Ask HN: How do you manage Anger due to frustration? - <AUTHOR>

There are times in everyone's life when something or everything goes wrong for a moment without any reason or your direct control over it.
Which leads to frustration and anger, which leads to breakage of control over your own mind!
How do you deal with such issues? <comment><USER2> I try to look at the bigger picture, if the bigger picture is not harmed, it should be okay.

I also wrote about it a couple of days back: [https://medium.com/p/being-nice- is-so-much-better-8ae0b66fbc...](https://medium.com/p/being-nice-is-so-much- better-8ae0b66fbc33)

</comment><comment><USER3> "How do you deal with such issues?"

Easy: get to understand this - ' without any reason or your direct control over it.'

Once you do it, this 'breakage of control over your own mind!' doesn't happen anymore.</comment>


Ask HN: Polarized LCD screens? - <AUTHOR> I recently had my cracked, iPhone 6 screen replaced by a 3rd party repairer. Coincidentally, I also bought a pair of snazzy polarized sunglasses for an upcoming boating trip.
The first time that I turned the phone on, while wearing the glasses, on the boat, the screen stayed black! Much cursing and swearing ensued ("frickin' repair only lasted 3 days!!" etc.) Of course I soon realized that the screen was strongly polarized. It was fine when held horizontally, but completely black when vertical.
I checked various other LCD screens on the boat, eg. autopilot controllers, chart plotters, my friends' phones, and so on, and none of those were polarized. So my question is, is it common for LCD screens to differ in that property? Does it suggest that the 3rd party screen is lower-than-normal quality?
(ps. I have poor internet connectivity at present, and might not see replies for a day or so.) <comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I see that Mr Google has lots of info on, uh, "lcd screen polarization", but I'll leave my question up regardless!</comment>


Notes by Andy Hertzfeld on Alan Kay's talk at Creative Think seminar, July 1982 - <AUTHOR> https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Creative_Think.txt <comment><USER3> > _Systems programmers are high priests of a low cult_

Ouch :p

Part of the issue is that "systems" are no longer designed holistically [1], and instead follow Conway's Law [2], which leads subcomponents to be designed in isolation and then combined as best as possible.

Systems programmers build the foundation of a software platform, without a clear vision of the end goal. They focus on the intricate details of the platform, but pay little attention to how this fits in the final product.

[1] maybe only at Apple, inheritors of Kay's approach?

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)

<comment><USER4> > Part of the issue is that "systems" are no longer designed holistically

The "high priests" line is a Bob Barton quote, which I believe probably dates back to the mid-sixties.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I did not know that. Do you know what he meant in context?

<comment><USER4> I'm not comfortable offering some kind of deep interpretation of my own, but it's been mentioned jokingly by James Mickens and jokingly but seriously by Alan Kay, whose speeches are all worth watching. I thought it was interesting, based on Hertzfeld's notes, that Kay has been quoting Barton on this for such a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> """ Magnetic Fields: Find a central metaphor that's so good that everything aligns to it. Design meetings are no longer necessary, it designs itself. The metaphor should be crisp and fun. """

this might not always be possible but if you can reveal a powerful, clear metaphor (& oh my are good metaphors tricky to come by!) the resulting alignment is truly liberating.

</comment><comment> compiler-guy "People who are serious about software should make their own hardware." Classic and true.

<comment><USER5> He unpacks that here: [https://www.quora.com/What-did-Steve-Jobs-mean-when-he- said-...](https://www.quora.com/What-did-Steve-Jobs-mean-when-he-said-that- Apple-is-fundamentally-a-software-company-Was-he-right/answer/Alan-Kay-11).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Turn up your nose at good ideas. You must work on great ideas, not good ones" \- I admire Alan Kay deeply and love reading his writings and philosophy. I respect how he inspired the early generations to do incredible things - <USER2> for me personally he is a warning to not be hung up on 'great' ideas. He was ahead of his time in the 70s, but the world flew by. Even today he dwells on dynabooks, smalltalk, etc in his lectures - all innovative ideas for its time... but they never evolved and don't translate well in today's world (see One Laptop per Child)

<comment><USER7> So what is wrong with "One Laptop per Child" ?

<comment><USER6> There's lots of different takes on why it failed, you can search 'olpc criticisms' on google and you'll find many articles with endless takes. To me they had many 'great' and inspiring design ideas that were completely out of touch with reality. For example, trying to put a handcrank on a laptop and the completely unfamiliar UI.

<comment><USER8> It was also because MS and Intel sabotaged it. OLPC probably would have never worked anyway but the actions taken by the two companies left a very sour taste for me. Also, the "right-click any program in order to see its source- code" was an idea many generations ahead of its time, one that I'm afraid we won't ever get to see, actually.

<comment><USER9> Partly due to Alan Kay's STEPS project failure to release meaningful code sources, you're right.. Frank ( [https://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf](https://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf) ) would have had A LOT of interested developer/user if they had released the code.

<comment><USER10> It is not easy to find and even harder to actually use, but here are the sources:

[http://tinlizzie.org/dbjr/](http://tinlizzie.org/dbjr/)

I also was sent a frank.image that runs on Squeak and uses these files but don't know where that can be found.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the link! If you're able to find the image I'm interested, please PM me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Was there any recordings of Alan Kay's talk that day? Love to read these notes and hear the talk side-by-side.

</comment><comment><USER12> Alan Kay has given some really interesting talks.

I think these are the ones I saw:

[https://youtu.be/id1WShzzMCQ](https://youtu.be/id1WShzzMCQ)

[https://youtu.be/1e8VZlPBx_0](https://youtu.be/1e8VZlPBx_0)

</comment><comment><USER13> Twenty-five years before social media became mainstream, this observation seems so prophetic:

 _Sharing is important - we 're all communication junkies_

</comment><comment><USER14> > The whole notion of 'programming language' is wrong.

Anyone know what Alan Kay meant by this or have a pointer to an expansion?

<comment><USER15> Alan Kay is a proponent for the notion of pervasive use of objects that work by sending and receiving messages, which leads to things like Smalltalk famously having no "if" statements. The attitude is pretty similar to the one that Lisp folks have. It's possible that Hertzfeld had a different takeaway than what Kay meant, but it's not clear.

<comment><USER16> In case it wasn't clear, Smalltalk does have if statements. They just aren't special keywords like in most other languages; instead, they are methods of the True/False classes.

The way it is implemented (hopefully) opens up the mind to how OO actually can work, but in practise, when you use if-else in Smalltalk, it's pretty much the same as in other languages.</comment></comment></comment>


Telegram connection issues in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/telegram/status/979274718401515521 <comment><USER2> It's fascinating how people are immediately creating fake replies to get people to fall for their scam.</comment>


Apple confirms MacBook Pro thermal throttling, software fix coming today - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17605652/macbook-pro-thermal-throttling-apple-software-fix <comment><USER2> I can't imagine what kind of "missing digital key" could have this effect, but it'll be exciting if independent benchmarks confirm the claimed improvement.</comment>


Show HN: Web app for tracking time spent on project - <AUTHOR> https://timetracker-a5bf4.firebaseapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Time spent isn't a useful metric. What's useful is impact.</comment>


The Chinese Room Argument - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ <comment><USER2> I have a lot of strong thoughts and feelings when I think deeply about this experiment. But one thing bugs me just about the way it's posed. You're told to just assume you've got a functional database of Chinese symbols; maybe it's just a big shelf of old dusty boxes with helpful headings. And you should just assume you've got this book of instructions; maybe it's so big you need a stepladder to read its big pages. But it is, as you've been instructed, to be just a book. And when you use them together, just assume they do something amazing.

Haha, I fooled you dummy, something has to be missing here; the thing it does can't really be THAT amazing, because you were told it was just boxes and books; you can get those anywhere.

You're told right away to imagine a set of comprehensible mundane objects, assume they can do this thing in the form you've been given, and as a result, the thing must be mundane and incomplete.

I know there's more depth to it than that, but I don't think you need to go that deep to find large flaws.

<comment><USER3> The analogy is supposed to emphasize that AI proponents (and others) presuppose there's a fully materialistic explanation for consciousness. There's no wizard behind the curtain: it's all just deep neural networks ("boxes and books").

<comment><USER4> Yes, and then the analogy is used to refute this notion through a thinly disguised "but it is obvious! [that this isn't real]" fallacy (the fallacy is that it is not at all obvious that the Chinese Room is not sapient).

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's one way out: claiming that the Books+Person Room-System is itself sentient.

