iOS 10 Security White Paper [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf <comment><USER2> This is really cool:

> Securely erasing saved keys is just as important as generating them. It's > especially challenging to do so on flash storage, where wear-leveling might > mean multiple copies of data need to be erased. To address this issue, iOS > devices include a feature dedicated to secure data erasure called Effaceable > Storage. This feature accesses the underlying storage technology (for > example, NAND) to directly address and erase a small number of blocks at a > very low level.

I guess that means separate storage, as the main storage in recent iPhones is an NVMe SSD and not raw NAND attached to the processor.

BTW, is there a good / easy way to connect raw NAND to a normal desktop PC?

<comment><USER3> What purpose do you want to access raw NAND? If you are okay with just a basic low speed connection to read the NAND, there is a fairly standardized async protocol which you could achieve with a dozen GPIO pins. You could also use a FPGA or and NAND flash programmer (like of like the old EPROM programmers)

However beyond this, you need to know a bit more information to interpret this raw data. This includes any data framing structure, error correction, scrambling, encryption and read error recovery algorithms. A lot of this information is non-standard or only available under NDA from the manufacturer.

<comment><USER2> I just want it to show up in the OS as MTD so e.g. I could use it with JFFS2 like OpenWrt does on routers. But on a desktop PC.

<comment><USER3> In that case, I'm not familiar of any practical way to to interface to the NAND flash except that which comes with some embedded controllers boards. But let me add that even if you interface to the NAND, you still need to solve some of the things I mentioned above if the NAND is any technology node below 20nm or so. If you don't do it right, even with decent error correction you will get a high bit error rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> @computerality extracted the sections that changed between the iOS 9 and 10 security white papers here:

[https://gist.github.com/computerality/3e0bc104cd216bf0f03f8d...](https://gist.github.com/computerality/3e0bc104cd216bf0f03f8d3aa8fbf081) <\--- only the new parts

tl;dr:

[https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844652877058625536](https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844652877058625536)

[https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844654500141060096](https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844654500141060096)

[https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844655868377550848](https://twitter.com/computerality/status/844655868377550848)

<comment><USER5> And here's a direct link to the computerality diff in plain text for easy viewing on mobile:

[https://gist.githubusercontent.com/computerality/3e0bc104cd2...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/computerality/3e0bc104cd216bf0f03f8d3aa8fbf081/raw/31b8ebf1cbe6b716e0eb51ad1b1fbb403d18f2e9/gistfile1.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its previous edition was required reading for CS 161 at Berkeley. Would that it were required reading in Mountain View.

[http://www-inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs161/fa16/](http://www- inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs161/fa16/)

(Yeah, it says optional on the syllabus but Weaver said _required_ in lecture.)

<comment><USER7> Do they don't know/care about security, or is it simply the case that it is hard to have something like the secure enclave across all Android devices? Genuine question.

<comment><USER8> Mmm? Secure enclave is present on most Android devices and is mandatory since Android 6.0.

(It's just called something else.)

Historically Android has been lagging behind a bit from iOS devices when it comes to security, but Pixels and their software have a very similar security model and design (with some exceptions - less granularity with file-based encryption and some other mostly minor details).

Non Google devices however are usually significantly less secure - not so much due to Android design, as due to manufacturers deliberately disabling Android's security featuers (e.g. only Pixel actually uses dm-verity at this moment if I remember correctly), refusing to update them, building devices with bad trustzone drivers... etc.

If you keep to the 1st party (Google-branded) devices like in iOS world, you're mostly ok.

<comment><USER6> Yes, they're using the ARM Trusted Execution Environment rather than a separate Enclave chip with its separate OS (L4). Apple is an ARM architecture licensee, designing their own compatible chips. So the TEE would have been an available path (compatibility is still required, no?) but they instead went the extra yard with a separate Enclave chip. As their white paper details, they also go to insane levels with that chip and moreover with its communications rather than just trust the TEE within an ARM chip and call it a day.

<comment><USER9> More recent ARM chips (A9+) come bundled with ARM TrustZone[1]. In a nutshell, the processor has two (hardware) isolated execution environments each running a different OS and different software. By default, the secure environment of TrustZone runs an L4 kernel (edit: this is incorrect, see reply below).

Could it be the case that Apple is leveraging TrustZone but with a customized L4 kernel? Or is it confirmed that the Secure Enclave is a custom IC designed by Apple? I wouldn't be surprised if it's the former as it becomes much cheaper to implement the required security features.

 __Edit: __Check out this previous discussion on this exact topic:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8410700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8410700)

[1]: [https://www.arm.com/products/security-on- arm/trustzone](https://www.arm.com/products/security-on-arm/trustzone)

<comment><USER10> > By default, the secure environment of TrustZone runs an L4 kernel.

By default no SW runs on HW. "Mobicore" (now called "Kinibi" from Trustonic) is based on L4.

<comment><USER9> I know that mate, no need to get snarky. What I meant is that it was bundled with the core by default, but thanks for the correction. I thought I read it somewhere, but judging by a quick search, it seems I'm mistaken.

<comment><USER10> Depends on the HW manufacturer and SKU on what is bundled or not.. Even ROM code can be different per SKU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of the reasons why Apple is still great. Their designs are thoughtful and deeply-considered. They may disappear up their own asses with a fair amount of regularity, but that doesn't stop them from excelling in certain areas (such as, indeed, privacy and security).

<comment> bjelkeman-again It is sad that something like the iCloud Keychain is so poorly implemented across the different devices.

<comment><USER12> How so? You mean from user access and usability standpoint?

I know I certainly wish there was a Keychain access app like on macOS available for iOS rather than only being able to access passwords via Safari settings.

<comment><USER13> Probably referring to the key distribution process, where to enable iCloud Keychain you have to approve from another device. It's a sound design in theory - the keys are only stored locally, so even Apple can't access them - but I've personally experienced issues several times where the approval notification wouldn't show up on my other devices, or the UI was in an inconsistent state, etc.

<comment><USER14> It's true- I think one of Apple's main stumbling points lately has been failing to consider the user experience in cases where, for example, a good Internet connection isn't available, or a particular piece of data has an unexpected attribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's lacking is a requirement that Apple Store apps must cooperate with user privacy settings. If the user denies an app access to location services, contacts, or calendars, Apple should require that the app still run. For example, if the user denies the Uber app location information when the app is not being used, Uber car ordering should still work. Apps should not be allowed to demand access they do not need to serve the user.

<comment><USER16> You picked a bad example, as Uber car ordering does work with location services disabled.

Any better examples come to mind of apps that refuse to run unless hey have an unreasonable feature granted?

<comment><USER17> Signal won't run without access to your contacts (at least on iOS). Whether that's considered "unreasonable" is being actively argued on Twitter at the moment...

<comment><USER18> Personally, I don't consider using a phone number as reasonable. Usernames should be allowed for those who don't have or don't want phones.

<comment><USER17> I dunno. It's hard.

If you allow user-generated usernames, what's to stop me signing up as Linus Torvalds or Hillary Clinton, and creating drama for the lulz?

Using the phone number as a unique and verifiable identifier seems like a pragmatic - if not perfect choice. By using the SMS confirmation it makes it much more difficult for me to impersonate Linus or Hilary - because I'd need to impersonate their phone number _and_ respond to an SMS sent to it. Not nation state secure, but better than nothing...

The other problem Moxie's trying to solve is the discoverability problem - which jwz _doesn't_ want solved (nor do people with abusive exes or other categories of users Signal if often very vocally advocated for "Use TOR. Use Signal. Use a VPN!!!"). Moxie wants to be able to calculate the intersection of your contact list with every other Signal user's contact list, so it can prompt you to let you know you can use Signal to communicate with them which you'd otherwise probaby no know. And as he says, to be most valuable, e2e encrypted messaging needs to become the default messaging channel under normal use, so it'll not need to be installed/setup/learned under stress when it's need becomes critical.

I think Signal's got the "soundbite message" of what they do very carefully crafted and it's very enticing, but by nature soundbite sized or elevator pitch sized message inevitably leave out the complexity of edge cases.

