Taking Over DigitalOcean Domains via a Lax Domain Import System - <AUTHOR> https://thehackerblog.com/floating-domains-taking-over-20k-digitalocean-domains-via-a-lax-domain-import-system/index.html <comment><USER3> This doesn't help my impression of Digital Ocean at all (even if I am a paying customer currently). A few years ago you could impersonate Digital Ocean staff on their support pages with no effort. They grabbed the username from your email, so whatever you put in front of the @ becamse your username on the forums, visible to everyone. And the avatar came from one of those email->avatar services where you can sign up and set it to anything. So when I signed up with a username like firstname.lastname@example.com, I ended up being called "digitalocean" on the support forums, and if I had wanted I could just change the avatar to the Digital Ocean logo and impersonate DO or anyone else.

I tried reporting it but got pretty much the same answer as this guy (though I did not get banned). Luckily they fixed it like a year later.

Great write-up, and interesting problem! I wonder if more hosting providers are vulnerable to the same problem.

<comment><USER4> I can think of at least Cloudflare (somewhat), Linode, and Hurricane Electric off the top of my head. Anybody who operates a well-known ns1 type of resolver. It's more a problem with zone hygiene than hosts, honestly.

<comment><USER5> Cloudflare does something similar to AWS. Each user gets different nameservers

<comment><USER6> Is that true? The nameserver I was given by CloudFlare is "nelly.ns.cloudflare.com". From some cursory searches, it seems like a large number of domains have that same nameserver. AWS nameserver hostnames have all kinds of numbers in them that seem a lot more like they're generated per user.

<comment><USER7> While you can generate unique hostnames of name servers per user you can't assign all of them unique IP addresses (at least in IPv4) as dns resolving doesn't have anything like vhosts (why should it?). So there will be overlap. Which is not a problem as long as the set of name servers for one users doesn't overlap the set of name servers for another user for a single domain.

So you confirm that a set of name server belongs to a user by verifying that its domain record has those name servers configured. You then don't allow another user to control the same name servers for that domain as long as the domain record still points to them. New users can then freely create new name servers but the domain still uses the servers assigned to by the domain owner.

What DO does is that it allows any user to control the name server for a domain if the previous owner gives up control of them. It should only do that, once the domain records start pointing anywhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This same thing happens with CloudFlare & is being actively exploited. We reported it to them within the last two weeks and we were told that it's expected behaviour and that they weren't going to do anything about it.

I asked them to, at the absolute least, send an email notification to the prior-CloudFlare owner letting them know that the domain "your CF account used to control is now being controlled by a new CF account". Better yet, implement a domain ownership validation scheme.

They told us that they wouldn't be making any changes.

FWIW, on CloudFlare what happened to us was: we were moving registrars for ~100 domains, from GoDaddy to Route53. During this transition, the NS for the domains temporarily became blank; at this point CF automatically removed the domains from our CF account. The NS were then re-added to the domains on the Route53 side (<4 hours of 'no nameserver' time).

Apparently there are people out there that are looking for domains that are pointed to CF and then attempting to add them to their own CF account (automated I'm sure) -- which CF lets them do without any verification once they've been auto-removed from your [the original CF account] account.

Interestingly, the original account must be still stored in their system with the domain because we were able to re-add the domain to our original CF account without any verification; effectively "stealing the domains back" to our CF account, away from the thieve's CF account.

In this case, the "attackers" (perhaps more appropriate, I call them 'malicious actors') were able to commandeer ~100 of our domains for ~2 months, for free; they redirected them to Russian websites, torrent sites, affiliate sites, etc.

Again, this is being _actively exploited_ on CloudFlare, at the direct expense of CF customers -- but, according to CF, it's not an issue...?!

<comment><USER9> > according to CF, it's not an issue...?!

According to CloudFlare, they are are a reverse proxy, and they are not responsible for anything. This has been their response to _every_ issue that I've tried to bring up with them over any channel, including here on HN.

CloudFlare just doesn't care.

<comment><USER10> not at all accurate. If you find something abusive or malicious report it: cloudflare.com/abuse -- every report filed there is reviewed by a human.

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, in the support ticket exchange I did indeed offer to submit details of the attack vector along with proof that it's currently being actively exploited, for financial gain & at the direct expense of your customers.

I was basically told "you will be wasting your time"...

<comment><USER11> To be fair, he did say "is reviewed by a human", not "we care" or "we will act on it"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I will never stop being infuriated by responses like this from companies - <USER2> many more megaleaks have to happen before they realize that they need to embrace white hats, not ban their accounts, not sue them, not swat them / have them arrested, not silence them.

Great find / writeup.

<comment><USER13> Why, when the author realised this was likely to be possible, didn't they get in touch with DO? Or try with a domain they knew was OK to use? Or at _least_ just try with one domain.

They took almost twenty thousand, sent all the requests to their own server and logged them.

That's surely not your first step.

<comment><USER12> Domains can only be added if they are not in another account, so he added only domains which were previously deleted but still pointed to DO nameservers (hence almost certainly not being used).

And if DO was really concerned about the damage then they would have removed the added A records, but they didn't, they banned the author and continued to let all traffic go to his server.

<comment><USER13> > (hence almost certainly not being used)

Well they were still being accessed by real people.

> And if DO was really concerned about the damage then they would have removed > the added A records, but they didn't, they banned the author and continued > to let all traffic go to his server.

Both seem reasonable. And it does sound like the security team are actually doing something about it.

> I reached out to DigitalOcean's team to see if they can assist in deleting > the domains from my account (sadly leaving them vulnerable again) or > sinkholing the DNS to 127.0.0.1. I received a very helpful response from > someone on the security team and it appears they will look into it.

I assume these things happened from different departments. Banning an account because you saw it make 20k requests to your API adding domains seems pretty reasonable, and it was a few hours before they reached out. If you saw that activity, would you ban the account or leave it open hoping that they'd be doing something nice and reach out?

<comment><USER14> > Banning an account because you saw it make 20k requests to your API adding > domains seems pretty reasonable, and it was a few hours before they reached > out. If you saw that activity, would you ban the account or leave it open > hoping that they'd be doing something nice and reach out?

If I was a domain reseller, adding my 20k domains to digital ocean just to get banned without warning, explaination or option for reconsideration I would be rightfully upset. If they didn't want people adding large numbers of domains they could just have limited the feature instead of banning people who reach some arbitrary threshold.

If on the other hand the department that executed the ban knew that the registrations weren't made by the domain owners, they should be discussing such a huge incident with the security team. That discussion would naturally lead to them knowing about the specifics of this case, unless this case wasn't widely shared in the security team.

So the options are:

1\. Digital Ocean bans legitimate customers without warning or option for reconsideration; for no obvious reason

2\. Big security incidents don't get reported to the security team

3\. The responsible people thought that this was not a big security incident

4\. This incident wasn't discussed in the security team

5\. They knowingly banned a white hat hacker (who may or may not have gone too far)

Of all those options, the last one is by far the one that looks best for Digital Ocean.

<comment><USER13> Or 6, they spoke to the security team in the interim period of several hours between the addition of all the domains and when the author reported the issue to the security team.

Neither of us really know what's happened here, but the author at least thinks DOs actions were justified so I'm reasonably happy to leave it at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey Matthew,

I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your feedback, as well as the feedback from the other commenters here.

I understand that many here are concerned that banning the account seems, from this perspective, to have been an unjustified action. I do believe that there is a bit of a misunderstanding on the timeline of events here, as well as the source of the decision. To be clear, Cash supported the decision that I had made to ban the account in question, and there had been no communication between us and Matthew at this point. We began receiving a significant number of support requests to remove domains from this account, and I authorized the shutting down of this account as it was clear to me what was happening. I have been working with our engineers to see to the removal of the domains from the account as well.

I apologize if our actions seemed at any point rude or inappropriate, it was definitely not my intention. I want nothing more than to look out for the safety and wellbeing of our customers, and I chose what I believed to be the best action. I do want you to know that if I was aware that a security researcher had been working on testing a theory, I might have acted differently. That can, however, impact the reason behind a white hat test. You generally want the company to see you as normal user, so that you can see how they act in return. We do shut down users who are intentionally causing problems for other users, and I do think that was made evident here.

I do understand that opening a line of communication with Matthew may have been appropriate, and I consider that valuable feedback moving forward.

