How is it like to be a dev in Iran - <AUTHOR> https://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran <comment><USER2> My heart breaks for these devs. I've been able to launch a successful development career specifically because I was born in the US (and my parents left Iran). If I was the same person in a different geographic area I'd be struggling under sanctions.

Companies definitely need to push back on extra egregious legal teams who want to block services Iran, as it's mostly paranoia and not that the services actually fall under the jurisdiction of our sanctions. I know amazing people at Google who are doing this work, and I hope others at other companies do the same.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the point of sanctions to cause frustration by restrictions?

<comment><USER4> It is. But you see, those hit hardest by sanctions are neither the cause of trouble nor anti western. Those are usually people like you and i, while the "elite" can smuggle in whatever they want and access whatever they want. Not only that but regular folk is weakened and cant stand a chance against the well fed government. No sanctions means greater exposure to our way of life and thus an easier path for grassroots change. If anything, i'd make government owned proxies available to iranians and chinese and all those oppressed so they can access censored content. I'd also make it easier to smuggle in technology so they can show others what they are missing on by supporting their criminal governments.

<comment><USER5> There is a Soviet joke, on unrelated subject, but relevant.

A father informs his son that the prices have gone up. The son asks: "Does that mean that you will drink less?" \- "No son, that means that you will eat less."

<comment><USER4> Not a joke tho. For some people that's what it meant in communist east Europe. But good thing you brought this into discussion. Communist east Europe didn't have sanctions against, and as a result people would smuggle all sorts of western goods, up until they figured out: hey the politruks have all those fancy things, while we are told "west bad", "west capitalist corrupt", we should overthrow them. An oversimplification, but that's how it works. Regular folk get to learn that they have to struggle to access the modern world because of their OWN government, up to the point where they figure out "screw it, let's join the free world, i want my fancy cars and my fancy colour tvs, life is too short to praise a false prophecy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> throwaway-ba9 Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

I'm one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I've literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author.

I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I'm partly to blame, it's worth highlighting that this is a by-product of United Stats policies that create pressure on US companies. I'm most certainly _not_ a lawyer, but if this sort of thing bothers you, be cognizant of candidate policies about technology if you want to help enact change - because I doubt most companies will provide services to these and other regions if it'll break export law.

<comment> throwaway-klsdj This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don't realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose.

Certainly most of the people in Iran are similar to most of the people around the world. In kindness, compassion, in just trying to get their daily job done and enjoy time with friends and family. If only it was easy to distinguish between the good, the bad, the indifferent. Probably a lot of sanctions don't hinder the most threatening of Iran's activities, while impacting the population. But it does have an effect (not always the ones intended, perhaps).

If the government in power over you is in conflict with others, and/or in conflict with it's own people, it's going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government. True for the USA and everyone else. Another lesson that the USA has been illustrating repeatedly recently is that it's probably better for a nations citizens to reform their government themselves, instead of a foreign power. Until that happens, yes their lives are not going to be as free as they'd like. It's hard and there is a cost to be paid for those freedoms. Many of us are fortunate in that those before us did the hard work and we get to enjoy the benefits. Good luck to the author of the blog, hopefully they can find good solutions.

<comment><USER6> > I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by > Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored.

It's hard to posit a moral high-ground here, when basically every state is actively seeking to undermine the others' cyber security, including the US. Stuxnet is one of the most formidable state-sponsored cyber security exploits, and that was targeted at Iran, it seems easy justification to increase their offensive capability.

I have to admit some naivete here, I don't know the frequency and scale of cyber attacks emanating from Iran, but I'd guess that hostile foreign policy from the US would only intensify that threat towards the US.

<comment><USER7> I don't think Stuxnet forfeits the moral high ground. It was narrowly focused on attacking a specific military project. It's exactly the kind of thing I want the CIA (or whatever) doing, especially if the alternative is sending bombs.

State sponsored attempts to hack public network infrastructure fit into a totally different category. These are not the same.

<comment><USER8> Before stuxnet Iran had absolutely no cyber capabilities. In the years following it they have built some of the most formidable offensive teams on the planet.

There's plenty of literature on this. Whoever created stuxnet created another monster too.

<comment><USER7> You imply that without Stuxnet, Iran would not have developed these capabilities. That seems improbable. At some point every "bad actor" is going to realize the possibilities of cyber warfare - even if just for ransomware revenue - and want in on the gold rush.

<comment><USER8> I'll bet everything I have that they wouldn't have anywhere near the capability they now have in $currentyear after stuxnet.

From what we know the US was doing everything possible to be restrained about this stuff, keep it on the downlow as is the way, and history has shown they were very much right. It's insane what's happened in the aftermath.

We created a monster. We really did. It's clear to anyone watching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > not all servers like to get traffik from TOR. For instance, CloudFlare > annoys when you are accessing its servers through TOR.

 _This_ is why you shouldn't ban Tor. In some places, it is absolutely necessary.

<comment><USER10> it's also why you shouldn't abuse Tor with web scraping or other actions that lead to sites blocking it

<comment><USER11> This is why you shouldn't use CloudFlare, whose good intentions lead to not so good places

<comment><USER12> When 80% of traffic from an IP is malicious and the other 20% is regular traffic, but both sources look like the same traffic (impersonating browser headers, sometimes running headless chromium), what else can you do? Cookies and stateful cookie-like objects, such as privacy pass.

Can anyone report how well privacy pass works nowadays?

<comment><USER13> > When 80% of traffic from an IP is malicious and the other 20% is regular > traffic, but both sources look like the same traffic (impersonating browser > headers, sometimes running headless chromium), what else can you do?

Accept the traffic, taking the bad with the good. We all know the ills of visitor profiling regardless of effectiveness.

<comment><USER14> That's an easy position to take when you personally do not bear the expense of the extra bandwidth, increased hardware needed to ensure acceptable response times, and cleanup/reputation damage when you are compromised.

All of these things have a cost, and they should be balanced against the benefit seen by allowing open access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was a little surprised that Docker even returns text indicating why the request was blocked with the 403 status code. I wonder if there are any services trying to comply with sanctions in this way that are using response code 451 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_451](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_451))....

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't think of a historical example of economic sanctions even moving the situation toward the putative goal of regime change in the target country, let alone achieving that goal.

I've lived under UN sanctions imposed on Serbia under Milosevic regime during the nineties. Two things happen: 1) people in the regime leadership don't suffer 2) the little people who do suffer feel attacked and rally around the leader. Pretty much the opposite of what the sanctions ostensibly aim to achieve.

This same dynamic played out in Cuba, North Korea, Iran, you name it, for decades with no good effect.

What brought Milosevic regime down was the aerial NATO assault and its aftermath, not the sanctions.

As far as I can tell sanctions are a way for US politicians (they may be imposed by all the western countries, but I can't think of an example where US wasn't the leader) to look like they are punishing the offending country without going to war. They just don't seem to work.

<comment> throwaway-klsdj I'm not sure the entire plan is to get the country to do what you want. It's also about not supporting your enemies. Why send them raw materials, hardware, software that they will then use to fight against you? This seems to have worked for the countries you listed and a few more with the possible exception of Iran. They are much weaker than they could have been and are therefore not as significant a threat.

<comment><USER16> That rings true to me, and it sounds very cruel and depressing. By that measure it hasn't worked with North Korea either, slowly but surely they have turned into a significant threat to US.

It may also turn out to be just a short term improvement in safety. Hatred toward the West as the perceived, and real, tormentor festers in the population over generations, and that's a very bad thing long term.

I'm not saying I know of a better solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The modern computer world is so interwoven in the internet now. It was only 20 years ago when every company I worked had physical computers, no internet access (except email) and every piece of software had to be installed from CD.

I wonder if/when a big war or disaster occurs much of our computer world will just break. We've built an extremely fragile system now.

<comment><USER18> This is also a subject of intense interest to me. We're in uncharted territory here, and the most relevant historical example imo is WW1 where all major participants began the war without giving any real thought to oil and left the war knowing oil (and the vehicles it powers) was arguably the single most important strategic factor in wars during that time period (and still today really aside from speculation).

It seems plausible, if not very likely, a similar paradigm shift will occur after the first serious cyberwar occurs. We will learn a lot of lessons.

<comment><USER19> Yes!!! The current world power structure is underlain by the control of oil. That's going to change radically in just ten years. Because of solar, wind, and electrified transportation Makes the control of oil vastly less important.

And just like 1914 the dominant powers are clueless.

<comment><USER14> GP posted:

> left the war knowing oil (and the vehicles it powers) was arguably the > single most important strategic factor in wars during that time period (and > still today really aside from speculation

Then you responded:

> That's going to change radically in just ten years. Because of solar, wind, > and electrified transportation Makes the control of oil vastly less > important.

Unless the US military is making a solar, wind, or electric powered series of fighter jets and tanks then the control of oil will be relevant until at least the middle of this century if not the end of this century.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Effects of sanctions totally slide off the elite and shit all over the poorest members of a society.

<comment><USER21> It is sad the sanctions have that side effect. Hopefully it's enough to affect some change in a hostile country led by an oppressive elite.

