This page streams information about the pages I'm visiting on the internet - <AUTHOR> http://icreacharound.xyz/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. But I think if there was more historical records (as in it showed more than the last 50 or 60), it'd have more punch for the layman. I suspect a lot of my FB friends, on seeing 30 connections to fqtag.com and some links to an IBM console would think 'so what'? But seeing a link to nastyporn.com (or whatever) that would be viewable without a warrant would be quite the eye opener.

<comment><USER3> Good idea that's been raised elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or motivation to develop storage and retrieval for this.

Instead, I'm going to open up access to, and document, the websockets interface. If you'd like to build something that collects and does cool things with this data, you're welcome to it.

I'll run it until the bill passes (in whatever form) or is killed off in committee or the lords.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now that this is working again, we can see the work-mac device constantly trying to connect to fqtag.com, a site linked to malware/adware behaviour.

Good news everyone, the queen will now be able to alert you if your computer is infected! /s

<comment><USER3> Thanks, and oh dear. Somebody was kind enough to email me about this. I've needed to install El Capitan on that box for a while, this seems as good an excuse as any to tear it down and reinstall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brett needs a pat on the back.

Thanks for raising awareness of the new Investigatory Powers Bill.

Hopefully this gets picked up by the mainstream media.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain to me why is this more exciting than telling me the my browser history can seen by other people?

<comment><USER7> Showing, in real-time, what you are visiting is a much more visceral punch than "telling." I think people forget/whitewash their history, especially the quick diversions away from what they should be doing. I'm already nervous for this stranger about using Facebook and Twitter on "work-mac."

<comment><USER8> > _I 'm already nervous for this stranger about using Facebook and Twitter on > "work-mac."_

This is a kind of hypocrisy we really need to get over as a civilization. Almost every office worker browses Facebook, Twitter, eBay and equivalents for significant amount of work time. Let's just admit it and stop caring about it. Trying to fight it only destroys office morale. Private browsing is often an important part of maintaining a mental hygiene in the workplace.

<comment><USER3> Two points here. I don't have a Facebook account (probably never will), so I suspect the Facebook hits were mostly from Salon.

On the browsing Twitter stuff, I'm kind of fortunate. Since this hit here and on Boing Boing, I've been following along (and have been pleasantly surprised at how nice the internet is). But, I'm in academia, and this very tangentially counts as "work."

But yes, I also agree, people are doing this, and they'll continue to do so at work. As for how that fits with your model of a productive workplace, YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I applaud the effort but I think showing this to any non-technical person will have zero useful impact. It's just a list of fairly non-descript URL. It takes several leaps of understanding and/or imagination to understand what can be done with this stuff, aggregated over a few years of someone's life. You don't get that from this list of 50 truncated URLs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very effective. Great work.

If only more people saw this, I'm sure it would be a wake up call for the masses. I know it has been for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm getting the following in my console on going to the page:

WebSocket connection to 'ws://icra.eu-gb.mybluemix.net/ws/browsing' failed: Error during WebSocket handshake: Unexpected response code: 400

<comment><USER3> Not sure why you're getting that, but I've been out in the pub all night and haven't been monitoring it. If its still happening, do you mind posting a full trace?

Brett

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nicely done sir. I have a similar project called Q2, still unpublished. I would be happy to talk to you about our projects and share ideas. Congratulations, you beat me to the punch!

</comment><comment><USER13> Chromium only?

I was thinking that this would be a good thing to do.

Anyone know of Firefox extensions or any way of just pulling a report off the sql-lite db for Firefox?

</comment><comment><USER14> is brett going to put the metadata in as well? (phone location, who's being email, contacted, GET and PUT)

<comment><USER3> Not working so well with phones, only desktop machines. I'm being somewhat careful, too.

The "warrantless" information only includes the device and domain name. I can hit a button and start publishing paths too, but I'll always be stripping usernames, passwords, and query strings -- I'm already inviting getting owned enough already.

Methods would be neat, I'll check the Chrome WebNavigation documentation and see what I can do (and try to depict it pictorially to keep it understandable).

As for emails, I've been considering doubling down on this and posting Twitter messages and the emails of my personal accounts, but ethical concerns are leading me to think that's a Bad Idea.

Brett</comment></comment>


How Big Is Amazon? Its Many Businesses in One Chart - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/666274605/how-big-is-amazon <comment><USER2> This isn't a chart at all. The format I hoped for was the style used in this breakdown of the food industry, which really illuminates the scale and breadth of the major players:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam- us/www/static/media/files/Beh...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam- us/www/static/media/files/Behind-the-brands-illusion-of-choice- graphic-2048x1351.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Different things for different purposes. That food industry chart shows you how a few players control many of the major brands, so it makes sense to be dense and show the brand logos.

This is trying to show how many pies Amazon has its fingers in, and for the vast majority, nobody is going to recognize any logo, and using text would make a chart like the food industry one hopelessly busy and hard to read. As it is, that food chart is really only good at conveying one thing since it doesn't clearly differentiate groups of ownership form each other, which is consolidation of an industry into a few large companies. That doesn't even make sense in this case, as instead it's trying to show the reach on one company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm confused; this "chart" seems to just be a list. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER5> It meets the definition of a chart, perhaps it isn't your expectation for a chart to represent the title.

<comment><USER6> Calling formatted lists with headers and clipart a chart is quite a stretch.

<comment><USER7> Agree. I thought the length of each box may have some meaning. But it just seems to be stretched to fit the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is such a bad chart. It gives us no sense of scale. Looking at this you'd think AWS and AbeBooks do the same amount of business.

</comment><comment><USER9> Most of these aren't separate businesses, they are just products offered in a space.

Like, surprise, you can buy produce, clothing, shoes, and books on Amazon and pay with one of two rewards cards.

<comment><USER3> > Most of these aren't separate businesses, they are just products offered in > a space.

I'm not sure I follow.

> Like, surprise, you can buy produce

Through a completely different brick-and-morter grocery business, While Foods, which was bought when already a supermarket chain.[1]

> clothing, shoes

Through Zappos, which is its own online identity with its own shopping portal, which caters specifically to clothes. Also bought when it was already an online specialty retailer.[2]

> books

Of course you can buy books. That's what Amazon started doing. Goodreads, is a social network for books and book recommendations, Amazon publishing does _publishing_ , Audible _makes audio versions_ not just sells them, and AbeBooks is listed as selling Art and collectibles.

> on Amazon and pay with one of two rewards cards.

 _And_ they provide financial services and transaction processing. Amazon Pay works anywhere that supports it, just like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

I really, _really_ don't understand where you're coming from. Yes, you should be surprised that one company can do all that, since I don't think any other company ever has before.

1: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods- for-1...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods- for-13-7-billion-1497618446)

2: [https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/22/amazon-buys- zappos/](https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/22/amazon-buys-zappos/)

<comment><USER9> You can buy all of those products directly through Amazon. I've bought clothes, shoes, groceries, produce, and books on amazon.com, not through Zappos or Whole Foods, but literally on Amazon.com.

