CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Errors (SQL injection is still #1) - <AUTHOR> http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/?2011

<comment><USER2> I like how #25 is forgetting to use a salt when storing passwords. It seems to me that the majority of security discussion on HN these days is about hashing passwords and why one should use bcrypt or whatever, while everything from SQL injection, to buffer overflow is listed as a bigger problem.

It seems to me that if someone can download your password database, you've got more important issues than you're choice of password hash to worry about. I won't say that making the one time decision to use a secure digest is a bad investment, but shouldn't we focus more on preventing SQL-injection XSS than password hashing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cryptography is fun, that's why people like to talk about it here, and why so many inexperienced developers try to roll their own (#19). Making sure you sanitized every input, authenticated every action, and capped every buffer, is slow, tedious work (although a good architecture and automated tests can help a lot here).</comment></comment>


VoCore: A coin-sized Linux computer with wifi - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vocore-a-coin-sized-linux-computer-with-wifi <comment><USER2> A 4MB flash, 16MB ram version of this (same chipset) is already freely available for $15 as module (1), or $26 with a break-out board (2). You get 2xserial, a bunch of free GPIO's, 2xethernet, i2c, usb. OpenWRT has already been ported to this module, although you need to really strip it down to make it work reliably given the small amount of ram.

1) [http://www.dx.com/p/hi-link-hlk-rm04-serial-port-ethernet- wi...](http://www.dx.com/p/hi-link-hlk-rm04-serial-port-ethernet-wi-fi- adapter-module-blue-black-214540)

2) [http://www.dx.com/p/hlk-vrm04-multifunction-uart-serial- port...](http://www.dx.com/p/hlk-vrm04-multifunction-uart-serial-port-to- ethernet-wi-fi-converting-adapter-module-w-antenna-310407)

3) [http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hilink/hlk- rm04](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hilink/hlk-rm04)

<comment><USER3> I was looking at the product picture for the module with the breakout board (2). It looks like the only available GPIO come from the 10-pin header at the top of the board. From what I could see it looked like there were only 6 free GPIO. Am I missing something? I did not see any datasheets or PCB layout files on their site.

<comment><USER2> [http://www.hlktech.net/product_detail.php?ProId=39](http://www.hlktech.net/product_detail.php?ProId=39)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Poor guy. He played the "secret chord" of maker crowdfunding: Linux, Network, GPIO, <=$20.

Looks like he was planning on making about 300 units by hand. Now he has to make nearly 700 and it hasn't even been a week. 8 weeks left to go.

Good luck. May the maker gods smile upon you.

<comment><USER4> I think he was always planning on getting them properly made by machine, that's what the kickstarter is for (the upfront cost).

His other advantage is being Chinese, and therefore not having to bother with any of the expensive wireless approval process that's normally required for this sort of thing.

<comment><USER5> Chinese people get FCC exemptions?

<comment><USER6> Why would they bother?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really want a computer that you can run on a potato battery or two. Does such a board exist? What is the lowest-power general-purpose Linux computer in existence that's somewhat convenient to use?

<comment><USER8> If my maths is right, based on this Wikipedia article[1] a typical lemon or potato battery will deliver about 1mW.

That's not enough to drive even the smallest 32 bit CPU (eg the Cortex M0). Or to be more accurate, you could drive the CPU at ~ 100 Hz from your potato, assuming you had no other hardware.

If you want to play with a tiny, cheap 32 bit board that _does not_ run Linux, but is a lot of fun anyway, I recommend the Freescale Freedom board FRDM-KL26Z (under £13/$20 each -- they're so cheap that one unit didn't reach the minimum order value of the reseller so I had to buy two of them :-).

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

<comment><USER9> Pic chips would work just fine on such a power budget. Especially if you let them go dormant for a bit between work to charge up a capacitor.

<comment><USER10> Does Linux run on PIC?

<comment><USER11> I don't know, but it does run on an AVR. Sort of.

[http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit)

<comment><USER12> Great link, this guy has a ton of other cool projects too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With 64MB RAM, this could have been a superior alternative to the TL-WR703n [1]. Still even with 32MB it's nice to see more devices and boards in this area.

[1] - [http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl- wr703n](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n)

</comment><comment><USER11> Backed at the $40 level. I'm a big fan of CPU modules like this, they solve the difficult problems and I can solder them onto a simple two-layer PCB that has whatever I need for my application.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know how much power this thing would draw? In my experience wifi is one of the more power-consuming components of a lightweight computer.

<comment><USER15> Carambola2 linked by user revelation above specs .5W power consumption. I'd assume this device would be in the same ballpark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's unfortunate that of all the options, only one is a dock + board option (and that one is, of course, sold out).

Am I missing something? Clearly I could buy the board and dock separately but it's odd that the higher priced options don't include an option with docks.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems too good to be true - but I'm not a hardware guy. Something like this looks like a Godsend for wearable computing, drones/copters, smart toys, household automation, etc. Can anyone with more clue comment?

<comment><USER18> It's basically an eval board for a Ralink SoC. I believe this particular chip is for lowish-end WiFi routers.

<comment><USER19> I like the dock concept. Haven't seen it before. He (she?, they?) isn't claiming originality on the dock but it seems to fit his board form factor perfectly. Any precedence on that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you get the 50-pack, is it possible to make a Beowulf cluster out of them, using Wifi for the network connections?

<comment><USER21> From the linked article "It contains 32MB SDRAM" which would have been pretty awesome in 1994 or so. In other words you could do what I did with linux in '94, which was quite a bit.

Unfortunately given what I do with linux in '14 I checked and per ps on one box and the VSZ of /usr/sbin/sshd is 43792K aka about 44 megs, so you'd be about 12 megs into the swap just to log in. Not that vanilla sshd is the lightest memory process out there.

Of course people did run Beowulf clusters before 2014, you'll have to run some 90s era software given 90s era specs.

<comment><USER22> I don't get it; VSZ is just the virtual memory, i.e., address space, not actually used space (at least, not in Linux). You shouldn't need any swap for it.

My laptop doesn't have swap and only has 2GB of RAM, but it has no problem "allocating" the 3GB+ of virtual memory that the processes are using.

<comment><USER21> Fair enough, but the general point of mere utility processes consuming all of the available resources leaving nothing to the overall app remains an issue.

I looked for a "big" RSS/RSZ and found my puppet using 53 megs. On a 6 gig machine thats not a big deal, and the elimination of "by hand" administration makes it a fair trade, but on a 32 meg machine that 53 megs would be an issue.

<comment><USER15> OpenWRT has been running quite successfully on that class of devices for some time now. Sure it is using busybox, some lightweight libc, dropbear instead of openssh for ssh etc, but in the end there is still some RAM left for applications.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm a dev passionate in marketing and PM, how do I get a job  Google? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an undergrad techie (RoR, etc.) and entrepreneur passionate in marketing and PM w/ 2 related internship experiences. Where do I start to begin my career @ Google in marketing or product management?<p>My campus (Bentley University) has no resources or connections with the firm. Can anyone help me out with where to begin my first steps? Also, check out my LinkedIn for some more on my background: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghods <comment><USER2> The easiest way in is to start as an intern -- [http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/students/tech/internships...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/students/tech/internships/uscanada/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey Ryan,

Are you willing to relocate to the SF Bay Area after you graduate?</comment>


An Empirical Study on ARM Disassembly Tools [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://yajin.org/papers/issta20.pdf <comment><USER2> The Ghidra and R2 used in for the article are now a year old. Is that just because of the journal delay?

Here are the radare2 and Ghidra reports:

[https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/issues/657](https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/issues/657)

[https://github.com/radareorg/radare2/issues/14223](https://github.com/radareorg/radare2/issues/14223)

<comment><USER3> Paper submission deadlines are usually about 9 months before the conference, although ISSTA 2020 apparently had its submission deadline in January 27 (~6 months before the conference).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Any idea why the git repo does not contain the data?

</comment><comment><USER4> The server seems to have a rough time at the moment.

<comment><USER5> Another fine reason why it'll be bad news if the IA lawsuit blows them away: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200602191543/https://yajin.org...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200602191543/https://yajin.org/papers/issta20.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Good example!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> non-e-moose I have multiple disagreements: "ARM is becoming the dominant architecture". No - while a valid statement in 2012-ish, the truth (since about 2016) is "ARM is the dominant architecture". If disassembling binaries without symbols is a problem, then your skills/methods need improvement. Been there, dealt with that: binary translation of VAX/VMS, Mips/Ultrix, Sparc/Solaris to Alpha (various OS's)</comment>


Author Steven Johnson on what e-books are missing: "Skimming." - <AUTHOR> http://blog.findings.com/post/17661615384/how-we-will-read-steven-johnson <comment><USER3> Skimming is the least of it. Current ebooks, in their linear form, are essentially the equivalent of 19th century horse carriages with motors. "Books" need to be reimagined. While reading is and will remain a fundamentally linear activity, there is no reason why books need to be.

