Ask HN: I think I'm being stalked by a hacker. What should I do? - <AUTHOR> I think someone who is very knowledgeable about security vulnerabilities might be stalking me. I don't have any hard evidence, but we've been "coincidentally" running into each other a little too often in the past few weeks.<p>I work as a dev myself, but I don't know a lot about security. Aside from the obvious things, like changing my passwords and keeping records in case I need to get the police involved, what should I be doing to protect myself? <comment><USER2> Is this person dangerous or threatening? If so you could meet with the police, give them a heads up and ask for extra patrols in your neighborhood.

Be on guard when you're leaving coming home any place you're alone.

Resetting all passwords is a good idea, enable 2 factor auth.

I would leave your existing home router up as a distraction, purchase a new one with new generic ssid and strong password and use that one.

You could also try using personal hot spot for a week depending on how much bandwidth you use.

If you don't think they are a threat just snooping to make chance encounters happen. You could try setting up honey pot plans one by one (gCal, email, sms, from laptop, from phone browser, etc) to try to see if there is a pattern to how they are tracking you.

Swap phones with a friend for an afternoon with someone that knows them or what they look like, see if they run in to them.

They could be in to any or everything though digitally.

Or maybe nothing and they just know places you go so they go there often to increase chance meetings.

Try to distance your self from them, give them the cold shoulder when you do run in to each other, maybe they'll be the hint.

Good luck, be safe.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are these meetings something that you have only discussed online (setting up to meet others and "the person" shows up too)? You could look at setting up something and see if they show up? If that happens I would reset my phone and computer at home. email is in my profile should you have any additional questions that you might not be comfortable dropping here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly, but not exclusively. Not sure if the other times were from something like phone location data, old-fashioned analog stalking, or actual coincidence.

Would a phone/computer reset, plus changing passwords, cover pretty much everything? Should I change my home wifi password (or even network name?) too?

<comment><USER3> It should really if there was an exploit used to get access to a browser and a social media account. But be EXTRA vigilant with links in email from now on and this should lower your risk of reinfection (only open if you HAVE to!). And that is a BIG yes on the wifi password and network name that would stop any drive by access to your home network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are you using google calendar to plan your meetings?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do use Google Calendar, but I didn't include the location for any of those incidents. Is a private Google Calendar a security concern, though?

<comment><USER5> Go here: [https://myaccount.google.com/security?pli=1](https://myaccount.google.com/security?pli=1)

This page allows you to review your security settings. Most importantly, have a look at linked apps (I'm on a different language so I don't know the exact terminology, scroll down bit and you should see it). Revoke access to any app that you don't know / doesn't feel right.

Definitely enable 2 factor authentication on your Google account. Change your password. Review your security questions and answers as well.

Also have a look at [https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity](https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity)

This page shows you on which devices you've been signed in, and where they are from. If you notice anything suspicious, click the link at the top of the page.</comment></comment></comment>


Perl Incompatible Regular Expressions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yandex/pire <comment><USER2> If you're interested in regular expressions and their place in automata, Jeff Ullman's _Automata_ course starts today on Coursera: [https://www.coursera.org/course/automata](https://www.coursera.org/course/automata)

The recent HN discussion of its announcement is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10089092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10089092)

Ullman is also coauthor of "The Dragon Book".

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reminder, thought it was still a few weeks away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google has a similar library with similar goals. See [https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/CplusplusAPI](https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/CplusplusAPI) It also removes backtracking.

The idea is that backtracking may kill performance, so a specially crafted text that causes a lot of backtracking can be used as a DoS attack.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, really impressive. Sometimes specializing by cutting out functionality is the right approach. In this case eliminating greedy/non-greedy matching (and others) means this can work as a high-level triage and something with more specificity can do the precision work once you have a candidate match.

It looks like this could have a good place in a real-time streaming architecture somewhere.

<comment><USER6> The readme does say it grew out of the Yandex's webcrawler

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> README.ru has the real documentation- google translate does a pretty good job with it. It mentions that the algorithms are from the Dragon book.

I didn't try the code, but I think it's missing full Unicode character class support (for example when you use \w). But I see it handles Russian :-)

[https://github.com/yandex/pire/blob/master/pire/classes.cpp#...](https://github.com/yandex/pire/blob/master/pire/classes.cpp#L82)

</comment><comment><USER8> See also [https://swtch.com/%7Ersc/regexp/](https://swtch.com/%7Ersc/regexp/)

</comment><comment><USER9> What I don't get is that the example given:

         hello\\s+w.+d$

Is 100% perl compatible, seems more like "subset" than "incompatible". I've seen comments that say it's a "joke". Can any confirm that the title was indeed a joke?

Edit: I know both what a DFA/NFA are, and how they relate to formal language theory and regular languages, the question still stands how a subset can be called "incompatible"

<comment><USER2> Perl's regex engine is uses a non-deterministic finite automata [NFA]. Because the Readme indicates each character is only examined once and that PIRE lacks backtracking, look ahead and capture groups, it's engine is almost certainly DFA [deterministic finite automata] based. Thus among the syntax it is likely to choke on or ignore are anything involving curly braces _{}_.

Keep in mind that "regular expressions" can denote a notation for describing finite automata and that this is subtly different from the programming language implementation of regex engines in languages like Perl.

<comment><USER10> Perl's regex engine must use something stronger than plain NFAs. The expressive power of NFAs and DFAs is exactly the same. They both recognize the regular languages, which is less than what can be expressed with Perl "regular expressions".

<comment><USER2> I'm using Friedl's classification scheme for regex engines from _Mastering Regular Expressions_. I don't know of a more standard survey regarding regex's as implemented in various programming languages. Anyway, from a practical standpoint an NFA has to be implemented as a push down automata in the Von Neumann machines we currently have to allow backtracking to simulate simultaneous exploration of the arbitrary number of DFA states that a single NFA state may represent. That doesn't make Friedl's classification useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What was wrong with the GNU basic regex?

If you're going to write a stripped down string matching syntax more strictly for "regular" text then why bother mentioning perl?

<comment><USER12> Seems like a riff on the famous Perl Compatible Regular Expressions library ([http://www.pcre.org](http://www.pcre.org)), which is used in a bunch of high-profile things (PHP, and Apache Server, for starters). Kind of like "less" vs "more".

So a bit of an inside joke I guess, but most people familiar with regexes will probably have heard of PCRE, so it's not a terribly obscure reference. I liked it :)

<comment><USER11> PCRE is a set of extensions to RE to enable parsing of nonregular grammars. This is just RE. It's like calling some hypothetical language C++--. It doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER13> Well, if I designed a language that was C++ but stripped of some specific features for a purpose that made it less than C++, but still not quite just C, I might call it C++-- as a joke. In that respect, I think it makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Scary to think that a major search engine really uses regular expressions heavily. Regexprs are great for quick scripts, but one would expect that in major production applications better and higher level parsing algorithms would be used. It must be a nightmare to debug if you have a lot of reg-exprs interacting in a large code base.

<comment> loup-vaillant If the language you're trying to parse happens to be regular, then regular expressions are the _perfect_ tool for the job. They're simple, reliable, and impossibly fast.

When you think about it, a search engine is mainly about finding key words in a huge pile of text, without caring much about the structure of the language the text is written in. That use case is totally specifiable by a regular language.</comment></comment>


Cost per Unit of Productivity (Employees) - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.joelx.com/cost-per-unit-of-productivity/11505/ <comment><USER2> The recipe list lost all credibility with

> Find the most productive employee you have

which the author admitted you can't accurately do.

This is a recipe for disaster, not because reducing people to cold, heartless quantitative metrics is necessarily bad, but because this is totally subjective, and will ultimately devolve into simply rating the people you happen to like as "more productive" or giving them free passes with the "special skills/circumstances" column (for example, imagine if that column came to simply represent diversity criteria).

Someone considered for termination due to being low in the CPUP ordering is probably more likely just someone that people don't like, or someone who does a great job but within a business unit that some other political rival wants to defeat, disband, or re-org in order to consolidate internal political control.

Also, it's _very_ reasonable for people to discount profit sharing pay. Such pay is generally less specifically defined in employment agreements, easier for an employer to omit for arbitrary reasons, affected not just by one's own performance but also performance of others.

These are wage risks that a given employee largely cannot diversify away. Whereas with salary, there are many legal protections preventing an employer from omitting salary without documented cause.

The more of your pay that is arbitrarily discretionary and at the whim of your employer's choice, the more variance there is in your overall wage outcomes, and if you're risk averse (as many people are when it comes to wages) you'll very rationally discount the value of that kind of wage stream compared to a wage stream with far lower risk.

I also wonder if this employer does basic things, like giving all knowledge workers private offices. If the employer doesn't do that, but then _does_ judge the workers on their productivity, it's exceedingly hypocritical, and a red flag of a bad employer.