You can (and philosophers have!) make that case, but it seems very counter- intuitive to the way we experience conscientious as a unitary, embodied being.

<comment><USER4> > it seems very counter-intuitive to the way we experience conscientious as a > unitary, embodied being

I don't see how it's counter-intuitive to anyone who is aware of various brain functions, for example. It's abundantly clear by now that it's not a unitary thing, but a set of traits.

I think the reason why people keep coming up with those "it's not a real thing" retorts is the same reason why (other) people reject the notion that some animals might be sapient enough for us to care about. We like being _uniquely_ sapient, and that's just impossible with any sort of rational - i.e. mysticism-free - approach to intelligence and self-awareness and all that stuff.

<comment><USER3> Maybe others disagree, but I think it's quite obvious that there's a spectrum of sentience: animals like chimpanzees are very similar to ourselves, something like a cat or a dog is less sentient, and a barnacle or clam having very little sentience.

It's much less convincing to me to say that a computer (or an algorithm running on that computer?) is somewhere on that same spectrum.

<comment><USER4> Well, we are literally working on simulating living beings on computers, e.g.:

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

If we do that, wouldn't said simulation be an algorithm that ends up on your spectrum?

But also, I'm curious why your spectrum is defined the way it is - i.e. why a clam can have sentience, but not a laptop? Because one is organic, and the other one is not? But doesn't that imply that your _definition_ of sentience inherently excludes anything artificial?

<comment><USER3> Theoretically, yes, I would assume a 100% accurately-simulated brain to be as sentient as the real thing (of course, then you can never turn it off without committing murder). Given that we don't fully understand the properties of a single neuron yet, I am deeply skeptical of the accuracy of these simulations.

Even in that wikipedia article you linked:

> These early attempts of simulation have been criticized for not being > biologically realistic. Although we have the complete structural connectome, > we do not know the synaptic weights at each of the known synapses. We do not > even know whether the synapses are inhibitory or excitatory. To compensate > for this the Hiroshima group used machine learning to find some weights of > the synapses which would generate the desired behaviour. It is therefore no > surprise that the model displayed the behaviour, and it may not represent > true understanding of the system.

The common thread running through many of these comments is people who don't appreciate just how complex biology is, and how much we don't understand, are nevertheless confidently asserting that some Turning machine they can half- imagine will obviously be able to "think" the way a brain does.

<comment><USER4> The common thread is materialism. If you don't introduce any mystical entities such as a soul, it is inevitable that it's possible to construct something that operates indistinguishably from what we consider natural life - it's a question of engineering and biological research at that point. The question of whether it's 100 years removed from my laptop, or 1000 years, is a completely different one. It took humans literally millennia to get from horses to cars, yet both are on the same spectrum.

The Chinese Room argument essentially tries to make a point that it's impossible at _any_ level of complexity. The only way that can be true is if you reject materialism entirely, and adopt the notion that there's something else that "bestows" intelligence on a brain, that cannot be replicated by any artificial physical means (but is somehow still replicated in utero). It's not really a verifiable claim, which is evident from the very design of the experiment - it says that there are things that appear intelligent to any possible test, but still aren't, because common sense, essentially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand the premise of the Chinese Room argument. The human in the room is a red herring - he's acting as a computer executing a provided program. A computer can be made from integrated circuits, discrete transistors, vacuum tubes, mechanical components, or even a man in a room following simple instructions and writing down the results.

The man is not the source of the intelligence, the program is (or rather, the execution of the program in an emergent manner - obviously, if the program does not get executed, it cannot "understand" Chinese). Remove the program and the man is unable to process the Chinese input, just like a modern CPU if you remove a program from memory.

The choice of conducting the experiment in Chinese is just another misdirection. The only thing that the experiment is truly positing is, assume a human is executing a program that passes the Turing test rather than a traditional silicon computer.

<comment><USER6> The Chinese Room is a reductio against Strong AI. Strong AI is the idea that a program that programme that is able, for example, to converse in Chinese thereby understands Chinese. The Room, if successful, drives a wedge between "acting as if one knows Chinese" and "understanding Chinese". This may be applied to the any number of programs. But with such a wedge, we do not actually have Strong AI—the appearance of intelligence (grounded in syntax) is different from actual intelligence (presumably grounded in semantics).

In other words, assume strong AI. Strong AI implies machines have understanding. But the Chinese Room argues machines can never have understanding. So, strong AI is not possible.

In the background is Turing's attempt to provide an account of intelligence. Turing skirts the issue in his famous paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"[1]: instead of defining intelligence, Turing proposes a test. But the Chinese Room argues that even if we had a machine pass this test, we would not thereby be bound to say that the machine was intelligent.

[1] [https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf](https://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf)

<comment><USER7> You have presupposed the answer.

Replace a book with a person in that example and have the human walk up to the person and ask a question. Now in that case would saying the person moving the note does not understand something mean the room does not contain something that does understand? Nope.

Therefore, saying the human in the original example does not understand something does not in fact answer your question. My lungs don't speak English, but I can't speak English without them.

<comment><USER6> I do not believe I have presupposed the answer; I have simply articulated how I believe the reductio to work.

The key, of course, is whether we think that the person in the Room actually understands Chinese. The inference Searle wants us to draw, based on our intuition, is that the person does not understand Chinese just because the person is following a lookup table. The way to get around the argument is to claim either (i) that the inference doesn't work—that is, Strong AI does not imply machines understand, or (ii) that the Chinese Room does not imply machines do not understand.

I think (i) is a reasonable claim that follows from understanding what is intended by the term "Strong AI." (ii) is the tricky one. It seems to me the best route out is to find a way to substantiate a claim alluded to by another commentator, viz. the property of intelligence does not exist (though I would say "understanding does not apply" or something like that). The thing is, it does seem to me that understanding is a reasonable category for this case; and anyone who thinks this is likely to feel the force of the argument.

<comment><USER7> > The key, of course, is whether we think that the person in the Room actually > understands Chinese.

As I said that's no more relevant than if the paint on the walls understands Chinease. You can't answer the question of if the room understands something by saying if a single element understands something or not.

Or consider this, does Microsoft the company understand French? It seems like a simple question, but you can easily support yes or no. In some situations it can respond to a French speaker, but not all situations.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, I did not ask the question of whether "the room understands." The question was whether "the person in the room understands," which seems perfectly reasonable.

In order to grasp what you are saying about "Microsoft the company understand French" one needs to define what we mean by "understand." As you (correctly) say, our answer will depend on that definition.

But to say everything depends on our definition of understanding is to miss the point of the Chinese Room. The point of the argument is to support the claim that the sort of thing we normally classify as understanding—such as when we say someone understands Chinese—is not a property of the person following a lookup table (or by analogy, a machine with instructions). Thus, neither the person in the room, nor the machine, understands in the same sense as when we say "this person understands Chinese."

This is how the Chinese Room is supposed to work against Strong AI. Strong AI supposes that when you have appropriate instructions, a machine is said to understand in the same sense in which you say a human understands. The Chinese Room argument is meant to prompt the claim that the machine does not understand—or at the very least does not understand in the same sense that a human understands.

<comment><USER7> While you say you are only talking about "the machine" it's rather pointless. Fine, my hair is not sentient either again it's not an argument.

Strong AI is a _system_ not a machine. The person using a lookup table is just a portion of the system and thus can't be used to limit the entire system.

Twins don't nessisarily understand the same languages based on their training. Referring to the Human in "the room" as the machine following specific instructions is the same as saying human DNA don't understand English. It's might be true, but it's definitely irrelevant.

Machine code is binary data used by computers that ideally maps 1:1 with ASM. A human can know ASM and with the aid of a computer produce, read, edit, etc Machine code they don't directly understand. In effect they are part of a system that understands something that they themselves don't.

Thus "the Chinese Room" has an inescapable though easily missed failure in logic. Saying the machine is nor the room, seems like an unreasonable objection. But, talking about the machine it's just as relevant as saying people without exposure don't know specific languages.

PS: Starting with a glass of water you can separate it into smaller places up to a point. But in the end water is H20, if you just look at the H that's not water because you reached the point where subdivision results in a different substance. Saying H is not water thus water does not exist is a silly argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The entire argument is flawed, as it doesn't actually prove anything at all. Here is the full argument, with all assumptions explicit:

Assume properties 'consciousness' and 'intelligence' exist. I'm not going to define them because I can't. Assume that a human has these properties. Now I demonstrate that a machine can't have these properties, since they were never actually defined. Since by assumption a human has them, a human has intelligence and a machine not.