I'm 99.99% sure Moxie isn't lying about what we could all read in the sourcecode if we cared enough to spend the time reading it - all the people jwz is concerned about sending him Signal messages already had his phone number in their contact list so could have already been sending him text messages. Moxie's view is jwz is better off having all those people know they can _also_ contact him using e2e encrypted messaging as well. jwz doesn't agree, and doesn't think letting all those people know he has installed an encrypted messaging app is "privacy protecting". There's certainly merit in both points of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really do respect Apple's attention to security and privacy, however I was a little disappointed when I came across an Apple ID leak from their login form [0] last week. They patched a fix a couple days after I reported it, but still haven't responded to my initial report. It's quite concerning given how easy this simple flaw could have been used for malicious purposes to potentially collect millions of Apple ID's.

[0] [https://github.com/zaytoun/Apple-ID-Data- Leak](https://github.com/zaytoun/Apple-ID-Data-Leak)

<comment><USER20> That looks like extremely irresponsible disclosure? Publishing to GitHub and then "edit: I contacted apple"

????

<comment><USER21> There's nothing wrong with disclosing a security bug immediately.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20responsible%2...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20responsible%20disclosure%20&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

<comment><USER20> Wow, he's nothing if not consistent... you gotta respect that. Same opinion and phrasing going back 4+ years!

<comment><USER22> Closer to 24.

[http://www.securityfocus.com/blogs/906](http://www.securityfocus.com/blogs/906)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is also this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U)

</comment><comment><USER18> Did they never release an iOS 10 security paper before now? I'm asking because iOS 10 has been out for a while and iOS 11 is just around the corner.

</comment><comment><USER24> Microsoft's paper: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/msr-tr-2015-84.pdf)

<comment><USER25> Slightly offtopic, that cant be a wordpress instance can it? I've only seen `wp-content` paths on wordpress blogs...

<comment><USER26> wordpress is _popular_ man

<comment><USER25> Amazing. Microsoft running wordpress on the main corporate site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Their LEO guide is just as good, but not updated in a while.

<comment><USER28> Link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there any similar document about macOS ?

<comment><USER30> The only one I could find provided from Apple applies to 10.6 Snow Leopard. Strange there isn't a similar security guide for Mac OS like they have for iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> [http://www.cultofmac.com/280189/icloud-hacker-calls- apples-r...](http://www.cultofmac.com/280189/icloud-hacker-calls-apples- response-little-late/)

[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology- science/technology/a...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology- science/technology/apple-warned-icloud-vulnerability-months-4326913)

<comment><AUTHOR> "There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID," the spokesperson said. "The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third- party services."

[http://fortune.com/2017/03/22/apple-iphone-hacker- ransom/](http://fortune.com/2017/03/22/apple-iphone-hacker-ransom/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What load and stress testing services do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking into benchmarking the performance and scalability of a SaaS that is currently in development. Anyone know of any services out there? <comment><USER2> I've used monitis, pingdom, and webmetrics. Pingdom is my fav, but I'm not sure it does a lot of application level load tests.

</comment><comment><USER3> Load Testing: JMeter, Grinder.

Functional Testing: Selenium, Watir, Sahi.</comment>


The Maximum, Beautiful Product - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/31/the-maximum-beautiful-product/ <comment><USER2> The operative word for the MVP is "viable". What was viable for Apple with the iPhone was a beautiful touch-UI, amazing hardware, and some native apps built by Apple. It wasn't native apps from 3rd parties (not available until 2008), the fastest processor possible, or the optimal screen size or resolution. They iterated those things.

Minimal and viable mean different things for different projects, but defining and adhering to those are important for everyone.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that this changes the scope of the word so much as to render it meaningless, since the arguments during meetings just shift to what exactly is "minimally viable."

<comment><USER2> Which is pricelessly what you should be arguing about: what do we agree is minimally viable for what we're trying to do? If you can't decide that then you can't decide anything.

<comment><USER3> The whole thing seems like shifting definitions. What startup gets in a room and says they should build things they are unsure they need for product success?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yea, like what if steve jobs shipped the original iPhone without copy and paste? Oh wait...

Apple was always a balance between perfectionism and "real artists ship", at least from the stories I've heard.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the author didn't read Lean Startup - or didn't understand it properly. MVP isn't a product per se, it's a customer discovery process.

<comment><USER6> His point is that you won't build something past the next local optimum if you overtrain on your customers' immediate actions.

Even "4 steps to the epiphany" began with the vision of the founders. That part of the message seems to get lost in the rhetoric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think, whatever adjective you put in in the middle, minimum is always better than maximum. Even if you choose an ambitious word like "iconic," "dominant," or "world-changing," you'll do better to attempt the minimum iconic product than the maximum, because it's always better to do the same thing faster.

</comment><comment><USER8> Problem with MVP is the loss aversion bias + limited resources that entrepreneurs have - often 'lean' founders choose idea that is close to existing business process \ customer habits or investment trends (this decreases risk to lose) and then 'pivot' changing small things - one thing at a time trying to get the new service. It works well for theatretical improvisation and business improvements, but will not put product away from existing trends. For the same reason, Silicon Valley is sometimes too trendy and short-sighted. Many big ideas emerged outside of the Valley and then came here to 'pivot'</comment>


Statue vandal identified thanks to mandatory contact tracing - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/style/article/canova-statue-damage-tourist-scli-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> This is how is start?

Collect good-will medical data and then use for whatever purpose you want?

Who cares about some plaster in a tourist theme park?! Not to mention there are already dozen of ways to punish anyone braking things already anyway. They did not have to harm the covid-19 good-will contact tracing efforts for this.</comment>


Natural Kinds - <AUTHOR> http://www.iep.utm.edu/nat-kind/ <comment><USER2> A question I have pondered for decades: is paisley a natural kind?</comment>


Deal to Return Dell to Public Trading, but Still in Its Founder's Hands - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/business/dealbook/dell-deal-vmware.html <comment><USER2> I own DVMT and have been an investor in the stock since the EMC transaction.

Whilst in part this deal is designed to help Dell go public and let some investors (Silver Lake & co.) eventually "exit" or sell their positions in a few years, one of the main reasons why they are doing this is to generate a profit from the VMWare tracking stock (DVMT).

Michael Dell and Silver Lake have had their eye on DVMT for a while. When they acquired EMC, they didn't have enough cash to buy the whole entity (which owned ~80% of VMWare). So they issued some tracking stock which has since traded at a discount of 35%-40% to VMWare stock. Their intention was always to make money from this discount since they own the VMWare stock. The idea would be to buy up as much DVMT as they can.

They've already been doing share buybacks of the DVMT stock with cash from VMWare (about ~$500m at a time but not sure). Spending $500m to buy back shares trading at a 40% discount can turn $500m into $833m.

They are doing the same here by offering a valuation of $109 a share for the DVMT stock. On a $21bn market cap at a 27% discount to VMWare, they will generate ~$8bn in profit.

DVMT investors will have the option to rollover into the new Dell entity (where they can share in ~$8bn profit) or they can tender their shares for $109 each. Dell has decided to limit the tender to $9bn (on $21bn in shares). So if everyone tenders, I imagine they will pro rata the payout to ~40% of shares tendered and the rest of investor shares will roll into Dell inc.

Whether rolling into Dell inc. is an attractive option is another question. Dell has effectively set their share price (i.e. not the market) for the merger to take place. Dell will benefit as it will have more equity thereby lowering the ratio of equity to debt. DYOR.

</comment><comment><USER3> Matt Levine: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-02/dell- is-g...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-02/dell-is-going- more-public-again)

<comment><USER4> Matt Levine's analysis is just awesome. He is one of the few financial journalists who is worth reading.

<comment><USER5> Totally agree - and I'd like to point out that while bloomberg wants you to put you through a paywall to read money stuff (his column) on the regular, Matt Levine has maintained the ability for you to sign up and get all of them delivered to your inbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a different article it says "Based on figures revealed on Monday, he has been able to turn a 14 per cent stake in his old PC company, worth $3.5bn, into a 72 per cent interest worth $35bn in his enlarged tech conglomerate."

How did he do that?