I liked the way this was stated in the classic software productivity book _Peopleware_ (paraphrasing ...)

> If the employer did not care enough about protecting everyone's productivity > [e.g. by using obviously cost effective technology like private offices in > the first place], then I'm not going to kill myself to make up that > productivity lag.

An employer who actually cares about productivity will provide workers with all the things they need to actually be productive: state of the art tools, adequate access to privacy and quiet space, adequate vacation and rest time, adequate work/life balance, positive and collegial atmosphere, transparency about performance expectations and appraisals, etc.

They will make the office (and the non-physical workflow structures of the organization) into a place that _facilitates getting work done_ instead of being something that you get work done _in spite of_.

Obviously, I can't say how it plays out for this particular employer, but most often all you ever see is that the employer points fingers at employees and makes arbitrary and erratic and politically motivated decisions about who to promote, fire, or give a raise. Rarely will they ever point the finger at themselves and say, "How is it that I am failing as a manager to provide the right sort of workplace that would help this worker reach a higher CPUP [or whatever]."

Given all of this, it's a very reasonable heuristic to simply call bullshit on employers who say this crap. Yes, _maybe_ this is the one-in-a-million employer who actually takes a humanity-affirming perspective to it. But you're probably better off just assuming this employer is not such a rare case, and just avoiding them because of all the red flags this emits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this response, I am the author / employer. I am looking for feedback on if my method is effective at achieving the goal it has.

You raise some reasonable concerns about the fairness of the system and especially if workplace politics could unfairly influence which individuals are laid off. For my business specifically, I am the owner so playing any games with politics would only damage the business and my equity in it.

In general, isn't this how managers determine which employees to promote / keep / fire anyways? They try to identify the worst performers and let them go, and identify the best performers and give them raises or promotions?

My thought is my system just takes that subjective methodology and simply makes the manager think about it consciously rather than subconsciously.

Is there a better method?

<comment><USER2> Not that it applies to you, but in my experience, small companies with a single owner or a small group of founders are sometimes the very worst in regards to politics. They will always _say_ (and may even _believe_ ) they are doing things out of a pragmatic interest in the business's success, and often will definitely say something like "at _my_ company we don't have politics issues" ... but it's just not true. Either they are openly duplicitous and only say those things because they believe it creates an outward message of stability that positively affects workers (generally it doesn't), or they really believe that whatever their particular actions are, they are not motivated by politics even when in truth they are overwhelmingly motivated by politics.

If owners enter 'dictator mode' it can be very hard to separate out what is cognitive dissonance vs. what is a genuine attempt to manage a business without politics.

As far as your question goes, I think it begins with a fundamentally different outlook. You write about it in terms of who to promote / keep / fire as if that is the right menu of options to orient your thoughts around.

Instead, I'd say you should think more about how best to develop the workers you have. Firing people ought to be a distant thought that is only brought up under serious conditions, like overt misconduct, extreme underperformance over time or incompetence (that can't be corrected with training and investment).

You strike me as someone who is not thinking in terms of employees as investments that payoff over time, but rather you are using some kind of hyperbolic discount function that only looks at some short window of recent productivity or some short forward-looking window of possible future productivity -- classic short-term thinking that leads to a lot of bad outcomes.

If you just want some kind of cookbook style management process, you can find books endorsed by millionaires, billionaires, political leaders, athletes, coaches, etc. etc. and just pick whichever one tickles your personal confirmation bias fancy. (I'm not speaking just to you specifically, we _all_ do this, certainly me included). So you can always justify pretty much anything you choose by saying, "isn't this how other people do it?" or "Wealthy Person X said to do it like this..." \-- it doesn't actually mean you're making the right choice for your business.

The other thing is that you conceive of your employees as falling on a linear ranking, which I feel is misguided. I think it is not possible to put a useful ordering on employees like that, because they are individuals and you can't discount their potential, drives, passions, personal circumstances, etc., all of which are changing often.

There are all kinds of dimensions in which a person can be good or bad in their job for you, and there is almost surely no coherent "norm" you can define on that high-dimensional space that adequately orders employees ... and certainly not something entirely subjective like "who do I happen to think is most productive modulo special circumstances". Even if Person A is "more productive" than Person B, you don't know that will always be true. Maybe Person B is a faster learner, a more creative thinker, or has other latent talents that you have not properly tapped into yet.

What you propose almost sounds like a proto form of stack ranking [0], which is a notoriously horrible way of doing things. But at least with stack ranking, you tended to receive scores from multiple people who function in mostly uncorrelated ways in the firm, so as to (mostly) remove dictator effects or sabotage effects. I don't think you could easily get that in a very small company where everyone knows everyone else and where the founder/owner is highly visible in day-to-day actions.

Overall, I'd just generally recommend a totally different mindset. Stop trying to apportion wage to micro measurements of productivity. Just admit you (and everyone else) can't measure productivity well enough for that to be accurate and robust to social biases.

Don't conceive of your lowest performers as candidates for termination. Rather, spend lots of time first seeing them as examples where your management style, workplace offerings, equip/tools/etc., have not been good enough to coax good performance out of them, and invest in them. View their payoff as something that happens over time, yes still with some discount rate more like bond pricing, but not so extreme that their short-term productivity counts for so much that it could lead to them being fired. If their productivity is low for a long time, after you have implemented many strategies for helping them improve, then you can be more confident that you're making a fair and correct decision to let them go.

[0] < [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve) >

<comment><AUTHOR> I really enjoyed reading your very thoughtful response. I understand that you are making a recommendation that instead of using some form of stack ranking of employees that I should instead look to keep every single person until I am 100% sure that it is a fair decision to let them go?

I am not sure that what you recommend would work for the type of business I have. Perhaps it makes sense for a product based business where you can invest in someone for a year because they may create a revolutionary change to your product after that. My business is a service business - we operate on very tight margins.

I like everyone I hire and generally wish I could keep all of them. I don't have that luxury. I am forced by the economics of my industry to let people go... so I have to pick using some method. Stack ranking based on productivity seems to be the most fair way to do it. Is there a better method than stank ranking for selecting who to let go?

<comment><USER2> There seem to continue to be some fallacious ways of thinking in your reply. It is very common for people to always think that more humanity-affirming ways will apply to "someone else" but never to them. I have actually heard people claim exactly the opposite of what you have said -- that non-stack-ranking may work in a service business, but not a product business! The grass is always greener I guess.

The brass tacks economics always matter, of course. Your situation suggests to me that you have over-hired, or hired incorrectly. Rather than creating a company culture whereby people are pruned, it would create a better workplace to simply not hire too many people to begin with. Operate in a leaner fashion, even scaling back revenue opportunities and saying "no" to new business when you have to, so as to disallow the company to grow in unsustainable ways that then lead to a hard requirement for layoffs. This won't be possible 100% of the time, but going for a stack ranking approach instead is like you are just giving up on intelligent, sustainable growth and instead saying you will grow randomly and unsustainably, and then simply fire people when you have to pare back.

There is also the question of how much of a financial cushion you leave yourself. Instead of being "forced by the economics of [your] industry to let people go" you should use your knowledge of those industry economics to build a safety cushion that allows you to continue supporting everyone's payroll through the lean times. Yes, sometimes the lean times go on so long that you can't do this indefinitely, but the more you budget for it, the better.

Basically, I do not see anything about your situation that makes it special in these regards. I've worked in statistics consulting firms before, where the work is highly variable and where the business really needs a high level of productivity from everyone. Even in that situation, the company was able to avoid layoffs by planning ahead, hiring conservatively and hiring for versatile workers with broad skill sets, and budgeting for safety payroll cushion to express the company's value that avoiding layoffs until the absolute last minute (and communicating very transparently about it all the time) was deeply important.

If you read more from the Wiki article that I linked, you'll also see some of Deming's well-known criticisms of stack ranking -- and Deming was a well-known productivity expert [0] who helped many Japanese firms gain international reputations for efficiency and quality (firms that faced tough brass tack market economics just like you do, but without resorting to stack ranking).

Many of the negative sides of stack ranking could have deleterious effects on your business even during times when you do not need to fire anyone. It is known to affect morale and productivity very badly. It is known to be highly susceptible to office politics and cronyism, especially when times are tough and employees scramble to secure their position. This in turn often leads to a combative and overtly zero-sum / competitive workplace, which is well-known to be bad for productivity (I imagine _especially_ in a service business).

At any rate, it seems like the specifics of your situation which you are using to justify stack ranking don't actually indicate that stack ranking would be useful or productive for you, and in fact suggest that it might even be counter-productive.

The best recommendation I can give is for you to deeply question and re- evaluate some of the assumptions you seem to be working on (for example, that there's no way to address both the market economic constraints on your business and also the need for company values which preclude frequent layoffs and promote longer-term investment in employees). Without re-thinking some of these assumptions, I think it's doubtful that _any_ method of determining who to layoff is going to be constructive for you.