They sold shoes before they acquired Zappos, and AmazonFresh predates the Whole Foods acquisition.

<comment><USER3> > You can buy all of those products directly through Amazon. I've bought > clothes, shoes, groceries, produce, and books on amazon.com

You completely ignoring the substance of my comment to reiterate your point without addressing what I noted.

What does what goods you were able to buy on Amazon have to do with digital _publishing_ or the _production of audio content_ , or providing _financial services /transaction processing_?

> not through Zappos or Whole Foods, but literally on Amazon.com.

> AmazonFresh predates the Whole Foods acquisition.

AmazonFresh as a _beta_ rollout predates the Whole Foods acquisition by less than three months.

I struggle to see how you equate a physical retail network with hundreds of locations with what was a food delivery service or just in beta at select locations food pickup service.

> They sold shoes before they acquired Zappos

I think this is the only item you've noted that is actually not that different than what Amazon was already doing.

<comment><USER9> I don't disagree that those are separate businesses. I disagree with how this article presents this information. Every item listed is not a separate business -- most of them are actually different products/departments.

Their chart becomes much less impressive if you distill it down to only independent businesses within Amazon.

<comment><USER3> > I don't disagree that those are separate businesses. I disagree with how > this article presents this information. Every item listed is not a separate > business

Ah, I see, we interpreted the meaning of "many businesses" differently. I interpreted businesses to mean markets, as used colloquially in "we're getting into the business of X". You seem to have interpret it as "companies".

The article isn't trying to just point out entities Amazon owns, it's trying to indicate all the markets Amazon has entered, as indicated by the line "Below is a snapshot of many of the dozens of companies or divisions that Amazon owns and operates, showing its reach is far and wide."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone that wants to create infographics should really familiarize themselves with the work of Edward Tufte.

[https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/](https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Good idea, someone should write this up as an actual chart and size by financial impact vs competitors (eg walmart microsoft google barnes n nobles etc) to make it truly useful

</comment><comment><USER12> They forgot Amazons package delivery company. Not Amazon Flex, the other one were the delivery people have to buy a franchise.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tangentially related: Netflix's Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj had an interesting episode about Amazon.[1]

It's a little oversimplified, but it does a good job of explaining how large Amazon is to the layperson.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY)

</comment><comment><USER14> Doesnt give you any sense of the individual size of each of Amazon's business arm, let alone the whole. .....absolutely not a chart

</comment><comment><USER15> Are these categories broken out by revenue/profit anywhere? Do quarterly earnings breakouts map to these buckets?

</comment><comment><USER16> This is not a chart. It's a list of Amazon services. The NPR Visuals Team has really tanked in the last year.

</comment><comment><USER17> What a lazy article...

</comment><comment><USER18> They missed Amazon Basics.</comment>


If I could only have one business book on my shelf, this is the one - <AUTHOR> http://www.jslogan.com/content/view/114/ <comment><USER2> I would recommend "How to make more room on my book shelf".

Sorry, going to sleep now...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty funny :-)

I'd still recommend the one I did in the post. But you're cleaver. Sleep tight.</comment></comment>


Bellroy.com: a really nice product website - <AUTHOR> http://bellroy.com/

<comment><USER2> I would have considered a purchase but they lost a sale from me by making it frustrating on mobile.

There are still too many sites that don't make hover actions function as two tap links for mobile users.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually have to agree - I ended up buying one of their wallets based on the site (I was looking at several other too)</comment>


Anti-handcuffs Protective wear to slow down police speedcuffs - <AUTHOR> https://www.oocities.org/scotpeterdow2/anticuffs.htm <comment><USER2> > (3) In the event of a battle with the police, protesters would also need to > be armed to defend themselves against the police with similar type weapons > as the police are deploying against protesters. For example, if the police > are using their truncheons then it is only fair that protesters can avail > themselves of similar type weapons - baseball bats, crowbars etc.

I can't imagine this making the situation better for either party.

<comment><USER3> In cases where police are beating the shit out of protestors, what exactly is the alternative? Just sit there and take it?

<comment><USER4> any kind of arms race only leads to more and worsening violence.

<comment><USER3> In the face of a repressive, undemocratic regime, is violent revolution not justified?

Peaceful revolution would be better, to be sure, but that depends on the regime being willing to step aside without being violently forced to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ghandi et.al. did it according to what ive read in history texts, exactly how it happened only ghandi knows, but history says non violent passive resistance with great sacrifice [allowing gov to beat the crap out of them] until everyone realized it was out of hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While in some circumstances it can be "legal" to resist an _illegal_ arrest by police, that isn't something you want to rely upon. The rule is there so that people who are illegally arrested aren't charged with resisting arrest, else the police would have an open door to arrest anyone anytime. It would encourage police brutality as that would lead to inevitable resistance and then arrest for said, nullifying the illegality of the initial arrest.

Handcuffs are there not to restrain prisoners but to calm the police. The use of cuffs is far from universal. They are used by police in the west because they are afraid of those they arrest. Being un-handcuffable will mean that the police, who will still arrest you, will be afraid of you. When cops get scared they get aggressive. Instead of sitting quietly in handcuffs, you will probably find yourself underneath five or six officers as they invent some other way of restraining you. It will hurt.

<comment><USER6> I think he solves that with his page on how to convert a hydration pack for fire breathing, including a "taxi driver - you talkin' to me?!" ignition gadget

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks like a truly awful idea. Once police have decided that you need to be immobilized, they will do whatever they feel is necessary to achieve that goal. After handcuffs, their next option is going to be tear gas ... if you're lucky. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but in the US at least that's how it is.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy sounds troubled… Reminds me of Brevik. Probably doesn't belong here.

<comment><USER9> While I don't think Peter Dow is anything like Brevik, he is certainly eccentric: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789SkK7uwiY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789SkK7uwiY) [https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/meet-the- lo...](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/meet-the-lonely-heart- from-hell-1079428) [https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/man- convicted...](https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/man-convicted- for-offensive-tweets-about-queens-death/) [http://peter- dow.blogspot.com/2018/01/no-threats-and-no-abus...](http://peter- dow.blogspot.com/2018/01/no-threats-and-no-abuse-in-my-emails-to.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> OK, so what happens when they discover that they can't cuff you?

<comment><USER11> What an odd page. I wonder if it would be considered conspiracy to resist arrest. Either way I bet if they can't handcuff you there are batons and pepper spray in your future.

<comment><USER12> Surely, choosing to wear a specific article of clothing beforehand can't be equated to resisting arrest, can it? That rings a ton of dystopian alarm bells for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> it looks relatively cheap and seems useful for protecting your wrists and arms against unnessary force.

But i don't understand how they slow down the police or why that's necessary in this context?

