Huawei cryptographic keys embedded in Cisco's firmware - <AUTHOR> https://www.iot-inspector.com/blog/2019/07/huawei-cryptographic-keys-embedded-in-ciscos-firmware/ <comment><USER2> So, in summary:

1\. Cisco used Open Source software (OpenDaylight), without sanitizing publicly available (GitHub) certificates and private keys.

2\. The screenshot in the source article mentions the subject of the certificate. Yet, the text refers to it as the signing party.

3\. Somebody used a business name and an email address that is associated to Huawei, to generate a certificate.

Observations:

\- Regarding (1): If any finger pointing or suggesting should be done here, it should not be at anyone but Cisco.

\- Regarding (2): Either the original source article contains incorrect information, or these certificates were self-signed, which makes any information supplied in the certificate arbitrary and meaningless.

\- Regarding (2): If the information is incorrect, and the certificate was signed by an accredited party, the person who put this on GitHub sure made a stupid mistake, rendering this private key essentially useless (to anyone, Huawei and Cisco included).

\- Regarding (3), just because somebody uses (either real of fake) business information to generate a certificate, does not indicate that said business had any involvement whatsoever. Not unless the certificate is signed by a party that guarantees the vetting of that info.

Final thought: The title with "Huawei cryptographic keys" appears to be very misleading at best, simple incorrect more likely. I do not see the link between Huawei and these keys, other than somebody using arbitrary information to generate a (self-signed) certificate from a private key.

<comment><USER3> From what I read, it sounds like Cisco put a file from public github into the IOT firmware's /root/.ssh directory.

Something is very wrong with that firmware generating process.

Why would anyone do that? Even accidentally?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h There is a nice talk on youtube (sorry, tried to find a link and couldn't in less than 30 seconds) that discusses Cisco's firmware build... "process". Rest assured, "very wrong" is a nice description; allegedly, we're talking things like "random engineer builds firmware image from local checkout using personal build scripts and uncommitted code, and if it appears to work then it gets shipped to customers, either at large or on a case-by-case basis". Honestly, the presence of additional random files is completely unsurprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tired: Cisco routers have U.S. backdoors!

Fired: Huawei routers have Chinese backdoors!

Inspired: Cisco routers have Huawei backdoors!

Reality is often stranger than fiction...

<comment><USER5> No reality is usually boring. It came from an opensource github repo. It was an oversight.

Dial down the conspiracy-factor brother.

<comment><USER6> If the dial of conspiracy was turned to low for the last few years, it's quickly moving into the hot position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key was in a test folder of an open source project. Shouldn't get into a production build but doesn't really matter if it did. This is just sloppy work by Cisco.

</comment><comment><USER8> * embedded in an OSS package used by Cisco's firmware

</comment><comment><USER9> If a Cisco crypto key was found in a Huawei switch, the media response would be very different.

<comment><USER10> Yep, and you'd likely see Bloomberg running it as a feature special.

<comment><USER11> I understood this reference

<comment><USER12> Please enlighten me

<comment><USER13> Bloomberg ran a story [1] about a supply chain attack against apple, amazon, and others. It made big headlines, but evidence never emerged. It is now generally believed that the story was false.

No one has found these chips and shown them, and the likes of apple and amazon have issued very direct denials (that would be very clear securities fraud if they were false). Much more direct than statements by corporations usually are.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-the- software-side-of-china-s-supply-chain-attack)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So those were just files hanging around in the image, not used by anything.

<comment><USER15> To play devils advocate: this is what Cisco says, not result of an independent analysis :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> seeing this more and more... open source projects pulled in as dependencies without auditing, and causing a security issue.

I predict this is going to become more and more of an issue over the next couple of years, and provoke some drastic changes to the way we do open-source software. What those changes are, I don't know...

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h > years, and provoke some drastic changes to the way we do open-source > software.

I object to this phrasing because it makes it sounds like the FOSS software is at fault. The problem is that companies are pulling random code off the internet and sticking it in products without auditing or understanding it, so the only solution needed is for companies to actually pay attention to what they're using/shipping (possibly by holding them liable when people are paying for their products, but that could have side effects). In particular, pretty much every FOSS license I've ever seen explicitly says that the software is offered without any claim that it's good/usable/safe, and you can't limit that limitation of liability without seriously screwing up the whole FOSS ecosystem.

<comment><USER16> I totally understand and agree with that. But we don't live in a perfect world where people do the things they're supposed to do. And there are lots of developers out there who will pull in a malign FOSS library, then blame everyone else when it does exactly what the code said it would do.

Just like every other avenue of life, we're going to have to dumb down what we do so that idiots don't hurt themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >"The firmware contained a few certificates and a corresponding private key."

A cunning plot by Huawei to distribute private keys in Cisco firmware?

</comment><comment><USER18> Title reeks of clickbait -- especially since this is innocuous and clearly just an oversight in packaging

</comment><comment><USER19> > _Who is gary.wu1(at)huawei.com, and why are his keys embedded in Cisco's > firmware?_

.. and, lastly, why the do we care about protecting his e-mail address from harvesters with (at) if he so loose with it himself that he lets it end up in random firmware?</comment>


Ask HN: Article on Windows 10 keys? - <AUTHOR>

I saw an article on here the other day about Windows 10 destroying the old key from your old OS and replacing it with a new Win10 key. Anyone know what im talking about? <comment> T-A [http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/insider/forum/insider_win...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/windows-key-after-upgrade- to-10/3692233e-553d-409e-96ac-2a2992207344?auth=1)</comment>


Save 5–10 min a day with this web extension - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dmitrymind/this-web-extension-will-help-you-to-save-1-5-cee580480881 <comment><USER2> I don't get it? isn't this just a re-implementation of Ctrl + Tab?

<comment><AUTHOR> Generally yes, but for browser :)</comment></comment>


Could Opera Unite be a botmaster's best friend? - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=009134611

<comment><USER2> Because botmasters didn't have access to webserver software before?

Sounds like slow-news-day scaremongering.</comment>


Ask HN: After Engineering – What's Next? - <AUTHOR> Or: Seeking job advice as a mid-career software engineer
Hi HN,
I'm in my early/mid thirties now and I have been programming since I was a kid.
And I still love it! And I'm still good at it! I've become a little bit jaded though.
In the last few years I learned that, of all the things that make a company succeed, "technology" is pretty far down the list. "Process", I believe, is down there too, but you can do a lot more damage when screwing that up.
Not to beat on technology or process, but I see so many people around me getting hung up on it (and rewarded accordingly) while at the same time we're failing to address bigger issues (communication, culture, hiring, direction, etc.) It's like we're getting tangled up in technicalities, while product development is grinding to a halt amidst our own ambition to reach some kind of technological nirvana.
I switched teams recently, moving from a software engineering position to a technical consulting position, which improved things somewhat.
But even in my current position I feel powerless to address bigger issues. I talked with my boss about this, and they see the same issues, but there's only so much they can do on a company level scale.
These issues are certainly very pronounced at my current company. If your experience differs, good for you! However, I think our industry overestimates the importance of technology.
I don't claim to have all the answers or understand all the problems, but I'd rather spend my time working on a solution.
So that's why I'm asking for help: I want to nudge my career in a direction that will someday enable me to work on making engineering more – for lack of a better word – humane? But I don't really know what I'm looking for. I guess I'm just asking for some new perspective. Maybe you have changed directions in a similar way and point me to the route you took?
Sorry for this being so open ended. I just don't know enough to know what I want to know :) <comment><USER2> > ...but there's only so much they can do on a company level scale.

Focus on your own area of influence. If you can fix it there, and call out to the teams around you what you did, they can do the same. Once a few teams find better ways to work, their performance will improve, and then the company will start to notice and act.

Especially when not in a formal leadership role, learning how to influence and invoke change from the bottom is one of the most impactful skills one can learn.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you considered switching to a different company that better matches your values? I know what you're talking about and have experienced it myself, and I greatly enjoy being at a company where cultural, strategic, and organizational impact is in play, and there's relatively little talk of tech for its own sake.</comment>


Vim Plugins You Should Know About, Part II: repeat.vim - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/vim-plugins-repeat-vim/

<comment><USER2> Your "How to install" blurb needs a couple _s/surround/repeat_ ;)

Thanks for another useful plugin I was completely unaware of!

<comment><USER3> > Your "How to install" blurb needs a couple s/surround/repeat ;)

fixed: s/surround/repeat/g

> Thanks for another useful plugin I was completely unaware of!

you're very welcome :)

<comment><USER4> > fixed: s/surround/repeat/g

you missed one ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _W moved to the next word and . repeated the wrapping command._

 _Now do the same 4 more times, and you have the whole line wrapped:_

Blasphemy! You mean do this: 4W.