For example: Why is text presented flatly? Isn't that a direct consequence of the limitation of physical paper? Where are the ebooks that allow you to dynamically fold text according to hierarchical order? In a mathematical text, say, sometimes I'd like to highlight the core results; other times, I want to home in on a particular result and highlight the "path" (i.e. the "helper thms" that are needed to establish the core result). Yet other times, I'd like to see the connection between results across sections _on the page_, i.e. without paging back and forth and holding everything in short-term memory. Sometimes I want the author's comments and discussion and "connective tissue"; other times, I don't want to see anything but the structure.

Apple did a good thing, a first step with the option to generate flashcards from your highlighting and notes. This is one extremely obvious thing that ebooks were missing, although I think the implementation is not yet very good, rather clumsy in fact. Sometimes I get frustrated that people keep making ebooks as if they were still limit to the same physical constraints as paper books. The whole form and structure and interaction could be made much more malleable, such that the presentation of ideas "adapts" to your brain rather than your brain adapting to a successive, linear, "rectangular", fixed presentation and compensating for it. It's not like "ebooks" simply means adding a bit of "multimedia" like it's the 90s...

<comment><USER4> I read a lot of math too and the points you raise are good ones. I bought a Kindle DX in hopes of jettisoning a large part of my hardcopy math library; thanks to TeX, a huge swath of math literature is available by PDF (most of it free, if you have university access). I guess I wasn't prepared for how cumbersome it would be. Flipping back 10 pages to check a lemma takes, well, 10 seconds. It really detracts from the study experience.

That said, if I may play devil's advocate for a second, another way to look at the linear structure imposed by print is as a useful constraint for conveying thoughts in an effective manner. Every once in a while, I come across a "classic", math or otherwise, where the author has put so much thought into structuring her argument that I don't need to flip around. Invariably I absorb more from these rare gems than I would from a sort of hypertext arrangement, simply because somebody thought hard about the best way to learn the material.

It's funny you mention Apple because this strikes me as a very Apple thing to do--impose something on its users which initially seems quite cumbersome (one- button mouse, no floppy, one-button cell phone, no CD/DVD, hell the whole HIG), but actually turns out to be a clever mechanism for enhancing usability.

<comment><USER5> It occurs to me, you could submit a feature request to Amazon... "while reading, type CTRL+5 to go forward 5 pages, ALT+5 to go back" or something like that.

Of course this would be cumbersome on the keyboardless models, but they are designed purely for novellas et al anyways.

<comment><USER6> If they open up the API, someone can do something about it.

<comment><USER5> The full sources for each Kindle are available. They just haven't gone to lengths to make it easy to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I happily trade the ability to skim for the ability to search by keyword.

The bigger problem with eBooks is that there are a lot of lazy publishers who don't bother proof-reading their ebooks, with the obvious impact on quality.

I've personally resorted to buying the physical book (the cost is the same) and then acquiring high quality "fan made" versions for use on the PC/tablet.

<comment><USER8> iBooks has full text search, My kindle appears to as well although I think it might work off a prebuilt index

Definitely agree about the poor quality publishers dump for sale

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Current e-ink screens take more or less a full second to refresh, which makes a mockery of skimming.

You can't skim through the entire contents of a website yet either - but you should be able to! Hint, hint, startup people.

<comment><USER10> This is why I prefer reading on the iPad or a laptop as opposed to a Kindle. While a Kindle is certainly easier on the eyes, being able to quickly flip through pages and search through a book is just too great to give up.

<comment><USER11> Is it? I never found myself wanting for such an ability. For me, the e-ink display is much more interesting than dynamic scrolling/skimming.

<comment><USER10> Some examples of how an iPad/PDF saves me time vs a Kindle:

-Let's say I'm looking up how control flow works in a programming language I have little experience with. I can skip to the index, find control flow, and click on that in a few seconds.

-The current chapter covers a new technique that I think could be applied to a previous example, and I want to check that example out. With the iPad/PDF I can easily move back and forth, with a Kindle I can't.

-The current page references a technique from a few pages ago where I don't remember the exact details. I can easily scroll back and forth with an iPad, not so much with a Kindle.

-I want to see if a book covers a relatively obscure topic. The iPad or my computer let me do a search through a PDF for keywords and preview each section containing the keyword, a Kindle doesn't.

<comment><USER12> I expect the OP was talking about reading fiction books. You don't skim fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I absolutely agree. This is especially noticeable with more technical documents like research papers or textbooks. On the kindle, to flip to a particular page, you have to go into the menu, pop up a symbols list, navigate with arrows to each digit, then click go. And each of these keypresses takes a long time -- probably half a second -- for the screen to refresh. Then, you repeat log(n) times until you've found (via binary search) the section you were looking for. Poorly thought out.

<comment><USER14> You don't need to use the symbol list to type numbers — alt–Q will give you a 1, etc. That still doesn't make the process you describe _good_ , but if you must do that, this should at least speed it up considerably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The worst ebook feature is that the Kindle only stores max(last_read_page, current_page). This means that if you follow a footnote to the end of the book, your reading position is lost forever. This makes flipping through the book a mentally-expensive proposition. (The screen refresh also makes this impossible.)

I'm a big ebook fan, but only for novels or books that read like them. (Which is 90% of the reading I do, so still a big win.)

<comment><USER5> I could be wrong in this case, but I believe that is what the "Back" key is for.

<comment><USER16> On my Kindle, the Back button works perfectly well in this case, returning you from footnote to the point where you followed it in the main text.

<comment><USER15> Try reading a multi-page footnote or manually exploring nearby footnotes.

<comment><USER16> Did that on pg's Hackers & Painters. Back key works just as expected for me. It's like a stack - you can pop significant transitions from it, like following a reference or leaving the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was thinking it would be cool (well, it might only work for me...) to have a "skim" mode on e-readers which let skip, say, 8 pages at a time - but the screen would be horizontally split into 8 sections to show the text from each of the 8 pages.

I only need to see a snippet of text to remind me "oh yeah, it was around here somewhere..." I should whip up a proof-of-concept to test it, I guess.

<comment><USER18> Do iOS apps have access to one's personal library in iBooks? (The same way music apps like LyricWiki can access your music on an iPhone, I mean.)

If so, we could keep the canonical version of our ebook libraries in iBooks and have additional apps that can access the content in myriad and interesting ways. It would allow the main iBooks app to remain simple and focused, while allowing useful innovations to sprout up around it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What books need is more aggressive editing. Skimming wouldn't be necessary if the goal were maximizing signal versus noise. I'd pay a premium for the same book more aggressively edited. There's a cost associated with the benefit of reading. Time is now at a premium and part of the cost of a book along with the monetary cost.

Most books are around 250 pages, but I find that most of those 250 page books really only have about 120 pages worth of content.

A while back I asked about it on Quora and discovered that most book publishers aim for 50,000+ words. With the World reaching peak attention, especially for those that read a lot, it's ridiculous to keep insisting on books at 250 pages, especially in the case of technical books and non-fiction

[http://www.quora.com/Do-book-publishers-push-for-books-to- be...](http://www.quora.com/Do-book-publishers-push-for-books-to-be- around-250-pages-plus-or-minus-50-pages)

</comment><comment><USER20> For me, this problem is manifested in referencing bible verses. I love my Kindle, but use it once and you quickly learn that it wasn't designed for random access.

<comment><USER21> This. Try opening right to Mathew on an e-reader. Then try to realize you need to take a look at another scripture so you keep your finger between the pages you are on flip back a bit read what you need then then easily return to where you were. This holds true in programming books as well.

As pointed out note tasking is less natural in digital format.

In many books, such as DnD books, I know I can find certain rules (or other needed information,) by about where they are in the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Take a look at this short video: [http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/23/multi- touch-page-flippin...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/23/multi-touch-page- flipping-ebook-concept-shown-on-an-ipad/)

It shows how skimming could actually work on an iPad, and it's fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER23> Closely related to skimming - can't do an equivalent of a binary search on it, if you have to jump back 100 pages to look at something you saw. I have a recipe book with 1000 recipes on the Kindle and it's a total nightmare to use. A paper copy is so much more usable.

This doesn't seem un-fixable, though. Something like dragging the page indicator backwards/forwards would help, or mirroring the iPod's wheel gesture to move back-forth more quickly. Spin two fingers for chapters, or something.

<comment><USER24> The issue is not the interface, it's the speed--an e-ink display is naturally slower right now. It is a real problem but one due to technology rather than UI.

Coincidentally, on my 3rd-generation Kindle (the one with the keyboard), you can jump by chapters using the left and right arrow keys. This ameliorates going back in most books.