<comment><AUTHOR> bcz they cant get cuffs on the wearer

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What about zip ties

<comment><USER14> Neither cuffs nor zip ties would stay on if there is no wrist to attach them.

<comment><AUTHOR> also zip ties are fragile, unless you talk aboutthe zap straps used by military

<comment><USER15> Speed cuffs aren't traditional zip ties. They're quite strong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shouldn't this post be flagged?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there room for another TC alternative like: Startup Foundry - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I know that this post might come across as a rant, but that isn't the intention.
I have been a somewhat long time lurker @ HN, and over the last couple of months, I have/had noticed a ton of negative bias towards the coverage that TC provides; a friend and I were planning on starting a new startup friendly blog to cover the news from HN folks and other members of the startup community.
I understand that execution is key, and that ideas are a dime a dozen, and no matter how much I justify why we didn't do something earlier, they will just be excuses. But if you must know, we are both university students that were working on a web.app / managing a really heavy course load at a good named university that has a harsh-ish course load and we are also involved in planning a conference in April which was/is a huge time suck with small advantages. This didn't leave much time for the idea lest at the cost of our health and more sleep deprivation. We had registered a domain, and twitter id, but the plan was to launch in May, and continue for the summer , as we had decided to pursue this startup blog idea and the development of our web.app instead of internships/classes.
We since did contact some members of the community to ask for their stories, but we were usually buffed away, and pointed to the direction of TSF pointing out that they are already tackling the problem.
Since HN is our only portal to members of the start-up world, and I believe that this was true of TSF to get the initial momentum, and stories for their blog, we really wanted to know whether this community would be appreciative of another alternative / and willingly contribute their stories for us to cover ? We really could launch in a couple of days to a week, but that would not be feasible time wise, we are however debating still going ahead with the idea in a couple of months from now, and I believe that since TSF is already doing a great job, people might be reluctant to accept another alternative or feed it with stories /tips (sorry for the pessimism) once another alternative has been executing on that idea for a couple of months.
Please let us know what your thoughts are. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Yep plenty of room. The important question to answer is how are you going to make in long term sustainable. You need a constant flow of articles to build up readership, can you generate 5 small articles/day for say 6-12 months?

Getting the initial boost is one thing, but the difficulty is in the long slog.

</comment><comment><USER3> What made Techcrunch great at one time was not only learning about early-stage startups, but reading Arrington's honest analysis, opinions, and reviews. His brutal honesty did upset founders who got a bad review, but at least he was offering readers more than a BS press release.

<comment><USER4> That is certainly what I used to love about Techcrunch, and whilst I think it is natural that as they have gotten bigger they have gone more mainstream and do a lot more coverage of Twitter, iPads etc, it also a shame and certainly taken them from my "first website of the day" to "if something interesting comes into RSS feed I'll click".

At the same time if you go back a few years there were quite a few startups that were really doing different things, and reviewing them was worthwhile. Now there are often so many startups trying to solve the same problem that choosing who to review and keep track of must be a nightmare, and half the comments will be "if you like X take a look at my company Y".

Speaking of Y's, is there an independent blog that just reviews (and meets with etc) Y Combinator companies - that actually would be an interesting read!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think there's always room for improvement. Competition and diversification are essencial for an evolving project, be it a blog, a company or a mere discussion. It makes people think about how to improve, how to be better, how to evolve.

I really love the TSF. It's clean, not bloated and very objective. Maybe you have different ideas than the ones the implemented. So, please do try and do your thing.

People we'll be here to "judge" :D

</comment><comment><USER6> Hehe this seems like one of those ideas which everyone has at some point. Here's my take on it - <http://laughingcomputer.com/startups/>. I am too busy with other stuff, so feel free to copy.</comment>


Meritocracy: the great delusion that ingrains inequality - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/meritocracy-inequality-theresa-may-donald-trump <comment><USER2> The idea that human beings, with all of our evolved biases and social needs, could ever fairly administer a system devoid of merit rewarding but not full of other unsavory selection biases such as nepotism or "ass kissing your way up" simple fails to realistically account for the underlying nature of humanity.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems that this article only really asserts that "meritocracy is a myth", without much evidence. Most of the article is just saying "these people we don't like support meritocracy, and these people we do like don't support it".

They give three examples: grammar schools, which use tests of academic ability to determine which school you go to, this seems like a fair test of merit unless you give evidence it isn't. A fair point about Harvard, but from 1920. And an anecdote about Matt Damon insisting that something be based purely on merit, which regardless of what you think of it, doesn't argue that "meritocracy is a myth".

There's also some mentions of inheritance and ability to pay private tutors. In the case of inheritance leading to wealth you could argue that is unfair, but inherited wealth is one area where nobody pretends that it is a meritocracy. For tutors, while they may affect grades, there's not much evidence they affect the kind of aptitude tests that matter like the SAT and grammar school tests. See [http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/c...](http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/coaching.pdf) where SAT prep courses are found to have very small effects, in a _correlational_ study that is bound to be riddled with confounds like smart students who care being more likely to take prep courses, so if anything the effect is probably smaller.

Income on the other hand, many contend is a meritocracy, and there is some evidence for this in the form of a large randomized controlled trial where adoptees where randomly assigned to families of widely varying incomes (the threshold for adoption was lower at the time). While the non-adoptees income correlated substantially with family income, the adoptees incomes didn't. Many studies have attempted to find differences in how parents treat adoptees, but so far they've failed to find any difference, including for example how much inheritance they get. See [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/nat...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/nature_nurture_.html)

That isn't to say that their thesis isn't true, it may well be, this article is just a bad argument for it. For example, there's good studies showing discrimination in resume screening based on the gender/race associated with a name, even with the contents the same.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a subject I am deeply ambivalent about. On the one hand, there is merit in the concept. On the other, one has to be blind, willfully or not, to the facts of implicit bias and generational advantage to be a true believer.

<comment><USER5> The question is: what's the alternative to a meritocracy?

<comment><USER4> It's pretty much what we have today but the veneer of meritocracy is what makes it insidious. There is rarely anything more dangerous than people who don't realize what they're doing because people can't change what they don't realize they are doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Both "meritocracy" and "equality" exist as emotionally loaded terms that in practice exhibit almost otherworldy malleability (Did you like that polysyllabic flourish?)

What the author did essentially was reveal her opposition to Trump, May, and British "grammar schools" (we in the States call it "tracking" or maybe a three or four syllable word has since replaced it.) OK, so be it.