<comment><USER3> No!

That will

"move 4 words" and then "repeat"

instead of

"move word" and "repeat", "move word" and "repeat", "move word" and "repeat", "move word" and "repeat".

<comment><USER6> In other words, qaw.q3@a

<comment><USER3> right :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ecuador acknowledges it has "temporarily restricted" Assange's communications - <AUTHOR> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6f997f97c5f140a29f385ea05f1b642c/wikileaks-assanges-internet-link-severed-state-actor <comment><USER4> Official statement: [http://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/comunicado-oficial-sobre- el-ca...](http://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/comunicado-oficial-sobre-el-caso- julian-assange-2/)

Google Translate:

"Ecuador granted political asylum to Julian Assange in 2012 on the basis of their legitimate fears of political persecution because of his journalistic activities as editor of WikiLeaks.

"In recent weeks, WikiLeaks has published a large number of documents which have an impact on the election campaign in the United States. The decision to make public such information is the sole responsibility of the Wikileaks organization.

"The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries, it does not interfere in electoral processes in progress or support a candidate in particular.

"In that sense, Ecuador, in exercise of its sovereign right, has temporarily restricted access to part of its communications system in its embassy in the UK.

"This temporary restriction does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization to carry out his journalistic activities.

"Ecuador, consistent with its tradition of defending human rights, especially with the victims of political persecution reaffirms granted asylum to Julian Assange and reiterates its intention to safeguard their lives and physical integrity until you can move to a safe place.

"Ecuador's foreign policy responds only to sovereign decisions and not yield to pressure from other states."

<comment><USER5> I applaud the Ecuadorian government's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process.

While in the past I viewed WL as a crucial part of openness and democracy, I'm very suspicious of their current sources, and their intentions. Not to mention Assange's personal interests (he expressed hatred towards Hillary - <USER2> what he thinks of Trump).

>"The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries".

A not so subtle hint to the fact that our country does not. For years we've meddled in the elections of countries around the world - directly and indirectly. We are still doing it in some parts, overtly supporting regimes that we like, and covertly derailing potential candidates who we assume will not play by our rules.

<comment><USER6> _I applaud the Ecuadorian government 's attempt to at least distance themselves from this latest attempt by Wikileaks to influence our democratic process._

How can you say that with a straight face? Legal SuperPACs, campaign contributions, lobbying groups, the home of commercial 'PR' (propaganda) and the world's most highly litigious society. You guys are the least democratic of any self-titled democracy today. Wikileaks publishes information that enables people to make informed decisions. This is the original purpose of democracy. Chalk and cheese?

I also wonder also how you can say "Wikileaks is meddling in US political process" while admitting the US has made a global habit of meddling in others' affairs (including: direct political coup, arming rebel groups, placing puppets in power, supplying torture equipment and training, etc.). It makes no sense.

<comment><USER7> >"How can you say that with a straight face? Legal SuperPACs, campaign contributions, lobbying groups, the home of commercial 'PR' (propaganda) and the world's most highly litigious society. You guys are the least democratic of any self-titled democracy today."

Oh really? Do you know the definition of a democracy? A democracy is simply a form of government that gives power to the people. It comes from Greek words "demos" meaning "the people" and "kratia" meaning power or authority. A democracy doesn't specify which people or even specifically what powers. It also doesn't say anything about about money or influence. Now is there too much money in US politics? Of course. Does extreme partisanship hinder progress? Absolutely. But none of these things mean that the US does not have a democracy. There might not always be a great choice of candidates but U.S citizens choose which least rotten of the bunch gets to represent them. No question about it. So yes that power is vested in the citizens. To state that the US is the least democratic of any democracy today is just absurd. So according to your statement the US lags behind Russia, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo?

I think its odd that the OP simply saying he applauds the Ecuadorians efforts to distance themselves from Wikileaks elicited such a total condemnation from you.

<comment><USER8> Watching the events from Europe, the thing about USA and democracy is that it's blatantly obvious how bad things are, all while your media and governments are acting like everything is great and USA is the greatest country in the world. Nobody acts like things are great in Russia, Nigeria, or Congo.

USA is living a lie that hurts almost all its citizens on a daily basis, and there is nothing the people can do. USA might be a democracy but there is no power in the hands of the people anymore. The choice of continuing this corrupt, broken institution is what Hillary represents. Massive change that might break all kinds of stuff world wide because of the crazy that he is, is what Trump represents. I don't think anybody but the people benefitting directly want those two as candidates, but there is nothing anybody can do about it. The people of USA just have to take it, all while being lied to by the very people that should be working for them but obviously aren't: the media and the government.

Yeah, worst democracy in the world is probably on point, in my opinion.

<comment><USER9> > I don't think anybody but the people benefitting directly want those two as > candidates, but there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Both Clinton and Trump were nominated as Presidential candidates by the voting public through a democratic process. Voters will choose among Trump, Clinton, Stein, Johnson, and other candidates in the Presidential election on November 8th. If voters don't want to elect Trump or Clinton, they have other candidates they can vote for. The reality is that most people _want_ either Trump or Clinton as President.

Can you remind me how Prime Ministers are chosen in your country? What voters choose them to be PM? How important is your national government relative to the national government in the US, domestically speaking? Are state and provincial governments as powerful as they are in the US? Do you elect all your state and local offices, like we do in the US?

The US has many problems, but "insufficiently democratic" is not one of them.

<comment><USER10> > The reality is that most people want either Trump or Clinton

Is that actually the reality? My impression is that most people _do not_ want either Trump nor Clinton but they want one a lot less than the other so they'll vote against that candidate rather than voting for one.

<comment><USER8> I couldn't have said it better.

Nobody is choosing either Trump or Clinton. They are voting for the alternative against either Trump or Clinton.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Announced right when it's most effective in distracting from the really dubious pedo allegation against Assange - which itself happened right when he was unable to respond due to his internet connection being cut - <USER3> under the most basic journalistic investigation, and from the way it spread like wildfire amongst Clinton supporters despite absolutely reeking: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-bizarre- story-o...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-bizarre-story-of-how- a-tiny-online-dating-site-accused-j)

I mean, I guess it's probably not all intentional, but the timing of events sure does hate the guy right now.

<comment><USER12> The Clinton campaign has been really effective with timing related to Assange events. The Trump sexual video was released immediately following a wiki leaks dump.

It's pretty clear that they are happy to play dirty, and have planned out moves like these.

<comment><USER13> Is it playing dirty to use "strategically timed leaks" to combat "strategically timed leaks" now?

What a curious double standard you have.

<comment><USER12> I never said that Assange wasn't playing dirty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not sure how I feel about this.

I'm against censorship but he basically set himself up at the perpetual mercy of Ecuador. Their house, their rules.

Conversely in passive observation, wikileaks has had a pretty clear agenda in timing, materials and communications over the last few months.

<comment><USER6> Wikileaks can only work with the material they have been given and have always tried to maximize it's impact as part of their enabling role as a publisher. I don't see how in this regard temporal optimization differs from timed release, proxy release or fundamental analysis (such as statistics), all of which they have offered in the past. As for 'agenda', this is like saying the organization has a 'purpose' \- to quote their about page: "the analysis and _publication_ of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and _corruption_ ".

<comment><USER15> There is the troubling fact that emails tracing the flow of funds from Syria to Russian banks vanished from the "Syrian files" email dump sent by hackers to WikiLeaks, despite the fact that the hackers considered those the Crown Jewels of their data exfil.

WL has never explained why they didn't publish those emails, though they did blame the press for reporting what they called Hillary Clinton's "neo- McCarthyist conpiracy theories," which was ... somewhat nonresponsive to the allegation.

<comment><USER6> {{citation-needed}} ... [http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/wikileaks-syria-files- syria-r...](http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-russia- bank-2-billion/) claims the source of this rumour is "leaked US court documents" of "Manhattan" that are "sealed" (as if they were authoritative on information in the possession of hackers and their thoughts) ... the article's two authors asked Wikileaks for comment, Wikileaks said this "is speculation and it is false". The journalists in question work for a b-grade US populist rag, and the US routinely monitors _all_ international financial transactions via the SWIFT system, and has done so since _at least_ 2001 (official letterhead response of the EU to a FOIA I made), as well as credit/debit card systems, Western Union, etc. Given this background, draw your own conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Something that people aren't commenting much on but feels sort of significant to me is the way this information was released.

The initial tweet talked ambiguously about some "State Actor" cutting off internet. Although true, that seems designed to spark off an storm of conspiracy theories when the truth is quite banal.

<comment><USER17> Well probably it was through pressure from another state actor, just no fancy hacking involved.

