle, and upmodding is vulnerable to the exact same form of gaming.

If poorer quality items tend to get upmodded, and if there's no way to counter that, then the site's quality falls and eventually the site itself becomes the sort of waste of time that you're talking about.

Regardless, downmods aren't likely to be implemented at any point in the near future, and this entire discussion is a waste of time. I'm a little annoyed at myself for participating, but ... y'know ... someone on the internet was wrong. [<http://xkcd.com/386/>]

[Edit] P.S.: You miss your blog, don't you? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> _[Edit] P.S.: You miss your blog, don't you? :-)_

No. Exchanging ideas like this is not the same thing as blogging, no matter how much Web 2.0 people call the Internet a "conversation."

<comment><USER7> I miss your blog though... :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _[downmodding things I don't like] is getting emotionally invested in them._

I have this experience too, even for comments. On reddit, where downmodding a comment makes its down-arrow blue, it increases my attachment to it (partly because it makes them more visible - unlike HN's greying out).

Every so often on reddit, I'll downmod to express my frustration, but then later put it back to neutral, because I don't want to be attached to it. I rarely downmod - and it even more rarely stays. I think this approach is not common.

Is the issue of downmodding front-page because of the quality of recent HM articles? I'm finding HN less interesting over the past week or so (one symptom is the many recent meta-comments - including this one, unfortunately). I was thinking it's due to the US holidays...

 _[thesis]: not having a downmod button is a good thing if you believe that you should be channeling your time and energy into things that matter._

I agree. It's a bit like positive thinking, in that by attending to things that can help you, when you need something you have at your fingertips useful things - as opposed to filling your mind with things you don't like, when you reach for something, all you have is rubbish (or worse, arguments for why something isn't worthwhile).

But then there's the problem: what if HN starts suggesting many articles that don't help you?

<comment><USER9> Yes, by downmodding you help discourage people who post less HN-like stuff. I guess we're relying on PG to bring his methods up to date.

<comment><USER8> I think pg's solution is to ignore what you don't like:

 _Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site._ <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

He's talking about "inappropriate for the site" submissions, not "poor quality" submissions - but I think the same reasoning applies.

Perhaps the solution isn't a downmod button, but for the community to change its response? To ignore bad submissions instead of commenting on how bad they are. Commenting just draws attention to the submission and contributes to the problem.

I think there's a deeper philosophy here, that it would be worth hearing more about...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to have a button that says "hide from my view".

<comment><USER11> I don't think that would serve the audience/community of Hacker News well at all. If you're hiding stories that are popular, the _bad_ content is still existing in the community and shaping the brand and therefore it's current and new audience.

The benefit of Hackers News is the /users/, one only has to look at Digg to see where that goes once you open the flood gates beyond the social geek core.

<comment><USER9> .. as opposed to what? I'm not sure I get you. You sound like you're arguing for a true downmod, to help hide it from /everyone/'s view.

<comment><USER12> Upmod the good stories and ignore the bad ones. Eventually the bad ones will get filtered out of view as the good stories rise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I propose: The first rule of Hacker News is you don't talk about Hacker News.

Maybe I'm alone in not finding a lot of value in meta-discussion unless pg initiates it, though, because I see the parent post has quite a few points.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suggest that for every user of HN, there is at least one post that makes it to #1 that the user feels should not be part of HN.

I know it is true for me, there are lots of popular posts that suprise me. That being said, I have no problem whatsoever with adding your suggested rule to the HN rules.

It would be much easier to understand than the curent "piques your intellectual curiosity and is not limited to hacking and startups."

<comment><USER14> A 1-week delay between creating an account and being able to submit a story would go a long way to cutting out spam, and not penalize those who haven't had time to build karma yet but still want to contribute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> PG has remarkably good instincts about feature choices.

<comment><USER16> Funnily enough, when I wrote my own reddit clone (back when every Lisper was doing it), I also reduced the choices from two to one. But I did the opposite - I removed the up-arrow and only had the down-arrow. Maybe I have remarkably _bad_ instincts ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Upmodded for candour, not because I think you were wrong. In fact, I think you simulated most corporate environments: peopel are silent when they agree but argue when they disagree :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It all depends on the algorithm used behind the scene. Why would 1 downmod + 1 upmod = 0? Calling them up/down might be part of the framing issue that we're stuck with since the reddit days.

Fun property of a system with upmod and downmod: If every user mentally assigns a target score to a post (eg.: that comment should be worth 7 points) and votes always in the direction to reach the target, then the resulting score will be the median of all the targets. Statistically. That seems like a desirable goal, so maybe one should encourage people to vote that way.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't agree... I think it's better to have good content in the sites I visit, than to get less than a few seconds a day back for downmodding links. I prefer going to a good library, with many good chosen titles, than to a terrible library, where I have to do the full filtering myself, wasting more of my time by reading tons of useless book titles only to get one or two good ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not obvious to me that if everyone has a downmod button the library will be better. Somebody is upmodding books you don't like. How do you know they aren't downmodding the books you like?

I suggest that if the library has a few titles you don't like, going without a downmod button is a good thing, just ignore them and move along.

But if the library is overrun with bad titles, giving everyone a downmod button won't solve the problem, because the problem is caused by the librarians.

<comment><USER18> Now, that's a good argument for not having a downmod button. But not having a downmod button for avoiding wasting the people energy? That's what I don't agree with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the two motivations are orthogonal and neither is really right or wrong. So I can appreciate your point of view.

<comment><USER18> My point of view is that I only care about the quality of articles on the front page. If a downmod button would increase it, I would agree with such proposal, but I'm not sure (as you said) that such would be the case, and anyway I think the flag button does already work in a way like a big down button.

What I do believe is that content can get better if people actively submit more articles (so spending a little more energy in the site), not only by voting the articles in the new queue.

Anyway I have the feeling that the quality of articles in the site isn't always getting worse... these days I'm quite happy about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been noticing this log time since I join Reddit. In no time I was confronted with the "injustices" of downmodding. You summarized very well, it saves lots of energy, and creates a much more friendly community. I still laugh when I read all the mod dramas on reddit comments... It's just savage...

</comment><comment><USER20> Why to have downmods on comments then?

<comment><USER21> Good question. Perhaps trolling and hostile (or at least "uncivil") comments are better dealt with by different methods than spamming and irrelevant submissions?

Their motivations are probably different, at least, and comments are moderated by other people interested enough to read a particular thread's comments, while front page posts affect everyone equally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I use Reddit a lot and I never use the downmod button but for spam (which I should be using the `report` feature for). I think HN's decision to just have the up-mod button is a incredibly intelligent one.

(But spam does still get to the front page of HN)

</comment><comment><USER23> I actually think that in some ways having a sucky post on the homepage can be a good thing. For a newer developer reading the comments of their peers and heroes smack down a turd like the "real programmers" post is a good thing.

If a terrible idea/post/rant makes it on to the frontpage there are obviously some people that need the wisdom of this crowd to set them straight.

I love that HN is about positive energy. We don't downmod we explain why something shouldn't be upmodded any more.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not having downmods lets new stories have a better chance of survival. Reddit started going downhill when they failed to control downvoting. Stories posted from outside the American time zones are especially vulnerable, since a couple of downmods can push them into oblivion. I think PG made a very wise choice in not having downmods. More importantly it poisons the atmosphere. Reddit in the first few months was just plain incredible, much better than even the current hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think downmod button is necessary but in the right hands, People who care about the good content. I would say, people with more karma points can have have the downmod rights. This is not democracy per se since some users have more rights than other users but it is a free market. People who have worked more harder and earned more karma points tend to have more rights than early users on HN.

