Always Already Translated - <AUTHOR> http://www.publicbooks.org/fiction/always-already-translated <comment><USER2> > _Translation is not secondary or incidental to these works. It is a > condition of their production."_

If something is written in language A and then translated, then the translation is secondary. It doesn't matter that it happens very soon or that it's a condition of the production. Secondary means not primary; derived from. Cheese is still secondary to milk, even as we milk the cow under a contract to product cheese; the milk is not "born curdled and ripened".

To be "born translated" would mean that a polyglot author writes each sentence or paragraph in several languages at once, directly from the meaning to each language, without translating among them. Or that multiple collaborating authors come up with the semantics for each element of the book, discussing and coming to an agreement about each idea and then rendering it into their respective languages. In these cases, each book is then secondary only to the raw ideas; it is not secondary to another version of the book in a different language.

We can regard it as a book being a body of ideas which are "born translated" to language. So all books are "born translated", but usually to just one language. Additional translations are secondary book-to-book translations. But we could have an intriguing situation in which a book is "born translated" directly from ideas to two or more languages.

<comment><USER3> I think you have a different standard for what is "primary" or "secondary", and that if you draw such a sharp line when it comes to interpreting the language of the article, you are of course going to find a reason to disagree with it. If you argue about what it means for a work to be "born"\--whether that happens at publication or when the author sets pen to paper--of course you are going to disagree.

Find a more interesting way to disagree, rather than discussing such superficial trimmings.

<comment><USER2> You don't think the idea of a book being actually produced in multiple languages at once is interesting? I was hoping that's what the article would be about; instead it's about Harry Potter coming out in a bunch of languages.

My standard for "primary" versus "secondary" is simply that the primary thing exists first, before the secondary thing exists and is derived from it. I'm definitely not moving the goalposts here or setting the bar high; no game of "true Scotsman's primary and secondary". By "born", I also take it to mean "come into observable existence in the world" or something like that; nothing special. A book is born when we have a manuscript.

<comment><USER4> Also, there are still the different roles of author and translator in these "born translated" projects, right? The author is still writing the manuscript in one language and the translator (a different person) is still producing translations. (Though presumably the translator can make suggestions or ask questions like an editor would, which is a pretty meaningful difference in the production process.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure the article meant China Miéville's _Embassytown_ , a novel about aliens who speak with two mouths in unison using a language of similes (referencing events they orchestrate to expand their vocabulary), not _The City & The City_:

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

</comment><comment><USER6> So what, a book is being translated faster. What's the big deal? What's the real impact? Do you think JK Rowling wrote the last Harry Potter books thinking about the translations and that it impacted her writing? Do you think it made her rewrite some sentences because they would be hard to translate?

I have a hard time believing that. I have a hard time finding the point of the article anyway, so... They're trying too hard.</comment>


AI researchers allege that machine learning is alchemy - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/ai-researchers-allege-machine-learning-alchemy <comment><USER2> As I've argued in the discussion here of this paper: [https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/03/28/deep-learning-scaling- is...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/03/28/deep-learning-scaling-is- predictable-empirically/)

The most reasonable conclusion of the findings at that acolyer link is that _all_ neural net training algorithms are essentially evolutionary, with the data providing enough randomness just by itself to power that. Some algorithms do better at first, when the going is easiest, but all get you to the same place at roughly the same rate, overall.

We've really discovered a singular method of arriving at working neural nets: evolution. (A method which I used back in the 80's to create a neural net tic- tac-toe player on a 12mhz machine - but couldn't get Hinton to look at, back then, unfortunately, when we were face-to-face.)

"Trial and error" isn't an unfortunate bug in the method, it _is_ the method. The rest of the algorithmic arabesques do speed that process of evolution a bit in the initial stages, but they don't change the underlying effective process substantially and get the same results. We are where we are.</comment>


The Upstanding Desk - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sccarmichael/the-upstanding-desk <comment><USER2> I recently put together a great sit stand desk at home for considerably less than other alternatives. The desk looks good and functions perfectly.

Product list:

* desk base unit ($479): [http://heightadjustableworktable.com/index.php/manual-modtab...](http://heightadjustableworktable.com/index.php/manual-modtable-base.html)

* table top ($79.99 - I treated the table top with polyurethane): [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50106773/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50106773/)

* monitor stand ($21.26): [http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10828&cs_id=...](http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10828&cs_id=1082808&p_id=5970&seq=1&format=2)

* mat for standing ($53.99 - optional but highly recommended): [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BYRDK2/ref=oh_details_o...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BYRDK2/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Total: $580.25 (with mat: $634.24)

Here's a picture of the finished product: [http://imgur.com/UW8CvWz](http://imgur.com/UW8CvWz)

</comment><comment><USER3> The $200 price point seems a bit steep. I have the feeling I could build something similar for half the price using standard Ikea parts.

<comment><USER4> You're not wrong, but like many of these sorts of things, how much is your time worth?

This sort of "I could do it myself, cheaper" reaction is pretty common for a lot of things posted on hn. I think it's natural for people (and especially hackers) to have this sort of reaction, I think we must be a lot better at analyzing dollar figures than time investments.

And frankly, it's not a _bad_ impulse to have. We're not all generating income every waking moment. People _do_ have free time they can use to build things for fun.

I'm not even really that big a fan of this design (doesn't really seem to have the ability to switch to sitting without disassembly), but I just don't like seeing things pooh-pooh'd because they cost more than something some of us could do ourselves.

<comment><USER5> For me, its not a matter of pooh-pooh'ing it because it costs more than something I could do myself. It's more like; damn! $200?! I don't really want to do it myself so I _would_ pay for it but definitely NOT at that price point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No ability to switch between sitting and standing? No thanks.

Sitting all day is bad. But so is standing. Switching between both is best.

<comment><USER7> Are there any studies demonstrating this? I've always wondered about the long term effects of standing at >4 hours at time.

<comment><USER8> Varicose veins, for one. I think it messes up your feet too, but that's what the standing mat is for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi all, I'm one of the creators of the project! We love to get feedback, and because we've got 21 days of funding lined up we might add tiers based on your comments. Please let us know what you'd like to see!

Thanks,

Sam

</comment><comment><USER10> It wiggles from left to right. You can see it from 1:44. The monitor constantly wiggles when the guy is using his mouse. This is bad design.

<comment><USER11> Not sure how useful it will be for gamers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> MultiTable makes the ModTable with a manual crank for about $650 including a "large" tabletop. We have a bunch of these in my office and they are awesome. You can get discounted rates when buying more than 1 direct (but they also sell on Amazon).

$200 for this Kickstarter isn't a horrible price but you don't need to spend thousands to get a very good standing desk.

<comment><USER9> Totally true, we just figured since a lot of people already have a desk this would let them keep it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with all of the standing desk additions I've seen is that there's no way they'll fit 3 large monitors. I got bored of trying to convince work to buy me a sit/stand, so I built this:

[https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/benrhughes/1082833...](https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/benrhughes/10828337133/)

Total cost about AU$40. I have a stool for the rare occasions I want to sit.

I've been using it for 4+ months and it has been brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bah, censored by commenting limits!

Totally true that you could make one out of IKEA parts, we just wanted to build an option for people who didn't have the desire/tools to do it themselves. And we wanted to keep costs as low as possible too so lots of people could have access!

Thanks for the feedback, all, please keep it coming and share the link if you know anybody who might like one!

</comment><comment><USER14> I have a standing desk, and this is a fantastic idea. My wife and I are moving into our first home together.

My only qualm: it looks a bit like lincoln logs or tinker toys. We would probably paint it, but the links kind of stand out. Makes it feel a bit like a woodshop.

Perhaps some customized sides would make it look a bit more streamlined? Certainly would cost a bit more though.

<comment><USER9> Totally agree, we wanted to keep the price low to let people like you customize it to their workspace. It's really hard to match color so we wanted to stay away from custom paint jobs.

<comment><USER14> Good call.

I'm probably still gonna be in for one either way. Maybe we can work together to figure out the "sleek" upsell? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> wish these guys all the success in the world, but this is radically cheaper, high quality, and works great from personal first hand experience:

[http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk- for-22-dolla...](http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk- for-22-dollars.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Standing up reduces typing precision by 20-30% and puts pressure on your spine. Best would be your body to be at 135 degrees. I've tried Asian squatting style and it's actually pretty good - I dare to do this only at home though.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is tangential, but I have a Geekdesk ([http://geekdesk.com/](http://geekdesk.com/)) and would find it very hard to go back to a normal sitting desk.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks great, but can't see a price anywhere? One minor thing I've noticed from my own hacked together setup is that I prefer having the mouse 1-2 inches lower than the keyboard.