The type of ideas that can lead to this reasoning are the same of the people who rejected evolution as thinking that man could never have descended from monkeys. The only think the argument proves is the close-mindedness of its author.

<comment><USER9> > Assume properties 'consciousness' and 'intelligence' exist. I'm not going to > define them because I can't. Assume that a human has these properties.

But this is not what the argument says, is it? The argument says imagine a man that can't understand Chinese. The assumption here is that some humans can understand Chinese while others can not.

<comment><USER8> It is, because the term 'understanding' is not defined in a useful manner. What does it mean to understand something? If you can ever define it, I can bet I can make a machine satisfy your definition. What the argument does here is to simply avoid the definition, so that it cannot be disproved.

<comment><USER10> I take the Chinese Room to be a reaction to the Turing Test. The Turing Test also avoids defining understanding but it seems to say that we don't need a definition of understanding - if something appears to understand then it does in fact understand.

The Chinese Room attempts to refute that idea by saying that you can get the effect of understanding with a methodology that obviously lacks the gestalt that we associate with understanding a subject.

Personally I'm a sketptic of hard A.I. in general. Conscious to me seems like a magic trick - in that the only magical thing about it is that it will disappear once you know how it's done. Which makes it seem like a black box that can only be created if you don't know how or what you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have always considered Searle's chinese room to be an intellectually dishonest argument.

It argues that a system (the room) consisting of a non-chinese speaker and a arbitrarily large and complex rules system and a human cannot "understand" chinese when the human clearly doesn't understand chinese. The human is just a distraction.

You could instead image a variant system where the room contains two people (and no filing cabinets): non-chinese speaking scribe and a chinese speaker. The scribe laboriously transcribes messages without understanding them and passes them to and from the chinese speaker that clearly does.

Obviously the addition of the non-understanding human in that example does not make the system unintelligent. Similarly, the (non-)intelligence of the system in the classic argument is independent of the understanding of the human stuck inside it.

There are interesting question to ask about the nature of intelligence, but the Chinese Room argument draws our attention to none of them and simply obfuscates the issue with an irrelevant misdirection.

<comment><USER11> Another way to highlight the folly of The Chinese Room is to consider a different alternative:

Imagine you create a system of filing cabnets that encode rules to compute AlphaGo on encrypted inputs. This is _clearly_ conceptually possible (if not practical just due to the sheer cost and size).

This system would, as AlphaGo does, be the worlds strongest go player. Even though the human inside may not understand go at all (and certainly wouldn't understand the game they were helping to play, as all the moves would be encrypted).

In this form we see The Chinese Room not as as evidence against AI as intended, but if the argument actually held (and wasn't just a form of intellectually low misdirection) it would be very strong evidence that its idea of "understanding" is of no practical use. ... since what would "understanding" even mean if we couldn't even say that the worlds best go player didn't understand the game at all?

<comment><USER3> I'm happy to say that the world's best Go playing algorithm doesn't understand the game at all. AlphaZero doesn't _understand_ anything because there's no semantic content or metacognition to anything it does. It just takes inputs and optimizes outputs. It's a very fancy probabilistic calculator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a non-philosopher, this argument seems flawed in that one could argue the computer in the chinese room "understands" chinese. The Turing test, as I see it, would metaphorically ask if someone or something in the chinese room understood chinese and you could argue the answer is yes.

<comment><USER13> You are right, if you add quotes to the word 'understood' in the second sentence. So, it is an issue of what understanding in the context of humans, in what way this is different from what understanding in the context of computers/symbolic language is.

<comment><USER14> This highlights how fuzzy terms like intelligence and understanding are. How exactly is human understanding/reasoning different to that of a dog, a monkey or a computer?

How do you value each one of these? Should an animal be valued higher than than a constructed machine that is otherwise identical? What about humans and machines?

<comment><USER9> Does a light bulb know that it is on or off? That it exists?

Normally, in order to answer these questions we would look at the empirical evidence, and the evidence in favour that inanimate objects have self- awareness is completely non-existent.

On the other hand, the evidence that animals have self-awareness is overwhelmingly strong.

Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that inanimate objects aren't self-aware but that people and animals are. (And of course this also means that is NOT reasonable to conclude otherwise.)

<comment><USER3> See also: [https://coronaradiata.net/2012/12/24/does-a-thermostat- have-...](https://coronaradiata.net/2012/12/24/does-a-thermostat-have- consciousness/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kurzweil had a nice end-run around this problem. It doesn't matter whether the machine is sentient/intelligent/understands/etc. It matters whether the machine can convince humans that it is doing these things. There is of course still room for skepticism, as a researcher could uncover new, testable ways in which the machine isn't actually living up to our definition of any of these concepts. But if all that is left to decide the question is the way in which the thing doing the convincing happens to be implemented, then you're in the land of xenophobia to claim that as a determining factor.

AFAICT this is one step further than the Turing test which is blind (or perhaps double blind). In this test the human starts interacting with something that is clearly a machine, then comes away convinced that the machine possesses non-machine qualities like sentience, a soul, etc. I don't remember Kurzweil addressing whether the machine itself would argue this on its own behalf, but that seems likely.

Edit: clarification

</comment><comment><USER16> Not a neurologist so excuse the potential naïveté here but can one also make the argument that we can reduce a Chinese speaker's brain's ability to respond into a series of "manipulating symbols and numerals" as well, albeit, a extremely complicated one?

<comment><USER3> I think this is still an open question. Some people have claimed quantum effects may be at play, but this very controversial: [https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum- bra...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum- brain-20161102/)

Most neuroscientists feel strongly that the brain is not (just?) a computer [https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process- informati...](https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information- and-it-is-not-a-computer)

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that the brain, to the extent that it is a computer, is not anywhere near Turing complete. It is not something more than a very fast (Turing complete) computer, it is something less. The brain makes up for the deficiency by being extremely fast and well optimized for the tasks it needs to do.

But as a consequence, we cannot draw the metaphor about the brain being a "computer" too far. The "software" in the brain is specific to the given brain, and not hardware independent.

Sure, if we imagine a Turing machine with infinite speed and memory, it might be able to run the "software" from every human brain, but we do not know if it is even possible to build such a computer within our current universe (if we require it to operate at real time). And if it is possible, I would guess that it would be so many orders of magnitude less efficient than a non-Turing complete machine that there would be little reason to build it.

Penrose and others try to smuggle in something like dualism through QM, but I don't see why that is necessary at all.

I think we just need to throw out most of the "Computer" metaphor that requires Turing completeness, and deal with the brain for what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like this fails at the scope level. Of course excluding the program the computer is unable to understand Chinese. Just like a transistor alone is unable to perform a sum of two integers. Either you analyse the complete system or you are just drawing false parallels.

EDIT: Spelling

</comment><comment><USER19> If you assume that the brain of a person speaking Chinese is fundamentally different than a computer executing an instruction set, then you can also prove it based on that assumption. How is this significant?

</comment><comment><USER20> Edit: misremembered the argument. Ignore me :)

<comment><USER21> It's not an automated translation machine. The Chinese Room received input in Chinese and produces output in Chinese.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Longer sleep during the weekend compensates short sleep during weekdays? - <AUTHOR> On top, if one is constrained to sleep less during the week (6-5 hours per night) how can he/she increase the stamina/energy levels without having to sleep 12 hours during the weekend  ? <comment><USER2> Not really possible to 'catch up'. Matthew Walker's book 'Why We Sleep' goes in depth on this. It really made me re-think my life and ensure I'm getting enough sleep daily.

I can't do it justice, but sleeping 8 hours > sleeping 6 and napping 2 later.

So sleeping 5 hours 5 days a week and 12 hours on the weekends just doesn't cut it.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is considerable debate over the question of "sleep debt", with current thinking tending towards the idea that it doesn't exist.

As to sleeping less during the week, the three major ideas are polyphasic sleep (doesn't work), cocaine (works, may kill you), and "rethinking your priorities".

</comment><comment><USER4> People say you can't catch up, but your body definitely thinks it's doing something useful when it gets that extra sleep.

The simple matter is, if you're sleeping extra on the weekend, you aren't saving any time by sleeping less during the week.

</comment><comment><USER5> I used to be a serious workaholic, sleeping 3-5 hours a night during the week- days and, as you suggest, catching up in the weekends. I also used to be a moron. In retrospect, both states were correlated.

The first wake-up call was when I moved from Belgium to the US. In Belgium, one enjoys much more paid vacation than in the US. This discrepancy showed me that I did not truly recover in the weekends - I needed my vacation days to recover.