<comment><USER26> I agree. I for one don't insist on having democracy here. If some other system provides better overall quality, it's fine for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> PG should add rel="nofollow" to the link anchor for each comment... Then google search would hypothetically just work.

</comment><comment><USER28> I agree. I think dzone is an example of downmod gone bad as well. There's so many people who prefer technology X as opposed to Y that they downmod Y into oblivion all the time. It's made the index pretty much useless to me.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd rather have a Bayesian filter than a downmod. Heck, it might even pick up on self-referential forum language.

</comment><comment><USER30> or ignoring upmod altogether, it's faster

i rarely use point because it's an easily gamed metric

nowaday i filter news based on #comments (and title)

and only follow comments with <= 3 levels deep (5 if interesting)

and start searching /pg /paul /nickb if it's a >50+ comments

</comment><comment><USER31> Solution: a 'hide' button

</comment><comment><USER32> You just can't stop "blogging" can you? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> See my comment above, chatting with people that have similar interests is not blogging. And had I put this in my blog, it would have been off-topic.

I probably would have written it up as a draft, left it for a few hours, then deleted it as not being a net positive for what I was trying to accomplish.

<comment><USER32> I guess we have differing definitions of blogging; I consider a blog as achieving the same goal of information transmission. From that perspective, your posting could be considered a blog post that has eliminated one click in route, but I can appreciate people having different perspectives of things, blogging being one among them.

And about up and down buttons, current social news system are still inefficient and primitive. Consider this scenario: HN has two non-overlapping audiences, one English-speaking and the other Japanese. Now consider every front-page being equal parts Japanese and equal parts English, with the same articles but in both language. Can you provide a good reason for having up/down buttons or not having any? Any group of a considerable size will find itself coalescing into mini pools of interest, no matter how narrowly you define the group interest (Hackerese, in this group's case). The most desirable scenario is probably one that has the right balance of topic diversity, excluding irrelevant (unless you are interested in learning Japanese) ones. In that case, we are talking about some form of personalized news...so yeah, up and down vote buttons in their current state are like the reply button when browsing using an email client.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I consider a blog as achieving the same goal of information transmission. From that perspective, your posting could be considered a blog post that has eliminated one click in route, but I can appreciate people having different perspectives of things, blogging being one among them._

Well, I have never stopped "transmitting information," there is just a change in my strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> (+ Sometimes there are simply not enough parenthesis :)

</comment><comment><USER34> I think you deserve an upmod!</comment>


How to program a calculator with jQuery - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.org/programming-a-calculator-8263966a8019 <comment> a0-prw Sorry, but the calculator is incorrect: you're ignoring operator precedence</comment>


Show HN: Bloqly – smart contracts without Ethereum's EVM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bloqly/bloqly <comment><USER2> Looks great. Seems like the first project to offer multi language support for contracts. Keeping an eye on this one.</comment>


Facebook bug set 14M users' sharing settings to public - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/07/technology/facebook-public-post-error/index.html <comment><USER2> > "Due to a technical error, we recommend you review the audience of your > recent posts. Learn more."

What does that even mean? What possible action can a user do to "undo" any damage? You can't really make the people who saw your posts "unsee" it.

Also, AFAIK, Facebook doesn't show the user stats of what public posts were accessed by 3rd parties like advertisers, random drive by Facebook user, so how is this statement in any way useful to the user?

<comment><USER3> "Audience setting" is internal speak for what you would call the visibility of a post. "review the audience" is unambiguous internal speak for: change the visibility setting.

I'm fairly certain that particular bug when through an emergency process and that the handful of copy-writers didn't get to review. They are rather ruthless to pick those. I don't remember what the grammar rule was to talk about visibility of the post, but I remember it was very specific precisely because of the distinction: who can and who has seen your posts.

<comment><USER4> I think the GP poster understood that much; what they were objecting to was the idea that there's any _point_ in changing who can see a post, after it's already been sitting around for hours/days under the wrong ACL and has already ended up being shown in everyone's timelines et al.

<comment><USER3> Facebook is not using ACL. The abstraction is quite different.

But after being hammered by downvotes, I realise I probably should stop trying to provide context.

<comment><USER4> You're being downvoted because you tried to make a pedantic point about the particular algorithmic implementation of Facebook's per-post privacy while failing to address the thrust of the post you were replying to (after _also_ failing to address the thrust of the GGGP post due to a _different_ misunderstanding.)

This is especially galling (to everyone, apparently) when the particular algorithmic implementation is _irrelevant_ to the thrust of the post you replied to, and so the "context" you're attempting to provide is not only unnecessary to provide, but is actually _distracting_ from the point. It's reminiscent of a politician attempting to perform an act of rhetorical judo to avoid actually answering a question.

Let me restate, because obviously those people who downvoted you actually want an answer to this question: why would Facebook attempt to portray changing the privacy settings on a post hours/days after it goes out with the _wrong_ privacy settings, as a sensible plan of action to suggest for fixing the problem they created? Everyone's already seen what you posted. Changing the privacy setting isn't a time-machine that'll make them un-see it.

Why didn't Facebook instead suggest, say, making a post reaching out to anyone who your not-so-private-after-all posts may have inadvertently hurt? _That 's_ something that actually has a chance of ameliorating the problem.

<comment><USER5> _why would Facebook attempt to portray changing the privacy settings on a post hours /days after it goes out with the wrong privacy settings, as a sensible plan of action to suggest for fixing the problem they created?_

Because they are a huge company with a great deal more experience handling PR gaffs than most people posting on HN. Whatever their shortcomings in other areas, this advice actually is pretty much gold standard.

First, it prevents more eyes on it. This mitigates the damage. A lot of traffic occurs well after the first few hours.

Second, it allows people to forget. People don't have perfect memories. Some people have quite poor memories. Removing it from public view denies them the ability to return to a written record and get all hot under the collar all over again, reread it until they have essentially memorized it, etc.

Third, posting some kind of apology or something to total strangers who don't know you tends to go super badly. It gets interpreted as an admission of guilt which just fuels the fire. Most people aren't that great at giving public apologies. Public faux apologies just put out the fire with gasoline.

Fourth, if you take the advice and do what FB told you to do, you have the defensible position that FB screwed up, go be mad at them, not me. You don't get that shield if you then add more public commentary on the issue. In fact, you are just making an ass of yourself and looking like you are taking advantage of the breach to piss on strangers who don't agree with your point of view.

(edit: also, why on earth would you apologize when it is, in fact, Facebook's error?)

I wish social stuff was as straightforward as you seem to think it is. It's not. And PR is absolutely one of the few things large companies typically know more about in spades than the average person. Their advice may not be what you want to hear, but it is the least worst thing to do in a situation like this.

<comment><USER4> > also, why on earth would you apologize when it is, in fact, Facebook's > error?

Because you're not apologizing _that they saw_ your post; you're apologizing _for the content_ of your posts.

Like, imagine that you're a [race A] guy with [race B] friends, who is also secretly super-racist against [race B], making [race B]-disparaging posts that are only visible to your [race A] friends.