<3 Jarland

<comment><USER16> Hey Jarland thanks for the thoughtful response. I don't think your actions were rude or inappropriate (what host would see this behavior and not act similarly?). I apologize that the discussion on the topic became so negative towards DigitalOcean (this might be my fault, I was merely trying to point out why I hadn't been able to delete the domains - not say that DigitalOcean was a bad company/etc). The disclaimer I added early on I thought would mitigate some of this negativity but apparently not quite.

At the very least I'm happy that some people have seen this more as a study of this pattern of functionality being an issue instead of this being only a DigitalOcean problem. I've seen (and have been reached out by) multiple people realizing this affects their company as well which has been awesome to watch.

<comment><USER15> No worries! You're always welcome at DigitalOcean :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great article! I'm saddened by DO's response and further wronging a white hat by banning you.

Let's remember Linode offers 2x the RAM.

<comment><USER18> Linode has an _awful_ track record for security.

<comment><USER19> So does DigitalOcean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Something similar happened to me a few months ago with Cloudflare. I set up a new domain to use Cloudflare's nameservers but did not immediately get around to setting it up on the admin panel. By the time I wanted to add the domain, someone else had already grabbed it and set up some sort of spam page.

Took a few emails to Cloudflare support to resolve this one. They also didn't seem to care much about the security implications when I questioned them about it.

So this is far from a DO-specific issue...

<comment><USER10> "They also didn't seem to care much about the security implications when I questioned them about it." no one ever said that was the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wonder what else might be vulnerable to this... CloudFlare seems like it may, they only have a handful of nameservers in any case.

Sort of hard to call it a vulnerability on DO's part though - more of an issue with the admins. I think most DNS services operate in this way, really, route53 may be the exception, not the rule.

</comment><comment><USER22> TO: ANY DIGITAL-OCEAN USER,

This is an absolutely terrible response from DO. If I had anything hosted here, I'd move away ASAP. Seriously, do it.

<comment><USER23> Do you know of an alternative that can host an instance of FreeBSD?

<comment><USER24> I believe Vultr offers FreeBSD (and custom ISO) hosting at about the same price and offers storage servers too. Their documentation and remote console tools leave a lot to be desired though (I wanted to install openSUSE and ended up resorting to manually entering the iPXE commands at a console to get the damn thing installed).

<comment><USER25> Are Vuktr and DigitalOcean related in any way? their websites look really similar down to the animation that shows you how to create a new droplet/server.

<comment><USER26> No, Vultr is a spin off of choopa. DO and them have nothing to do with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> this post raises questions:

Was there a realization into how legitimate users may be affected by this action? Was there a plan to remove those domains from their account after making and disclosing their proof of concept?

Why not stop at 10 or 20, and then alert DO to the findings?

20 thousand was unnecessary.

<comment><USER16> Fair point, my relucatance to stop was mainly due to companies usually disreguarding reports unless I have strong proof. Stopping short of the full scope would've left it up to speculation as to the full amount of vulnerable domains.

It was my plan to delete the domains (or at least null route them so others couldn't take them over with more malicious intent). However my account was banned before I could do so.

<comment><USER28> Have you had any contact with DO's support or security team prior to this? You are correct that companies frequently ignore or downplay reports but it's nice to at least make that first attempt for each new find (per company). This is only ever done as a courtesy, I'm not saying you must or even that you should have here.

Remember, it's just another nerd out there somewhere who receives your report. Sometimes they are super stoked to have it and will be very responsive. This can be more satisfying than a public disclosure without first contacting the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Amazon S3 has similar problems. To host static website you need use your domain name as the S3 bucket name. Amazon does not verify ownership of your domain, and bucket names use global namespace.

Someone can easily block you from using S3 static website hosting by adding a bucket with your domain name before you do. Also if you delete a bucket and do not change your DNS, someone can recreate the bucket and will be serving files from your domain.

<comment><USER30> As a best practice, use a 'normal' name for your S3 bucket and then put Cloudfront in front of your S3 website.

This way you are not limited by bucket names and you also avoid any SSL validation errors.

Note: you can set Cloudfront's TTL to 0 if you don't need any caching.

<comment><USER31> This is certainly good practice as long as anyone contemplating this considers the cost implications versus serving from S3 directly.

<comment><USER30> Good point. It's actually generally cheaper to serve content through Cloudfront instead of S3 directly as bandwidth is less expensive with Cloudfront.

However you are going to pay for Cloudfront requests in addition to S3's. In the vast majority of cases, it's insignificant compared to the savings you can achieve on the bandwidth side. (And at a certain level you can ask AWS to waive CF request fees entirely).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bye bye digitalocean - account deletion request submitted 1178917. When you have reckless people like Cashan Stine (trust & safety specialist - WTF is that title? sounds like a road safety officer?) that close accounts due to a security report then it won't win any business from me or my clients.

<comment><USER33> I've reported multiple vulnerabilities to DigitalOcean before and they've fixed them rapidly, credited me for the effort, and gave me free time on their services.

The difference is I didn't exploit 20 thousand domains to make flashy headlines and prove a point about something that isn't even a serious bug.

<comment><USER4> More throwaway astroturfing? You say "20 thousand" the same way as your other likely throwaway account, V8OaSsoA (that is to say: somewhat identifiably) _and_ complained about someone ripping off DigitalOcean's Web design on this account.

I'm doing math on the throwaways that are oddly attracted to this thread. You are making it very obvious that you are almost certainly a DigitalOcean employee across the two throwaways you've created so far, and _that 's_ giving me a whole lot of pause on DigitalOcean that I didn't have from reading the incident itself. If you're an employee or, less likely, a superfan, are you sure this is the type of sustained attack you want to levy? It's not making _anybody_ look good.

<comment><USER34> Eh, I used '20 thousand' in one of my responses, does that mean I'm the real identity of the throwaways?

Probably not.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, if it wasn't obvious enough already, I used that number because it's the one in the headline of the article........

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think most of the providers (e.g. DO, Linode, CloudFlare etc) do not check the authority of DNS due to the chicken-and-egg problem. The AWS way to handle this issue is definitely awesome but the infrastructure required is not worth for those companies who are providing "free DNS service" as an add-on to their existing customers. Anyway, IMO, it is your fault if you point to a nameserver but not utilizing it.

<comment><USER4> The random nameservers are only accidentally a defense against this attack. They're avoiding SPOFs, including TLDs -- you never receive nameservers in the same TLD for example. It's a reliability and scaling consideration with this accidental benefit.

Most admins don't think about a complete TLD failure. Amazon did.

<comment><USER35> >> accidental benefit.

Agree

>> Most admins don't think about a complete TLD failure. Amazon did.

I think companies such as Google or Facebook did think that before, but I am not sure why they didn't follow this _trick_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Banning his account was totally unjustified since he approached them first with the issue. A less ethical person could have tried to make money or sold this off on the back market. People like him should be rewarded not have their accounts banned. For all we know he just saved DO a lot of headache in sorting this issue had it gone wrong. I really wish the response from DO on this was different.

<comment><USER37> Adding 20k domains to your account is probably enough to flag as abuse even if you own the domains. Next time the author should probably try just the one or two. Bonus points if they're their own domains.

<comment><USER38> >Bonus points if they're their own domains.

If the service doesn't understand the issue at all, then when you explain that they're your domains, then they'll probably just tell you it's working as intended and that users should be able to add their own domains.

<comment><USER37> Arseuming makes an arse out of you and me. Give the techies on the other end of security@ the benefit of the doubt on the first go.

When they fail to understand that then feel free to go ahead and pick one that's not yours to prove the point. One though, not 20 thousand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thank you all for the conversation around this!

The security team at DigitalOcean has been working to ensure that DO is a safe place for security researchers to identify issues on the Internet as well as at DigitalOcean - security is in everyone's interest. We encourage researchers to contact us when they want to use our platform for this type of work specifically so that we can avoid the types of pain that Matthew encountered while doing his experimentation.

Feel free to reach out to firstname.lastname@example.com and we will be happy to help.

Nick, DigitalOcean Security Director

</comment><comment><USER40> "I was walking down the street and I noticed your house wasn't locked very well. So I stole all your stuff and put it in my own house.

Now I'm in prison because of this so it's really hard for me to put it back."

The article writer is an idiot. He deliberately stole accounts because he could. Just because he then decided to blame the provider because he was able to do this does't make it any more defensible.