Maybe we have finally a good social use for AI -- as a social ombudsman -- who at least hypothetically is not a "respecter of persons", i.e. does not take markers of social status into account when slinging benefits. Maybe.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://reagle.org/joseph/2016/myth/myth.html](http://reagle.org/joseph/2016/myth/myth.html)

> Because the word myth has multiple meanings, and the first sense (unfounded) > tends to extinguish the second (an ideal), we are better served by speaking > of a meritocratic ideal, imperfect implementations, and naive claims of > meritocracy. We should never claim to have a meritocracy, only to aspire to > have meritocratic methods; to claim any thing else is naive and inimical to > progress toward the ideal.</comment>


Please, security test our code! - <AUTHOR> http://www.databasesoup.com/2015/08/please-security-test-our-code.html <comment><USER2> Why this have not get any attention?</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite tech websites? - <AUTHOR> Places you visit to read tutorials and that are community focused?
Conditions of Acceptance:
You can't mention Hacker News or StackOverflow <comment><USER2> I frequently read [https://hackernoon.com/](https://hackernoon.com/) and [https://scotch.io/](https://scotch.io/). Both have "Sign Ups" and comments. Not sure how much community focus is beyond that though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Random sites linked from the first one I can't name, searched with Google or linked into some Cooper Press newsletter.

[https://cooperpress.com/publications/](https://cooperpress.com/publications/)</comment>


FCC chair pulls out of Consumer Electronics Show appearance - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/367318-fcc-chair-pulls-out-of-ces-appearance <comment><USER2> He was probably worried about the backlash by attendees and his security.</comment>


Flame retardants: The role of Big Tobacco  - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/flames/ct-met-flames-tobacco-20120508,0,6090419,full.story <comment><AUTHOR> One of the key players in this story is Andrew McGuire <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_McGuire> a MacArthur Prize Fellow.</comment>


Are Police Allowed to Robot-Bomb Suspects? - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/are-police-allowed-to-robot-bomb-suspects <comment><USER2> If police are not allowed to use deadly force, except to protect their own lives/lives of other people in the immediate area - how do we confront the question of "deadly threat" when using a machine capable of applying deadly force?

Do we merely need the "potential" for deadly threat on the police to justify the use of a machine capable of applying deadly force? If this machine can deliver a bomb, it seems likely that it could deliver less-than-lethal alternatives, as well (?).

In this instance, those less-than-lethal options may not have been available; however, it feels really problematic to say "our only option was to kill this man because attempting to subdue/apprehend him in any other way would have - definitely - led to a deadly threat on our officers".

That could be true - but it also seems very different than a police officer reacting to an imminent threat with deadly force. To that point, the presence of a knife in a suspect's hand is not inherently a lethal threat. They are given the opportunity to drop the knife as officers approach to apprehend them. If they raise that knife, or begin approaching the officer rapidly, then this becomes a lethal threat.

In this mechanized situation, are they still offered that same opportunity to self-disarm before lethal force is applied?

Does this lower the bar for 'lethal threat' so that police can send a small machine to kill a suspect because they have the _potential_ to apply deadly force on the police (but haven't imminently demonstrated that ability)?

<comment><USER3> From what I've read, the shooter was contained and did not have hostages. They didn't need to bomb him to death because "negotiations failed," they could have kept him under siege until he was forced to surrender due to lack of supplies. The fact that they had to drive in a bomb is a strong indication that the shooter was not an immediate threat. If he was, a sniper could have got him.

I think the police should never use lethal violence if there are any passive options available to them. This guy was obviously guilty of murder, but I'm more worried about other cases where the police might decided to use techniques like this in the name of safety, such as a "drug bust" against "armed and dangerous criminals" that happens to be carried out against innocents at the wrong address.

<comment><USER4> I've read a report that a factor in the decision was the suspect had put IED's around the area. So they can't approach and can't clear the area of potential IED's due to his presence...

I think we are owed more explanation for this precedent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So are they saying "robot bomb" to cover up the fact it was probably a hand grenade? I'm not sure what to think about the entire thing. People should just stop killing people. Cops should be civilians, civilians should be civilians. When we start killing for every threat and blowing each other up, everything has gone way too far.

If a robot was that close, are there no other non lethal ways to disable someone?

<comment><USER6> With a bomb robot? Doubtful. I've also heard reports that the explosive device was of the type that'd be used to trigger a bomb which couldn't be safely defused in place, rather than a hand grenade. I'm not sure that changes the complexion of the matter substantially, but a hand grenade would likely be somewhat harder for a police force to lay hands upon.

> People should just stop killing people.

I mean, sure, that'd be nice. Unfortunately, the entire history of our species, to say nothing of every other on the planet, militates strongly against it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Up next, domestic metadata drone strikes. Empire's largess abroad is bound to find new outlets at home, preferably through more programs like 1033.

</comment><comment><USER8> is this bad because the police is becoming more like the military? since the military/cia robot bomb suspects on the daily.

</comment><comment><USER9> It must be time to begin building open source countermeasures against murderous robots. Perhaps something like a non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generator.

</comment><comment><USER10> so they killed a potentially innocent person? I guess it does not surprise anymore anybody.

hard to believe it is happening for real, this is some form of horror surrealism

<comment><USER11> > so they killed a potentially innocent person?

They executed the guy who killed police officers, they must have been quite certain at that to actually do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is using an explosive device any different than using a sniper to take out a threat?

(assuming that no one else is hurt by the explosive device, and that sniping down the suspect is not possible)

If there were no immediate threat any longer, they should have waited, but considering the guy still had a sniper rifle and a vantage point (?), he was definitely an ongoing threat.

<comment><USER13> The same way tasers were initially promoted as a "safe alternative to shooting the target" and then the cops ended up abusing it and killing old men with it, or doing it in scenarios where their use was completely unnecessary.

Just because it didn't kill anyone else now, doesn't mean it won't in the future, when cops use it as more of a routine to take out targets, and even less intelligent cops get to do it. Will those cops be punished? Of course not (in the current system of mostly unaccountable cops). It will probably be called "collateral damage", so they get to borrow even more from the military.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> this smacks of a revenge killing. A SWAT sniper shooting an active shooter has the same result (death), but for some reason this rubs me the wrong way. Was the suspect given a chance to surrender? Did he know the robot approaching was intended to kill him?</comment>


Ask HN: smallest sensible (micro-)payment?  - <AUTHOR>

I just had an idea for a fun marketplace. I am half inclined to run it for free because I would like to see it become popular, but of course a classic approach would be to charge a fee per transaction. For what I have in mind, I suspect 1€ or 1$ would be already a lot - perhaps something between 0.10 to 0.50 would be more realistic.
So I wonder what is the smallest useful payment to ask from users? I suppose 1$ does not make sense as processing costs might be higher than the gain, and the hassle is not worth it. Perhaps something like 5$ would work (and giving the user credit for 10 transactions in exchange)?
Would be interested in the payment issues, but also to hear about experiences with payments. Maybe subscriptions work better than credits? Other ways?
What I like about credits that it could open ways for all sorts of incentive programs, like users getting credit for being nice etc. I could also give users some free credits for signing up, so that I would not scare them away completely from the start. <comment><USER2> Most micropayment systems are implemented as wallets for that exact reason. You pre-pay an amount that gives you credits, a single click + confirm alert box can then be used to spend the credits.