Though I consider the work-life balance a misnomer (you have one life; part of the time you 'work,' part of the time you do other things), it is still something you need to regulate. First of all, assuming you are what I would like to call a 'knowledge' worker, you need to do other stuff to keep your mind fresh.

Secondly, as a rule of thumb, I would suggest that if your job requires you to work 10+ hours a day, you are doing your job wrong. Though it might sound odd, this is a useful rule of thumb. Whenever you find yourself in such a situation - STOP. STOP and reconsider.

EDIT: changed to 10+ hours... (btw: this includes transit)

</comment><comment><USER6> I did this for years and learned both from experience and later from reading the works of people who know much more about sleep than I do (highly recommend the book "Why We Sleep" that this kind of catchup is not possible. I found myself being exhausted and sleeping most of the day on weekends and over time this just kept getting worse and worse. I felt fine during the work week getting 3-6 hours of sleep, but on weekends I'd just crash. No, I was not catching up on my sleep debt by passing up for 12-14 hours on weekends instead. Now I make sure to give myself at least an eight-hour sleep opportunity per day. As a result I feel more alert more consistently, and my weekend sleep/wake schedule looks very similar to my normal weekday schedule.

</comment><comment><USER7> Its important to have a consistent sleep pattern; trying to regain sleep on the weekend will just throw your sleep cycle out of whack. Personally, I get about 5 hours on average during work, and I am often far more tired after a super-sleep on the weekend.

Other things that help are not eating just before bed, and ensuring you have enough time in the morning to actually wake up! Oh, and get the best mattress you can afford

</comment><comment><USER8> Cocaine?

More seriously, sleep is physiologically essential - but so are other things. So make sure you optimize the hell out of the other things, starting with diet & exercise. (I'm guessing that "optimal" exercise under sleep deprivation is less than with adequate sleep but more than zero.)

Try to take naps. If you have enough downtime take a chance to nap rather than e.g. surf the web or futz with your phone.

Spend time on weekends preparing so you can sleep more during the week. E.g prepare food and have it as close to ready to eat as possible. Minimize the errands or cleaning you have to do on weekdays by doing it on weekends and spend the time saved on weekdays (if any) sleeping.

Also try to figure out how to get out of this unhealthy situation.</comment>


Record and Replay for JavaScript apps - <AUTHOR> https://blog.logrocket.com/logrocket-a-new-type-of-developer-tool-321a3e3d7af7 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone,

LogRocket first launched on HN 6 months ago as a Record and Replay tool for Redux apps. Today we're excited to announce that we officially support all JavaScript apps and frameworks! LogRocket lets you replay everything that led to a bug or user issue, including:

* Video recordings of user activity

* Network requests / responses (including bodies)

* Console logs + errors and stacktraces

* Redux actions and state

* Browser and other metadata

* and lots more...

Hope to hear from you all on how we can improve frontend debugging.</comment>


Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28religion.html

<comment><USER2> Swedish atheist here. I got 13 out of 15 on their quiz, which put me in the 97th percentile. What did other HN:ers get? I suspect similar numbers..

<comment><USER3> I got 15 out of 15 but had to guess on one of them and got lucky.</comment></comment>


How We Use DevOps at Adzerk - <AUTHOR> http://team.adzerk.com/post/11654083284/devops-at-adzerk

<comment><USER2> I'd be curious to hear more on your Continuous Delivery/Deployment process. We do that as well and sometimes parts of it feel like there is room for improvement. A lot of it comes with coordinating roll outs that include system as well as software changes, as well as having changes go to a test/staging environment and not others.

Particularly, we use chef with the Opscode Platform and a git workflow for our chef repo, but that doesn't mesh as well with with chef's versioning of cookbooks. There can be a disconnect between chef cookbook versions in development and the branch they're living in within git, and making additional changes that we do want to go to production while other development is happening on stuff we don't. We don't do long running processes like this, usually a day or two to maybe a week, but the shortness also adds to confusion as branches change or what not.

<comment><USER3> We're dealing with the same problems you mention in your comment. The "split state" between our Chef git repo and Chef's hosted environment causes problems from time to time. We also are not completely satisfied with how we deploy our applications versus how the Chef recipes update and maintain system software.

We haven't had many problems with the Chef cookbooks as you have, but right now our needs are shallow with them.

I think the most important thing we can do is to constantly work to improve and hold nothing sacred. If something isn't working anymore we should be ready to change to a better tool or way of working.

If there's anything specific you'd like to know about our CD, I'd be more than happy to explain further.</comment></comment>


YT Trying to Force Me to Social Engineer You - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2M9mXip9j8 <comment><USER2> This sounds very tinfoil hat...

<comment><AUTHOR> But he has the data and metrics from his channel views to support his conclusion. What's tinfoil hat about that?</comment></comment>


Fact Check: Is Most Homelessness Tied to Drugs and Alcohol? - <AUTHOR> https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-homelessness-tied-drugs-alcohol/ <comment><AUTHOR> Found via Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/eotqu8/who_knew_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/eotqu8/who_knew_most_homeless_are_not_addicts_can_we_get/)</comment>


Are ads profitable for your Internet startup? How much? - <AUTHOR>

I know there are a number of factors affecting how much you could earn from displaying ads, but I'd like to get an idea about how much that helped your startup. Also, which service would you suggest, other than adsense, and why? <comment><USER2> I think he was asking about displaying ads on his site - not buying ads.

I've tested a lot of services on several different sites and Adsense has consistently performed the best.

I have a range of sites earnings anywhere from $0.50 CPM to $50 CPM using Adsense.

It really depends on the type of site you run. Sometimes it's not even worth placing ads if your traffic or quality of visitor is low. You may do better with lead generation.

A couple of other ad networks you may want to test are:

<http://www.azoogleads.com> \- for affiliate/lead gen opportunities <http://chitika.com> \- product based advertising

What kind of startup are you thinking about?

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft AdCenter (Bing & Yahoo!) works about as well as Google for me, there's just less volume available. Facebook works as well, but they won't even show my ads unless I bid around $0.60/click or higher... I didn't expect that. Affiliates are the best ROI by far.

I've had some success buying display ads on specific sites through BuySellAds, just beware that all their biggest publishers are web design blogs that, for whatever reason, never convert sales for any product I've tried, even directly related to that profession. I guess the people that read "25 fresh green web designs" articles every morning have no disposable income.

</comment><comment><USER4> * MSN Adcenter - Lower CPA * Facebook Ads - Longer term engagement (not necessarily lower CPA, though) * Affiliates - You give them a CPA and they figure out how to get you users :)</comment>


Twitter removes verified checkmarks from several white supremacists' profiles - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/15/twitter-removes-verified-checkmarks-from-several-white-supremacists-profiles/ <comment><USER2> Verifucation was intended as a way of distinguishing the actual profiles of famous people from fake ones. If twitter has now decided that they can dis- verify people for saying things they don't like, then twitter is implicitly endorsing the views of anyone who still has the check mark. So, good luck with that.

Also, contra this article, Richard Spencer, whatever his flaws may be, is not a neo-Nazi. He's certainly a white nationalist, and may possibly be a white supremacist, but he's not a neo-Nazi, and people really should stop trying to use these terms interchangeably.</comment>


AlphaGo Documentary Premiering at Tribeca Film Festival - <AUTHOR> https://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/alphago-2017 <comment><USER2> Why hasn't there been another AlphaGo match?

<comment><USER3> Deepmind released three AlphaGo vs. AlphaGo matches last year and around the new year AlphaGo played 60 games against top professionals online winning all of them. There have been rumours about AlphaGo vs. Ke Jie (No. 1 Go player), but nothing has been confirmed yet.

<comment><USER4> Ken Jie has already lost three times in a row to AlphaGo, while it was playing online under the name "Master".

> _But now even Ke, the reigning top-ranked Go player, has acknowledged that > human beings are no match for robots in the complex board game, after he > lost three games to an AI that mysteriously popped up online in recent days. > The AI turned out to be AlphaGo in disguise._

[https://qz.com/877721/the-ai-master-bested-the-worlds-top- go...](https://qz.com/877721/the-ai-master-bested-the-worlds-top-go-players- and-then-revealed-itself-as-googles-alphago-in-disguise/)

<comment><USER5> To be fair, those time limited online games are acknowledged to be biased in favor of AI over human players, so an actual tournament style match like Lee Sedol played would be needed for a more fair comparison. That said, I expect AlphaGo to continue* undefeated (and hope to be proven wrong).