If I mug you in the street, should I then post that because I was able to do so it's all your fault? No. I'd go to prison....

<comment><USER41> Comparisons of events like this to violent crime often seem inaccurate.

A better comparison is removing 10 people's lunch money from their school lockers, maybe due to a careless sequential scheme of creating combinations, and giving the money back. And doing this before talking to the principal or any teacher.

Either way, he still should have contacted them before.

<comment><USER42> A better analogy is "I found a dollar on the ground". I'm not sure that is really a crime!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Very interesting read, thanks. I'm surprised at the response from Digital Ocean, did you adequately explain what you had done?

The first person that replied looks like he just skim read your email or didn't understand the fact you had sinkholed a lot of traffic.

<comment><USER16> I believe I was clear about it. However sometimes my writing can be unclear so perhaps it wasn't properly understood (I assume you're talking about their security team's response and not Trust & Safety?). Kind of sad about the massive amount of hate for DigitalOcean in this thread as their security team really seemed quite nice. Their support was just acting on an anomaly they had seen so _shrugs_.

<comment><USER43> It was the guy who said "Thank you for sending this in. This is a known workflow within our platform. We are committed to always improving our customer's experience and have been examining ways of minimizing the type of behavior you are describing."

It sounds to me like he read your email about the vulnerability, dismissed it as "on the backlog" and skipped the bit about the fact you had sinkholed lots of traffic.

We only have one side of the story though, so who knows. Lessons can be learnt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I actually suggested this was possible on security.stackexchange.com a while back and was basically met with "meh".

[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49612/how- does-d...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49612/how-does- digitalocean-dns-verify-the-owner-of-a-domain)

</comment><comment><USER45> TL;DR - If you own example.com and use DO as your nameserver, then anyone with a DO account can add DNS records for example.com.

<comment><USER21> Not quite, only one person can, so if you add first, it's yours. Typically they have you add the domain and then you switch the DNS and in that configuration you wouldn't be vulnerable at all.

<comment><USER46> It sounds like this only impacts people that weren't using their domain, eh? If I leave my NS pointing to some random provider and delete my account, I'm sorta handing off control...

At first I thought it was an issue where DO was using their own DNS servers but letting you add domains. So if Microsoft.com wasn't registered, you'd register it then all DO customer traffic would get your DNS records.

Some telcos have this. Sign up, say you're porting a number. Provide number of local bank and invalid port info. Account gets set up, telco routes their own calls to you. Port is rejected and customer service is asking for info. All while you are getting the bank's calls and forwarding them. Perfect MITM.

<comment><USER47> Yes, security of number porting is too lax. My number was once ported by a telco (accidentally in this case). They did call me and I had to confirm that I would get a new SIM card and which size I needed, _but since I was expecting a new SIM card from the very same telco_ I didn't understand that they were in fact porting my number. They forgot to say that.

Luckily I was able to get my number back, after many calls to customer support (they managed to undo the porting when I wanted to check how it was going) and a couple of weeks of waiting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> An additional vector for this kind of attack is to create a zonefile for a subdomain off of a working, live domain administered by the same DNS server.

EG if foo.com is a working site on your DNS provider, try creating a zonefile for bar.foo.com and see if you can create an A record to point to your own server.

This used to be something shared web hosting services running CPanel/WHM were particularly susceptible to. Clearly, the risks here are both phishing/identity and cookie credential stealing.

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't think that setting up custom DNS for everyone as suggested by the author is quite as simple as it sounds.

It's not enough to just come up with the custom nameservers. In order to use them in most TLDs they also need to be "registered" with the registry that operates the TLD.

So let's say you have myDNSdomain.com. You get a new customer who owns NewCustomer.com and wants to you your DNS, so you create these nameservers for them:

ns237.myDNSdomain.com ns2323.myDNSdomain.com

In order for your new customer to be able to use those on their NewCustomer.com domain, you will need to go to your registrar and set up these nameservers. The registrar will then create the corresponding nameserver records with Verisign, the registry. Only then, the customer will be able to use the nameservers on his domain.

<comment><USER50> Well, yeah. That process already happens when you set up your domain to use DigitalOcean, but the nameserver used during the setup isn't unique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> On the topic of having to pay for traffic to the sinkhole server: how about just closing ports 80 and 443? Then you only get a SYN, and answer with a NACK, that's far less traffic than processing a complete HTTP(s) request.

</comment><comment><USER52> Did anybody else click CrashChrome.com (or equivalent) in the sidebar?

<comment><USER53> I clicked on it even before reading the article. Not only the chrome crashed, but also my notebook! I had to reboot the computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I find myself asking WW$D where $ is any large tech company with a "good" reputation. What would Google have done? Lyft? Spotify? Blizzard? Use some imagination to apply a similarly dangerous security breach to these companies.

I feel like this question yields better context to ethical arguments because it makes us aware of the cognitive biases and view things from a more abstract perspective..

EDIT: Is there a way to include plain asterisks in HN posts?

</comment><comment><USER55> As an aside, you can set up a security group in AWS that blocks inbound traffic on port 80 if you'd like to neuter the incoming requests.

<comment><USER51> Or, like, simply shut down the web server.

<comment><USER56> He'd still have to pay. By neutering it he means that nobody with bad intensions should be able to use the domains. It is neutered now, but if he was allowed to change DNS entry to point to localhost, he wouldn't have to pay Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Am I reading this right:

The only defence AWS has against this type of attack is the random (?) grouping of four different NS?

<comment><USER58> It's effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I made the mistake of applying for a job there once. I was discriminated against. Despite being in a protected class, I was so surprised to be so obviously discriminated against by them. (I've interviewed a lot, I don't always get a follow up, this isn't sour grapes, this was very different.) But of course the HR people are careful to not say things that are overtly discriminatory. But when a company insists on a VIDEO call rather than a phone call (despite asking them to do the first one by phone since I was not in a location with good bandwidth at the time they wanted the call)... and then visibly reacts to your image when they first see it, and then pretty much blows you off, despite being well qualified for the position... yeah, it's not what they say.

</comment><comment><USER60> Same thing happened to me after reporting SQL injection (in 2015!) on Vivaldi website. Polite email and blocked account.

Some companies do seem to prefer to learn about vulnerabilities from pastebin database dump.</comment>


Robotic Manipulation (Online Textbook) - <AUTHOR> http://manipulation.csail.mit.edu/ <comment><USER2> The associated lecture videos have been a great source of information for me. The associated class has assignments that include programming and dockers for using the Drake environment. Plus, Russ Tedrake is a smart guy who asks great questions and he's always been willing to answer my questions and emails.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I've seen this one before. Are you thinking of Tedrake's other course and textbook on underactuated robotics here [http://underactuated.csail.mit.edu/](http://underactuated.csail.mit.edu/) ? I loved that one. Taught me a ton.

<comment><USER2> woah, you're totally right. My bad. I just remembered him talking about manipulation as under-actuated problem. thanks for the catch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's amazing, thanks for sharing. I'll definitely feature it in Weekly Robotics!

<comment><USER5> Thank you for Weekly Robotics, it's an amazing resource

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm working through Lynch and Park's text, _Modern Robotics_ which is available in print or online [0]. Does anyone know how this compares to it?

[0] [http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics](http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics)

<comment><USER2> Very different focus in Modern Robotics. I've used Modern Robotics in the past to teach a course on robotics fundamentals. It's fundamental in that it covers problem definitions, and some basic solutions to those problems. It gets a little deeper than others in that it goes into an exponential representation for certain operations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I look forward to seeing it finished. All the classical stuff is there, but when you get to the hard parts, like the Inverse Dynamics Control and Joint Impedance Control sections, they're just headings without content.