If you intend to do a full transaction you have to keep in mind the costs of scrubbing and processing, probably less than about 50 cts would give you a net loss.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - what is scrubbing? I assume processing is the fee to be paid to the credit card transaction facilitator (not sure how they are called)?

<comment><USER2> Scrubbing is the process which checks the card and other data against various databases and algorithms in order to detect if the charge is a fraudulent one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The credits system is a good way to go, because you can get people to spend more when it doesn't feel like real money (a la Microsoft Points). Amazon Payments provides an easy way to do it too: [https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devfps/agg...](https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devfps/aggregated)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, didn't know about Amazon Payments offering that kind of thing. Very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not exactly the same thing, but tarsnap works on a pre-pay model with a minimum payment of $5 (and then bills people for their backup usage in attodollars).

Given that some people make larger payments than the minimum amount, this keeps the payment processing costs down to a reasonable level (slightly under 5%).</comment>


Paris Attacks Fan Encryption Debate - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attacks-fan-encryption-debate-1447987407 <comment><USER2> A month or so before Paris a UK ISP had a major data breach. Plenty of politicians were asking why that data was not encrypted.

After Paris we see plenty of politicians calling for an end to encryption.</comment>


What Are Recurrent Neural Networks? A Complete Guide to RNNs – Built In - <AUTHOR> https://builtin.com/data-science/recurrent-neural-networks-powerhouse-language-modeling <comment><USER2> This is a nice intro to RNNs. The article title says RNNs are the workhorse of language modeling, but the transformer architecture used in models like BERT and GPT-2 handily beat RNNs.</comment>


Fast computation of scalar products, and some lessons in optimization - <AUTHOR> http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2011/08/11/fast-computation-of-scalar-products-and-some-lessons-in-optimization/

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873190></comment>


Ask HN: Difference between running a startup and working for a startup - <AUTHOR>

Is there any article that gives me some insight on the difference between working for a startup and running a startup. FWW, I feel like the exposure to the bleeding edge technologies is limited when you are working for a startup. No founder (atleast I think) wants to try out some thing that is too young. For web-based companies though, I can pretty much guess its mysql people will go for,  not bothering about if they require a RDBMS for the startup or not. <comment><USER2> Not all startups are developing web apps.

But, yes, a founder's job is to choose to take exposure to specific risks and avoid the rest.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, but what would be the driving force for a tech-savvy guy to go work for the start-up, which I think start-ups most require. I am referring about the web-based companies here :)</comment></comment>


The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest: 2019 Winners - <AUTHOR> https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2019 <comment><USER2> > After almost twenty years of baldness, Harry finally decided to splurge on > an expensive, human-hair wig – after all, four hundred dollars to look > twenty years younger was a small price toupée.

Now, that joke could have been written any time in the last century. But nobody thought of it until 2019. So never worry that there aren't any good ideas left.

<comment><USER3> I love the sentiment however:

"If satan had hair and ever lost it There would be hell toupee"

Literally just googled toupee jokes and every single one seems to be based on this pun.

[https://upjoke.com/toupee-jokes](https://upjoke.com/toupee-jokes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Found a nice Lisp snippet:

"All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor Mendel and his peas (but of course peas make me gag, since my throat swells when I eat them)))))))) as I was by someone suggesting that I have ADD."

<comment><USER5> Actually one could argue that the sentence structure resembles ADD symptoms in a way.

<comment><USER6> That's definitely the exact joke they were going for.

<comment><USER5> Yes, now that you say it it's pretty obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Already linked in a reply by shantly, but see also the Lyttle Lytton contest, which requires entry be short rather than rambling on: [http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html](http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, this is awesome. Made an entry for next year for the Dark & Stormy category, which seems to exist by virtue of the rules discouraging you from using it:

It was a Dark & Stormy night in Chiang Mai, with monsoon weather rapidly setting in only those up to no good dared brave the streets, however in Sacramento where this book is set it was actually a fairly pleasant afternoon.

<comment><USER9> That looks like a run-on sentence as well. After "streets" should either be a period, or at least a semi-colon. Maybe its missing a couple of colons in the second half as well. Well done!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of these from years past have made it in to the Linux package "fortune". If you pipe fortune in to the program "cowsay" you can have a cow tell you a short silly comment. On all my computers I do this in the .bashrc so it happens on every new terminal. Highly recommended.

sudo apt install fortune cowsay

Then edit ~/.bashrc Add the following line to the end of the file:

fortune | cowsay

Enjoy!

<comment><USER11> You can do `fortune | cowsay | lolcat` for the same thing in rainbow colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> These are so very entertaining. Haha, some of them are actually clever enough that they'd be good one-line jokes if you edit out all the stuff-to-make-it- succeed-in-this-award:

> Dropping his now-empty Remington .30-06 and tearing across the tundra after > two weeks of hunting in the Alaskan wilderness in the company of none other > than three-time Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt—the rustic outing being the > spoils of his winning bid at the Sun Valley Country Day School live-auction > fundraiser—Bart Michaelman realized with dismay that, in this particular > instance, he did in fact have to outrun the bear.

<comment><USER13> That is a spin on an old joke ending with "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."

<comment><USER12> Yes! That's why it's funny!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel obligated to copy my fave, because I just can't stop laughing—

"Detective Wilhelm Schmidt's raspy voice poured through the telephone receiver like a dump truck of gravel unburdening its load—much like the trucks that worked around the clock at Rohrer's Quarry off of 1-81, transporting payloads of lime, sandstone, crushed rock, and gypsum—though with Detective Schmidt's heavy German accent, excavation on its own would not suffice, and a second, albeit entirely different industry would need to be invoked to really paint a crystal clear picture of his voice."

</comment><comment><USER15> The only thing that makes them bad is how most of them ramble on and on (IMHO). They should be limited in character count, perhaps to tweet-size?

<comment><USER16> The whole idea is based on the famous, rambling and horrible "[i]t was a dark and stormy night..." opening [0]. A character count limit is missing the point altogether.

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

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry, I didn't express myself clearly. If these sentences were shorter and pithier, they would qualify for the _best_ starting sentences, since most of them are quite funny and/or intriguing. To win the first prize of the _worst_ sentences, they need to be not only rambling (as most are), but also horrible.

The winners of a similar contest mentioned by shantly are more in the spirit of being horrible (or at least corny) while being limited in their rambling length.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have a term for the practice of transitioning from in-universe to out-universe? A few of these sentences do that. I've always found it a little annoying. Another example is when someone asks, "Why did the so-and-so movie character do this?" and someone else wittily responds, "Because the screenwriter needed him to!" I've heard them referred to as Watsonian and Doylist respectively but I'm wondering if there are other names for it.

<comment><USER18> Meta-reference? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta- reference](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-reference)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can only make it so far down this page before my tears from laughing make it hard to continue.