<comment><USER22> Sanctions (in the form that the US is applying them to Venezuela and Iran) are a form of economic warfare. The idea is to cause economic instability by stopping (oil) exports, and thus cause general instability. Now, there are mismanagement arguments you could make but it would be naive to ignore the massive effects that US (and importantly, US ally) sanctions have on a country that relies on exports.

The effects on Iran are not side-effects. They are clearly the primary goal.

<comment><USER23> The sanctions hurt from the bottom up. The elites who own the economy lose some money but they are eatill comfort.

<comment><USER24> The elites in countries like Iran and Venezuela derive all of their wealth by theft from the bottom 99%, without exception.

Just take a look at the extraordinary pile of wealth and power the fake theocracy in Iran has thefted away via Setad (about $100 billion stolen from the Iranian people). Reuters has done great investigative reporting on this over the years:

[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1)

It turns out Khamenei is nothing more than a Putin-like kleptocrat, a thief, using religion as a cover for building a massive corporate empire on the backs of the poor Iranian people (from which he aggressively steals property). Everything about modern Iran makes sense once you read about Khamenei and Setad.

The people in the bottom 99% are the only ones who can change these countries. If you could take most of the personal wealth of the members of eg the Maduro regime in Venezuela, it would change absolutely nothing. They ultimately rule by gun, through military control. The majority - including large sections of the military - has to turn against the leadership to spur change.

Countries have no moral obligation to support the Maduro or Khamenei regimes (which is what happens when you freely trade with them and prop them up through hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment and oil purchases). Someone will reply to this and say: well the US is exactly the same as Maduro and Khamenei (or worse). The only proper response to that is: ok, sure, boycott or embargo the US, give it your best shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I do not know how others feel. But I feel resentment towards embargoes (and calling their poodle countries to follow suite) placed on other countries just because they don't tow your line. Going to Iran's backyard and threatening them and then cry when they retaliate (a pretext to start war)...its so...pathetic. In fact most of the 20th century wars were started using this kind of baiting.

<comment><USER26> Most of the comments below you are correct in the scope of the last 10 years, but in the context of the last 50 are absurd.

For those curious about how and where the whole "Iran thing" started: A freely elected Iranian president decided to nationalise oil fields. This irked British Petroleum (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at the time..) and the USA, so they initiated a coup to overthow the government [1], complete with CIA-paid Iranian mobsters to push the Shah regime.

Years after this imposed rule, the western-propped government was overthrown with an.. anti-western government.

If you look at Iran with the context of 15 - 20 years history, it's impossible to understand the government's rabid anti-west stance. If you zoom out a little bit more - you understand completely.

Finally - the Iranian people suffer incredibly under this regime. The Persian culture has over 5000 years of rich (non-islamic, incidentally..) history. I'd sincerely advise traveling to Iran if you'd like to understand geo-politics a little better.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)

<comment> saiya-jin Travelling in Iran is amazing experience - completely unspoiled from tourism, amazing history left and right, very warm and welcoming people, almost everybody speaks OK english (and most signs are dual farsi/english). For an experienced travelers / backpackers, this is one of the best places to experience these days.

Btw one addition - we all know that US embassy was stormed and employees held hostage in 1979. It gave US political ammunition for decades to come. Do you know why it was stormed? Because it was proper CIA headquarters in all this meddling and impoverishment of iranian people for decades. They shielded themselves with diplomatic immunity. Not something you see mentioned in the (rather bad for all that empty patriotism) movies. But wouldn't you be pissed off if they did this to your own country? To have the potential for greatness due to rich oil reserves, but having little from it because some foreign power installs corrupt ruler to have safe access to oil. Sounds like an african story.

Those employees taken? Most were involved or directly in CIA payroll. No respect there, nor much sympathy. Spies are generally either executed or traded for.

<comment><USER27> > very warm and welcoming people

I'd second this, one of the friendliest country I've ever been to. No significant tourist industry yet so most people are not trying to sell you anything. I think it's a genuine wish to be friendly to travellers and especially so given they don't yet get many travellers.

You're somewhat curtailed as a US traveller (not sure if that's still the case) but for anybody else, go.

One tech curiosity from over there: one guy said he used a USB stick that contained his browser and stored his internet history on the stick when in internet cafes (his only way online). That way when the cafe was audited none of his data would be there for inspection by police/security.

<comment><USER28> Many people would probably use 'portable' software (in the Windows-world sense) in internet cafes, but I imagine most cafes forbid USB sticks or at least running your apps.

Even if a cafe uses some sort of sandbox environments that are wiped after each visitor, there's a danger that you'll bring in a 'Scriptkiddie 2019' exploit pack on the stick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I feel for you and I know that normal people are always the victims of sanctions, not the privileged and rich. I hope one day your people will be free. Sincerely.

</comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one to see this as a positive side effect of sanctions?

Now Iranians have a legitimate reason to use TOR: bypassing sanctions. Turns out it allows them to bypass censorship as well and brings more people into the Tor network.

<comment><USER31> The user experience on Tor is not great at the best of times. I can't imagine trying to do something like `docker pull` or `npm install` over it, let alone technical research.

<comment><USER30> Having tried to use a censored internet in China, I suspect it beats the alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "People are dying due to absence of medicines. People are starving. The economy system is falling apart and the politicians and their children are all abroad! None of them have any sense about what is going on the streets."

That is not what we (the West) are hearing in mainstream media.

Edit: I may well be wrong on this as others have pointed out.

<comment><USER33> That's kind of by design. What other effect do you think the total economic embargo would have? It's not like they're some super advanced country that's independent of anybody else for tech.

Good (for the US) news is, it's working. They're getting ready to negotiate, hence the UK tanker intercepts etc. Weak negotiating position, need bargaining chips. I kind of agree with Lindsey Graham: if you just want nuclear power, there's no need whatsoever to enrich your own uranium. You can buy fuel for reactors from the enriching nations, no problem. I'm sure, given the situation, you could even negotiate the price down to nearly nothing, as well.

<comment><USER6> > it's working

The last deal for de-nuclearization already worked, but it was inexplicably terminated.

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

<comment><USER34> Explications: supporting war in Yemen, Al Assad, Hezbollah, etc.

<comment><USER6> And yet none of those explications were cited by Trump. They would seem like obvious rhetorical wins for populist support of the fight against terrorism. A more honest explanation would have to ask what the US government stands to gain from renewed sanctions of Iran.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action#Political_influences_and_decisions)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Ten years ago when I still lived in Iran I was a wizard working my way around the "filternet". I had even taught my mom to setup a socks proxy through an SSH tunnel!

<comment><USER36> I do this at work to get around the company firewall. Pretty useful technique!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Seems like it could be dangerous just to blog about these activities if you live in Iran?

<comment><USER38> Unless you are not in Iran and this is propaganda.

I am not a fan of IRI by any stretch but that post does not pass the smell test. And last I checked -- I have relatives in Iran -- no one is "starving".

As for Iran's government not wanting its citizens spilling their daily beans on an Israeli platform, that's pretty sensible. (Would Israel permit its citizens to chat away on platforms from Iran?)

How difficult is it to redirect to a server outside of Iran?

Who resolves "shahinsorkh.ir" for your browser? DNS lookup says 184.108.40.206 and that is in California, United States, and not Iran.

"Let's go invade Iran so Iranians can access Facebook and not starve!!!"

<comment><USER39> >Who resolves "shahinsorkh.ir" for your browser? DNS lookup says 18.104.22.168 and that is in California, United States, and not Iran.

because it's cloudflare

<comment><USER38> Exactly. And that is where the trail stops. that ".ir" is worth precisely zip as far as verifiable facts are concerned.

This guy has his full name and his employer on his blog. His employer, "Douran Group"[1], lists Iranian banks, Ministry of Agriculture of Iran, Ministry of Broadcasting of Iran, the Postal Service of Iran, and even a "Islamic Conference" as their clients.

"TOR", "VOA", "Facebook", "Israeli" platforms, and "starving" Iranians, and "elite" entirely unaware of the condition of the populace.

[1]: [https://douran.com/fa- IR/Dourtal/1/page/%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D...](https://douran.com/fa- IR/Dourtal/1/page/%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84%DB%8C)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Dear devs,

Please stop using Google Cloud Platform to host your projects.

GCP blocks Iran, so by hosting any part of the app on GCP, your apps become impossible to access from Iran. Azure and AWS do not do this. This form of blocking is exclusive to GCP.

After the switch to GCP, Iranians lost access to gitlab. Firefox Monitor is blocked in Iran for the same reason. The list goes on and on.

I don't believe Mozilla team for example has consciously decided to block Iran, just that their devs do not know about Google's policy regarding Iran. I hope all devs learn about this fact, so they make informed decisions when choosing cloud platforms.

<comment><USER41> Or... maybe developers should not play the games the Iran goverment want them to play and every effort should go towards throwing the current dictatorship not to stop using what they want us to stop using?

<comment><USER42> Oh sorry, how many times did you overthrow your government? Any tips?

<comment><USER41> My government doesn't need overthrowing yet, so no tips over here; there are some excellent books about it tho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Definition of terrorism according to Wikipedia:

"Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror among masses of people; or fear to achieve a religious or political aim."

How economic sanctions and maximum pressure different from terrorism? Putting a lot of pressure and pain on ordinary people to achieve political goal, which in this case is surrender of Iran. This is economic terrorism, plain and simple.