One of those posts ends up visible to your [race B] friends.

Is the sensible suggestion "hide it and hope they didn't see it/hope they forget"?

Or is the sensible suggestion "hide it or delete it; and then—now that the fact that you're a racist is out in the open—start doing damage control, e.g. by profusely apologizing for your comments and trying to skew things in such a way that it makes it seem that this was a one-off thing rather than your usual secret behaviour"?

(Or, for another obvious one: what if a private post to your secret lover is made public to your spouse?)

IMHO these are the kinds of problems that are _important_ to suggest a response for—the ones where Facebook could make a suggestion of a response that would create the most net utility, since a _lack_ of any intervention in these cases has the potential to create the most net _disutility_.

Compared to these cases, the ones where someone's parents saw their pictures of them partying or what-have-you are effectively irrelevant, and shouldn't be brought into Facebook's moral calculus re: appropriate responses.

<comment><USER5> I don't see any reason why Facebook should be held responsible for advising racists on how to successfully save face and do damage control while not in any way changing their attitude. I also see no reason why Facebook should be giving advice to people being unfaithful and using their platform to facilitate it.

To be perfectly clear, I had an illicit affair in my youth and I am often quite sympathetic to the person cheating. I'm a woman, so I sometimes get women dumping on me about their cheating husband. They inevitably expect me to automatically side with them and agree that everything wrong in the marriage is his fault and to generally hate on men by default. Those conversations don't go like those women expect.

But I can't imagine using Facebook for such covert activities and if you have such a scenario on your hands, there are going to be very serious consequences for being outed. That goes well beyond PR gaff and is far outside the scope of what Facebook should be expected to try to manage on your behalf.

There are very serious matters that I think Facebook should take more responsibility for, such as their role in fueling longstanding feuds in some countries. They should take measures to stop being a means to pour gasoline on those fires.

But your specific concerns are not anything I feel Facebook needs to take responsibility for.

I will add that even in the scenarios you posit, the gold standard is to hide the post and hope they didn't see it. If they did, PR measures will not help you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> compiler-guy Of note here, which has always been true, but worth remembering: Facebook can change the visibility of your posts however it likes, whenever it likes. The only thing stopping them is their own ethics. (And possibly a big fine in Europe, but that will be cold comfort to anyone whose personal info is exposed thus.)

Not that it _did_, but it certainly could, and will do so if it thinks it has good enough reason.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, that's pretty much a given for any web app.

Whatever user groups they create are only ever going to be an artificial construct - it's all just lists of stuff

<comment><USER7> Google 'could' open up all their gmail account's inboxes to an unrestricted public read-only rest api and shut down their normal email interface. They 'could' do this tomorrow. So everyone could see everyone else's email inbox.

Yahoo could do that and include even all the emails their users 'deleted'.

At one time, back in the 'olden days, everyone operated on the net as if this was a very real possibility.

<comment><USER6> Exactly.

I work for one of the large ecommerce tech companies - we have some great devs and run a pretty efficient cdci pipeline, stuff ships fast. There are multiple layers of unit testing, automated testing, manual testing and peer review in place to prevent this sort of thing.

Despite that, I can totally see how it wouldn't take much for a changeset in one area of the site that affected the default option in a drop-down in another to creep under the radar.

<comment><USER7> Well, my point being, we have an incredible degree of trust that these companies will operate in a continuous way, that their values will be unchanging. I too work at a large ecommerce tech company, and I can't see it suddenly changing. if you look at Yahoo, who knows in 10 years wether Verizon doesn't sell it off and the eventual owners decide that an ad-enabled 'look at everyone's emails' site wouldn't be worth the cost of buying Yahoo Mail's data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook would change peoples settings on purpose during updates back in 2009. Its the reason I quit the site.

"A Facebook spokesperson said the notification is the start of new proactive and transparent way for the company to handle issues going forward"

Facebook deserves everything they have coming. IMO, They also need to rethink their PR strategy. I would of given them a second chance and tried the site but every excuse is insulting. Wow

<comment><USER9> _Facebook would change peoples settings on purpose during updates back in 2009._

Man, has it been that long? W/o reading the article first, I expected the first comment to be "needs [2010] in the title", because I, too, dropped FB the day I found out that all pictures were now public (and, IIRC, "by design"). I subsequently figured it was an old story about that.

But it happened again recently, huh?

<comment><USER10> It happened several times, which makes you wonder. They have all this great engineering talent and a really fantastic test infrastructure, yet somehow never managed to write a unit test that checks if a simple boolean value doesn't toggle during an update. It's quite a mystery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The notification is so misleading: "X, we recently discovered a technical error between May 18 and 27 that automatically suggested a public audiance when you were creating posts"

My problem is the "suggested a public audience", makes it sound so minor, and really your fault for going along with the "suggestion".

</comment><comment><USER12> This is not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. Facebook is too big and way off the path for anyone's good, IMO.

As someone who uses Facebook in a limited manner for a specific topic, I set my audience to public a long time ago. If it's something I can't say in public (on Facebook), I don't trust or allow that information to be on Facebook. Period. There are other platforms for exchanging information that Facebook just cannot be trusted to handle correctly.

As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

<comment><USER13> Seems like they can't catch a break recently. Stopped using newsfeed altogether, only use messenger for groups/folks I don't have numbers for.

<comment><USER12> I stopped using the newsfeed and the time line a little no time ago. I post in some groups, where the reality is that I don't know most of the people there and what they might or might not do with my content.

For me, if there's one thing Facebook has succeeded at, it's a good amount of self-censorship.

<comment><USER14> Facebook did some research on self censorship in 2013 (I'm sure there are others but I just happened to remember the paper).

> "Our results indicate that 71% of users exhibited some level of last-minute > self-censorship in the time period, and provide specific evidence supporting > the theory that a user's "perceived audience" lies at the heart of the > issue: posts are censored more frequently than comments, with status updates > and posts directed at groups censored most frequently of all sharing use > cases investigated."

\- Source - [https://research.fb.com/publications/self-censorship-on- face...](https://research.fb.com/publications/self-censorship-on-facebook/)

<comment><USER10> But remember that they can only do that kind of research because they upload, eternally store and data-mine the original text that users delete before ever hitting send. Many people find that unexpected, unethical or outright creepy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, a history of bugs that increase permissiveness. Were there ever any bugs that set things more restrictively? Or are these "bugs" a reflection of their priorities, i.e. willful neglect.

<comment><USER16> They had plenty of annoying popups saying "Oh you're posting publicly; did you know you can restrict the audience? Maybe you want to post to your friends only?". Over the years, I believe they were also tightening up the default visibility settings for new accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is not the first time, obviously. I remember vividly how they sometime 2008 or 2009 made all pictures in the Profile Pictures folder public - that's when I realized they can't be trusted at all with protecting information.

</comment><comment><USER18> While "move fast and break things" sounds great and works well in a lot of cases, this is the huge problem with it. There are real consequences. And with GDPR and other privacy laws, this is will start equating to real money lost. I expect that motto to be retired much the same way Google got rid of "Don't be evil".

<comment><USER19> If I understand the situation, they changed it[0] in 2014 to "move fast with stable infra".