But yeah, just get that dude a mobile internet usb-stick. I would think twice before sharing my wifi with Assange, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had a lot more sympathy for Assange and Wikileaks before the recent releases that seem to have been timed to influence the US elections.

Also, why has it taken so long for him to agree to an interview on the rape allegations? Yes, it's possible, as Assange has asserted, that it is bogus, but there are also two victims who deserve some closure.

<comment><USER19> Also, why has it taken so long for him to agree to an interview on the rape allegations?

It hasn't. The Swedish prosecutors have been the ones refusing to hold the interview, not Assange.

<comment><USER20> What is the reasoning? They aren't going to fly to Ecuador to interview someone they consider a flight from justice?

<comment><USER21> He's currently in England, not Ecuador

<comment><USER20> Er, the Ecuadorian embassy, but that doesn't alter the point of my question...

<comment><USER22> He's not fled justice in Sweden either, but the UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So we had a 1100+ comments thread full of conspiracy theories for, this?

<comment><USER24> Yes, Assange and wikileaks have built a strong mythos around themselves, in part based on true events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The USA embassy didn't allow Mindszenthy to send any mail they didn't read. As far as I am aware phone calls were absolutely not allowed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Slightly expanded article: [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6f997f97c5f140a29f385ea05f1b6...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6f997f97c5f140a29f385ea05f1b642c/wikileaks- assanges-internet-link-severed-state-actor)

<comment><USER27> Thanks. We've switched to that from [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4e99014f395c40f3854542a5ae619...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4e99014f395c40f3854542a5ae6190f2/ecuador- acknowledges-it-has-temporarily-restricted).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just don't get why these people think that 'silencing' Assange would stop the leaks from happening, don't they (WL) have an algorithm running the dumps, and people ready to take the helm if he died?

<comment><USER17> It certainly doesn't change a thing and they are prepared and decentralized enough to avoid many attacks, but in general single persons can be very important to organizations and wikileaks is not that big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm okay with this.

<comment><USER30> I'd love to hear more about why.

<comment><USER31> he is a democrat.

<comment><USER29> no, but you are an idiot.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Adding something Special to my semester project - <AUTHOR>

I am a CS student at Penn State, and for a class I have to come up with a project that makes use of networking sockets connecting to a MySQL data base, HTML 5, and real time synchronization of the data in the data base.  My idea was the create a website in which that the user is able to submit code in multiple languages(one at first) and save it to the data base.  All code is visible to everyone and able for real time updating from anyone.(Kinda of like Github). This project will be fine, but I was thinking of adding something that would make my site unique from other ie Github or other code sharing site.  Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> Penn State alum here.

Is this project for one of your courses? If so, "finishing in time" would be a great feature to have. Bear in mind that GitHub uses Git to store the code; they didn't need to create a custom database and synchronization mechanism. You aren't going to succeed in up-staging someone else just by reinventing wheel (worse if you end-up with a square).

<comment><AUTHOR> The project is for one of my courses, and I am going to to what I outlined above I was just trying to get some more ideas from other people. We are...Penn State.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Integrate it with Gource? <http://code.google.com/p/gource/> <http://code.google.com/p/gource/wiki/Videos></comment>


Scaleway Pricing Evolution - adis-me https://blog.scaleway.com/2020/price-evolutions-cloud-instances/ <comment><AUTHOR> First they kill their low cost bare-metal servers[1] and ask customers to move to the low cost VPS servers, and now a few months later they increase their prices. Too bad their low cost offer wasn't sustainable.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22922582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22922582)

<comment><USER2> Not only that, but their suggested migration path (without a complete rebuild/rsync) [1] from bare-metal to an VPS was very painful and actually broke two VPS-instances. In the end it didn't work and I only got my C2 to restart after 10 hours.

Their support was unhelpful and they charged me three days of runtime for the broken VPS and all storage used during my migration attempt (before the VPS were shutdown during routine maintainance, not due to my support ticket).

Besides that the migration from bare-metal forces you to use the second-most expensive VPS size because of 10GB storage difference.

I'm really pissed of at how they handled that situation and I'm migrating away from them as soon as possible, especially now with the price hike. I wanted to like them and gave them a more then fair chance but they've wasted it. I think I'll be migrating to Hetzner now.

[1] [https://www.scaleway.com/en/docs/migrate-c2-arm64-to- virtual...](https://www.scaleway.com/en/docs/migrate-c2-arm64-to-virtual- instance-using-rsync/)

</comment></comment><comment> 076ae80a-3c97-4 A shame to see the cheapest dev VPS get such a price hike. This makes Scaleway far less enticing versus DigitalOcean or similar.</comment>


Louis CK: Everything's amazing, nobody's happy - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

<comment><USER2> This is already on the top page.

Though this is the youtube link.

<comment><USER3> Original link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494066></comment></comment>


RapGenius: Discover the meaning of rap lyrics - <AUTHOR> http://rapgenius.com/

<comment><USER2> I've been talking about this idea at startup parties for the last two years. Great conversation piece. I'm pretty psyched someone actually did it, and at the same time kind of disappointed you guys aren't looking at a site I made instead.

On the plus side, yet another real-life example for the "ideas are everywhere; it's all about execution" entrepreneurship file.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Email me if you're interested in contributing -- email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's a lot of content that's not simply translation - context, jokes, etc. Thanks for the link

<comment><USER4> What did you think of The Carter (documentary)?

<comment><USER3> Really enjoyed it. Lil Wayne's an interesting guy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This site is brilliant. Check out the translation for these lyrics: <http://rapgenius.com/lyrics/The-notorious-b-i-g/What-s-beef>

It's quite funny, for example:

"It ain't hard to find me, number one with the "booyaka" Give me the Remy and the chronic, ain't no telling what I do to ya"

The explanation of the lyrics:

"When Biggie gets drunk and high off Remy Martin cognac and bomb-ass weed, there's no telling what he'll do to you! (esp. if you're a sandwich, watch out! Your days are numbered)"

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the love

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kudos to a great use of the Grooveshark API.

I once wanted to use their API in a class project where we had to make a web mashup. It took until 2 days before our deadline to finally get access; and we had since moved on. Since then I've been idly wondering what else I could use it for.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Pop" means "shoot" and Wayne seems to be saying "we shoot so many people that you might mistake the frequent outbursts of our guns for the rapid popping of popcorn"

my only complaint about rap lyrics is the excessive use of over-exaggeration

<comment><USER8> That's one of my favorite things about rap lyrics. Lil-Wayne expressing that he's only mediocre at killing people just doesn't have the same ring to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there any reason to limit this technology to the rap genre? This site looks technologically superior to <http://www.songmeanings.net/> ; maybe they could make a sister site for other genres.

Side comment: I think the mocking/ironically pompous tone of the annotations detracts more than it adds.

e.g.: <http://rapgenius.com/1163>

If you're going to market the site to rap fans, many will interpret the tone as condescending and be turned off. As with any other genre, a lot of fans personally identify with the rapper or the subculture. Even to people who find it funny, the joke gets old quickly. Just explain what the lyrics mean in plain English.

<comment><USER3> It's a delicate balance. Sometimes the jokes work, sometimes they fall flat. We spend a lot of time editing to ensure the content "works" as much as possible. The one you quoted is definitely a sort of throwaway, but spend a little longer on the site and you'll laugh once or twice

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Only half joking: I wonder if you could train NLP models to explain rap lyrics automatically. Actually, you could think of it as a sort of machine translation problem, translating one type of English dialect+jargon into another...

<comment><USER11> This isn't about trying to translate rap vernacular into something grammatically correct, though. It's about annotating lyrics with all of the references and "street smarts" that someone from an outside culture might not know about. Similar to how in high school, we read annotated Shakespeare which explained a lot of the obscure 17th century references that a modern teenager just wouldn't get.

The fact that this is done collaboratively, Wikipedia style just makes it all the more awesome, in my opinion. Great job on this!

edit: Some of these are too hilarious to not share. <http://rapgenius.com/10554>

<comment><USER12> <http://rapgenius.com/7749>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://www.songmeanings.net/> is a popular community site for song meanings, not just rap. I've used it on lots of songs - they tend to have a meaning for most anything.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is interesting but I'd prefer to see mathematical proofs explained verbosely line by line in this fashion.

Transition between two lines of mathematical deduction can be denser and more cryptic than any verse of any rap gibberish (not to mention more useful).

</comment><comment><USER15> I try to be open minded; I try to appreciate the style; I try to pretend it's not just a glorification of criminality, immorality and shallowness, but with every song I listen, I get closer to the conclusion that it's the same goddamn piece of rap.