<comment><USER8> I bet if we check back in mid November, much of the information will be there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's an interview with Russ. Starts at 4:30

[https://youtu.be/A22Ej6kb2wo](https://youtu.be/A22Ej6kb2wo)</comment>


China's plan to outlaw fossil fuel powered vehicles - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/business/21728980-its-government-developing-plan-phase-out-vehicles-powered-fossil-fuels-china-moves <comment><USER2> > Its government is developing a plan to phase out vehicles powered by fossil > fuels

Simply not true. It didn't say anything about banning fossil fuels for the power generation. EVs are still an absurdity; we wouldnt be able to power them if we only used wind/hydro. The electric motor doesn't make any sense. A bicycle make an electric scooter look like an energy pounding monster, especially if the person on the bicycle grows/buys their food locally. We all better start planting a lot of green things, if we want to survive. Forget what the criminals on the podium are saying; your neighbor simply doesn't have the right to make you breathe his car/coal(nuclear)PowerPlant/batteryManufacturing/solarPanelManufacturing toxic emissions without your permission.</comment>


Windows will be free on phones, small tablets and the Internet of Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/02/windows-will-be-free-on-small-devices

<comment><USER2> at least until they decide to take it away. I'm still not convinced anyone should spend any of their resources toward the platform when there's no guarantee they'll uphold this deal in the future.</comment>


Automakers invest in joint research centre at UCB to try and catch up - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/automakers-go-back-to-school-to-learn-to-build-self-driving-cars <comment><USER2> 300k is peanuts, you don't try to catch up with 300k. Car companies spend billions on research every year. The car companies are farther along in autonomous driving than most people know. Audi, which is owned by Volkswagen, has done extensive development for years. 300k to a university is a press grabber and maybe focused on a specific, very difficult problem they all face which does not inhibit adoption of the technology. They don't want to spend the resources on it now so they might as well take a small bet to see if some academics can figure It out.</comment>


In Soviet Russia Netflix Watches You - <AUTHOR> https://rinkovec.com/soviet-russia-netflix-watches/ <comment><USER2> Nope, I wouldn't want this in netflixes real product... until there is facial recognition tech that can be completely silo'd from the online app... maybe I just give it permission to send out if I'm watching or asleep somehow.</comment>


Show HN: Catchr – Secretly Detect Intrusions - <AUTHOR> http://www.getcatchr.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Catchr provides the opportunity to subtly detect if somebody else has been going through your phone while it was out of sight. It detects this by monitoring applications that have been started or terminated while also recording the duration of the actions that took place during the owner's absence.

Youtube: [http://bit.ly/1iFsPuq](http://bit.ly/1iFsPuq) App Store: [http://bit.ly/NspjJk](http://bit.ly/NspjJk)

</comment><comment><USER2> Catchr gives you peace of mind by allowing you to find out if anybody used your phone when it was not in sight.

Check out the Catchr website here: [http://www.getcatchr.com](http://www.getcatchr.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very good concept, upvoted !

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting idea</comment>


China's new submarine engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/china-new-submarine-engine-revolutionize-underwater-warfare <comment><USER2> That's a nice application for brushless motors with variable-frequency AC drive. The motor is so simple - it's just windings and the propeller ring. No seals, no gears, and no bearings that carry heavy loads. All of those things give trouble underwater. The drive electronics is more complex, but drives for variable-frequency AC motors are well-debugged now. Every drone has several of them, and electric cars have big ones.

Some pictures of existing units: [1] They're mostly used as steerable thrusters for boats that need to be highly maneuverable, such as ferries. They're becoming very popular for ROVs, because they're much lower maintenance than existing thrusters used at depth.

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

<comment><USER3> Guessing E/M noise might be extremely significant though? I suspect there are other ways, besides microphones, to detect a sub.

<comment><USER4> Salt water dissipates EM very well.

<comment><USER5> E, yes. M, no.

And this thing seems like it would generate an _enormous_ magnetic field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know how accurate they are, but a lot of the military analyst/journalist blogosphere (i.e. Tyler Rogoway, War is Boring, etc) have been pointing out that that US Navy, with its nuclear blinders on, risks having its sub and carrier fleets badly disrupted by a swarm of newer, cheaper AIPs. While there are limitations in range and payload etc etc etc, the swedes were able to inflict disproportionate damage in war-games in their AIP sub.

There are other thoughts on the current administration and their ability to see their way out of a Thucydides trap with a rising nation who also happens to be our largest trading partner...and the ability of the Pentagon to maintain primacy with the destruction of American STEM advantages...

<comment><USER7> The US doesn't need to maintain primacy, it has thousands of nuclear warheads. It needs to slash ~$250 billion off of its defense budget and invest that into infrastructure and healthcare over the next ten years instead. The US should pull back from trying to hold on to its status as the sole military superpower and focus that tax revenue on its own people. We gain absolutely nothing from trying to outpace the entire planet in regards to military dominance. Asia can deal with China (or not), Europe can deal with Russia (or not), the US should play a secondary role to whatever extent it can afford to (which is to say, it can't afford to do much and shouldn't be trying to).

None of that is going to happen, of course. The US will ride the military superpower party to the end of the line, where it's financially forced to cut back. That won't take more than a decade or two to conclude at this point (given the soon-to-be routine $1+ trillion deficits due to inbound entitlement costs). The US will properly cede its European military position to European nations and it'll cede its Asia military position to Asian nations.

<comment><USER8> > The US doesn't need to maintain primacy, it has thousands of nuclear > warheads.

A military whose first line of defence is nuclear weapons is not a functioning military. I don't think you want what you say you want. We all wish the military were cheaper, but that doesn't mean it should be at any cost.

<comment><USER9> > A military whose first line of defense is nuclear weapons is not a > functioning military.

What's the relevance of this statement towards OP? Reducing nuke does not harm US' strategic supremacy at all. The current arsenal is plainly too much...

It's dead simple to reduce cost and still maintain the same strategic position.

But you know what, USA won't do it...

<comment><USER10> The GP was saying to reduce conventional forces because of the nukes, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wanted to know more about the rim-driven thruster technology, and a quick search revealed that it is being deployed in a number of areas where hub- driven electrical thrusters would otherwise have been used. One manufacturer's blurb[1] states that they use no seals, so I am curious as to what sort of bearing is used - could the rotor be magnetically suspended within the stator, at least while turning?

It also states that their device is symmetrical and so is equally efficient in either direction. My understanding is that, for optimal efficiency, a ducted propulsor should be narrower at the exit, but I guess there is no particular difficulty in making a rim-driven thruster of this form if its primary use is one-directional.

[1] [http://www.tsltechnology.com/marine/thrusters.htm](http://www.tsltechnology.com/marine/thrusters.htm)

</comment><comment><USER12> The comparison to the Red October is unfounded, this totally has a propeller.

<comment><USER13> In the book the drive is not described as propeller-less, only in the movie.

<comment><USER14> On the other hand, the system described in the book is not shaft-less, so it _still_ doesn't correspond to this new Chinese technology!

> "They called it a tunnel drive. You know how out West they have lots of > hydroelectric power plants? Mostly dams. The water spills onto wheels that > turn generators. Now there's a few new ones that kind of turn that around. > They tap into underground rivers, and the water turns impellers, and they > turn the generators instead of a modified mill wheel. An impeller is like a > propeller, except the water drives it instead of the other way around. > There's some minor technical differences, too, but nothing major. Okay so > far? "With this design, you turn that around. You suck water in the bow and > your impellers eject it out the stern, and that moves the ship." Tyler > paused, frowning. "As I recall you have to have more than one per tunnel. > They looked at this back in the early sixties and got to the model stage > before dropping it. One of the things they discovered is that one impeller > doesn't work as well as several. Some sort of back pressure thing. It was a > new principle, something unexpected that cropped up. They ended up using > four, I think, and it was supposed to look something like the compressor > sets in a jet engine."

<comment><USER13> The drive in the Red October itself is never described in any detail though. That description is of a US experimental system that American engineer was familiar with, not the actual Russian system. Other than the fact it sucks in water and ejects it out the back, we know nothing else, and that fits the Chinese system fine. So nitpicking like this is simply not justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Fwiw, the rim-driven pump-jet the article is talking about is not the same thing as the caterpillar drive [1] from Hunt For Red October, to which the article compares it.

That said, this could be a similarly effective improvement to the submarine's acoustic signature and stealthiness.

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

<comment><USER12> The problem with MHD is that it's inefficient and gets even less so when used to pump sea water. It would be less impractical if there were a lot more salt in the ocean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Working link here: [http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1580226/shanghai- san-...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1580226/shanghai-san- francisco-100-minutes-chinese-supersonic-submarine)

Note also, misleading title. Supercavitation technology has been around for a long time, the Chinese have solved some of the technical issues regarding scaling up to full size Submarine and steering. Still no solution to range and many of the related issues. Also unlikely to be put into service any time soon.

<comment><USER11> This appears to be about an entirely different technology. The original article appears to be about the use of rim-driven electrical ducted propellers.

<comment><USER16> Odd, I couldn't get the link to work so I googled the title and that was the prominent result.