Also, Kindles have a nice text search which I've found useful on several occasions. This has also helped somewhat, although it's still lacking overall.

Ultimately, I would not want any non-linear books on my Kindle either--I'll stick to pdfs and actual textbooks for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wish the popular e readers had apis for working with book content - <USER2> could be only one of the awesome enchancements the tech community could make. Among others would be tying words to wikipedia lookups or research citations to the actual content, aggregating all graphs in some sort of navigable 3d interface, page in page reading, the list could literally go on forever.

on the negative side, we'd probably have to sift through tons of crappy word cloud for your book apps.

<comment><USER26> I'm reading lots of Scandinavian crime fiction (in translation to English) at the moment.

I have no idea how to pronounce any of the names, so some kind of link from the written name to an audio clip would be useful.

Also, it'd be nice to have some "translator's notes". Perhaps there's some nice phrases in the original that just don't translate well; or some idiom that doesn't have an exact English version.

Sure I can just use a computer and browser and a search engine, but it'd be nicer if it was built in.

<comment><USER21> That would be helpful for many Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels as well. Especially the ones where people get bent out of shape if pronounce something wrong.

Full disclosure: I read Tolkien for years before I discovered that elvish names with C such as Celeborn or pronounced with a K sound.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the CPU usage isn't a problem then that seems pretty easily solvable. I can certainly see how it could work.

But I take it's the processing part that's the problem?

<comment><USER28> I think it's more just the screen update speed. You can flip pages about as quickly as the screen will update, which is fairly slow. Also, the visible page area is much smaller than a normal book, especially a textbook or a journal, and you can only see one page at a time. It makes for slow skimming and sort of tunnel vision that causes a loss of the visual structure.

<comment><USER29> Sounds like a task for the GPU.

<comment><USER30> A faster GPU won't make the e-ink microcapsules rearrange more quickly.

<comment><USER29> I heard from the kindle gen 4 announcement that the processor rate has influence on the refreshing speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Forget skimming! In ebooks I can search for words and phrases, that feature alone weights up any inconvenience.

</comment><comment> alok-g Corel PDF Fusion [1] implements "flick" view for skimming. Implementation however is nowhere close to right (too slow, mouse gestures mishandled, etc.)

[1] <http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4100140>

</comment><comment><USER32> The updated nook color has a new "skimming" bar. It allows to go from the beginning to the end of the book in a swipe, displaying chapter titles and sample phrases. It's really usable, but of course it couldn't work on an eInk device.

Unfortunately it only works on epub, not PDFs alas.

</comment><comment><USER33> Meh, what really is frustrating is the inability to sell used ebooks.</comment>


Hacking my arm prosthesis to output CV so it plugs into my synth - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSKBtEBRWi4&feature=emb_logo <comment><AUTHOR> _> Together with Chrisi from KOMA Elektronik and my husband Daniel, I am in the process of building a device (the "SynLimb") that attaches to my arm prosthesis instead of the prosthetic hand. The SynLimb converts the electrode signals that my prosthesis picks up from my residual limb into control voltages (CV) for controlling my modular synthesizer. The SynLimb thus allows me to plug my prosthesis directly into my snythesizer so that I can control its parameters with the signals from my body that normally control the hand. For me, this feels like controlling the synth with my thoughts. I show the prototype(s), explain how we put it together and how it works, and do a little demo. _

</comment><comment><USER2> Now this is true hacking, great lateral thinking and brilliant adaptation as potentially now have better control than you could do with your hand as literally tapping into the muscle/brain signal.

<comment><AUTHOR> him saying _" I'm not an expert"_ , _" I don't know anything about electronics"_, _" I'm actually a psychologist"_, gave me Impostor Syndrome.</comment></comment>


Can we survive extreme heat? - <AUTHOR> https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-crisis-goodell-survive-extreme-heat-875198/ <comment><USER3> It's puzzling that this focuses on the US. It's framing the question so that those of "we" in the most vulnerable regions are not even considered.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of Rolling Stone's readership is in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Phoenix seems like an odd choice of example here. It's hot here. We're used to it, we have a lot of systems in place to deal with it, and we're one of the best places in the country to weather temperature increases because of our extremely low humidity.

> Flights may be delayed at Sky Harbor International Airport because the > planes can't get enough lift in the thin, hot air.

This isn't actually the reason - the reason is liability. It makes a fun story, but nah (another local variant of the story is that the blacktop is so hot that the planes' tires melt. Also a myth.) The aircraft were certified to operate at temperatures of up to 117.86F. Beyond that, if there's an accident (even if completely unrelated to heat), the airline exposes themselves to liability for operating outside of certified ranges. The FAA recently recertified the CRJ700 and CRJ900 for operating temperatues of up to 123.8F - and they're flying just fine. Physics didn't change.

[https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix- weather/2...](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix- weather/2018/07/24/phoenix-flights-never-too-hot-fly-out-sky-harbor-airport- american-airlines/827871002/)

> Last year, there were 181 heat-related deaths in Arizona's Maricopa County, > nearly three times the number from four years earlier.

4 years earlier was a local minimum. 2 years before that, there were 110 heat deaths. Also not discussed: the correlated increase in drug-related heat- linked deaths, and the higher prevalence of heat death among the elderly coupled with an aging population. 2017/2018 were very clear statistical outliers. This is a textbook example of the univariate fallacy combined with cherry-picking to lie with statistics.

[https://www.maricopa.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3492](https://www.maricopa.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3492)

> According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2004 > and 2017, about a quarter of all weather-related deaths were caused by > excessive heat, far more than other natural disasters such as hurricanes and > tornadoes.

But less than flash floods and tropical storms. Why were hurricanes and tornadoes chosen for comparison?

[https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety- topics...](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety- topics/weather-related-deaths-and-injuries/)

Or why wasn't it mentioned that the CDC reports a higher rate of cold-related deaths than heat related deaths?

> Based on information from death certificates, 10,649 deaths were attributed > to weather-related causes in the United States during 2006–2010. Nearly one- > third of the deaths were attributed to excessive natural heat, and almost > two-thirds were attributed to excessive natural cold.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf)

> A pedestrian uses an umbrella to get some relief from the sun as she walks > past a sign displaying the temperature

Because the main source of discomfort out here is direct solar radiation (due to geography and lower humidity resulting in lower diffusion) - not ambient air temperature (ie, a primary effect of carbon-driven heat retention). Once you're out of direct sunlight, it's significantly less unpleasant. Also, because skin cancer is a concern due to the significantly higher solar intensity - our direct normal solar irradiance is around the highest in the nation. Keep out of direct sunlight and the environment is significantly less awful, even pleasant.

[https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/pdfs/solar_dni_2018_01.pdf](https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/pdfs/solar_dni_2018_01.pdf)

I could go on, but I think it's clear that based on just the opening paragraphs, I don't think the article is very honestly presented.

I don't mean to imply that there aren't challenges to be solved - <USER2> certainly are. But, Phoenix isn't "just like where you live, except hotter". It's a fundamentally different kind of climate, one that doesn't really do well with extrapolation from your upstate New York climate with the temperature dial ratcheted up 20 degrees, and it's an environment where humans have built the entire infrastructure around the reality of extreme heat. Using it as a scary bogeyman vision of the future where we're just one blackout away from mass deaths, to a readership who live in temperate, humid climates just makes me roll my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER5> Certainly a grim picture of the dangers of higher temperatures, but won't we also avoid a lot of people freezing to death?

<comment><USER6> A lot of people live along the equator. Statistically nobody lives at the poles.

<comment><USER7> Obviously if the inhabitable region of the planet changes, people will eventually shift to live in those regions. So fewer people at the equator, more people living near poles.

<comment><USER8> It definitely won't be a problem if 2 billion people become climate refugees and move to higher latitudes....

<comment><USER7> Never said it would be smooth sailing. Just that over time, we'd adjust. But that time would be bloody.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't even bother reading this kind of alarmist nonsense anymore. We are well-prepared for a few more degrees K, but they are not expected during the next century or so. We have much more pressing problems and this stuff is taking up a far too large part of our daily attention.

<comment><USER10> > We are well-prepared for a few more degrees K, but they are not expected > during the next century or so.

This is just flat out false, considering we have gone from 0 to 1 degree of warming in ~35 years; 40, if you're generous.

We are well on track for _at least_ another 2 degree warming by end the century.