[0]: [https://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-move-fast-and-break- thi...](https://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-move-fast-and-break-things-isnt- how-we-operate-anymore/)

<comment><USER20> Well, infra is only one part of the system. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I feel like Facebook doesn't crash much nowadays so their infra is definitely stable, but their product code could use more work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Facebook's faux pas seem to be coming thick and fast, yet it makes no dent in their apparent popularity. What sort of a beast is this that it can't be slayed by scandal after scandal?! I mean, much of the media hate it, and they jump on any chance to berate it. I personally hate it, as do a lot of other "geeky people" I know. Yet still everyone wants to use it, all the time.

It's like no one actually cares about privacy. Or what Facebook provides in exchange for privacy is somehow worth it? To me, the value proposition of Facebook simply doesn't add up... I guess much of the world _strongly_ disagrees.

<comment><USER22> Much of the world just don't care, especially young people. It's as simple as that really.

<comment><USER23> That's for sure. So one interesting question, what might happen that would lead them to care?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is terrifying for people who shared things thinking that they were private (especially those suffering harassment). However, as we know, nothing you share on Facebook is private. Your posts are public regardless of what you set them to.

So set your default to public. If you feel as you need to change it for something, don't post at all.

<comment><USER25> I remember a very long time ago, I inadvertently changed a photo album I never deleted from private to public and it contained photos of an ex. I got a call from my then-current girlfriend with a boatload of questions. I started realizing shortly after how damaging this new (at the time) social media stuff could be. In my case, it was something relatively small, but I can't imagine what kind of stuff other people might have that could expose them on so many fronts. For this and other reasons, I slowly weaned myself off social media and never really looked back. I just use various accounts for logins and a few check-ins here and there.

<comment><USER24> I didn't have a Facebook account for the longest time, but having moved countries it sadly became necessary. These days I rarely post directly, only update friends and family on their posted statuses.

My distaste is slowly growing into action, there isn't a Facebook competitor right now (tweets, toots, or OpenSocial updates are Twitter, not Facebook). One of these days I will compete with them for no price more than staying connected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Facebook changed every post by those users during the affected time period to private, including posts that people may have meant to share publicly. The company told CNN it took five days to make those changes."

The headline and the article seem to be contradictory. Anyone know if the article is wrong or the headline is wrong? It looks like it just might be that paragraph that got it backwards since there is a direct quote later that talks about posts being automatically suggested as public.

<comment> compiler-guy Your understanding is wrong.

1\. Facebook defaulted a bunch of posts to public, when they should have been something else.

2\. Users posted a bunch of things with this unexpected default

3\. As one part of fixing the bug, Facebook changed all posts made with the unexpected default to private. They were attempting to undo the damage.

Some of the posts they made private probably were intended to be public, so they made things worse for certain users.

<comment><USER27> Better than damaging for all private ones. Think about which one is more serious on privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I guess at least this is seen as a bug now? I don't know if it was just a bug affecting me or some weird test or something going on but this used to happen to me all the time - every time they'd change anything they'd change all my defaults to public. It did stop at some point, though I haven't checked in a while and don't trust them at all. They used to reset my email settings all the time too, but I stopped paying attention to that and just told Gmail everything Facebook send is spam which worked much better.

</comment><comment><USER29> Based on the history of these things, it seems likely that the reported 14M number will grow over time once the initial furor has died down...

<comment><USER30> that's already a giant number. if that's the strategy they shouldn't start the bidding with a giant number.

<comment><USER29> They started with a much bigger number with Cambridge Analytica, then it grew much much larger.

<comment><USER30> to the average person... the shock value of 14 million is pretty much the same shock value as 1 billion. they're both beyond the buku horizon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Maybe someone from FB can chime in and prove whether this is true but wouldn't FB take a copy of ANY data that is made public for any portion of time? So it may have been public for a day but ultimately that data is now stored and available for 3rd parties to leverage.

This is exactly what something like Archive.org would do.

</comment><comment><USER32> Man. It'd suck to be the dev that committed that. Even blameless post-mortems would feel rough.

<comment><USER33> Facebook has a fully automated testing pipeline, supposedly with few human gatekeepers but not testers, and use Facebook employees as the only real testers. That gives me no confidence at all.

<comment><USER34> One bug and suddenly all the confidence is lost ? Imagine how many successful deployments happen all the time. Human testers are shitty too, bugs are missed all the time.

<comment><USER35> * One bug and suddenly all the confidence is lost ?*

If only this was Facebook's first bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Facebook's response [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/audience-selector- error...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/audience-selector-error/)

</comment><comment><USER37> In spite of all the controversy, Facebook is at all-time highs. It will be interesting to see whether Facebook is still the dominant social networking platform in 5, 10, or 25 years.

</comment><comment><USER38> That is sloppy ops for a tech giant. No automated tests to see if post permissions are working right? QA missed it? User reports were ignored for too long? 5 days is a long time for such a big hole to be open.

<comment><USER39> Yes, and that's one way we know it's a lie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> How can we be sure this wasn't a "Feature"?

</comment><comment><USER41> How many engineers suggested functional tests for this?

</comment><comment><USER42> Any European users affected?

</comment><comment><USER43> Move fast and break ( _users '_) things.

</comment><comment><USER44> That wasn't no bug, that was a feature!

</comment><comment><USER45> it just struck me that recurring bugs that change your privacy settings might not fall under GDPR.

</comment><comment><USER46> move fast and break stuff. meh, who cares if the broken stuff hurts other people.

You know the score, pal! If you're not facebook, you're little people.

</comment><comment><USER47> Who's the software engineer that did this?</comment>


Googlebot Running Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://www.jefftk.com/news/2012-01-11.html

<comment><USER2> One important information is missing here: the IP address of the crawler, the official Googlebot can then be identified. There are so many bots out there disguised as Googlebots, most of them do weird things: scanning for log-in pages, sending POST requests with spam, searching for vulnerable sites.

The Googlebot has been seen using POST requests and executing JavaScript for some time now. There is even an official article on this topic on the Google Webmaster Central blog:

[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/11/get- post-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/11/get-post-and- safely-surfacing-more-of.html) (from Nov. 2011)</comment>


Show HN: GeekRations - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekrations.com

<comment><USER2> Not clear what you do, so I didn't sign up. Is it like w00t, but automated? If so, it's a clever idea for rich people. I think it'd be hard to get cool items with mass appeal for cheap enough though.

I'm pretty sure there's an xkcd about writing a script to automatically order stuff off of ebay under $10 everyday. Using that could be a decent marketing ploy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very much like woot or buying a random gift off of ebay for $10-20. Great thoughts and feedback. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was expecting some kind of geek-oriented MREs. Of course, if you ask the right lab rats, MREs are already geek-oriented.</comment>


Three Thousand Years of Algorithmic Rituals - <AUTHOR> https://www.e-flux.com/journal/101/273221/three-thousand-years-of-algorithmic-rituals-the-emergence-of-ai-from-the-computation-of-space/ <comment><USER2> Great to see this on hacker news. E-flux publishes a lot of voices (artists, continental philosophers, and others) that have sound, intellectual criticisms about te ways we incorporate technology into our lives—and I think it's important for tehnologists to hear them. It's not common for these voices to reach traditional comp-sci/mega tech spheres.

They put out a nice series of readers based on their journals and other material. I recently read a great one that collected some of the works of Hito Steyerl.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to work in that direction on many fronts. Hackernews is not really one of them but this post was really in Hackernews style so I decided to post it here.