<comment><USER17> I didn't know about Supercavitation so that was still really interesting. thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What of the turbulence just from the sub passing through the water? Can we distinguish it from the background noise?

<comment><USER19> It's doubtful our sonar would even pick it up. And if it did, it would sound like whales humping, or some kind of seismic anomaly. Anything but a submarine.

<comment><USER20> A fourth million dollar computer tells you you're chasing an earthquake but you don't believe it and you come up with this on your own?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I understand this right, aren't they putting the motor around the prop? While it cuts down on noise, doesn't it increase, or at least give it a distinct, magnetic signature?

<comment><USER22> The magnetic field of an electric motor only does any useful work when it is inside the motor. There is no stray flux that would be usefully detectable.

Also, magnetic fields don't self propagate, really. That means they fall off extremely quickly with distance unlike electromagnetic waves.

<comment><USER23> Magnetometers are already used to detect submarines [0]. Maybe it isn't so much about the flux from the motor being detectable, but it's additional interference with the Earth's magnetic field.

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

<comment><USER13> They're used to detect the hull, which is why Titanium is valuable for use in military submarine hulls as its non-magnetic. Fun fact, much of the Titanium used in US submarine hulls was sourced from - er - the USSR. The needed the foreign exchange more than it was worth denying the Titanium to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Silly question, what other applications would work for rim-driven turbines work? The naive side of me wants to see how it would work on a plane.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Oops! Something went wrong. Please scroll down to find your content..."

Nowhere to be found

<comment><USER26> Popsci has geo-restricted content.

This should allow you to access it from anywhere:

[http://archive.is/mSo7F](http://archive.is/mSo7F)</comment></comment>


Must Listen Web Dev Podcasts for Stallions and Code Newbies Alike - <AUTHOR> https://alcamine.com/blog/5-must-listen-web-dev-podcasts-for-stallions-and-code-newbies-alike <comment><USER2> "Stallions"? Rock star dev narcissism knows no bounds.</comment>


A Man. A Woman. Just Friends? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/a-man-a-woman-just-friends.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> The article has, I think, one terrible point, which in turn is hiding one good point.

The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article. Even when the author is attempting to question this basic premise it still warps his phrasing. Why is it terrible? Well, because it's not true, for one. But beyond that, it's a remarkably heteronormative idea; it comes coupled with an inherent mental model that everyone is heterosexual.

Consider: Is a male homosexual who hangs out with the other guys on his team going to be _unavoidably_ attracted to every single one? If he hangs out with the girls on his team are they going to be _unavoidably_ attracted to him? Does any homosexual individual, thus, _unavoidably_ cause unrequited feelings of lust, no matter whom he hangs out with? Will a bisexual individual be _unavoidably_ attracted to every person he meets? It it, say, just a feature of gay life that they are constantly frustrated as they keep meeting straight guys whom they can't help but be attracted to (whereas straight males can just avoid hanging out with females and remain unfrustrated)?

No. That's not how it works, for anyone, gay or straight. Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to _us_. (This one of of the major misconceptions that led to restrictions on homosexuals serving in the military. And there's no question it's a misconception.) Most pairs of people - regardless of gender and orientation - simply don't have that sexual spark.

The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention.

But in this context, the question "can men and women be friends", in the context of American culture, actually has an answer. "No". But since the same answer is true of "can men be friends" and "can women be friends", this doesn't mean quite what it seems. :)

<comment><USER3> > we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us

Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim. I think your post would be more convincing without it.

<comment><USER4> Should probably be rephrased to "We are only sexually attracted to people who we believe are attracted to us"

Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true

<comment><USER5> I'm no psychologist, but I think you're correct. Nobody likes to be rejected, so the safest option is to go for people who we think are attracted to us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this article is written (and this question is asked) from a very American point of view. Having grown up in another culture but spent a significant part of my life in the US, I've come to the conclusion that there's a bit too much sexual tension in this culture; as if the underlying desires are being repressed, and thus could burst out any time there's an opportunity (like, say, being friends with the opposite sex).

For me, sex and friendship are different dimensions. I can have sex with someone I'm not interested in being friends with. I can be friends with someone I'm not interesting in having sex with. My long-term relationships, of course, have always been with someone with high values in both dimensions. And I'm still very good friends with several of my exes, who have gone on to happy relationships. We stopped the sex part, but the friendship dimension stayed.

<comment><USER7> I thought the same regarding the American point of view. I grew up in Europe. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean, but I think American culture has less tolerance for gray areas in these matters.

<comment><USER8> In Brazil, among the youth, there's something called "ficar" (to remain, to stay) which translates to "getting with someone", which in turn can mean anything from kissing to sex. Ficar is something that usually happens more than once, as in you 'stay' with the same person several times. Think of it like a temporary boyfriend/girlfriend, no strings attached.

There's also "pegar" (to get or grab) and that is like "ficar" but more physical and usually just once.

Among a group of friends, changing around the person with whom you ficar or pegar is quite normal. It's as if they are choosing which shirt to wear for the day. Afterwards, everyone remains friends, just like before. In terms of relationships, one woman told me that it's perfectly normal to get to know someone through 'ficar', as if actually getting to know someone before deciding to kiss them is passé.

So take the US workplace example given where there's this repressed feeling going around in regards to sexual tension....well, in Brazil everyone (the youth) is cool with it. There's not even a need to hide it from others. 'It's part of life, let's enjoy it.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of it has to do with socialization. I was socialized with a pretty broadly mixed-sex peer group as a young child. I had friends who were boys, and friends who were girls, though admittedly a lot more of the former than the latter. I attended elementary school (and high school, and college, and now the workplace) with a roughly equal number of young men and women. And today, I can count on almost as many female friends as male friends. I can assure you that there's little to no underlying sexual tension in 99% of those friendships.

All of this would have been unthinkable in my grandfather's day. As the article points out, previous generations had far stricter boundaries on the man's place in society, and the woman's. Young men rarely socialized with young women until the teenage years, which coincided precisely with the most raging period of hormonal upswing, and the result was a potent cocktail of mystery and awkwardness surrounding the opposite sex. Then they went off into separate workplaces, or at best, mixed workplaces with very strict boundaries of separation. Quite simply, they were never given the _chance_ to develop normative standards of mixed-sex friendship.

The premise that men and women are ineluctibly attracted to one another, and thus, a male friend and a female friend secretly want to fuck, is a broad generalization hammered on top of a specific, interpersonal dynamic. It doesn't hold up, except in those very rare cases where it does. "When Harry Met Sally" inverts the rule and the exception, taking a specific case -- _this particular guy_ and _this particular woman_ want to bang -- and applying it more universally. We encounter the same problem when trying to apply Ross and Rachel archetypes. Ross and Rachel are secretly attracted to one another _because the writers of the show created them that way_. It's not "inevitable" that any given Ross and any given Rachel are destined to pine for one another. (Likewise, nobody ever takes note of the fact that Ross and Phoebe were friends, and no sexual tension existed there. In a parallel universe, it's entirely possible that the creators of "Friends" never made anybody attracted to anyone else on the show, although I suspect that version of the show is a lot more boring). Art can imitate life, and life can imitate art, but we should be very careful to note the differences between the two.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, just friends. If I want a lover I will say to her.

"Close friendship between members of the same sex, are also suspect"

And this, my Hacker news friends, is what we call a dirty, unsatisfied and repressed mind.

This reminds me to catholic priests in my childhood, if it is taboo for you to have sex you can start obsessing about sex, thinking too much of sex, seeing it everywhere, even inventing it when there is none. The problem is not in the people, the problem is in you.

Here in Spain we hug our friends, and we kiss our other sex friends a lot. In Morocco two male friends will hold hands together. It is part of the culture.

<comment><USER11> then you have our wonderful work place rules which have to go to such extents to keep people away from each other so as not to offend anyone and bring on a lawsuit.

I have worked at places where they asked people not to kiss their spouse goodbye when being dropped off and such. Really. We had two married couples working at the same place and both were told no open signs of affection were permitted. All because it could offend someone else.

The worst was the no flowers office. Glad I was only there six months. Yeah, no flowers, no cards. The only thing allowed were pictures of kids or family photos. Bizarre.

Then you get into those places where if you do go to lunch with someone of the opposite sex people love to have fun with innuendos.