<comment><USER9> > _we have gone from 0 to 1 degree of warming in ~35 years; 40, if you 're > generous._

Because it got colder between 1950 and 1975. See:

> _The Earth is generally regarded as having warmed about about 1° C (1.8° F) > since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, around 1750. In 2017, two > professional papers generated much debate in both the popular press and > professional literature about whether this figure is correct. Schurer, et > al. argued the rise is 1.2° C (2.2° F) and Millar, et al. claimed the rise > is 0.9° C (1.6° F)._

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2018/09/07/exactly- how...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2018/09/07/exactly-how-much-has- the-earth-warmed-and-does-it-matter/)</comment></comment></comment>


An Office Designed To Keep Employees Working From Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678967/an-office-designed-to-keep-employees-working-from-home <comment><USER2> It will definitely keep people away, just not for the reasons the bean counters expected.

1\. People like having their own desks.

2\. With enough space to actually work on.

3\. Where they can hear themselves think.

I feel like it's time to carpet-bomb management and B-schools with _PeopleWare_ again.

A few years ago I did a 3-week internship in the consulting arm of a Big 4 accounting firm. They had hot-desking in their office -- you were supposed to book it on the day. In practice certain folk had "ins" with the space and planning staff and so certain desks were never "available".

The practical upshot was that you had to wander around the vast office for 20 minutes trying to find the desk you booked from home that morning. And meetings were a pain. "Where are you? Red battleship 27 omega-B? I'm in pink rubber ducky 14 sigma-epsilon-J".

<comment><USER3> >just not for the reasons the bean counters expected

>People like having their own desks.

The lack of assigned desks was explicitly mentioned as one of the changes designed to keep people away.

<comment><USER2> A much simpler way would be to simply close the office. Cheaper too.

Accidentally creating a poor working environment out of ignorance is one thing, but _deliberately_ doing so borders on madness.

<comment><USER3> It does seem to be a round about way to do it, but I was just pointing out that it _was_ intentional, not agreeing with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My previous company tried to encourage more support teams (sysadmins, dbas, storage etc) to work from home and a lot of people embraced it. However the company discovered an unfortunate side effect - teaming broke down.

When our customers had critical incidents, our ability to respond and resolve the issues became worse and worse. The effect of working from home caused the teams (and even people within the teams themselves) to often fail to see the problem holistically. They would check their specific area and then pass the buck to another team.

Telecommuting definitely has benefits in the right situations, but if your work requires groups of people to collaborate closely and quickly, telecommuting can have a very adverse effect on your performance.

<comment><USER5> People regularly underestimate the benefits of a team working in the same office. I don't care how effective people feel they are when working from home, the team as a whole will function much better with everyone in the office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Distributed teams are an anti-pattern. It's much easier to work with someone when you see them every day and perhaps have a few drinks after work from time to time. When everyone is just a name attached to an email or a voice on a noisy phone line, you're probably not going to feel too motivated to help them much. And without teamwork, why have a team?

<comment><USER7> I downvoted you because I believe your comment reflects a much more problematic anti-pattern that colors this debate: some companies have 100% distributed teams who deliver work and are happy with their jobs. Some companies have 100% on-site teams who deliver work and are happy with their jobs. _Clearly_ , both of these systems work. Dismissing the entire practice of distributed teams as "an anti-pattern" is leaving a huge body of discussion on the table. It's obvious that this works in some situations and not others. You're assuming facts not in evidence: " _When everyone is just a name attached to an email or a voice on a noisy phone line..._ " The article specifically says that there are high-quality screens installed _all over the place_ to address exactly this concern. Please, let's stop repeating the same scripts and talk about what's really going on!

<comment><USER8> It's the mix that doesn't work particularly well.

 _Especially_ a mix in which certain team members are perpetually "outside" the main group. The remote participants simply don't have access to the same side-channel discussions office residents do. Location, bandwidth, and multi- channel communications (sight, sound, and even touch) matter.

The places I've seen this work well (very rare) involve people who travel frequently between locations (expensive and personally disruptive), and in which work and participation are forced onto the same channels remote workers use (chat/IRC/voice).

And sadly, in 2011, speakerphones and audio conferencing still sucks massively.

If you've got a very strong, very cohesive, very long-lived team, _with a history of strong direct interpersonal relations_ , you may be able to get away from this.

Another factor I suspect has a strong bearing on this is a team in which members are chosen by merit (or at least on a broad-based acclaim, not by a single hire/fire entity), and who cannot be easily shed. Scientific communities, some forms of government collaboration, and much of the Free Software community operates on this basis.

Knowing your job is NOT at stake for any given mistake, error, or political misstep you make does a great deal for such activities to engender stronger and better participation.

In my experience.

<comment><USER9> _And sadly, in 2011, speakerphones and audio conferencing still sucks massively._

I do some work at a large university where they have abundant bandwidth and the latest "telepresence" hardware, and as often as not you are still dealing with laggy audio/images, freezes, dropouts, echos, individual participants having technical issues or ignorant of how to use the systems, etc. It just doesn't work smoothly enough to be a pleasant experience, and often times is such a distraction as to render the entire exercise a waste of time.

<comment><USER6> We have a couple million-dollar Cisco telepresence setups where I work, and the experience has always been pretty great.

One time, it was 2am and my friend and I had just been kicked out of a bar near our office. There was also a severe thunderstorm warning in effect (with a lot of lightning) so we decided to go back to work instead of riding our bikes home in a tornado. Being rather inebriated, we did not do much work. Instead, we wandered around the building and found the telepresence rooms. We wondered, "how do we link these up and have a conference". There was a phone in each room, and they had some digits on them, so I went to the other telepresence and punched those digits into the phone-like device there. Connected! We then had a conversation for a good hour or so; it was so much like real life that it wasn't worth the effort to get up and walk back to the other room to have a "real" "in-person" conversation. There was no latency. Eye-contact was eye-contact. Everything was the right size. The displays may have even been Retina Displays; I didn't notice any pixels like I might when watching HDTV.

So all in all, not bad when done right. It passed the "wait out a tornado while drunk test", which I think says a lot.

<comment><USER8> Well, duh: two highly engineered rooms proximally located with high-speed data links (presumably) between them.

So: being right next door was practically like being ... right next door.

<comment><USER10> The point is that the hardware works quite well. I don't remember who makes our telepresence system, but connecting to a branch office over 1,000 miles away, the audio & video quality is still "like next door."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A good office should attract people and by extension, serve as a recruiting tool.

Their modern facade of bright colors and "hip" furniture doesn't conceal the fluorescent lights, low ceilings, and berber carpeting.

Imagine the opposite - 20-foot ceilings, lots of natural sun light, and hardwood floors - and you can feel it's much more conducive for working.

<comment><USER8> What's the advantage of hardwood floors, if I may ask?

<comment><USER11> They're much cleaner than carpet and reduce allergies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My company has had this setup for the past 12 years. We have a small office with desks and conference rooms anyone can grab if they are free.

It works well. I work from home 99.9% of the time, but sometimes it's nice to go into the office for a change of scenery or when the cable goes out. There's usually one or two random people also in the office at any given time and you get to have interesting randomized social experiences by going out to lunch or dinner with them.

</comment><comment><USER13> This fits the startup way of thinking but not the real way of thinking. If you can't draw a line between your work and personal life you'll burn out a lot sooner.

<comment><USER14> Plenty of people nothing to do with startups work from home, whether because they are self-employed, or aren't willing to relocate, or their company doesn't have a physical location.

Some people may have trouble with it and find themselves working too hard, others may find it hard to focus and are instead too lazy. Neither of these, however, are a requirement of working from home, plenty of people manage it fine.

<comment><USER13> My point is that those that do work from home and do it successfully (at least in my experience) have a separate work area for work that is _not_ considered "home" but considered work, this is a concious decision people make to deal with working from home and not being distracted. If someone has an office to go to but also works from home they will often not consider creating _another_ workspace at home and that will result in their home life and work life "merging". For a startup having your home life and work life being one and the same is relatively normal (again in my experience at least) but with a "normal" job most people don't want that. They go to work, they come home, work is done. If the line between home and work is merged as much as the article proposes without people making sure to create a separate work environment at home they'll have problems.

<comment><USER15> I have been working from home for the past 6 years. I have a dedicated room for my office. Work can be done only in my office, not even on the kitchen table. This is a hard rule and it is really good. You can enjoy a nice evening with wife and kids without thinking about working because work is only in the office.

If you start to allow yourself to work here and there with the kids playing on the side, you totally blur the lines between your activities and you end up being inefficient. You cannot fully focus on work and you cannot fully enjoy your time with your family and friends.

Note that this is only my personal experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It was called "Hotdesking" 10+ years ago and it was a failure then, too. Architect Rem Koolhaas ran his office with it, and people hated it.

<comment><USER17> Didn't Sun also employ this strategy to somewhat better effect? I can see a group of architects hating something like that due to the nature of their work and the proliferation of tools they need at their desk, and for some types of software development, I can see the same problem with hotdesking (makes it harder to run a really crazy workstation with a lot of monitors for one thing). I suppose now you can just get away with a laptop and a huge EC2 instance for heavy lifting...