<comment><USER44> The answer to your question is in the text you quoted: intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror. Economic sanctions may be justified or unjustified, moral or immoral, but they are distinctly different from indiscriminate violence.

Muddying the definitions of words really doesn't help anyone and indeed makes the discussion harder to have, as communication is only possible if both/all participants can agree on their communicative medium - i.e., that they are both using words to mean the same things.

<comment><USER43> I didn't say it is "Terrorism" I said "Economic Terrorism". Economic sanctions by definition are indiscriminate. Now there is a shortage of some cancer and MS medication in Iran and people are dying because of it. Even though the medications are not sanctioned, the financial transactions are sanctioned and these medications cannot be purchased easily. How isn't this violence? According to the UN, sanctions on food and medication is a crime against humanity. We have seen this period of sever sanctions on Iraq in the disguise of oil for food program. We know how it ended.

I don't want to justify the actions of Iranian government, in my opinion most governments are evil and power hungry. I am just pointing out that the goal of sanctions, even according to the US officials is to cause suffering for people ultimately in the goal of regime change.

Sever economic sanctions are just another tool in the empire toolbox. Be it against Iran or Cuba for example.

<comment><USER45> "I am just pointing out that the goal of sanctions, even according to the US officials is to cause suffering for people ultimately in the goal of regime change"

No, you're not in fact pointing that out, you're just stating it without providing any evidence at all.

If you're saying 'the goal is to cause suffer _according to US officials_ ' surely you'd have a quote for it? You won't because they did not say that and you just stated something not in evidence. Officially, the purpose of the sanctions is to get 'a better deal'.

<comment><USER43> Just refer to John Bolton, you can find many instances. He gave a talk for MEK which was in the US terrorist group list.

<comment><USER45> Surely you can provide one.

It's true that Bolton argued war is best option several years before joining this administration, but that's not your claim. Your claim is that he (or some other official) said the purpose of the sanctions is to make the common people suffer, and I can't any statement to that effect.

<comment><USER43> Yes, you are right they didn't literally say that because in that case it would be legally troublesome. I think it is childish to think that this is not pure coercion either to the negotiation/surrender table or public unrest. By the way, Bolton didn't just advocate war/unrest years ago. It was last year [1].

I understand the importance of being exact, but by being pedantic in a political context without considering motivations and effects is trivialization.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cenpiO6LMpE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cenpiO6LMpE)

<comment><USER45> Ok, so you don't have a reference. If we take the admin at its word, they say they want a better deal.If you believe Bolton doesn't follow orders, than he seeks war. The one thing nobody of any disposition ever said they seek is 'regime change'. That's because a ground invasion is inconceivable and homegrown revolution unlikely when it's the regime with all the guns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It seems like some of those obstacles are also opportunities. For example, the point about not being able to get a MasterCard or Visa and therefore not being able to use AWS makes me think there's probably an opportunity for a neat business renting out VMs to Iranians with whatever payment they can use.

Of course AWS does a lot more than just rent VMs, but it seems like a relatively straightforward part of the business to copy.

<comment><USER47> Being on the wrong side of us sanctions is not a happy place.

<comment><USER46> I was imagining this as an opportunity for Iranian devs, who are, presumably, already on the wrong side of US sanctions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Its an ongoing war. Just without bullets. My concern is that people will see him mention things like censorship and for them that will justify an invasion that results in mass killing and destruction.

Does anyone know exactly what sort of actual submission they are looking for from Iran? I really don't believe its about nuclear development.

I hope that any Iranians who can get out will get out.

<comment><USER49> Iranian living in the U.S. here.

During Obama it was:

We will choke you to death unless you give up your nuclear ambitions.

Now it is:

We will choke you to death unless you shoot yourself in the head.

U.S. is bullying Iran right now and people are starving to death. All because of a partisan issue. Unbelievable.

<comment><USER48> Do you think it is a partisan issue or do you think it has to do with long term military strategy such as the Strait and fossil fuels? My guess would be they essentially want total military submission, something like a base inside the country.

<comment><USER50> AIPAC has a great influence in both parties.

And don't forget the military industrial complex and its influence to break the peace and sell more weapons.

<comment><USER51> AIPAC has influence because politicians wants perception of an ally to "defend" and so have better support for their policies. This is not about real genuine support for Israel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I notice that doubleclick won't serve to Iran. A very small silver lining to the huge black cloud of sanctions...

</comment><comment><USER53> There are full data sets out there of stack overflow and Wikipedia, etc. After reading this I'd love to get that in the hands of more Iranians and others. It's most likely not illegal to deliver the actual data as long as its not via the web.

<comment><USER54> One of his complaints is that they can't even reach Docker docs and just a few minutes ago I ran into an issue where Ubuntu didn't have a manual page for a build in command. We have been so accustomed to having access to the internet all the time that systems no long ship with the required documentation.

If more tools actually shipped with complete documentation, then the Iranian developers life would be just a little easier. I would imagine that they have access to Docker, via mirrors, so why isn't the entire Docker documentation just included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> While the Iranian regime is somewhat less than perfect, the US has no business interfering in that region. The establishment reason for tensions is to protect (nuclear armed) Israel and oil (with some other knock on oil based relationships like SA). Guess what though, Israel has nukes and we desperately need to stop using oil as soon as possible. Why not just drop sanctions and stop tearing up perfectly good nuclear deals?

<comment><USER56> A deal with no adequate verification regime is not a good deal.

A deal that gives billions of dollars to the worlds largest supporter of terrorism is not a good deal.

It is appeasement.

When fascist regimes like what run Iran say things like how they're going to nuke Israel and the US, that this is a goal they are pursuing, I believe them.

It's sad that the Iranian people have to put up with the fascists who control their government, but appeasing their government will not solve anything.

<comment><USER57> Your first two points are not really supported by facts. The nuclear deal had a relatively invasive verification regime. I also don't understand why people refer to Iran as the world's largest supporter of terror--what specific terror acts are we speaking of?

Any negotiated deal will have tradeoffs. The US's latest policy of total humiliation as articulated by Pompeo seems destined to fail. The regime is not going to sign for that and it will grow increasingly confrontational without options.

<comment><USER45> "The nuclear deal had a relatively invasive verification regime"

A 'relatively invasive' inspection regime where you had to get permission in advance from Iran to visit 'military sites', and nearly all of the restrictions were temporary.

"what specific terror acts are we speaking of?"

There's a pretty massive civil war you may have heard of, where Iran is on the side which uses chemical weapons. Or maybe we could mention sending lots of IEDs to Iraq to kill Americans. Or bombing the AMIA center to kill Jews. And we can't forget the Rushdie affair. Really, the list is endless.

"The US's latest policy of total humiliation"

Got it. Demanding the regime to halt interference in foreign lands == "total humiliation" Holding hostages like Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe != "humiliation".

<comment><USER58> > A 'relatively invasive' inspection regime where you had to get permission in > advance from Iran to visit 'military sites', and nearly all of the > restrictions were temporary.

Thankfully, you can detect traces of nuclear material for months and years: [https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2019/04/iaea- inspec...](https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2019/04/iaea-inspections- iran)

On the other hand, you might now get less access, an Iran as a nuclear threshold state, and the war to stop it might not happen after all.

> There's a pretty massive civil war you may have heard of, where Iran is on > the side which uses chemical weapons. Or maybe we could mention sending lots > of IEDs to Iraq to kill Americans.

Those things at least are not terrorism by any reasonable definition.

<comment><USER45> 'Detecting radioactive traces' isn't anywhere near enough.

You need to 'detect' centrifuge building and storage otherwise their breakout time ( = time to get nukes from the time they decide to just ignore the arrangements) is reduced to nothing and there isn't enough time to stop it.

Unfortunately, centrifuges don't have to be loaded with radioactive material before activation, so a large construction program would be undetectable under this scheme (especially given that some research and construction of centrifuges was allowed).

Another problem is actually the long trace detection time: that allows Iran to claim any trace is from the old nuclear program, and not a new one (that claim already happened. It's probably right _this_ time). Since Iran was never asked to account for the old program, it can make the claim for any new site ever. It's not trivial to disambiguate whether a sample is new or old after a certain threshold, these are trace amounts after all. There would be plenty of room for doubt. With no possible proof, there would be no support for action against any new program.

"These things are not terrorism..."

I gather that Iran's support for genocide/mass ethnic cleansing is no biggie, but if you allow that in service of the deal, I wonder what you will allow in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wow. Reading this felt like a continuous nightmare, can't image living in such a restricted country. Very enlightening read, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER60> This is so sad to read.

</comment><comment><USER61> Few things I learned recently: Iran is cut off from all international banking, wire transfer, SWIFT etc. This means Iran must pay by hard cold cash for everything. Sometime cash is sent in shipping container! Iran had few countries helping for export import like Russia, North Korea and few 3rd world countries. Recently Trump administrators have tighten up screw so much on this that any company found to be doing transactions is also then cut off from International banking system. US now tracks all ships going around Iran, runs audits on them and enforces sanctions. Countries like Saudi Arabia is also top enemy of Iran which puts additional pressure on other countries for sanctions. I can't imagine how average tech savvy person would be able to survive in Iran.

</comment><comment><USER62> Any DApp developer/startup care to comment on this? Blockchain/distributed ledger is often touted to be resilient against attacks, censorship resistant etc. etc. blah blah blah, so how well will they function against the will of the United States?