<comment><USER12> This was in America? How big of a company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why do we so rarely see it in popular culture? Oh, I don't know. Maybe for the same reason you don't see TV shows about people getting along and living normal lives; there's no " _drama_ " when things just work.

I _really_ hate articles like this.

<comment><USER14> The author makes a quite interesting point about our culture. Media portrays a fundamentally more sexualized dynamic between men and woman than exists in reality. "Friends" is a pretty great example--pretty much everyone in that show that wasn't related ended up sleeping together.

I don't think you can explain it simply by saying friendships are not good fodder for drama. The Lord of the Rings is a wonderful story about friendships, of all different sorts. The relevant friendships are all between males, of course, but it was written nearly 60 years ago.

<comment><USER15> Lord of the rings draws its dramatic tension from evil and the threat or violence and death instead of sex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He seems to argue that it's very difficult to have platonic male/female friendships in a heterosexual context.

Speaking as anecdotally as that article did. My first roommate was a girl. Neither of us wanted to have sex with eachother. It was a shared rent/utilities arrangement and she got the second room because she was the only one of my friends who I would trust to not destroy the place. She was easy to get along with and our relationship was as platonic as it would have been with a guy (I'm straight, to clear that up). Despite [my parent's] faith not allowing such things (rather judgmental Catholic family), they thought it was a great idea because they knew "us" in context and even _they_ saw it as no different than having a same gender roommate (believe me, I agonized explaining the situation to them and was shocked when they outright endorsed it).

Today, I'm just finishing off a divorce. Of my three closest friends, the top two are women that I had lost touch with years ago. Both are exceptionally attractive, single, women (I'm no Brad Pitt, but I've never had a problem attracting, either).

I think the simplest way to have a successful platonic relationship is to be transparent about sex. I think some of us are too insecure to even think of doing that, but it's really not difficult. If you really find your friend attractive, say so. If you previously had feelings for them but do not now, say so. If they're really a meaningful friend, the awkwardness won't last long as long as you're not so hung up on rejection that you can't take getting a "let's be friends". I've done this with both of my two friends, one I simply reassured that I'm not at all interested in a relationship, the other I admitted my attraction to years ago and was not reciprocated. I cherish the friendship of both and after a short time of grousing about the latter relationship, I realized she was right and we'd be a terrible fit.

Now as a divorced man, I'm looking for a roommate. I'm not interested in a relationship beyond friendship and I don't see that changing regardless of the person. I'd consider either one of them (and that is likely to happen at some point in very the near future), but not my best "guy" friend.

*Edit: Bracketed items for clarification.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd argue that when a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman become _friends_ , at least one party _wants_ to have sex with the other. This desire doesn't need to be realizable, but the desire must be there.

Why? Well, because we want to have sex with people we're attracted to. Thus, the only way for neither party not to want sex, is for neither party to be attracted (physically, intellectually, emotionally) to the other... but if that's the case, and neither party finds the other attractive in any attributes, then why would they be friends in the first place?

I suppose there are those rare instances where both parties find the other physically intolerable, but enjoy the intellectual pursuits. But then, perhaps we need to redefine _man_ and _woman_ in this context.

<comment><USER18> I don't understand this at all. I don't want to have sex with any of my male friends yet I still find compelling reasons for friendship with them. So why then can't things that are completely non-sexual attract me to women and be a foundations for a friendship with them too?

It almost sounds like we are nothing more than the sum of some animalistic urges we have little control over. I have not found this to be my experience, and sometimes wonder if it isn't a popular myth we like to use to excuse our behaviours sometimes.

<comment><USER19> > _It almost sounds like we are nothing more than the sum of some animalistic > urges we have little control over._

Actually it looks like that's precisely what many believe; that's the excuse for veiling women in "traditional" religious societies after all (because you know, men all are rabid rapists; at least all pious believers must be, apparently).

<comment><USER20> You're close, but the actual view is that all men are noble souls who are corrupted instantly when they glimpse a woman's ankle. Conclusion: women are inherently wicked and must be suppressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Imagine the following conversation between a (heterosexual) married couple:

Husband: "Hey honey, I'm going over a friend's house and we're going to hang out on the couch and watch the game."

Wife: "OK! See you in a few hours. What's your friend's name?"

And tell me with a straight face that it makes no difference if the husband says "Bob," or "Sally."

The problem with opposite sex friendships is that even with the best of intentions, they won't survive when one of you is in a long term sexual relationship. And deep down, you both know that.

<comment><USER13> None. Zero. My wife has quite a few close male friends, and I feel _absolutely_ no threat from any of them. She's a snuggler, and semi- consciously leans on anyone in the vicinity when we're all around watching a movie or something. Usually that's me, but not always.

Why _should_ I feel threatened about this? This relationship isn't a game to be won, and they aren't my competitors.

<comment><USER21> Scenario #2:

You and your wife have a big argument. She storms out of the house, and says either:

A. "I'm going to go hang out and watch a movie alone with Dave."

B. "I'm going to go hang out and watch a movie alone with Sally."

Still, no difference?

I get that people can be open-minded and trusting, but I think there are some basic things that most people just don't do. And those things have everything to do with the underlying assumptions about the relationship between a man and a woman.

Sure, there are exceptions. But in general, there are more problems with platonic opposite sex friendships than same sex, and I think there always will be because of the scenarios I've mentioned.

<comment><USER13> No difference.

A. Fights happen. And they're very _very_ different than a divorce. We're not together just for sex, or just because we never fight.

B. I trust my wife.

C. We've had fights, she's gone to male friends to cool off. They have _helped_.

What, don't you trust your friends? (edit: of which a wife should be one)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A half-baked thesis, warmed-over pop-culture anecdotes and phoned-in analysis: I have no idea how this ended up on the front page of HN, let alone on the pages of the New York Times.

</comment><comment><USER23> One factor here is that the people running Hollywood studios assume that men don't want to buy tickets to a movie where the main female character is anything _but_ the romantic partner of the main male character. (Yeah, the success of the Harry Potter series demonstrates that this assumption is bullshit, but... well... studio execs have a lot of practice rationalizing away exceptions like this. It's like their assumption that white audiences won't watch movies with a black main character, unless that main character is played by Will Smith.)

<comment><USER24> I like this article because it not only goes over the historical changes to a social phenomenon, but calls out entertainment for being cliched about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If this isn't an argument to hack hollywood I don't know what is?!

"When you can't improve on the silence don't open your mouth."

Seriously, This opinion made no sense to me, had no support for any of its historical claims, and sounds to me like the author has a thing for a female friend of his, and this is his way of trying to appear platonic and not seem creepy.

</comment><comment><USER26> Now that's just silly, I have lots of female friends and there is no sexual tention at all.

<comment><USER27> Did you finish the article?

<comment><USER26> Yes, I did, but I didn't take the conclusion as 'nowadays it's perfectly possible for men and women to just be friends', I read it more as 'maybe it will be posible in the future'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I agree that a purely platonic relationship between a man and a woman is impossible. If exists I suppose not that the brain of the people implied is fundamentally different than mine but rather they have developed a part of their brain that masks their now unconscious desires. From those desires will grow a head-start appreciation for the other sex (or same) that those of the your sex (or other) will not have.

If your desire is quenched then not much will happen. If it is not, then you will of course search for ways to quench it. Dopamine. The result depends on vision of the world. I have personally left behind the race for women and now focus on the race for coolness, if you will. Ultimately it is the same either way to my feelings but in my tribe coolness is better than sex.

</comment><comment><USER29> I strongly recommend 'A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire' by Sai Gaddam and Ogi Ogas. It's big data applied to the study of human sexuality. Essential reading!

</comment><comment><USER30> Sexual tension? In friendships? Wait a minute, why not? Let's don't be disingenuous, here. We love it, don't we? Isn't why we read books, go to movies, watch silly TV series? It works there because it's universal. We've all felt it.

I don't have to act on it if I don't want to but in some relationships it simply occurs, naturally. When it does, I try to refrain from doing violence to one of Life's most enjoyable feelings by denying it, repressing it or labelling it right off the stage with the sibling comparison.

</comment><comment><USER31> I always enjoyed Chris Rock's commentary on the subject of platonic friends. Seriously though I think everyone is a bit different on this one. I've had multiple female friends and there was often some sexual tension but honestly that may have been part of what kept some of the friendships interesting. It is a kind of like a relationship without the actual sex. This might come up most often for people once they get out of college in the context of a "work spouse".