<comment><USER19> The minimum pledge is $200 for the actual desk, $25 if you are willing to cut your own pieces.

Seems a bit steep, but then again, it's got some nice thought and design behind it. Before I back, I'd want to measure my desk(s) and see if the heights they offer would provide good work positioning for me (using boxes/phonebooks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I totally LOVE the idea, seems far easier and more 'reversible' than buying a dedicated desk.

Big problem for me is it would look a bit naff with our glass desks and iMacs. Can you make a sexy version :) ?

T

<comment><USER9> We're considering Lucite as a premium option. Or alumin(i)um. Your thoughts?

<comment><USER20> Yes, both good would be better for our office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For me it wouldn't work since i need to rest my arms on the desk and there would be too little space to do that.

<comment><USER9> Go for the double-wide!

<comment><USER22> Note that the "double wide" is not twice as wide. 29" vs. 38" is less than one third wider. It is a great idea, though, as long as it's sturdy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was about to moan about it being US only but then I found the $25 pledge to build your own! Much better. Backed!.</comment>


How good is Sprint 4G in NYC? - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/11/04/howGoodIsSprint4gInNyc.html <comment><AUTHOR> Thinking about switching from Verizon MiFi to Sprint to get some of that Wimax speed. But is it as good as advertised? The Sprint website isn't of much help. Is anyone actually using it? How fast is it? Reliable?</comment>


Secure Secure Shell (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://stribika.github.io/2015/01/04/secure-secure-shell.html <comment><USER2> There are some good points here, but it's a bit over the top.

For example: "NIST is considered harmful". Have you seen the latest NIST SP 800-63-3 on authentication? There was a public comment phase, the whole thing is hosted on github and it has deprecated the whole "your password must contain uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters (but not single quotes as our database doesn't like that) and a haiku" nonsense - the only remaining recommended password restrictions are minimum length and check against a blacklist of common passwords.

Dual EC is considered harmful, and perhaps in a more general sense closed standards and unexplained constants in crypto algorithms. Whether the label NIST is on something or not makes very little difference (or are you going to tell me next that AES is insecure because the US government approved it)?

And this is the kind of thing that makes my hair stand up: "The hash function SHA1(SHA2(x)) is just as secure as SHA2 (it has less bits of course but no better attacks)." Yes, I know what you mean, but you've just given us a lecture on why key length matters.

That said, there are some good recommendations here for setting SSH up securely. Meanwhile I still have to deal with a server that shall remain unnamed and that truncates passwords to the first 8 bytes ... _sigh_

<comment><USER3> I remember old versions of AIX which would do that. It was surprising given the expense and almost exclusively corporate nature of it. They eventually fixed it, but the way a lot of them were used, they could sit years waiting for an update. I saw one (not ours, thankfully) with ~1200+ days uptime. I bet there are still a few out there that haven't been upgraded sinced they fixed it in 2007.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > ECDH curve choice: This eliminates 9-11 because NIST curves suck. They leak > secrets through timing side channels and off-curve inputs. Also, NIST is > considered harmful and cannot be trusted.

This is FUD. If you have an off-curve attack of any kind, or a timing attack in OpenSSH's P-256 signing code, publish it or keep it to yourself.

I appreciate that the article linked to a source, but the source talks about cache timing attacks in a different type of curve. Yes, X25519 is a better curve. Yes Ed25519 is a better signature algorithm. Yes, it's harder to get NIST curve implementations right. They also predate better curves by quite a few years. Technology improves. NIST FUD is not a good reason to hardcode ciphersuites in your ssh config. Go update your software and you'll be fine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mozilla's OpenSSH configuration guide is much more to-the-point: [https://infosec.mozilla.org/guidelines/openssh](https://infosec.mozilla.org/guidelines/openssh)

<comment><USER6> A minor point, but since Openssh 7.5, UsePrivilegeSeparation has been deprecated. From the release notes: "... making privilege separation mandatory. Privilege separation has been on by default for almost 15 years and sandboxing has been on by default for almost the last five."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good parts:

\- Upgrade your keys to the new format. Better: put them on a Yubikey, or use short-lived keys via Teleport or BLESS.

\- Disable non-key/cert based auth (like passwords). You can do this on both clients and servers if you like, but it doesn't really matter as long as you do one of them.

Bad parts:

\- NIST is fine. SP 800-63B is a good example of how they're saving a gazillion companies from shitty third party password requirements.

\- Don't hardcode ciphersuites. SSH is pretty OK at this. Just make sure you have recent SSH cients/servers. Patch your boxes (or rotate images or whatever). I dunno, don't run RHEL?

Try ssh -vvv sometime. You'll see what SSH tried to do. Odds are that if you're up to date with your patches you're already getting chacha20poly1305 with ECDH.

Stuff like disabling roaming: sure, whatever, this is fine. I'm guessing this advice is targeted at a different audience than startups (I also don't think you should run SSH over Tor). But you can just go be on top of patching and then you are also protected from bugs in things you can't just turn off. Turning off a bunch of optional obscure features is a good technique if you actually thing Mossad is after your SSH sessions. That's not the case for most of you.

</comment><comment><USER4> I estimated the cost of the pbkdf_bcrypt function that the new OpenSSH format uses. It's about 20-30ms for a derivation with default (nrounds=16) parameters. That's fine, but it's not absurd to suggest you want nrounds=100 or so, to bump it up to 150-200ms. That's a noticeable delay, but it also makes recovering the password extremely costly, and you only pay the cost when you actually unlock the key (so, if you use ssh-agent, not on every git push, for example).

You can check my (admittedly, first pass, back of the napkin) work here: [https://gist.github.com/lvh/9f551c92e3b3347424a0c8dc61c73c2b](https://gist.github.com/lvh/9f551c92e3b3347424a0c8dc61c73c2b)

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe its not so smart to hardcode protocols (with versions) in your local config file. Could be correct now but in, say, 2 years when a new version is out your hardcoded protocols aren't the best. Hardcoding "at least" version N.NNN might be good - but I don't think you can do that in ssh_config

</comment><comment><USER8> I (ab)use SSH persistent connections which means my git pushes are super fast even if I live in Europe. Is there some security issue with them? I would say no, but I'm not an expert

<comment><USER4> Assuming you set a reasonable ControlPath (the default is reasonable on all platforms) this is fine, sure. Even if you don't, it's fine-ish. Not how you're going to get popped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does the default config of todays openssh hold up? Are these guidelines still important?

<comment><USER10> Some things have improved. But yes, they're still important.

<comment><USER4> Can you elaborate? A lot of the reasons in the article are weak at best; such as the timing attack/off-curve attack FUD for NIST curves.

There are a handful of good things in here (I commented elsewhere with a list), but nobody should be setting ciphersuites in their ssh config.

<comment><USER10> I'm not so sure. Yes, ideally that wouldn't be the case. But there are still weak ciphersuits available by default. (SP 800-63B isn't really relevant to whether NIST curves are safe or not.)

Another benefit is the SSH logs now fill up with cipher negotiation errors instead of failed authentication attempts, which stops automated "attacks" quicker and makes for cleaner logs if trying to parse for meaningful authentication attempts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Past discussion (2015): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8843994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8843994)

</comment><comment><USER12> "This is probably not the site you are looking for" as a site title? Is that a joke? An ill-considered one, if it is.

If you are thinking of replying with your interpretation, please include information on how you know what you think you know.

Edit: It was a serious question. If it was a joke, yeah I get it, but it could also be a mid-edit draft of a site or a hack. Or maybe nobody else is seeing what I'm seeing. It may seem dense, but I'm just trying not to make assumptions. Anyone know the answer?

<comment><USER13> You're not wrong to be cautious and it's good to ask questions if you're concerned. But, in this case, it's almost certainly a joke (though I'll agree it is an odd one).

I think this because:

1.) I've tried this site with two browsers on different machines on different networks. Neither browser puts that particular security warning in markup on a compromised site.

2.) The site footer references the title. It isn't exactly an explanation, or rather, it isn't one that I understand. It may be an in-joke between friends.

Even in the unlikely event that this is an attack, it's unlikely to be dangerous to visitors.

I think this because it would be quite rare to find someone with the skill and dedication to own the site and attack visitors, yet who would still advertise his/her attack in progress.

<comment><USER12> Yeah that's my take too... just seems a bit juvenile though for someone in the security community. Thanks for the reply.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for drawing attention to this!