Would anybody care to prove me wrong?

<comment><USER15> I hope my downvoters enjoy the beauty and art of "Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks / Lick on these nuts and suck the dick / Get's the fuck out after you're done"

<comment><USER16> Are you going to throw the Rolling Stones and hundreds of other classic rock bands under the bus too, because they use swear words and talk about all the girls they boink?

If you ask me, those lyrics are awesome and memorable. You have to be pretty tightly wound to take them seriously.

<comment><USER14> It's not about swear words. It's about lack of any meaningful content. Just bragging, trying to shock by disgusting and being an asshole to everyone, especially woman and police.

Instead of thousands rap songs you could have only two: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXi8WmQ_WM> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03hmS1Brk>

<comment><USER16> Similarly, instead of thousands of books, many postulate you could have just 3-4, but they are just talking about the plot. You may find a lot of similarities in the words of rap songs, but if you took the time to listen to a lot of rap music, then you would know there are a whole range of beats, harmonies, instrumental work, sampling, and other techniques that make rap as interesting as any other music.

This is silly though. I have heard thousands of rap songs, and you clearly have not. I can quote rap lyrics, and you cannot. I can drum out the beat to a rap song, and understand its uniqueness, but you cannot.

So, why should I argue with you? Go educate yourself, and then we can talk. I wouldn't talk to a non-programmer about the merits of protypical inheritance, and I see no reason to talk to you further about rap music.

This comment is even a waste of time, but you and Scorp's mindless drivel gets under my skin.

<comment><USER17> I'm pretty open minded when it comes to music. I can take something from almost every other genre of music, but I'm bored to death by rap. I could overlook the violence and crassness if I could see (or hear) some redeeming virtues, yet they have always eluded me. Is there a particular song or album you would recommend to experience the genre at its best? What makes it interesting to you?

<comment><USER16> This very popular song by Wyclef Jean is musically awesome, has great lyrics, and while it talks about "thug life" and prostitution, I don't think it's particularly offensive to women, nor does it glorify violence. I even like the use of auto-tune here.

[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wyclefjean/sweetestgirldollar...](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wyclefjean/sweetestgirldollarbill.html)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aj1sznTdLM>

<comment><USER17> Isn't this more contemporary R&B? Although it makes use of a hiphop rhythm, and there is some rap interjected here and there, it's not really what you would call a rap song, is it? Also, I was hoping for something considered really great in the genre, something your children will listen when it's no longer fashionable. This song, while not terribly offensive, seems rather vanilla and it's hard to imagine people listening to it in a couple of years, let alone decades from now. I doubt Autotune will age well.

<comment><USER16> And now we have gotten to the root of the problem with blanket commentary like "Rap sucks." Rap is a very diverse field of music, and only an ignoramus could write it all off as one package.

<comment><USER17> What blanket commentary? Who are you quoting? I'm thoroughly bemused by your response. I was looking for something definitive for the genre. I could be wrong, but what you put forward seemed slightly outside of the genre, or at least not representative. I was looking for the rap equivalent of Sgt. Pepper or the Dark Side of the Moon, if such a thing exists.

<comment><USER18> Sgt Pepper would be "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" by Public Enemy, and Dark Side of The Moon would either be "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" by the Wu-Tang Clan or "Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde" by Pharcyde.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) curious what kind of CMS is powering this site

2) wanna meet the creator and light up a blunt

<comment><USER3> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Word to your mother.

</comment><comment><USER20> I already knew all this.</comment>


Concerning Git's Packing Heuristics - <AUTHOR> http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/technical/pack-heuristics.txt;h=103eb5d989349c8e7e0147920b2e218caba9daf9;hb=HEAD;resub=ofcourse <comment><USER2> Not that it's all that relevant, but njs, who plays the part of the questioner in this transcript is one of the developers behind monotone.

</comment><comment><USER3> very useful, thanks</comment>


The Feds Lost Net Neutrality, But Won Control of the Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/01/one-talking-comes-net-neutrality/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty bizarre how the author applauds payola as a misunderstood champion of the underdog. It's illegal because abuse of power for monetary gain always leads to harm for the consumer.</comment>


Dark – holistic lang, editor, and infrastructure, for building back end services - <AUTHOR> https://darklang.com <comment><USER2> Hey folks, apologies that there's not much on the web site. You can read more at [https://medium.com/darklang](https://medium.com/darklang). We're also launching on Monday, so there'll be much more information up then!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sounds similar to Unison in some ways</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your GitHub repositories? - <AUTHOR> Those forked repositories you create just to submit a PR... do you throw them away later? How clean do you keep your GitHub repository list? <comment><USER2> I created separate organization for all my boring forks.

I delete forks that I no longer need.

</comment><comment><USER3> I keep them so when people view my profile they think i'm 10x. by the same token I open random 1 change pull requests to popular repos to make myself look like an integral part of the community. Gotta collect them green squares

<comment><USER4> Now they'll just read this comment and know the truth lol</comment></comment>


Snailmail Photos To Friends With Facebook's New Postcards Feature - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/09/facebook-postcards/

<comment><USER2> Hey, Bryan from Sincerely here. If you want a similar integration with your app or service, we have a simple web api: <http://dev.sincerely.com>

<comment><USER3> Looks pretty awesome! Can you give me some use cases?

<comment><USER2> Ship API literally just launched, so the sky's the limit. Mailing a postcard is as simple as hitting two methods (upload and create). After running Sincerely for a little over a year, we've definitely witnessed how meaningful getting something in the mail can be.

Our Ship Library partners have done some interesting stuff: <http://dev.sincerely.com/partners>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Still don't know why Facebook doesn't sell collated physical photo albums. I would without a doubt order ones for my wedding, multiple of our kids birth and birthdays (for grandparents as presents), along with other special events like graduations. You and your friends already upload the best pictures from these events to Facebook, just give me a way to select 20-30 and place them in a template to be printed and mailed.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure of the resolution at which FB stores photos. At any rate I don't think it's standard practice for people to upload originals in the first place. So large scale printing might not be that simple.

<comment><USER2> Max they store is 2048px on a side, which is plenty for a 4x6 print. That doesn't mean that all of Facebook's photos are stored at this resolution, as I believe the max size was increased relatively recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I haven't personally printed a photo in the past decade, the market is surprisingly large for photo printing services. A new revenue stream could be quite meaningful to Facebook as their ad revenue slows -- in 2011, Facebook did $3.7B in revenue while Shutterfly did $473M in revenue.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh yeah, Facebook keeps enough resolution now to make acceptable postcards. Now if they would just keep basic metadata, they'd be an acceptable import source for all kinds of other services.

</comment><comment><USER8> What a great way to get addresses!

<comment><USER9> Some people just have to look at everything negatively

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone use "postcards" features? I've seen this on cell phones since about 2003 when they started getting cameras, but I've never heard of anyone ever sending or receiving one.</comment>


I was falsely arrested - <AUTHOR> http://iwasfalselyarrested.com <comment><USER2> The state needs to financially make whole persons who are wrongly arrested. There needs to be a standard set of damages that get paid out to someone who is in jail wrongfully.

I would propose that the state owes you double the highest paid salary that you have earned in your career for the duration of your stay in prison. This is to both make a person whole for their missed earnings, and to repair the damages that having an arrest on your record does to your future earning potential. Further, there should be a minimum cap of $5,000 / month, and a maximum cap of $1M / year. Finally, I would propose that this value goes up by 10% each year to account for potential career growth over that time.

Not only does this attempt to make someone whole for the time that they lost, but it puts a _real_ financial burden on the state for making these kinds of errors. Right now, the state faces almost no downsides other than the cost of housing someone in a prison.

Edit: as noted in a comment below "Wrongfully arrested" may be more appropriate read as "Wrongfully jailed". This program or policy would be targeted at affecting _prosecutorial misconduct_ and not police misconduct. While police misconduct is still a massive issue I think there are different policies that should be used to address police misconduct.

<comment><USER3> > _" a real financial burden on the state for making these kinds of errors"_

I agree with everything in your post except this; the state does not care whether it is burdened or not, it simply taxes the citizenry to cover these expenses. At least a portion of this compensation should come from the responsible parties if this type of problem is to be discouraged. Imagine that you are a prosecutor or police officer set on obtaining a conviction for moral, corruption, or career reasons; will the possibility of future costs to the state give you any pause, or make you reconsider your actions?

<comment><USER2> These numbers need to be tied directly to the prosecutor who put them in jail. I am not willing to go so far as to say the prosecutor needs to _pay_ for the cost, but it should absolutely be a part of their record. I think it would be acceptable to come out of the prosecuting office's budget. They are a part of a prosecutors performance evaluation.