Anyone here work at Sun during their Nettop hotdesking phase? What were some of the pros and cons?

<comment><USER8> Yes, they did, though I don't know about "to better effect".

Chiat Day was another notorious hotdesking failure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> At first, I misread this and thought it was designed to keep employees _from_ working from home.

Glad to see I was wrong.

ObOnTopic: I try to work from home once or twice a week. In those bursts, I can get a lot of work done that requires concentration and nobody bothering me. But the rest of the time, I make sure to be in the office, partly for the serendipitous connections ("oh hey, I've been meaning to ask you...") and partly for the easy back-and-forth with my team mates.

<comment><USER8> WFH for occasional productivity bursts is fine.

But it's also pointing out a major failing of your office design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Should be titled "An Office Designed To Keep Employees From Working"</comment>


Has The TechCrunch Machine Gotten Out of Control? - <AUTHOR> http://ventureminded.me/post/6753901515/techcrunchmachine

<comment><USER2> I remember when TC was just beginning and it was full of stories about micro companies doing cool stuff with new technologies. Big companies were rarely given any coverage at all. Today it's completely different. Most articles look like recycled PR posts about Company X raising Y millions from a Z fund.

Another thing that is completely ruining it is non-stop fan boy posts (MG anyone?).

<comment><USER3> I used to spend a lot of time on TC, but there's so much fluff and crap to filter through it's not worth it anymore. Now I only find myself there if there's an interesting link on HN. And the best articles by far are written by guest authors. It really isn't a useful or productive resource for startups, it's kind of like the TMZ of the tech world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great call on the TMZ analogy - it's become too mainstream and gossipy. I'm all for hearing _major_ news about the big name startups, but I feel like they have sold out by not giving as much exposure to the up-and-comers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh TechCrunch... I haven't deliberately gone there in months but when I accidently do I can't help but notice how the "Whats Hot" hasn't changed... still been this for a year now?

      What's Hot: Android, Apple, Facebook, Google, Groupon, Microsoft, Twitter, Zynga

If something is "hot" all the time, then its pretty pointless. Thats the UX grouch in me.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is Microsoft "hot?" Last I checked it wasn't 1998...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Part of me thinks that if we see the "worst case scenario" tech bubble pop, combined with the "Aol Way" brand of journalism, Techcrunch will fade into obscurity over the next five years.

<comment><USER6> Well at least there's one positive aspect to the worst case scenario then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary:

TC has higher volume / lower median quality

Time-to-market trumps quality / accuracy in a zero barrier to entry space.

The AOL buyout gave TC some resources it didn't have before and it put demands on the staff that were perhaps not as explicit before. That it would evolve is unsurprising, whether or not the evolution is for better or for worse is impossible to predict. If they leave a gap another TC equivalent will grow in that gap.

That being said it would be fun to have a site focussed on what the original TC market was, small startups & new ideas & connecting people. And if they could do that without egregious site advertising (I don't mind advertising but the TMZ look is, well distracting to say the least). I would read it.

Disclaimer, I still read the RSS feed for TC but don't visit much.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a pretty weak post, and states the obvious.

tldr; much of techcrunch coverage focuses on the larger heavyweight firms.

<comment><USER9> It's hard for a site like that to not focus on the heavyweight firms. I remember scanning Slashdot in 1999 and found that most of the links went to bigger sites; the story that some small site would get in Slashdot and get a huge amount of publicity was the exception, not the rule.

TechCrunch wouldn't get the audience it gets if it wasn't focused on brands that people care about. If it was all about tiny obscure companies, TechCrunch would be a tiny obscure site.

<comment><USER8> Oh I'm not critisizing TC. They got to do whatever pays the bills. It's just that we all know this, and really that article didn't add any insight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There was an interesting comment at the bottom of the post about how TC could lose out to basically anybody who out-scoops him on a story and about how TC hangs its hat on being able to publish first. I think it would be great if they could maybe move away from the "ready, fire, aim" the author talks about and provides really sound analysis and discussion about startups.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have stopped reading techcrunch.com about 7/8 months ago even though I still subscribe to its rss feed. The website is bloated and takes forever to load. I have also noticed the quality of the articles go down in the past year or so.

</comment><comment><USER12> My last company was covered by TC (back in 2007), and I think all this 'blindsided' stuff is insincere.

I was happy to get the coverage, but I don't think not being contacted by TC before they posted an article had nothing to do with a 'hot' story. Contacting companies takes time. It may take only 20 minutes to talk to an entrepreneur about there business, but 20 minutes dedicated to each company would really slow down the whole process. It's about pumping out as much content is possible as much as it is breaking a 'hot' story.

</comment><comment><USER13> The AOL buyout has really pushed me to stay away from anything they write. While the quality of articles and writing was dropping pre-buyout, it has definitely gotten much worse post-buyout.

</comment><comment><USER14> What are the good alternatives to TechCrunch?

<comment><USER15> GigaOM

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My guess is that Arrington feels it's a machine that's gotten out of control but he doesn't have a way off.

<comment><USER16> I think he already sold it and moved to Seattle.

<comment><USER17> He moved to Seattle and then sold it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is completely unacceptable that their website loads that slowly.</comment>


A Warning for Airbnb Hosts - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/your-money/a-warning-for-airbnb-hosts-who-may-be-breaking-the-law.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1354308572-sY0RIzG7wP4CCeFvUF24Pg <comment><USER2> The rules serve a lot of purposes:

1\. To protect hotel owners and operators.

2\. To protect consumers. They are guaranteed that the hotel has proper insurance, for example.

3\. To protect neighbours. You can't open up a hotel in the house next door for much the same reasons that you can't open a pub or an aluminum smelter.

4\. And yes, there is some rent seeking behaviour. I'll just mention transient accommodation taxes.

You may agree or disagree with the various laws to various degrees, but you must admit that they exist for a reason. By all means discuss reforms that can be made, but please stop with the "these laws are stupid" or "serve no purpose" sort of sentiments.

<comment><USER3> >You may agree or disagree with the various laws to various degrees, but you must admit that they exist for a reason. By all means discuss reforms that can be made, but please stop with the "these laws are stupid" or "serve no purpose" sort of sentiments.

How about this: "These laws do not exist in most places and those places haven't descended into anarchy, nor have they suffered any visible damage because they don't have them. Therefore it might be reasonable to suspect these laws aren't needed".

<comment><USER4> Except they do exist in most places, in one form or another. Can you point to some places that don't require hotel operators to submit to some kind of licensing / regulation?

These laws aren't new - UK lodging laws go back several hundred years.

<comment><USER5> If they go back several hundred years then they probably have more to do with rent-seeking than consumer protection, and if that is in fact the motivation for their existence, then they should be eliminated.

<comment><USER4> Are you saying that based on any fact, or just a personal bias? Do you have any familiarity with fire laws or lodging regulations?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have zero sympathy _at all_ for renters facing eviction for housing Airbnb tenants. Those renters aren't being bitten by outdated regulations. They signed a contract that spelled out their obligations to the owner of the building, and the boilerplate version of that contract says that you can't add tenants (or replace your own obligation as a tenant during the term of the lease) without the owner's express approval.

I _love_ Airbnb. I have had nothing but good experiences with them directly and I hope they succeed beyond their wildest imaginings. But if you're a _renter_ , not an owner, and letting your place out on Airbnb without checking your lease, you've reneged on a contract. Not a shrink-wrap or click-through or EULA, but an ink and paper contract that every tenants rights group in the country tells you to read carefully.

The one time I've been in civil court ever was with a landlord; I have had nothing but _bad_ experiences with landlords and think poorly of virtually every one I've had. But the flip side of that is, if I expect landlords to be compelled into making repairs or returning security deposits, I have to hold up my end of the contract as well.

Airbnb shouldn't have to warn renters to read their damned leases.

<comment><USER7> I'm really curious if there is a difference legally between giving the entire apartment to a guest for a week and letting the guest sleep in a spare bedroom.

<comment><USER6> If you read carefully, a lot of leases have specific clauses about guests too.

There are limits in different jurisdictions about how enforceable some of these clauses are. But subletting contracts tend to hold up.

<comment><USER5> Can you loophole around it by renting out someone else's apt and having them rent out yours on a quid pro quo basis?

This means that the person staying in your home is not a friend of a friend and no longer a customer. It ceases to be a sublet, and is now you housing a friend's friend.

Intent is there. But it gets you off the hook for breaking the contract. It instead puts you on the hook for inducing someone else to break a contract, which is a harder case to prove.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is especially ironic in light of the post-Sandy NYC-AirBnB "partnership":

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Airbnb today announced the launch of a new platform to help connect victims of Hurricane Sandy with free housing options. Airbnb is now providing a platform to connect those who are eager to offer free housing to those who have been displaced by the storm."