@muneeb? @perlin-network?

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm sure you heard of China GFW, We have strict censorship too, especially during some event, we have used shadowsocks, v2ray. Lots of users reported tcp packet was dropped, but you can use shadowsocks with v2ray-plugin, or v2ray https over cdn

<comment><USER64> Hi, do you have any servers for shadowsocks I could use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Has anyone here managed to hire people from Iran? Our immigration lawyer told us it would take more than a year to even get an appointment at the embassy - I've tried calling multiple times and ultimately gave up. We're in Europe. It sucked because we had a few promising candidates. If you happen to have any special insight / loop holes that you are willing to share with me over email, I would really appreciate it.

</comment><comment> throwaway-76727 Has anyone ever heard of a charity fund for buying VPN access for people in repressive, low-income countries?

NordVPN is 2.62 EUR per month right now for a 3 year plan. It seems like a lot of good could be done for not much money.

<comment><USER66> Public VPNs will get blocked more frequently than private VPNs.

I think a better solution is go setup a bunch of private VPS and setup VPN servers. Then share each of them with a few dozen people each. You can get them for $12/year or less at lowendbox / lowendtalk

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> "Even in US we can find certain domains which are blocked and cannot be accessed like those which contain CP or wild anti-humanism contents."

Is it true? I always assumed US never blocks access to websites. They would rather ask the hosting provider to take down the website or try to arrest the author.

<comment><USER68> Yeah my understanding the FBI takes the actual domain down in case of child pornography. But they still won't mess with your DNS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Blocking access to documentation is too much, I think. Sanctions do not require to block any access to the site from countries under sanctions.

</comment><comment><USER70> Forcing HTTPS apparently doesn't help people who could benefit from privacy. You don't _really_ need privacy to learn to code.

</comment><comment> throwaway-29510 I worked for quite some time as a network engineer in a Syrian company.

I'll be honest here, sanctions only slows the internet down because of the VPN overhead, so does the government with its stupid proxies and single point of connection for the whole country, but is it stopping us from doing our job? no.

Censorship: Back in 2010-2011, just before the revolution, ADSL subs were growing fast, government censorship getting tighter. Facebook, Youtube, even Amazon (they don't deliver to Syria tho), are banned. With more websites adopting ssl and people getting more educated about its benefits, government started doing Man-in-the-middle attacks causing the red ugly warning. Fortunately, that didn't last too long, thanks to free VPN services(yes we gave up privacy to foreign firms, to escape local censorship), I believe the government saw that it's attacks are causing people to be more aware of their security rather than helping it in identifying and arresting activists. Luckily most websites use https now. Until recently we didn't have a local ban issue since all the block was done by local forwarding proxies configured to filter certain domains, and only plain http traffic was processed there. I remember seeing Blue Coat hardware being used in some official departments, not sure though if this was used on a larger scale. That was the way to block things, in addition to blocking a few dozens of IP addresses. Now government is trying to tighten the censorship on messaging and VoIP apps to raise the profit for local telecom companies, which are (surprise!) largely owned indirectly by the president through loyal (shadow?) businessmen. They have blocked most connections to Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, their method is not perfect, but most of the people are using proxies like psiphon or even getting a paid subscription. They will probably try to block the proxies too in the coming years (they are very slow tbh). I heard that they are promoting local VPN services, but didn't find anything relevant, though it's highly possible like the Iranian case.

Sanctions: It's a real pain, especially when it comes to payment, but thanks to diaspora and UAE (which serves the main breathing point for the Syrian companies to avoid sanctions), we have a way to pay for and buy stuff. Now comes the online services, which are blocked by US based companies. We're still using proxies for most of the services, but since few years, most ISPs started implementing their own remote proxy service outside of Syria and passing them some traffic, thus unblocking some services like Apple Store, Google Play, and even Snapchat. But for us devs we still have to use proxies to access AWS, GCP (and everything hosted there), Docker, Bitbucket, Gitlab, everything related to android dev, and many other services. Can the government unblock these to help locals do their work? yes. Will they? probably no, they don't need to do so. Since they can get to Dubai or Paris and enjoy their time there it's all fine. BTW, some people who can afford to live quite a luxurious life have Netflix subscriptions.

Tor? haven't used it since the early days of the revolution. Bad network connection with our crappy infrastructure makes tor dead slow.

Personal Opinion: sanctions or not, foreign companies who want to work in Syria, or Syrian companies that want to work for foreign clients, both found ways to bypass it. We have German companies employing Syrians, I worked for a British firm last year. After all, who wouldn't prefer to pay someone $400/mo to get work done than say $1500/mo? not to mention insurance and taxes. Same for locals, even $300/mo is still very good compared to what most companies offer, for an IT guy at least. Finally, we need a new democratic Syria, by helping Syrians people take the lead and rule themselves freely, weakening Assad's family grip, but the government and its strongmen are finding their way to bypass sanctions, so do sanctions really help or are they only affecting the poor? I have mixed feeling. But had the sanctions been meant to help Syrians, they would have confiscated Assad's family and their loyalist crimes supporters billions in the West.

</comment><comment><USER71> What is it like, not how is it like, you could say how was it like. but how is it just doesnt feel right

</comment><comment><USER72> america needs to elect another straight shooter so people don't get confused about foreign policy issues.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qdvm6h8WKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qdvm6h8WKg)

</comment><comment><USER73> There are of course arguments against doing this and in support of sanctions, but I feel for this person.

I think, given that the Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, never met a first amendment argument that he didn't like, these restrictions could probably be eliminated if not narrowly tailored.

Any significantly large software company could sue to overcome general software export restrictions on First amendment grounds, but most likely they won't. Politically it would be shooting themselves in the foot and inviting wrath from Trump, and they don't get paid to support free speech, they usually just do it incidentally.

Perhaps a little more likely, The EFF could sue again _.

Somebody should ask the EFF about export controls on software during their Defcon panel on the 10th or something.

_ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States)

</comment><comment><USER74> I'm a developer in Iran too. Just wanted to say this guy works in Douran (شرکت دوران) company, proudly stated in his page (Which screams amateur and narcissist), they are providing the government with many censorship and surveillance software and services.

They are notorious and hated, like death squad level in the free minded, geek community in the country.

I can't believe his post got this much attention and sympathy without anyone noticing he works in a freedom killing company... what a joke!

Sanctions really hurt... good luck using a good cloud provider, which is a backbone for our daily activities as developers. No doubt about that, nothing new.

The problem is our double standards in the middle east, we fuck up everything then blame it on others. They (west, east, x, y) aren't saints but we aren't either. Here is a clear example of this ugly truth.

I know people mostly from minorities (Kurds, atheists, LGBT, secular, Narenji guys) with death sentences in Iran because of their online activities and if there is a single corporation you can easily blame and point to who lands a hand to the government for their inhuman acts it's them, Douran.

Double standards won't work, you can only fool people for a very short period of time in our era.

<comment><USER75> Thanks for sharing this.

> his page (Which screams amateur and narcissist)...

Pls tone down personal attacks, if you can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Seems near impossible to keep up with modern tech advances if you can't even google stuff properly. :(

<comment><USER77> He says that Google search works but results are irreachable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I may hold an extreme position here. I believe sanction is always a bad idea. I grew up in a formerly sanctioned country, Vietnam. Life was rough for normal people. They become increasingly attached to their sanctioned regime. The US sanctioned Vietnam mainly because it took down a genocidal regime. Sanction is not an effective tool for change.

The right way to move the world forward is to lead by example, to become the society that other countries want to emulate.

</comment><comment><USER79> I have seen a lot of this kind of stuff. Sanctions almost never work, and are almost always a bad idea.

Just like arming rebels against a government, the CIA found out, almost never results in anything good[1], then tried it again[2] and it again predictably resulted in something awful.

When it comes to sanctions, they have exacerbated situations that could have been solved with diplomacy. In the case of Iran, we already had negotiated an unprecedented deal with international inspectors having more access to its nuclear facilities and mining sites than any country in history. But that wasn't enough. The deal was scrapped by Trump simply to erase Obama's legacy[3], with no plan in place. It's not just Trump, it's the Republican leaders[4] and types of presidents the new Republican party tends to elect.[5]

Let's turn to substance and back up the claim abou sanctions. We have seen this movie before. North Korea, cut off from world trade and under threat, was angling to get nuclear weapons. Clinton had negotiated a deal with Kin Jong Il, called the Agreed Framework[6], in exchange for step by step normalization of relations and lifting sanctions. It was already signed and began to be implemented!

Then the next administration entered office - Bush and the GOP called the deal expensive "appeasement" and scuttled it. Instead, they put more sanctions on North korea.

How did that work out? The people got united under the credible narrative that " _they_ hate our way of life and _they_ hate us" and North Korea got the bomb. With a little help from Ukrainians on the black market[7].

What's worse is that with no agreement in place or relations with the US North Korea continued to act as a rogue state and _gave_ nuclear technology to Syria to use against Israel. The Syrian nuclear reactor was covertly bombed by Israelis in a pre emptive strike[8] and no country (including Syria) spoke about this for months.

I could go down the line to show that diplomacy beats sanctions every time and that sanctions radicalize the population and make them _support_ the very thing you want them to abandon.