<comment><USER2> That's great. This is something I'm interested in as well. I found your critical essays repo on github. I have committed time to studying the philosophy of technology and am particularly familiar with the works of the Frankfurt school, some of Paul Virilio's work, and the work of Lewis Mumford. I'd be happy to contribute if you're looking for contributors for any critical projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, if you want to suggest some proposal for the reading list, I would love to include your contributions.

My projects are very local: Tech Worker Coalition in Berlin e Gambe.ro in Italy, so I don't think there's any room in those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice to see e-flux, one of the oldest netart sites on the internet, still publishing. For a deeper dive into fascinating origins of materialism in Ancient Indian philosophy, the following provides a decent intro.

"However, in importing these labels from Western philosophy to the classical Indian philosophical systems, one needs to exercise caution because the concepts of nature, science, scientific method, etc. do not smoothly converge in the two theoretical traditions."

Naturalism in Classical Indian Philosophy

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism- india/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-india/)

</comment><comment><USER4> _Despite the way it is often framed and critiqued, artificial intelligence is not really "artificial" or "alien": in the usual mystification process of ideology, it appears to be a deus ex machina that descends to the world like in ancient theater. But this hides the fact that it actually emerges from the intelligence of this world.

What people call "AI" is actually a long historical process of crystallizing collective behavior, personal data, and individual labor into privatized algorithms that are used for the automation of complex tasks: from driving to translation, from object recognition to music composition. Just as much as the machines of the industrial age grew out of experimentation, know-how, and the labor of skilled workers, engineers, and craftsmen, the statistical models of AI grow out of the data produced by collective intelligence._

I can totally resonate with that part

<comment><USER5> Quite a nice excerpt, will be reading the article now.

We almost always discount the work done by our predecessors: NIH- syndrome/"reinventing the wheel" vs "standing in the shoulders of giants", and this was a humble reminder for me.

<comment><USER6> > We almost always discount the work done by our predecessors: NIH- > syndrome/"reinventing the wheel" vs "standing in the shoulders of giants", > and this was a humble reminder for me.

"We" being computer scientists (or computing) which for some reason has this disease, perhaps due to the field's newness? When I worked in the life sciences (pharmaceutical chemistry) the literature was the first place we looked.

Whereas when working at a research lab in my 20s: I would often go down to our library and read CACM, IEEE journal et al and would sometimes implement things I read there. Even though I would brandish a photocopy of the journal article and reference it in the source code my boss and colleagues would praise me for "thinking up" a solution to a given problem.

Ironically the Internet changed things dramatically in the physical sciences (in Physics especially* but in other physical sciences by making it much easier to both search and read the literature) whereas in non-academic computing it's been the small conferences and, to my surprise, Youtube.

* Physics has long been an innovator in information dissemination; when journal publishing got too slow and letters too point-to-point it gave rise to Physics Letters, which itself became a pair of journals....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At the risk of sounding like a broken record I must point out that AI, neural networks, machine learning, Perceptrons, algorithms and deep learning are not interchangeable terms, any more than "maths" is interchangeable with "calculus", "trigonometry", "geometry", "algebra" and "arithmetic". Unfortunately this article is typically using such terms as synonyms and, while it's probably meant to help the lay reader understand a technical subject, will only manage to confuse the issue further.

It's clear that there is intense interest in deep learning and machine learning in the last 7 years or so, but, especially when talking of "AI", it is important to remember that the majority of work in AI has _not_ been on machine learning, but on inference and reasoning, and using symbolic, logic- based techniques (including Bayesian reasoning, as in Solomonoff's Inductive Inference) rather than "statistical" methods (in the sense that the term is used in AI to mean everything from probabilities to calculus).

Finally, there are historcial inaccuracies in this article. For example, Rosenblatt's Perceptron was not "the first machine-learning algorithm' as the article says: Arthur Samuel's self-playing checkers agents and Minsky's SNARC are two systems predating the Perceptron by a few years and research on machine learning techniques like Markov chains goes back to the 1910's.

<comment><AUTHOR> While agree with you on the need to straighten the narrative and usage of these terms, the author is a philosopher and uses AI not in the common sense nor in the Computer Science sense. It is indeed confusing but he's very very rigorous in the way he writes (this is extremely simple writing for his usual style) so don't believe he's using the terms intercheangeably

<comment><USER7> I don't know anything about the author of the piece. I understand that it's a sketch of a larger article that he intends to write for publication. I hope that he will have the time to refine his scholarship until then.

I'm not sure what to do of the ideas discussed in the article, themselves. I am honestly confused about what he means when he's talking about "AI", given his loose use of terminology, so I'm not sure I understand the article clearly enough to agree or disagree with it.

To clarify, I'd be all for reading a strong critique of the modern (last decade) use of machine learning, including neural networks and deep learning (but not only). If he's talking about AI as a whole, however, I don't see how his critique can really work. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using a classical planner or a constraint solver to drive an automated truck, say.

The start of the article, with the discussion of the Agnicayana ritual was very intersting.

<comment><AUTHOR> To clarify how he uses AI, I suggest you to read this: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3078224](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3078224)

This might help you to bridge your understanding of AI with how it's used elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I vaguely recall reading a paper about oracle bones and hunter-gatherers, with the central theme being a study of generating randomness by the means of an "algorithm". I recall it was on arxiv but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Algorithm being defined as: take a bunch of animal bones, burn them until they are essentially cremated, and then interpret the ashes somehow to point you in a random direction away from your village.

The idea was that this is such a noisy and chaotic system that you get decent enough randomization to distribute your hunter-gatherers into wilderness. The reason this is economical is it allows you to distribute away from concentrating too much effort into just one particular zone. A key idea here is that while maybe a certain river or patch of grass might have been historically lucrative, eventually the population will be exhausted. Without doing ample surveys of the wilderness all the time, hunter-gatherers have scarcely a clue that they are exhausting its resources.

So a simple strategy is to randomly distribute your collection of resources to allow areas to recover. At the same time, the model of relying on an oracle bone also makes it simpler than doing an exhaustive search of your "food- space" and if anything goes awry, it's because you've misinterpreted the divine spirits or you've done something wrong or bad. It's easy to cooperate if you all blame the same thing.

I think the article's tone is a bit on what I would wholeheartedly dismiss as outlandish numerology mysticism - were I to read this when I was just beginning to study mathematics. Now that I've read a bit more history, I have a better appreciation that humans by nature have always tried to impose order, symmetry and harmony upon the universe and have codified that language of understanding as poetry in all forms. I think the article is ambitious towards grasping at the scale and scope of mathematics not merely as a tool of human will, or a language science, or philosophy of philosophies, but something that is very palpably and tangibly human in form. There is a decent treatment towards the ambiguity of what an "algorithm" even is.

My overall impression of the article is that it is trying to describe something beautiful about how the process of mathematics has acted upon itself. Models such as cellular automata or recursive processes show how complexity arises from simple rules - order from chaos, chaos from order.

At the end of the day, I love to nitpick the treatment of technical subjects and their sort of phenomenal attributes in society - but it's posts like these on HackerNews that make me happy that anyone even bothers to write about this topic at all.