<comment><USER2> Here's an example. Company A (let's call it Dell but the figures are made up) is public and has an Enterprise Value (EV) of $100bn (EV includes net debt and equity). It has no debt and Michael Dell owns 14%. Dell is taken private by Michael, Silver Lake and co. using $40bn of equity (with Michael rolling his 14% stake into this equity) and $60bn of debt.

Michael Dell's original 14% interest was worth $14bn. But $14bn of $40bn is 35% of the total equity. The rest is debt.

<comment><USER2> Above I explained how Michael Dell increased his equity percentage. How did the value of his stake increase so much?

There are various ways this can happen. Using the figures from my answer above:

\- If Dell is able to increase its profitability by 50%, then in theory the EV should increase by the same amount. So $100bn goes to $150bn. But debt stays the same whilst equity goes from $40bn to $90bn ($150bn EV - $60bn debt). This means Michael's stake is now worth $31.5bn (35% of $90bn).

\- Private equity companies are often valued on multiples of EBITDA (which roughly translates into profit for capex light companies). So Dell might have originally be valued at 5x times EBITDA to get to the EV of $100bn. But let's say the valuation multiple has risen to 6x (since markets valuations have been going up since the Dell take-private and Dell is now a more attractive mix of software + hardware rather than just being hardware which implies a lower valuation as its more cyclical). A 6x EV/EBITDA multiple will take the EV to $120bn (assuming flat profit). This will increase the equity to $60bn ($120m EV - $60bn debt). Michael's stake will be worth $21bn (up from $14b).

Combine an increase in profitability with a high valuation multiple, you can go from $14bn to $40bn fairly quickly if things go your way.

I can't remember but Michael may have put in cash during the take-private on top of rolling his original equity stake. This would have also increased his stake.

<comment><USER7> Excellent way of explaining it. It also shows why the world economy is very much debt driven.

In addition to the interest generally being tax deductible, the payoff can be huge if you get it right. The upside is often disproportionally higher than the downside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good for them. I couldn't be happier with the XPS 13 Developer Edition I just bought. Even though I had to wait for a firmware update a few weeks ago for the webcam to work :|. But the best part of that? It was a matter of 'apt-get dist-upgrade'.

<comment><USER9> I've had problems with every XPS 13 I've owned. I keep buying them only because there aren't many other options.

My XPS 13 9350's USB-C port died after a few months, the battery went bad after about 11 months, and it had graphics glitches. I sent it in for warranty repairs, they sent it back with a note that said "mainboard replaced", but had actually done no work on it: it had the same dusty board as when I sent it in, with the same dead USB-C port. By the time it was returned to me, it was out of warranty.

My XPS 13 9370 has terrible wifi and audio drivers that need to be restarted or reinstalled constantly, and it's got its own set of graphics glitches, along with a stuck pixel on the screen.

<comment><USER10> I have an XPS 13 9360 that has had so many issues. I shall list them out:

\- The WiFi was terrible for a long while until I managed to find a stable driver version from Killer instead of from Dell's website.

\- There is no way to remove the 'Waves' audio software that comes preinstalled. Even if you just use plain Realtek audio drivers from Realtek's website, Waves will be automatically installed along with the Realtek drivers. I guess Waves is packaged along with Realtek's drivers and will force an install when it detects that the system is a Dell XPS 13. While I don't mind having an extra equalization software, if I plug in a webcam and then remove the webcam, Waves would go into a state where it consistently consumes 30% of CPU as it keeps checking for a missing registry key. It was only fixed months after I got the laptop.

\- The coil whine is annoying. It's loud enough to hear over mild chatter. And this is coming from someone with some hearing damage.

\- The touch screen developed this strange white spot in the middle of the screen. I got my screen replaced only to have the second one do the same thing at the very same spot. I suspect it's one of the keyboard keys putting pressure on the screen when the laptop is closed and sandwiched between items within a bag. The replacement screen also has a stuck pixel on it.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

On a separate note, right now I'm trying to convince Dell's customer service in my country to let me exchange my 5 month old U3415W monitor because it has developed small grey spots on one side of the screen. Initially I got told that they cannot do a replacement for those. So I offered to _pay_ to have it repaired only to get told that Dell here doesn't do repairs for monitors, only warranty exchanges. So I'm shit out of luck.

I'm trying to reason with them further but it doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere.

<comment><USER11> Oh no... reading these comments is making me nervous.

I've just decided on the newest XPS 13 to replace my aging MBP. After unreasonable (IMO) shipping schedule (nearly 2 weeks to get from a depot in the Netherlands to another European country), the box arrived, I switched it on and start installing stuff when the fan spins up. It sounds like a small 2 stroke engine - there's clearly a mechanical fault - it's an irregular rattling noise.

I've immediately lost confidence in my decision. How can a top-of-the-range laptop be allowed to leave the factory in this condition? Even the most basic of QA should have caught this? If the very basic mechanics have not been checked, then what can I expect with the electronics?

So my employer is paying so I bought we have "premium support". I feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it so I wont describe the surreal nature of that experience.

Now I'm looking at my crusty old MBP and wondering if I've made a big mistake. Basic computer/laptop reliability is like personal health, you don't really appreciate it until you lose it.

<comment><USER10> I ordered my XPS 13 back when I was living in the UK and it took more than a month to get there from a factory in China...

Honestly I have bad luck with mobile devices/laptops. They all have something wrong with them. From failing antennas, to bent frames, to broken wifi, to constantly stuck camera lens, to bloated batteries. All those things typically happened between the 1 to 2 year mark, which was too soon for things to be breaking.

The only devices I've ever owned that have given me 0 issues are Apple products.

I can really appreciate why people spend more on them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like a good idea. I'm buying me some Dell when this goes public.

<comment><USER13> Buy it now, $DVMT

      Each share of Dell Technologies Class V stock will be converted into about 1.37 shares of Class C common stock, Dell Technologies said. The implied value of the Class V shares is $109 a share

<comment><USER14> The stock popped 9% today but is still trading about $17 away from the $109 Dell offered per share. Sounds like a good buy but I don't know enough of the details of the new structure or deal to know.

<comment><USER15> Reasons it's trading below $109:

* The deal isn't a done thing. Shareholders could reject it. (Why would they? Beats me. They can take the premium and turn around and buy ordinary VMW shares, right?)

* The deal is _anticipated_ to close in Q4. It may take longer, and end of Q4 is six months out anyway. 109/92 is an 18.5% premium. If you can generate more than 18.5% on cash over six months, or over the longer period of time you anticipate the deal taking to close, there's no reason to buy DVMT.

That said, 18.5% in six months is a pretty fantastic 37% annualized return, so the market much be pretty skeptical about the timeframe, chances of the deal closing, or both.

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm a Dell employee (software engineer). I don't own any shares of DVMT or VMW (aside from any fractional ownership via broad- market index funds).

<comment><USER16> Deal wont close. DVMT is a tracker for VMW at 1.015:1. It should trade at 164.4 (given a 162 price for VMW). Offer is ~1/3rd in cash that Michael Dell isn't even paying for, it is a special dividend from VMW. Other 2/3rds is an egregious swap for private Dell shares in exchange for DVMT tracker shares. A disgusting deal all around designed to benefit Michael Dell at the expense of common shareholders. It won't be approved.

<comment><USER2> Agreed that this is a great deal for Dell and its investors..... They are going to profit from the discount to the tune of ~$8bn (see my analysis in another comment).

Stranger things have happened so the deal may go through.

I bought more DVMT yesterday to tender it for $109.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A hands-on review of RealDVD, the first legal DVD copier - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2008/09/23/realdvd-review/

<comment><USER2> ... _it adds additional copy protection that prevents users from sharing the DVD copies they've made, or watching them on anything other than up to five Windows PCs per license..._

It won't let me do what I want, and it's not a good way to backup what you spent your hard earned money on.

And none of this bothers real pirates who are in it to make a lot of money by selling millions of pirated copies.

Either the copyright owners are stupid and don't see how pissing off the every day customer without doing anything for pirates is bad for business. Or...

They are not stupid at all, and the penultimate goal of DRM is not to stop piracy but to bring back DivX.