So, when a prosecutor says: "I put away 300 people, with a 97% conviction rate" their supervisor can say: "Yes, but you also cost this office $250,000 with your 2 wrongful convictions. We're passing on you and giving the promotion to Janice who put away 260 people on a 95% conviction rate, but only cost the office $10,000."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There really seems to be a disparity between perceived and actual justice in the United States. I bet 95‰ of the population of the US thinks all people in prison deserve to be there and the miscarriages they hear about are the only ones that occur. I dread to think how many innocent people are actually in US jails.

<comment><USER5> There is probably a 3-5% error rate in the justice system. At least that is the academic consensus currently. 3-5% of 2.3 million prisoners is 70~115 thousand people.

<comment><USER6> If there is a 4% error rate with prisoners on death row, I'd imagine that it's even higher in the general prison population (because they're subject to less scrutiny?).

<comment><USER7> So long as the majority population deems an error rate to be preferable to letting the more extreme criminals (rapists, murderers, arsonists, blah) 'walk free', there will be an error rate.

I'd sooner let ten all-but-certain criminals walk free than convict even a single innocent person. But I am not most people. Furthermore, there is not a good demonstration that decreasing the error rate (which would require imprisoning less _actual criminals_ whom lack certain evidence, etc.) is _beneficial_ for society as a whole. I mean, there's no studies showing it is any worse off either, but I digress.

It's not an argument you can make to most people - they'd rather "keep their family safe from potential murderers" than "not be sentenced to 20 years in prison for a crime they didn't do" because _they cannot imagine themselves being sentenced for 20 years for a crime they didn 't do_ but they _can_ imagine a criminal harming their family.

<comment><USER8> How many guilty people would you set free to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? You said 10.

But probably some of those 10 will be repeat offenders. So how many innocent people will you see murdered in order to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? That's a different question, isn't it?

I think this gets to the question of "beneficial for society as a whole". If you stick some plausible values on this (say we're talking about people accused of major crimes, recidivism rate = X%, some weighted values assigned to harm for false imprisonment, being raped, being murdered, etc., and some plausible relationship between false conviction rate and non-conviction of those who are actually guilty), then it should be possible to calculate an optimum rate of convicting people.

(Two notes: First, as the rate of false convictions goes up, the rate of non- conviction of the guilty goes down. Second, calculating the optimum is going to depend on the exact values chosen for all those parameters, but it still could be an interesting exercise.)

<comment><USER7> _> How many guilty people would you set free to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? You said 10._

All of them. With the difference in terminology: They are not being "set free" after being "knowingly guilty" but "remaining free" after "uncertain evidence".

 _> But probably some of those 10 will be repeat offenders. So how many innocent people will you see murdered in order to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? That's a different question, isn't it?_

I'm well aware of the entire argument you are trying to make. Which is why I said the false conviction rate exists. People are willing to trade security from potential repeat offenders at _someone else 's_ expense, while never imagining _themselves_ as that someone else.

Let me ask you this:

Would you serve a lifetime prison sentence for a crime you did not commit?

If you are not willing to serve one yourself - you have _absolutely no right_ to ask someone else to do so for your or societies' security. That is my stance on this. People are only okay with this because they never imagine themselves becoming a part of that statistic. Likewise, nobody ever thinks _they 'll_ be the one to die in a car accident and even less that _they 'd_ be at fault for the accident. But it happens.

<comment><USER9> >Would you serve a lifetime prison sentence for a crime you did not commit?

The thing is, if you let a serial killer off the hook because you didn't actually catch him red-handed (though the other evidence is very reliable) then you're killing innocents by inaction.

Therefore, we can reframe your question as: "Would you let you and your family get murdered by a repeat offender to ensure that no innocents are imprisoned?"

As long as there are prisoners, there will be some amount of innocents imprisoned, simply because it's almost impossible (entire impossible?) to prove that someone did something to a 100% certainty. By setting such insane standards you're killing way more innocents than the amount you'd falsely imprison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It sounds to me like there was only one mis-step in this story. The mis- identification was resolved quite quickly once the accused had a competent private lawyer. So it seems to me that this case is not an indictment of our legal system as a whole so much as it is an indictment of underfunded and/or incompetent public defenders.

What if we tried funding the public defender's office with the same average amount of money per case handled as the prosecutor's office as? What effect would that have on both justice and people's perception of justice? And is this a simple enough test to be run with either public or private funds in a few sample municipalities as an experiment?

<comment><USER11> The mis=identification was not resolved quite quickly, and notice how they still think he did it. But why did it take a competent private lawyer to deal with the mis-identification?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The state wouldn't admit their mistake because they have potential civil liability for imprisoning someone that clearly couldn't have been the perpetrator. The DA's refusal to drop the charges even after the obvious differences between perpetrator and the defendant were pointed out was outrageous and almost certainly constitutes willful misconduct. This guy can and should sue.

The larger issue is that prosecutors do this kind of thing routinely. Since most of them take jobs as prosecutors with an eye toward obtaining higher- paying jobs at prestigious law firms, perhaps the best way to combat this type of behavior would be a name-and-shame website. Every DA insisting on outlandish sentences for minor crimes, or that refuses to drop charges in the face of clear evidence that the someone is innocent, should be named and their record of inhumanity should haunt them at the top of Google search results for the remainder of their career.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm happy that this guy finally got out of jail. Here's hoping he doesn't let this terrible tragedy hurt him the rest of his life.

I support any reasonable thing the public can do to help folks like him out. We live in a security state, and video cameras everywhere are beginning to show how rotten it is in places.

Having said all of that, I do not want to see us become self-indulgent with pity. There are 300 million people in the U.S. There are tens of thousands of cops. You could run a video like this everyday and statistically there still wouldn't be much incompetence or corruption going on.

It presents us with an interesting problem, which I'm seeing in not just police incompetence/corruption cases, but all across the political spectrum: when you have large numbers of people, even if an extremely small percentage of them do bad things, it's easy to paint a picture of them all doing bad things. That's true whether it's cops, members of political party X, members of group Y, or so on.

Note that I'm not saying it's an insignificant problem. I'm saying that this type of presentation, while powerful, provides us with zero context to gauge the size of the problem at all. When we consume such content, especially when it's highly emotionally manipulative, we should remember this.

<comment><USER14> Why are you bringing it up if you don't think it applies in this situation?

I always get nervous when people say stuff like this because it's like... he says he doesn't think it's a small problem, but then the only thing he's talking about is how we have to be careful making claims about scale... Why would he bring that up except to question the scale of the problem?

But I must be missing something, because you explicitly said you're not doubting the scale of the problem. Maybe you can help me understand what you are trying to say about this story.

<comment><USER15> Reflexive defense of authority is a pretty common pattern. People doing it don't realize they're doing it, or they wouldn't. That's one of the fundamental mechanisms of racism, among other unpleasant things. Hardly anyone _thinks_ of themselves as racist, so when they make a racist argument (not saying this one is, just making a broader point), they don't think it's racist - they think it's all about the equality.

The classic example of that is the "All lives matter" response to "black lives matter". Saying black lives matter is a response to the daily bigotry and institutional racism that black people in America suffer, every day. Responding to that with "all lives matter" is a way of disempowering even the acknowledgement of institutional racism, of denying the unique (and uniquely negative) experience of being black. But it _sounds_ like equality. People who say it don't say it to be racist - quite the opposite. Being racist by acting not-racist. It's ironic and strange-loopy, but that's how it works.

Take it back to the post you're responding to. It's a reflexive defense of authority, the "few bad apples" argument. The first response to obvious institutional racism (really, this case boils down to "all blacks look alike") is to shout "Hey, the System isn't broken!" It's _not_ broken if you're white, and you don't recognize how it treats people who aren't like you. It disacknowledges the experience of the individual at the hands of the System, by making sure defending the System comes first.

Thinking about this stuff is hard. Just watch... this comment will get a _lot_ of downvotes, for even saying this stuff out loud.

<comment><USER13> You know, I'm perfectly capable of explaining why I do things.

Look at what you've done here: you've taken away my agency. Instead of letting me engage in a conversation, you've pronounced some over-arching reason for my comment, thereby not only eliminating anything I might have to offer, but wiping aside any category of comment that is similar to mine.

Gotta watch that. It's perfect fine for an internal dialog. After all, we can't take a year to figure out what everybody we run into is thinking, but in an open conversation, well, the important thing is to _converse_. Who knows, each of us might learn something.

 _"...Thinking about this stuff is hard...."_ \-- It hurts, but somehow I'll manage.

<comment><USER15> 1\. My point was that you _can 't_ always explain why you do things. That "you" isn't personal, btw. It's true of everyone, myself included. We all respond according to our social conditioning. Thinking we're so smart that social conditioning doesn't apply is stupid.