<comment><USER9> It's interesting to consider how mathematics was viewed in ancient times, often interwoven with other disciplines and seen as the mystical language of nature rather than the sterile way it is often taught today. The legacy of Pythagorus is as much about reincarnation, music, and philosophy as it is about geometry. Numerology and geometry has played a huge role in religious practices from the I Ching to Gothic cathederals. Most divinitory practices are essentially algorithms for generating randomness, not only granting the benefits you mention but also allowing the guide to tap into their intuition and semi/unconscious mind, which may produce insights not as easily accessible via analytical methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Even at the end of the twentieth century, no one would have ever thought to call a truck driver a "cognitive worker," an intellectual. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the use of machine learning in the development of self-driving vehicles has led to a new understanding of manual skills such as driving, revealing how the most valuable component of work, generally speaking, has never been merely manual, but also social and cognitive"

This is the best quote from the article.

</comment><comment><USER11> Algorithms aren't rituals, they are more concrete.</comment>


Comic Sans Criminal - <AUTHOR> http://comicsanscriminal.com/

<comment><USER2> Meh. So few people actually care about this that it seems a futile gesture at best.

</comment><comment><USER3> The audience for this type of website is not the same audience of people who typically use Comic Sans.

Note that Comic Sans is a popular font because it's included with Microsoft Word and therefore easily accessible by many people. Fancy Web 2.0 fonts are not.

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh yay! A tall website, with clicking for scrolling! Yay!</sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER5> The people making those signs are probably not the people reading HN.

Maybe if Microsoft Word contained a tutorial on what typography is appropriate for different situations people would start to understand.

</comment><comment><USER6> It must be ironic.

Why else would they poke so much fun at other people's design choices and then center every line of text?

centeredtextcriminal.com

<comment><USER7> Oh god, I'm ruminating on past forum threads and signatures with <center> tags because I thought they looked nice..</comment></comment>


Harvard and MIT leaders acknowledge deeper ties to Jeffrey Epstein - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/harvard-and-mit-leaders-acknowledge-deeper-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein-than-previously-known/2019/09/13/e1e9f31a-d641-11e9-86ac-0f250cc91758_story.html <comment><USER2> Could someone explain why Ghislaine Maxwell is not under scrutiny? I thought it was pretty well established she was at the very least an accessory, if not herself a perpetrator. I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds of others, but she seems like such an obvious next target, I'm at a loss why she's not being detained and questioned.

<comment><USER3> My guess is that she found some place that might not extradite her. Perusing the list of countries without US extradition treaties, if I were wealthy, I'd look at Vietnam or Montenegro as the most comfortable spots. Not that either couldn't extradite, but wealth goes a long way.

<comment><USER2> I guess it also helps that those implicated in the Epstein scandal very much don't want her extradited. I would not be surprised if she also "commits suicide" within a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In August, he was found dead while in federal custody.

Interesting choice of words.

<comment><USER5> Not sure about the US but in the UK newspapers avoid the word suicide because that's a conclusion reached by coroners, and the paper is normally reporting the death before the coroner's inquest has happened.

<comment><USER6> Also in AU it's not often used to avoid copycats.

Generally news reports state "there were no suspicious circumstances" followed by a footer with phone numbers to crisis / help lines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you are taking so much money from so many, hard to keep track of the evil do'ers.</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on Anonymous - <AUTHOR>

I was just curious as to how some of the tech community views the group. <comment><USER2> Anonymous seems (to me) mainly to be attention-seekers. I'm not convinced that their DDOS attacks on various sites actually accomplish anything, other than to make the server admins' lives hell until the sites are back up. Further, there are legal avenues for the kinds of protest Anonymous claims to support.

This is just my two cents' worth, and more than likely isn't representative of the rest of HN.

<comment><USER3> >I agree

I don't support Anonymous because I don't discount or disagree with concepts. I only discount implementations and Anonymous has no implementation to address the valid problems their enemies have solved in their own way.</comment></comment>


Braess's Paradox - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox# <comment><AUTHOR> This has been on HN before (it's been >1 year), but I'm reposting because I just recently learned about it and I'm fascinated by it.

I also saw this super cool physical demonstration and had to share: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMrYlspifuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMrYlspifuo)

</comment><comment><USER2> Up and Atom did an episode on Braess's paradox [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cALezV_Fwi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cALezV_Fwi0)</comment>


FBI Lab Processes 150,000 Fingerprint Sets a Day  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/fbifingerprints/

<comment><USER2> Fortunately, there is an update in the article that clarifies the 600 billion number.</comment>


Stop tech-driven problem-solving - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/web11/tech-driven-problem-solving-39681fabd6a1 <comment><USER2> I think the title of the article does not accurately reflect the author's thesis, which is more like "trending tech may not be the best solution to your problem". I agree that riding the hype train instead of using established "mundane" tools is probably a bad idea for most problems, but exploring existing tech that might help you also qualifies as "tech-driven problem- solving" IMHO

<comment><USER3> I've worked at a large financial services company and a large medical billing company who both thought they could use big data and machine learning to monetize customers(!) data. Niether had expertise with either. One muddled through with local talent, the other brought in a ph.d ML guy. Both spent millions and got nothing in return. Anecedotal, but representative I believe.

<comment><USER2> I don't know how big those companies are, but they may qualify for big data if they have millions of users or enormous datasets to analyze. The question is, what's the advantage compared to other methods? Is being "left behind" a valid concern for the company's business or is it just a teenager's version of "left behind"?

<comment><USER4> The fundamental problem of Big Data is that the low hanging fruit has already been picked. Geezers (in a non gender specific sense) with 30 years in industry X have already either intuited it, or it has been uncovered by traditional KDD techniques. What do Big Data, Machine Learning or Data Science have to offer there? The remaining fruit may be very high indeed, and not economically pickable anyway...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Author provides 2 examples: (1) blockchain and (2) big data Hadoop map reduce

(1) blockchain: most arguments about blockchain always being replaceable with a traditional single node central database conveniently leaves out the constraint for decentralized control. Yes, if you change the ideal goals for the solution, of course you can propose the traditional solution. (E.g. a government central database of property records does not solve the same problem as a decentralized blockchain of property records.)

The problems that blockchains are attempting to solve is real. The more interesting discussion is whether the costs of implementation (whether Proof- of-Work or Proof-of-Stake) will ever deliver on that promise. Two possibilities: (1) subsequent failed attempts of blockchains eventually lead computer scientists to a theorem that states any decentralized scheme always _costs more_ than the economic value returned. (The theorem would be similar to the ironclad conclusions of CAP theorem or Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and also similar to discovering you _can_ synthesize gold but the cost (of a nuclear reactor) to do it costs more than the gold itself.) Or (2) more computer science thinking finally makes blockchains feasible for real world applications. Feasibility includes cpu costs, transactions-per-second, 51% attacks, rogue forks, etc.

(2) Hadoop map reduce: he writes...

> _" The entire business plan of a ton of companies [...] set up these huge > data clusters based on Hadoop and write complex MapReduce queries for basic > operations, and wait for the spice to flow. But there's no end game. When > asked, there's no vision on what to do with the data that will actually make > money"_

Author should spell out exactly which data companies are spending millions gathering hundreds of terabytes/petabytes with zero clue what to do with it.

Yes, there are all sorts of examples out there of _" solutions looking for a problem"_ but this particular essay is empty of insightful data points.

<comment><USER6> Blockchain isn't decentralized. The network is run by a handful of companies, mainly in China.

<comment><USER5> I was talking about blockchains. Are you talking about Bitcoin?

blockchain != Bitcoin

blockchain != Ethereum

<comment><USER6> Reasons other blockchains won't exhibit the same behavior as the two most used ones? None.