It can be hard to learn how to move your communication beyond your group of friends and into the masses. This is made more acute by the fact that you can never quite tell when you're about to blow up until you already have. That might actually be a good topic for a blog article.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing the CrowdSwitch Project - <AUTHOR> http://isogrid.org/crowdswitch <comment><AUTHOR> My wife and I have been working on this for a few years. It's still in the early stages (we haven't built any HW), but we at least have a HW architecture plan.

Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks!</comment>


Tim Sweeney: Eliminating C++ exceptions gave 15% speedup - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1223077404660371456 <comment><USER2> Quite an improvement. However, i feel like that the tweet also displays the (sometimes emotional) feelings toward exceptions that a large part of the C++ community has.

Herb Sutter made an excellent presentation about this "fragmentation" of the community and steps towards fixing this split:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARYP83yNAWk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARYP83yNAWk)

</comment><comment><USER3> Other people (e.g. Bjarne) report a 13% speedup by switching to exceptions, away from checking and propagating status codes. It seems hard to get a speedup by not using exceptions unless your code was littered with catch blocks, and throws from normal system events.

The extra code to check and handle status codes creates places for latent bugs. It's usually very poorly exercised, and it obscures the logic for the normal, non-failure case.

My favored way to fix bugs is to delete the code they are in. I don't even need to know where they were.

<comment><USER4> The code was already written without exceptions in this case, it was more mysterious compiler behaviour apparently. As for which is faster, people writing games don't tend to spend a lot of time validating data in real time, and thus have a constant factor to lose and not much to gain

<comment><USER3> Thank you, that puts the report in context. I can't get the tweet to come up... does it identify the compiler?</comment></comment></comment>


Anyone using Amazon Glacier? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I've been searching to find more information on this subject, and most of the search results tracked back  here. So I decided to ask my question here maybe you can help me find. What are you using to upload to the glacier cloud and how? There is Arq for mac and Cloudberry and recently stumbled upon Zoolz for PCs, any ideas regarding these solutions? what would you recommend?<p>I have a small photography studio and glacier would be the best solution and the most affordable  one to upload my work. <comment><USER2> I've recently been looking at it too, and trying to find clarification of the retrieval fee. It seems there's a lot of (potential) misinformation, though I'm still trying to verify that.

My guess is the best idea is to upload to S3, using whatever tools you can for that, and then archive from S3 to Glacier using the AWS lifecycle rules.

See previous discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4411536> and <http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/> \- my concern is that they don't seem to match Amazon's Glacier calculator at <http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html>

<http://alestic.com/2012/12/s3-glacier-costs> also seems relevant.

So be sure you know what you're getting yourself into, otherwise you could end up with thousands of USD in billing.

If you get clarity on the retrieval fee, please let me/us know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi there !

Well, I've been in the look out for a solution myself and I've noticed you've mentioned Zoolz. It's funny because I've been experimenting it for a while now and it pretty much does what it says. The best thing is the combination between S3 and Cold storage, as well as the price, because let's face it, in this economy who could afford any more expenses!!

I'v recommended it to my pals and thus far everyone's thanking me...So go for it I'd say ;)</comment>


Commit Strip: Early Coders - <AUTHOR> http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/10/01/early-coders/ <comment><AUTHOR> Does early coding affect your code quality?

I was an early coder. Started at age 8 or 9 or so. I begged my Dad for an Nintendo, I got a Commodore 64 instead.

Today, I focus on best practices. I pay close attention to style guides. I always want to know the best way of doing things, and then I try to do it that way.

My code quality? Not sure if there's an independent objective measure that can tell me that, though.

Thoughts? Is this strip right? (Sometimes Commit Strip is "off", but this one kinda resonated with me.)</comment>


Ask HN: Do we need fully decentralized systems? - <AUTHOR> Proponents of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum argue that we need to have fully decentralized systems. While these systems are operational and decentralized, they have an abysmally low performance. At the moment Bitcoin can only process 3 transactions per second, and Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second globally for all applications.
At the same time, we already have less decentralized systems like Ripple (for payments) and NEO (for decentralized applications and smart contracts). The performance of these protocols is orders of magnitude higher than the performance of fully decentralized systems. For example, NEO at its current state can process around 10,000 transactions per second.
It is hard to speculate if Ethereum and similar systems will ever outperform other blockchains, but it can be reasonable to assume that fully decentralized systems will always have lower performance since they need to provide stronger guarantees. In this case, if less decentralized systems will have higher performance, are there any practical reasons to strive for full decentralization? <comment><USER2> "Decentralized systems" != Cryptocurrencies.

Email, BitTorrent, Git are all "decentralized systems" and they have nothing to do with finance and do not use blockchain tech.

I realize crypto is hot right now, but lets try to have some perspective.

<comment><USER3> Arguably, git _is_ a blockchain, albeit one with a very weak (non-existant?) consensus model.

<comment><USER4> Looking at the name... blockchain or chain of blocks... or a queue in CompSci speak... is less complex than git. Git is a directed acyclic graph.

<comment><USER3> That kind of breaks down if you consider existing chains have forked. See Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic or Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash as examples.

Git, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Certificate Transparency logs are all examples of merkle trees (and argubly blockchains).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Decentralized systems allow you to formalize market dynamics. Eg how selling/providing works. Through this you can create marketplaces to which everyone can connect to but nobody can leverage their own position to change the rules.

A (naive [in details] weak) example i regularly use is electricity:

Imagine you own solar roof panels and produce more electricity than you need. You want to sell it back. But you want to sell it at the highest possible price to the best payer.

The centralized concept is that you sell it to your main provider and hope they pay the best price (or that your are able to move cheaply/quickly enough). Or that you sell it to a intermediary (or price-comparison service) that hopefully has the lowest rate (or that your are able to move cheaply/quickly enough).

The decentralized approach to this is to announce the sale on the network/market and pick the best offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Electricity marketplace is a good example and is commonly mentioned as a killer-app for blockchain technologies. But what technology would you use to implement this marketplace?

Would you use a public, permissionless blockchain like Ethereum or should we use a private blockchain? There are private blockchains like JP Morgan Quorum ([https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum](https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum)) that is based on Ethereum software and allows to have >10K transactions per second. These private blockchains use different consensus methods that are much less decentralized than public Ethereum, all participants are known, and access to the network is restricted.

Would a private blockchain be a better fit in this case? If you would a public blockchain, could you elaborate why?

<comment><USER5> for anything that aims to be the definitive market for an asset it would try to make it (as) public (as possible/useful).

the technical details (eg performance) is almost it's own discussion imo - there are people who are better experienced/educated to answer it fully qualified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Society doesn't really "need" blockchain technologies...

That is, until the government screws up the economy and something like hyperinflation occurs.

Or some system gets hacked, and information or money gets leaked/lost.

The appeal in Bitcoin/crypto isn't capacity or speed, its security (from the state, from bad actors, etc.) That has a very high-value proposition and is worth investing in. In time, I think scaling solutions will make crypto much more practical.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Or some system gets hacked, and information or money gets leaked/lost.

I am not sure how blockchain/decentralized technologies allow protecting from hacks or money loss. They seem to be as susceptible to hacks as non- decentralized systems (e.g. the DAO) and lots of crypto money was lost in many different ways.

> its security (from the state, from bad actors, etc.)

This is right. Decentralized systems should give more security, but what about a cryptocurrency like NEO? It is significantly faster, but many criticize it because it is somewhat centralized (selected nodes voting for transactions instead of mining). Does it provide less security than Ethereum? If yes, in what cases is this difference critical?

> I think scaling solutions will make crypto much more practical.

This is true as well. But it seems that no-so-decentralized crypto (NEO, Ripple) can give practical benefits and provide higher performance. If Ethereum can scale, cryptocurrencies like NEO can scale as well. Are there any practical cases when using these solutions would be not enough, and developers would have to resort to a potentially slower but fully decentralized network?

<comment><USER7> The security situation is inverted.

For a typical bank account, the security is up to the Bank and the Government, and there's nothing you can do about it.

For a crypto-currency wallet, the security is up to you.

Some people are dismayed that the common person is enabled to fuck it up - gamble, invest in ponzi schemes, leave control of their wallet to a sketchy third-party. Some people are very excited that they're finally able to take control of their own accounts and make their own security guarantees, and not worry about identity theft, paypal policies, FBI or IRS freezing accounts due to a bureaucratic mix-up, etc.

<comment><USER8> In a cryptocurrency wallet the security is up to you and the developers of the wallet and the developers of the blockchain.