</comment><comment><USER32> A man and a woman can be just friends.

It is in fact even possible for two persons who are just friends to have sex. There is nothing wrong with that, they can continue being just friends and never intending anything serious to come of it.

It's even possible for a man and a woman to be just friends, always talking about sex (and almost nothing else) and there not being a single bit of sexual tension.

However, what I've found is almost impossible, is for a man and a woman (both single and/or young) to be alone in a dark room for any length of time to, say, watch a movie, and nothing physical happening. At the very least there will be cuddling.

But that has nothing to do with being just friends or not.

After all, friendship is just a label, if both parties agree to call their relationship a friendship, then it is a friendship no matter what actually goes on and what anyone else might think.

<comment><USER33> _However, what I've found is almost impossible, is for a man and a woman (both single and/or young) to be alone in a dark room for any length of time to, say, watch a movie, and nothing physical happening. At the very least there will be cuddling._

I've been in this situation without anything physical happening. Seems like the default state.

<comment><USER34> It's such a huge generalisation and it's false.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It depends on the type of friendship you have.

</comment><comment><USER36> In my view early in life and later in life, it's possible.

During prime match making years, 20-30, you've got to be kidding. The only exception I can think of is people who were family friends from very early childhood that behave more like siblings when they get older.

The idea that, for example, any 28 year old male I know will just hang out completely platonically with, for example, a 25 year old female "friend" which he met in the last 5 years, sounds like complete science fiction.

<comment><USER14> I'm a 27 year old male, and more than half my friends are female. Why be friends with a bunch of girls I'm not trying to sleep with? For the same reason you're friends with anyone else. Variously, they're funny, interesting, loyal, give good advice, etc.

Indeed it seems foreign to me that you couldn't be friends with someone just because you find them attractive. If I were bisexual, would I have no friends at all? Could I only be friends with ugly people?

<comment><USER37> I think we can take you at your word that you are not trying to sleep with all of your female friends. Talking specifically about hetero males at the moment, for the sake of discussion, I hope we can all also acknowledge value for men in relationships with women beyond sex - "they're funny, interesting, loyal, give good advice, etc" as you mention, with the "etc" representing a huge list of additional items.

But the point is not whether you _can_ be friends with a member of the sex you are sexually oriented towards, but whether you can be _just_ friends.

Take your list of female friends and think about each one in turn. Please only include people that you invest in a relationship with, not just acquaintances or additional people that happen to be around or in your social circles. For each, assume that both you both have no social/practical/ethical/moral constraints keeping you apart (other relationships, for example). Further assume that somehow this person is the best reasonable prospect for a mate available to you. Would you pursue a romantic relationship with her?

You seem to suggest that you find some of your friends attractive. I can take this no other way except to mean attractive as a potential mate or sexual partner (though you don't intend to act on this in your current situation - that is understood). For those you consider attractive I will assume that the answer to the question is "yes", you would pursue her. I think we are getting into the definition of attraction here and I can't think of another way to look at it.

Are there any in your list that you would answer "no" to? Why? I suspect that an honest assessment would yield very few or not any "no" answers for female friends that a man has developed a friend relationship with beyond the acquaintance level. Am I wrong?

I think it is natural that the things that draw you to a woman in friendship probably correlate strongly with your list of what makes women attractive to you, so you will tend to be friends with women you consider attractive. Please don't read any suggestion of ill intent into this - that's not the point. Again, the point is that we are talking about whether you can _just_ be friends. The sexual attraction and potential for romance, even if very theoretical, will often or nearly always be there and will color the relationship, perhaps even in a very subtle way. It does not mean you have any conscious sexual designs, but it is still part of the relationship.

<comment><USER14> > For each, assume that both you both have no social/practical/ethical/moral > constraints keeping you apart (other relationships, for example). Further > assume that somehow this person is the best reasonable prospect for a mate > available to you. Would you pursue a romantic relationship with her?

That's a phenomenally contrived hypothetical that circumscribes the applicability of your argument to the narrowest possible domain. Yes, if one of my female friends was the last woman on earth I would pursue her. What does that say about real relationships between real people where that contrived premise does not hold?

> For those you consider attractive I will assume that the answer to the > question is "yes", you would pursue her. I think we are getting into the > definition of attraction here and I can't think of another way to look at > it.

Under your hypothetical yes, but that doesn't prove much. All it proves is the definition of "attractive" which is someone you would have sex with.

> The sexual attraction and potential for romance, even if very theoretical, > will often or nearly always be there and will color the relationship, > perhaps even in a very subtle way.

By your reasoning, no bisexual could have people whom he is "just friends" with, using your definition of "just friends." To look it it another way, there are always emotional undercurrents coloring friendships, regardless of the gender of the friend. Why single out physical attraction? Is it the case that you can never really be friends with a guy you work with, because there is always the underlying competitive tension? Is it the case that you can never really be friends with someone whose politics or lifestyle you strongly disapprove of?

Friendships exist at the equilibrium between competing forces. Forces like physical attraction can make friendships difficult, but so can forces like jealousy or competitiveness. People form real friendships despite those forces because the countervailing forces are stronger.

<comment><USER37> I agree the example was unnecessarily long-winded, distracting, and almost tautological. Sorry about that.

I think we might agree but are talking past each other. You say "Why single out physical attraction?" No reason except attraction in friendships is exactly what we are discussing.

Where I believe we are getting hung up though is that you believe that inherent in the assertion that men and women (assuming hetero again) cannot "just" be friends implies that they cannot be "real" friends. Nobody is saying that. Nobody is saying that attraction implies malicious intent. Nobody is saying that because there is attraction that a friend relationship is based completely on false pretenses or merely serve an ulterior motive. Furthermore, I believe you are a "real" friend to all of your friends - I have no reason to believe otherwise.

Your concluding paragraph is wonderful and I agree. "Friendships exist at the equilibrium between competing forces" is a great way to put it. My point is that, in almost all cases, one of those forces pulling a man to a woman in any kind of relationship is sexual attraction. I believe vice-versa is often true, but the man to woman attraction almost invariably will be a factor in the relationship.

Again, the friendship can be real and contain good intentions and real cooperation. It does not suggest an ongoing campaign of seduction. The poorly stated thought experiment was merely to ask if you acknowledge the force of sexual attraction as an important one in the equilibrium you describe.

Can you honestly say for any of the friend relationships you have with women that attraction is a negligible component of the equilibrium? Are there any from which you are not deriving at least a little bit of ongoing benefit from the good feelings of being liked by or associated with an attractive woman?

All that I am saying is that I believe the attraction is almost always there and has a big role in who we choose to befriend and keep as friends. Even if it is completely innocuous in most cases we should acknowledge it.

Hopefully I have clarified sufficiently. Do you still believe you disagree? I am very interested in your answers to my previous questions. Thanks for reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The problems with women and men being "just friends" are the same as those that afflict any pairing of people, couple or not: a difference of expectations. I have plenty of very close relationships with members of the gender that I prefer. I've never had a problem keeping friendships and relationships distinct. I find this mentality very unforunate.

</comment><comment><USER35> Its possible to hava friendship with oppositd, but as u get closer one of you might get confused.

</comment><comment><USER39> oh come on, enough with that pc bullcrap already.

can man and woman be friends? sure, if at least one side sees the other as sexually unattractive, undesirable. that could be plain ugliness, sexual orientation or status/wealth.

but man and woman, or gay pairings that find each other desirable? why should there be friendship if nature tells you to fuck each other?

real friendship can only exist if there is no sexual desire.

then there is the second form of friendship, the less talked about one: the SM one. one quite attractive female and her fat "best friend". always together, especially on a night out. the good looking one using the fat one as a boost to her ego and ugly backdrop for any male choosing between them. the fat one leeching off her friend's attention and snapping up the male leftovers.

the male equivalent is pretty much the setup for the tv series Entourage.</comment>


Intel Plunges as It Weighs Exit from Manufacturing Chips - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-24/intel-considers-what-was-once-heresy-not-manufacturing-chips <comment><USER2> The CEO's quote doesn't suggest an "exit from manufacturing chips", contrary to the sensational headline. Rather, he talks about outsourcing production in exceptional situations. This is what he said:

> _"To the extent that we need to use somebody else's process technology and > we call those contingency plans, we will be prepared to do that. That gives > us much more optionality and flexibility. So in the event there is a process > slip, we can try something rather than make it all ourselves."_

<comment><USER3> But there's already been a process slip.