<comment><USER7> Reasons N+1 th implementation wont exhibit the same behavior as the N most used ones ?

How is that none ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Big data: they nailed it! Every single application of 'big data' i ever saw was hype-driven, and much easier solved by boring, traditional things that were there in K&R era already: hash maps, Berkeley DB, and memory-mapped files. Sometimes taking 100x less resources, like literally doing on a single computer what took a huge Hadoop cluster.

Maybe on a Google scale of data, that doesn't work as easily. Maybe when you have a billion dollar infrastructure bill, big data works better. But it leaves out 99% of companies who's data isn't that big.

<comment><USER9> Shut your mouth--I can't keep charging $250/hr. unless people BELIEVE!

But seriously, I just came off a project last year that used Hadoop "because" and for no other discernible reason. I personally did a ton of studying on Data Science and then...crickets. Couldn't find anyone who really wanted that kind of work done. Maybe in time.

<comment><USER10> I'd be curious if anyone else has had the same experience re: Data Science.

From what I've seen so far it seems like the super big tech companies pay _all the money_ for ML/DS people; outside of that the pickings seem to get slim quick.

<comment><USER11> In all fairness, the super big companies (not only tech) are the only ones with any big data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every new technology needs firing up, which means hype it and hope some people can do something usefull with it. It's hard to imagine new technology without hype, how else can a large group of people be aware of it existing at all?

The Amish decide 200 years ago 'lets stick with current technology'. It works, they have houses, food, friends, a living.

Why go further? This topic is almost existential :)

<comment><USER13> Not even the Amish are unanimous on what technology should actually be used, though :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_dif...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_different_Amish_affiliations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author makes several important points, but I'm not sure he fully understands the mechanics of the market. As a founder, I don't necessarily have to think about solving a problem or making money. I just need to gather enough users. Once I go past a certain threshold, I can sell the company (with the users being the main value), and this is what many of my friends are trying to do. Of course at the heart of the app/service there is some benefit to the user, but few people have the illusion they're solving some world problems - they just want to find a smart way to earn substantial money while doing what they know and like to do.

<comment><USER15> > As a founder, I don't necessarily have to think about solving a problem or > making money. I just need to gather enough users. Once I go past a certain > threshold, I can sell the company (with the users being the main value), and > this is what many of my friends are trying to do.

The valley sickness in a nutshell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Funnily enough, microcomputers themselves were once the technology solution in search of a problem. The "home computer" fad of the 80s promised lots of applications that didn't quite pan out, including finance, "helping kids with the homework", "the little lady can store her recipes", and home automation. The only ones that really panned out were games (including edutainment), spreadsheets, word processing, and maybe small single-user databases. Anything more required much more sophisticated and expensive equipment, which wouldn't become commonplace till around the 386 era.

<comment> le-mark >> the little lady can store her recipes

That's a great perspective, and I'm really glad you mentioned this in particular. It's one of those things that was so often repeated, and I always found it to be really bizarre. Recipes? Really?

I'd add music synth to your list of real world uses, in some sense that was a killer app for microprocessors.

<comment><USER17> This machine - a 16-bit computer from 1969 (!) - was marketed as a "kitchen computer", among other things:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316)

Seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Also known as "fad", "buzzword" or "solution looking for a problem". The blockchain and big data are good examples. Some past examples are the internet of things and the semantic web.

</comment><comment><USER19> This article makes a ton of sense for people in smaller companies that aren't worried about rapidly shifting markets and the long time-to-delivery of new functionality that is made possible by technology. He's effectively arguing "why build android when j2me already exists". The problem is that when the iphone comes out, you want something you can quickly retool into a competitive product - otherwise you might get killed by the movement of the market itself. See blackberry & windows mobile for what happens when you're too late to the game.

Now, you could argue that it makes more sense to try to make the iPhone instead of a me-too system like android originally was. But most companies aren't apple of 2005, and they know it. They know they aren't really leading in anything - they just don't want to be left in the dust. So they ask their tech teams to investigate stuff that might be transformational, like the blockchain, because if it did create a new green field, they want to have access to the new market and at least near-first mover advantage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid you then might have missed my point by a little bit. Let me try and clarify.

I think new technologies are awesome. But I think you shouldn't look at a technology and ask "which problems should I solve with this?", but rather at the problems you have and then consider "which technologies should I use to solve this problem?".

The last one does mean you have to become good at identifying problems in your company or product offering, which is much harder than finding technologies. But I think that is a very worthwhile goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The linked to document is unavailable, but there is a google cache of it:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bZt3Y3m...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bZt3Y3meUJYJ:https://www.stichtsevecht.nl/bestuur/pers_42531/item/onderzoek- innovatieve-technologie-voor-verbeterde-dienstverlening-in-het-sociaal- domein_56332.html%2Bonderzoek-innovatieve-technologie-voor-verbeterde- dienstverlening-in-het-sociaal-domein_56332.html)

Which is not that bad in Google translate.

Essentially:

Blockchain when requesting wheelchairs Blockchain is a new technology whose impact is compared to the arrival of the Internet. The Quality Institute of Dutch Municipalities (KING) organizes pilots to investigate what Blockchain technology can mean for municipalities. Stichtse fought with the research question whether Blockchain is useful when requesting a wheelchair. The pilot shows that Blockchain can offer many benefits. For example, the process of requesting issue with Blockchain is faster and more transparent. Residents with Blockchain have more views on the status of their application, as with Track & Trace in a mail package. In addition, the administration around the application becomes a lot easier for all parties.

On the original page there is a link to a dedicated site:

[http://hostedby.frogjump.nl/blockchain- magazine#!/stichtse-v...](http://hostedby.frogjump.nl/blockchain- magazine#!/stichtse-vecht)

where there is a link to an actual .pdf (largely in English):

[http://cdn.instantmagazine.com/upload/6826/blockchain- sticht...](http://cdn.instantmagazine.com/upload/6826/blockchain- stichtsevecht.3d0bc1fbf62d.pdf)

with a detailed process analysis from which it is clear how the "blockchain" has actually no meaning/usefulness in the whole stuff the "problem" (or "non problem") can seemingly be solved by much more traditional technical approaches (which is the article Author's thesis).

</comment><comment><USER21> I think the author has an interesting direction but don't quite like the examples..

Taking a step back and looking at it more generally I see this as problem solving vs problem finding (in Alan Kay's words), where a perfect example would be the hype with self driving cars and high speed car tunnels. This is problem solving (traffic jams, car accidents, "I need to get there faster"). Whereas problem finding will ask the bigger questions that will lead to better results. In the question of transportation I think you should set up yourself to the problem "How do we build car free cities?"

<comment><AUTHOR> You might have a point. The article was written to be thought provocative, to make people consider what they are doing.

The actual underlying issue however is that finding and identifying problems to be solved is _hard_. It's much easier to focus on something concrete like a piece of technology.

An example is, well, your example. The problem "How do we build car free cities?" is already much better than "How do we avoid traffic jams". But it's simple to solve that problem, for example by banning all cars; that doesn't solve the actual problem though (and is a bit silly).

The actual problem (I think) is not that there are cars, the problem is that there are too many traffic movements necessary over a physically too limited space to get everyone's needs satisfied.