</comment><comment><USER20> Though the contest is some kind of fun, I do find the insinuation that Lytton was a terrible writer rather unkind. His works do posess a certain gravitas, and some esp "The Last Days of Pompeii" were much influential.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think selecting him as the inspiration for painful opening sentences stems directly from the opening line to _Paul Clifford_ :

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

This sentence gained pop-culture resonance in the _Peanuts_ comic strip, where Snoopy repeatedly would start writing his novels with "It was a dark and stormy night." and quickly derail from there.

<comment><USER21> Huh, I kind of like that sentence and that kind of florid prose.

<comment><USER22> Yeah I'm not sure why it's supposed to be so bad. It doesn't stand out as being far worse than lots of other old books. The Scarlet Letter begins like this and goes on to have sentences so euphemistic and littered with commas that they need three re-reads to understand, but that's a classic:

"A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes."

<comment><USER23> That reads like the author had a surplus of commas he had to move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm a bit disappointing this is not actual opening sentences from books.

<comment><USER25> I thought there was a "found" category for real opening sentences, but I don't see it now. The Lyttle Lytton awards, linked elsewhere, do have a "found" division which you might enjoy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I love nearly all of these. If they were novels, I would likely read them.

<comment><USER27> I would absolutely read the grand prize winner. "he'd accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago."

It would be a very, very hard book to write, and most likely pretty brain- frying to read, but I'd read the crap out of that book. One of the most experimental notions I've ever heard.

It could end with 'frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' and 'tomorrow is another day'!

<comment> pure-awesome Has a Douglas Adams quality about it; if it's possible to write a book containing an infinite improbability drive, a restaurant at the end of the universe, and a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue, it's probably possible to write this.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      a Douglas Adams quality

To me, it has more of a Nicholson Baker's "The Mezzanine" feel to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Naturally, you can generate awful continuations in the same style via GPT-2.

Model prompt >>> As they sprinted together down the echoing, looping ramp of the deserted Guggenheim Museum, closely pursued by three swarthy members of the resolutely vicious Cannelloni gang, square-jawed British Royal Marine art historian/world's deadliest sniper John Savage and his voluptuous young modern art critic/Navajo linguist Samantha Silver cursed architect/interior designer/writer/educator Frank Lloyd Wright for designing such a circuitous route out of the building.

>>> </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==== SAMPLE 1 </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==== The fact that the entire way was over a five-pointed star of the "Stars of David," which both men had tattooed on their arms, was beside the point. Neither of them would have been deterred if their pursuers had been armed with nuclear weapons, which would undoubtedly obliterate the entire museum, as well as any of the many high-rise buildings surrounding it.

At the heart of the building is an enormous, ornate winged monolith bearing the words "

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==== SAMPLE 2 </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

"Just the way he built this place," Savage snarled, his hands clenched, "he'd be able to make any building disappear any time he wanted."

A couple of hours later, back at work, Silver and I were finally able to catch up with fellow explorer/writer/reporter Charles Fenton, who had been in the Museum galleries earlier in the day and stayed behind to observe our conversation. "That was quite a day!" he beamed at me.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==== SAMPLE 3 </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

As they approached the main lobby, Savage turned and grinned, showing off his impressive, biceps-bound physique. There was a reason the gang of thugs had been lured here, he explained to Silver. There were two other entrances out to street level. "The most efficient way of crossing this place is by helicopter." He paused, eyes scanning the distance. "And that would require an army or navy to pull it off." He raised his gun and laughed. A few yards away, Savage and

</comment><comment><USER29> I prefer the Lyttle Lytton[1], personally. These get kind of long.

[1] [http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html](http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> Tangential but for a splendid Victorian ghost story I recommend Bulwer- lytton's 'The Haunters and the Haunted' which you can read for free at [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17953/17953-h/17953-h.htm#VI](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17953/17953-h/17953-h.htm#VI)

</comment><comment><USER31> I have to admit, "the weight of a thousand baguettes" is a brilliant image.

</comment><comment> z-10 Somebody run those opening sentences through gpt-2 1.5b and post results. I would do it myself but my video card chokes on 775 :(

</comment><comment><USER32> "It was a dark and stormy night..."

\- Casino Royale, ST:TNG

<comment><USER33> The central premise of that episode being that they were trapped in a simulation of a trashy novel.</comment></comment>


How I Built An Online Business In 24 Hours With $24 That Made $347 The First Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.abetterlemonadestand.com/how-to-start-an-online-tshirt-business-24-hour-guide-challenge/

<comment><USER2> Title is nonsense. No mention of domain registration fees, business licence, hosting, and the author is basing that off of the 14 day trial for Shopify and a theme they had previously purchased.

It is like saying "I got a car for $24" but then in the details "I already had the car, the $24 was for a replacement key!"</comment>


Astronauts will get dumber on their way to Mars - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/396231/astronauts-will-get-dumber-on-their-way-to-mars

<comment><AUTHOR> Radiation effect on flight crews and frequent flyers: [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131113-the-supernova- insid...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131113-the-supernova-inside-your- plane)

</comment><comment><USER2> Has Jim Carrey heard about this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Tinfoil hat time?</comment>


Snap says it's raising $1B in convertible debt - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/snap-announces-proposed-private-offering-of-1-billion.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Snap said it will use the proceeds to cover operating expenses associated with running the business.

Perhaps someone can explain to me why anyone would take them up on this "oh you need a billion dollars to keep running? Sure we'll bet a billion on you" is how I see it play out in my head, which I can't see any sane investors doing.

Perhaps if it was 1 million, or 10 million, but a billion? Isn't that a massive gamble?</comment>


"Major failure" takes FriendFeed down - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/10/major-failure-takes-friendfeed-down/ <comment><USER2> I liked the technical explanation quite a bit.</comment>


Show HN: Find out if you are getting paid fairly and help to reduce pay inequity - <AUTHOR> https://knowyourworth.site <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

A few months ago a friend of mine got a job in a big USA company. She suspected she was being paid less than their workmates because of her nationality (Uruguayan) and gender (female). After talking with some colleagues they created a spreadsheet where everyone from that company could share their salaries, sector, years of experience and gender. So everyone could see if they were being paid fairly.

I thought it was a really great idea, everyone should have that in their company, so I decided to build a site where everyone could easily share their salaries in an anonymous way.

Researching about this on the internet, I found some tools (like glassdoor, o levels) but there are mainly about salaries just from the USA, big companies and more complex than we would like. Also, I found this subreddit and I saw there was a survey to do exactly the same, therefore I decided to share it here, maybe some people will find it useful as I do.

