Show HN: Thoughter - <AUTHOR> https://aytwit.com/thoughter <comment><USER2> Very cool base idea and could become something interesting.

Initial thoughts:

1\. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week of each other, the odds that they both use the same hastag are astronomically low. Person A says '#wannaGoOut', but person B says '#IWantToGoOut'. There are way too many possible permutations of a single thought.

2\. As another commenter said, the design is clean but feels like it belongs in 1995. It will not get off the ground looking like this. The basic layout is fine, but the colors and fonts need to go.

3\. Without an app, I think you'll have a hard time gaining critical mass. If someone has a thought and all it takes to get it out onto Thoughter is to (i) open the app, (ii) type, (iii) and send, then it will be way more likely to be used.

4\. This feels a bit like Craigslist Missed Connections. Not saying that's a good - or bad - thing, it just does.

5\. What if I see a cute girl at a coffee store, we hit it off, but I don't have her email address - or even her name? What then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thoughts.

 _> 1\. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week of each other, the odds that they both use the same hastag are astronomically low. Person A says '#wannaGoOut', but person B says '#IWantToGoOut'. There are way too many possible permutations of a single thought._

My hope is that hashtags would become standardized, and hints ([https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints)) will also help with this.

 _> 3\. Without an app, I think you'll have a hard time gaining critical mass. If someone has a thought and all it takes to get it out onto Thoughter is to (i) open the app, (ii) type, (iii) and send, then it will be way more likely to be used._

Totally agree. An app would also allow the service to avoid email, and allow encryption on the client-side without the server seeing any plain text at all. Definitely a goal.

 _> 5\. What if I see a cute girl at a coffee store, we hit it off, but I don't have her email address - or even her name? What then?_

Good question! I don't have an answer unfortunately. Guess you gotta do things the old-fashioned way. :)

<comment><USER3> Sell this to Snapchat

<comment><USER4> This really does fit perfectly with Snapchat's MO of plausible deniability in messaging; and could be exactly what they need to gain an edge against Instagram.

Seconding talking to Snap.

<comment><AUTHOR> How would I go about that? I'm just a clueless engineer. What little I know of how the world works, is that they would just steal the idea if it were really attractive to them, and maybe give me a free T-shirt. Am I too jaded?

<comment><USER5> A Snap engineer could theoretically see this post and steal the idea. It's usually useless to go around trying to guard an idea. However, if you develop the service enough so that it would be inefficient to rebuild it completely from scratch, then they might pay you for the concept _and_ the technology, which is real IP and can't be ripped off quite so easily.

<comment><USER6> I'm fairly certain you'd need a user base before Snap were even remotely interested, or at least prove the idea.

Build an app, get it out there, see whats up

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN,

Thanks to everyone checking this out. I know it's kind of a weird project, but that's the idea! I've been kicking this project around since college in 2003 when I was afraid to ask a girl out even though I was pretty sure she liked me too. Instead of just asking her out I tried to come up with a way to fix my anxiety with software, and thus Thoughter was born. Don't worry I'm a bit wiser now. :)

You can read more about the back story at [https://aytwit.com/blog/thoughter_origin_story](https://aytwit.com/blog/thoughter_origin_story) and why it took so long for me to complete. Hint: I cared too much about privacy, before it was cool!

<comment><USER7> I actually built this specifically for the breaking up use case. It was called CleanBreak. I forget the numbers, but at least a few hundred people used it. I think it'd actually work if you started locally (e.g. get covered in a campus paper).

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/4287xp/i_built...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/4287xp/i_built_a_site_that_facilitates_mutual_breakups/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! The comments on that thread are valuable, thanks for sharing. Do you happen to have an instance of it still running somewhere, or screenshots? I would be interested in some specifics of how you approached it since people seem pretty favorable in that thread.

<comment><USER7> just spun it back up on PythonAnywhere, [http://mritchie712.pythonanywhere.com/](http://mritchie712.pythonanywhere.com/), pretty sure most of it won't work, I didn't start the database, but you'll get the general idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet thanks for that. I like it, very straightforward and to the point. I'm considering how I can "subdivide" Thoughter into little special purpose utilities like for breaking up, hooking up, etc. Maybe I just need to make hashtags more standardized, with a dropdown or something. Much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an introvert, I completely understand where this is coming from. What you are trying to create is a way for people to signal intent in an emotionally safe way. But I think this misses the mark (by substituting technical infrastructure for quintessentially human interaction; by encouraging "someone is" vs. "I am"). There is an art to "working toward" a discussion or disclosure (which many people are not good at, and many situations make difficult). To help someone find a way to say something (difficult or risky) to someone (who may not be receptive), and to allow the other party to reverse-signal gently (possibly by "affirmatively" ignoring) would be valuable, but as complex as the varied use cases. I think a system that helped people work through what they want to accomplish and possibilities for achieving that would be useful; the infrastructure for communication is already there, we just need to think about how to use it better (think guided workflow, decision tree or expert system). Having a mechanism to "buffer" between the sender and receiver might be helpful (ex., sending someone flowers or a card/letter vs. speaking to them) to overcome emotional resistance, but shouldn't substitute for thinking through <your state> \+ <situational state> \+ <other's state> => <appropriate action>.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very thoughtful comment, thank you. I am going to write up a blog post on why you should not use Thoughter in the first place, or at least only as a "break the ice" mechanism, and I'm going to use a lot of the comments here like yours as fodder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this (or at least, the use cases) is missing something that NLP also has a hard time with: individual words do not have positive / negative meaning.

Hypothetical example:

"Hey, you're a cool person! #wannaGoOut ?"

"No, I do not #wannaGoOut"

Now, in spite of the rejection, the person asking is revealed. The thin veneer of anonymity is utterly lost here.

(for those curious about my NLP reference, pretty much any remotely controversial topic, word or hashtag will be used with both positive and negative sentiments)

<comment><USER10> Even if you handle negatives it will be intentionally tricked by curious people.

Yeah I #wannaGoOut. Actually Not, just wanted to see who you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool, this is somewhat similar to an idea I had before: two persons each make a list, and the app informs both parties of common items of the list without disclosing the rest. That would solve a few of the same use cases you mention, and help decide e.g. what movie to watch, even if one of the parties (e.g. my SO) is somewhat ashamed of their preferences (e.g. romantic comedies), unless the other person shares them.

Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, but in any case, I'm unlikely to be going to make it, so feel free to run with it.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly the premise behind Mojo Upgrade and other couple sex practice questionnaires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting concept! This could also be cool for missed connections.

In lieu of the missed connection's email address, you could provide a few specific details about the encounter (choosing from prewritten options):

Time (options provided in 3-hour blocks ie 9am-12pm), name of neighborhood, city, your ethnicity (or some other easy personally identifying feature).

If the other person also goes on the site to submit a missed connection within a few days of yours and fills out the same details, they'll be prompted to answer the detail about your personally identifying feature to receive your message and relay email to respond to.

(Yes this would only work well if the website became widely known as the place to go to for private missed connections.)

Probably a few loopholes with this, just thinking out loud.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow I had thought briefly of the "missed connection" case but never could work out the details. Your post makes me think there could be a way, if there were some standardized version of a "thought" that goes beyond the hashtag. Interesting. Thank you for jogging my brain a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you send a hint about a difficult conversation (#reunite, #breakup), what are the odds that the recipient won't be able to guess who sent it and the gist of the secret? Is this any better than just having the conversation directly?

If you don't send a hint, it seems extremely unlikely that the other person will use the service with the exact same hashtag, as another commenter pointed out.

So, where is the utility?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question. One answer is that it gives the recipient plausible deniability (I think I'm using that term right, sorta). They have the power to not respond even though they probably know who the sender is. And if they don't try to respond then hey they can never be _100%_ sure of who the sender is. And the sender can never be _100%_ sure their message was even received. So basically it gives both party's ego/pride some breathing room.