Then they can charge per viewing, charge for fast forwarding, rewinding, pausing, all a separate charge.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$</comment>


Ask HN: What startup website has the best front/home page? - <AUTHOR>

Can anybody nominate startup websites that has a frontpage thats very effectively designed? <comment><USER2> mint.com urbanairship.com

They have clean, efficient design.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://37signals.com/>

<comment><USER4> Maybe in 2005.

<comment><USER5> Jesus can we please retire the 37s/tatango/chargify/everywebsiteever design already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The one with the highest conversion rate. ;)</comment>


Show HN: World's fastest website generator with scripting language and shell - <AUTHOR> https://nift.dev <comment><USER2> The templating system looks crisp and great. Nift documentation goes far beyond simple docs - that's a lot of practical advice (thank you). The support for scripting is welcome - although I come from a different world and will take time wrapping my head around it.

Great work overall!

I am sure this is a great tool for builders - sites are quite easy to replicate and the way templates are setup clearly helps.

At the same time, I think in order to really take off for the general population (incl. me) -

\- It will be great if markup (HTML, or otherwise) could be "cleanly" separated from content (image, text, markdown etc)

\- .. and, not worrying about scripting and its many avatars

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Nift can certainly be used without any scripting (whether it be pre/post build scripts, injecting output from external scripts or its own in-built scripting abilities with n++/f++).

I do worry that things like Lua/ExprTk etc. might scare people who just need a basic static website generator, as I think Nift should still be one of the easiest to use for basic html/css/js websites.

One thing I hope I've succeeded at is ensuring the barebones of a project is quite basic (check out what you get if you run `nsm init-html` in an empty directory if you try installing). If you want you can easily just use Nift's functionality for injecting/inputting content from files at build time then just use basic html/css/js/etc. for your website, while also aiming to be able to integrate with basically any other tool you could possibly want.

It is quite a bit of work to set up things from scratch, but as you identified it's hopefully quite easy to set up templates/boilerplate to be replicated for other projects. In that regard Nift attempts to be unopinionated.

I am not quite sure what you mean by separating markup from content either? The templating system is extremely flexible with how you can lay your files out, inject content from basically wherever etc..

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Compare the f++ script [https://pastebin.com/5FM7Hzef](https://pastebin.com/5FM7Hzef) which takes 3 seconds with the bash script [https://pastebin.com/RTXXEHBg](https://pastebin.com/RTXXEHBg) which takes 3 minutes on my machine for example (both scripts create and delete 100k empty files).

Nift can build all of a basic 100k page website in ~11s and do an incremental build in ~2.25s on my 2014 11" i5 macbook air running Ubuntu 18.04, it uses under 500mb memory building the same basic website scaled to 1 million pages.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you explain what this is?

I read the homepage.

<comment><AUTHOR> It started out as basically just a static website generator but has grown in to having quite a few things.

The primary goal of Nift is still generating websites but not just static ones (and at scale, can handle generating websites with millions of pages). For generating websites you can manage projects and generate them. The best way to learn about this are probably the tutorials ([https://nift.dev/resources/tutorials.html](https://nift.dev/resources/tutorials.html)) which will both point you towards template website repositories you can fork and clone to make websites with, but also initialise a basically empty project using `nift init-html` and give you an idea of how to manage, edit, build etc. a project (you could also use Nift for things like making research papers/books with pandoc, as a pre-processor for any programming language, etc.).

Nift has its own template language n++ to use in the template/content files used to build webpages (you can use it for generating css/scss/js/ts/etc. files as well), though you can also use other template languages combined with n++ as well.

Due to being a template language, doing any actual programming related tasks with n++ is a bit verbose, so using very similar syntax and essentially the same underlying code I added a scripting language called f++. The main purpose for adding f++ was for use with Nift as a website generator, but it works fine as its own scripting language as well, and the f++ REPL works very well as a shell extension (if one installs Nift, start the shell with `nsm sh` and you should be able to use it basically the same as your normal shell, but you also have a full type system, everything from f++, Lua embedded, ExprTk embedded for mathematical expressions, etc. etc.), for example see the other comment on this post from me with a link to an f++ script and a bash script where they do the same thing and the f++ script takes 3 seconds whereas the bash script takes 3 minutes!

If anyone is interested in learning more about Nift or having a play, feel free to email me (contact[at]n-ham.com).</comment></comment>


MacBook Air supplies dwindle ahead of WWDC, Intel CPU refresh - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/05/macbook-air-supplies-dwindle-ahead-of-wwdc-intel-cpu-refresh/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29 <comment><USER2> A month ago, I idly looked up BTO prices on store.apple.com/uk/ (I'm British) as part of my annual "I wonder where the sweet spot's moved to" check.

13" Retina Probook with 2.5GHz i7 processor, 8Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, costs ~ £1650.

13" Airbook with 2.0GHz i7 processor, 8Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, costs ~ £1600.

So for an extra £50, you can go from the Airbook to the 13" Retina Probook. You gain a _vastly_ better display and 20% faster CPU, in return for a 300 gram weight penalty.

My reading of this is that the 13" rMBP has massively eroded the value proposition of the high-end 13" Airbook. So either the 13" Airbook price is going to have to come down significantly, or the spec is going to have to rise, or both. (Something like a 2.5GHz Haswell CPU and a £50-100 price cut would begin to make it appealing again.)

<comment><USER3> An alternative perspective - for people that travel a lot, that 300 grams (.6 pounds) - is a deal breaker. Also, you really have to be a power user to need more than a MacBook Air can give you in terms of performance - my 2010 4GB 256 GB SSD MBair is plenty fast for me, and I'm probably pushing it harder than 95% of "road warriors" do.

It may be the case that people value the mobility so much that Apple isn't dropping the price on the MacBook Air. (Or, alternatively, people are no longer buying the heavier MacBook Pro, so they've dropped it's price.)

<comment><USER4> > _An alternative perspective - for people that travel a lot, that 300 grams > (.6 pounds) - is a deal breaker._

I travel a lot, and even the 15" rMBP is not a "deal breaker".

It's funny how pathetic it would look to our fathers that we find 2.5 kg to much to carry around in a bag...

<comment><USER5> Agree 100%. I travel a lot and need more power. I currently have a 13" MBA, and am waiting to see what the next refresh offers, but am seriously looking at a 15" rMBP for my next machine. The screen is sooooo much better that the extra weight becomes a non issue (plus all the extra CPU power is huge too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can live without Retina. I can live within 512GB SSD. But I really need 16GB RAM... fingers crossed.

Haswell demos at IDF last year were pretty awesome, so I think longer battery life at the same travel weight (and better overall performance) is pretty much a given.

<comment><USER7> We'll see about idle time, but active time won't be much better. The 17W IVB chips will be replaced with 15W Haswell chips. Performance will only feel better for "retina" laptops, because of a stronger GPU. The Haswell GPU will barely be "adequate" for retina displays though. So don't expect to be "wowed" or anything. IVB GPU wasn't adequate at all for retina displays. Haswell is really the first generation that can _begin_ to handle retina displays with a "PC OS".

If you don't use retina, you won't feel much of a difference, except in games (if you were playing games on an Intel integrated GPU before). Haswell has been generally overhyped. The improvements are relatively minor compared to IVB. CPU wise I think it's only 5-10% faster.

<comment><USER2> IVB is adequate for retina display ... if paired with a sidecar like the GeForce GT650M. Or used solely for typing and similar non-graphically- intensive activities. (As on this rMBP 15").

Haswell promises _cheaper_ adequate performance, on less power. And speaking as someone with retinal (eyeball, not electronic) trouble, I'm really looking forward to a portable (i.e. 13") laptop with adequate performance that I can work on. (My 15" rMBP is great for work in the home office, but a bit heavy/bulky/expensive for carting around airports and foreign parts.)

(Don't expect to see a retina display on Macbook Air this year, though -- too power hungry. It'll probably just be a better 13" retina Probook for now.)

<comment><USER8> > IVB is adequate for retina display ... if paired with a sidecar like the > GeForce GT650M. Or used solely for typing and similar non-graphically- > intensive activities. (As on this rMBP 15").