[0] < [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly_Diseases) ></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php

<comment><USER2> Wow, these used to be good. I guess they got a new writer, because this one seems clumsy and haphazard.

I get the sense that stuff was laundry-listed from other sources or stretched hard to fit, because many of these are just irrelevant trivia.

Like, why make an obtuse reference to the original Buffy comics as if high schoolers would read them and not watch the actual series in reruns?

And really, "Someone has always gotten married in space?!?" That barely parses, much less illustrates any difference in generational mindsets.

</comment><comment><USER3> _31\. The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum._

People born in 1992?

</comment><comment><USER4> I watched Dirty Harry and I know how to write in cursive. I also remember a time we didn't have cable.

I have not gotten a cellphone until this year! It was not a smartphone either.

I am old fashioned, but I was only born in 1991.(And I just attend my first class at college yesterday)

But don't worry, I am ahead experimenting with technologies that the HN crowds or the college crowd care not or think that I am on crack.

<comment><USER5> Get off my lawn.</comment></comment>


What Is Success for a Product Manager? - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-success-product-manager-prabu-dhaksh/ <comment><USER2> This must be success:

make half-assed trello Cards -> act important -> have meetings -> act important -> never code -> get attitude when asked question about half-assed trello cards -> get promoted. *throw in a racist remark or two to the dark skinned engineer from India for bonus points

That is what I see from project managers at work.</comment>


App School launch: TaskFive - <AUTHOR> http://www.contrast.ie/blog/app-launch-taskfive/ <comment><USER2> Very cool. Although with 4 guys, it doesn't seem to hard to launch a web app that quick :)

Seems the design was the most impressive, heavy duty work out of it all.</comment>


Nylas Changes Name N1 to Pro; Launches 'Nylas Mail Basic' - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#150-11617 <comment><AUTHOR> Slightly more information in [0]:

        /**
         * On Jan 17, 2017 we launched Nylas Mail Basic. This had the K2 project
         * to do local sync in the mail client.
         *
         * At launch old N1 was more feature-rich and deemed "Nylas Pro". For a
         * while after launch people could download Nylas Mail Basic and "upgrade"
         * to "Nylas Pro". This attempts to migrate as many settings as possible
         * between versions.
         *
         * This gets run immediately after Config gets setup.
         *
         */

and, sadly:

        * TODO: We don't have MailRules yet in Nylas Basic.

[0] - [https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/src/browser/nylas- pr...](https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/src/browser/nylas-pro- migrator.es6)</comment>


Continuous deployment for mission-critical applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/12/continuous-deployment-for-mission.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+startup%2Flessons%2Flearned+%28Lessons+Learned%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> I think the problem is in our definition of "Mission Critical" which is a fuzzy word. Depending on how "critical" a failure would be, continuous deployment may or may not make sense.

The author talk about 2-year certification periods as though that were a big deal, which indicates he has a different definition of "Mission Critical" than, say, a Shuttle Engineer, Power Grid Manager, or Nuclear Regulatory Organization (All of which experience 5+ year certification periods _after_ the release of a new system)

A multi-hour failure at amazon.com has different consequences than an multi- hour failure of the west coast power grid.

As one who deals with organizations that have QA, Code Drop, Full Scale Test Environment _in addition_ to their staging environment prior to allowing anything (including software that has been fully regressed with the coverage described in the article) to be pushed into production, I understand the resistance to deploying "latest and greatest"

The workaround - maintain a Full Scale Test Environment (preferably, _multiple_ such environments) internally for your Engineering, QA and Operations Group - and drive your continuous deployment builds into _those_ environments, and then stage checkpoint releases for your "Production" environments.

The only downside is that production customers don't get the opportunity to provide rapid-feedback on new features, so you still get a bit of the negatives associated with waterfall class requirements-architecture-design- implmement lifecycles, but, you are able to enjoy the benefits of rapid prototyping and bug triage internally that are associated with continuous builds, massive automation frameworks, and close-to-real-world deployments of your software.

<comment><USER3> Continuous deployment is all about avoiding such failures. As such the more "critical" the system is the more valuable this form of deployment is (though I also believe its also valuable for less critical systems!). And of course, continuous deployment is not complete without shakedown and back-out procedures.

<comment><USER2> I don't buy that the more critical a system is, the more valuable continuous deployment is. The downside of continuous deployment is that you see more problems in production than you would with a fully regressed build. The advantage is that those problems cost 1/10th as much to fix, releases occur much more frequently, and you have a tight feedback chain between your customer and the product.

The argument for Continuous Deployment is that you _always_ see problems in production, and that all you are injecting from moving from a staged-release cycle to CD is that you are now seeing 10-15% more issues (Let's say 60 P2 or greater Issues instead of 50 P2 or greater Issues), but the cost of fixing everything has dropped significantly, fixes occur much, much more quickly (sometimes same day instead of multiple months), and you are able to enjoy the productivity advantages of your software that is finely tuned to the users needs much, much more quickly. CD can (and usually does) result in less downtime than stages releases - mostly because of the rapid cycle from coding -> error detection -> problem resolution.

The _only_ problem as I see it, is that you don't have as much control over the probability of a P1 issue hitting your system. That's fine in the case of something like Amazon.com, where a P1 issue might cost the organization $10 million dollars, but they've received $50 million dollars in value from using CD. It's not the case where a P1 issue might result in a catastrophic loss measured in 10s of Billions of dollars (Power Grid, Shuttle Launch, Nuclear Systems) - for those, you need to stage ensure 100% coverage/regression/code review. In fact, you need 100% coverage/review of your _development techniques_, not just the code produced.

<comment><USER4> I think another way of looking at this is what can you do to make critical systems more robust and resilient.

The capability to monitor, deploy, and rollback new features/fixes on short notice would seem to be a part of that, even if actually used infrequently. I would think that you would need to be able to respond to a change in the environment the system is operating in as much ensure that a new release doesn't contain bugs that would manifest in your current understanding of the operating environment.

I am suggesting that much if not all of the infrastructure needed to reliably patch/rollback critical systems can also be used for continuous deployment at the option of the development team and/or the customer.

So in the event that a P1 hit a continuously operating network application (e.g. power grid) the ability to deploy and rollback new features rapidly in response might be a valuable option to have. It's an approach that increases resilience. This does not mean you have to do this all of the time.

<comment><USER2> I absolutely agree with you that continuous deployment increases resilience. The problem is that it also increases instability.

Perhaps the closest example I can think of with regards to continuous deployment in mission critical situations are the martian rovers - I think they had some real-time deployment of new code. But, the implications of a problem with them were relatively minor - a few hundred million dollars, and no lives lost.

Are there any examples of continuous deployment in a scenario in which hundreds of lives and/or billions of dollars are at stake?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eric has an uncanny knack for helping us see the light.

My favorite part:

"These beliefs are rooted in fears that make sense. But, as is often the case, the right thing to do is to address the underlying cause of the fear."

This line of reasoning is generally much more persuasive than the "you're an idiot for being scared of this, get over it."

And for the record, I think this whole continuous deployment thing is on the path to truth and justice.

<comment><USER6> Hmm. I actually don't have fear of continuous deployment. I just see it as a natural thing to do.

It make sense to me that you want people to test your game for gameplay feedback so that you could tweak it until perfection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great stuff.

Am I correct in this statement of why a continuous-deployment model does not suffer from an increase in bugs:

In a non-continuous-deployment model: With a huge QA process, a lot of bugs are found and fixed up front so the product is more bug-free once shipped.

In a continuous-deployment model: A less tested product is shipped often, however due to having an engineer-client feedback model in place, bugs can be quickly and easily reported to engineers. In addition, since it is shipped often, it can be fixed quickly before most clients will see it.

Overall, continuous-deployment results in more and happier clients due to the quick response the company provides?

</comment><comment><USER8> I understand that continuous deployment could be very beneficial, but how do you change a customer from using US Army type deployment to accepting continuous deployment? What if you need to satisfy multiple different customers, all with their own taste or distaste for risks and new releases, how do you make the transition to continuous deployment?

It seems like crucial to the benefit of continuous deployment is that your code actually be used when you check it in by lots of people, so that regressions are found immediately. If you can't get that to happen, the entire process grinds to a halt.

<comment><USER9> I don't think continuous deployment necessitates deploying to production at the end. I worked at a startup that used continuous deployment to deploy to staging, then used push deployment to QA and to producion. This worked really well with the mostly-outsourced dev and QA teams. It gave rapid and concrete feedback to those teams, but left high risk operations in the hands of the dev lead and ops.</comment></comment>


The Silver Lining project: copyright gone wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.tsl-game.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is once again just mind-boggling.