I will jump straight to Godwin's law. The Nazis came to power because of crushing sanctions on Germany after the Treaty of Versailles. Yes, France hated Germany and yes they wanted them to pay reparations for starting World War 1. But as a result, the German people were reduced to complete poverty and hyperinflation. What did they do? They had a nationalist fervor and pushed for leaders to "restore" Germany, armed themselves to the teeth, and then launched World War 2!

Imagine if there was no sanctions. Would the Germans elect Nazis if they were prosperous? Would North Koreans not develop a rootless cosmopolitan bourgiousie class if they were allowed to trade with the world? These things happen when sanctions are LIFTED. You want to help a country — lift sanctions on its people!

1\. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels- has-...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels-has-pretty- much-never-worked-180953054/)

2\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia- syri...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel- arm-train-trump.html)

3\. [https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-48978484](https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-48978484)

4\. [https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no- compromis...](https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise- pledge-044311)

5\. [https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/12/usa.books](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/12/usa.books)

6\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework)

7\. [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543477518/north-koreas- secret...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543477518/north-koreas-secret- weapon-in-nuclear-program-ukrainian-rocket-engines)

8\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outside_the_Box](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outside_the_Box)

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm always caught by surprise when I see intelligent, educated people ignore the nature and actions of Iran to justify their adversarial feelings towards the US administration.

Iran is on an unprecedented aggressive and violent push towards dominating the Middle East.

They are deployed in Syria, building forward bases to threaten Israel, destabilize Lebanon and pushing it closer to another war with Israel by funding and arming Hezbollah.

They are sponsoring and arming Shiite militias in Iraq and provide them with ballistic missiles to threaten other Middle East countries.

They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war and attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews.

They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans. They are later responsible for the attack on the Jewish community in Argentina in the early 90s. Lately multiple Iranian operative cells have been exposed in Europe, trying to engage in assassinations.

They are bullying Gulf states. They are calling for the destruction of Israel every few weeks.

Iran is developing a ballistic missile program which is intended to threaten Western Europe (they are up to 4000km in range now with their latest missiles).

Finally, Iran hangs gays from cranes.

Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country?

<comment><USER81> Because you are not sanctioning only the military and the government, you are sanctioning everyone in the country. You are sanctioning young people, who just want to live their lives, just like we do. They already suffer from the oppressive regime, and you just want to make their live even harder.

All the Iranians I've met seem like completely normal people. I've never been to Iran, but from what I hear the young people in Iran aren't much different from the people here: They like to go to parties, listen to music, etc. The only difference is that they have to do it in hiding, and that they will get arrested when they do something like hold hands in public when they are not married.

Why would anyone approve of sanctions that make these people suffer even more?

And then, when these people start fleeing the country, asking for asylum, why do we turn them away?

<comment><USER80> At what point should we start to hold ordinary civilians responsible to the actions of their governments?

<comment><USER82> Always. The people _always_ get the politics they deserve.

<comment><USER14> Do the current citizens of North Korea deserve the government they have?

<comment><USER82> The only thing propping up the regime is the society which feeds it.

<comment><USER14> Do you believe that the main reason that the North Korean regime can survive is due to the support of the people?

<comment><USER82> Indeed, its the only reason any regime survives.

<comment><USER14> What practical means of resistance does the average North Korean citizen have?

<comment><USER82> Every possible means. Plus, the decision - and responsibility - to act on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Haha, at this point the only difference between Iran's totalitarian censorship and Western censorship, is that the West does it way better, ref. deplatforming and censorship on both Facebook, Google and Twitter. At this point, even banks are trying to freeze the assets of people they don't like.

He's talking about totalitarian censorship, when most of the totalitarian censorship—and surveillance—in the West are done by Big Tech in cooperation with bureaucratic entities such as the EU and Great Britain. The USA too, but they're more interested in information. (However the US do currently "censor" traders from using foreign platforms that offer leverages that are too high according to US authorities, among other things. For their own good, of course...)

Oh and Big Tech also blocks Iran on many platforms, for obvious reasons. So not only does Iran have to deal with invasive surveillance and censorship from their government, but also from tech companies abroad. Talk about picking the short straw! He's right about one thing, though. Nobody cares about the people. Not in Iran or the West.

Edit: I knew such a comment would be costly, but next time, you could be the one who's affected. Think about it.

</comment><comment><USER84> > People are dying due to absence of medicines. People are starving. The > economy system is falling apart and the politicians and their children are > all abroad!

Sounds like the sanctions are working exactly as intended. No one in their right mind could possibly think that the sanctions would affect government officials or their families. Then again, most people in the US government are not in their right minds.

</comment><comment><USER85> Dear Iranian devs, let's learn to take advantage of the situation instead of complaining about it. Why not learn from the devs in China?! To my knowledge, China blocks no less online service than Iran. China monitors citizens' online activities in ways that very few other countries can. Yet their internet services flourish and engage users in ways nowhere else is seen.

Let's build/clone fancy/popular services locally instead. Haven't we seen how big opportunity that is financially? Doesn't that bring freedom from both the controlfreak regime and sanction-imposing regime?

<comment><USER86> This was heavily downvoted, but I think this can be an opportunity as well.

I am preparing to go to Iran and of this year to travel, and I have been researching about a lot of things. I was fascinated to learn about Daric Pay, an internal payment network that is trying to replace Visa/master.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Proof-of-concept HTML5 version of Starcraft 2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/emnh/rts <comment><USER2> I don't remember the last time a new technology had such a vast distance between proofs-of-concept and widespread implementation as HTML5/WebGL. It's been years now of these amazing demos, and yet every single website I use in my daily life might as well be HTML4.

<comment><USER3> Do you use Google Maps? [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-122.5231115,683a,20y...](https://email@example.com,-122.5231115,683a,20y,106.2h,79.1t/data=!3m1!1e3)

<comment><USER4> I despise the Google Maps UI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stuff of nightmares right here -> [https://github.com/emnh/rts- models/blob/master/images/horse....](https://github.com/emnh/rts- models/blob/master/images/horse.jpg)

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of a rug my mom had when I was growing up <3 Stuff of nightmares is a bit subjective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The first Starcraft in html here [https://github.com/gloomyson/StarCraft](https://github.com/gloomyson/StarCraft)

</comment><comment><USER8> It would be nice if the github pages demo didn't spawn quite as many units at the start as it did. It was basically unusable for me on my pretty beefy MBP.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. I gulped on seeing the progress bar sticking at "Infinity%" (that's a while, whatever the units) but overall it took about 2 minutes on my MBP 2014.

These games-as-HTML5-pages really have to cushion the how 'loading..' resources issue somehow. We should bring back loading screens perhaps?

Note: That's not a knock on this proof of concept, it looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> I reduced the unit count per unit type from 20 to 5. Please try again now.

<comment><USER8> Runs great now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice POC. :)

It ran smoothly (around 25/40FPS) on my 8 years old PC using Firefox 42. :p

</comment><comment><USER11> Crashed my computer

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry. I know it's resource intensive.. Firefox and Chrome have crashed on me many times while developing it, but it froze my whole computer only when there was a memory leak or bug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow - this is amazing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Could Wastewater Injection in TX and OK Trigger the Yellowstone Caldera? - <AUTHOR> Is it possible that all the increased seismic activity in OK and TX could loosen the Earth's crust enough to cause the Caldera to erupt? <comment><USER2> It's not possible. At that scale the Earth is not rigid enough to transfer the strain that far, and the forces involved are too small.

The activity of the Yellowstone Caldera results from large scale processes in the Crust and Mantle. Direct injection into the caldera MIGHT be enough to trigger an eruption that was already imminent.

Qualifications: Degrees in geology and retired from the USGS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

Is there some distance from the caldera where crust disturbance would definitely not be a factor? 1 mile? 100 miles? Greater?

<comment><USER2> The answer to that question is very iffy. I don't feel I can answer it. I'll just say that injection into the caldera during a period of uplift due to magma movement is a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Oklahoma and Texas are over 1000 miles and several mountain ranges from the Yellowstone Caldera. New Madrid, Mo is closer.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. What about the drilling activity in the Dakota's and / or Alberta - Saskatchewan?

<comment><USER3> They are closer to Yellowstone and further from New Madrid. Curious if you have ever been to the Yellowstone Caldera.</comment></comment></comment>


Gen Y Sounds Like A Bunch Of Entitled Whiners - <AUTHOR> http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog/2008/06/17/gen-y-sounds-like-a-bunch-of-entitled-whiners/ <comment><USER2> From the comments:

"email | gen-y tries to minimise email to a void information overload as discussed in previous paragraph. the use of messenger and texting is to lower the characters allowed in a message and get across the point quicker with more clarity."

This is so much bullshit. Texting and messaging are habits, not virtues. Speaking as an entitled whiner, the things I do are not reasoned responses to perceived inefficiencies in the workplace, they're just what I'm used to.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's the kind of ageist thinking presented in this article that makes us Gen Y-ers (I'm 20) hate the older generations.

The only things that matter are talent and skills.