Completely agree -- I think there were early performance issues which were due to unoptimised drivers causing e.g. laggy Safari scrolling and that's caused a lot of misinformation to be out there. The truth is that, in practice, the IVB GPU has been more than fine for me unless I'm doing something that would require a dedicated GPU anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Finger crossed for a retina 11" model with a very big SSD... if it does not happen I'll probably use the money to get a big replacement SSD for my current 11" model instead, that's fast enough with its i7 for most programming tasks.

Edit: apparently my mid-2011 model is not capable of installing big enough SSDs, so I'll have to upgrade anyway to the new model.

<comment><USER10> >Edit: apparently my mid-2011 model is not capable of installing big enough SSDs, so I'll have to upgrade anyway to the new model.

Are you sure ? It sure can take in these ( the same max capacity as the 2012 or 13" ones) <http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Air_2011>

Note : Apple doesn't upgrade the Macbook Air's SSD post purchase so you'd have to get a third party one like the macsales one anyway.

<comment><USER11> A note of caution: though you can upgrade the SSD on recent Macbook Airs, you _cannot_ upgrade the RAM after purchase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have the first 13 Macbook Alumium, upgraded with SSD and 8gb of ram and sometimes I'd like to upgrade to something newer but the thing is still working perfectly. No crashes, no melting, no anything, simply indestructible.

When I will have to switch, it'll be a sad day.

<comment><USER13> I have that one as well and it's unbreakable indeed. I have also 8gb and SSD and the thing is rocksolid. However, it's too slow when i'm working with Xcode, Eclipse, Chrome and high performance apps. So I bought a 15 inch i7 to go with it. Horrible machine; crashes, feels(!) slower for normal work than the 13 inch one, has a broken magsafe internal (I soldered the wires to the board otherwise it wouldn't load anymore; one day i'll pick up a new magsafe from ebay but I still don't like the price of the real verified ones) just after the warranty. Recently the 'asd' keys just stopped working (no moist or anything, just stopped working). The machine makes it capable of doing intensive eclipse + xcode + simulator work on it while the 13 inch doesn't, but when doing anything else, i'm working on my trusted 13 inch macbook (which is much older).

I hope they will make the next line as robust as that one.

<comment><USER14> I have a 2011 15in i7, it's been rock solid, are you sure you didn't just get a lemon? You should take it in...

<comment><USER13> Yeah it could be, but it's too old now... I should've taken the 3 year warranty, but as I said; my previous experiences (were I did have 3 years warranty) I didn't need it so I didn't take it for this either. That bit me badly...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm still good with my mid-2011 model, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 13"... Old adage of updating Macs every 3 years still holds I guess.

<comment><USER16> This thread amazes me. I'm writing on a 2007 vintage white plastic Macbook which has been my main and only non-scientific machine for the past half decade. It "feels" nearly as fast as my friends' much newer MBAirs and Pros (except boot time, ofc) and is hilariously more responsive than the new Windows laptops owned by people in my lab.

<comment><USER17> Which OS?

<comment><USER16> Snow Leopard. It can't run anything newer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> While it's no surprise that a new MacBook Air might be around the corner, Apple could still better itself - Retina for Air, higher reliable/capacity SSDs, Longer battery life, etc.

I wonder if OS X itself would be tweaked a bit to facilitate enhanced power efficiency. An Air with long(er) battery life + Retina + decent crunching power could potentially threaten the "Ultrabook" segment.

<comment><USER19> > Apple could still better itself - Retina for Air, higher reliable/capacity > SSDs, Longer battery life, etc.

The first thing it needs to do is put more RAM in the thing, even more so because it can't be upgraded over time. There really needs to be a 16GB BTO (and if there can be a 32GB one even better, even if it costs an arm and a leg, 16GB is not enough to be _comfortable_ when you need to juggle half a dozen VMs)

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I mean RAM is a crucial part. I'd be willing to be the extra for that. Considering the leaps in RAM tech, we'd better see >8 GB RAM on devices shipping this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Damn. Just bought one. :(

<comment><USER21> I made the same mistake once. Managed to return it though, loosing $200, but the new one was worth it.

Since then, this has been very helpful: <http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/></comment></comment>


Charlie Munger Speech at USC - May 2007 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Cy7UwsRPQ

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are some notes on the speech I found after a bit of searching: <http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=8539></comment>


Has the modern university become just another corporation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1348804800&en=89c1bfa23c3175ea&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> This is a pointless argument until everyone agrees on the definitions of "Corporation" versus "University." The article is careless on that point, and vague about what we should do if they are really the same. He highlights a few exceptional cases, which may be representative problems but are probably not.

In particular, he doesn't seem to have thought at all about the consequences of levying taxes on Universities. That seems to be the central injustice he's concerned about, but does he really think the money would be better off in government hands? He doesn't seem to have considered those implications.

Personally, I think there is a ton of value in the idea of a University, in spite of the possibility for corruption and definitely in spite of anyone's attempt to abstract away random differences until corporations and universities look the same in some meaningless description. The culture of any decent university campus encourages learning in a way that you almost never see at a large company. You might compare Harvard to Google, or Xerox PARC, but start comparing second tier colleges to second tier companies and companies don't even come close.

</comment><comment><USER3> "How are college students treated in this brave new academic world? Not very well, at least not if this year's spate of bad news articles is any indication."

I don't know that this year's spate of bad news articles _is_ any indication. College admissions are perennially weighted towards the already-advantaged, but once you're in, I have a hard time believing that motivated students were better off 30 years ago. The number of programs and opportunities for people willing to go for them is growing constantly.

Robg, your headline asks that question like it's a bad thing. There are certainly pitfalls, but it seems that if universities compete with each other more, students can only win.

<comment><AUTHOR> The headline was the subtitle in the Magazine TOC and more informative than the actual headline ("Academic Business").

<comment><USER3> It definitely summarizes the article better, so you were right to use it. I blame the Magazine, not you, for its tone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the most part, yes.

<comment><USER5> Really? Do I need to list the differences?

<comment><USER4> Proceed, if you would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That would be awesome. I wish our schools were run like businesses.

There would probably be less porn stars coming to speak for "diversity" week ...</comment>


The Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test - <AUTHOR> http://daithiocrualaoich.github.io/kolmogorov_smirnov/ <comment><USER2> This is a very nice review, but in practice I've found the K-S test to be much less useful than it initially appears:

1\. Failing to reject the null hypothesis is not the same as accepting the null hypothesis. That is, concluding "these data _are_ from some distribution X" is spurious.

2\. There's a 'sweet-spot' for the amount of data. If you have too few samples, it's very easy to fail to reject; and if you have too many, it's very easy to reject (the chart at the bottom of the "Two Sample Test" section illustrates this).

3\. The question "are these data from some distribution X?" is usually too strong. It's usually more informative to ask "can these data be modelled with some distribution X?"

<comment><USER3> Agree with you on all three, but specifically for 1., can you think of pathological pairs of distinct distribution that the test would often fail to reject?

<comment><USER4> The article says it's poor at detecting differences in the tails and much better at differences in the medians. So that's where I'd start to find problems.

<comment><USER3> Playing with the tails make all kind of mistakes possible, but that seems like a criticism that would apply to any attempt to identify a distribution based on sample.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice review! I tried using the K-S test once for some of the old Matasano crypto challenges, to determine if the letter frequency of the text after running it through some deciphering algorithm was from the same distribution as the letter frequency of a sample of the English language. Couldn't ever get it to work, though... maybe that's an inappropriate use of the test, or maybe my sample (Pride and Prejudice, IIRC) was unrepresentative. In the end, simply computing the distance of the two letter frequency vectors (sum of squares) worked.

I did it all in ruby at the time, but it looks like rust may have some stats libraries now? Should give it a whirl again this time using rust, or maybe do tpatcek's new Stockfighter game instead.

<comment><USER6> The K-S test assumes the data comes from a continuous distribution, so count data would mess up the test's false positive rate. You could avoid that by doing a permutation test, or one of the variations of the K-S test designed to account for data with ties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What a wonderful article. I've learnt several useful things just by skimming it, even if I never end up using Kolmogorov-Smirnov in anger.

<comment><USER8> Why anger?

<comment><USER9> Used in anger is an expression that roughly means 'used to achieve something.'