*From this point forward.

<comment><USER6> Total noob here, how are they biased in favor of AI?

<comment><USER7> I don't know if this is exactly the case for Go, but in chess, short/fast games are heavily biased towards the player who doesn't make short term tactical blunders.

In a fast game, a human doesn't have time to figure out an extremely complicated sequence of sacrifices and combinations, but a computer can look at every possible continuation of 10+ moves in the future in under a second. So not only does it not make stupid short-term blunders, but it will immediately spot any mistake the human made that is exploitable in the short term.

Up until the late 90s, and to a certain extent the early 00s, humans could use "anti-computer" strategies to win in long/slow games. A typical anti-computer strategy would be to play very conservatively and set up the board in a position that an experienced player knows has a favorable endgame, but that endgame is too deep for the computer to see, so the computer doesn't know it's being set up.

These days computers can just look 20+ moves deep every turn and have better heuristics to mostly prevent this from happening.

<comment><USER8> Go player here. Even for human-vs-human Go, fast games also widen the gap in favor of the stronger player. Although in this case the mechanism might be somewhat different - stronger players are more experienced, and their "intuitive" skills (the subconscious neural networks that tell you in a second which parts of the board look interesting) benefit from more training.

But perhaps the same reason applies to human-vs-AI Go. AlphaGo's architecture bears a striking resemblance to how the human mind operates when playing Go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looking forward to it, thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for this!

</comment><comment><USER11> No theaters in Bay Area?

<comment><USER12> The Tribeca film Festival happens in NY :)

<comment><USER13> any trailer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet, but I am hoping for good things.

Trailer for previous movie by the director:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUWZZC8RWYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUWZZC8RWYI)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'It drives writers mad': why are authors still sniffy about sci-fi? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-authors-still-sniffy-about-sci-fi <comment><USER2> I really enjoy McEwan's work so hearing this from him is kinda disheartening. That's a shame.

I've always thought of Sci-Fi as less about the speculative science--the "airlocks" and the "antigravity", as the article would say--and more about what it says about science's interaction with society. Sure a lot of the genre were cheap and cheesy (though I won't hesitate to add, enjoyable) stories from pulp magazines but the best of it is no less capital-L Literature as, say, Shakespeare. I don't see the need for distinction (as McEwan is reported to do in the article) as even these cheap and cheesy stories capture something about the attitude towards science at the time of writing.

Heck, Shakespeare is astounding because he wrote for the masses. A lot of the "respectable" genres could trace themselves back to penny serials too.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's always frustrating when this happens. See also Cormac McCarthy and how he seemed to think he was the first person to think about the emotions of people in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in "The Road", despite that being a very common trope in SF for decades.</comment>


A message to the aliens, part 7/23 (mass) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plover.com/2015/09/09/#p07 <comment><AUTHOR> In which we broadcast to the galaxy our desperate need for editorial oversight.</comment>


Neural Networks seem to follow a puzzlingly simple strategy to classify images - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bethgelab/neural-networks-seem-to-follow-a-puzzlingly-simple-strategy-to-classify-images-f4229317261f <comment><USER2> So why not scramble the training set during the training as negative examples to force network to learn more "global" features?</comment>


ATtiny Controlled LED Tail Lights for a 1976 Mazda Cosmo - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZJTKXX_4JA <comment><USER2> Aaron Cake is hilarious! I've been watching him build this thing for something like a year now.</comment>


Gowalla 3 is out, watch out Foursquare - <AUTHOR> http://austintechgeeks.com/2010/12/02/gowalla-3-is-out-watch-out-foursquare/

<comment><USER2> I much prefer Gowalla to Foursquare, even though I personally don't find either of them all that useful...more of a fun distraction.

It's also interesting to watch the Facebook ripple effect. It seems that every web service is almost obligated to integrate with Facebook in order to be successful or viewed as legit.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why either, but I also prefer Gowalla to Foursquare.

My guess is that it's in the design and more indie-ish feel of Gowalla. Foursquare just seems more corporate looking.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Too bad this release is only for the iPhone... Android users will have to wait until early 2011 - can't wait!

<comment><USER4> And Windows Phone 7 Users... Well, never mind. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> They are releasing Gowalla 3 for Android and other mobile devices/platforms early on 2011. There is hope.

<comment><USER4> Not at the moment, at least: [http://getsatisfaction.com/gowalla/topics/will_you_release_a...](http://getsatisfaction.com/gowalla/topics/will_you_release_a_gowalla_windows_phone_7_app) Per their official rep, no plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some reason this reminds me of what OS/2 did to try to gain market share from the Windows world. They included the windows libraries to be able to run Windows apps on their OS in the hopes to keep people from leaving them for Windows.

Didn't work out for them.</comment>


Canada refuses visas to over a dozen African AI researchers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50426774 <comment><USER2> This is incredibly disappointing.

> Visa woes are common for academics trying to attend conferences in the US, > Canada and the UK.

Sounds like there's a real market gap. Maybe someplace like Singapore could afford the risks (and handle the crowds). Australia would be a nice choice but they're pretty strict about letting people in these days (at least when I looked at both work and student visas a year or two ago).

Then again, they don't discuss or give evidence for any of the visa denials they suggest are given by the U.S. (and in fact, the primary subject of the article is currently based in the U.S.). It's definitely not what I expected, but judging by the issues they list, it looks like it's harder to get into Canada or the UK than it is to get into the US-of-A.

Maybe they should look south of the border next year.

<comment><USER3> I found this index of "welcoming" countries, ranking them by number of source countries accepted visa-free or with visa on arrival: [https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php](https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php)

Singapore indeed does rank high, it has all the infrastructure for holding conferences, and it's an international hub. They speak English which is also a plus.</comment></comment>


Does The New Business Of Music Change The Way Music Sounds?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fistfulayen.com/blog/?p=233

<comment><USER2> I've been thinking for a while now about the likelihood of a return to a singles focused pop music business, like we had in the 50's and 60's. Most folks here grew up after the "album rock" generation, and so don't really remember it (I don't either), but there was a time when a single was the way bands were heard. It was possible to go into a studio for a day, cut two sides, and be on the radio a week or two later. And then do it again every two months until you had an album worth of songs. That became passe eventually, as the record labels got addicted to the bigger high of a $10+ album sale, and found that they could put two or three good singles on the album and the rest filler and make more than having to push each single individually. There have, of course, been album bands, like latter-era Beatles, and Pink Floyd, that made true albums wherein removing one track would damage the whole and listening to one track in isolation is less satisfying than the whole, but I'm talking the pure pop industry...the Motown folks, Elvis, most popular country music, etc., the people who were shooting for two and a half minutes of gold, nothing more, nothing less.

Anyway, I think that's probably a good direction for pop music to go. Most 60's girl groups didn't make wonderful music...but every once in a while, something like "Be My Baby" came along, and it's sold an awful lot of records over the years (and certainly has more stamina than any Britney creation). It'd be nice if there were a strong motivation built into the industry for pop records of that quality, and if there were a channel that could be effectively used to sell one really brilliant pop tune. And, what do you know, with iTunes, Unbox, and others there is!

The traditional music business has a vested interest in _not_ seeing that happen (again, they like the now $15+ album sales way too much to accept a world in which all of their channel stuffing results in $0.99 sales). But, if a well-funded new label sprung into existence, focused exclusively on producing fantastic pop singles with good young talent, it'd probably change the face of the pop music industry. This is one of those weird ideas that doesn't really fit either the long tail or the traditional blockbuster approach, but I think it's inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, the old business of music is changing the way music can sound. How? With sample trolling:

* How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop. An interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Hank Shocklee

[http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.htm...](http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html)

* Jay-Z Versus the Sample Troll

<http://www.slate.com/id/2153961></comment>


Phrack Issue #68 - <AUTHOR> http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=68 <comment><USER2> The 'Lines In The Sand' piece reads like someone who is enamored with being a 'bad boy' and that breaking the law is just really cool and if you want to be a cool black hat hacker you should basically try to cause as much mayhem as possible, fuck anyone else (but also be in complete solidarity with the black hat brethren who should totally go to jail for you without question). Apparently you can't even hack for a living because that would be selling out. I guess it's just not cool to get paid for doing the thing you'd do for free anyway.

The author is proud, vain, simple-minded, selfish, jaded, misguided, and totally enamored with his/her ideal 'scene' where they get to be the coolest person in the room because they can be an outlaw. You can't just reject all forms of society and pretend to live in your own little world where everything revolves around you and what you want.