As far as the "no hint" case, well yes the service would need to be in the zeitgeist in order to have utility. Who knows maybe one of the big social networks will steal the idea. They can go for it! Just remember little ole me in the credits section somewhere, is all I ask. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Other attempts to get at some of the same issues:

Lovegety and other "proximity matchmaking devices"

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

Online questionnaires for couples that only yield matching answers:

[https://mojoupgrade.com/](https://mojoupgrade.com/)

[https://www.weshouldtryit.com/](https://www.weshouldtryit.com/)

[https://www.letsexperiment.xyz/](https://www.letsexperiment.xyz/)

<comment><USER16> Also: [https://www.reciprocity.io/](https://www.reciprocity.io/)

Once in college I got an email from (I think) ecrush.com, saying "someone has a crush on you", and on the site you could enter email addresses of people you had crushes on and it would spam them that same thing, anonymous until there was a match. (Personally, I suspect it was bootstrapping by sending fake initial "someone has a crush on you" emails to scraped emails, but I didn't dig in too deep.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This will get abused by spammers, even with email confirmations. Be prepared. I had a side project get killed because the utility of it couldn't quite match the spam hassle.

Further, if I received an email from this site, I would assume it was a scam and delete it. I get dozens of emails from services pretending I've signed up to them or that they have real content from me.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> This will get abused by spammers, even with email confirmations._

Could you elaborate? I have vague worries since there's not a captcha or anything. But I can't think of an attack or abuse beyond a DoS-type thing, and I don't know why someone would do that beyond trolling. I know my naïveté probably sounds painful but I would appreciate more feedback here.

Would a captcha be enough? My concern there is that I'm being super paranoid about privacy ([https://aytwit.com/about#privacy](https://aytwit.com/about#privacy)) and wouldn't want to incorporate Google's captcha if I don't have to.

<comment><USER5> You're letting anyone with an email address send mail (through your service) to another address. It looks like the spammer wouldn't be able to completely control the contents of the message, but they could still send unsolicited junk emails from your email provider or server, which might get your email or IP address blacklisted by spam filters and prevent legitimate users' emails from being delivered.

I would implement heavy rate limiting and maybe come up with a basic captcha that would stop most spammers.

Oh, and by the way: if you want italics there can't be a space between the asterisk and the phrase to be italicized (like * this * versus _this_ ).

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't worry about this unless/until it became a problem :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congrats on the idea!..

But some of the use cases seem a bit childish.

Maybe I'm too mature but it's much easier to just suck it up and be honest and open about a topic. This seems like it would enable a father to forgo talking about a difficult subject with his child because he would have a false sense of "well at least I tried" from using the app. Long story short I think the idea risks decaying a relationship more then strengthening it.

I'm probably wrong though! I'm wrong constantly.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this comment and the two replies. It shows the two sides of the coin. When I came up with this idea initially in 2003, I was the kind of person who would use this service. Nowadays I'm more in line with your thinking. But I don't see myself as "more mature" nowadays, just different. Especially since I flip flop on so many things throughout life, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point I turn back into the kind of person who would use the service. Neither kind of person is "wrong" or immature IMO, just different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a pretty clever idea though the execution feels a bit off.

My guess is that this would appeal most to a younger audience but how many teenagers communicate via email?

I think it'd be a hit if it could somehow integrate with social media or even just SMS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup email support was just the proof of concept. Definitely agree that it will need to go beyond. In fact if I make a native app then mobile notifications can be the communication medium itself.

<comment><USER21> They can even in browser. Get an account on Twilio and explore their SMS API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sorry, I just don't see the point.

If you send hints like "someone wants to #reunite" I'm sure the recipient will accept just to find out who the person is regardless of what their offline intentions are. Since your identity is revealed anyway I don't see how this saves you from the perceived embarrassment of just asking the person directly.

In the past I've often desired and tried asking for things subtly or in a round about way so as to hunt at what I want without the risk if rejection. In my experience it's not a great path to take.

If the fear of rejection outweighs the potential benefits and you can't bring yourself to ask (for a date, raise, reunion, etc.) then maybe you just don't want as much as you think you do.

When you want something deeply enough you'll ask for it without fear or embarrassment.

<comment><USER23> > If the fear of rejection outweighs the potential benefits and you can't > bring yourself to ask (for a date, raise, reunion, etc.) then maybe you just > don't want as much as you think you do.

> When you want something deeply enough you'll ask for it without fear or > embarrassment.

It sounds to me like you are not an introvert and judge who is by "not wanting things enough". It's not as simple as you think.

<comment><USER21> As an introvert, I disagree. Being introverted does not mean you lack the ability to be assertive, it simply means you don't draw your energy from social stimulation (quite the opposite).

There is wisdom in the phrase carpe diem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't like this for the reason that it pushes people to use technology instead of hard conversations and personal contact, because it's so much easier.

<comment><USER25> I kind of agree with you, but the cat is _way_ out of the bag on this one. See: Tinder et al.

<comment><USER26> I don't understand how Tinder is the example of that.

If I have time to meet a woman tonight and it's 4pm, what exactly is Tinder replacing? The hell of cold-approaching women at bars until one of them seems to like me? Mine my depleted social circle for a date? Wank off in my bedroom because I don't have any new prospects and be happy with that?

The whole point of Tinder is to find new face to face interactions.

<comment><USER27> Not fair.

A lot of people are not comfortable with confrontation in the first place. And it is entirely normal. It just how people are wired and expecting them to change themselves drastically is not fair on them. It should be a gradual process and a thing like thoughter is a great use for "getting started". End goal is of course to confront.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Good idea but it needs some work. I get the reason of having hashtags is to only reveal the attempt to connect when the intent matches, but with arbitrary syntax allowed you will get a lot of false negatives when your chances of people even matching their timeframes are low as it is.

Instead offer a few predefined categories of tags, and the user can select one or more of them. That also improves the UI as you can now offer autocomplete in that field and lower the barrier of entry (removing option paralysis).

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed in full. I was thinking a dropdown of common hashtags. It's sort of a chicken and egg problem so far though, in that I don't know what common hashtags would be. Maybe I'll just use those that are examples on the front page to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> One obstacle is credibility: Since the dawn of the internet there have been companies trying to recruit users by pretending that someone winked at you, or similar. That would be my working assumption, getting a message from you. How do you get past this?

<comment><AUTHOR> It may sound either harsh or naive, but seriously my only strategy right now is to just hope that people using the service don't feel that way. If I understand your point, I personally (or someone working for the service) would have to start trying to recruit people by (a) getting big lists of known emails (easy to do), and (b) sending them fake messages that (for example) someone is interested in dating them.

So I guess I just have to keep my morality in check? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Love the idea. I was trying this out. Turns out that the email goes to the spam folder of gmail :(

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed people having this problem. Not sure what to do about it. :( Going to look into it more.

<comment><USER27> Not sure if you can solve this at all. Because thoughter will be used for a reason that it isn't meeant to be used for.

So correct me if I am wrong but I think thoughter is most useful when you almost "know" that you have a thought resonating with somebody else and you want to confirm it. Its not for making wild hits at people. Right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, not for making wild hits. And yea getting past spam email anywhere near 100% of the time is basically impossible, but I did seem to be getting into people's junk folders more often than I expected. I'm using [https://postmarkapp.com/](https://postmarkapp.com/) FWIW, so going to see if there's different language or format or paygrade or something that will improve my delivery rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is not a great idea in my opinion, here's why:

One should never feel withdrawn from any conversations, or exploring their feelings. If you want to ask someone out, but have fear/anxiety, you have a "problem" you need to address bravely. Get to the bottom of your fears, reach a conclusion and act on it. Whatever happens, happens. Using thoughter just leaves you buried in your comfort zone, making you never questioning the nature of your own self. It's an easy way out or an excuse for not being accountable to your self. Leaving result of important situations in your life to external circumstances is not a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> As weird as it sounds, I'm the author and I kind of agree with you. I feel like Steve Jobs selling iPads but not letting his kids use them lol. Not to say I think someone is wrong or immature to use the service. Indeed I came up with the idea in 2003 when I was the kind of person who would use it. Now I'm not so much, but I'm not better/wiser, just different. In fact I fully expect to flip flop back to my 2003 mindset at some point in life, and hopefully Thoughter will be there going strong!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So I actually had this idea years ago. People were joking that people can "sync" up so much on twitter that the next evolution is just thinking thoughts to each other.