[http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4...](http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2012b%2Fpr401-12.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1)

<comment><USER9> I don't see any irony. Allowing someone to stay in your home as a guest is not the same as being paid for lodging. If AirBnB was there to facilitate people to open their homes for non-paying guests, none of this would be a problem. Although renters who rent out rooms outside of their landlord's permission are just asking for an eviction.

<comment><USER10> That was very much not the idea. People renting their apartments were in charging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An interesting story. What is more interesting is that it sets up the entire game.

Cities cap rents in an effort to rein in rapacious landlords, this 'traps' money in the system (whenever you artificially price something you open up the possibility that there is demand in excess of supply). AirBnb figures out a scheme to liberate that trapped money by enlisting the folks who are benefiting from the cap (tenants) at the expense of the folks who aren't getting the money (landlords).

So it is totally in the selfish interest of landlords to hire a third party, have them avail themselves of the service at any building where the landlord has tenants and such a service is in violation of the rent, and then to use the resulting lease violation to evict the tenant, allowing rent to rise and then capturing the money for themselves.

Its really really really important to read your lease. Seriously.

<comment><USER12> I wonder if there would be a new hotelier who might emerge who builds 'hotels' solely to rent out rooms via ABB to avoid some of the regular hoteling regulations.

<comment><USER13> Yes--this is already happening. Entire apt blocks (say 6 -12 units) set up to short-term-lease. The next-door property owners hate this (ie, short term = vargrants, if you are a snob) that is why they lobby for 30 day min-stay laws on sublets.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I imagine if courts decide that ABB+lessors do not run afoul of housing/renting regulations and establish some precendence, it might make economic sense for someone to build an ABB hotel where only people booking via ABB and its decendats are booked, thus avoiding the regulation which runs up the price of other hoteling models.

<comment><USER14> That's unlikely to happen. There are extended-stay hotels for people who come from out of town to work temporarily and that are often paid for by the employer or a corporate client - they're basically little studio apartments with some extra services laid on for the convenience of the residents. To the extent that they're liable for hotel taxes or regulatory fees, the principle of equal protection under the law would require an ABB hotel to be be similarly liable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My biggest problem with business models like AirBnB and Uber are that they don't solve the inefficiencies in the existing industry. Instead They transfer the risks inherent in the operations of those industries from businesses who understand, and therefore price according to, those risks, to individuals who don't. When the downsides of those risks happen, as in the case of the OP, the individual, who didn't understand or price according to that risk, is screwed. This is no different than the businesses who sold sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and then turned around and passed that risk off as bundled investments.

<comment><USER16> > they don't solve the inefficiencies in the existing industry

I disagree. To use some examples given in the original article: how about a guest being able to rent a room in a neighborhood that doesn't have any hotels? Or a host being able to earn money renting out an apartment that would otherwise sit empty?

Which is not to say that your other points about pricing and risk are not valid, of course.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes, but we don't know why there aren't rooms in those neighborhoods, or apartments sitting empty. If it's a genuine attempt to remove inefficiency, thats one thing, but an attempt to "beat the system"(the first part of sentence that talks about the empty rooms and location) may circumvent legitimate rules. For example HOA rules about subletting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Five figure fines are completely unreasonable, the fault lies with NYC and the hotels who lobbied for these laws. Short-term housing is really bad for a city whose economy benefits so much from tourism; tiny hotel rooms start at 250/night. Airbnb is a really optimal solution.

My neighbor is an airbnb apartment. At first it bothered me that new people were staying there every week, but I realized the benefits. The people who stay there are always quiet and respectful, and I know the place is cleaned regularly (no rats/cockroaches coming from there). I think it works out well for my landlord too.

<comment><USER4> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality.

If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules on offering commercial lodging, not paying for proper insurance, not paying taxes, etc.

I'm sure if someone ran a hotel but didn't bother with commercial fire codes and local taxes, they could charge less too.

<comment><USER18> > Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect > consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and > helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality.

That sounds very naive, and is extremely difficult to believe, unless hotels played no role in advocating the regulations. Besides, if that were the purpose, then why not ask the Airbnb renter and occupants if everything was up to their standards, and if both parties were happy (which is presumably the case, since most Airbnb transactions are presumably voluntary), drop the charges?

<comment><USER19> Exactly. _Of course_ the regulations are worded and advertised as being about "consumer protection", what could the alternative possibly be? There is no way in hell a hotel lobby would write a law that plainly claimed to be for the protection of their interests.

When laws protecting Taxi monopolies claim to be for consumer protection, nobody here buys it. Those laws are for the protection of Taxi companies and unions. These laws are more of the same.

<comment><USER20> >"When laws protecting Taxi monopolies claim to be for consumer protection, nobody here buys it."

If I rent a room from you, and stick my hand in your meat grinder, who gets sued? Are you personally insured against such events? Is your landlord insured against temporary tenants?

These aren't unsolvable problems, but are why the laws exist as they do. The hotel pays money for insurance, which protects the consumer. Most AirBnB hosts don't, and that gives them a competitive advantage achieved by someone along the line breaking a law.

<comment><USER19> I am not claiming that there are not legitimate issues with consumer protection to be considered. I merely find the idea that those laws which on the surface claim to be for that were drafted and enacted with that motivation to be incredibly unlikely. Hotel lobbyists and their politicians were not _actually_ concerned for the consumer. They just claim that; what else could they possibly claim?

If Walmart could figure out a way to make a law banning local businesses look like it was for consumer protection, they would attempt it in a heartbeat. Consumer protection is how you sell corporate protection laws.

<comment><USER20> Personally, I find it no different than not being able to drive a car without insurance. That protects me and other drivers, and I don't think it's an "insurance lobby" agenda (although we battle with that too).

<comment><USER19> Fair point, but I think it is important to keep in mind that consumer protection laws often (Always? ..no, probably not always.) have ulterior motivation.

We have to be willing to consider putting things called "consumer protection laws" on the chopping block. Calling these things "consumer protection laws" affords them more protection than they may be deserving of, because who doesn't like protecting consumers? It just sounds like a great thing to do.

Calling your law a "consumer protection law" is (or rather, can be) basically a more advanced form of naming your law cleverly enough that it forms a "patriotic" acronym.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose?

I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of details before booking a room in the night in a particular city (I don't know, I was born in 86). I'm guessing hotel regulations were written to maintain a baseline of quality, and regulations like the one this guy was fined under were written to keep people from getting around them.

Similar to the regulations on driving people around for money that Getaround and others are being fined for, to keep you from hailing a cab driven by a drunken, unlicensed cabbie.

At this point, though, it mainly seems that entrenched players like hotels and taxi companies are seeking rent.

I love the quote from the SF landlord at the end, celebrating the fact that infractions like these can be used to evict tenants and raise rents. We love you too, Ms. New.

<comment><USER22> > I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these > types of regulations.

Adam Smith is useful here. All regulation is created on behalf of business interests and is justified through the public interest.

Business Interest:

If everybody rented extra unused "space" and the market was fluid, this would substantially impact the profitability of the hospitality industry.

Public Interest:

Who wants to live next to a hotel?

###

If you want the laws to go, you'll need to build a larger business constituency for lobbying and then convince the public that their private property rights are being violated. Two step process.

<comment><USER14> _Adam Smith is useful here. All regulation is created on behalf of business interests and is justified through the public interest._

That is not what Adam Smith says. His argument that regulations _proposed by men of business_ should be closely scrutinized, since those proposals are almost always meant to further the interests of the business owners rather than the public. He does _not_ assume the same of regulation in general, and is much more sympathetic to the interests of households and laborers than is commonly supposed.

 _convince the public that their private property rights are being violated_

You don't have a property interest in a tenant lease whose terms you choose to violate. Note from the article that it's perfectly OK to let your spare room, as long as you yourself are there to take responsibility for the behavior of your guests.

<comment><USER22> > His argument that regulations proposed by men of business should be closely > scrutinized

All regulations _are_ proposed by men of business.

> Note from the article that it's perfectly OK to let your spare room

If you read the article, which mostly speaks about NYC, you'd know that's _not_ OK. You're not permitted to lease any property for less than 30 days.

<comment><USER23> > All regulations are proposed by men of business.

Was Ralpha Nader in any way connected to seatbelt companies when he proposed seatbelt and safety laws for automobiles?

<comment><USER22> Seat-belts were invented more than a 100 years before they were mandated by the government. They were available as options on Ford vehicles more than 25 years before they were mandated by the government.

I'm sure the seat-belt manufacturers had nothing to do with them becoming mandatory, right?

Remember, I said regulation requires two components. A business interest with money to "grease the wheels" of government and a public interest component that convinces the public that it's wonderful for them. The seat-belt manufacturers provided the former, Mr. Nader the later. There doesn't need to be direct cooperation. Merely the presence of both.