We have to accept certain things we don't like because it's the contract we make with our fellow human beings to live together. Yes, i'll pay my taxes. Yes, I will stop at red lights. And no, you cannot steal from me or destroy my property just because you think it's lulzy or because you justify it as part of some cause you have. Something is wrong with this person that they have absolutely no remorse for any collateral damage suffered by his/her actions toward his/her noble cause.

Also, seriously, having a beef with an irc server is like having a beef with a specific bar or restaurant. Just don't go in there if you don't like it.

The 'Happy Hacking' article should just be renamed 'Why Selling Out Isn't As Fun And Cool As Black Hat Hacking'. I'm pretty disappointed in Phrack for publishing crap like these articles.

<comment><USER3> As a student taking a CS degree for fun, I think the 'Happy Hacking' article is fairly insightful. Not of the best quality, perhaps, but insightful none the less.

<comment><USER2> A good article would have taken the actual source material "The Happiness Hypothesis" and not filtered it through antisec/anticorp propaganda. It's nice that they pointed out the general idea that doing what you love as your job doesn't always work out, but jesus fucking christ, there's so many jobs out there I can guarantee you there's a way to do what you love and make money off it and not grow to hate it. Nothing is set in stone.

<comment><USER3> Sure, I just get the feeling that you're lucky to find such jobs (jobs where you can do what you love and still love doing it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those, like myself, unsure about the significance of this post, this digital magazine has an infrequent and lengthy release cycle. The last issue is from 2010.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised how the younger generation does not seems to know all these things. It's not like if they weren't well-known.

Sometimes I hear "what's 2600?" " _why_ is it called 2600?" from "security professionals". Woot.

<comment><USER6> I doubt it is related to being the younger generation. I think it is more to do with Hacker News not having many "hackers" ;)

<comment><USER7> You might be right that there aren't many "hackers" on HN, but a lot of it has to do with how you define the term.

As for not knowing eclectic but important bits of history like "2600" or even who "Lawnchair Larry" was, experience takes time, and knowledge takes effort. A good example is that most people don't know all of the available terminal commands available on a UNIX(-ish including MacOS/iOS/Android) system, let alone know the reasoning or history behind all those "funny" command names.

BTW, I always get a giggle out of your HN user name even though the poor disturbed fellow who tied umteen helium balloons to a lawnchair and shutdown airspace of Los Angeles for a few hours eventually committed suicide after receiving his "Honorable Mention" on the Darwin Awards.

<comment><USER8> > You might be right that there aren't many "hackers" on HN, but a lot of it > has to do with how you define the term.

Exactly.

Here on HN the confusion is worsened because the definition of "hacker" has shifted from ~"security expert" to ~"technical enterpreuner".

Nothing wrong in redefining terms but we shouldn't be surprised if outside here hacker has another meaning.

<comment><USER9> ~"security expert" has never been the canonical definition. <http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This makes me so happy. Reading old copies of Phrack in the early to mid nineties is one of the major things that fueled my passion for technology. I remember at the time feeling like I was arriving too late - that all the cool stuff had already happened. If I only knew...

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm glad to see a magazine, even sporadic, that has been around on and off since my days BBSing. It is fun to go back and read old articles in Phrack, 2600, and others...

I hope to see more.

</comment><comment><USER12> Would love to see a new issue of hacktic.nl

<comment><USER13> Maar ik kan niet lezen Nederlands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> PHUCK YEAH.

You wanna talk about news for hackers, and not this Bay Area, VC-manipulated, water-downed, same-ol' bullshit? Phrack is real talk. If you want to travel outside of California and actually call yourself a hacker, you're gonna need to read this and as much of the archive as you can. Phrack 0wnz.

<comment><USER15> Good point. Also, why are you on this site? You can't get much more "Bay Area, VC-manipulated, water-downed, same-ol' bullshit" than HN.

<comment><USER14> I like both!

I live in the Bay now, and I am running a start-up project. I think that startups are good!

I'm just coming from a culture where hacker means something very different. In California, it seems to just mean "developer," and HackerNews should probably just be called DeveloperNews, but really it's too late for that now, and not really even worth talking about. Words can mean different things regionally, and that's okay. That's the only point I was trying to make.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just found my hard copy of issue 57 that they printed out for hal2001 while sorting out old books. :) that was a great con.

<comment><USER16> Here's a pic of the cover <http://sitethree.com/phrack.jpg> sorry for the twitter image link but easiest way with my iPad.

(Updated link)

<comment><USER17> easiest, but useless, since your account is protected.

<comment><USER16> Ah damn I'll switch to laptop and fix this sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> wait, why can I download the .tar.gz of Issue 67, but not 68? (I get a file with just "nice try ;-)" )

<comment><USER19> Perhaps they've sold out and your only options are to read it on their web site or purchase an Amazon DRMed eBook version.

<comment><USER18> Haha, how can you be sold out of an eBook? Besides, it's a free download.

<comment><USER19> An eBook is an abstract thing you can't be sold out of, but integrity and desire to disseminate information freely are.

<comment><USER20> Well said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thank you: The Phrack Staff.

</comment><comment><USER22> Eventually it is out....woohoooo...was waiting for it for soooo long...:):)</comment>


The Pending Kodak Patent Auction May Create Weapons Of Business Destruction - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120803/04544719927/pending-kodak-patent-auction-may-create-weapons-business-destruction.shtml

<comment><USER2> The current system is a gold mine for legal firms, I doubt this is going to change any time soon. The only side guaranteed to win in any patent dispute is the legal counsel.

Edit: Spelling.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommendation for an alternative to Intercom.io? - <AUTHOR>

With the new funding intercom.io announced today they have changed their $50 a month plan to now be a source of leads for their company.
All communications on the $50 plan with your customers will have a promotional link to intercom.
If you want to use the unbranded service you have to upgrade to the $149 plan.
'Unbranded plans don't include a "Powered by Intercom" link in your messages.'
I'm annoyed that they are using paid customers as a marketing channel, any recommendations for alternatives? <comment><USER2> Build the in-app communication in-house; that's pretty simple. You can use Mixpanel to do a lot of the user tracking stuff for free.

If you just want a way to contact segments of your customers, and don't care that it happens outside your app, try [http://customer.io/](http://customer.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I actually like customer.io, and only switched to testing intercom.io because it had the in-app communication. But now I think its better sticking with customer.io and building the in-app functionality ourselves, as you mentioned.

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> The guys at Zapier put together a nifty drip based email program last year.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714088)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Stop.

Being personally annoyed isn't a business case. Before you spend a lot of time evaluating alternatives and migrating spend sometime analyzing what impact it will have to your business (conversions, etc) before deciding what to do about it.

As a startup the single most valuable asset you have is your time; don't waste it on things that don't matter to your business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is it not a business case?

In this case, I decide not to give them my business because they are using me as a marketing channel despite paying them.

Their entire business model is based on transparent customer communications between me and MY customers. Personal communications between me and MY customers don't sound personal when they have "Powered by X SaaS Marketing Platform"

That's enough of a business case for me to use an alternative. And I am early enough into implementing intercom.io that I can switch without much downside.

<comment><USER4> If it's something that impacts conversions then it's a business case (and something that's clearly measurable), but the fact that it annoys you personally is more-or-less irrelevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm concerned that having "powered by" in customer communications will give users something else to click on that is not related to my product or driving them into my funnel. I am also concerned that having "powered by" will make the communication look less authentic.

I would like to honestly A/B test it but given that I'm talking about their lowest priced plan, clearly I am a startup and that would mean investing in a platform that could detract from our conversions from the start. If the test shows that it impacts conversions then I not only lost valuable early users, but I also have to invest in a new platform and move the user data I have from intercom into a new system.

Instead I'm looking to evaluate another platform to build my CRM around instead of intercom.io. So here I am asking.

And the fact that intercom.io forces me to make this decision as a paying customer annoys me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VNC Roulette - <AUTHOR> https://srsly.de <comment><USER2> This _feels_ unethical to me.

I've just seen a VNC session on a machine running some PLC software (I've flagged it). There could be god knows what running open VNC sessions in here, and it feels unethical to expose this in an easy-to-exploit way without making a best-efforts attempt to contact the operator.

I've seen a few VNC desktops that now have Paint open (or similar) with messages informing people that they have an open VNC server, but altruism is unlikely to be the norm.

It's a cool idea and it's really well done, but I do wish it was anonymised - no display of the host or port the VNC server is running on, just the screen. (I realise this might be useless in some cases where the screenshot lists the server's FQDN.)