I think it comes from 'shots fired in practice' vs. 'shots fired in anger' (i.e. in combat, for the purpose of killing).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the KS test is quite sensitive.

if you are specifically testing against the normal dist the jarque bera test might be better, although also rather sensitive (prone to false negatives).

for two samples if you have enough data to bin, the chisq test is also available to you.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is quite nice! But does anyone else knows more useful websites such as this with down-to-earth explanations of statistical tools?

<comment><USER12> That the K-S test works is some cute math by the _father of modern probability_ A. N. Kolmogorov.

But that test and many more are part of _non-parametric_ , that is, _distribution-free_ hypothesis testing. That statistics has long been popular in the social sciences. A major theme in such statistics is permutations. Another major theme, and more recent, is _resampling_.

I first learned about such tests from a book that was sitting around the office, Sidney Siegel, _Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences._

These tests are all _one dimensional_. Once I published a paper on a distribution-free test that is multi-dimensional -- my paper may remain the only such.

These days, see also the work of B. Efron and P. Diaconis.

More can be done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've used the KS test (and several other nonparametric stats) in research a bit. It's a cool thing to learn about, though it's worth noting that a _lot_ of applied research can make do with parametric approaches. Thank you, Central Limit Theorem.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've heard Bayesian data analysis is the most powerful compared to all statistical tests/techniques. Can anyone clarify/expand?</comment>


Dark Matter May Have Existed Before the Big Bang, New Math Suggests - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/dark-matter-before-big-bang.html <comment> chupa-chups Same topic a day ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20654625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20654625)</comment>


The first major sign your web host will not respect you - <AUTHOR> https://hawaiigentech.com/post/commentary/sign-your-webhost-does-not-respect-you/ <comment><USER2> I use Digital Ocean now and used Linode for a long time before that, both are great.

But, before I knew how to manage my own server, I used [https://dathorn.com/](https://dathorn.com/). They were the absolute greatest shared host that I have ever used. The guy running it is extremely responsive, and I never had any issues.

If you're looking for shared hosting, I can't recommend them enough. I'm not affiliated, I just hope they never gets put under by big hosting companies.

<comment><USER3> You might be right, but I'd be careful recommending _any_ shared hosting that you aren't currently using!

I 'upgraded' to using VPS', mostly Digital Ocean and Hetzner a few years ago. But before that I relied on shared hosting. I constantly experienced the following:

\- use shared hosting provider <x> because they're affordable and support is great.

\- lots of people start using <x>

\- support degrades, uptime is affected, and the whole thing goes to shit.

\- check various subreddits and forums to figure out what the current 'good' host is.

\- go through the trouble of moving my sites (and, early on, DNS) to the new great solution.

\- rinse, repeat.

My experience with VPS providers has been less unstable. I mostly moved from DO to Hetzner because the latter is cheaper and still good enough for my use- cases. But the time I've been with DO is multiples of how long I stuck with a shared hosting provider until they went to shit.

(I think HostGator was the last straw for me, iirc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To me, Dreamhost stands out as the sole player that has (mostly) avoided becoming scummy when it comes to shared, managed hosting services. Probably because they're independent and employee-owned.

I was a happy customer for ~2 decades. Only recently left because I simply have no need for their services anymore (and frankly, haven't for years) due to having an assortment of VPS and dedicated server instances running around the globe at any given point in time nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER5> A respectful VPS provider is also hard to find. Sometimes I get most of the way through the sales funnel only to find out that the ToS includes selling my personal information to third parties.

In general I found that the more third-party domains linked to from a provider's site, the higher the chance they're up to some kind of disrespectful behaviour.

<comment><USER6> I mean sure, I don't look back too fondly on the days of $0.99/mo 128MB OpenVZ plans, which is where I feel this distaste comes from. Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode have been way more solid for me and they keep each other honest in terms of pricing.

I'm curious if any of those three are guilty of selling personal data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At a minimum, a disclaimer should be added next to the price. Such as: $19/mo Billed Annually</comment>


Visual rendering of first 100 billion digits of pi proves randomness - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/08/start/spot-a-shape-and-reinvent-maths <comment><AUTHOR> Given that it's a mathematical topic, interesting use of the word "prove"

</comment><comment><USER2> This is hardly original, but "proves" in the title is not correct, for an additional reason -- it's not a test of Pi, only a subset.

</comment><comment><USER3> s/proves/shows/

<comment><USER4> s/shows/suggests/

<comment><USER3> fair enough...</comment></comment></comment>


French Interior Ministry Posts Drone Footage of Notre Dame Fire - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=476694689737368&id=103146727990&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Famp.cnn.com%2Fcnn%2Fworld%2Flive-news%2Fnotre-dame-fire%2Findex.html&_rdr <comment><AUTHOR> Shot begins at about 1:20. FB login not required for viewing.

The footage is devastating.

<comment><USER2> I have no FB cookies, and trying to open it in a private window redirects to a login. I suspect you might be logged out but have a cookie that's good enough for Facebook to track that you're watching the video.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have FB.</comment></comment></comment>


Armstrong to Be Stripped of Tour Titles, Banned - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-23/lance-armstrong-to-be-stripped-of-7-tour-titles-banned-for-life <comment><USER2> This is misleading and confusing. Armstrong mentioned in his statement that (among other reasons) he quit fighting this because he believed the USADA doesn't have the authority to strip his titles.

Here is a snippet I picked up.

"The agency can impose a lifetime ban and recommend Armstrong be stripped of his titles. That would put the question in the hands of the International Cycling Union, which has disputed USADA's authority to pursue the investigation and Tour de France officials, who have had a prickly relationship with Armstrong over the years."

So, I believe that it's not a given that Armstrong will lose his titles, but there's probably a much greater chance for that to happen than if the USADA had not been able to make this recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER3> How long has it been that sports are a race to be just ahead of banned substances? Should we even care about sports anymore?

<comment><USER4> Extreme performance is interesting. Should we even care about banned substances anymore?

<comment><USER5> Actually an all-drug Olympics would be interesting!

[http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/update-all- drug...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/update-all-drug- olympics/1198068)</comment></comment></comment>


Brain activity pattern may be early sign of schizophrenia - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2018/brain-activity-pattern-sign-schizophrenia-1108 <comment><USER2> > "That really gets at the heart of how we can translate this clinically, > because we can get in earlier and earlier to identify aberrant networks in > the hopes that we can do earlier interventions, and possibly even prevent > psychiatric disorders"

Get the evidence for the intervention before deploying it, please. The existing track record of mental illness "prevention" efforts isn't very good. The most infamous example is probably critical incident stress debriefing, which some studies found _increased_ PTSD risk.

<comment><USER3> This exactly. Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication. Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price. There is no accountability for health care in this country, only "disaster prevention" taken at all cost to the mad patient.

I believe that with increased data collection and the push for ML systems, we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery, but there is no transparency about outcomes, costs, decisions, medications, etc.

<comment><USER4> > Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication.

Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients, they just made patients more manageable. The tranquilizers (later rebranded as "anti- psychotics") served the same purpose: treatment without cure.

"Akathisia is a movement disorder characterized by a feeling of inner restlessness and inability to stay still. [...] Complications include suicide. [...] Akathisia is frequently associated with the use of dopamine receptor antagonist antipsychotic drugs." [0]

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

> Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price.

The terrible medications aren't even necessary to help people recover from psychotic states. The Quakers found that putting their psychotics in an "asylum" and feeding them four meals a day allowed most patients to recover over time [1][2].

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793](https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_reform)

> [...] we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of > intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery,

Many common medical interventions 'miss the forest for the trees'. "Stress" (biological/emotional) is _the_ major factor in most conditions, but this is not covered very well in medical training.

<comment><USER5> > Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients

ECT is very useful for some things:

ECT is used for refractory major depression (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which doesn't respond to drug therapy (that is what 'refractory' means).

It is very effective in that role: [http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201...](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050648):

> ECT is often effective for severely depressed patients who have not > responded to multiple medication trials or who are at imminent risk of > suicide. This issue's Treatment in Psychiatry highlights the safety and > efficacy of ECT while stressing the importance of the pre-ECT medical > evaluation and consent process.

> Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which has been in use for 75 years, is an > important treatment for severe and treatment-resistant depression. Although > it is acknowledged as the most effective acute treatment for severe mood and > psychotic disorders, it remains controversial because of misperceptions > about its use and lack of familiarity among health care professionals about > modern ECT technique. The authors present an illustrative case of a patient > for whom ECT is indicated. They review the basic and clinical science > related to ECT's mechanism of action and discuss clinical issues in the > administration of a course of ECT, including the consent process.

More information: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/):

> The clinical efficacy of ECT in TRD is well established, with 60% to 90% > rate of acute response in TRD [3], and it is indicated specifically in > severe psychotic depression, catatonia and delirious mania.

It's a very effective last-ditch therapy for some very serious disorders.

<comment><USER4> > ECT is very useful for some things:

ECT's cheerleaders promote their machines. The ECT-resistance claims there is considerable evidence against the use of electrically-induced brain damage [0]. Who am I to believe? I'm biased towards the detractors, as I have personally witnesses the harm perpetrated under the mental health industry's usual practices.

Dr. Breggin says there was recently a breakthrough in class action lawsuits against ECT manufacturers [1].

[0] [http://www.ectresources.org/](http://www.ectresources.org/) [1] [https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough- ect-l...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough-ect-lawsuit/)

> (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which > doesn't respond to drug therapy

There are some drugs that are somewhat useful for helping people out of their depressed state, while the actual causes of their condition are addressed. These drugs fell out of favor as their patents expired, and as less-effective "anti-depressants" were patented. Each generation of anti-depressant is less effective than the generation which preceded it. The SSRIs are the least- effective anti-depressants of all - these drugs might help some patients not because of their effect on Serotonin, but on the neurosteroids [2].

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepressant_action)

Depression is partially a case of 'exhaustion' due to 'biological stress' (with 'emotional stress' as the usual contributing factor). Its causes and appropriate treatments have been discussed in the scientific literature, but the actual findings are incompatible with the patent medicine industry's business model.

Thanks for your comment, as the process which culminated in this response was quite worthwhile for me.

<comment><USER5> > These drugs fell out of favor as their patents expired

That's literally the opposite of what happens: Patent-expired drugs can be made more cheaply, and become more popular, precisely because there's no patent holder exerting a pressure to keep prices up.

Really, your whole post reads like a screed with no scholarly foundation to it.

<comment><USER4> > That's literally the opposite of what happens: Patent-expired drugs can be > made more cheaply, and become more popular, precisely because there's no > patent holder exerting a pressure to keep prices up.

The parents who got ripped off by the Epi-Pen manufacturers would probably disagree with this assessment of "what happens".

As a counter-point, I offer Wikipedia's assessment of the current usefulness of the old drugs:

      New research into MAOIs indicates that much of the concern
      over their supposed dangerous dietary side effects stems
      from misconceptions and misinformation, and that it is
      still underutilized despite demonstrated efficacy.

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor)

I emphasize, "misconceptions and misinformation". Robert Whitaker got his start writing about the harm done on patients by the SSRIs when they first launched. These drugs should be "last resort", not first.

> Really, your whole post reads like a screed [...]

I have some personal experience witnessing patients' struggle against professionals who think their patients require palliative drugs. My aunt's friend is dying of anti-psychotic-induced liver failure -- she was always a little 'off' to me, now I know why. My friend was misdiagnosed by industry and is forced to take harmful drugs. I am confident that my reading of these situations is basically correct.

Medicine has come a long way since the days of bloodletting and calomel (mercury) therapies. It has further yet to go.

It's hard for all of us to attain perspective on whatever field we're studying. Here's a neat HN comment I just ran across:

"One of our group leaders in our research institute learned physics at the dawn of quantum mechanics, saw theory translate into practical applications (e.g. laser technology), and then boost and transform theory again. She is 90+ now. It was great to hear from her _how long it took for the right theories to overcome the barriers of adoption,_ how fashion works in science, and how many things we think as new are actually really old stuff in new clothes." \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13998273](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13998273) (emphasis added)

> [...] with no scholarly foundation to it.

you're cute. I have actually made many trips to the science library to check references. Sometimes I buy copies of these books for my own personal library. I try to provide references and links for all my comments which challenge the status-quo.

I can state with confidence that the core of "mental illness" was figured out decades ago, and was in the science libraries by late 1970's. Everything the scientists knew then should have leaked into practice by now. But our medical professionals are still being trained with theories that are demonstrably false and harmful (e.g. anti-dopamine drugs for "psychosis", SSRIs as first resort rather than withdrawn from use, etc). Maybe you think modern medicine is marvelous, but from my perspective I see a lot of my friends and family's doctors "missing the forest for the trees".

Sanity will eventually prevail, but there is a monetary bias against its implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TL;DR: "a part of the brain known as the superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in auditory processing, is highly connected to brain regions involved in sensory perception and motor control. However, in patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more connected to limbic regions, which are involved in processing emotions"

News should be written like emails, the most important info should be at the top, an not near the end or scattered so you have to read the whole thing to understand what is going on.

<comment><USER7> That last part of the second sentence should not appear in the article at all, it is inaccurate. It suggests that the limbic system in general is involved in processing emotions, which is not the case although it has often been presented that way for non-scientific reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been interested if I could do something like this research at home. [http://neurosky.com/](http://neurosky.com/) is what I used I use for brain monitoring. Maybe someone here can give me some tips.

<comment><USER9> Looks like a fun thing to experiment - what headset to you recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more > connected to limbic regions

Increased correlation between auditory and emotional neural regions. This is a little flimsy.</comment>


Facebook's iPad App Is Finally Here. Yes, For Real This Time. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/facebooks-ipad-app-is-finally-here-yes-for-real-this-time/

<comment><USER2> The binary on the App Store is still iPhone only and their official page links to the iPhone version. Looks like there is a little snafu...

<comment><USER2> Sorted now - the binary is updated for both platforms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> so does it address the iPad's biggest shortcoming? (multiple users)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yay!

</comment><comment><USER5> And it's awesome :)</comment>


"Fake News" Is in the Eye of the Beholder - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mtracey/fake-news-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder-9457a5b4b453 <comment><USER2> > "Fake News" Is in the Eye of the Beholder

no, it's not. Some news is objectively false and has been repeatedly, and conclusively, disproven (e.g. Obama was born outside the US).

> Much like the word "terrorism," the phrase "fake news" will be manipulated > to accord with whatever pre-existing ideological commitments its newfound > opponents already espouse.

possibly, but while it may be hard to say which stories are 'true', it is definitely possible to identify 'false'/fake ones. See Popper's concept of falsification: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the concern here is how easy it is to conflate "fake" with "things we disagree with", thus turning a need for journalist integrity into a partisan play. Given the willingness of major news outlets to quote polls without questioning methodology, I think the fear is justified that "fake" can become "anti-liberal".

Luckily, outside of clamping down on social media platforms and driving alt- right to use other venues, this whole campaign is stillborn.</comment></comment>


Government of Canada Guidelines to Recommend Open Source and Standards - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=15249 <comment><AUTHOR> Relevant parts in: _Appendix C, C.2.3.8_</comment>


Tiny Water Bears Can Survive in Outer Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/space/16obvacu.html?ref=science

<comment><AUTHOR> Tiny water bears in space might seem cute, but beware. They look like this:

[http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.marsanomalyre...](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/evidence- reports/2004/078/1-078-water-bear- frontal.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/evidence- reports/2004/078/mars-organism- survivor.htm&h=535&w=730&sz=51&tbnid=EXdmx1qryvsJ::&tbnh=103&tbnw=141&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwater%2Bbear&usg=__yKKw-C8TxaYwPsizwPeddndH6Ug=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=1)</comment>


Show HN: Python app to check you in to your Southwest flight - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pyro2927/SouthwestCheckin <comment><USER2> That looks really useful! In your experience, how often does Southwest make breaking changes to the flight confirmation process that would require a significant re-write?