Even bought the domain thottr.com for this back in 2011. Hilarious

<comment><AUTHOR> Woah crazy! How much you selling that domain for? ;)

There's actually a patent from the mid-90's that basically describes the same idea that we both came up with: [https://patents.google.com/patent/US5117358A/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5117358A/en). I found it after I had finished the first version and was crushed that someone had thought of my genius idea first.

<comment><USER32> Keep in mind that "thot" is nowadays being used as an acronym[1] that you might want to avoid being associated with.

[1] [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thot](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thot)

<comment><USER31> stop killing my dealflow man! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol! I was joking about the domain, but I checked your profile and really dig what you're doing. Followed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Doesn't this leak too much information if both parties aren't being honest? E.g. you could just submit spouse + every likely hashtag--#breakup, #haveKids, etc.--and then see what ends up matching.

<comment><USER34> I don't think so. You have to confirm your email, and the target has to enter your exact email + hashtag for it to be matched.

<comment><USER33> Right, but suppose I know or suspect that a specific person is trying to send me a hashtag, but I don't know what that hashtag is: let's use the example given in the posted website of a new romantic partner wanting to take things to "1st base", "2nd base", etc. Can't I just post all four bases and see what matches? That would reveal their preference without revealing mine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah but one can argue you _have_ revealed your preference, namely that you have no preference, that you'll take the highest base on offer! :)

And note that the other party can check if you sent those other thoughts out if they wanted, so it's socially risky for you to do so ("Ew what a creep, he blasted out all four bases!"). This stuff is fun to think about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I really like this idea, and I think that exposing the underlying SQL schema (especially in literate programming style like that) is the next level in technical transparency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I spent a lot of time on it for just that reason, being as transparent as possible. Here's the link in case others are wondering what you're talking about: [https://aytwit.com/sql](https://aytwit.com/sql)

</comment></comment><comment> duncan-donuts I think this is a really interesting product, but I also find it really weird. Maybe I'm just getting older and this isn't for me. It wasn't that long ago that people actually had to have the courage to have a conversation. It kind of breaks my heart to think that a father (or son) wants to connect again but only if the other person does as well. That's just not how that relationship works.

<comment><USER36> Maybe this makes you fortunate for having kind relationships throughout your life, or less fortunate for not knowing the difficulty of reconciling a relationship.

One perfect use-case for this is for an adopted person. They don't know their birth mum and dad, and it takes intense bravery to face up to that and reach out and trust them to feel the same way as you. What if you get rejected? Wouldn't you try to make this interaction safer? What if you could even practice it knowing that the communication would be erased in a short time?

Yes, I'm talking about me. And others in my position.

<comment> duncan-donuts I have been fortunate to have mostly kind relationships. I apologize for my insensitivity. I think you're right about the use case you've presented and there are plenty more, I'm sure. My criticism of an example use case shouldn't have presented as writing off the whole premise. Presenting it as a way to ask a girl out, or making up after a fight doesn't present the power it could have.

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't think of any more powerful examples than those. I might wish otherwise, but if Thoughter does become popular it seems like it would be, if I may be blunt, off the backs of teenagers and/or college kids looking to hook up, so Tinder or Snapchat-type interactions. Or maybe it should go in the opposite direction and be used for more frivolous situations? Open to any suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Cool premise, but how will the recipient know what they're receiving?

Also, layout is clean, but feels a bit antiquated. Bootstrap perhaps?

<comment><USER38> Best wishes to you.

If I am reading correctly, if person S sends person R a message M bearing hash tag H, if R sends their own message M2 to S bearing hash tag H2, then M will be revealed to R and M2 will be revealed to S, __if and only if __H equals H2. (S may choose some behaviors, such as revealing their identity, in order to prompt R into sending a message.)

As for your second paragraph: I like this site's design<1> a lot. I was able to skim it quickly, and absorb enough to answer your question and more. With respect, I think more work has gone into its design than "antiquated" would suggest.

For one example, on mobile the body paragraphs on the right of the screen can themselves be dragged to the left to read all the info, instead of my having to use the tiny fiddly scrollbar. I think that's a smart feature for a mobile site with a fair bit of text (such as on the SQL page.) Consider also that the site uses colors for text, background, and UI elements (body, nav, etc) that neither clash hideously nor strain the eyes with too-low contrast; plenty of old websites don't take that level of care (think a typical professor's academic homepage - now THOSE can get antiquated!)

Bootstrap will get you a "modern"-style site without too much effort, but I don't think it would add anything here.

<1> By design I am waving in the general direction of layout, color scheme, ease of use, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow thanks for the compliments on the design. I indeed spent ridiculous amounts of time on the design and making it super simple and accessible, all the while knowing it would mostly get crapped on. :) I appreciate your appreciation!

<comment><USER38> You're welcome, Doug. I also enjoyed checking out your personal site in your HN profile - that crazy interface seems tailor made for a Mobile user to "explore"! Lots of fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The hint, "Give them the exact hashtag that you use" seems rather easy to brute force. Maybe I am just young, but there are only a small number people who would send me hashtags like "#reunite" or "#wannaGoOut".

As others have mentioned, without this hint hashtags are rather sparse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Note that hints can also simply be "who sent the thought" and not the hashtag or anything. Doesn't directly address your point, just another way to use the service. See [https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) for the different hint types.

Edit: realized from your comment you probably read that section already, apologies!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Interesting idea! Any stats on usage (e.g., how many people have actually connected without hints)?

<comment><AUTHOR> This post has driven the only real usage since I finished this about a year ago, and I'm guessing most of the connections so far are people just testing it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I tried testing it, but it hasn't come through yet. HN hug of death?

Do the messages to the other person get a delay? Being able to set that delay, or potentially set a window during which the thought would be randomly sent would be cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite possibly! I never anticipated getting to the front page with anything so I don't know what to expect. Let me know if it eventually came through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This sounds like a romantic idea for some possible contexts (though I feel like it's better to go out on a limb in most situations).

</comment><comment><USER43> Why use email? Why not integrate with Facebook? Or use phone numbers? Or Snapchat usernames?

Using an email address for this seems archaic.

<comment><USER44> Integrating with Facebook or using phone numbers seems archaic – not everyone on the internet has either of those. Using Snapchat usernames seems even more myopic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Fun concept in a game theoretic kind of way, but it doesn't work in practice obviously. Telling someone to go to a site and push a thought about you is extremely awkward, the only context where it might work is within a dating site or similar, but people don't seem to need that indirection there nowadays.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps [https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) addresses your game theoretic concerns?

<comment><USER45> Yeah in theory this is a good way to handle that concern, but I still think it will be awkward.

Also, it seems this service is only relevant at all in romantic contexts, and My gues is that most girls are not attracted to men that are to shy to talk to them directly. But maybe I'm old fashioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Not a comment on the idea. I like the UX execution on mobile. The menu on the left is always visible, in the background. The content is swiped left / right to reveal the menu.

It's counterintuitive at first, but within a second you work it out. Works well on iPhone 6s safari.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it's mostly gotten negative feedback, which I understand as far as the pure styling (color, font, etc.), but I did spend a lot of time on the "structural" aspects of the layout so they work well on all devices without any real per-screen-size logic. Thanks for noticing! It was a lot harder than it probably looks. I will probably spruce up the styling going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> A chat bot would probably be a neat interface: 2 people on Telegram/Facebook Messenger/Whatsapp/Instagram/Snapchat, so no app install needed. You can still collect the email address, but that could get around the initial hurdle of accessibility.

</comment><comment><USER48> So it's a bit like tinder with arbitrary notions and not just I like you. Pretty cool idea actually. (I didn't mean the tinder comment negatively, I also think Tinder is a fantastic idea)

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in a hole so I don't even really know what Tinder is. No offense is possible! Thanks for the compliment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The reason it won't work in current implementation is people are using too many identities on too many communication platforms today. Many not using email at all or not checking it often.

</comment><comment><USER50> I don't really have anything to comment on except for the… name. Sorry but how am I suppose to pronounce this?