If you are interested in seeing what other people in your similar situation are earning or you are happy with your salary but you want to support equality, you all are invited to visit [https://knowyourworth.site](https://knowyourworth.site) . I'd appreciate any kind of feedback or support spreading the word. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> I tried submitting my information three times. Each time getting a "error submitting salary. Please contact support" with zero validation or errors on the screen for me to understand the problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I'm very sorry about that. I was checking the logs and I don't see anything. It is weird because yesterday a lot of people submitted their salaries without any problem. I'll continue checking to see if I find something. Sorry again.</comment></comment>


Control Plane is hiring remote software devs - <AUTHOR> Control Plane Corporation is hiring REMOTE software engineerings. If you are passionate about Typescript and/or Golang, please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> while this is cool..... these are usually put in a "who's hiring" post. Except for YC companies, and those you can't comment on, they are link only</comment>


Review My Startup: clan.cx, fast StarCraft 2 clan hosting - <AUTHOR>

I left my job 9 months ago, took 5 months off, and worked on clan.cx for 4 months. I got the idea for after reading http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423249: the author started a WoW guild's hosting site, and was profitable right away. I made a rapid calculation and though that a site to host StarCraft 2 clans could be a viable business.
The site is still pretty minimal, there's a forum and people can import their profile from Battle.net. I try to keep the site fast, I think speed is the most important feature for a web app whatever its function is.
I didn't accomplish much after 4 months, I've spent far too much time working on sexy things like a Redis ORM in Python (to be released soonish).
If you want to try it out, you can use the staging site http://dev.clan.cx/ --the database is reseted once in a while, It wont keep you personnal information, or http://clan.cx/ if you plan to stick around ;)
1. How would you charge for this? I was thinking to charge around $10/month for up to 50 active users, and $25/m for unlimited users + custom domain + other goodies.
2. I feel that the site is empty and lack features. Maybe that's because I've been working on it for so long that I lost some perspective. What do you think?
3. I'm planning to promote the site by posting on forums. I think I could also sponsor some events, players, & casters to promote the site. Any other ideas? <comment><USER2> >I'm planning to promote the site by posting on forums.

You should have started there. You still _could_ of course

Find someone that wants something like a hosted sc2 clan website, perhaps, then make it into just what they want. And dont take 4 months to finish....</comment>


Social Recommendation Search - Users deciding the search results! - <AUTHOR> http://aheroaday.squarespace.com/home/2007/2/6/tall-street-how-a-virtual-free-market-helps-out-the-little-guy.html <comment><USER2> Sounds like your kind of thing, amichail</comment>


31 Dead in Baghdad bombings and it's not even on the front page - <AUTHOR> http://share.banoosh.com/2013/04/17/31-dead-and-over-200-injured-in-baghdad-bombings-today-its-not-even-on-the-front-page-of-bbc-news-anymore-perspective/

<comment><USER2> Not appropriate for Hacker News and a pandering headline, flagged.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!</comment>


SSH agent powered by blockchain and digital identity wallet - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/trustedkey/tk-ssh-agent <comment><USER2> This is a really exciting combination of technologies with the highest level of privacy, yet providing great convenience!

(Disclaimer: I work for the company developing this, but not directly on this project)</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone having trouble with their CRM/marketing automation? - <AUTHOR> Just curious how many in the "tech-oriented" community is having trouble with their CRM/marketing automation setup.<p>It seems like the glut of tools that are out there satisfies a lot of needs yet having spoken to a few non-technical people, it seems that they haven't. So I wonder if it's just a general awareness problem that the non-technical audience are unaware of the solutions available. <comment><USER2> I would be quite technical. I have a bare bones setup that does not satisfy all my needs. BUT! This is because I constantly have to weigh up the time and cost to implement and set up each piece of tech. Time and money that is being taken away from sales and marketing activities. I would suggest that non tech people are making similar choices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you mind me asking what your setup is like and why doesn't it satisfy all your needs?

I get that the setup might take a while and the different systems may not place nice together although I figured something like Zapier might have made that a little bit easier?</comment></comment>


Why Johnny Can't Encrypt (1999 USENIX paper) - <AUTHOR> http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/sec99/full_papers/whitten/whitten_html/index.html

<comment><USER2> All the stuff about private and public keys was a bit of a haze to me until I invested a few hours in reading up on cryptography and specifically the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange. I postulate that the problem here is (was?) one of terminology and/or education, rather than interface design.

Incidentally I thought the article was going to be about why amateurs can't/shouldn't write encryption algorithms (having inquired about this myself on Stack Overflow and been royally shouted down).

<comment><USER3> I agree with the terminology being a problem. Regarding private key public key encryption, I think the public key should be called the "lock" since people use it to lock data they want to send you, while the private key should be called the "key" because you use it to "unlock"(decrypt) the data.

But this messes up when you use the same terms for other uses of public/private keys such as authentication. Still, the terms could provide a better mental model for people new to it to understand.

<comment><USER4> That breaks down when you use your private key [aka the "key"] to encrypt/sign something when you send it out. It proves it came from you because your public key [aka the "lock"] can decrypt it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This paper is very popular / influential in the area of usable security. It's interesting to note that though it's possible to securely exchange e-mail, most people don't. I took a course offered by Prof. Tygar (co-author of the paper) last year and we evaluated how easy it is to send encrypted mail using Thunderbird+Enigmail+GnuPG. While the usability of the software has improved in the 10 years since the paper was written, it is nowhere near the level required to make this a mainstream technology. Maybe it is inherent to the process itself. I don't see how you can simplify key exchange to make it very easy for the average user. I guess the price you pay for security is to go through the pain of figuring out how it works. Of course, most people will not / cannot do that even if it is in their best interest.

I'd loved to hear the thoughts of the security gurus on HN about this...

<comment><USER6> _I don't see how you can simplify key exchange to make it very easy for the average user._

Google/Microsoft/Yahoo posts a blog post containing the following: "PGP keys for all addresses can be found at <https://keys.example.com/k/foo%27example.com> . This is recorded in a TXT record in our DNS in the following easy to understand format.

We invite other mail providers to adopt this standard. We will periodically check your DNS records prior to sending mail and, if set up properly, transparently encrypt all mail sent to you."

Essentially, solve key exchange like HTTPS solves key exchange: the user never has to worry about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [summary] Usability study of PGP 5.0. Out of 12 people who didn't know about private/public key systems initially, but were experienced with email:

Roughly between 1/4 and 1/2 of them (worse in a couple cases) succeeded at a given task (send a key, encrypt an email, etc). Others failed completely, or took a long time to achieve it (~30 minutes in several tasks for a couple people), and some couldn't manage the essentials - even with feedback - by the end of the 90 minute trial.

Reasons given for the failures were primarily focused around workflow / UI design.

\---

Strikes me as accurate, probably better than many alternatives at the time, which is somewhat frightening. And, given my experiences getting signing / encrypting working in Mail.app, it's hardly improved in the past decade. Thunderbird makes it simpler, but not by much, and I don't recall being able to use multiple keys easily.