Not that seat-belts don't save lives, they certainly do, but don't kid yourself ... there is always somebody who wins and somebody who loses with each regulation passed, somebody who makes money and someone who loses just smidgen of their liberty.

Again, read Adam Smith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Today, I crossed the street in the middle of the block because it was more convenient than walking to a corner, waiting for the light, and then backtracking along the other side of the street. This is illegal, but I did it anyway because the reward was higher than the near-zero risk that I would get in trouble for doing it.

People that run illegal hotels are doing the same thing: for every million guests, one guy gets a $45,000 fine. That works out to 4 cents per guest, which is a risk most people will take without thinking.

<comment><USER25> Your reasoning would be "ok" if Airbnb would absorb the cost of the fine. The problem here is that all the illegal part is done by the airbnb customer who offers his short term rental on the site and he is the one who has to pay the fine if any.

<comment><USER4> It's like if made an navigation app that tells you all the best places to jaywalk (and sold it to you), but failed to tell you that it's likely to eventually cost you $150.

<comment><USER14> Or jail time, as in the case of an SF cyclist who was an avid competitor in Strava's ap comunity: [http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/06/chris_bucchere_c...](http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/06/chris_bucchere_cyclist_who_kil.php)

<comment><USER24> Uh, he killed someone. That's just plain negligent.

<comment><USER14> It's criminal because he disregarded traffic signals (I believe he recently pleasded guilty BTW). It's also negligent when he gets sued by the decedent's relatives in civil court.

That's not the app's fault, but it's not the only case where people have got into accidents because they were pursuing the status of fastest rider on a particular route. Where rewarding people (even intangibly) encourages them to push up against the limits of safety/legal restrictions, there's an argument for proximate causation, eg 'but for Appmaker's reward of an exclusive title (King of the Mountain) to the fastest cyclist on that stretch of road, Cyclist would not have habitually ridden at such high and dangerous speeds.'

It's not a million miles away from prosecuting people for organizing street racing: [http://twitdoc.com/upload/onaccel/san-diego-illegal- street-r...](http://twitdoc.com/upload/onaccel/san-diego-illegal-street- racing.pdf)

<comment><USER4> It's the app equivalent of a "cannonball run" - a race to see who can get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Unless you have some way to ensure participants obey traffic regulations (and I don't think anything exists at present), if you base winning on minimizing time you are arguably inducing people to break rules, since that's almost mandatory to win.

There's still some rallies around that run on public streets, but usually winning is based on _matching_ some target time, rather than having the shortest time overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am an attorney, but this is not legal advice.

The reason Airbnb isn't providing (and are unlikely to provide) legal warnings to its prospective hosts is that instead of being on the hook for one potential legal violation (N.Y. MDW. Law section 304(1)(a)), they'd be on the hook for two.

Advising hosts to obey the local laws in its jurisdiction is pretty harmless. Advising hosts what the law is, on the other hand, could be construed as the unauthorized practice of law, and could get Airbnb into even more hot water. See, e.g., N.Y. Judiciary Law section 495.

</comment><comment><USER27> This article presents a false dichotomy:

"Could you afford the kinds of fines that Mr. Warren was facing? If not, take your listing down."

This assumes that a majority of hosts are breaking the law. Yet early in the article the author claims:

"...he was breaking the law. And that law says you cannot rent out single- family homes or apartments, or rooms in them, for less than 30 days unless you are living in the home at the same time."

I've stayed at roughly a dozen AirBnB listings, and only once was the host not living in the home during my stay. In fact, as the article mentions, that's a big part of the AirBnB guest experience-- interacting with the hosts.

Perhaps the problem is that many hosts are treating their homes as small hotels, letting out all the rooms and moving themselves elsewhere. Curtailing this practice would avoid legal issues and improve the guest experience. A win-win if you ask me!

</comment><comment><USER28> Was this paid for by hotel interests? I'm really trying to understand the depth of PR in the news.

<comment><USER29> The NYT does have a hate-on for AirBnB. I'm not sure if it's because it's stepping on some toes that have influence there or if they're just not glamored by the new tech aspect like everyone else.

Or maybe AirBnB is similar enough to craigslist and newspapers hate craigslist because it killed print.

<comment><USER30> What's with the need to see a conspiracy in everything? Is it so hard to see how housing laws, which NYC residents LOVE when it comes to rent control and tenant rights, inherently conflict with the freedom for a renter to rent out the apartment for a profit?

I'm all for critical thinking, but not when it flouts occam's Razor just for the hell of it.

<comment><USER28> I agree in theory, but PG posted some pretty damning stuff about the reach of PR in the news, and I want to know how far that reach goes down. In this article, the author specifically says, "yo, you shouldn't airbnb."

That's a bit more than just reporting the facts.

<comment><USER29> Hometown bias against a weird foreign service contrary to local norms is a pretty reasonable explanation. Sometimes I forget what the NY in NYT stands for :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is why trying to commodify sharing is a bad idea.

CouchSurfing > AirBNB, Hitch hiking > Zimride, Sidecar, etc.

There's still no enforceable law against generosity.

<comment><USER32> Lots of places have laws about soliciting rides by the side of the road though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So AirBnB is supposed to know the laws of every single city/town/village/condo or home owner's association, or does this guy think New York is "special"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Answer from the article: "Perhaps it isn't reasonable to expect the company, which believes it's worth at least $2 billion according to a TechCrunch report on its latest fund-raising efforts, to track down every zoning law in tiny vacation hamlets. But it can certainly make the rules clear in urban areas where it knows that people like Mr. Warren could easily end up in hot water."

<comment><USER3> If Airbnb started providing warnings about laws in various cities, wouldn't the lack of a warning for another area suggest there were no legal issues there?

This seems like something you can't half-ass.

<comment><USER34> In other areas, you can simply swap out the "This is Illegal" disclaimer with a "This might be illegal in your area, we don't know"

<comment><USER35> I really hope that your are right. Everything else would be a very perverse incentive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This actually seems like an avenue for revenue for municipalities who have budget shortfalls.

Create short-term, non-complicated licenses that expire after a couple of days. Require signature of surrounding neighbors. Charge $25.

I can see that being good to the coffers.

</comment><comment><USER37> The law here clearly needs to evolve, and probably should have evolved by now. AirBnb wants to keep people safe, as it's in the best interest of their business. Some purposes of the law are also to keep people safe, but we need to revisit protectionist laws that restrict renting out parts of your home to others solely to protect hotels, and the fact that Airbnb has made it much safer to rent out your home (you can see people's reputations online, their social networks and who they know, Airbnb provides insurance, etc) means that some of the old laws aren't needed.

What is clear to me is that this sort of spot enforcement is a waste of taxpayer money and doesn't serve to help anyone. I hope we can work towards real legal reform as companies like Airbnb and Uber drive innovation in our cities.

</comment><comment><USER38> A family member owns a condo that I considered suggesting they put on Airbnb. Then I thought about how other condo owners currently have a conniption fit when they think people (guests) are getting access to the building that shouldn't. I cannot imagine the amount of hell that would be unleashed if they saw so many random people coming and going. Even if there was nothing in the bylaws I could see them causing my relatives massive headache.

Conversely, the entranceway door to a condo is a security feature that all owners have a shared responsibility for. If I was one of the other owners (or even a renter) how would I feel about another person renting their condo out on a nightly basis to anyone willing to pay for it? I'm pretty torn on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER39> This follows a classic pattern. Incumbents once argued that having a 3rd wireless carrier per city was a threat to the public: <http://cdixon.org/2012/10/10/regulatory-hacks/>

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands They should know which cities they've had issues with and let their user know so they can stay informed. Having their users post warnings about particular cities would benefit everybody.

Nothing is going to change unless a large class action suit is brought against Airbnb. I can tell you right now their site disclaimer won't help them in a court of law.

<comment><USER40> > They should

why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As an airbnb host and user for more than 2 years, I would just like to say that I find Airbnb to always accessible and thorough in all matters related to my experience. They have taken the measure to have insurance in which to protect those renting out. I do not expect them to keep me abreast of laws ordinances in my neighborhood as that is my due diligence. I have been completely thrilled with my experience and recommend it to others.

</comment><comment><USER42> I just got my electric bill from the city of Austin. On the newsletter, they mentioned that short term vacation leases ("vacation rentals by owner") require a license from the city. There's also a license for longer term rentals, but basically in Austin if you're going to rent your place (it sounds like Airbnb included), you need to get this license.

</comment><comment><USER13> _His complaint with Airbnb remains, though. "They need to start being a little more responsible and acknowledging what happened and providing a warning to users," he said. "They're in some kind of fight with the cities, and the users are paying the price."_

\-- Says guy who doesn't care/read what he signs?