Thought - ter? Sounds like I'm saying Daughter.

Tough-ter? As in tuff - ter?

Terrible name imo.

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't like the idea since it essentially kills hope. Hope that a relationship might work out when the time is right. Putting a timer on hope is a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER52> "You received a hint: someone wants to #breakUp with you"

The thought of that just cracked me up :D Seems like a really good idea though, I like it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol in that case the initial sender could be more subtle and send a hint that they specifically are thinking _something_ about the other person, but not _what_. Then it would be up to the other person to try to match the thought without direct knowledge of what the hashtag is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I am very curious if OP can share some stats on number of times two people were thinking about each other at the same time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a real minimal stats page I created: [https://aytwit.com/stats](https://aytwit.com/stats)

Short answer: 22 matches so far from this HN post. I suspect most of these were people testing it out, but who knows maybe there were some real ones? If anybody's reading still, post if you got a legit match! I purposely don't store any thought/person-specific data. Just anonymized and aggregated metrics: [https://aytwit.com/sql#event_table](https://aytwit.com/sql#event_table)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> My thought: You would need to be adopted by an already very popular company to have much hope of going anywhere.

This is a classic chicken-and-egg issue: No one will want to use it unless/until enough people are using it to have some hope of a reply.

Any plan for how to address that issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I recognize your username and enjoy reading your comments.

[https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) sort of solves the adoption problem, in that you wouldn't necessarily need a critical mass of people for the service to be useful. Even just one patron could initiate a thought with another.

<comment><USER54> My bad. I failed to read all the way down.

I will suggest that maybe you need to move the "Hints" section or otherwise highlight it in some fashion. If they have the thought "Eh, no one even knows this service exists. Why bother?" before they get to the Hints section, this could be a barrier to adoption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely not your bad. I've been in the game long enough to know people don't read things! (No offense to you personally).

I tried linking to that "hint" anchor tag in the first paragraph but even that is expecting too much. I'll give a think about how I can highlight the whole hint/adoption thing more since it's a main point of feedback. Thanks!

<comment><USER54> Free suggested edits that you can use as you see fit (or not at all -- whatevs):

 _Sometimes you want to ask someone a question or tell them a secret and you suspect or hope they 're thinking the same thing, but it's uncomfortable to bring up. This is what Thoughter is for!

And they don't even have to know Thoughter exists. You can send them a Hint. But more about that later.

Let's say it's the holidays and you and a loved one had a fight a while back. You aren't sure they would welcome hearing from you. You can send a Thought like "I miss you #reunite" that lasts one week. If your loved one sends the same sort of thing with a matching hashtag, you each get the other's email. If not, nothing happens.

This used to be done much more naturally back when people routinely lived in close-knit communities. People would ask a friend a question and that friend would ask their friend. Word traveled by the grapevine, which helped sort things out.

But in our increasingly mobile world, a lot of grapevines have basically died. This is your modern grapevine, now with Encryption!_

Move: "The first project out of Aytwit's software research labs." to much later. Like close with it or something. It's important to you. It mostly isn't important to the process of getting adoption. Making it the first sentence amounts to "noise."

<comment><AUTHOR> Woah great feedback, I will definitely use some of this. I'll ping you again privately when I make some changes, just so you know I'm not blowing smoke. ;)

The opening line "The first project out of Aytwit's software research labs." is making me cringe now lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> That site says they are open to consulting, but I'm not sure if it's satire or not.

</comment><comment><USER56> Good idea.

But this requires too many assumptions on participants.

</comment><comment><USER57> font-family: 'AytwitHeaderFontEmbedded', 'AytwitHeaderFontFromUrl', Comic Sans MS, Comic sans-serif;

I would reconsider this decision.

Edit: To be clear, a font sets the tone for the content of a page and unless your project is an invitation to a clown orgy then Comic Sans sets the wrong tone.

<comment> crooked-v Also, the colors in use combined with borders and rounded edges gives me a distinctive vibe of 90s kids' software for some reason.

Edit:

Compare the current version: [https://i.imgur.com/W8stZVf.png](https://i.imgur.com/W8stZVf.png)

...to the same thing with a couple of quick styling tweaks I added in dev tools: [https://i.imgur.com/RJhLz7B.png](https://i.imgur.com/RJhLz7B.png)

Still offbeat, much less "child's keyboard color scheme" ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YW3CL6](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YW3CL6)).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for taking the time to do that. I hope you don't mind, I may have to steal some of that when I eventually do some tweaks to make it more modern. :)

<comment> crooked-v Feel free. The main things were just the color scheme, playing with spacing, and keeping the underlines on the nav links from standing out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SMLtoJs – A Standard ML to JavaScript Compiler (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.smlserver.org/smltojs/ <comment><USER2> There is also a compiler for OCaml bytecode to JavaScript, called js_of_ocaml[0]. It's been around for a while, but I've only recently started using it. It's got a pretty good FFI, and makes futures-based programming via lwt[1] very convenient.

[0]: [http://ocsigen.org/js_of_ocaml/](http://ocsigen.org/js_of_ocaml/)

[1]: [http://ocsigen.org/lwt/](http://ocsigen.org/lwt/)

<comment><USER3> There's also a compiler for Haskell to JavaScript called GHCJS[0]. Many of Haskell libraries can be compiled easily. I think someone compiled Pandoc directly to JS and made a web interface and bundled the app[2].

One interesting things besides web that people have been doing with it is writing Atom editor plugins[1].

[0]: [https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs](https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs)

[1]: [http://edsko.net/2015/02/14/atom- haskell/](http://edsko.net/2015/02/14/atom-haskell/)

[2]: [http://markup.rocks/](http://markup.rocks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This will help in the battle to verify correctness or security of client-side code. Pre-existing tools and code supporting that for ML can be applied immediately. Covert channels & information flow are getting more mainstream attention in recent years. Might work those issues out with Flow Caml, recode equivalent in this, and compile to JS. Would need an analysis on the JS code & runtime itself, though.

I mainly see it useful for what ML is always good at: developer tools. ML has been used to write many robust tools offline. There are also many tools hosted online or in a browser. Might be a step toward (a) moving existing tools online for easy experimentation and (b) deploying new ones.

<comment><USER5> In what situation might you use this instead of ocaml? There are a lot of drawbacks of using Standard ML in general, so I'd be interested in seeing if there are any advantages at all.

<comment><USER4> A lot of academic tools in verification and one in covert channel analysis are specific to SML. Such things might make me use this instead of Ocaml if SML's libraries improved to a similar level. For right now, I'd stick with Ocaml.

<comment><USER5> Thanks - that makes sense. My understanding is that SML's libraries will never improve to a similar level, sadly.

<comment><USER4> Between INRIA and Jane St, it probably won't. There's just so much work going on in Ocaml community. The thing I like most about INRIA and Ocaml academics is they often build things that are useful. Much SML projects are toys.

<comment><USER5> Add OCaml Labs (at Cambridge) to that list; their work is helping to remove some of the big gripes with OCaml whilst Mirage is genuinely interesting new (I think) work.

<comment><USER4> Oh yeah: they rock! Especially Mirage. That project combines a number of lessons learned from robust systems in the past while adding Ocaml to the mix. Add a robust middleware, a separation kernel, and certifying compiler with the right security checks/defaults to make MirageOS a bad-to-the-bone hosting solution.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Earn Up to 22% on P2P Investing – How-To Guide: Envestio - <AUTHOR> https://thefinancialdiary.com/how-to-guide-envestio/ <comment><USER2> It's probably not insured by the government, so if your money disappear you may have up to 100% loss.</comment>


How green are biofuels? - <AUTHOR> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20080503/biofuels_compare.gif <comment><USER2> Is it true that switchgrass doesn't compete with food production? That is, is it really possible to grow and harvest it on land that isn't currently used by crops at a scale that makes it worthwhile?

</comment><comment><USER3> The big problems I see with biofuel are waste management and chemicals usage.</comment>


Ask HN: Identify top blog/podcast to follow in your line of work? - <AUTHOR> i like economics but i am suffering from information paralysis. <comment><USER2> My line of work is in cloud computing, and there is more than enough content to read purely on my employers services. When I venture out I find the other HN, Hacker Noon[1] to have a good mix of articles from varying perspectives that are easily consumable.