</comment><comment><USER4> can we ban stories like this? they make my worktime web surfing less enjoyable and hurt my self-actualization

</comment><comment><USER5> The author's writing is more immature and less thoughtful than the group he criticizes. There are smart and thoughtful individuals of every age. Enough so that we don't need to submit articles of authors who write like this.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's more like old folks are wining about young people being different. Same old story. One day I will probably join the ranks, too, and the cycle will continue :)

</comment><comment><USER7> In my experience, most people ages 18 to 25 are entitled whiners. (I know I sure was.)

It's ok, you grow out of it.

<comment><USER5> I think it's the whiny I-know-it-all I-was-young-once attitude that annoys that age group.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a little quiz:

If all Gen Yers say, "Not Hacker News."

and some Gen Xers say, "Please don't vote this up."

while most Boomers say, "Same old story, different link."

and I say all three, then how old am I?</comment>


Show HN: Learn Magic Tricks Online - <AUTHOR> https://www.magiccasts.com/ <comment><USER2> A suggestion: let users view the tricks being performed without having to subscribe. I'd be more inclined to part with my cash if I could see at least one trick that I wanted to know how to perform.

<comment><USER3> 100% true. I wouldn't even consider it without this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I gotta be honest, I was super stoked to see this, and was immediately thinking "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY".

But after watching the two "free" videos... I'm actually less inclined than I was before. Watched both and there's actually no "free" lesson at all. Just two infomercials about why I should learn all the beginner lessons that you're now doubt about to hook me in to. That leaves me feeling like you're being disingenuous and has me reconsider.

This is compounded by the unfortunate lack of content. I give you $9, watch the 12 videos...and then what? 1 or 2 new videos a week? This is netflix pricing for a few 5-10 minute videos each month. And when will that go up to $19? All of this adds up to make me super wary. Sorry if I sound very negative... I just went from very excited to very disappointed in a very short period of time :)

EDIT: btw... have bookmarked and will check it out again when there's more content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We agree that our value prop is weaker until we have more videos in the backlog. We are shooting more videos now, and hope to have a large library of videos to offer our customers very soon.

Also, the $9 rate is for life, so when the price increases, early adopters will always be at the $9 rate.

<comment><USER5> >Also, the $9 rate is for life, so when the price increases, early adopters will always be at the $9 rate.

This should be more prominent. "Lock in this price now!", etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this website could be improved by having Europe - The Final Countdown as embedded background music

<comment><USER7> That's true for every website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The concept sounds good. My son likes magic so I thought this would be fun for him to watch and learn. But it's over $100/year. That's a lot of money for only a few tricks. Right now you only have about 1.5 hours of video. That's very expensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We agree, it will be a better value with more videos. We plan on a minimum of 2 videos a week, and over time that will build quite a library. We are filming more lessons now, and are populating the site as quickly as we can get through production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or watch one of the many free channels on youtube?

Why would I pay for the small amount of content here when I could watch Scam School([https://www.youtube.com/user/scamschool](https://www.youtube.com/user/scamschool)) for free with a host who's other work I really enjoy?

<comment><USER10> > Or watch one of the many free channels on youtube?

Hopefuly the quality will be better. Most of the free teaching videos of magic in youtube leave a lot to be desired and are often harmful if you really want to learn close magic.

The link you provide (although way better than average) doesn't offer a structured way of learning card magic, and that matters.

Disclaimer: Please note that I am not related in any way to OP. I'm just a magic aficionado that loves the art and had passed throught the "youtube" phase too.

<comment><USER9> It's fair. Brian's goal is to present magic tricks in a cool, fun way to get people started and interested.

<comment><USER10> And that's super cool, I can see how one can get hook into magic because of his work, the good thing though is that his audience is different from OP's audience.

Although if you ask me I still prefer the old fashion way and go to your local magic shop and meet the local magicians and grab a good book :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm genuinely someone into these kinds of tricks and I invest quite modestly into all sorts of magic toys and tricks. However, I have a question - How are you going to make sure your users will keep coming back to you once they learn your trick? Most of the time, your users are going to be interested in only certain categories of these magic tricks and once they learn them, there is no incentive for them to pay for the following month. If you could add an online shop that sells all kind of magic stuff also, and if your courses complimented them, then it would be a good deal, I guess. Otherwise, your CLV would be very low. Just my thoughts.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I'm into card magic only. So I might pay my $9, watch all the card ones, and then cancel it. Unless the videos are REALLY good.

And how much can you really cover in 12 videos (at the moment)?

<comment><USER13> I think the format would be better if sold as a DVD.

Then again, accessing the material from a smartphone would be nice. So I'm wondering, don't there exist standard app-frameworks for turning video-content into an app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is also a really good place to learn magic online [http://www.penguinmagic.com/](http://www.penguinmagic.com/)

Not the same business model.

<comment><USER15> Penguin's instructional videos are superb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if there would be a market to learn how magic tricks were _done_. You don't want to do them, you just want to learn the secret behind them.

<comment><USER17> I don't think that's a good idea.

Frankly, the secret to a magic trick has no value. It's always disappointing. What's entertaining is the effect.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCxPT7UUkkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCxPT7UUkkY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Best place to learn magic online is theory11 ([http://www.theory11.com](http://www.theory11.com)). They work with David Copperfield, JJ Abrams, and make cool cards with MailChimp. Production quality is great. I'm also a big fan of Scam School on YouTube (Brian Brushwood).

</comment><comment><USER19> While it is nice that there are 2 free videos which allow me to judge the picture and sound quality, as well as the speaker, I would have liked a video where I can actually see and analyse his teaching technique, style, camera positioning, et cetera.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We will open up a full video as FREE very soon to address this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> this is really cool. I'm very tempted to sign up, the only thing holding me back is knowing if I have time for another hobby :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey I always wanted to learn magic tricks. This is a cool website. Could it help to have more for freebies like me?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm torn between an artist trying to make an honest dollar on something he knows and revealing the secrets of the craft. For the same reason I never liked the "behind the scenes" of movie making and special effects. It takes the magic out of everything and removes illusion from the imagination much like spoilers do.

<comment><USER23> Learning the secrets to a trick and learning how to perform a trick are two very different things. Looking through the videos it appears to be oriented around teaching you how to perform a trick (how to shuffle, use of flourish, etc) which is definitely geared towards learning to be an artist.

Most people who want the spoilers won't be interested in all this extra stuff, nor would they pay for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We aim to teach a craft, not expose secrets. All of our lessons can be done with common items, not gimmicked tricks. We want to preserve the integrity of the craft, not spoil it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Note that this is about illusions and card tricks, not about the Magic: The Gathering cardgame.

Did confuse me at first.</comment>


Office 365 is now on Mac App Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/the-mac-app-store-welcomes-office-365/ <comment><USER2> I'm wondering if it's worth uninstalling Office and reinstalling. If it uses the App Store update mechanism instead of Microsoft Autoupdate I would prefer it. Autoupdate presents a window almost every time a launch an Office application.

<comment><USER3> My favorite is when autoupdate is done updating, it runs a check to see if anything needs to be updated, and then it reports to me that there's nothing to update.

<comment><USER4> Apple software does the same on Windows..

<comment><USER5> I got my iTunes on Windows via Microsoft's App Store ironically. It's seemingly the only way to get iCloud working properly on Windows, they share certain common components.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The million (10 million? 100 Million) dollar question that I haven't seen addressed yet (but I'm sure will be, if it hasn't already) - is what % cut Apple is getting from the subscription revenue.

<comment><USER7> > Users can also purchase a subscription for Office 365 from within the apps, > so they can get up and running instantly.

This would tend to suggest that Apple isn't getting a cut. Normally when they take one, it's on the basis of funds being transferred via their store, which doesn't appear to be the case here. But this is a massive deal between two of the ecosystem's biggest fish, and I'm sure an arrangement has been made to give Apple a piece of the pie somehow.

<comment><USER8> No, I think Apple will get a cut, but only a marginal one - probably a "better than Netflix" % deal, and definitely not the standard 30%.

Favorability in negotiation terms usually tend to be proportional to the size of the parties involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are some services that are so worth the money that I am happy to pay for: Office 365, Dropbox, and GSuite.

I am as much of a cheapskate as the next guy, but it makes sense to pay for services that help get work done and/or make life easier.

I am curious if Microsoft is paying Apple a 30% cut, or if they got a better deal.

<comment><USER10> How many licenses of GSuite to you maintain? One license, $5 / month. Seems reasonable.

I have six family members. $360 / year for GSuite, that's untenable to me.

<comment><USER11> I paid $400+ a year for personal accounts since GSuite went premium. I just switched over to another provider because I reached a tipping point of not being able to tolerate GSuite support - it is horrible. horrible. horrible. horrible. Took 1+ and 3+ weeks to resolve the only two minor issues we've ever had.

Support replies were a series of unrelated prefilled replies, it seems whoever is on the other end is just keen to reply with whatever asap (phone is no better)

I don't think i've ever given Microsoft a dollar in my life but i'm strongly considering purchasing their email hosting based on feedback from companies I know using it. I don't mind paying for things, I hate paying for things and then not getting what was advertised.

<comment><USER12> Have you checked out Fastmail? Whilst I use and pay for Office 365 for business, my personal email is on Fastmail (migrated from Gmail after a decade with them) and very happy with it.

<comment><USER10> $5/user/month with a custom domain. It's the same pricing as GSuite. Just doesn't reflect the right price point for me.