They didn't copy or reverse-engineer stuff. They didn't abuse any existing copyrighted works but instead invested a lot in creating their own non- commercial sequel of the game.

They made a completely new game, with their own storyline and engine. The only reference to the King's Quest is that made it a sequel to the original series. Oh, they even dropped the name King's Quest almost a decade ago. In essence, the new game is an original copyrighted work by _them_.

There's something horribly wrong with that.

You shouldn't be able to "own" characters or a plot or a storyline: you should be able to own _actual works_ based on a set of characters, the plot, or the storyline.

Merely continuing from where the original ended should in no way imply a derivation of works.

<comment><USER2> It is pretty well established that using the characters etc. of one work to make a new work constitutes copyright infringement (it would be a derivative work). (Quick Google search turns up: <http://www.publaw.com/fiction.html>) The new work certainly has copyrightable elements of its own, but that does not change the basic fact that the new work infringes the old.

The bigger issue in my mind is the license. It is generally the case that if someone gives you a license to property, and you spend money in reliance on that license in a reasonable and expected manner, then the license becomes irrevocable. If Vivendi granted Phoenix a license, and Phoenix spent money developing the game, I can't see how the new property owner Activision can just retract the license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another sad story like this: <http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/>

It's pretty insane to think how much work went into both of these games, and that they will never see the light of day.

<comment><USER4> In both cases, it's idiotic to throw away all the _non_ -copyrighted parts of the work. It can't use the IP? Fine, throw out the IP, and use whatever's left over to make something new. GraalOnline did this with the Zelda IP, for example. Any author who got their start writing fan-fiction knows the reality of throwing out all the "canon" characters and setting and realizing you still have a story. There's just no sense in letting it all go to waste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if this means that Activision are going to breathe life into the old kings quest franchise and this move was to avoid dilution of their IP</comment>


Ad-Free Internet by Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://firstlook.firefox.com/proxy/v4/ <comment><USER2> If this helps fund the little guys over the big guys and steers well clear of political sites I'd pay this amount without concern.

</comment><comment><USER3> Based on Scroll [https://scroll.com](https://scroll.com)

Which, by the way, is a very un-searchable name.

</comment><comment><USER4> Was this released just now?

EDIT: the linked blog post is from February 25, 2019.</comment>


One thing you want to change in Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialshade.com/37

<comment><USER2> I don't have any problem with advertisements, but I don't want to be tracked.

That's why I don't post my favorite books and movies.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a open platform, you are posting as anonymous user. Your identity is completely safe. Your browser is your login. We just track your activity on socialshade to provide your more targeted question, if you like the concept please post some question

<comment><USER2> My apologies - I did not actually click your link yet.

What I want to change about _Facebook_ is that it tracks its users extensively.

I even go to the trouble of putting stuff like "127.0.0.1 www.googleanalytics.com" in my /etc/hosts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looking for your open comment :)</comment>


A Complete Guide to Raising Seed Capital - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/30761699?hostedIn=slideshare&referer=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.slideshare.net%252Fschlaf

<comment><USER2> This is a great little handbook, wish I had had it a year ago!</comment>


Google starts ads on gmail - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/WQOGCOp.png

<comment><USER2> They've been doing this for ages.</comment>


What are some correct results discovered with incorrect (or no) proofs? - <AUTHOR> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/27749/what-are-some-correct-results-discovered-with-incorrect-or-no-proofs <comment><USER2> Everything. But we clean up the incorrectness, sweep any inconsistencies under the rug and then publish the corrected proof as if it sprang, fully-formed, from our mind. This, much to the bewilderment and bafflement of students thereafter! mwahahaha! [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Evillaugh...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Evillaugh.ogg)

If your viewpoint is the history of mathematical proof, then the answer might be "Everything up to the early Greeks." Here's a nice link: "The History and Concept of. Mathematical Proof" by Steven G. Krantz <http://www.math.wustl.edu/~sk/eolss.pdf>

But if you want to really understand then take a look at the book

Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being by G. Lakoff & R. Núñez. [http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes- Embodied-Bring...](http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied- Brings/dp/0465037712/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313945868&sr=1-1)

The introduction and first four chapters [PDF] are available at

<http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~nunez/web/INTR-04.PDF>

</comment><comment><USER3> What about basic arithmetic? (e.g. 1 + 1 = 2) This was obviously being used correctly for thousands of years before Whitehead and Russell came along and actually constructed a formal proof that starting with much more fundamental axioms and mechanical rules of inference you could indeed show that 1 + 1 = 2.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica>

Of course, this formality hasn't added anything to the practical application of arithmetic but thinking about structures in this way did eventually lead to some pretty interesting results in mathematical logic.

<comment><USER4> That proof is "easy" though: <http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/pm54.43.html>

It's a lot harder when you try to prove that 2+2=4: <http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/mmset.html#trivia>

That's right, there are 25,933 steps in that one if you trace 2+2=4 all the way back to axioms.

<comment><USER5> It's interesting to realize: that's why something like quantum mechanics can't be approached by thinking purely in axioms. We have to push forward _first_ ; it's only after we've correctly approximated nature (via some informal model) that we can go back and try to prove our assumptions.

One obvious exception to this is Einstein coming up with relativity before it was ever observed in nature and approximated by people. But if you think about it, Einstein wasn't proving aximos; he was presenting a theoretical model (a guess) which turned out to precisely correspond with nature. It was still a guess.

So my point is... "results" are subjective, and don't require proofs. Proofs are very useful for checking your theories, but probably not for discovering new phenomena.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you're talking about physics, not math. The original question was asked in a math forum, which is where it has the example about sum(1/n^2), for one.

Physics is different. Yes, you can assume axioms and see what follows in the context of a physical situation, but that's a different game.

Speculation about physics is interesting in this case, but really, the question is about math.

<comment><USER5> Oh, you're correct, sorry. I didn't read the link, just the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quantized electron energy levels. Niels Bohr pretty much nailed the "what" but completely missed the "why."

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bohr_model></comment>


United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments - <AUTHOR> https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2018/10/14/united-airlines-threatens-to-trash-the-credit-of-passengers-who-skip-purchased-flights/ <comment><USER2> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts.

Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other reason than the person skipping additional legs didn't profit from it, instead they simply limited UA's ability to further profit off of their travel.

If this was "fraud" then any other airline discount or saving would be too. Shop around for the cheapest price? That's "fraud" since UA didn't make as much. Didn't check bags for $50+ and instead overload your carry on? That's "fraud" since UA lost the checked bag fee. Fly to a smaller airport instead of a larger one, then take the bus? That's "fraud" too, UA deserves that money.

UA's creative use of the law here is nothing more than an intimidation tactic. They've run out of ideas so instead are just trying to muddy the waters enough to stop this becoming overly popular. I guess that's easier than re-examining how you ticket/what your business model is.

<comment><USER3> Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.)

The elements of common law civil fraud are as follows:

1\. Somebody intentionally misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO" but in fact is going to IAD);

2\. The other person relies upon the misrepresentation (United prices the fare as though the passenger were going to ILM instead of IAD); and

3\. The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation (United gets less fare).

Note that profit is _not_ an element of fraud, although here, one could argue that the potential fraudster did profit in terms of the difference in fare.

So United has a fair argument that, given the facts at hand, intentionally misrepresenting one's travel plans in order to obtain a better fare probably constitutes fraud.

<comment><USER4> Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.

Now, there could be something United has inserted in the purchase flow of all multileg tickets which assures that the purchaser makes a representation of intent to use every leg, though I've never seen anything like that when purchasing tickets (and a contract of adhesion that United writes that most purchasers will not read, while it may succeed as a contract, probably won't be seen as such a representation for fraud purposes, AFAICT.)

<comment><USER3> > Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of > itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.

Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion.

In any event, the representation in question is "I want to fly from city A to city B." It's pretty reasonable for an airline to conclude that when a passenger makes this request, that is in fact their intent, not to fly to city C.

<comment><USER4> > Do you have a legal citation for this?

As far as I am aware, no one has actually attempted to make a fraud claim on the grounds that mere purchase (and/or the statement of intent to purchase) a composite good or service was a representation by the buyer to the seller of intent to _use_ every portion of the good or service so sold and had the case survive to a published decision on that question.

But, you know, if you can find a case _supporting_ your claim that this intent would clearly be inferred from such an aggregate purchase, I'd love to hear it.

<comment><USER5> Damn. If this becomes legal precedent will I be forced to read every page of books I buy?

<comment><USER6> And you'd damn well use both items of your Buy One, Get One Free offer. No sharing. No only using half of the second item.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sometimes I go to a fast food restaurant and discover that while I don't _want_ fries, it's cheaper to buy the whole combo meal than it is to just buy a burger and drink a la carte.