[1] [https://hackernoon.com/](https://hackernoon.com/)</comment>


Who's Minding the Macintosh Store? - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/whos-minding-the-macintosh-store-ad354bea6941 <comment><USER2> While I appreciate that the iPhone business makes anything else at Apple appear insignificant, I have been amazed at how they've failed to maintain it.

Around 2014, Apple's laptops were celebrated as the best hardware in the business. They were in high demand, with clear dominance in multiple key niches.

Instead of matching the phone's regular release cadence, we've seen spotty update frequencies; instead of a clear product lineup, we've had the confusion of the MacBook vs Air (especially); the butterfly keyboard; the TouchBar; a push to USB-C-only ports; the struggle to get a 32GB-capable model; ho-hum performance; and increasingly meh updates to macOS.

It's like they need a separate "laptop division" (or maybe Mac division?) which can focus on delivering a great laptop product, and not get swamped by the iPhone, iPad, iServices (iCar, iAR, iChargingMat, iEtc).

My only hope is that the problem has been that the laptop folks are distracted by the new ARM-based devices which will blow everything out of the water when they're released next year ... (with the old keyboard, a bunch of ports, etc).</comment>


Ask HN: Screen scraper's server is fully open - <AUTHOR>

This company (call them ACME) who happen to be fairly big in the industry, screen scrapes our website backend (our users give them access) and updates data into our DB quite regularly. They're the most active ip address in our logs.
Because I like to look at logs fairly regularly, their new IP address gave me concern so I did a quick lookup and port scan. They happen to have open FTP access with anonymous login enabled.
What's worse is that their whole C: drive (Windows server) is viewable through the exposed FTP (apart from user directories) and from a quick glance, their application code which does the screen scraping is visible to anyone.
This code also includes config files (connection strings to DB, etc.) and of course the code which screen scrapes our site and many others.
What do we do? Contacting them and then being accused of server breach etc is not my idea of the foreseeable future and everything that comes with it.
There is an unfortunate tendency, especially here in the litigation happy US, to pursue the person who does the right thing by warning of possible security issues. I don't want to join that list.
In terms of their own security issues, this might be an issue and keeping quiet will protect our interests at least.
What would you do? <comment><USER2> Produce (if you don't already have one) a list of security measures companies that interact with your data must have in place. Send it to them, giving them a reasonable amount of time to implement the security (say, 2 weeks?)

If they fail to meet the security measures, block they're IP.

If your data is that sensitive and you don't want it to get into other companies hands, it's a reasonable request.

Just because they're a "big" company, doesn't mean IT is properly staffed. They may have 1 poor guy managing everything and it might have been a (albeit big) oversight.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am not at all versed in anything you have mentioned, but i'd like to ask: is your team/company/property at risk in any way or are you purely a spectator?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment, spectator. But if someone else who stumbles upon this server and has other motives, they could be able to dig further and gain access to DB files.

Then we would be at risk since I assume that's where they store our user credentials needed to login to our website backend and make updates. Although, that will be least of our worries since we can simply reset the username/passwords that have accessed out sites since we have activity logs.

<comment><USER4> If there's a potential risk that someone could gain access to your system by breaching theirs then I would raise it with them immediately.

As they're accessing your system you can probably safely say you always do a security check on hosts connecting to your system to ensure there aren't problems. In this instance it showed that they have an open FTP server.</comment></comment></comment>


Details on the Ham Radio Equipment Being Used on the ISS - <AUTHOR> http://k0lwc.com/new-ham-radio-onboard-the-iss-is-on-the-air/ <comment><USER2> Here is a video of me listening to the repeater while the ISS passes over Houston, TX at night: [https://twitter.com/_lennart/status/1305685955370725376](https://twitter.com/_lennart/status/1305685955370725376)

<comment><USER3> Absolutely love this capture.

The ISS is between 250-300 miles away in this picture, traveling so fast that a drop of sweat has the kinetic energy of a 44 magnum. And yet the short antenna and circuitry on that little $50 radio can see what amounts to a microwave lightbulb hanging off the ISS well enough to extract a one part in a million fluctuations in power four hundred and thirty seven million times a second.

Pretty wild

<comment><USER4> That's actually true for most electromagnetic telecoms. Ten orders of magnitude between the transmitted and received power is usually the easy case. With more careful techniques you can do even twenty or more orders of magnitude.

And yes, it baffles me as well.

<comment><USER3> There's a reason the word 'magic' is invoked around RF more than just about any technology.

<comment><USER5> My favorite is GPS. Not only below the noise floor, but significantly below it.. and all the satellites are on the same frequency. Gold codes are insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I absolutely love that the ISS crew are so involved with amateur radio activities. It was a huge motivator to try out some new stuff, and it was super exciting to pick up actual image transmissions[0] from the space station!! I honestly couldn't believe it was for real until the image was actually coming through. As someone who had almost no experience with radio stuff, this was, as someone else said in this discussion already, "like magic". :)

[0]: [https://twitter.com/amatecha/status/1157891660648370176](https://twitter.com/amatecha/status/1157891660648370176)

</comment><comment><USER7> sent my dad the link thinking this is cool

he replied with this link [https://ve3cnu.blogspot.com/2012/03/this-ham-shack- is-crazy....](https://ve3cnu.blogspot.com/2012/03/this-ham-shack-is- crazy.html)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, fascinating.

Unfortunately looking at his logs I fear he may be a silent key. No contacts in a year.

<comment><USER9> I had to look up what sk was... I think you're right

> By now you've probably guessed that George isn't exactly a spring chicken, > and that he's getting up in years. This is very true and it is one of his > great wishes that his collection find a permanent home after he's gone so > that future generations can enjoy and appreciate the hobby for many years to > come.

I wonder if anyone was able to make that happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is using the D710G for the APRS digipeater, cross-band FM repeater, and for simplex / SSTV transmissions? Impressive. It will be interesting to see how it holds up.

And nice marketing for Kenwood!

I'd probably get a D710G if I had a more suitable vehicle for it, like a space station (or truck I guess).

I have the D72A which is the handheld equivalent (fewer features of course, but has APRS/packet radio TNC built in) and it's great.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article implies that the previous the ham rig on the ISS was the Ericsson handheld. Wasn't there a Kenwood D700 operating for quite a while?

<comment><AUTHOR> The D700 was not very operational as they didn't think it through very well. Cooling was an issue as was the software loaded on. Lots of bugs. This new IORS discussed in the article addresses much of that. What has been working tirelessly are the two Ericcson HTs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great, except it always seems like it's the same big booming voices every time blasting their way in on the ISS and other FM satellites.</comment>


U.S. blames North Korea for 'WannaCry' cyber attack - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-northkorea/u-s-blames-north-korea-for-wannacry-cyber-attack-idUSKBN1ED00Q <comment><USER2> And mirai was the russians! (Sarcasm,it's not).

I'm not saying it's not NK,just that there are plenty of well funded large scale advanced blackhat organizations (e.g. - Dridex). It's also known that NK has foreign offices in China and elsewhere. Russians recruit hackers for their APT work and in exchange let the hackers do whatever they want,why not NK hackers?

If you were a NK hacker in china,wouldn't it cross your mind to weaponize a treasure trove of NSA tools into a profitable ransomware? Code similarities with lazarus group tools can be explained by this and other similar plausible theories.

NK is low on cash so it could have been a pyongyang directive. But the whole operation lacks a lot of the operational and organizational details a typical APT operation would exhibit. A kill switch but no whitelist to avoid annoying allies. when kill switch was discovered I would expect a nation state operation to quickly adopt. Nation states love hoarding strategic compromises (typically websites,botnets,etc...) As far as I know,no pre-existing botnet or compromised sites took part in catalyzing the worm.

Again,not saying it's not NK,I'm just saying a few too many things seem off, I take this attribution with a few grains of salt.