If you run some chain like IOTA then chances are you get hacked despite doing the best security possible under the circumstances because the underlying chain sucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dencentralized does not equate to block chains or crypto currency...

I would agree current and popular crypto currencies are not that efficient.

However, look at bit-torrent and it can exceed what centralized hosting can provide.

Email is decentralized, heck even http is decentralized.

Dencetralization is quite common. Even the US government is dencetralized to a degree. You have state, county and city governments. Its just a property that things may have.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Email is decentralized, heck even http is decentralized.

I'll quote my answer to the similar from this thread: "Blockchain-based systems allow storing a shared, verifiable state. Anybody has a chance (depending on mining resources) to make a decision regarding the next state change in the system by mining the next block, but this block will be rejected if the state change is invalid (e.g., in case of Bitcoin a transaction spends non-existing funds)."

I think that HTTP is not a good example. While no one controls all HTTP endpoint, organizations that use HTTP are centralized. E.g., when you want to book a taxi using Uber, the company that provides a service store all the data, facilitates transactions, and the state of the system. This is different from decentralized apps on Ethereum network where a state change can be performed by any mining node.

The question here is: do we need to have an "Uber on a blockchain" and if we need it, do we need it to be on a public fully decentralized blockchain?

> However, look at bit-torrent and it can exceed what centralized hosting can > provide.

Agree, but I don't know any commercial organization that is using bit-torrent to serve files. Most companies use S3-like services and to my knowledge bit- torrent is only used to share content by non-profit organizations (e.g., Linux distro on a bit-torrent) or pirates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm predisposed toward decentralization and personal control, but I have to admit centralization has benefits. It depends on the situation / market.

A concrete example is AirBNB vs. craigslist for apartment bookings. I'm going on a trip to the east coast for a few months (from SF).

Now craigslist has existed for a long time, and in theory I could book an apartment I found on craigslist for a month. Indeed, I looked on craigslist.

But I've been advised not to do that, for reasons of trust. But I'm comfortable doing it with AirBNB, since I've used them before and had more or less good experiences. They do provide some service in case things go south (last minute cancellations, etc.)

(And the AirBNB I booked is a legal one where the person owns the place, since I don't want to risk being kicked out during my trip.)

Craigslist is more decentralized than AirBNB -- anybody can post a listing and anyone can contact you and try to book your apartment. But the decentralization doesn't mean it's a better system.

I think it boils down to the details of a particular market, and decentralized vs. centralized is not always a helpful way to think about it.

With regard to currency, I imagine BitCoin is better than the currencies of some governments. I don't think it's better than US currency, by a long shot. US currency has flaws, but I don't see that BitCoin actually addresses them. It's morphed into something else. Maybe a different system could address those problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great example!

> With regard to currency, I imagine BitCoin is better than the currencies of > some governments. I don't think it's better than US currency, by a long > shot. US currency has flaws, but I don't see that BitCoin actually addresses > them

Out of curiosity why do you think Bitcoin won't replace USD? What flaws should a new system address?

<comment><USER11> Bitcoin isn't fast enough for a large city, let alone the planet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes and No. Look, I think that decentralization has a lot to offer and has many applications where it makes sense, but lately I've heard a bit too much _decentralization-for-decentralizations-sake_ talk going on. The internet still goes through backbone nodes (which are the important interconnects of ISP's deep in datacenters). We are still transversing a physical medium limited by the laws of physics. That said, this is why meshnets for example are a great proper project for decentralization to overcome that sort of physical layout root issue (taking it to p2p radio comms of some sort).

Everybody talks about the cloud likes it's a new magic. It's fucking not. It's just servers in datacenters like it always was, but with nicer interfaces for remote customers. Except the cloud providers lock you in, by design. The ISP connects the servers of the cloud providers in datacenters to the public internet, but those servers reside in datacenters.

Servers which run in prime conditions, with good hardware, and have the proper infrastructure and people to support them and give them uptimes in the four 9's depending on datacenter tier. Decentralization might be able to approach this though due to the strength of it's topology.

Another issue is privacy. The ISP and the state level actors have your data and you know it... and are entities you at least theoretically have legal options for recourse against. Everyone knows your IP when you start running p2p decentralized platforms. That's why for example you should not be running a tor exit node from your home network. In this day of easy data on people, your IP is a hop skip and a jump away from you being doxed. Or ddossed, or various other things.

I could go on, but the point is decentralization has a place. Use the right tool for the right job, and stop trying to make a multi-tool that does everything cause it always fucks something up.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's why Bitcoin has just implemented the Lightning Network and Ethereum is implementing Sharding and Plasma. Lightning is projected to be able to maintain 50,000 TPS in practice and billions of TPS in theory.

Furthermore, PoS systems such as Nano and IOTA aren't really more centralized than PoW systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, since only 6 entities possess more than 51% of the hashing power in Bitcoin. That's definitely more centralized than Nano or IOTA.

That's also the reason why Ethereum is moving to a PoS/PoW hybrid.

In a nutshell, near instant transactions with very high scalability and a very high degree of decentralization are already here(Bitcoin, Nano, IOTA). However, these technologies have not yet proven themselves and need to show their resilience against black swan events and hacks of all kinds.

We will see the results within the next year.

</comment><comment><USER14> Take it from someone who has been studying distributed systems while architecting his own for a year — [https://intercoin.org](https://intercoin.org)

You can have both.

The SAFE network uses Kademlia to select a group of computers based on a content address. It achieves security by not allowing computers to set their own IDs in the system but having them be kicked around sections from time to time.

The XRP consensus algorithm is essentially what you would want when implementing crypto currency. It is also pretty good for storing files.

The trick to scalability is always one thing: horizontal partitioning, also known as sharding.

As long as you can partition your data, you can scale up the wazoo.

The tough part with crypto-currencies is verifying the history because coins can mix, whether it's UTXOs or account based systems. So the coin you hold may be the product of transactions among millions of other coins.

So I think the only way to really do sharding is to emulate how cash has $100, $20, $10 etc. in other words have tokens that never get subdivided but only exchanged in an operation to "get change".

Instead of subdividing tokens, you first check with a given address whether it has enough change, borrow the change, do the transaction, and then the recipient will send the change back to that address and get back a larger denomination.

All this happens behind the scenes but reduces the growth of UTXOs which is a huge problem for Bitcoin and others.

What I talked about here is a FULLY distributed system, that is nevertheless super fast.

</comment><comment><USER15> Bitcoin / Blockchain are not distributed in one important regard. A truly distributed currency would allow one to transact while offline, and allow merging subgraphs of transactions, etc etc. Bitcoin chooses consistency over availability. Real world commodities can always be transacted, regardless of network connection.

<comment><USER16> i think nano/raiblocks currency can do that. and there may be others too

however what you are asking is not a requirement - all online transactions will wait for an internet connection before actions can be taken, and this is true even today for physical goods - the paperwork must match before products can be moved.

<comment><USER17> Things have changed in recent years, but for _decades_ retailers have sold goods without knowing if payment would clear—they accepted checks.

<comment><USER16> that is not a responsibility of the currency however. you can build a trust system on top of the 'transactions layer'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Decentralisation is oversold. I have a couple of arguments against it: a) the more users who compete in decentralisation, the more commodity like returns they will get for their time and resources; b) there is a real cost of making decisions, so decision fatigue is a real thing and you can't expect all users to be completely engaged in decision making that's expected for decentralisation projects; c) the history of how platforms like YouTube evolved shows us that there is tendency to move from individual users having meaningful contributions to groups dedicated to those platforms outcompeting users in their contributions.

I blogged about it last month [https://invertedpassion.com/decentralization- continuum/](https://invertedpassion.com/decentralization-continuum/)

</comment><comment><USER19> NEO can't do 10,000 tps. The entire network has gone offline, multiple times, when handling a single token sale:

[http://storeofvalueblog.com/posts/a-definitive-guide-to- neo/](http://storeofvalueblog.com/posts/a-definitive-guide-to-neo/)

It's easy to benchmark massive tps rates on a closed testnet, as in this case of removing all safeguards from an Ethereum private network to get it to 1.5 million tps:

[https://email@example.com/cryptocurrency- scaling-e...](https://email@example.com/cryptocurrency-scaling- ethereum-to-1-5-million-tps-cd10f5e3f7cc)

<comment><AUTHOR> > NEO can't do 10,000 tps.

It seems that the article is just referring to the same 10K transactions per second number mentioned in the NEO documentation.

>> The entire network has gone offline, multiple times, when handling a single token sale

Is this a bug in the protocol or is it a fundamental issue with the approach?