If I buy the combo and throw away the fries, nobody's going to argue that I've cheated Wendy's and owe them for the difference in price.

But I'd agree they're still free to refuse me service in the future on grounds of wasting food.

<comment><USER8> Technically, the equivalent is telling them to "keep the fries" since airlines can then re-sell your ticket or offer it to standby customers.

<comment><USER9> Not really - the vast majority of people who engage in this behavior do not notify the airline that they aren't showing up. The pool of standbys for the average flight is typically tiny or non-existent, and it's practically impossible to find a buyer for a ticket within the 15 minutes that airlines might be allowed to invalidate a paid customer's reservation and resell it.

Wasted seats on flights is a much bigger environmental problem than wasted fries.

<comment><USER10> They do however, have a pretty sturdy belief, that despite being paid for it, you won't be showing up for the return leg (in fact, they tell you that you will be forfeiting that return leg), so they can resell it.

In fact, they also threaten the right to cancel your entire return trip, not just the segment in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fuck United, and any other company that wants to abuse the credit reporting system for this. How would they even prove you have a debt? I paid for a ticket, and the airline provided said ticket. Whether I choose to use the ticket or not should be entirely up to me, and choosing not to fly doesn't magically incur them extra debt that I'd be liable for.

This is especially ridiculous with how exorbitant ticket change fees are. I was in San Jose a few weeks ago and decided last minute to stay a few days longer in SF. It would have cost me 125 dollars to cancel or change my already booked SJC-SEA flight, and it would have netted me <90 dollars in credit so I was essentially paying 35 dollars for the privilege of telling Alaska that I wasn't going to fly with them. Of course I instead just skipped the leg and booked a new flight separately.

<comment><USER11> I disagree, abuse of the credit reporting system will make it useless which is good thing because in it's current implementation it really shouldn't be trusted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One very interesting thing here is how they're using the credit score system to blackmail people. If this continues, any company can hold you hostage by threatening to ruin your score, without any recourse from you.

<comment><USER13> Nah, this isn't a legal debt that they can forward to a collection agency, as pointed out in the article. They can't legally ding your credit for this (you've paid all your actual outstanding obligations to them), and if they do, I imagine the counterclaims could be significant (reputational damage, monetary losses due to higher interest rates or ineligible loans, etc.).

Now, if this were the "social credit" system of a certain country, well, then maybe they really could blackmail you (because you violated a "social order" by playing ticketing games...).

<comment><USER14> > Nah, this isn't a legal debt that they can forward to a collection agency, > as pointed out in the article.

My understanding is that many collection agencies aren't very scrupulous about they debts they try to collect. Many of them are false, already paid, or lacking necessary documentation.

<comment><USER13> What United is threatening to do is forward a _clearly uncollectable_ debt to a collection agency. This is pretty much fraud at its finest - they _know_ it's not supposed to be collectable. It doesn't matter if the collection agency comes after you - United is on the hook for having forwarded that debt in the first place.

Yes, in an ideal world, collection agencies would properly verify the debts they collect on, but they definitely can't be arsed to do that voluntarily without gov't regulation saying so (and this administration is unlikely to provide said regulation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I doubt United will prevail in there efforts. It's "Contract of Carriage"[1] rule 6, sub-section J is where they put in all the verbiage about how they think they should be able to penalize you for avoiding their fare structures. It is pretty bogus and I'd love to see it litigated, to do that you really would have to do this stuff enough to get them to take action against you citing that rule, and then (now that you have standing to sue) you would need to sue them. I would recommend setting this up early because their lawyers haven't yeat put in a mandatory mediation clause to this contract. When they do it will be harder.

Either way, I think they will lose. And when it becomes clear that they can't extract value this way from passengers it will cause ticket prices to change to more accurately reflect actual costs.

[1] Updated 9/27/18 with section 6.J --[https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of- carriage.ht...](https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of- carriage.html)

<comment><USER3> Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.)

I agree that the Contract of Carriage is probably not the strongest basis by which United can demand recompense for abandoning a segment. Instead, I think they have a better chance of prevailing on a common-law fraud theory; see my explanation above.

<comment><USER16> Lay person here.

Fraud is a criminal matter isn't it? Can United directly sue the passenger in civil court, or must they file a complaint with law enforcement and let a prosecutor handle it?

<comment><USER3> There's civil fraud and criminal fraud, just like there's wrongful death (civil) and murder (criminal). The difference is that there's no imprisonment or other societal penalties for being liable under civil law - only money is involved.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for that - appreciate the response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So I guess United is going to fairly compensate me for the night I spent sleeping in the Philly airport because they canceled my final segment? I'll take cash, no united points for me.

Their definition of `fraud` is insane, but if they want to open the door for more recourse when things don't happen as scheduled I'm okay with that. I think United owes the majority of their customers quite a bit more than hidden city fare users owe them.

</comment><comment><USER18> One point in defense of the airlines that people often forget. There are certain taxes and fees the airlines must pay when a passenger flies from A to B. However, the government of location B waives fees for connections flying from A to B to C. That makes sense; the passenger never actually visited B.

Passengers can find a cheaper ticket flying JFK->TPE->HKG and ditching the final leg (carry-on only). However, if an airline "knows" a passenger will skip the final leg, then they are helping the individual evade a legitimate tax.

<comment><USER19> But they have plausible deniability since the customer indicated they were taking the last leg of the flight. The possible tax issues should be on the customer here, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised we haven't seen more companies abuse the credit reporting system like this. Recourse is painful for the customer, and I imagine a non-trivial number of them will just pay off the debt. I'm guessing with the gutting of agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau we'll see a rise in these type of practices.

<comment><USER21> There is no debt, though. You can't charge people extra for _not_ showing up at a flight. A non-flying passenger demonstrably makes a resource available: they can sell the seat to someone else. Even if they don't, it's less weight: less fuel burned.

The idea that the passenger should have paid more to get off at that intermediate airport is purely a fabricated entitlement.

If they underlying hypothesis behind this entitlement is that "all people should pay the same for the same flight", it is pure hypocrisy, because the airline industry is responsible for, and profits from the whole situation that people in adjacent seats may have paid wildly different prices.

If they want people not to game the system, they have to remove the game from the system. But that game largely benefits them, so they don't. You can't have it both ways: create a game-like system, and _not_ have people some people play it some of the time.

<comment><USER22> > There is no debt, though.

No-one's disputing that. The parent post is supposing that because taking this to court and proving that United violated the law is expensive (in both money and more importantly effort), a large enough percentage of people will not do it.

It's yet another example of the mere involvement of the legal system being used as a deterrent against individuals, regardless of who's in the right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Warning: general rant about the cost of flights.

I am genuinely entirely fucking sick of the awful experience of booking air travel. The thought of doing it fills me with dread now.

Here is a recent example: a return flight booked with my partner from the UK to the US. His company later wants to send him to a conference in a place nearby a couple of days prior, and of course will happily pay for travel there, and on to our actual destination. "That's okay", I think; "I can cancel the outgoing leg of his flight, even if I don't get a refund".

Not. Possible. The price British Airways wants to charge me for cancelling one leg of a return flight for one passenger is more than the entire cost for two return tickets. Of course, he can't just skip that flight, since the inbound will be cancelled.

Literally nobody gains from this. It reinforces the point that consumer cost is now entirely decoupled from the cost of service. On top of this, the process of buying tickets is utterly baffling. Multiple aggregators linking to multiple external agents who in turn are selling tickets cheaper than the airline directly. Codeshares charged at multiples of the cost for being on the exact same flight. And the obvious hidden city stuff.

Surely I'm not the only one who just wants to exchange money for a flight, based roughly on the actual cost? Even accepting that I might pay more for better cabins, or hold baggage, or advance seat selection? Is the current mess genuinely more profitable? Is there any way to fix it besides some kind of regulation of fares? Is there a disruptor?

<comment><USER24> >Literally nobody gains from this.

Small consolation, but we can think of airline shenanigans like this as just another hassle that makes flying less convenient / enjoyable, and so people will take fewer flights. Air travel (especially intercontinental flights) are a large fraction of a western individuals contribution to global warming. So the earth thanks you.

[https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20chang...](https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20change%20impact)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you haven't read the Contract of Carriage before, I'd suggest you do. It's actually pretty fascinating and could come in handy when you want to set an airline employee straight.

I had no idea the lay out what is acceptable luggage including trophy antlers:

 _Antlers - Subject to the conditions and charges specified below, one set of antlers retained as hunting trophies per ticketed Passenger will be accepted as Checked Baggage, if aircraft size and load conditions permit._

If you go on hajj, you can bring back 10 L (!) of ZAMZAM water _free of charge_ :

 _ZAM ZAM Water - Subject to the conditions below, one container or jerkin containing up to 10 liters (2.64 gallons) of ZAMZAM water will be accepted as checked baggage by UA at no extra charge in addition to the Baggage Allowance._

[1][https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of- carriage.ht...](https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of- carriage.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> I did this earlier this year flying to Europe. My plans had changed a little so I realized that it would be easier to get off in Amsterdam instead of taking the next flight. It never occurred to me that this could be a problem but the agent gave us a really hard time when I asked to get our bags checked only to Amsterdam.