> Intel's current best technology, known as 10 nanometer in the industry, was > scheduled to appear in 2017 and is only now making it into high-volume > production. And when the company reported results on Thursday, it said the > next iteration -- 7 nanometer -- would be delayed by a year.

So a three year delay for 10 nm and an indeterminate one for 7 nm all while TSMC already has 7 nm in production and is working on 5 nm.

If Intel does start outsourcing EUV, given the very large investments needed for that technology, I don't see how they would ever recover their lead.

Also this isn't just about Intel. The US invented the semiconductor industry and has been at it's forefront since the beginning. It looks like that is no longer the case and that the only company in the world with a cutting edge semiconductor fab capability is headquartered in a country China claims as its own.

<comment><USER4> > But there's already been a process slip.

They mean to say "another" process slip, but they've said that so many times it's starting to look bad. (And if their leadership was less clueless, they'd realize their mistakes there, but I've digressed....)

Another place the marketers have taken over is in the naming. It's widely accepted that TSMC 7FF "7nm" is the peer to Intel P1274 "10nm", and general consensus is that TSMC 5FF "5nm" is the peer to Intel P1276 "7nm".

<comment><USER3> > It's widely accepted that TSMC 7FF "7nm" is the peer to Intel P1274 "10nm"

I think there's one huge difference there though. As I understand it TSMC 7nm is an EUV process while Intel's 10nm is not.

So it looks like the bottom line is TSMC has mastered the next major fab technology and Intel has not.

<comment><USER4> TSMC's original 7nm process 7FF did not use EUV. They did introduce EUV for certain layers in N7+, their "second generation" 7nm process. Don't confuse N7+ with N7P, the performance-improved version of 7FF....

There's more information at [https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2567/tsmc- talks-7nm-5nm-yield...](https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2567/tsmc- talks-7nm-5nm-yield-and-next-gen-5g-and-hpc-packaging/) or [https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast- by...](https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast- bytes/posts/tsmc-may-2020) .

(This is why I always try to give the full name of the process, in as much specificity as I know it; it's very easy to talk at cross purposes about N7+ and N7P despite them being quite different.)

<comment><USER3> OK, but it still looks like N7+ has been shipping for almost a year so I think my main point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A friend of mine likes to quote the advice of an engineering professor: "The closer your product gets to the physics of a problem, the less money you're going to make."

With relevance to this situation, I guess the interpretation is that you can rarely make a lot of money when the competitive advantage is just that you have 18 months on a certain chip technology before others learn how to do it. Because the pure knowledge of how to do something can't keep you safe forever. It seems to be a constantly shrinking margin against others who are getting more and more sophisticated.

Maybe they saw this and recognized a losing game in part of their territory. Maybe more attention needs to be paid to what differentiating factor has become, even if it changes what Intel is about. I have no idea, but I hope they do!

</comment><comment><USER6> The title is incorrect to say the least, Intel isn't weighing on Exit from Fab manufacturing at all. They are simply contemplating the idea of outsourcing.

I think it needs a little more context regarding the reaction from analyst.

> _"You didn't need to read any more," Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Stacy > Rasgon said. "Whatever little credibility they had is out of the window."_

Few months ago Intel CEO in an Investor meeting promised 7nm by late 2021, and to regain its lead in manufacturing by 2023 with 5nm GAA ( "Gate All Around" also known as Nanowire ). That is not entirely impossible considering TSMC is scheduling their take on GAA with 2nm in 2024. So Intel would be one year ahead again. Volume will be an order of magnitude smaller but at least Intel could get that headline win.

So in less than 4 months, Intel is now saying the 7nm is delayed by 6 months, and dont expect 7nm consumer product until _late 2022 and 2023_.

That is why they have loss all credibility. They burned most of it with 10nm, and whatever is left is now gone with this report as well.

Also note something that is not discussed anywhere, ( At least as far as I can tell ). Why a 6 months delay of 7nm, initially scheduled late 2021, then suddenly becomes "dont expect 7nm consumer product until late 2022 and 2023. " Which is 12-14 months delay.

</comment><comment><USER3> This topic seems to be of prime importance to the US tech industry. I'm very surprised no post on this has yet made it to the front page.

<comment><USER7> It's been discussed pretty extensively: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932082)

<comment><USER3> Well that's odd. I've been scanning the front page quite frequently since I heard about this on Friday and yet somehow missed this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Will real estate next to their fabs be the next thing to plunge? There are going to be many unemployed engineers in a concentrated area with minimal transferable skills to local companies outside of the fab.

<comment><USER9> The fabs will probably keep being used for a long time to come, even if Intel exits. There's a large market even for non-cutting-edge nodes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is bad for our country.

<comment><USER11> In terms of security, Intel has been bad for a while. The last good chip was the Intel Core 2 Duo. Everything since then has had basically spyware on the processor via the Intel Management Engine. It doesn't matter if it was manufactured/designed in the US or not when you have exploitable proprietary software running on your processor. The only way to truly be free and have a decent insurance of security is with a fully open source, free system which includes your processor and bios.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why votes here are counted at half, and I am always "posting too fast" - <AUTHOR> Why is this system so messed up?  At least on Reddit, a vote is a vote.  Here, it takes 3 or 4 to count as one.  And I am constantly being told that I am posting too fast.  What is wrong with this system? <comment><USER2> Stop the "Awesome" and "Thanks" replies, they're getting you down-votes.

HN is a bit different to reddit, replies should advance discussions or ask questions at least vaguely on topic. Saying you're adding it to your Chrome read me later will be down voted by other users.

If you like something, just upvote it, no need to say you like it.

</comment><comment><USER3> New accounts have limits imposed (your account name is green, signal of account age [12 days old]).

</comment><comment><USER4> Email email@example.com, they're quite responsive.

<comment><USER5> That is, if they ever see the e-mail. They're hosted on Gmail, which tend to mark e-mail from smaller mail servers as spam.

<comment><USER6> Because 99.999% of email from smaller email servers is spam</comment></comment></comment>


Does computer science help you program? - <AUTHOR> https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/06/28/cs-and-programming/ <comment><USER2> I think "computer science" is trying to be two things, and it needs to only be one thing.

"Computer science" should be about the theory of programming. It should be a department in the college of science, like, say, chemistry. "Software engineering" should be a separate department in the college of engineering, like chemical engineering.

And just as chemical engineers need to know a fair amount of chemistry, so software engineers need to know a fair amount of computer science. But just as a chemistry degree, by itself, does not really prepare one to be a chemical engineer, so I fear that a computer science degree, by itself, does not really prepare one to be a software engineer.

What is software engineering? It is efficiently creating, at scale, programs that work. I don't thing computer science departments teach this well (if at all). What's the largest program that someone ever has to deal with in a four year CS degree? Probably writing a compiler, which might run to 10,000 lines. I'd like to see a class where you have to add features to a 200,000-line program. They'll learn that a 200,000-line program isn't just 20 times the problems of a 10,000-line program - it has _new_ problems at that scale, problems that are the domain of software engineering rather than CS.

I think, as programming is practiced in the world outside academia, software engineering is at least as relevant as CS, and I think our CS programs are doing an inadequate job of teaching it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I asked on Twitter yesterday how helpful people found computer science in writing software."

should be corrected to:

"I asked [a bunch of nerds who read an uber nerd's Twitter ]on Twitter yesterday how helpful people found computer science in writing software."

Let's be honest, you can get pretty far without even knowing O(n), what the hell a linked list is, and how to implement your own hash table. It sure helps to swing that big graph search DFS dick on Hacker News though.*

*For LoB applications</comment>


The Round Houses, or Tulou's, of Southern China (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.beckyances.net/2012/02/the-round-houses-or-tulous-of-southern-china/ <comment><USER2> A bit more info on Wikipedia

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

One thing the author didn't mention is that these are particular to the Hakka of that region.

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

Who were ousted from their home province and settled elsewhere but kept their dialect and customs. Hakka, written 客家 means "guest family."

</comment><comment><USER3> This concept is so cool. I plan to build a condo complex with a similar community area in the center in the future.</comment>


Proving Hitchcock Right, Bird Attacks Are Turning Violent This Summer - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/proving-hitchcock-right-the-birds-are-turning-violent-this-summer-11563201968?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Birds Aren't Real ([https://birdsarentreal.com](https://birdsarentreal.com))</comment>