<comment><USER3> > This feels unethical to me.

Not really. The site operator has done nothing that has not already been done before, and it's little more than a basic nmap scan for services (which anyone can do).

It might be considered unethical that a PLC system is using VNC with no password.

There's also an awful lot of CirrOS systems in there, which tell you the default username and password, alongside a kind note saying the default user has full sudo privileges and you can just sudo into full root. The particularly bad thing about CirrOS is they are almost all running on OpenStack and other cloud providers, whom should know better.

<comment><USER2> > The site operator has done nothing that has not already been done before, > and it's little more than a basic nmap scan for services (which anyone can > do).

I realise this. Which is why I carefully phrased the objection as "easy-to- exploit". You and I may think the phrase "basic nmap scan" is simple, but it opens the door to lots of people who don't know what that sentence means but can easily click a link in their browser and be directly connected to an exploitable host (I don't like the phrase 'script kiddie' but I think that conveys what I mean).

> It might be considered unethical that a PLC system is using VNC with no > password.

It might. It might also be more properly called incompetence. But that's orthogonal to providing an easy way to exploit such a system and _not notifying the operator_ , which I feel is "more unethical" if such a concept exists.

There are ways to do this if the intent was to highlight how many people run open VNC server (as I'm guessing is implied by calling the site Srsly?)

1) Don't publish the server's hostname and port.

2) Attempt to notify the operator.

3) Publish screenshots only.

By publishing the connection details, this turned something that could have been interesting and done some public good into something that I feel is dangerous and fairly exploitative.

<comment><USER3> Shodan has existed for years and does practically the same thing (enumerates services, etc), but to a far greater extent.

This year at Defcon there was a great talk about masscan and scanning the entire internet (they enumerated a lot of open VNC's right onstage during the talk).

> Attempt to notify the operator.

How? If it's just some IP address, there's little you can do other than login and leave a text file open telling them they have an open VNC (that would surely get my attention).

The argument that a site like this should not exist because someone may exploit it just doesn't hold up. It's like saying we shouldn't post the IP addresses online of open mail relays, or open dns resolvers... which we (the "white-hat" community) did not... until it was discovered they were already posted online. Someone will do it...

If a vendor is so incompetent as-to put an important PLC on the internet, let alone with a completely open VNC, that vendor should be shamed. If we build a list like this site has done, perhaps we can strongly encourage folks to not do this anymore.

Heck, I'd love a search feature to be implemented on the site so I can double check I have no open VNC's on any of my IP's...

<comment><USER2> > Shodan has existed for years and does practically the same thing (enumerates > services, etc), but to a far greater extent.

Good point. But it's not laser-focused on a single thing and making that thing as easy as possible (I can just click on an image and be connected to the server!)

> How?

For some hosts it will be impossible. For others, it may be obvious or at least feasible; the company's name may be in the FQDN, the server may give a name in the VNC response that could be used, and if you're feeling grey-hat you could poke around and see what it does and who may own it.

> The argument that a site like this should not exist because someone may > exploit it just doesn't hold up

I didn't say it shouldn't exist - just that some minimum form of self- censorship is the ethical course of action.

> Someone will do it...

Of course. But not everyone will make it this easy and accessible.

And I can appreciate the spirit in which this is done, if the "Hail Eris!" text on the page didn't make it obvious :) Being able to flag stuff is the concession, assuming it really does remove it from rotation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> IANAL but connecting to any of these VNC's listened here is probably a felony . At least in the netherlands it probably is. Eventhough these are open to the public, the intention was probably to be private. Deliberately connecting to something that has the mere intention to be private is a felony here. [0]

[0] [http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Arti...](http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Artikel138ab/geldigheidsdatum_01-12-2014)

<comment> srsly-0001 You are probably right, at least in some jurisdictions. If in doubt, just use the web VNC client (click on the screenshot).

The web client uses our machine to proxy the websocket connection the client uses to the VNC server and we don't collect user data, especially not who used the VNC client to connect to which server.

<comment> ryan-c A SSL certificate that doesn't help people get used to ignoring certificate errors can be had for free from StartSSL or for less than ten euros from a company that has a UI that won't make you want to cry.

<comment> srsly-0001 We actually tried a StartSSL certificate, but got OCSP errors with (at least) Firefox. We'll retry the certificate in the (very) near future, maybe it just takes a while for the OCSP information to trickle through after creating a cert.

<comment><USER5> If I remember correctly, with StartSSL you have to wait for up to 24 hours before the OCSP servers are updated. I ran into the same issue with my last certificate from them, just have some patience :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I knew it was only a matter of time until I refreshed to someone watching YouPorn. NSFW, kids.

</comment><comment><USER7> I saw loads of servers that looked like this: [http://220.127.116.11:6080/vnc.html?autoconnect=true&token=...](http://126.96.36.199:6080/vnc.html?autoconnect=true&token=220.127.116.11-5907-vnc)

They appear to be automated viewbots. I would have thought that there were more efficient ways of generating views.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok, so how do I know my VNC is secure?

[edit] I don't have anything like VNC set-up, but maybe we (I) can learn something from this.

<comment><USER9> Is it running through an SSH tunnel? If not, its not remotely secure.

Switch to NX instead.

<comment><USER10> Just an FYI here, but UltraVNC and RealVNC Enterprise do support VNC encryption.

[http://adamwalling.com/SecureVNC/](http://adamwalling.com/SecureVNC/)

[https://www.realvnc.com/products/vnc/documentation/5.0/guide...](https://www.realvnc.com/products/vnc/documentation/5.0/guides/user/aj1078704.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://srsly.de/hardlink/126.96.36.199-5909-vnc](https://srsly.de/hardlink/184.108.40.206-5909-vnc) Wait, does Windows OS continue running in the background when you have a bluescreen, such that you can make a screenshot? I didn't know that.

<comment><USER12> This is VNC is provided by QEMU, not OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A few quick comments:

\- First of all, I think the title of this submission might want to imply that it could be NSFW (see some comments below re: porn), and that it could be in a strange grey-area legally (especially if you actually connect to these machines)

\- On one hand, there's nothing revelatory about this project. VNC, RDP, web cams, etc. are frequently found on the Internet because sysadmins don't secure them correctly. See something like Shodan, for example, to get a really realistic view of this.

On the other hand, though, bringing attention to it is a great way to get people to _stop_ being idiots in this way.

Unfortunately, I doubt that the sysadmins in question will actually see this site.

</comment><comment><USER14> I may be missing something obvious, but how does it find VNC servers?

<comment> srsly-0001 We're using zmap to basically scan 0.0.0.0/0 on ports ranging from 5900 to 5910.

Adresses that have at least one of these open then get passed to a Python script that attempts to connect to those machines and take a screenshot.

The web frontend is built using Go httpd by the way.

Edit: We are able to do this because we're at the 31c3 with an enormeously fast internet connection. The machine this is running on has a 1Gbps connection to the internet.

<comment> ryan-c Are you using the old RealVNC bug that allows the password to be bypassed by ignoring what authentication methods the server advertises and using "none", or only hitting stuff that actually says it supports connecting without a password?

<comment> srsly-0001 The latter. We didn't know about that bug until now, but we'll probably keep it this way so connections work with any VNC client people might have lying around.

<comment> ryan-c I thought you could possibly be exploiting the bug unintentionally - a hacked together client that just attempts to connect with null auth would do it. Not sure how common that vuln is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is the database available somewhere? I can imagine that some providers want to scan for their ranges to inform their users. The following is time-consuming:

        $ while true; do curl -sk https://srsly.de | html2text | awk '/Address/ {print $2}' | tee -a vnsservers; done
        $ sort -u vncservers | wc -l
        3128

<comment><USER16> Here's a dump of an Elasticsearch database with 7573 of them in it and whois information attached to each document: [https://shining- inferno-2609.firebaseio.com/.json](https://shining- inferno-2609.firebaseio.com/.json)

Here's an `asn_country_code`-based aggregation of countries:

      {
        "took" : 2,
        "timed_out" : false,
        "_shards" : {
          "total" : 5,
          "successful" : 5,
          "failed" : 0
        },
        "hits" : {
          "total" : 7612,
          "max_score" : 0.0,
          "hits" : [ ]
        },
        "aggregations" : {
          "countries" : {
            "doc_count_error_upper_bound" : 5,
            "sum_other_doc_count" : 1894,
            "buckets" : [ {
              "key" : "cn",
              "doc_count" : 1891
            }, {
              "key" : "us",
              "doc_count" : 1155
            }, {
              "key" : "de",
              "doc_count" : 894
            }, {
              "key" : "kr",
              "doc_count" : 457
            }, {
              "key" : "ch",
              "doc_count" : 398
            }, {
              "key" : "mx",
              "doc_count" : 244
            }, {
              "key" : "ru",
              "doc_count" : 178
            }, {
              "key" : "ca",
              "doc_count" : 171
            }, {
              "key" : "it",
              "doc_count" : 167
            }, {
              "key" : "gb",
              "doc_count" : 163
            } ]
          }
        }
      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmm, surely a lot of windows machines on there. Why would one put VNC on there? It's not exactly the best remote screen tool out there (had to use it often in the past unfotunately), or did I miss something? Just because it can be passwordless? Or because they don't know about RDP maybe?