By the way, how is Fastmail's spam filtering? Gmail/GSuite is probably the best, and one of my concerns would be going back to the days of seeing enlargement products in my inbox.

<comment><USER13> They thrown in 'not data mining you' for free though

<comment><USER14> No data mining with G Suite.

[https://storage.googleapis.com/gfw-touched-accounts- pdfs/goo...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gfw-touched-accounts-pdfs/google- cloud-security-and-compliance-whitepaper.pdf)

<comment><USER13> The specific claim, unless I missed it, is no data collection for advertising purposes (page 12 and also in their other privacy policy online). That doesn't stop them from other uses of the data. Microsoft makes a similar claim with some of its telemetry. Or did I miss something? It was a long PDF, I just skimmed it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Big move. I see this potentially as groundwork for the eventual integration of Mac and iOS App Stores, which you have to imagine is something Apple wants in the years ahead as platforms converge on common software stack and UX. It's also a signal that the App Store team may now be willing to do the deals necessary to attract MacOS apps back toward this larger strategic initiative (vs just trying to maximize revenue).

From Microsoft's perspective, now that Windows is sidelined, Office is their primary consumer platform and that means UX outweighs any strategic tax of trying to make the Windows version better.

Have you tried to download Office from their website? It's a horrible, braindead experience. You have to log in to your Live account, then go to a particular page to manage your existing Office installs that is super confusing. Coupled with the poor autoupdate UX on Mac [1], and it's almost like Microsoft doesn't want you to have Office on Mac.

I think the issue finally reached a breaking point there and they shifted to UX > control. This is a positive shift for them, since being on the App Store means features ship faster and users see value in their Office subscription. Aside from update UX this is obviously a way to bump their Mac Office numbers. Seems like a good play from both Apple & Microsoft's perspective.

[1] Right now Microsoft's autoupdate UX is pretty terrible at keeping things up to date. When I visit my parents, they're almost always several versions behind, and as another commenter pointed out, a decent part of that is the autoupdate needing to update itself. They have automated updates but its hard to trust that process won't result in issues when documents are open, and it presents a lot of cognitive load to users on top of the OS & App Store updates.

<comment><USER16> > which you have to imagine is something Apple wants in the years ahead as > platforms converge on common software stack and UX

I don't think we have to imagine that. Apple's been against that sort of thing for a long time, and I don't see that changing any time soon. They don't target the lowest common denominator.

I suppose that the Marzipan project, of iOS frameworks on macOS, should prove me wrong but I still don't think so. The few apps that Apple has given us are ... kinda bad. Their non-nativeness screams out: they don't respond properly to gestures, many macOS Services don't work in them, and the user interfaces are laggy.

Yes, I suppose things will change with the next version of macOS, but there's no real way to avoid the fact that UIKit on macOS doesn't make proper macOS apps --- and developers will have to decide what matters more; time to market or customer satisfaction.

I'm fairly sure Marzipan is a stopgap, not a platform unto itself. Get your iOS apps running on macOS, and slowly move them to native macOS paradigms.

I'm actually hoping that things like Office 365, Lightroom CC (and perhaps the other Adobe apps), BBEdit, etc. help developers see the potential of proper macOS apps (I'll take these big developers' emulations of Cocoa over UIKit-on- macOS any day), and smaller developers will follow suit.

(And if their code is MVC-compliant in the Cocoa way, that should't be too big an issue; you can mix and match views and controllers from AppKit and UIKit!)

> Have you tried to download Office from their website?

If you have an Office 365 account, all you need to do is go to office.com, sign in, and there's a big friendly "Install Office" button right there. But I do generally agree that there is too much friction getting this "must-have" piece of software; I don't care for Office much, but denying its influence and widespread usage is a task best relegated to those who think everybody should write in LaTeX.

<comment><USER15> 1\. Go to Office365.com

2\. Login

3\. Do you want to stay logged in?

4\. Is your information up to date?

5\. Office / OneCloud homepage ("Good evening"). Press 'Install Office' (its a secondary/white button that blends into background, whereas 'New doc' is a blue button).

(20 URL redirects)

6\. Installs page. Press 'Install Office' again.

7\. Still Installs page, now with banner that says 'Your Office 365 subscription info has moved to account.microsoft.com. Now there's one place to manage all your subscriptions'. No download happens when you press 'Install Office'. No actual link to account.microsoft.com.

8\. Go to account.microsoft.com. No download button.

 _I 'm literally unable to download the Office dmg right now._ Also, this is the improved interface. The prior one from last year was even less clear, except for the fact I could download it.

Most other apps have a 1-click download button on their homepage, and guide you through the login/reg process when you launch the app. Oh, that's right, Office ALSO does that, in addition to the aforementioned steps. It's braindead.

I think companies sometimes acknowledge that they've screwed up so badly that they need to rethink how they do things. Microsoft demonstrated willingness to do that since Satya became CEO and have shifted the entire company strategy away from Windows, killing a sacred cow. Whether or not that's what's going on behind the scenes here, the end user experience is severely improved going to App Store.

Regarding UIKit, yes the current Marzipan apps suck, all four of them. They're not mainline apps by any stretch of the imagination, and none were previously on the Mac. They'll get better. Just because Marzipan/UIKit _today_ doesn't have good MacOS affordances doesn't mean it won't in the future, especially since it's not even being offered to developers right now. I don't see why it's difficult to see where the puck is going here. There's certainly some implementation details to work out, but it's better for the ecosystem as a whole - users, devs, and Apple - to have a single framework in the long run. Were you making something from scratch you certainly wouldn't make two frameworks.

To be specific, Apple has been against a 2-in-1 style product. I'm not advocating that, sorry to have caused confusion. I'm saying they'll have same underlying tech (UIKit/marizpan), but different end-user UX affordances based on mouse vs touch.

Remember that iPad is as large a market as Mac right now, and is moving upmarket and attracting more pro apps. There are also way more iOS devs than MacOS devs, 10:1 or 100:1. Devs making technical decisions about Apple ecosystem products right now should be getting the hint, and if they're not they likely will this June at WWDC. Apple doesn't tend to lurch around on product decisions, almost everything they do is a multi-year strategy executed in well-telegraphed steps.

<comment><USER17> > Office365

There's your problem right there. Just buy a perpetual Office license. The awful Adobe-style subscription model for desktop software that barely ever changes is _ridiculous_.

<comment><USER16> There are other aspects to Office 365 that are quite valuable to people, like a huge increase in the size of their OneDrive storage quotas, the ability to install Office on multiple devices rather than just one (which is pretty common; people install Office apps connected to their 365 accounts on their mobiles, tablets, etc.), Skype airtime, technical support beyond the first 60 days of purchase, and with certain plans you can share these benefits with a certain number of people.

Aside from that, many businesses with specific Office 365 packages get a number of licences (sometimes unlimited) to assign to staff; so people don't have to buy Office, they get it "free" from work and can install it on something like five or ten devices. Same goes for educational institutions; I'm a teacher, so all the staff AND the students get free access to Office 365, and all the complicated businessy things like Active Directory profiles, SharePoint, Teams (MS' answer to Slack), and so on is included with the same account that I use to install Office on my home Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

So for plenty of people, benefitting from the subscription service in this way, Office is free - no need to buy a perpetual licence.

It's not ridiculous. It might be for your use case, but you can't make a blanket statement that covers everybody.

<comment><USER17> Well, maybe two different things have gotten conflated here. What I'm calling ridiculous is the fact that Microsoft is charging a subscription for Office. The flexibility to install on multiple devices is something that shouldn't be tied to a subscription license in the first place. And neither is more OneDrive space (why you'd _want_ OneDrive space in the first place is a separate issue) or Skype airtime. It also doesn't make sense to me why you think it's a good thing that your Office account is the same as for AD and SharePoint and Teams... this is an offline desktop office suite - what does a Microsoft account have to do with it anyway?

I feel like Microsoft noticed how Adobe was making money hand over fist by moving Creative Suite to a subscription model and wanted in on the action. Of course everyone hates Adobe's awful subscription model, but it doesn't matter- if you have to have Photoshop then you're going to pay whatever they ask. But this is not a good thing.

Basically what I'm saying is that rushing to defend Microsoft's licensing model doesn't make any sense. This is a step back in every way from the world where you buy a license and don't have to keep paying the vendor month after month for them to do little more than refrain from shutting down access to software already on your computer. If you want Skype and OneDrive (again, why?) then fine, but the fact that that's bundled is not a good thing.

<comment><USER16> Firstly, Office 365 is not just offline apps. It's software as a service; it's a suite of high-quality online tools that rapidly approach parity with their product to flint counterparts, it's being able to install multiple copies of Office in multiple devices without needing to purchase more product keys; it's about being able to use the mobile apps without paying for those separately (which people just won't); it's about reducing piracy for MS by allowing organisations and educational instituons to provide Office 365 to employees and students; there are so many advantages to Microsoft __and __consumers.

I am not "rushing" to defend anything, merely pointing out the benefits. What you call a step back, others call a blessing. I genuinely prefer to pay a relatively low fee for access to essential data in the cloud _and_ the high- quality tools that I can access anywhere to work with my documents, collaborate, and even automate with online add-ons. All without worrying about what platform I'm using (desktop, mobile, web, Windows, macOS, Linux), licence keys (which demonstrably don't work; Genuine Office got cracked every five minutes, and piracy was rampant).