<comment><AUTHOR> I doubt WannaCry or the Shadow Brokers leaks were meant to actually make money. They seem more like they were executed to make NSA look worse than it already does. Most of the recent sensationalized leaks have seemed to fit that bill.

But you're right, attribution here is dangerous unless they have some solid evidence.

<comment><USER3> Every byte is placed with purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While the DPRK cultivates their talent, we indict ours: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researche...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researcher- who-stopped-wannacry-ransomware-detained-in-us).

As someone else here has noted, it is impressive what DPRK has put together with comparatively limited resources. It makes me wonder what the cyber- landscape is going to look like in the coming years as the U.S. continues to ostracize the already scarce few who actually know how to reverse engineer malware, AND have the ethics to properly report it.

<comment><USER5> Does cultivation of tech talent matter when the chance of execution by mortar shell is present?

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/96...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9630509/North- Korean-army-minister-executed-with-mortar-round.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The earliest reports I can find claiming that North Korea may have been involved were from the middle of May:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643226/wannacry- ransomw...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643226/wannacry-ransomware- north-korea-attribution-wannacrypt)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/15/wannacry-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/15/wannacry- ransomware-north-korea-lazarus-group)

There is nothing conclusive there though

If this is not the most convenient way to justify going to war with North Korea then I don't know what is. It is almost as if the hackers WANTED to get caught by reusing code that was previously used in an attack initiated by North Korea.

Also we shouldn't forget that it was an exploit developed by the NSA to begin with.

Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?

<comment><USER7> In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea[1], as did the UK government[2], neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war.

[1] [http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as- seri...](http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as-serious-as- terrorism-says-microsoft-boss)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind- wannac...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind-wannacry- cyber-attack-that-crippled-nhs.html)

<comment><USER8> In the run-up to the Iraq war there was this group of UN weapons inspectors that had concluded based on the available evidence that Saddam did not have WMD.

That did not stop the UK from going ahead with their bit in the Gulf War. If a war is to be had evidence doesn't really matter. It could be fabricated far easier than you could have real evidence, history has quite a few examples.

Given the current political climate in the UK I would not put it past them to start making stuff up, a distraction from internal strife is always a good reason to start a war.

Microsoft - I hope - is another matter.

The reason why - at least, to me - there is little point to either the UK or the US wanting to start a war with NK is that unlike Iraq NK actually has a good chance of inflicting massive damage on an ally. Plus the lottery ticket of Kim being able to lob a nuke halfway across the globe and make it stick even if attacked might be another item that gives pause to the powers that be.

So, whether NK is behind these attacks or not is absent very solid proof an open question, whether or not the government is laying the grounds for war hardly matters, those are not necessarily connected, though they could be it would be a first to go to a shooting war with a nation state over a cyber attack.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around regarding the reasoning behind the war in Iraq and the role that US, UK, and Iran all played.

<comment><USER9> I realized recently that a lot of people writing about it today were not necessarily old enough to follow politics yet at the time of the events.

No, the WMD claim by the US was not an honest mistake, it was a purposeful lie to be used as an excuse for war.

Here is a speech by GWB on Iraq in 2002: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/07/usa.iraq](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/07/usa.iraq)

The claim was that Iraq threatened USA. At the time, everybody knew this was a lie. Iraq did not have capable missiles to reach US territory and claims that it had a secret nuclear program were extremely dubious. Remember : the fear was nuclear ICBM, this is what was hammered in the media. They fell back to chemical weapons, but if the US plans to invade every country with a stock of chemical weapons, good fucking luck!

Colin Powell, presenting the threats to the UN council, put forward a nuclear threat. He used as proofs, documents that were fake. "Obvious fake" as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency would call them: [http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/](http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/)

What he said about it: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

These were not mistakes, these were lies: [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-schwarz/colin- powell...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-schwarz/colin-powell-wmd- iraq-war_b_2624620.html)

Iraq was (correctly it appears, in hindsight) fearing an invasion so it was worried that opening up to foreign inspectors would lead to espionage to prepare the invading forces.

In the end, as a last hope to preserve peace, it allowed inspectors in a mission, led by Hans Blix. Here is how he described the cooperation of Iraqi forces:

"Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with Unmovic in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable."

> If I believed any conspiracy as far as Iraq goes

US disregarded that and still decided to invade. No one had a single doubt that this was about oil.

Iraq is a clear case of a conspiracy. This is actually a very good counter- point to conspiracy theorists: When a government tries to lie about something, it is really obvious, and it still works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Admittedly, I'm only 30 so I was an angsty teen who blindly opposed it and everything the Bush administration did. I've only recently been starting to rebuild some faith in government (what a time to do so).

> US disregarded that and still decided to invade. No one had a single doubt > that this was about oil.

I remember that being what everyone cried in opposition to the war with Iraq but I never understood it. How did oil factor into the war?

<comment><USER10> Oil is an oversimplification. The US could have just bought all the oil it wanted from Iraq at market prices for less than the cost of going to war, and the Hussein regime would have been happy to sell it at those same prices. So that doesn't really fly as a whole explanation.

The Bush Adm. had its eyes on Iraq pre-9/11\. It's mostly forgotten now, but there were Tomahawk cruise missile attacks on Iraq in the summer of 2001. I remember discussing it and even noted in a journal entry that summer that it looked like G.W.B. wanted to go back and finish G.H.W.B.'s job.

It was not as straightforward as just oil. I think that eventually history will settle on it being a more complex set of factors, some of which boiled down to personal animosity by the President, and a feeling that Hussein had been given a free pass by the US in 1991 and was using it to thumb his nose at the West and, in doing so, was in a position to build up power and status within the region on the basis of having "survived" a US-led invasion and deposition attempt. To conservative hawks, his continued existence was a reminder of US failure and impotence, which didn't fit with the US's unipolar, pax Americana / "hyperpower" ambitions at the time. It wasn't a war for territory as much as it was a very public execution (or, politely, "regime change"), _pour encourager les autres_.

Hussein was a dead man, in retrospect, when G.W.B. got elected; it just took the administration a while to figure out how to get the war they'd wanted from the beginning out of the post-9/11 environment. Absent 9/11, if you look at what was going on during the early months of the G.W. Bush presidency, they would probably have found a way to push Hussein into giving them a casus belli anyway (it's not like Saddam was the most level-headed dictator; given the resources of the entire State Department, one can safely assume the US would have come up with a way of making him overreach, and then grab that overreach to pull him off the cliff and into destruction).

The oil and strategic position of Iraq viz. Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc., certainly helped make the case and pushed aside what might have been probable objections (if we invade, how can we survive an oil boycott, a la 1973?), but saying that it was a "war for oil" as is sometimes claimed doesn't really wash. You don't need to go to war for oil at the price the US goes to war for, _you just buy the damn oil_. You go to war for things you can't buy with money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That sounds more plausible. I'd suspected it had more to do with Iran/Russia but Bush Jr probably did come into office with some agenda.

I still don't understand why everyone keeps bringing this up as evidence that our approach towards NK is war mongering. Maybe some attention to NK has more to do with China and Russia than people tend to focus on, but it doesn't mean NK isn't a bad actor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's essential to remember that many wars begin with errors of attribution, and many of those errors are intentional or at least reflect a strong bias in the accusers. Examples off the top of my head:

* 'Remember the Maine' instigated the Spanish-American War, but much evidence says the Maine was destroyed by accident. William Randolph Hearst, a leading publisher of yellow journalism, famously promised a compatriot: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war".

* The Gulf of Tonkin incident instigated American involvment in the Vietnam War.

* Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, which didn't exist, instigated the Iraq War.

In today's case, I trust the source much less than many of those who have made prior errors. I also note that it was a the head of Homeland Security, a political appointee, who made the accusation. It was not the head of the FBI or an intelligence agency; it is not represented, at least in the reporting I've seen, as a consensus of the US intelligence community; I also note that the White House has left some distance between itself and the accusation - it's not made by the President or his National Security Advisor, for example.

Also, the very serious accusation rings of hype. _North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade_ , which is false and a political swipe at the prior President. If that part of the accusation is exaggerated and political, I wonder about the other parts, and I wonder about the accusers ability or willingness to separate politics from very serious policy.