2\. I haven't taken away your agency, or rejected you from conversation. We're conversing right now, aren't we?

And yes, we might learn something. Are you learning, or just reacting to perceived criticism? In the first paragraph of my original comment, I _explicitly_ excluded you from the broad discussion of racism I went into. I shouldn't have to do that, it should be obvious. But one thing I've learned in these discussions is that people take things personally when they shouldn't, then immediately make the rest of the discussion _all about themselves_. Which is exactly what you did here. We're not talking about either the "few bad apples" you raised, or the problems of social conditioning that I raised. We're talking about how offended you are that I spoke up at all.

If you can learn _anything_ from this, learn to be aware of the risk of doing that. It's an incredibly frustrating thing for those on the other end. It's a major reason why women and minorities are very wary of discussing sexism and racism with white men. (And no, I'm not accusing you of being sexist or racist, so stop right there.)

<comment><USER13> Thank you.

I'm leaving my comment in place. It shows a nice example of not paying careful attention to the conversation. Too much of that on the net already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This man was clearly and obviously wronged by law enforcement and the justice system, and it's nice to know that at the very least he won in the end.

With that said, I can't agree with the statement "If the cops had done their job, two people wouldn't be dead." That line of reasoning, when extended, can be applied to pretty much anything.

The only people culpable for the deaths of the two people robbing the gas station are the individuals themsevles - they chose to rob a store, and suffered the consequences.

<comment><USER17> I get what you're trying to say, but you're wrong. Culpability is not the same as cause and effect. Either you are conflating the two concepts, or you are assuming that someone else is conflating the two concepts.

"If those cops had done their job, two people wouldn't be dead." This is a statement of cause and effect. It is not a statement of culpability.

Imagine that I said, "If you had remembered to lock your car, your backpack wouldn't have been stolen out of the trunk." You can accuse me of "victim- blaming" or you can realize that I'm not stupid and I actually do understand that the thief is to blame for the theft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Four genuine questions:

1\. Isn't there something called prosecutorial misconduct? Surely that would apply now.

2\. Isn't it defamation to say someone committed a crime when they clearly didn't?

3\. Being incarcerated must be awful, _especially_ if you are falsely imprisoned. There must be legally available remedies for false arrest and miscarriage of justice?

4\. His defender was manifestly inadequate. What sort of liability is there for deliberately not defending your client properly?

<comment><USER19> When you can (barely) afford an attorney after rotting in county with a shit waffle public attorney begging you to take a deal you're not exactly a threat.

Public defenders are notoriously shitty. I have an acquaintance who gets into legal trouble every now and then that is quite smart despite being so stupid. He uses a public defender most of the time and has to actively micro-manage them. This includes what motions to file and who to contact. If he is in jail this can also require reaching out to friends to visit the defender in person so they can't just ignore him. If he doesn't do this they just ask him to take a deal.

They are underpaid, overworked and they deal with actual shitty evil people every day and sometimes the only way to tell the difference between them and the innocent is simply their word. Attorneys you hire can overcome the last issue by being paid enough to offset it.

I think the public defender system needs a complete overhaul. I can't think of any solutions that don't have their own downsides but everyone deserves a fair trial and an attorney whose interests are aligned with their own. The best outcome you can hope for right now if you're poor and subject to prosecution is either a rare defender who cares but is also not overworked or a bright eyed and bushy tailed grad who's out to change their world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> this is so depressing. I hope Janeil brings a suit to the state for their blatant disregard and misconduct

</comment><comment><USER21> My takeaway is that public defenders seem to be practically worthless.

I wonder if the problem can't be fixed with a bit of self-help. Black communities could contribute to a fund that would be used to keep a law firm on retainer to deal with criminal accusations on any of their members.

</comment><comment><USER22> John Oliver (Last Week) on public defenders: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4)

</comment><comment><USER23> How can eu still claim that they think it was Janeil? That's fucked up

</comment><comment><USER24> Everybody here in the comments seem to take the story on face value. Meanwhile, the only video attached to the post is pixelated to the highest degree, and you certainly can't see facial features on it.

Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER25> Why is this being downvoted? The 34s video they released has 3 offenders, and you can't see any of their faces.

While this could be not the only surveillance video in this case it doesn't really collaborates anything said in the post.

<comment><USER26> Because...innocent until proven guilty. But according to the parent comment, guilty until proven innocent. The author of the story doesn't need to prove anything to you. His experience and the fact that he was ultimately released from prison should be enough.

<comment><USER24> > But according to the parent comment, guilty until proven innocent

Where did I state something even remotely close to this?

<comment><USER26> You said "Everybody here in the comments seem to take the story on face value.".

You're implying that we shouldn't take the story at face value OR that the author is being dishonest about his experience.

Then you say, "Meanwhile, the only video attached to the post is pixelated to the highest degree, and you certainly can't see facial features on it. Am I missing something here?"

A clear call for proof.

<comment><USER24> You are correct, this is call for proof.

It seems that in your worldview, one either believes the author, or calls him a liar. But in real life, the third option is actually more optimal in majority of cases. This third option is doubt.

<comment><USER26> By definition, if you doubt someone's story, then you don't believe them. It's fairly simple, but if you would prefer to pretend that you didn't say what you said, that's certainly your right.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the cheapest stand-alone camera that's better than the OnePlus 7? - <AUTHOR> Short version:
What is the cheapest stand-alone camera that takes pictures of better quality than the best cell-phone camera?
<joke>If you think this is off-topic, let me remind you that this is an optimisation problem</joke>
Slightly more context:
My smartphone's (Xiaomi A1) camera broke, and I am trying to choose between buying a new phone (OnePlus 7, 560-700 euro-ish) and buying a standalone camera. I don't need a new phone - the one that I have works. I do not care about photography, it's just that I would like to have _something_ decent to take pictures with when I travel. Repairing my phone's camera is not something I want to do since it was a bad camera to begin with. That puts me squarely in the category of "smartphone upgrader" in terms of what camera I want to buy.
So what is the cheapest camera that gives slightly better images than the OnePlus 7, while being (considerably) cheaper than this phone? My budget is around 350 euros. <comment><USER2> Possibly a cheap DSLR kit like a Nikon D3500 or the Canon equivalent.

Personally, I prefer a pocket-sized camera, but they become expensive if you want a decent zoom lens, RAW file support, and largish sensor.</comment>


Chinese scientists admit to tweaking the genes of human embryos - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-scientists-just-admitted-tweaking-205300657.html <comment><USER4> Regardless of how we feel about genetic engineering, is anyone else tired of seeing manipulative headlines in regards to any news that comes out of China? Every-time I see a story about China, it has a negative connotation. In this case, "Chinese scientists just admitted to tweaking the genes of human embryos for the first time in history" is purposefully inflamatory. They didn't "admit" it, they actually tried to get it published in some major science publications. Use of the word Admission implies they were trying to be sneaky and hide the results. Thats not the case at all.

Journalists of the world, have you no idea what you are doing? Purposefully causing misunderstanding between nations is the path by which wars are paved.

This is a sore subject for me because while Im American, my wife is Chinese, and therefore half my family is Chinese and lives in China. I do work with Chinese developers everyday, but to hear the world news pundits put it, those developers are by default criminals. This needs to stop.

<comment><USER5> Is it "journalists of the world?" It just sounds like American propaganda to me, I haven't noticed a similar sentiment towards China in Greek news, for example.

I think Russia and China get the "criminals by default" attitude in the US.

<comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, I looked up recent China headlines in some UK papers. Method: Google News, search the newspaper's domain for China and list the first three. Includes opinion pieces, and also syndicated ones (though I think even for syndicated editors will usually write the headline). I also included evaluations of positivity and negativity, but of course YMMV.