I honestly thought they would be happy to be able to give our seats to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER27> They are offering more service for less money? Their pricing scheme is broken. Consumers should continue taking advantage of it until it become so cost prohibitive that they correct their pricing incentives.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's not clear why exactly the airlines are so upset about this. If the passenger isn't present they can just shoehorn a standby onto the flight, or at least save on fuel costs.

<comment><USER29> The airlines are losing money by having passengers circumvent the price discrimination.

<comment><USER8> As already pointed out, the airlines lose no actual money, but you are right in that they lose the theoretical difference between the discriminated price and the one they paid. That's not a legal debt, though.

<comment><USER10> Precisely. "Potential revenue" is not a dishonored debt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Passengers who save hundreds of dollars should get a credit boost for their demonstration of financial savvy.

I'd sooner give a loan to that person than some reckless spender.

<comment><USER30> Credit isn't a measure of financial savvy. It's a measure of likelihood to repay debts. It may be financially savvy to strategically default, putting the two in conflict.

<comment><USER10> Precisely. In many ways it is better to steadily use a card (while being mindful of utilization ratios) and pay it than it is to carry a zero balance.

The credit system might have been initially about debt repayment, but there are several measures in store regarding "how valuable / revenue-generating is a customer".

And at times, these two principles may be in harmony, and at others, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'll accept that deal, as long as I can sue the airline when they overbook and can't give me a seat. No takers? Okay then…

</comment><comment><USER32> United, look, there's an easy way to eat your cake and have it too.

"Flight completion discounts"

</comment><comment><USER33> Meanwhile, Skiplagged seems to have gotten a kick out of the ordeal with their new tagline: "Our flights are so cheap, United sued us... But we won."

</comment><comment><USER34> So if I buy a regular ticket and don't make the flight, by this reasoning that's fraud too? Are they going to send me to collections to get paid twice for missing my flight? Seems pretty ridiculous to me as I see literally no difference between the two scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER35> The only way to settle this is if they sue someone. They already tried to shutter Skiplagged and failed so their position may not be as solid as they claim.

</comment><comment><USER36> I never understood how they found out if a passenger was skipping one leg of a flight. If it's the same plane, just get off, and if it's not the same plane, just check in to the next flight and don't board. Is someone counting heads or something while I'm not looking?

<comment><USER37> The flights are nearly always separate planes, and even if they're not they do count heads on the plane and if you walk up, hand in your boarding pass, and then walk away they're going to note that down because now they have to go into the computer and verify whether you have bags onboard that they have to offload because you aren't taking the flight.

There's no scenario where they don't know exactly who is sitting in what seat for every seat on every plane when it takes off, it's all just data in the computer they can reference.

<comment><USER6> >>There's no scenario where they don't know exactly who is sitting in what seat for every seat on every plane when it takes off, it's all just data in the computer they can reference.

I would amend that slightly. They know exactly how many people have boarded the plane and presumably who they are. People move seats to allow families to sit together or trade a window for an aisle on many flights. The airlines aren't modifying their seat assignments after you walk down the jetway.

<comment><USER37> Actually they track that now. The flight attendants are absolutely brutal about enforcing and knowing exactly who sits in what seat to the point that if you get up and move without asking they will come up to you and tell you to go back to your seat. I'm sure people do occasionally get away with moving without being noticed, but that's not the norm anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why does this even exist? Why won't they just sell A-to-B tickets always cheaper than A-to-B-to-C?

<comment><USER39> The article covers this. The short answer though is price discrimination. Airlines want to sell tickets for the most total money they can. There is more demand for A-to-B tickets than for A-to-C tickets, so they are able to charge more. As long as selling A-to-C tickets is marginally profitable though, they will do that as well, even though the price is lower, and regardless of the fact that the most efficient way for them to move people from A-to-C is through B.

Basically airlines will charge what the market will bear; their costs on a given route don't really factor into it, except in as much as they won't generally fly routes that aren't profitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> since no one posted the posterchild for this: skiplagged.com</comment>


The Bandwidth of Sneakernet to the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2009/08/21/the-bandwidth-of-sneakernet-to-the-cloud.aspx

<comment><USER2> This calculation only includes getting the data physically near to the cloud. What about uploading it into the cloud?Surely transferring 3 million GB at around 40 MB/sec would lower the average?

Edit: My calculations say it'll take 2.7 years to read all that data if you go at 40MBps. Hopefully they can parallelize that across a few dozen machines...

<comment><USER3> You'd actualy put the disks into a Sun X4500 which you can just put into a rack at the destination site: [http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/4260-Less- known-Solaris-Fea...](http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/4260-Less-known- Solaris-Features-Remote-Mirror-with-AVS-Part-7-Truck-based- synchronisation.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The way I see it, the bandwidth is astronomically high, with 4.6 hour latency.

Maybe they're using TCP/HiP (Highway Protocol).

</comment><comment><USER5> It brings a whole new danger to the idea of a "disk crash" though, don't you think?

<comment><USER6> Consider also that the weight of just the hard drives is about 9,300 pounds (7.2oz * 20704). Expect a spectacular impact if that van is even capable of carrying such a load. ;-)

But this does beg the question, why choose 160GB drives? Even doubling it to 320GB shouldn't hurt the bottom line much. Density per dollar is going to be very important for the Van-based Data Packet.

<comment><USER7> > Density per dollar is going to be very important for the Van-based Data > Packet.

The dollar part actually isn't that important, given you can reuse your drives for later transfers (TeraScale's boxes zip around, AWS sends back your storage devices when the import is done) so unless you're hitting a density/dollar cliff, you're probably going to go all density with TB drives and such.

FWIW, in 2002 Terascale was already packing its sneakernet boxes with 300GB drives (7/box)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you find your lawyer? - <AUTHOR> Was it a friend's recommendation? A good yelp review? Their website? What made you choose? <comment><USER2> Lawyer here. Your best bet is a friend's recommendation, backed up with at least there not being anything negative about them in terms of reviews online. Not every one of us pushes for positive reviews from clients, though, and for the most part you have to to get one, so don't make not having any reviews a dealbreaker. Also make sure they haven't been sanctioned, you can search your state's disciplinary records -- its all public.

If its for an issue that is niche, you should see if they have published in the area in question. Gives you a decent indication of their standing in that field.

</comment><comment><USER3> Call your states bar association for a referral. Probably no one will want to help you unless it is criminal defense, in which case you have no choice except pay what they want. In civil stuff no one will help you unless it is open and shut payout for six figures. Probably better and cheaper to just get a law degree if you frequently need a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do you mean for your start up?

Or do you mean any type of lawyer, because you are looking for business ideas?

</comment><comment><USER5> What kind of lawyer ?</comment>


Here's the simple rule you need to know when using a foreign ATM - <AUTHOR> http://transferwise.com/blog/2012-11/choose-local-currency-at-foreign-ATM <comment><USER2> Ah yes, DCC.

On the positive, it lets you know (probably) how much you're going to spend, in your own currency. I say 'probably' because you might get hit by fees from your own bank for using an overseas ATM as well. But it's not free.

So you could look upon it as being offered a paid service, and IMHO it shouldn't be used without the customer being made aware of this.

The reason you will be asked if you'd like to pay in your currency is not really anything to do with your convenience though, it's about who gets to do the conversion and who gets to pocket the (inevitable) fees. With DCC the merchant and their (acquiring) bank get to take the fees and set the rates. Without this, your (issuing) bank does. At some point one of the acquiring banks realised that they get to see the transaction before it gets back to the issuing bank, and so they have the power to do this stuff, so DCC was born.

\--EDIT-- I should say it's possible, however unlikely, that DCC could turn out cheaper. The article does give a great reason why this is unlikely though - if there's one set of people more eager to screw you over than your own bank, it's someone else's bank.

<comment><USER3> > you might get hit by fees from your own bank for using an overseas ATM as > well

Check with your bank before you travel. I'm with Citibank, and they have a bunch of packages that they can enable on your account for free that remove foreign transaction fees (e.g., if you're a student; if you have more than 50k in cash; if you have a mortgage with them; etc.).

But, it being a bank, it's not like they're going to enable that stuff unless you ask for it first, and don't even think about getting it waived when you get back...

<comment><USER4> The best bank for this is Capital One. We signed up for cards (both debit and CC) for our overseas travel only. We haven't had them charge us a single time to date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's an even simpler rule: The more convenient currency conversion is, the more you are getting ripped off.