</comment><comment><USER43> "unless you are living in the home at the same time." What are the conditions for living in the home at the same time? What if my roomate is out of town and I'm the role of the host? Can the room still be rented? Does leaving for a few days really mean that I'm not living in the home?

</comment><comment><USER44> Situation: If you have a roommate, since it's only illegal if you're not living there, can't you just have your roommate be the official leaser while you're out of town and pay you unofficially?</comment>


A Mathematical Introduction to Kernels - <AUTHOR> https://makkar.github.io/post/kernels/ <comment><AUTHOR> I realize now it might look more like notes.</comment>


An embeddable JavaScript interpreter in C - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ccxvii/mujs <comment><USER2> See also QuickJS, Fabrice Bellard's js engine: [https://bellard.org/quickjs/](https://bellard.org/quickjs/)

(Fabrice also started qemu and ffmpeg, wrote the tiny C compiler and broke world records for calculating pi)

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I can see [0], the API is somewhat similar to Duktape's [1], which is good. It's an easy to use API, which gives you as much power as you ask for. (And both have slight improvement's over Lua's, in getting rid of overhead for some things.)

\---

Duktape uses the MIT license [2], whereas MuJS has a slightly different license [3] which is much less specific, in fact I'm not entirely certain what the license requires in a legal setting. This particular fragment:

> Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any > purpose with or without fee is hereby granted

Seems to imply paid licenses for MuJS, but doesn't actually seem to require that a paid agreement be followed, providing a sort of legal escape hatch. It is just a quibble, but legal problems tend to come down to arguments over a half dozen words anyway.

That being said, I'm assuming MuJS is intended to be used as part of the GhostScript environment at some point, and they might have assumed that the two routes will be Artifex licensing + this other license. (The usual AGPL route they follow would have been my choice.)

\---

[0] [https://mujs.com/examples.html](https://mujs.com/examples.html)

[1] [https://duktape.org/api.html](https://duktape.org/api.html)

[2] [https://github.com/svaarala/duktape/blob/master/LICENSE.txt](https://github.com/svaarala/duktape/blob/master/LICENSE.txt)

[3] [https://mujs.com/license.html](https://mujs.com/license.html)

<comment><USER4> From the GitHub repo, they seem to have gone with ISC license [0], "functionally equivalent to the BSD 2-Clause and MIT licenses".

[0] [https://github.com/ccxvii/mujs/blob/master/COPYING](https://github.com/ccxvii/mujs/blob/master/COPYING)

<comment><USER3> Well, that's confusing. It's rather different than the one found on the license page[0] of the site.

I guess it depends where you get the software what license would probably be considered binding, as it stands.

[0] [https://mujs.com/license.html](https://mujs.com/license.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Google search referer changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2009/04/google-referer-changes.html

<comment><USER2> If Google would increase your search engine ranking if you placed a small floating button asking users if you were satisfied with this result, would you? Like on Stack Overflow with correct answers.

It would only appear to users coming from Google.

How about if they paid you?

edit: this way Google could learn about someone's linguistical style of keyword entry, participating sites are better or more fairly ranked in results (and possibly paid). Users could turn the button off for all sites visited, and participating sites may only show it periodically.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting that the anchor URLs on results links don't change it seems (simply remaining as the destination URL), but the referrer information passed to the underlying site does change. (so it isn't the page that the results are on anymore) Am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> Take a look at the source, they use an onclick to calculate the destination URL on the fly. I believe this part has been in use for quite some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> This might be a pretty common insight, but each user has their own style of keyword entry. Also, there would be changes across cultural groups.

Say I was looking to buy a car, I might enter:

"automobile sales Washington showroom"

someone else might say

"buy new car local dealer"

How can intention be measure by keywords alone, when those keywords for any intention vary across individuals and cultural groups? Synonyms are common too. I guess that is the algorithm's problem, not mine. But, often I have to rewrite my search to better express my intention, and rarely do I venture beyond two search results pages.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone running a business from their phone/tablet? - <AUTHOR> Most solopreneurs love being able to run a business from their laptop, but has anyone gone the extra step and run a business primarily from their phone or tablet? <comment><USER2> I know a guy who shoots all of his unedited youtube videos from his phone, uploads them, and then people call/text/email/message him for paid diet coaching.

This seems pretty sustainable and transferable to different domains of expertise, but it is decidedly low tech and a very crowded industry</comment>


Ask HN: Any advice on coming up with a name for a startup? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Good advice here: [http://paulgraham.com/name.html](http://paulgraham.com/name.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't the classic way to just pick a color and an animal.

</comment><comment><USER4> dont stress on it</comment>


Ask HN: Is 40 too late to start a software biz? - <AUTHOR> All we read about are the 20s and 30s whizkids starting companies and retiring before they even hit 40. Any examples of 40+ people starting companies successfully? Is 40s too late? <comment><USER2> Not at all too late. Just getting near the sweet spot!

"A Study of 2.7 Million Startups Found the Ideal Age to Start a Business (and It's Much Older Than You Think) If you're in your 40s or 50s, you might think it's too late to start a business. Wrong: It's actually the perfect time." [https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-study-of-27-million- startup...](https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-study-of-27-million-startups- found-ideal-age-to-start-a-business-and-its-much-older-than-you-think.html)

Survey of 652 CEOs... "The average and median age of U.S.-born tech founders was thirty-nine when they started their companies. Twice as many were older than fifty as were younger than twenty-five." [https://www.kauffman.org/entrepreneurship/reports/education-...](https://www.kauffman.org/entrepreneurship/reports/education- and-tech-entrepreneurship/)

Examples: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tech- founders-45.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tech-founders-45.html) [https://arkenea.com/blog/entrepreneurs- above-50/](https://arkenea.com/blog/entrepreneurs-above-50/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not too late. One of my childhood friend's dads started a company in his 70s, though he had a previous exit in his 50s. But it gets more complicated. Some questions to ask yourself:

1\. Can you afford to go without income for at least 2 years and possibly indefinitely?

2\. Do you have kids? What age range? Starting a software company with kids in the 0-5 range is very, very difficult, particularly if you have multiples. The only time I've seen it succeed is if you started the company before having kids, and the product is already built and has some measure of traction before the kids are born.

3\. Have you built up a large amount of domain expertise in a particular industry before starting the company, and is the company related to that domain? Older founders rely more on experience: they don't have the same raw energy and the same tap into the cultural zeitgeist that younger founders do, but they should know how a particular industry operates and what the key problems within it are.

4\. Do you have a network to draw on, both for potential co-founders and employees and for potential customers?

</comment><comment><USER4> perhaps, you should read [http://news.mit.edu/2020/age-founders-successful- startups-03...](http://news.mit.edu/2020/age-founders-successful- startups-0320)

[https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/20-year-old- en...](https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/20-year-old-entrepreneur- a-lie)</comment>


Ask HN: Catalogue of business models - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I was thinking the other day that I would love to read a book that was essentially a catalogue of all known business models (not just web startups) with examples and discussion.
I was reminded again by this post on the web startup business model wiki: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648223
Does anyone have a recommendation along these lines?
Cheers <comment><USER2> I just started a community wiki with the same idea but inverted; it's a catalog of known successful startups and their business models: <http://bizmodels.wikidot.com/>

So it starts with the examples instead of starting with the business models. Maybe a catalog as you wish could be accomplished tagging the corresponding startup wiki pages with "ad-supported", "freemium", "license software", etc., and then navigating each tag to find examples.

Feel free to modify the wiki to enter wiki pages for business models themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> Author of this blog has just published a book on business models:

<http://business-model-design.blogspot.com/></comment>


Ruleby: The Rule Engine for Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://www.adaruby.com/2007/12/07/ruleby-the-rule-engine-for-ruby/ <comment><USER2> This is cool, basically a Ruby version of Clips. I used that to build an Expert System that dynamically changed the security policy of an SeLinux system depending on the state of the system and its network for my Master's Thesis. You can do some pretty amazing things with Expert Systems if you design them well. PDF link to one of my presentations if anyone is interested. [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=h...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fselinux- symposium.org%2F2006%2Fslides%2F03-dpea.pdf&ei=sLBiR4CiMJa- hAL9_KCKDw&usg=AFQjCNG2peNF-qFD6rWrR9h2cDPfNy3Ybg&sig2=IPZD4v4xCqmaiv42n4uQ3g)

</comment><comment><USER3> Please put the right link to Ruleby. This blog is full of copy-paste of the actual links (of any subject).

</comment><comment><USER4> It reads just like English!

        v[:m].status = :GOODBYE
        e.modify v[:m]</comment>


Apple screws developers, again - <AUTHOR> http://techlife.quora.com/Rant-Apple-screws-devs-again

<comment><USER2> Can you post a non-quora link?</comment>