UK (total: 4 positive, 2 neutral, 3 negative)

The Guardian: "China warns North Korea's nuclear arsenal is expanding"; "How China's Macau crackdown threatens big US casino moguls"; "Chinese school bars windows and balconies to stop pupil suicides"

2 positive, 1 negative

The Daily Mail: "Japan ministers go to Yasukuni a day after China talks"; "Volvo prepares to send 'Made in China' cars to US"; "Host Malaysia avoids Chinese ire over disputed sea at ASEAN summit"

1 neutral, 2 negative

The Financial Times: "China spells out cost of meeting pollution targets"; "Made-in-China cars steer course abroad"; "Mercedes-Benz fined over China price-fixing"

2 positive, 1 neutral

USA (total: 2 positive, 3 neutral, 4 negative)

NYT: "China's Big Plunge in Pakistan"; "Xi Jinping of China and Shinzo Abe of Japan Meet Amid Slight Thaw in Ties"; "Chinese Regulators Fine Mercedes-Benz Over Price Fixing"

1 positive, 2 neutral

WSJ: "Executive Shows China's First Home-Grown Electric Sports Car"; "China Says Please Stop Hiring Funeral Strippers"; "Debt Builds in China Stock Rally"

1 positive, 2 negative

WaPo: "What China's and Pakistan's special friendship means"; "China's pathetic crackdown on civil society"; "This Chinese feminist wants to be the country's first openly lesbian lawyer, and police harassment won't stop her"

1 neutral, 2 negative

USA papers do appear to be more negative, but another trend is right- leaningness being predictive of Sino-negativity. So the apparent country connection may just be a side effect of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am pleased to see that they are at least being open about the fact that things aren't quite working as they expect:

 _They also found a "surprising number of 'off-target' mutations," according to Nature News._

This is the thing which scares the daylights out of me around genetic engineering generally. While some genes expressing differently will present clear dysgenic properties, others may not evince until much later in life - <USER2> perhaps even in subsequent generations, by altering gametes or epigenetic in- utero signalling or whatnot in unanticipated ways.

Yes, we can do epidemiological statistical studies to understand what individual genes affect, yes, we can do this for combinations of genes - <USER3> we can't study the affect of genes on subsequent generations, apart from in drosophila studies and what-not - which frequently end up demonstrating that yes, these edits do have unanticipated affects a dozen generations down the line, particularly when multiply crossed with other variants, and random mutations.

If human genome tinkering ends up common place, we will end up either with strict reproductive controls, or we will end up reproducing through cloning, and our evolution becomes entirely self-driven. The alternatives are likely just too dangerous.

Edit: sorry, forgot one of my points. Right now, we rely on statistical studies to understand what parts of the genome do. This could be remedied by having adequate computational power and models to actually simulate an organism from the molecular level up. Only then will we actually have some degree of control, and _true_ understanding of what we are doing.

<comment><USER8> If you are worried about off-target mutations, you sequence a cell and see if any showed up compared to the parents' genomes + intended edits, and if they did, you toss that embryo.

<comment><USER9> You may only be able to sequence 30% of a single cell's exome (not even its entire genome), so you will not have that level of certainty.

<comment><USER8> So grow the embryo further and sequence more of it, or draw upon the prior information about off-target rates to make the best use of 30% coverage and pick ones with inferred rates which are acceptably low. Or use even more CRISPR to get rid of existing mutations to maintain total mutation load at normal rates... Many options.

(Really, all these comments sound like people trying to find an excuse for why it doesn't work, rather than consider how it could work.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Admit" is a pretty loaded word. The results were published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal by the scientists.

</comment><comment><USER11> To clarify the ethical problem in this research: It's not the same as in stem cell research. When just using stem cells for research, and not "growing them out" to a human being, the main ethical issue is "messing" with creation, however you believe creation happened or what it means for your religion or morality.

But in this research, the intent is to let the embryos develop into full human beings. It would be unethical to edit such a genome if it is uncertain whether or not the individual will suffer due to these changes.

The problem they talk about is that you trade one deadly or very damaging mutation with a couple dozen other mutations with unknown consequences. These are almost certainly harmless, but the risk of introducing another catastrophic defect is still too big.

To make this tradeoff more secure you would need to sequence the embryo's genome at a certain state in its development (after gene editing, but before transplantation) and check it for errors. But we neither have the technology to get accurate genomes from a few (or just one) cell, nor do we have the genetic maps required to tell if mutations have consequences or not.

<comment><USER12> you obviously didn't read the article. They are using embryoes to be diacarded with defects that would never be able to develop into human beings.

<comment><USER11> The technique is useless if it is not applied to embryoes which can develop. Sure they may be doing it to nonviable embryoes currently, but that's not the goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read the article that was kindly submitted here to open the thread. I read all the comments that were posted here before this comment. I read the underlying _Nature News_ article that the submission was based on. Reading that, I discovered that the underlying research paper, "CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human tripronuclear zygotes,"[1] is open-access, so we can all read it for ourselves to see how what is reported by the study authors compares to what is reported by the thread-opening news story.

[1] [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-015-0153-5](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-015-0153-5)

</comment><comment><USER14> "In the west, we have debates about whether we should intervene to prevent disease or use stem cells, while the Chinese just do it on a massive scale. When I was in China, some researchers showed me a document from their Academy of Sciences which says openly that the goal of their biogenetic research is to enable large-scale medical procedures which will "rectify" the physical and physiological weaknesses of the Chinese people."

\--Slavoj Zizek

<comment><USER15> Where is this quote from?

<comment><USER16> [http://io9.com/5627925/slavoj-iek-wake-up-and-smell-the- apoc...](http://io9.com/5627925/slavoj-iek-wake-up-and-smell-the-apocalypse)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Strangely, I think this is a case of "this is something that is going to be done eventually by someone somewhere, so it might as well us". US religious "morality" that dictates we shouldn't "play god" is going to cost the US the leadership position in genetics science and research. It's already code the US in terms of stem cell research.

<comment><USER18> Western religions (various forms of Christianity) formed under hundreds of years of virtual and real slavery conditions. The Roman empire wasn't exactly the friendliest place to live if you were an outsider. Therefore a big part of the belief system is the value of the individual. IIRC, Christianity was one of the first belief systems to suggest that all people _were_ actually people: up until then, "people" was just part of whichever clan you were in. Other folks were sub-human.

So the real question in regards to both abortion and embryo hacking is how much value we place on other humans -- humans of a different color, humans that are babies, humans that disagree with us. Do we treat them as we would want to be treated? Or are they basically disposable?

I'm not a religious person, and the theology gets very complicated, but it's not simply a matter of "religion says this must be bad, so I will reject all science and progress!" Folks on both sides of this discussion tend to over- simplify the positions of the others. Didn't believe you were doing that, but I felt the discussion could use a little more clarification.

<comment><USER19> _So the real question in regards to both abortion and embryo hacking is how much value we place on other humans -- humans of a different color, humans that are babies, humans that disagree with us. Do we treat them as we would want to be treated? Or are they basically disposable?_

This gets particularly interesting when we consider that most people would be absolutely horrified at the idea of killing humans which are "imperfect" in some way, yet as one of the sibling comments says:

 _Its perfectly fine to take an active hand in evolution by selective breeding through marriage, thus "remove "bad" genes from a family tree and potentially adding "good" ones._

Presumably the creation of the embryo would've involved some degree of selection already, so "embryo hacking" seems more like patching bugs before birth... and this process is basically on the border between controversial abortion and widely-accepted selection before conception. I suppose your opinion on it rests on some deep notion of what you think humans and life is/should be.

Also non-religious and ambivalent about this - if only for the fact that governments and corporations are likely going to eventually figure out how to use this tech to their own advantage...

<comment><USER20> > _This gets particularly interesting when we consider that most people would > be absolutely horrified at the idea of killing humans which are "imperfect" > in some way, yet as one of the sibling comments says:_

>> _Its perfectly fine to take an active hand in evolution by selective breeding through marriage, thus "remove "bad" genes from a family tree and potentially adding "good" ones._

Eugenics got itself a bad name early in the 20th century, but if you discard that cultural meme, the basic idea of purposefully improving genetic traits does make quite a lot of sense. It's that meme that makes people discard the concept wholesale.

<comment><USER21> Eugenics got a bad name because they've tried to play god by sterilizing people [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization) . There is no cultural meme here.

<comment><USER22> There was also the socially-constructed "ideal" human that eugenics strived for, or how it designated non-white races as "inferior" genetically, or the subjugation of the individual's fitness to society's "needs". My feeling is that these ideas are "not even wrong" enough that they'll incrementally come right back if you don't place a moral firewall around the entire concept.

<comment><USER20> > _My feeling is that these ideas are "not even wrong" enough that they'll > incrementally come right back if you don't place a moral firewall around the > entire concept._

Interesting concept, I haven't thought about that this way before. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> o0-0o One of my friends runs one of the largest water districts in Australia. Upon learning I went to Singapore for a business trip, he told me a funny story about the lack of concern for anything but progress in areas with large Chinese populations. He was being given a tour of the Marina Bay, which is the central bay in Singapore, by the Chinese developers leading the project. They bragged how they dredged the entire bay, reinforced the walls with concrete, and so forth. Basically, they took a natural bay that had existed for thousands of years, and enhanced it to be more stable and sterile. In noting their progress, the Chinese developers stated that they had to move the fisherman to a part of the city that was not so clean, shiny, and modern. My friend, being Western, asked them what they did with all the fish. The Chinese laughed and laughed. They thought he was joking.