I find your apparent incredulity at other people's potential desire for certain aspects of a product(S) or service(s) is symptomatic of a refusal to even attempt to understand other people's priorities when it comes to technology, something I've written about at length on HN before. Don't write off my input just because your priorities don't match mine or others, dismissively calling my five cents but a "rush".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this the mobile version of the apps, a wrapper around the web version of the apps, or actual full-fledged desktop Office?

<comment><USER19> Desktop Office. Microsoft has been offering a "real office" on Mac for many, many years now. The news is not that Office is on Mac, it's that it is distributed through the App Store.

<comment><USER18> I knew they've had full Office since forever. I just didn't know if the App Store version itself was full Office or a mobile/web Office like on the iOS App Store.

<comment><USER20> According to this post [0], Microsoft use a "shared Office codebase for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android". Before the individual iOS Office apps, Microsoft had an "Office mobile" app which may well have been a web app (though I can't find anything on that either way).

[0] [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Share...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Shared- Office-codebase-for-Windows-Mac-iOS-and-Android-means/ba-p/150291)

<comment><USER16> I believe it was indeed a web app. The efforts to get a shared code base began in earnest after Nadella took over as CEO at MS, and Office stopped being a means to sell copies of Windows and rather a chargeable service unto itself - I believe the shared codebase first started to surface in the apps for iOS and Android.

Well, I say that. Really, the Windows and macOS version had been sharing code for ages, but plenty of it was still bespoke for macOS. I think their rewrite to Cocoa, which I believe happened around the same time as the iOS apps started being developed, helped to bring further parity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> PSA: iTunes gift cards can usually be had for a discount (generally 15%, maybe more) so you can save some $ with this move.

<comment><USER22> Are you saying you can buy $100 iTunes gift cards for $85 dollars? That's kinda sketchy....

<comment><USER23> There are a lot of deals like that from time to time and it's not sketchy.

[https://www.imore.com/thrifter-deal-score-50-itunes-gift- car...](https://www.imore.com/thrifter-deal-score-50-itunes-gift-card-40-best- buy-right-now)

<comment><USER22> Thanks, i had no idea.

I assumed this was similar to Amazon cards in the UK ie a great way to quickly move money off a stolen credit card with only a 20-30% laundering cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This very good for Mac admins of any kind of organisation that uses MDM. Finally just push those apps to the users from the server. If Adobe Creative Cloud could be downloaded from the Mac App Store it would be perfect.

Now I use homebrew to install lots of software and fonts internally.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can you pay to use the app for only one or two months? Or does it requiring subscribing and cancelling?

<comment><USER26> You have to subscribe and then unsubscribe manually. Apparently the Mac App Store version only offers yearly subscriptions, but the iOS version still offers monthly options so you can use your phone if you personally don't want to pay through Microsoft's store

<comment><USER25> Thank you for documenting the fine print.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very pleased to be able to download just Microsoft Word from the store. It does seem snappier than the previous version. Sidenote, I use MS Word for one thing only, and that's Chinese homework. Are there any other word processors that do Pinyin well? I'll pay.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is it sandboxed?

<comment><USER29> My question exactly: did MS change Office to get in the Mac App Store rules or did Apple change the MAS rules to get Office in?

<comment><USER30> Neither. The existing Office desktop apps are already sandboxed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I uninstalled and then used homebrew and mas to install. Now I think 100% of my software is installed via homebrew. Nice!

</comment><comment><USER32> Just after some random outage in Europe yesterday. Wonder why this get's up the front page today...

</comment><comment><USER33> Big question is, when is it coming to Linux

</comment><comment><USER34> Office was available for Mac for many years. The news here is that Office is now in the Mac App Store, not that big of a news. Anyhow, worth noting that the Mac versions of Office are no near to the Windows versions. They are thin clients with only a portion of the win capabilities, and those which exists are buggy, to say the least.

If I had a Mac, I would go to G Suite, which gives _better_ capabilities for 99.9% of the users, and if I was on the .1% I would go and buy a PC.

* BTW- Wine 4 was released this week, and they also don't support any of the O365 apps, especially not their 64bit versions.

<comment><USER35> I use both Office for Mac and Windows all the time and Office for Mac is pretty reliable IMO. They pretty much have feature parity. Which features are you missing?

<comment><USER36> Is MS Access still missing?

<comment><USER37> Yes, I believe there are no plans to get Access to work on macOS.

<comment><USER38> I believe that is a good thing. I used to work at Microsoft and many of their own employees hate Access and wish Microsoft would have replaced it with Foxpro when they bought that back in the 90s.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Approaching recipe variations like a scientist – best panna cotta recipe (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/3-keys-to-perfect-panna-cotta/ <comment><AUTHOR> I really liked how the author performed organized stepwise varions to ingredient ratios and then discussed how those variations affect taste and texture.

This is interesting to me because I like to understand the "why" not just the "what". I wish more recipe resources did this.

</comment><comment><USER2> "But when you buy panna cotta, you've got dessert for a day; when you figure out how to make it, you've got dessert for life."

motivation for learning to cook :)</comment>


Fun with NULL pointers (how the 2.6.30 exploit works) - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/342330/f66e8ace8a572bcb/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the NSA knew of this SELinux vulnerability, or am I just being paranoid?

<comment><USER3> It's actually not a vulnerability in isolation. The use of SELinux simply changes the address space policy from one in which the kernel enforces the zero page area to one in which the process can map stuff there (by default, unless the security module turns it off). By itself, that does nothing.

There were other holes that had to be there too: the handler code was incorrectly dereferencing a pointer before the check for null (that's a real bug), _and_ the compiler was optimizing out the null pointer test in the same function (a really, really subtle interaction that no one expected) that would have detected the attack and returned an error instead.

It's a perfect storm of coincidence, basically. There's nothing the NSA could have done to predict this, and the SELinux part is only a small piece. And in any case, the security policy bug isn't even in the NSA's SELinux code at all, it's in the way the kernel sets defaults for its security policies for any security module. In principle, app-armor would be vulnerable to the same issue (not sure if it is or not to this one specifically).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> again?

<comment><USER5> Nope. This article is a week old.

<comment><USER3> It's a subscriber-only article at lwn.net, which means it isn't available to the public for a week. I saw it last week too, but HN can only link to it today.

FWIW: lwn.net is a _great_ site, and very much worth the subscription cost. Better kernel articles than anywehre else, and a higher signal-to-noise ratio in the comments than anywhere else on the internet I'm aware of. Lots of famous geeks post there regularly.</comment></comment></comment>


Jonathan Dowling (1955-2020) - <AUTHOR> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4839 <comment><USER2> He was a brilliant professor with very distinctive humour, always dishing out the memorable stories. He will be missed by the quantum optics community.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had dinner with him and Wilde the day before the Hearne Lecture Aaronson gave as I was visiting LSU with some other grad students from Tulane. He ribbed me for talking like faculty. It's a great loss for science, the state, and the country.

</comment><comment><USER4> Met Professor Jon Dowling in Sydney (Australia) through our mutual friend and collaborator Dr Peter Rohde. I fondly recall going to an underground whisky bar—with a retinue of postdocs and a couple of academics—with Jon regaling us with stories, and buying us all the whisky ! – Was even able to selfishly take him aside to talk nonlinear optics and my own research topics, which he gave expert insights into (and we later had some back-and-forth over online).

Really sad to hear of his passing. He will surely be missed.

Thanks for posting this Professor Scott Aaronson—and as we say—wish his family long-life.

</comment><comment><USER5> Jon was a jewel. He ran a quantum computing group of about a dozen people at the Jet Propulsion Lab that was next to my own group in the organization. Eventually the NASA funding in that area got too tight and the group disbanded.

Jon's group members were incredibly prolific article publishers, which always caused considerable foot-shuffling when the annual ranking (back in the day, a stack ranking, 1 thru N) was done. It was not much fun to be ranking our own group members against Jon Dowling or Colin Williams.

Our weekly meetings with those one level up in the hierarchy were a major snooze ... unless Jon was there. The dour manager could barely progress through the agenda between Jon's wisecracks and asides. (And the manager was powerless to clamp down on it because Jon was charming and a top contributor at the same time.) Nothing got done at that meeting either way, but Jon made it a lot more fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> His talk on Quantum Sensing a couple of years ago is a great presentation, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNV_CzCeA0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNV_CzCeA0) ... RIP, irreplaceable.

</comment><comment><USER7> Shocking - just a week ago he was posting like nothing was up.

I know it's traditional to not talk about the cause of death, but -- was it Coronavirus?

<comment><USER8> > has passed away at age 65, apparently due to complications from surgery.</comment></comment>


Software Architecture for Developers Books 1 and 2 Free - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/simonbrown/status/800340593507438593 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what HN will make of these texts, but I'm enjoying skimming through, and certainly learning a few things.

Simon Brown communicates some of the expectations for the architect role, and why it should be a role, and not a rank.</comment>


Groupon's Profit In 2011 Was Actually $22.6 Million Less Than Previously - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/groupons-profit-in-2011-was-actually-22-6-million-less-than-they-previously-said/

<comment><USER2> Least shocking headline I've seen in a long time.</comment>