<comment><USER19> >>Is this a bug in the protocol or is it a fundamental issue with the approach?

A bug in the protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've read dozens if not hundreds of threads (on HN) about the benefits of decentralization. Can some of you give me the run down on the benefits of centralization?

I think that discussion needs to happen as well for both discussions to be valid.

<comment><USER21> To me it's obvious that centralisation benefits from having a simpler master- slave architecture. This makes centralised systems easier to control, update, etc. As only one part of the system controls the rest.

Conversely, decentralised systems have no master, so decisions are relatively harder to make in the system.

However, in reality centralisation is harder to scale, due to the bottle necks on the central parts of the system. Decentralisation can be theoretical easier to scale, as bottlenecks don't occur as easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> > However, in reality centralisation is harder to scale, due to the bottle > necks on the central parts of the system. Decentralisation can be > theoretical easier to scale, as bottlenecks don't occur as easily.

There is a difference between "distributed" and "decentralized". Uber, Amazon.com, Booking.com are distributed applications that can process a tremendous amount of transactions per second. At the same time, Amazon.com is owned by a single organization that controls data, hardware and makes all the decisions.

On the other hand, Bitcoin/Ethereum are decentralized: there is no single actor that is performing all state changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> NEO will be fully decentralised at some point according to roadmap with voting for node operators. It will still be faster by design and its somewhat current centralised state is not the reason of its speed.

<comment><USER19> NEO will not be fully decentralized. First of all, it is transitioning to Delegated Proof of Stake, which by design relies on a set of trusted third parties to establish consensus. For reference, the entire purpose of the original Bitcoin blockchain design was to obviate the need to rely on trusted third parties.

Second, its implementation of DPOS will have a centralized gatekeeper which approves who can run for the position of delegate, after verifying their identity and that they are a legal entity.

<comment><USER22> yes it has gatekeepers. All POS systems have them but true Delegated is more controlled but since NEO holders can vote no single person/entity can take the sysyem downor alter transactions which is the whole idea

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Torrents were fast - they still are if you can use something like popcorn time.

What about upload speeds? They are universally awful - that's an impediment to decentralization and something that should change.

<comment><USER23> The erosion of the torrent ecosystem over the past decade is a little sad. Although it's mostly because the legitimate services have been slowly taking the pants off their heads and making it more convenient to actually pay them for their content.

<comment><USER16> i think it's because isps etc became way more aggressive on piracy. still the system is there, waiting for something like a youtube failure to pick up the speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We're just learning how to build decentralized systems. It's a difficult challenge and most of the current attempts will fail, but some will succeed.

Meanwhile centralized systems can solve many practical problems. The two approaches are not in opposition to each other. Are you trying to solve a practical problem today, or are you trying to build a very challenging zero- trust system of tomorrow?

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't think there's middle ground. Either there's someone in control or there isn't. If you want to trust the system it must be fully decentralized by design. You can't trust people in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER26> it's possible to be both. society is structured in layers, some centralized some not. same with the human body.</comment>


Specs for Lenovo Macbook Air competitor leaked - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/346797/ultralight-lenovo-x300-series-thinkpad-leaked

<comment><USER2> This looks like a machine I'd actually want to own. It's about the same size, but comes with an optical drive, a real set of ports and (I think) RAM that doesn't require advanced soldering skills to replace or upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got the wife an x61s for Christmas.

Little is in... Just wish it had a higher screen res.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm more excited about Lenovo's new ultra portable IdeaPad U110</comment>


Bridging the Analytic-Continental Divide (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/bridging-the-analytic-continental-divide/ <comment><USER2> My layman's take on this is to take each philosophical school on its own terms and not try to either resolve the differences unless there is an obvious symmetry. Like most americans, I grew up with a fairly pragmatic analytic outlook, and most german phenomenology, for example, just seemed like nonsense to me.

When I just relaxed about the whole thing and took it as a different and perhaps irreconcilable world view, I found myself more open to the insights those thinkers had.</comment>


U.S. will look at sudden acceleration complaints involving 500k Tesla vehicles - the-dude https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/u-s-will-look-at-sudden-acceleration-complaints-involving-500000-tesla-vehicles-idUSKBN1ZG1IL <comment><AUTHOR> I don't think I've ever seen a confirmed case from any auto maker that unintended acceleration was caused by the vehicle itself rather than improperly installed floor mats or driver error. Before anyone says it, no, the Toyota case from a decade ago was never shown to be legitimate either. I would be pretty surprised if this case was different and it should be straightforward for Tesla to prove via data dumps from the vehicles in question.</comment>


Website to share your startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.penbuzz.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We are a site for you to list your startup, post news about your startup and allow people to search for your startup.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey OP your site doesn't load properly on mobile

<comment><AUTHOR> The site currently only works on PC/laptop.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Best way to sell downloadable software? - <AUTHOR>

My friend works for a company that wants to sell a piece of downloadable software.  They've talked to Digital River but say they aren't very responsive.  Anyone know what the best options are?  Thanks. <comment><USER2> What platform does this software run on? There's a far larger ecosystem on Windows than on OS X or freenixes.

What sort of software is this? Mass-market software selling for $5 needs a completely different solution from special-purpose software selling for $5000.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the price point of the software? A buddy of mine sells a pretty well known app for under $100 and he uses <http://www.esellerate.net/> He mentioned that Kagi is also an option: <https://www.kagi.com/kagisolutions/index.php>

If the software is over $150 or so, it's probably better to setup your own payment system down the line.

</comment><comment><USER4> swreg.com and regnow.com are two options. I rolled my own and got a merchant services account. I think I remember seeing good things about swreg. Their rates are certainly lower.

If you are trying to lock down a shareware program, armadillo is the best.

The ASP is worth joining to get the best info if they're doing a lot of this: <http://www.asp-shareware.org/>

<comment><USER5> Shareware selling friend (ASP member) recommended:

<http://www.shareit.com> <http://plimus.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We use Plimus and are very happy with them.

I would recommend you avoid SWREG and other Digital River properties. Our experience with DR was very unpleasant and a quick Google search on "swreg scam" and a review of this summary: [http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/04/swreg-customers- bew...](http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/04/swreg-customers-beware/) should tell you why.

</comment><comment><USER7> What functionality (pieces of the puzzle) does he not want to deal with? In general, selling software boils down to being able to take money (credit cards) and provide the software (via a secret URL or a serial code).

</comment><comment><USER8> Wil Shipley just launched Golden%Braeburn for OS X apps, which looks pretty nice (same system used in Delicious Library):

<http://golden-braeburn.com/>

<comment><USER9> 5% of your sales for what it offers? Remember, they're not hosting your payment stuff, or processing credit cards, or anything like that.

Golden%Braeburn strikes me as something that would be great, but I'd really only want to pay for it once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anything other than Digital River.

e-junkie + paypal and/or GoogleCheckout is one non DR option: [http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/23/cost-effective- soft...](http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/23/cost-effective-software- registration-with-ejunkie/)

Plimus, Avangate and Fastspring are others.

</comment><comment><USER11> The best way to do it is to make software that is so good people will want to buy it. It's really the most effective piracy solution.

Also, a smart programmer can provide a better solution that anything digital river can offer.

<comment><USER12> Just because a piece of software is really good doesn't mean ppl. will _want_ to pay money for it. It's not an effectice piracy solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do people handle unlocking features that should not be available unless a license has been bought?</comment>


Show HN: Mixpanel Event Queueing Wrapper - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/skotzko/mixpanel-event-queue

<comment><USER2> I'm confused by the necessity for this?

If you use the integration code demonstrated in their docs here: [https://mixpanel.com/help/reference/javascript](https://mixpanel.com/help/reference/javascript), Mixpanel already has an event queue natively.

It sets the `mixpanel` variable to an array which which holds the event queue. It then defines functions on this array with the same names as those in the full library. When any of them are called the call is added to the event queue array.

When the full library loads, the array of queued events is placed in a temporary variable. The full library is loaded into the `mixpanel` variable and then the the queue is replayed by the full library.

analytics.js also works in this way

<comment><AUTHOR> 2 main reasons why I thought it was necessary:

1) It's not clear at all by reading minified code that this is what's going on -- I could only really see it when I got my hands on unminified code. Since not covered in the docs, it's just hard to know.