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a heads-up, you have your API key in the source code. You may want to consider having a gitignored secret.txt file for the keys.</comment>


Optimal Emacs Settings for Org-Mode for Literate Programming in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2016/06/21/optimal-emacs-settings-for-org-mode-for-literate-programming/ <comment><USER2> How timely - I, too, got frustrated by the fact that org-babel src block evaluation is synchronous, so I built ob-async [1]. Rather than target a specific babel language, it aims to support any flavor of src block. It uses jwiegley's async [2] to execute the block in a second Emacs process and then inserts the results in the buffer when complete. There are still some rough edges (no :session support, for example), but it's worked well for my somewhat limited use cases so far.

[1] [https://github.com/astahlman/ob-async](https://github.com/astahlman/ob- async) [2] [https://github.com/jwiegley/emacs- async](https://github.com/jwiegley/emacs-async)

</comment><comment><USER3> You don't necessarily have to push all files into the global agenda. Instead, you can set `org-agenda-custom-commands` to something like

      '(("p" "Some project"
         ((alltodo ""))
         ((org-agenda-files '("path/to/file.org"
                              "path/to/another.org"))))
        ("o" "Another project"
         ((alltodo ""))
         ((org-agenda-files '("another/project/file.org")))))

Now using `M-x org-agenda p` will give you a todo list for the first project, and `M-x org-agenda o` for the second project.

</comment><comment><USER4> The current and recent versions of Emacs ship with org-mode and the necessary support [1]. The 'org' package in melpa/elpa is likely to be obsolete and installing it is likely to create versioning issues between various elisp files.

[1]: [http://orgmode.org/manual/Installation.html](http://orgmode.org/manual/Installation.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429437](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429437) was related.</comment>


Why your developers are slow - <AUTHOR> http://jeremyphelps.com/blog/why-your-developers-are-slow.html <comment><USER2> No mention of burnout?

If a developer becomes suddenly unproductive burnout is often the culprit.

Also, in my experience another culprit is: your developers are slow because you aren't willing to pay them market rates or show them respect so even though their conscious mind wants to work their butt off for you, they just can't do it because moral is so low.

</comment><comment><USER3> How was technical debt not one of the things mentioned? In my experience that's by far the #1 reason for poor velocity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edited out for space, mostly :)

My target audience is founders of very early-stage startups, so I cut the section under the assumption that they probably won't have much technical debt yet.

<comment><USER3> Speaking as someone who has worked as a developer for multiple early-stage startups, the opposite is true.

Early-stage startups tend to have rampant technical debt for two reasons:

1) They need to get a product to market immediately and they need to iterate on it rapidly—so using technical debt as a tool to achieve short-term goals quickly is actually awesome.

2) Startups tend to pivot. Making fundamental domain changes to a product quickly tends to give you very weird systems, often with large unused portions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Schedule meetings at the beginning or end of the day, or near lunch.

Please don't unless you can make sure it won't make your devs miss lunch or leave late because it got extended.

I'd prefer to just schedule meetings ahead as a suggestion.

</comment><comment><USER5> And they get slower as you add/change requirements.

Managers don't get that you waste time if you put a sewer canal in the street, close the street and pave it, then break it up again to put cables in.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok, I understand requirements is important to developer productivity.

Can anyone point me to a succinct resource for non-developers on writing product requirements?

<comment><USER7> [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/10/02/painless- functiona...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/10/02/painless-functional- specifications-part-1-why-bother/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 5\. Don't interrupt a developer unless the building is on fire

Yes, please don't !

</comment><comment><USER9> How does this guy make money only charging $1,000/week?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a fractional CTO, so $1,000/wk is only a fraction of my overall earnings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would include overburdening processes.</comment>


The Global Consciousness Project - <AUTHOR> http://noosphere.princeton.edu

<comment><USER2> The fundamental question here concerns the boundaries of subjective experience. (Rather than, say, rational materialism vs. mysticism.)

Is it magical that you can see a running rabbit and throw a stone and hit it? Certainly the subjective experience of doing something like that is just as problematical for science as the research above. I have in my pocket a tiny machine that uses crystals to shake light to send my voice etc. to far receivers practically instantly. Is it really so strange to consider something like that being done biologically?

I'm glad somebody's doing science to it. ;-)

<comment><USER3> Like you say, science can't really help with questions of subjective experience. I think this is more about observing an _objective_ phenomenon, which is that "thought" can affect random number generators. The problem, as stated on the site, is this:

      When it comes to "what we are measuring" the story becomes
      more complicated because there is no real understanding of
      the mechanism whereby an REG [Random event generator]'s
      behavior can be altered by thoughts and emotions or
      intentions.
      [...]
      We do not know how a mental state such as an intention or
      emotion is able to inform the physical system to affect
      its behavior. In addition, all of the robust measures we
      have providing evidence for the anomalous effects are
      statistical in nature, and the signal to noise ratio is
      extremely low. This means that we typically cannot be
      sure that the "signature" of an effect in any individual
      analysis is driven by the hypothesized influence of
      consciousness. The details written in the data from
      single instances are more likely to be chance
      fluctuations than consciousness effects. Only in larger
      concatenations, gathering the weak signals from many
      separate events, can we be satisfied that trends and
      structure represent the hypothesized effect.

In short, they believe they have observed an inexplicable phenomenon -- intention influencing random number generation. The attempt to quantify, describe, and eventually fully understand that supposed phenomenon is the key purpose of their research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is this doing on the website of Princeton?

<comment><USER5> It seems to be a continuation of PEAR's research program in some form.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would have thought this approach would have been highly susceptible to the Birthday Paradox[0]; it seems to me to be nothing more than modern day numerology.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem)

<comment><USER7> they're using 200 bits. look at the generalized birthday problem section on your cited link--the number of samples for there to be greater than a 50% probability of a collision is > (3-2ln2)/6 + sqrt(2 _(2^200)_ ln2) = 1.49 _10^30. For a probability of 0.01 of a collision you expect at least sqrt((2^200)_ ln(1/(1-0.01))=1.27*10^29 samples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is trash science.

Nobody else has been able to replicate their "results".

<comment><USER9> Seems like they are running experiments and collecting data to test their hypothesis. Doesn't that count as science? Or do you call it trash science simply because the hypothesis seems unreasonable?

<comment><USER10> Here's a good post about this [0], including this gem:

> _Schiltz is a psi believer [... but Wiseman] is a psi skeptic [...]_

> _The idea was to plan an experiment together, with both of them agreeing on > every single tiny detail. They would then go to a laboratory and set it up, > again both keeping close eyes on one another. Finally, they would conduct > the experiment in a series of different batches. [...]_

> _The results? Schlitz's trials found strong evidence of psychic powers, > Wiseman's trials found no evidence whatsoever._

Running experiments and collecting data is necessary, but not sufficient. Bias and other failures are extremely hard to avoid.

Saying "it's not science" is (derogatory) shorthand for the assertion that their results are due to failures in their process, as opposed to being reflective of reality.

0: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is- ou...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of- control/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Visualize Reddit user profile - <AUTHOR> I recently saw a website that can visualize the user profile of reddit. I am unable to find that site.<p>Anyone know the site I am looking for. <comment><USER2> Maybe [https://redective.com/](https://redective.com/)

(but it didn't work for me)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe [http://www.redditinsight.com](http://www.redditinsight.com)</comment>


The first item to sell on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83 - <AUTHOR> http://thiswasfirst.com

<comment><USER2> This makes some pretty big personalities seem very vulnerable, I like it. For example, it has Michael Arrington's first blog post on TechCrunch. cool stuff

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool site, fun to see how these big sites all started out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah! Some of the big blogs 1st posts were very.... poorly written. Yet they made it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does HN throw an error page when a link is clicked repeatedly? - <AUTHOR> When i click on `new` link repeatedly (5-10 times), I see an error page.
I made a gif: http://imgur.com/a/IJY53
Error page
<comment>=====
An error occurred.
Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
If you are the system administrator of this resource then you should check the error log for details.
Faithfully yours, nginx.
</comment><comment></comment><comment>=
Is this some sort of DDOS protection? </comment><comment><USER2> There's a link at the bottom of each page to the FAQ:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

In the FAQ there is a link to the Guidelines:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Interestingly, the FAQ also has a link to the guidelines.

In the guidelines it says:

        In Submissions

        ...

        Please don't post on HN to ask or
        tell us something ... If you want
        to say something to us, please send
        it to firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>