Rephrasing the problem like that allows you to consider the various aspects of the problem; how can we reduce traffic movements (public transport, carpooling)? How can we more optimally use our limited space (smaller cars, stimulate bike usage and bike lanes)? And what are the needs that are being solved by traffic movements, and could we satisfy those without them (working remotely, grocery deliveries)? And what would it be worth to us to reach these goals, compared to the problem we are solving?

Perhaps I'll write an article on this specific mode of thinking. If I can actually find a way to get it on paper of course.

<comment><USER21> Yes! I was deliberately phrasing my problem finding as "how to build car free cities", which is too tech, phrasing the problem in relation to tech! But you will quickly get to even bigger questions like "why do we move", "why do we work" which will quickly lead to thinking about deep political issues..

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. And then the trick becomes scoping and problem selection. You can't solve everything after all!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hype in tech is terrible. If a technology gets an unusual amount of hype, it's a sign that you should wait a few years before you consider adopting it.

Real consensus about a specific technology stack takes at least a couple of years to build up. If a tech product becomes popular very quickly, it is purely because of its superficial qualities - Often at the expense of finer details.

</comment><comment><USER23> The author should also mention the following modern techniques used in hype- driven software development:

\- microservices architecture

\- using document data stores despite your data being relational

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have really used the latter...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sure, but look a little wider. Most of what goes on is bullshit. Not just tech crap. We're all just trying to make a little money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you're right. But next to making money, a lot of us are also doing our best to do something valuable and worthwhile. It's just an attempt to get people to think in a slightly different direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting quibble.</comment>


Show HN: New Video Section on VentureFizz - <AUTHOR> https://venturefizz.com/videos <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

We just launched this section of our website, so we appreciate your feedback.

If you are not familiar with VentureFizz, we are an employment branding and recruitment website focused on the tech industry.

We've been building a library of video interviews with founders and executives, which all have the goal of sharing information about a company, teams, culture, hiring and more.

We hope this content will help people with the company discover piece of the jobs search.

Thanks again for your help!</comment>


Are Web Components a thing? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/google-developer-experts/are-web-components-a-thing-5a116b1da7e4 <comment><USER2> No, except for public libraries (e.g. a datepicker that works in native, angular, react, etc)

1\. You CANNOT pass stylesheets to a web component from the parent. CSS isolation might seem cool, but when you realize you have to load your stylesheets into, say, a shared login page, it's suddenly a lot less appealing.

2\. You have to import a bunch of scripts, and then conditionally load them with custom-logic (as of now) if the element actually appears on the page. Or you load a bunch of crap.

3\. Polyfills, polyfills everywhere - yes, I read the article and I know it said they are working on support for Edge.

4\. Managing your source code and deciding where to host the components is icky.</comment>


Ask HN: has anyone else found it hard to get attention for their new startup? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone got any inspirational stories to share about how it was hard to get any attention or traffic for your new startup, and hopefully you overcame this and found an audience and users? <comment><USER2> I think everyone struggles with this - building something is a lot easier than building something popular.

Advertising may be an option. Find relevant communities you can be part of. Write useful, industry-related content and share it with industry-related blogs. Affiliate systems might work. For software/apps/games/etc 3rd party marketplaces, publishers, distributors might help.

Persistance is the main factor though. Overnight success is usually backed by hundreds or thousands of overnight experimentation and failure.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's some generic advice, but perhaps it would be more constructive to post about what your startup does / who your target market is, since that will often change the strategy significantly.

<comment><USER4> I agree completely. Generating traffic / gaining users is different in a lot businesses (to be extreme, you wouldn't try to sell a $50k/mo B2B subscription via banner ads on a porn site).

You're very lucky in the HN is an intelligent community that will most likely spend the time to point out where you can improve and what you're doing wrong with experience in a huge range of businesses. What they can't do is distill that information down so simply that it applies to all businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend jumping into topics that are relevant to what you are working on and aim to be a subject matter expert on whatever it is. I got involved in a conversation on HN related to my project (how to manage debt) and came away with a lot of good feedback and a few signups. It didn't solve the problem overnight, but every little bit helps.</comment>


From gasoline to gasification, or why we don't power cars with wood today (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2017/01/22/from-gasoline-to-gasification-or-why-we-dont-power-cars-with-wood-today/ <comment><USER2> While it may not be great for vehicles, it's still one of the most promising choices for stationary power production. Plants are self replicating solar power fuel sources, and by converting them to syngas you can produce electricity, heated water and air, and biochar. The biochar is wonderful for the soil when properly used, and locks away carbon that used to be in the air.

There are any number of cogeneration plants that use waste wood chips to run their kilns and produce electricity. All Power Labs (www.allpowerlabs.com) produces small scale (10-20kWh) generators that fit on a 4' pallet and thus can be transported to a fuel source.

<comment> sh-run This is really interesting. I'm fortunate enough to live in a city that collects yard waste and composts it. I've never considered that it could be used as an energy source, much less a carbon negative one. I doubt I could produce a usable amount of electricity by myself with something like this, but I'd be curious to see how much energy a city of 900,000 could produce with yard waste.

Edit: From the feedstocks page ([http://www.allpowerlabs.com/support/support- feedstock](http://www.allpowerlabs.com/support/support-feedstock)) it looks like this works best with wood and woodlike fuels. I'd still be curious if grass clippings could be processed in a way to make them work similarly.

<comment><USER2> Grass clippings and a variety of waste streams can be pelletized to produce a fuel that can be gasified. Although it's generally not recommended to leave pelletized fuel in a gasifier during shut down, as any residual moisture will cause the pellets to decompose into their powdered form and thus clog up the reactor. Solid fuel handling is more difficult than liquid or gas fuels as you have to use augers and gravity. There is a tendency for "bridging" and compacting where the space between the solid components become either too large or too small. Different reactor designs can accommodate different fuel sources but there is no one size fits all for all fuel types.

 __*

While composting is great, it does produce a significant amount of methane, which is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (~84 CO2e). Ideally this would be captured and put to use.

<comment><USER3> The 'bridging' problem is one area where vehicular applications have less of a problem given the fact that the generator is constantly being shaken, especially when used on tractors or other similar equipment (e.g. old-style bone-rattler pickup trucks). A modified diesel engine in which the injectors have been swapped for long-necked spark plugs can run on gengas and has a higher efficiency and relative power output than a petrol engine which is fed with the same fuel. On this type of application the extra bulk for the generator and fuel doesn't matter as much either.

<comment><USER2> Adding a spark plug (and the timing circuitry) is definitely possible. You can often find diesel engine blocks that have been converted to propane or natural gas that are essentially this arrangement.

You can also run a diesel engine on duel fuel, where the (bio)diesel injection provides the flame front to ignite the woodgas and air mixture. In this case no modification is necessary. Only the bare minimum, equivalent to just idling on diesel is necessary. This is a robust system where the governor for the diesel engine can compensate for lower woodgas fuel content when need be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently North Korea still has a lot of those[1], and as recent as 30 years ago they were quite popular on Vietnam's streets. I have heard of people died from the heat or suffocation riding on them.

[1] [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/how-north- ko...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/how-north-korea-fuels- its-military-trucks-with-trees/)

<comment><USER5> The picture of the truck: [https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2013/01/a...](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2013/01/a-look- inside-north-korea/n19_75880979/main_600.jpg?1420511278)</comment></comment>