2) It has tightly coupled queueing and loading of the library, which I don't want: the snippet links instantiation / fetching of the library with the queueing function and wraps them all together so they can't be separated in the overall page load sequence. Combined with the fact that Mixpanel does not use as simple of a data structure as something like GA (simple array), I wanted a way to separate queueing (what my wrapper does) from later instantiation. Granted, the Mixpanel snippet is async but at the time of writing this, we didn't want to source our external JS in the head of our pages if at all possible. So even with the built in async / queueing structure, the Mixpanel snippet still doesn't fully meet what we're looking for (separation of queuing / instantiation).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my first open-source project. I was frustrated that Mixpanel did not natively include a queueing system for events (a la Google Analytics, KISSmetrics, etc) so I built one. Hope others find it useful and welcome any feedback.

<comment><USER3> You should probably use the magic arguments array in your function to avoid the ugly array you are using as the second argument.

        _meq.push("track",["event_name",{property_name: "value"}])

becomes

        _meq.push("track","event_name",{property_name: "value"})

By changing the top of the mixpanel function to:

        mixpanel: function() {
            var mixPanelArgs = Array.prototype.slice.call( arguments );
            var functionName = mixPanelArgs.shift();

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, great point. Missed that. Updated and going to push update shortly. Thank you.

[EDIT] Pushed. Great catch, thanks again.</comment></comment></comment>


Bioengineering student looking for some advice - <AUTHOR>

Hello everyone, I'm new to submitting stuff on Hacker News so sorry if I messed up this submission somehow. Anyway, I'm majoring in Bioengineering at my university and I'm not sure what there is out there for careers in the field of Bioengineering.
So far in my coursework I've taken a class on networks, signal processing and now I'm taking courses on Data Acquisition+Analysis using Matlab. I'm also a novice in Python and I've wanted to work on a project to better my skills but I don't have the necessary skills for some of these big open source projects on github.
Anyone with experience in the field offer me advice? Should I get a background in Computer Science if I wanted to work for the more tech program oriented companies out there?
I feel lost... <comment><USER2> \- A few questions: A. Are you undergrad/grad? If undergrad or in MSc program, have you thought of doing two majors and getting the Major in BioEngineering and then Minor in Computer Science or vice-versa? Just remember that getting a degree is more of a theory foundation while freelancing or working for startups is more practical. Also it depends on what your love/passion is, which takes you to my second question.

B. Do you have love/passion for BioEngineering or Computer Science/Engineering? To me both fields are great and both fields are promising in the future, but since we are talking about your career here (something that will last a lifetime), I'll pay more of my time to what I really love and then the less of my time to my second love or to what I have passion for.

Also don't forget that here are free programming books/courses/examples that can always help you build up your skills in coding/programming but as far as BioEngineering, you might need a lab, a license and other more expensive requirements to get you started.</comment>


Would type annotations help PyPy's performance? - <AUTHOR> http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/faq.html#would-type-annotations-help-pypy-s-performance

<comment><USER2> I would be interested in: "Would type annotations improve the performance of any Python implementation?"</comment>


SimplyInsured (YC W13) Wants To Help Take The Pain Out Of Health Insurance - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/27/y-combinator-backed-simplyinsured-wants-to-help-small-businesses-take-the-pain-out-of-health-insurance/

<comment><USER2> I badly need something like this right now. As I understand it, brokers rule this segment. This would essentially be an online broker. My current broker sends me pdf brochures on request which I think is a pretty bad experience, so this would be a welcomed change for me. On the other hand, sometimes I also like to have a single point of contact. If my broker had access to using this platform, that would be an ideal scenario. It could allow me to research and compare at my leisure, but have a strong contact point when I need it.

<comment><USER3> Hi! I'm Vivek - founder of SimplyInsured.

We can be both your broker, software, and strong point of contact. We act as an "extended HR" for our customers - any issues they have with bills, insurance companies, or doctors - we help them navigate.

My contact info is in my profile - feel free to reach me, and I will get your company set up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title of the article actually mentions "Small Businesses". I went there thinking it would help consumers somehow.

</comment><comment><USER5> They helped set up the insurance for us (Semantics3) and I fully recommend them! Here is the direct link to their site: <https://www.simplyinsured.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is slightly offtopic, but (in the typical case) does the employer or the employee pay the health insurance? I guess this depends a lot on the workplace, but I wonder how this factors into the incomes reported by Americans. For example, if someone's income is $60k per year, the real income would be $52k with an expensive $700/month insurance.

<comment><USER7> It just varies. Some employers don't provide insurance. Some provide a very small subsidy, some cover a lot more. Some will offer pre-tax witholding to pay for your policy but not contribute anything. It's one of those things you have to look at when you compare compensation packages.

I've worked at places where the salary probably sounded really great to an outsider but there were no benefits; this is not that uncommon in small tech companies from what I've seen. I've also worked where the salary was more in the middle or lower end of what you might expect but there were large contributions to insurance and retirement plans and generous amounts of paid time off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great app!

We faced the same problem a year ago finding insurance for our startup. One major pain point was that everyone just made us sign up and connected to a insurance agent who sent us a bunch of official looking PDF docs. I had to sit and do my research to understand the plans. During that process I landed on this NYTimes article <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/health/28patient.html?_r=0>

None of the agents sent me a High deductible plan. Then when I asked them, the "researched" and sent me back more PDFs with high deductible plan, which we eventually enrolled.

There are so many options in this space - so I would like you to "educate" me before asking me to give you my contact details.

</comment><comment><USER9> "NewCo is going to take the pain out of OldCo and their industry"

Making the decisions easier is one thing, changing the industry is another. I wish them luck with the latter.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not in the market for this service, but I love the idea of an online broker. I used to work for a mid-size non-profit. I worked in IT, not HR, but I was one of the "randomly selected" non-HR employees selected to help find a new insurance plan. I only recently recovered from the nightmare of drowning in emails and paper ( _not_ necessarily pdfs).

</comment><comment><USER11> How will you be different than bswift.com?

As a user of bswift I was given a printed booklet specific to my company and was presented with the easiest web page enrollment and benifit summary I've ever seen.

Will you be a competitor to apps like bswift? What are your plans for differentiation (if any)?

</comment><comment><USER12> So needed! Been talking to them and seeing about some quotes, great stuff is coming to health care over the next 4 years!

</comment><comment><USER13> Great job team. Any plans for an API in the future?

</comment><comment><USER14> Not available in WA :(

</comment><comment><USER15> Your interface fails on so many levels

1) Your front page essentially contains one button "Get free quotes", which takes you to another page with a form. Why not display that form on the front page? One less click = better conversions.

2) Why do I need to enter

        A) company name
        B) my email
        C) employee names (what if I have 50?)

Quotes DO NOT depend on that information.

3) The phrase "get quotes" is a major turn off in my mind. It reminds me of thousands of health insurance websites that give you quotes after endless form fill outs and spam your email. Why can't you phrase it in a human way? "Find plans", "enter your information", etc.

<comment><USER16> "Your interface fails on so many levels"

Might be better worded as: "Here is some feedback. I hope it helps."

<comment><USER17> Why? If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen!

HN is for brutally honest feedback, not some sugar coated sissy politically correct worded observations that is useless to the creators of the site/software/service.

<comment><USER18> "Here is some feedback" isn't sugar coated sissy politically correct worded observation. It's just a bit more polite.

<comment><USER17> Shit is Shit. Even if "polite"ly labelled as waste, or residue matter, or even cake.

<comment><USER18> Yes. The guy was giving shit, when instead he should've been giving feedback.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-government-sponsored-cyber-militia-cookbook/ <comment><USER2> When I was a child using the internet of the late 90's and early 2000's my extended family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles always repeated to me the mantra "Don't believe everything you read on the internet."

These are the same people that still forward chain emails and now believe outrageous articles merely because a person they _know_ on a social media site has shared it. As if the person doing the sharing has legitimized the source.

Anyway, while not directly influenced by trolls, the kind of content trolls promote still gets to them, and now I feel silly when I try to repeat my childhood mantra back to them. This stuff is really effective.

<comment><USER3> Yes, indeed the genius of spreading propaganda this way is that it is often disseminated through personal networks, increasing its potency as a wealth of cognitive biases come into play. And how on earth can these campaigns be mitigated? The buffer of 'mainstream media' no longer appears to exists as it once did with the concept of 'fake news' etc very effectively delegitimising the concept of a reliable resource for information. The smartphone mightier than the sword. Weird isn't it looking back on those halcyon days of early FB/Twitter? But on reflection, it's totally logical that social platforms would ultimately end up being leveraged in this way.

<comment><USER4> > the concept of 'fake news' etc very effectively delegitimising the concept > of a reliable resource for information.

I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image. This would be a much less pernicious problem in a world of genuine, balanced reporting.