<comment><USER12> Despite the truth of your historical timeline, 'WannaCry' does neatly fit the profile of Room 39, a department of the North Korean government which raises foreign currency through cybercrime and other criminal activities [0][1]. They have been implicated in past hacks by non-U.S. groups as well, including Kaspersky Labs [2].

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/he-ran- nor...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/he-ran-north-koreas- secret-money-making-operation-now-he-lives-in- virginia/2017/07/12/4cb9a590-6584-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39#Purpose_and_activities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39#Purpose_and_activities) [2][http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/05/news/economy/north-korea- eco...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/05/news/economy/north-korea-economy- china-trump-xi/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Thanks; that's valuable to know. And certainly past mis-attribution does not make every attribution false.

> 'WannaCry' does neatly fit the profile of Room 39

Let's keep in mind that for state-level intelligence agencies, sophisticated frame jobs are normal activities and attribution of IT attacks is difficult. Again, that doesn't rule out NK in any way, but in this situation the profile of behavior doesn't tell us much (though I do value the other evidence in the parent).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this official level blame just another checklist item towards justifying the US doing a "military action" on NK?

<comment><USER14> No, because not even Americans are stupid enough to believe the US will do a "military action" on a nuclear power. Fewer still see malware as casus belli.

<comment><USER15> We have "render safe" procedures for _e.g._ a collapse of the Pakistani government. We likely have similar plans for North Korea. In any case, the nukes aren't the insurmountable problem. It's the volumes of hidden artillery trained on Seoul that are problematic.

<comment><USER14> I see some difference between a checklist for starting a nuclear (or as you pointed out, shrapnel) holocaust and contingency planning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it intriguing that people somehow seems to know who's behind stuff. It's not exactly hard to hide all traces, so I find it hard to believe that a state would fail doing so.

The US is clearly the one to blame for WannaCry. If it wasn't for the NSA leaking and not reporting vurnerabilities this would probably never have happened.

<comment><USER17> More intriguing to me is how some people here are trying to claim this isn't North Korea, where it has all the markings of past North Korean cyberattacks and consistent with published findings about their specific departments _tasked with the goal of raising money for Kim 's private fund_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39)

<comment><USER16> My guess is that it's most likely just a kid somewhere who had some fun.

Considering the kill switch the person behind this clearly didn't have much experience, so I find it very very hard to belive that some other state than the US was involved in this.

<comment><USER17> Your guess is as good as redditor

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to see the attribution data. Don't hold your breath.

</comment><comment><USER19> You should really distinguish between "the US" and "the Trump admin". This may be a little hard, but the latter has no credibility internationally.

The Trump administration is clearly pushing for a stronger take on North Korea and its had no problems lying in the past. Sure North Korea might be behind this, but at this point Trumps credibility is so low they might as well be blaming unicorns.

<comment><USER20> > You should really distinguish between "the US" and "the Trump admin".

Is this a thing that is possible to do? Given that the trump admin is literally the highest office in the US, and it's common for the lower orgs to parrot things from the top, it seems very difficult to make this distinction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So the blaming starts... And like the Electric Six were chanting "... let's start a war, a nuclear war..."

</comment><comment><USER22> I was about to write "I'm not sure pointing fingers like that is the best diplomatic attitude there is", but then I thought I should read the article first.

Amusingly enough, when the page showed up, I saw the accompanying video thumbnail which was precisely a hand with a pointing finger.

</comment><comment><USER23> sure, what else? who else?

it's very rich coming from a country who facilitates (cough!! NSA) warrantless surveillance on it's own citizens.

<comment><USER24> That's not as important as the fact that it spies on foreigners and hacks their computers. Americans somehow decided spying and hacking is OK as long as it's being done to others, not themselves. They shouldn't be surprised that other countries hold the reciprocal views.

<comment><USER25> Other countries will hold reciprocal views regardless of American sentiments on the issue. Nations are not people and hypocrisy doesn't matter on an international scale. Any student of history would see this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation...

North Korea has no place in this discussion. The entity responsible for the WannaCry debacle is a US-based spy organization we all know and love.

<comment><USER27> > If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation...

Maybe. There's probably also a lot of countries who would love nothing more than to grab some popcorn and watch the U.S. and North Korea start nuking each other, much the same way that the U.S. 'manages' the Middle East and South America by getting random countries to start genociding each other.

<comment><USER28> There are also a lot of authoritarians in the US and globally who thirst for war as a vehicle to consolidate their own power.

<comment><USER29> And indeed, perhaps they have manipulated NK to become just the threat that they need. Scary enough, but not very dangerous. Except to SK and Japan. And to China, which may in fact be the primary target.

<comment><USER28> The issue with NK, as with virtually all international issues as regards our country, is the zeal those who run the country have for global military empire - US(NATO) global hegemony. China (understandably) does not want, and will not allow US troops to mass on their border. As long as South Korea remains a client state of the US(NATO) with tens of thousands of US troops, multiple bases, missiles, bombers, ships, and anti-missile batteries stationed there, the Chinese will do everything in their power to support the survival of North Korean regime as a buffer, no matter how insane or dangerous NK is described as being (or actually is). For the Chinese, it is far more dangerous to have US(NATO) forces, that(unlike North Korea) have proven their willingness to invade and topple governments resistant to their policy of global hegemony.

The simple truth is that we decimated Korea, a country on the other side of the world, with horrific bombings, an invasion and subsequent occupation that has lasted for over half a century (and which continues to this very day). The bifurcation of the Koreas was (and remains) the direct result of our military adventures. Our "ally" South Korea was a military dictatorship until well into the 1980s. Unfortunately not 1 in 100 Americans could find Korea on a map, let alone describe the history of our involvement there. Consequently, its very easy to paint the North Koreans as some sort of unhinged bunch of lunatics that simply "hate us for our freedoms" rather than for atrocities we actually committed. This lack of understanding and ignorance of history is what allows the "bipartisan" war party of Democrats and Republicans in Congress to paint opponents of war and advocates of peace as "Russian propagandists".

We stand on the edge of what could very well be a civilization-ending war (in more than one place) while most Americans nod dully, with glazed over eyes, uncritically accepting government propaganda as gospel. In the not-so-recent past I was chided by the owner of HN for quoting Goebbels to describe the tactics of our government and the ignorance of our people, but silence is complicity. The North Korea situation (like the "Russia conspiracy") once again demands its recitation:

 _Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country._

<comment><USER29> Indeed, nations define and sustain themselves through their enemies. And, to perhaps belabor the point, that serves all nations in conflict. Or at least, it serves their ruling elites. Who are fundamentally all kleptocrats.

There's a sequence in Takashi Miike's "Izo" that's very reminiscent of that Goebbels quote: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKG6eOSwSa4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKG6eOSwSa4) Izo was a samurai/assassin who was crucified in 1865, and the film is an extended (and extremely bloody) meditation on social manipulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've got to say, I'm incredibly impressed by how a country with zero computer education or infrastructure manages to launch a successful cyber attack against the most militaristically aggressive nation on earth right as that country is trying to pin them--a country with zero conflicts in 60 years--as the world's biggest threat.

<comment><USER31> > _right as that country is trying to pin them--a country with zero conflicts > in 60 years--as the world 's biggest threat._

What's the implication here? That the US is somehow unjustified in being alarmed by NK becoming a full nuclear power, soon with worldwide ICBM range?

Think about the situation in that country. A small cabal of crooks lives like kings while the rest of the country suffers a never ending reign of terror, involving public executions in school yards, horrific labor camps, total surveillance, punishment of whole families, etc. The guy in charge is a sicko who executed his uncle with an anti-aircraft gun, and probably had a good laugh throughout the whole thing. The previous leader, his father, did such things as kidnap South Korean actors to force them to put on shows for him. These are deeply deranged people.

Now imagine that regime on the verge of collapse, for one of the many possible reasons that could happen. The cabal of crooks know that they will all be executed by the North Korean people for their crimes.

How sure are you that, when that moment comes, the regime won't launch nukes against all of their longtime enemies, just for the hell of it as a parting fuck you to the world?

<comment><USER30> >What's the implication here?