<comment><USER6> >There's an even simpler rule: The more convenient currency conversion is, the more you are getting ripped off.

That simply isn't true in my experience. For years, I used a debit card from Nationwide in the UK to withdraw currency all over the world. They used the VISA wholesale rate with no vig added on top and no fees for ATM use. In total, I withdrew probably over ten thousand dollars on that card, and it was one of the most convenient currency conversion systems I have ever used. (The card now carries fees for the service).

On the other hand, going to a high street bureau de change would have been much, much less convenient and would have secured me a worse rate in every case. Traveler's cheques would have been both inordinately expensive and hideously inconvenient. In fact, in the absence of a local bank account in each country I visited, I'm still not aware of cheaper way to convert currency than the system I used.

If you travel a lot and can find a bank or credit union that won't charge you any fees, hidden or otherwise, you get great convenience and an excellent price.

<comment><USER7> > For years, I used a debit card from Nationwide in the UK to withdraw > currency all over the world

Yep, you and thousands of others. Unfortunately expats ruined it for everyone else, simply using it as a way to draw money from their UK accounts when retired in Spain or wherever, never giving a penny to Nationwide. They probably made a loss on each of these customers so they withdrew the service.

They really just charged the Visa wholesale rate for ATM withdrawals and purchases abroad with no fees or markup or anything. It was fantastic.

<comment><USER8> You should check if your bank is in the Global ATM Alliance (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ATM_Alliance>).

If I withdraw money from a Barclays ATM in London (or Deutsche Bank in Berlin, etc) using my BofA ATM card, I don't seem to have an extra charges.

<comment><USER9> This is true. It led to some bizarre situations though: my partner, wanting to transfer money from her American BofA account to her British Barclays one, would've had to pay a fee to do so directly. But walking two paces to the ATM machine, taking the money out as cash, and then depositing the cash and you can avoid fees. Always seemed weird to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Same thing applies not only for ATMs, but also shops with card readers that sometimes offer to charge you in your home currency.

<comment><USER11> Hotels will also do this if they know you're from another country. Always checkout in-person at the desk and ask to review the bill before checking out. Make sure the charges are in the local currency.

<comment><USER12> Hotels are also a great way to get rid of extra foreign currency right before you leave the country. Ask them to put your remaining cash towards your bill and put the rest on your credit card. Avoids having to convert cash twice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My home debit/ATM card also gives me a better exchange rate than any Forex desk I've ever seen. Why do people still use those? Is it solely due to familiarity with cash?

<comment><USER14> 1\. Remarkably, some people are under the (incorrect) impression that they will get a better rate at the bureau de change.

2\. Some people like to have local currency before they enter the foreign country so they don't have to rely on finding a reliable local ATM before they can spend cash.

<comment><USER15> 2'. In many countries, as soon as you step out of the airport and/or a comfy tourist district, cash is the only available payment method. Including the cost of transportation to the nearest ATM. Which may or may not have a skimmer on it.

<comment><USER9> This is true in Japan. Trying to find an ATM that accepts foreign cards is a nightmare. Post offices or 7-11s are the only reliable places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Except some foreign ATMs (e.g. Hungary) don't even show that dialog. They just charge you the currency conversion.

<comment><USER17> That is nasty as hell, and I'm surprised it's even legal: the expected default would be to charge in the local currency and let the card issuer handle the conversion.

<comment><USER18> Conversion without asking is actually against credit card merchant agreements (and I assume the debit card agreements too, although I actually can't find this anywhere). I wouldn't be surprised if you could complain to your bank if what was reported here was actually true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One more rule... While you type your PIN, cover your typing hand with your free hand to thwart card skimmer cameras. This won't prevent keypad overlays from recording the PIN, but those are more expensive and more rare.

<comment><USER20> Anecdotally, I've experienced 0 incidents of fraud linked to using foreign ATMs, even those in questionable places. On the other hand, I've had several incidents linked to handing over my card to servers in downtown US restaurants.

One more rule...Never use an ATM in a strip club. They're the lords of exorbitant fees, stuff like "$20 or 10% of the withdrawl, whichever is _greater_ ".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm from the US and am currently living in London. I highly recommend a Charles Schwab bank account. No ATM fees and no foreign transaction fees. Also great customer service.

For a credit card, Chase Sapphire Preferred has no foreign transaction fees, and they waive the $95 annual fee for the first year.

<comment><USER22> Seconded. I got a Schwab bank account prior to traveling in Europe this summer. They rebate even international atm fees. (You might want to save your receipts in case they miss one, but I think they caught most of mine.)

For credit cards, most Capital One cards also have no foreign transaction fees. This site was quite helpful: [http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit- cards/nerdwallets-...](http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit- cards/nerdwallets-best-travel-credit-cards/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you ask for local currency, then the bank has nothing to do but ask your bank to pay the amount you wished + hidden fee for the operation. The exchange rate used to debit your account will be of your bank for this moment.

In countries like India or Russia this fee could be up to 20% from the amount requested _for foreign cards_.

If you're asking for a currency exchange, you will be charged for this operation separately. The exchange rate will be what this particular ATM is programmed with.

Any bank charge extra for _each_ operation.)

</comment><comment><USER24> The same is true for credit cards I guess, I have a Dutch cc and my bank always give me a better rate than for example PayPal.

</comment><comment><USER25> I thought this was going to be an article about avoiding card cloning in foreign ATM machines from the title.

</comment><comment><USER26> A related question: are there any credit cards which don't charge exorbitant fees when used abroad? A friend of mine is planning on travelling extensively in East Asia, South Asia, Turkey, etc. for several months, and I'm looking for recommendations for her.

<comment><USER27> Charles Schwab Bank refunds all ATM transaction fees, domestic and international, and uses VISA wholesale currency conversion rates. It isn't a credit card, but it's probably the cheapest way to get cash short of taking it with from the start.

<comment><USER28> I have an account with this card. I called them before travelling internationally one time and made the customer service rep repeat the "no fees" part at least three times before I was satisfied I wasn't hearing her wrong. Great card and wonderful customer service. I highly recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Happily, after traveling for 5 months now in South America, I can report that you do NOT have to worry about this here. I've yet to see anything at all like this and have used ATMs in 6 countries and 37 cities.

Europe? We'll find out in a month or so.

</comment><comment><USER29> Related: [http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/10837/when- paying-w...](http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/10837/when-paying-with- card-abroad-is-it-best-to-pay-in-local-or-home-currency)

</comment><comment><USER30> Any suggestions for Canada? I don't go often enough to find a better solution than using an ATM there, but I do go often enough to feel ripped off every time I do.

<comment><USER31> I spent a week in Quebec City a month ago and didn't use any local currency -- just charged everything. Hotel, restaurants, gas; they all take Visa/MC. I don't expect to travel there often, so I didn't want the hassle of withdrawing too much and then getting screwed on both sides of the currency conversion (USD->CAD->USD).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Transferwise looks like a pretty cool startup.

Are you guys cheaper than Oanda? Do you plan to offer GBP->USD? (As a US citizen working in London, this is all I want.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @mherdeg,

Thanks for your comment and nice words. We're constantly working on new currencies and USD definitely high on our priority list. If you drop us an email to support [at] transferwise [dot] com we'll let you know as soon as it goes live. ;)

<comment><USER33> Can I suggest that you think a little bit about adding Saudi Riyal too? There's a huge host of expat workers there who get paid in Riyal but generally only ever spend dollars, pounds or euros...this kind of service would be perfect for them to transfer their money home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Great tip for travelers, I will suggest you to do this everytime.

</comment><comment><USER35> and PayPal does this too...

</comment><comment><USER36> I've traveled to more than a dozen countries over the past two years and I've NEVER seen an ATM that asks me what currency I want to be charged in...

<comment><USER37> This is a more recent "service" that some banks are offering. I've seen it around the UK/Eurozone but rarely further than that. I've always said no to these screens because my bank doesn't charge me a commission on foreign withdrawals so I have no need for the 2% local markup.</comment></comment>


A sealed glass case for transporting plants reshaped more than just botany - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51209050 <comment><USER2> 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy .. Tim Harford's series where this comes from, is fantastic radio IMO (I'm a big "More Or Less" fan too, his statistics programme ). It's available as podcasts of about 10mins length.

</comment><comment><USER3> > It was Wardian cases, for example, that spread the Cavendish banana around > the world. That's the variety you see in shops today. William Cavendish was > the president of the Horticultural Society.

I was under the impression the Cavendish was an obscure cultivar until the 1950s when Panama Disease wiped out the then-standard Gros Michel variety. I suppose that doesn't preclude the cavendish being moved about in these boxes

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The "Wardian case", basically a terrarium, that first allowed live plants to survive long sea voyages.</comment>


The Staggering Cost of Bad Cops - <AUTHOR> https://www.superhighway98.com/cops <comment><USER2> I've seen two proposals that I like but I don't know how realistic they are, thoughts?