<comment><USER5> _I 'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image._

I don't think mainstream media masquerades opinion pieces as news. I think the public at large, vis-a-vis confirmation bias, just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes these stories on their own.

The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and what's opinion.

<comment><USER4> > just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes > these stories on their own.

I implore you, go sample "news" segments from major sources (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) on a topic you are intimately familiar with. You'll quickly realize these mouth-pieces are spreading FUD to acquire more eyeballs and ad dollars.

> The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and > what's opinion.

MSNBC, and to a perhaps lesser extent CNN are hysterically bad.

I had the pleasure of catching a few hours of primetime "coverage" on MSNBC last month and the talking heads were shrieking about some Federal department spending $1,500 on ten pairs of "tactical pants" for security officers. Well, go price some "tactical pants" from 5.11[0], a well known, reasonable brand, and you'll quickly see it's a fairly reasonable sum. Hell, ten pairs of decent Carhartts will set you back a similar sum. Yet the opinion-as-news talking- heads spent 15+ minutes railing on it as obvious corruption and frivolity of the current administration.

This is what passes for news. They're a bad joke.

[0] - [https://www.511tactical.com/mens- professional.html](https://www.511tactical.com/mens-professional.html)

<comment><USER5> Is this the story you're talking about? [https://www.msnbc.com/all- in/watch/why-did-scott-pruitt-spen...](https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/why- did-scott-pruitt-spend-1500-on-tactical-pants-1261397059663)

Where the talking head concedes the pants were apparently sensible?

<comment><USER4> There were actually multiple talking-heads / segments, with the linked video being the final one. It started with a woman with short-hard (Maddow?) and transitioned to that man.

The video you linked proceeds to list random Twitter users' jokes about tactical pants, e.g. "Chuck Norris Action Jeans" or how one might need the pants to sleep on a used Trump mattress. One would be mistaken for thinking this is Comedy Central's latest political comedy show and not "reputable" news.

> Where the talking head concedes the pants were apparently sensible?

Yes, after spending much time mocking the purchase the video concedes the purchase was perfectly normal (it was actually 40 pairs of pants at roughly $40 per pair.)

So why spend time and effort reporting a non-story on a mainstream "news" channel? It seems they are trying to fill the spot the Colbert Report vacated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is this not cyber terrorism?

Lynching of muslims in India - by spreading WhatsApp messages on false pretense that they are cow killers - is a direct result of the trolls.

Despite being a secular country, India is turning into a social-media driven Hindu/Modi agenda.

The trolling is also supplemented by Mainstream media in supporting the agenda by collusion.

[https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting- opera...](https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting-operation- cobrapost)

<comment><USER7> How do you differentiate between genuine grassroots opposition and astroturfing campaigns?

<comment><USER8> Astroturfing is meant to look like a grassroots movement, a key difference seems to be actively concealing the source of funding or influencing group.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that the media's focus on 'start sponsored trolling' is starting to result in hysteria. You can already see people beginning to insist others are 'trolls' of this sort seemingly based on nothing other than a disagreement of opinions. It would seem that the more responsible way to handle things would be to try to educate people on media rather than aiming towards something that seems to be encouraging people to think that anybody who disagrees with them might be a shill.

In particular it seems there are just two issues that could help people detect BS so much more easily:

\- 1. Avoid emotional responses. If you see something that tugs at the heart strings, or hear of an awful story, there's a good chance it's fake or an outlier event being portrayed as something regular. This [1] is one of the most famous examples. What that's actually an image of is not cosmetic testing on animals, as it was portrayed as in social media, but the spaying/neutering of a large number of cats rescued from abusive conditions. The reason I say there is a "good chance" it's fake is because appeals to emotion are specifically geared at provoking a response people might not otherwise engage in.

\- 2. Hold _new_ things you expect to be true to the same scrutiny you'd hold _new_ things you expect to be false. This one is _really_ hard, but exploiting people by confirming their biases is perhaps even more effective (and dangerous) than exploiting emotional response. And a subpoint of this issue is that while honest mistakes are indeed a part of life, when there is a pattern of honest mistakes - they're probably not honest mistakes.

Granted educating people on critical thinking and emotional control is going to be an uphill battle, to put it mildly, but I think it's a wiser strategy than instead engaging in behavior that's predictably going to result in people calling each other shills. In an era of increasing political polarization, this is doubly dangerous.

[1] - [https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg)

<comment><USER10> These suggestions are impossible too follow: you can't validate any and each new information from first principle, i. e. without regard for a source's reputation, your previews experience, etc.

First, because it's impossible to actually validate anything. If you read a quote from a politician, you can only evaluate the quote's accuracy by considering the publisher's track record, and the politician's previous behaviour. Videos and audio are often not available, and can possibly be faked rather well now or in the near future.

Even if some sort of proof were possible, the workload would far outstrip any single person's capabilities.

Analogy: You don't ask your spouse for collateral when they want to borrow your car. Because you know and trust them, and they are invested in a good, continuing relationship with you. It's different if a stranger comes up to you on the street and asks for your car keys.

That's why societies' have come up with a sort of collaborative verification: get together as a group that trusts each other and split the workload. Or even allow people to specialize, and pay them for it. You can do your best to verify some subset of their work to assess their reliability.

The New York Times, as but one example: they have a 150+ year record of processes and individual commitment to get their facts straight, and they are open about their failures. Publishing stories about "XYZ runs a ring of pedophiles from a DC pizza parlor" would destroy their value almost instantly, so their incentives are aligned with yours.

<comment><USER11> So if the NYTimes is such a bastion of credibility, how do you explain this newsdiff? This isn't just outright slanted, the article was originally neutral and somebody decided it needed to be edited from a factual report into a heroic tale in the battle for social justice:

[https://archive.is/t4EVf](https://archive.is/t4EVf)

This is textbook propaganda, so perfect you could use it as classroom material.

Furthermore, we hear so much about social media filter bubbles, but it doesn't seem to occur to contemporary reporters that if they write stories based on what they see and hear on their own social feed, it is going to be equally skewed and subject to a massive preselected availability bias of their own making.

If you wanted to effectively manipulate the news, you'd organize massive protests and disruptions right outside every news station... Well, now this is the default mode for much of what you hear. Every time you read any story about online sentiment that is not explicitly statistical and honest and precise in its conclusions, it's pretty much bullshit from top to bottom for this reason.

Now, before you say this doesn't apply to "real" news in the "real" world, I remind you that the topics they haven't been able to shut up about for 5 minutes is Trump's tweeting, Russian trolls, and the online anger of a supposedly pervasive alt-right, and that they blame everything from Brexit to Charlottesville on that. This includes people who are frequently misquoted, misconstrued and misrepresented at a level that, if it isn't malice, is chronic and incurable professional incompetence.

Their incentives are not aligned with mine, because to me, truth and skepticism are foundational values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is this called trolling? It's disinformation at best, and propaganda at worst.

<comment><USER13> Its meant to destabilise, akin to terrorism's goal, but seemingly less harmful.

<comment><USER14> But trolling is a rhetorical technique, entirely unrelated to "terrorism".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Full paper: [http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IF...](http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IFTF_State_sponsored_trolling_report.pdf)

Also a bunch of countries are missing. Like Ukraine, nowadays it follows Russia with trolling and uses volunteers and government trolls to spread war propaganda and other government propaganda. Xenophobia, demonization of, hate towards russians, patriotism, hate towards any dissent, etc.

<comment><USER16> The West was first in using "fake news": there were radio stations broadcasting western propaganda in Russian. When Soviet Union collapsed, the volume of propaganda increased by several orders.

And it continue to this day via internet. I have no other explanation to a never ending flurry of articles in social networks and forums that we Russians: 1) evil people dreaming of conquering every country on this planet (this contradicts history and common sense but who cares) 2) we're "genetic garbage" 3) we didn't win in WW2, we just plundered Germany and raped German women 4) it would be better if we surrendered to Germany in WW2 5) we're dumb aggressive people and all our inventions were stolen from the west scientists

Etc etc.

I see articles with all these points and more every day on Facebook. Who writes and disseminate them?..

<comment><USER17> As if Russian-language forums were the least bit better, talking about пиндосы, гейропа etc. etc.

Of course while Voice of America, RL/RFE etc. were propaganda, compared to the Soviet media they were rather good. And the rape of German women,,, that's probably not the point that you would want to raise, it does not look good.

<comment><USER16> Well I don't know which forums are you reading. When I open just any video on YouTube for example.