<comment><USER18> Because most of PCs are windows machines.

p(windows|vnc)=p(vnc|windows) * p(windows) / ( p(vnc|windows) * p(windows) + p(vnc|non-windows) * p(non-windows) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Holy cow, the one I got was even nice enough to include the default username and password before the login prompt. I didn't test to see if it'd work :-p.

Edit: I've also seen several now with the root prompt already open. Now I know how so many botnets are formed.

<comment><USER20> Maybe some of these vnc servers were put up after the machines were broken into, as a means of remote access for the attackers.

<comment><USER3> No, he probably got one of the many CirrOS boxes, which tell you the username and password, alongside a kind note that the default user has full sudo privileges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lol: [https://srsly.de/image?id=18.104.22.168-5901-vnc](https://srsly.de/image?id=188.8.131.52-5901-vnc)

</comment><comment><USER21> both Firefox and Chrome don't like the certificate if you hadn't already heard that, but otherwise this is a funny and good idea, and I'm having some fun tooling around wondering why these connections went unsecured and how many more are out there (lots and lots) that aren't listed yet

<comment><USER9> Because VNC is a major clustfucker of bad ideas? Almost every VNC installer I've used has made passwords optional. Who makes these brain dead decisions? Its bad enough that it cannot, typically, integrate with the built-in OS authentication, but the "roll your own" mentality from devs is especially off- putting. Application devs shouldn't be writing authentication mechanisms. They should be tying to the OS's auth using the proper libraries.

If you must run VNC for legacy reasons, please run it in an SSH tunnel without an open port to the world.

With things like RDP, NX/nomachine, xwindows forwarding in an ssh tunnel, etc, there's really no excuse to keep using it. For all the shit Windows gets, at least it doesn't allowed password-free RDP connections. I think the world of cheap Linux VPS have opened up a pandora's box of bad security practices. There's no shortage of forums out there that tell the uninitiated to "just apt-get" VNC and be done with it. Running ssh tunneled nomachine is just as easy to configure, has better performance, and loads better security.

Also this looks like an applet that runs a js vnc client locally and connects you directly various open VNC servers. Its your IP address in those logs and depending on your jurisdiction or policies, may get you in trouble just for visiting the site. Took me a second to realize this. May want a warning here for those at work.

<comment> srsly-0001 > Also this looks like an applet that runs a js vnc client locally and > connects you directly various open VNC servers. Its your IP address in those > logs and depending on your jurisdiction or policies, may get you in trouble > just for visiting the site. Took me a second to realize this. May want a > warning here for those at work.

Not quite. The VNC client is noVNC, with a websocket proxy on the same machine [http://srsly.de](http://srsly.de) runs on. The connections you make with the web interface will go to our server, be translated from websockets to regular sockets, and then forwarded to the real VNC server. The address they see in their logs is ours.

We don't log access to the VNC client, by the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Surprised and saddened to see so many machines called "cloud".

</comment><comment><USER23> Oh Jesus, I might be getting a visit from the feds soon...

</comment><comment><USER24> It's down for me...

<comment> srsly-0001 If that's the case, please retry. We're actively working on the backend of the site and restarting the application sometimes takes a second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Damn, this is addicting

<comment><USER25> love it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Lots of pun. The counter is going up quite fast, I wonder how long this wil be up.

<comment><USER27> the counter was going down when I was flipping through. Folks must be flagging sites?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hello world!

</comment><comment><USER29> hmm. i see android device! omg!</comment>


Show HN: WIP C compiler in Go, inspired by 8cc - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andrewchambers/cc

<comment><USER2> The code is very easy to read, so I think this would be great for those who want to learn how one might go about implementing a C compiler.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally struggled to work with other compilers, I think TCC is too terse, and GCC/Clang have too much code.

[https://github.com/rui314/8cc](https://github.com/rui314/8cc) Got things right, and I am trying continue with it's style.

I will be happy if a student can take my compiler and port it to his own invented cpu with a modest amount of work.

<comment><USER3> Terseness is quite a subjective thing, as I think TCC is not all that small among all the C (and C-subset) compilers that exist like Small-C; on the other hand, _OTCC_ is in realm of "too terse" for me.

This one is more agreeable with my style (and I think the parser in it is amazingly concise and elegant):

[https://github.com/rswier/c4/blob/master/c4.c](https://github.com/rswier/c4/blob/master/c4.c)

<comment><AUTHOR> TCC packs a C compiler, assembler and linker together, So it has a large amount of functionality, even if it is no longer so tiny. The code style is really dense too. Frequently using single letter function and variable names.

e.g. Outputting data into the final data segments uses functions named o() and o32().

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And WIP just means "work in progress."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there is still a lot to do. I posted because sometimes showing others helps keep yourself motivated.

I'd love to find collaborators too, though I don't expect anyone to help until less trivial programs are running.

<comment><USER4> At first I thought "WIP C" meant something related to the kind of C or of the C compiler, that's why I commented. If you can still change the title, writing "work-in-progress" instead of WIP would be much less confusing.

And good luck in your efforts, you've set some really serious goals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Its a marathon type of project, not a sprint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The reason why this isn't a Go compiler in Go is probably the same reason why it's a C compiler - the complexity of the language. C seems to be the sweet spot for a language that is relatively easy to write a basic compiler for, but also powerful enough to be used for writing nontrivial software (including compilers.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not too bad to write a Go compiler in Go, simply because of this package [https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/ssa](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/ssa) by the Go team.

I really hope someone writes a Go to C compiler in Go, as combined with my C compiler, they would create an entirely new and self hosting implementation of Go.

</comment></comment><comment> iso8859-1 How does this compare to vbcc and pcc?

<comment><AUTHOR> This still as a long way to go before it could be compared to them in terms of completeness,</comment></comment>


Why the Largest Cyberattack in History Will Happen Within Six Months - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenmcbride1/2020/05/14/why-the-largest-cyberattack-in-history-will-happen-within-six-months/#ba9cd0c577c3 <comment><AUTHOR> 'Practically every employee in every firm in America is working from a makeshift desk on their kitchen table. Firms only had days to cobble together remote work plans. So you can bet most didn't set up secure systems, like the one my friend is using. In fact, the vast majority of employees probably don't even have dedicated work laptops.

'So hundreds of millions of folks are using personal laptops–on unsecured home internet connections–to access work files. Many of which likely contain confidential information and personal data.'

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd be very surprised if the vector of the largest cyberattack in history is someone's unsecured home WiFi. Not to mention the vast majority of people in densely populated areas secure their WiFi.</comment>


American Democracy Is Less Broken Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/american-democracy-is-less-broken-than-you-think/ <comment><USER2> Living in Sweden in 2017 was eye-opening for me. There were massive counter neo-nazi protests in Gothenburg, basically shutting down the city. But no English-language newspapers even mentioned it. Every American protest is breathlessly covered by the international media, but not this huge protest in Sweden. I came back to the United States realizing that you can't measure the degree of a problem by the degree of news media coverage.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Less Broken" is still broken. Maybe people are finally waking up to the fact it's broken? Or maybe too much strain is being put on a large portion of Americans and it's making the brokenness of the system more apparent?

Either way, "less broken than you think" doesn't make for a great defense of American Democracy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Only Americans selling a book concluding America is well could conclude America is well. Very American. Hilarious.</comment>


Trump extends order on U.S. telecom supply chain security until 2021 - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-trump/trump-extends-order-on-u-s-telecom-supply-chain-security-until-2021-idUSKBN22P2KG <comment><AUTHOR> 'U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday extended for another year an executive order signed in May 2019 declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk.'

'The order invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. Members of Congress said Trump's 2019 order was squarely aimed at Chinese companies like Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp.'</comment>