<comment><USER23> > asked them what they did with all the fish

The same thing they did at places like Sydney Harbour, I presume :)

That aside, the double standards present in this comment is breathtaking.

<comment><USER5> I don't get the joke, what did they do with the fish? Did they just migrate away?

<comment><USER23> Well, what do you think? Do people "relocate" fish when they develop a coastline? The joke here is that his "Western friend" actually took himself seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why the surprise? This is a logical next step to the Chinese Eugenics program that has been going on for decades.

[https://edge.org/response-detail/23838](https://edge.org/response- detail/23838)

Welcome to the brave new world, whether you like it or not, it is here and it will only expand.

</comment><comment><USER25> "We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?"

Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, "Dynamics of Mind"

</comment><comment><USER26> "My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?"

Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter

</comment><comment><USER27> How long before someone the EPOR gene and creates a set of unbeatable endurance athletes, ala Eero Mäntyranta ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Mäntyranta#Genetics](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Mäntyranta#Genetics) )?

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm ambivalent about this. For one, like I've mentioned before¹, I'd like to have humanity in one piece, for as long as possible, and the genome meddling cuts dangerously close in this regard. For another, this is progress and although I don't take pleasure admitting it, setting limits to R&D effort in this direction comes plain and simple out of fear and nothing else. I don't like thinking of myself to be some kind of zealot fighting for religious dogmas. Humanity may not be "ready" only in our perception.

¹ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8253039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8253039)

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the main findings of this work is that within the exome (coding part of the genome) they found many off target mutations. However, there did not seem to be much/any effort to design their plasmid to minimise these off target mutations.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's a brave new world.

<comment><USER30> Yes, a brave new world. [http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the- world-with-a...](http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a- massive-genetic-engineering-program)

<comment><USER31> I don't think ....

'they have any imperial ambitions to spread China's borders—they're not going to act like Nazi Germany or America in the 20th century—but they do want respect and they do want influence and they don't trust America or Europe to run the world in the right way, in terms of issues like global warming or equality or economic stability.'

Well, that's alright then.

<comment><USER32> I have a firm suspicion that most geo-politics are a farce; that the same money that runs the West, runs the East.

That's because - if you always want to win, you play both sides.

<comment><USER14> Win what?

<comment><USER32> Mainly control or leverage over people. It's quite easy to create your own order out of chaos if you're the one who is providing the chaotic events. The British Empire conquered the East a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, now we can all go home and watch Gattaca (1997) smugly.

</comment><comment><USER34> Contrast this (Chinese eugenics) with our dysgenic system of subsidizing defective genetics for the profit of the medical industry, and, well, the obvious result is that western civilization is in big trouble!

More info from this link that shiven shared below: [https://edge.org/response- detail/23838](https://edge.org/response-detail/23838)</comment>


How to program if you are blind - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/q/118984/127880 <comment><USER2> Locked. I honestly don't know why anyone would bother contributing to Stack Overflow at this point. It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere, and a virtual wasteland of locked/deleted questions that are actually of use in the non-black and white world we live and work in. This real world ambiguity seems like it is completely intolerable to the mods at SO.

Not sure how the rest of you feel but in my mind if the answer is black and white, the question was probably bad.

<comment><USER3> > "It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual > questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere"

That's _exactly_ what StackOverflow is meant to be.

I feel like I'm the only one who appreciates what StackOverflow is trying to achieve here - to be the place to document hard, solid facts - nothing more. If I wanted to read commentary and opinions on programming, there's always HN or Slashdot.

<comment><USER4> Maybe you _are_ the only one who appreciates it. I sure don't.

I'll have a question, I'll google it, be excited to when Google finds that someone else has asked the exact same thing, and then disappointed to find that it was asked on StackOverflow, where the Red Guards will inevitably have discovered an interesting question and taken steps to make sure it isn't answered. Hint to SO mods: it's not the question that is "unhelpful", it's _you_.

While Google manages to sort through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms, SO goes at it from the other direction, making sure so few questions are answered that what remains won't overwhelm its 1980s-era MS-DOS search technology.

I appreciate Joel's letting us use his vintage '486 to gather the world's biggest collection of code snippets, but I'm hoping someone with less primitive technology will replace SO with a system focused more on providing answers than on preventing questions.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what kind of questions you normally have, but I didn't really have much trouble getting answers from StackOverflow. It's no accident that when Google "sorts through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms", the first link is almost always StackOverflow ;)

Also I think it's pretty impressive that Joel managed to make the website run smoothly on a vintage 486.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last year a young blind man who recently got a degree in computer science did an AMA on Reddit. It was one of the most inspirational things I've read on the Internet. Looking back at it now makes me feel ashamed that I'm not enjoying life (or programming) as much as this guy clearly was

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_day_i_was_born_and_lovin_almost/)

Here he answers someone how he can program while blind

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fpxzk/blind_since_the_day_i_was_born_and_lovin_almost/c1hs654)

</comment><comment><USER6> Anecdote: In college I earned a few bucks working as a tutor. One of my jobs was to assist a blind student. I think they were an EE major. I wasn't tutoring, though; I was dictating an engineering textbook onto cassette tapes.

The school was in a converted office building. I was given a portable tape recorder (this was back in the paleo-Eighties, when analog ruled the Earth) and I would go up to the top of the stairs by the fire exit and sit in the landing to do my recordings. It was a reliably quiet place. (Also a good place for a mid-day nap.)

The book was, of course, filled with equations. At first I tried to read them aloud and that's OK for some things but some were just _complicated_. That's when I was given a special drawing board. It was a clipboard with rubber padding and clear plastic sheets. I used a stylus to write on the plastic, pushing down into the rubber padding to leave an indentation.

I hope technology has a improved a bit since then.

</comment><comment><USER7> As mentioned in the SO question, the head of Google's accessibility team, T. V. Raman [1], is blind. I feel like this speaks volumes about the opportunities for disabled programmers on its own, and, though a bit cliche, reinforces the thing I love most about engineering--in many ways, this line of work is as close to a pure meritocracy as one can get. I hope Mr. Raman would agree that it seems fitting that someone who is blind himself would be sensitive to the needs presented by blind and low-vision users of computer software, and I'm happy he's around to provide guidance for accessibility features for a company like Google.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._V._Raman>

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there a video of a blind person programming somewhere? Even though I see the description, I still don't understand how someone can possibly program without being able to see.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've wondered about this too, since I can't really picture myself doing any sort of programming without my vision. My problem is juvenile arthritis which came on when I was 12 and will probably leave me with another 8-10 years or so before the pain will be too unbearable to continue. I'll be around 40 then.

I really don't wanna program "Captain's log, supplemental" style. Besides, how does one do CamelCase with speech-to-text?

It's because of that and because I'm getting tired of tech, I've started to wean off programming into something more artistic, but won't require as much dexterity.

<comment><USER10> > Besides, how does one do CamelCase with speech-to-text?

My guess would be tight integration with the IDE and knowledge of the language being used; most of the time, the editor should be able to figure out that chained, non-keyword or existing identifier words should be CamelCase. You'd need some manual way to disambiguate when it gets it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You need either an amazing memory (to remember all the code), or a Braille screen that supports all those annoying signs like { }. The downside is going to be no code overview ... to help with that the braile reader should support | like ribbins: this way you can set the space/tab symbol to | (in programs like Vim). This will allow you to more easily follow indentations.

After thinking and writing about it, I'm more concerned about other applications, cause to write code you just need a text-editor. Browsing, Office, ... is going to a far more painful experience...

</comment><comment><USER12> _it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site_

Stackoverflow feels like it's turning into wikipedia sometimes.

I thought it was an excellent question for SO's knowledge pool.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know the productivity level of a blind programmer compared with an average programmers? I'm pretty curious about this for a while now. If my sight suddenly gone, can I actually retain my current productivity level with rigorous training and suitable development tools?

<comment><USER14> As a blind programmer I would say that I can be every bit as productive as my sited peers with comparable experience levels for back end development although not nearly as productive for user interface work. If you suddenly lost your site I'm not sure how well you could program, the way I use a computer is significantly different from how I understand sited people to use a computer. I also assume the way I generate a mental model varies from most programmers and don't know whether you could adapt existing mental models for use with our site or would have to start from scratch. If you lost your site you would want to focus on things like basic independent living skills and the ability to use a computer for general internet browsing before you attempted to learn to use screen reading software well enough to continue programming. While you could probably obtain a similar level of efficiency after losing your site it would be a process that would take several years at the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I read his page years ago, and found it quite interesting: <http://emacswiki.org/emacs/MarioLang></comment>