That North Korea is justified in building up their arsenal to protect themselves from a country that has actively sought to topple other governments it simply just doesn't like.

That vast majority of threats North Korea makes are "If America does this, we will retaliate." Meanwhile, American politicians endlessly call for preemptive strikes on Iran and North Korea because they've allegedly been on the verge of wiping out humanity for decades now. I've stopped buying the bullshit, but the "Kim Jong Un got gout from cheese and died but only before killing his uncle with an antiaircraft gun" headlines keep rolling.

<comment><USER32> If only for how they have oppressed their poor people, the NK regime deserves annihilation.

<comment><USER30> If there's one thing America has mastered, it's the art of starting conflicts with "good intentions" like this and causing more harm than their enemy.

See: Libya, Vietnam, Iraq.

Every few years Americans say "never again", until the media sells the same lies as before and people forget.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


[Video] Advice for 15 year old startup entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/06/my-first-advise.html

<comment><USER2> Whoa... 15-year old kid starting a start-up? Good luck! I'm 15 too, but even though I've done some some programming in the past three years (compilers/interpreters, PHP, some Java GUI, reverse engineered a file format) I don't think I would try to start a company, school taking up 8 hours a day and all that. Yet.

<comment><USER3> Better to start now then when you're trying to jugle a startup and a demanding full time job. I work around 9-10 hours a day and still have plenty of time to work on my business. So there's no reason you can't give it a shot! Some great companies have been started in people's spare time. You never know what might happen, even if you start with something small.

In hindsight I wish I had tried to start up a business when I was at school. Even if they had been failures, I'd have a pretty good understanding of certain business aspects that most young people would have yet to have learnt.

The best time is now. Tomorrow is too late.

<comment><USER4> I'll second that. It's only when you get older and enter the work force that you realise how much spare time you had when you were in school.

When I was 14/15 I started a business in school via a government funded scheme called "young enterprise" that encouraged youngsters to create companies. We had several business people come in from outside school to give advice (ours were a local HSBC bank manager and someone who worked in advertising from Intel). Myself and my friends ended up building a company that made & sold key rings of all things.

It didn't work out very well but the experience was great - I learned that business is really just about making something that people will buy and selling it to them for more than it cost you to make. When you understand that all of the big words business people throw around are not so intimidating.

I'd encourage any young person who is thinking of starting a company to just go and do it. Whatever it is they end up doing and whether it is a big success or completely tanks doesn't really matter. At a young age you can always recover from failure and the experience you gain will make it all worthwhile.</comment></comment></comment>


The Android Administration - Google's Close Relationship w/ the White House - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ <comment><USER2> "In 2012, staff at the Federal Trade Commission recommended filing antitrust charges after determining that Google was engaging in anti-competitive tactics and abusing its monopoly. A staff report that was later leaked said Google's conduct "has resulted — and will result — in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets.""

The FTC figured it out first. But the EU was the first to actually act.</comment>


SF to require Lyft, Uber drivers to obtain business licenses - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-to-require-Lyft-Uber-drivers-to-obtain-7250137.php <comment><USER2> Wow, some hidden surprises here.

\- they argue that they are not newly requiring this, just newly gained the ability to enforce, and so will enforce it _for previous years as well_

\- Uber is falling back on the whole independent contractor angle: not our employees, not our licensing problem

\- Lyft says they have issues with publicising driver information, but it isn't clear to me where this is made public.

<comment><USER3> The city got the companies to provide information on all the drivers who operate in SF, presumably the city publishes holders of these business licenses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does that mean a driver can also be protected from liabilitu through an LLC?</comment>


Tell HN: Free books for HN members - <AUTHOR>

I have some books here that I was planning to donate to my local library. Some of them are fairly technical (although outdated), and I wanted to first see if they'd be of any interest to HN members. I give full credit for the idea to user dawson who did the same earlier this week: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156716
I'm not asking for any money for the books, but I'd appreciate if you could paypal me the shipping costs. Or if you're somewhere local in the Bay Area, we can meet in person. Also if you have better ideas for meaningful places to donate such technical books (Hacker Dojo?), let me know.
The books are listed below. Most are in very good condition. I provided the Amazon link for the ones I could find.
Thanks everyone.
(Edit: fixed the formatting)
Technical books:
1. Windows NT Device Driver Book, The: A Guide for Programmers: http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Device-Driver-Book-Programmers/dp/0131844741/ref=tmm_pap_title_1
2. Advanced Windows by Jeffrey Richter: http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Windows-Jeffrey-Richter/dp/1572315482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267856585&sr=1-1
3. Handbook of Computer Communication Standard, Vol 1: The Open System Intercon Model (OSI): http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Computer-Communication-Standard-Computer-Communications/dp/0024155217
4. The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup: http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-Bjarne-Stroustrup/dp/0201538644/ref=tmm_pap_title_3
5. Gigabit Networking by Craig Partridge: http://www.amazon.com/Gigabit-Networking-Craig-Partridge/dp/0201563339/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267858462&sr=1-1
6. Networking Software by Colin B. Ungaro: http://www.amazon.com/Networking-Software-Mcgraw-Hill-Data-Communications/dp/0076069699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267858495&sr=1-1
7. Inside Windows NT by Helen Custer: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Windows-Network-Helen-Custer/dp/155615481X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
8. Operating System Concepts, 6th Edition
by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne: http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silberschatz/dp/0471417432/ref=tmm_hrd_title_5
9. Problem Solving With C++: The Object of Programming by Walter J. Savitch: http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Solving-C-Object-Programming/dp/0201357496/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
10. ATM Foundations for Broadband Networks by Uyless Black
Non-technical books:
11. Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Every Day by Stephen R. Covey: http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Reflections-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671887173/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267857292&sr=1-1
12. The Trial of Socrates by Irving Stone: http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrates-I-F-Stone/dp/0385260326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267857423&sr=1-1
13. 301 Great Management Ideas: From America's Most Innovative Small Companies by Bradford Ketchum Jr.: http://www.amazon.com/301-Great-Management-Ideas-Innovative/dp/1880394219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267856202&sr=1-1
14. After the Merger: The Authoritative Guide for Integration Success, Revised Edition: http://www.amazon.com/After-Merger-Authoritative-Integration-Success/dp/0786312394/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267856752&sr=1-1
15. Beyond the Summit: Setting and Surpassing Extraordinary Business Goals: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Summit-Surpassing-Extraordinary-Business/dp/159184004X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_1
16. Psychology and Personal Growth (2nd Edition) by Abe Arkoff
17. Negotiating Game: How to Get What You Want by Chester L. Karrass
18. Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne W. Dyer
19. You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen <comment><USER2> I just gave away about 20 books using <http://bookmooch.com/> \- good overview here: <http://bookmooch.com/about/overview>

For each book you send to someone, you get points you can use to request a book from someone else.

It even has an API: <http://bookmooch.com/api/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the pointer Derek. I will put the remaining books on BookMooch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you like OS concepts? I'm not really sure I'd recommend it. I think it's OK but a little too theoretical. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Stevens' books (including Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment). TAOCP is pretty much a must-read for some parts (the kernel memory manager comes to mind). All in all: free is nice but some things are just worth the money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree about OS Concepts - it's fairly theoretical. It's still a good foundation IMHO.

I haven't read TAOCP.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 5, 8, 11, 12, 17, 18, and 19 are taken.

<comment><AUTHOR> 9 is taken as well.

<comment><USER4> hi, is #2 taken?

<comment><AUTHOR> Send me an email, and we'll figure things out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey,

I'd love to take a few of these off you if you don't mind shipping to LA. Of course I'll cover shipping. Specifically (8, 11, 17, 19).

My email's in my profile,

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good. Just sent you an email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think I'd like 12 (and maybe 16, not sure yet). Email is in my profile also. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> 12's taken. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey, I'm interested in #4 and I'm located in Palo Alto.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be in Palo Alto this afternoon. Send me an email and let's see if we can figure something out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is 9 taken yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is still available. Send me an email, and we'll figure things out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can I have 13?

<comment><AUTHOR> Send me an email, and we'll figure things out.</comment></comment>