If it is a video about any technology, ussr or Russian (cars, planes, electronics, heavy machinery), there will be at least several comments saying that it was stolen from the west. No matter what kind of car or plane the video is about, even if it was first off its kind in the world, and there were simply no sample to copy.

If it's DIY video, then there will be comments that if the author lived in the west, he would be a billionaire already.

If it's a video of village life, there will be comments that if it would be western village, authors would have lived in government sponsored mansion, harvest would be bought by the government by price that is 10x market price, etc.

How write all these comments? They are everywhere. Under every video, every Facebook party, every article on the news site.

<comment><USER17> Even disregarding the fact that for any given X, that X most like actually was stolen...

But these aren't particularly interesting places. Now, if you check the Russian section of LiveJournal, or comments sections of online news sites, let alone professionally patriotic sites (Goblin etc.), you would be amazed as how anyone could complain about perfectly sensible and reasonable comments you mention above.

I do assume that you speak/read Russian well enough...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What has surprised me the most is how uneducated people have become on complex matters. I work in the public sector, in digitization which gives me some pretty high levels of access because there is literally digitization in everything.

I've never met a bureaucrat at any higher level of office that wasn't dedicated, hardworking and intelligent. I've never seen a decision or any important matter decided upon without good reason. I have seen a lot of terrible decisions, but they were all made on a solid base that later turned out to be wrong.

Politicians are another story, but the vast majority of them are really great at what they do, and if you gave them more than 15 seconds on a tv channel you'd probably get a very different view of most of them than you have now, I know I did, and I wasn't even particularly negative toward them before it.

So there is that, the reality of a complex public sector, which simply isn't perfect in a democracy, where one of the highest virtues in political decisions comes down to compromise.

Yet whenever I go out of my bubble, I'm constantly met with jokes about how monkeys could do better, or drain the swamp type comments. Not just from idiots either, but from virtually anyone. Almost all the time I can dismiss it, by giving an example of why a decision isn't just black and white.

Like open source and the public sector. I talked with a comp.sci. professor about it once, and he had excellent points on why public funding (in it) should mainly go to open source software. Except in reality, a municipality like mine operates 470 different softwares of which 90% haven't got an open source alternative. Not only that, our entire IT staff is schooled and certified in things that aren't open source, and even if I could magically replace them over night without it costing millions of dollars, it's almost impossible to find open source focused replacements.

Faced with the complex realities of modern management the professor toned down his argument, but at the time it got me thinking.

How did we become a world of people who think we can analyze anything and come up with a solution on how to do it better? And when I say that, analyse, is really the wrong word because we watch a few 15 second clips on politics here and there through out the year, and suddenly we think we can run our institutions better than the people who are actually educated and experienced at running them? We see a few clips of plastic in the ocean, or get snow in April and we think we're climate scientists?

I say we, because I'm just as guilty of this as you are. Compared to people who buy into the social media memes, my only personal advantage, is that I was schooled in verifying my sources before I believe them, but just imagine if you weren't.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am missing "Correct the Record" and other agencies that can be paid to troll and shape opinion. Also there are state-propaganda machines that are designed to push the opinion of people on forums. Want to talk about Israel? Then we have "operation Mockingbird" and other operations still going on.

Don't forget that we have the thousands of companies that post stuff on the internet for clicks and commercial gain. Can we distinguish them from the others? And finally we have click-farms that can give us top-posts. Or we can pay social media to get "promoted".

</comment><comment><USER20> Propaganda is no longer the monopoly of media houses. Journalists do not have much credibility either.

Countries of Western Europe are missing in the map maybe only because the state holds the purse strings to the media through compulsory tv/radio licensing.

Perhaps universities should start courses in trolling instead of journalism. Not that they are any different.

<comment><USER21> There are major propaganda efforts in motion by dictators and wannabe dictators to discredit genuine journalism, yet American journalists routinely lose their jobs or face extreme demotions if they're caught fabricating. I would state forthrightly that the news pages of the major American and European papers are trustworthy. Do you have evidence of fabrications that have gone unpunished?

<comment><USER22> That isn't really the way to think about it. Both bias and laziness affect what is written about, which pieces of information are selected, how well something is researched, and what kind of idea is forming in the reader's mind. State television in countries you would call dictatorships don't necessarily just make up stuff either, nor do they need to.

<comment><USER23> It seems like, when pressed for specific examples, that your response is a bit lazy. I see career ending consequences over basic, minor mistakes in the mainstream news industry in the US. I say mainstream, because of specific examples like Hannity/Seth Rich which was based on sourced on baseless conspiracy theories (and never had a retraction or consequences). But [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn- journalist...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn-journalists- resign-after-retracted-story-on-trump-ally.html), Brian Williams, or Jemele Hill all come to mind. I wasn't able to find conservative media examples, but if you are able to provide some that would help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Electric Aircraft Symposium - <AUTHOR> http://eas2015.cafefoundation.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Symposium featuring world experts on Electric Aviation in early May. Disclaimer, I am a volunteer for the research org putting on the conference.</comment>


Unemployment in Silicon Valley higher than after dot-com bubble burst - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-silicon-valley-unemployment-skyrockets-to-12-2009-7

<comment><USER2> Not that it lessens the blow any, but it's worth mentioning that these figures are across the entire employment spectrum. Some of the commenters mention large hits in management, but it can also represent the freefall in construction and other especially vulnerable blue collar/service industries.

Probably because I am in the midst of starting my own job search and targeting SF/SV, I got a little unnecessarily worried. This is not a tech job specific figure.

<comment><USER3> Unemployment may be higher, but strangely I'm noticing that rush-hour traffic is still a lot worse than during the dotcom bust, when traffic jams on 101 nearly disappeared for a while.

<comment><USER4> folks going for interviews could explain that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I personally don't see this myself. I work for a profitable startup in SF and we've had a hell of a time finding good hires. The problem may be that we do PHP development and the market is saturated with ex-lifers who are Java and .NET aficionados. I know a handful of other startups feel the same way.

<comment><USER6> " _we've had a hell of a time finding good hires_ "

I'm inclined to believe that no matter _how_ bad the economy gets, it's _always_ difficult to find truly good hires. The kind of people that you want are going to be the last people to lose their jobs in times like these; on the contrary, they're going to be kept around and worked overtime as a mechanism for reducing costs.

<comment><USER7> This isn't necessarily true - great employees can't usually control those who make the decisions that might run a company into the ground.

<comment><USER8> but they usually find jobs right away. Like within a month or two, if not, they just start their own project/startup.

I know this for a fact/personal anecdotal evidence.

It seems that this downturn is hitting more the general work force, and people that do more 'soft' type of work: managers, marketing, pr, etc.

If you are a hard core engineer, you shouldn't have trouble finding a job.

The exception will be people that just came out of college, or with less than two years of experience. It seems that right now companies are hiring more experienced/hit the ground running, engineers. During boom times, when they can't find these kind of engineers, they will hire less experienced ones, and be willing to train them and become productive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As my cousin says, "unemployment payments mean that my startup is funded."

</comment><comment><USER10> Last time everyone left for Austin... where's everyone going now. I don't really see the same kind of departure.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bubble was a equity problem, not something affecting the general public.

<comment><USER12> Not sure what you mean by general public , but it sure did affect employment in tech industry by a LOT

<comment><USER11> Tech industry unemployment stats would be relevant then. I only skimmed, but it appears to be talking about general unemployment.

By "general public" I mean that it's harder on everyone - not particularly hard on tech. I'm sure the stats show that the dotcom bubble was worse for tech workers.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's Surface Pro just got a feature the MacBook has never had - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2018/03/06/surface-pro-vs-macbook-pro-specs-price-lte-connection/ <comment> noah-kun Saving you a click, it's wireless LTE data:

> The company launched a new version of the Surface Pro on Tuesday that has > built-in LTE connectivity, something that should appeal to businesses with > remote employees, or really anyone who's tired of tethering their iPhone to > their MacBook with a dongle.

I love that "Bluetooth" is now called a dongle.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you always carry your phone with you anyway - you can just Bluetooth teather it to your MacBook anytime. Easier and you don't have to pay for it. So it's not like macbook ever needed this feature that surface pro just got.

<comment><USER3> Tethering takes the same number of clicks (2) as switching to a different wifi network. It couldn't be easier.

<comment><USER2> Easier than buying a new laptop just to be able to have lte connection I mean.</comment></comment></comment>


Vine's successor Byte launches next spring - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18076362/vine-successor-byte-launch-dom-hofmann <comment><USER2> Has there been any news on how Byte will improve on its previous iteration? Or is it still very much under wraps?</comment>