1) require settlements to be paid from pension funds

2) require cops to have personal liability insurance like doctors do

<comment><USER3> For 1) you would have to have a system that prosecutes misconduct in good faith. I know cops and they are afraid of being punished for doing right and legal things, and if their retirements were in jeopardy they would move to another profession.

For 2), can you even insure yourself against illegal activities? I don't think intentional acts are covered by medical malpractice insurance, for instance.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Free Login/Dashboard Templates? - <AUTHOR>

A lot of these are not free, and I'm looking for a descent looking dashboard that displays metrics, and also a login page would be nice as well.<p>If there's any free resources out there please post them here. <comment><USER2> About as good as you're going to get is making something from Bootstrap. The reason there aren't a lot of free Dashboard templates is because they take a lot of work to create so the creators expect compensation for their effort.</comment>


Android Toggle Switch: customizable extension of Switches that supports 2+ items - <AUTHOR> http://belka.us/en/android-toggle-switch/ <comment><USER2> This is exactly what I need for my project.</comment>


'White terror': Hong Kong's China critics beaten in targeted attacks - <AUTHOR> https://news.yahoo.com/white-terror-hong-kongs-china-critics-beaten-targeted-044507277.html <comment><AUTHOR> The triads get "get outa jail free cards" in return. Imagine the incentive they got...

</comment><comment> moloch-hai Usually "white terror" is supposed to mean anti-communist violence. Red terror is the old name for communists killing or maiming running-dog(+) capitalists.

(+) What is the difference between a capitalist and a running-dog capitalist? I was never clear on that.</comment>


BitConnect promoters cover their asses as site struggles with server downtime - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/01/16/bitconnect-promoters-sever-downtime/ <comment><USER2> BitConnect was an extremely transparent scam, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.

<comment><USER3> Caveat emptor. Except there's no SEC or FDIC to cry to when you've lost everything.</comment></comment>


UBeam CEO Meredith Perry Steps Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/ubeam-ceo-meredith-perry-steps-down-1537464261-82b55bb0-d83c-4630-aabd-ffbda3fc7804.html <comment><USER2> It's a sad time for wireless charging technology. Apple also claimed they would launch wireless charging in 2018, but also might be unable to deliver due to fundamental engineering problems.

[http://sonnydickson.com/2018/09/16/what-really-happened- to-a...](http://sonnydickson.com/2018/09/16/what-really-happened-to-apples- airpower/)

<comment><USER3> Apple seems to be incapable of making a good Qi charger Anker and Belkin fast wireless chargers work just fine with iPhone X/Watch which support it.

Apple can dress its tech as much as it wants but Qi chargers still work not all of them but all the good ones do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think from a physics perspective this never made sense for power for devices like laptops/phones, but might have developed expertise for communications or for sensors or other very low power devices. But maybe they never did that.

<comment><USER5> "3/ Meredith oversaw uBeam's transition from consumer-facing mobile charging to b2b licensing for IoT that you'll hear a lot more about in the months ahead. She oversaw scores of patents filed and many granted in an important market area of ultrasonic energy transfer"

[https://twitter.com/msuster/status/1042866486367285248](https://twitter.com/msuster/status/1042866486367285248)

<comment><USER6> I'd just be curious of a derivation of how much energy can be transmitted by ultrasonic energy transfer without causing hearing damage due to prolonged exposure.

<comment><USER5> If you google around there has been a decent amount written by physics folks about how ubeam could never work doing exactly this sort of calculation. They show that the amount wouldn't be useful to charge a phone or other similar device.

But I guess it might be useful for other things? I dunno.

<comment><USER6> For small IOT devices, the primary benefit would be to charge from a distance (wireless charging) but then the efficiency of the ultrasonic energy transfer will also drop inverse square to the distance. And if the power requirements are low enough, why not live with a lithium batter that will last 5-10 years possibly?

<comment><USER4> I can think of some specialty environments where batteries fail (due to environmental, temperature, acceleration, etc.) but where energy-transfer would be good. I can separately think of times when RF/induction/etc. wouldn't be good, but ultrasonic might be good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Never a big believer in energy over ultrasound. Maybe for low amounts of power it could work. But so could power beamed over IR lasers into photovoltaic patches. And lasers would work better.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been wondering what happened to this company. I've been curious from a physics perspective if their technology is even practical.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA)

EEVBlog and a few other YT channels go over debunking and the basic physics behind it.

<comment><USER6> Looks like 1.5W energy transfer in optimistic case if willing to waste a lot of the energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Makes sense given that this is basically Theranos 2.</comment>


From Zero to React - <AUTHOR> https://www.liamross.me/from-zero-to-react/ <comment><USER2> Thanks, this was helpful!

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone have any good intro posts to redux? Something like the above parent that's easy to read trough casually for an engineer who won't be using redux in the workplace

<comment><USER4> Hi, I'm a Redux maintainer. Please see my suggested resources for learning Redux:

[https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/12/blogged-answers- le...](https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/12/blogged-answers-learn-redux/)

[https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links)

Also, FYI, we do also have plans to heavily revamp our docs in the near future as well.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: When should I worry about implementing a garbage collector? - <AUTHOR> I am a novice programmer who is trying to implement a programming language as an effort to learn more about how things work below the hood. So, what I am confused about is when should I implement a GC? How do I even determine whether I need a GC or not? Since I am using rust, do I even need one? Rust has the ownership model, so do I need to worry about explicit memory management for my language or will that be an  implementation detail that will be handled by the underlying rust code?<p>Also, as a side note, what are some good, free resources to learn more about compiler implementations? <comment><USER2> I assume you mean you are using rust to implement your language rather than that you are implementing rust. If that's the case whether or not you need a garbage collector comes down to deciding whether or not you want users of your language to have to allocate memory manually or not. As for as when goes, it can come relatively late in the development of the language. Not having a garbage collector or any other way of freeing memory will make it likely that programs written in your language will run out of memory, but with so much memory on modern computers you'll be able to write more than trivial programs without running into that problem.

A simple stop-the-world mark and sweep GC without any generations should be relatively easy to implement. [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/abhinaba/2009/01/30/back- to...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/abhinaba/2009/01/30/back-to-basics- mark-and-sweep-garbage-collection/)

<comment><USER3> No, please don't make the mistake of adding another slow and bad mark & sweep GC. Do it properly with a simply copying collector. It can be much shorter than a mark & sweep also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How similar is your language to rust?

Does it has ownership like rust? does it have explicit allocation and dealocation like C/C++? Does it have automatic memory management like Java/Python/Javascipt?

Good garbage collectors are difficult to implement and it's probably too much for an initial project. You can probably use Rc or Arc and hope nobody makes too many cycles before there is an official package in rust for a garbage collector. [https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/faq.html#is-rust-garbage- col...](https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/faq.html#is-rust-garbage-collected)

As the other comment says, in C you can use the Boehm garbage collector. I don't know if there is something similar for rust.

</comment><comment><USER5> Although C usually has manual memory allocation and deallocation (malloc and free), some C programs embed

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector)</comment>


Quake Moves Japan Closer to U.S. and Alters Earth's Spin - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14seismic.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> As far I understand, the earth is undergoing massive acupuncture by the universe. Stay calm earth, lay down on your massage table and relax. It will pass soon.</comment>


SCOTUS Google vs. Oracle oral arguments scheduled - <AUTHOR> https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/google-llc-v-oracle-america-inc/ <comment><USER2> The courts question about the 7th amendment implications of the 2nd question is interesting. I guess they're basically asking, is the finding of fair use by the jury a finding of fact? If it is, the 7th amendment says that's not reviewable on appeal, only questions of law are. So in my extremely non-expert opinion, there 4 possible general outcomes (ignoring procedural outcomes where the court sends it back down for another go around):

* The APIs are not copyrightable

* They are but the jury found, as a fact that isn't reviewable, that Google's use is fair use

* They are, fair use is a matter of law, but the court agrees they're fair use

* They are, fair use is a matter of law, but the court disagrees that they are fair use

Anyone who's an actual lawyer, please feel free to jump in and correct me if I'm off base here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if anyone at Google would consider having Android just switch to Flutter as their main app development platform for future versions of Android to sidestep having to pay Oracle more money going forward.

</comment><comment><USER4> It took me some time to find. October 7, 2020.</comment>


404 Animated Character in CSS - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/WithAnEs/pen/Fxzei

<comment><USER2> How do people make these things? Hand coding it seems crazy. I'm wondering if there are any GUI tools out there.

<comment><USER3> There are things like Hype[1], and I'm sure there's more out there

[1]: [http://tumult.com/hype/](http://tumult.com/hype/)</comment></comment>