</comment><comment><USER8> I recommend building GPG into Firefox along with FireGPG, and suddenly it gets a hell of a lot easier.

I know most people would be looking at the Thunderbird-Enigmail-GPG route, but I've found Firefox - FireGPG - GPG to be easier to use, install and more usefull. Actually the most difficult part with that setup is getting GPG to play with FireGPG, include GPG with Firefox and suddenly public key encryption is easy and available to the masses.

<comment><USER9> You still have to understand PGP conceptually, though, which is a huge leap for the average person. FireGPG + GMail is indeed nice, though, although it seems to be broken half the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> At least he learned how to surf.</comment>


Measure Seventy-Five Times, Cut Once: Further Blood Glucose Meter Testing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@chrishannemann/measure-seventy-five-times-cut-once-further-blood-glucose-meter-testing-9e769a853710 <comment><USER2> I went in to my endodoc one day, and told her that I had just previously measured at home, so I could compare my reading with her better reading. She said "these things are +/\- 20% at best, just watch your trend and don't worry about the actual measurements."</comment>


Agile Manifesto Needs Overhaul - <AUTHOR> Now with Covid-19 causing widespread teleworking, control freak type companies are grappling with trusting their employees. The Agile Manifesto is almost 20 years old and with its principle of face/face communication, collocation has become a euphemism for command and control which is not agile. These huge impressive campus facilities that cause horrendous commutes except for the executives who live nearby are not agile.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tj_YWykvs9TImjPkM1tJxZDuCkruhsdGgSSoTCg7q2A/edit <comment><USER2> The Manifesto itself is fine, and says nothing about "face to face" communication. It says to value interactions. The principles that support the manifesto do talk about face-to-face, but those are supplementary to the manifesto itself, and as you said, are 20 years old. Those principles may need modernization, but that does not invalidate the short and simple 4 points of the manifesto.

People have twisted it into "Agile", with formal processes, certifications, and practices, and the results of all that is not fine. Many of the good agile practitioners will tell you so right off the bat... and then distill the processes down to their core to help you get back on track.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not one of the 4 values but it is is the 6th of the 12 Agile Principles

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Control freak companies that don't trust their employees to work remotely or don't have any empathy for employees during this pandemic aren't going to change their ways if someone alters a word or two in a document.

Face-to-face communication is possible using many different services these days. You could even do those planning exercises remotely, post-its on a white board with a webcam if your company doesn't have a system/service they are using to track and plan work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. There is so much creativity going on with figuring out ways to do those collaboration activities that are hybrid low tech/hi tech solutions as you pointed out. The control freak companies is well entrenched in our industrial culture with a catalyst being the face/face and daily scrum. Changing culture is hard and slow, but this pandemic can be the start of a culture shift if we collectively figure out ways to push it and demand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like we lost a lot of autonomy and respect when we submitted to daily stand ups.

Experienced engineers have to justify what they're working on every day. What?

<comment><USER2> "Walk the Board" \- experienced teams should not be reporting on personal status, they should be walking the board to collectively see where help is needed to keep the work moving. I've seen huge improvements in morale and satisfaction on teams just by switching to a walk-the-board style of standup meeting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To everyone, it's worth remembering that the Agile Manifesto was some dudes in a room with a whiteboard, and doesn't have to be taken as word on high.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am a firm believer of the 4 values of the manifesto. It is the 6th principle stating face to face communication.</comment>


A Harvard Economist's Surprisingly Simple Productivity Secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130627224702-13780238-a-harvard-economist-s-surprisingly-simple-productivity-secret

<comment><USER2> Doctors hate him!

<comment><USER3> Seriously. Headline reads just like [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/how_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/how_one_weird_trick_conquered_the_internet_what_happens_when_you_click_on.html)

<comment><USER2> Which is why, on principle, I won't read it. It just encourages bad behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is nonsense, focus is measured in time. For example, I focused for 2 hours.</comment>


Google speeding up end-to-end crypto between data centers worldwide - Suraj-Sun http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/google-speeding-up-end-to-end-crypto-between-data-centers-worldwide/

<comment><USER2> I'm still quite astonished that (according to some of the comments) it's fairly standard that traffic between datacenters is not encrypted.

Granted we're talking about _extremely_ large throughput, but I thought Google of all companies would have invested in routers capable of doing this or at least gone to the trouble of designing their own hardware that does it; since Google is no stranger to this already.

<comment><USER3> Why would routers do this? IPSec didn't exactly take off (this weeks news reminded us why), so end-to-end encryption wouldn't really happen on their level.

That said, I certainly expected and assumed Google would already encrypt traffic between data centers. Whats the point of forcing HTTPS on gmail when you constantly backup my complete email repository across the world over unencrypted connections? In this new context, the statements on Prism ("we do not give them direct access!") certainly seem misleading. Right, you do not give them direct access, you just sync your databases over fibers that you know they have access to, without encrypting the data.

<comment><USER4> > _IPSec didn 't exactly take off_

Oh, jezus. Did you read it on the Internets?

IPsec (s is in lowercase) is _the_ standard to securing L2 connectivity and it has been ubiquitously used for site-to-site and client-to-site connectivity for ages. In addition to several mature FOSS implementations, every network equipment vendor ships one. There is also a ton of client software - <AUTHOR> supported it since Windows 2000, the SSH company (you know, _the_ ssh creators) has been selling an IPsec Toolkit since as early as 1999, Cisco has a VPN client that is de-facto software in Cisco-based shops for remote workers, etc.

<comment><USER5> IPsec, which runs at layer 3, secures IP (layer 3) traffic.

To protect L2 connectivity with IPsec, you'll need to tunnel the l2 frames inside IP.

<comment><USER6> You're right. And he's right too.

Standalone IPsec is supposedly nearly non-existent, but there's a plenty of L2TP/IPsec traffic out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone who wants their mail to remain encrypted until it's read by the recipient should use GPG.

<comment><USER8> The PGP encrypted emails I sent were very secure - no one ever read them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Google comes up with a much more sane version of or alternative to IPsec, deployed on all their boxes, it would be an amazing improvement for the world.

<comment><USER10> At this point everything they could come up with, would have the feature to be accessible by the NSA, don't you think?

<comment><USER9> No, since they don't fall under CALEA. It's possible Google Voice specific stuff would need CALEA access, but I'm sure they handle that at a higher level in the application.

Google needs this kind of stuff not to defend against just NSA but also every _other_ intelligence agency out there. For 0.1% of the IC's annual budget, I could give a third-tier country (Belgium? Nigeria?) about 5% of NSA's capability. That, IMO, is the true risk here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is _not_ end-to-end crypto, that would require users storing the keys to their own emails on their own systems. This is basically TLS on a giant scale but does not prevent email from being intercepted while "at rest" on a gmail server.

<comment><USER12> let's not pretend these emails are sitting in plaintext on google's servers though. they are "fragmented and obfuscated" at rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The timing suggests this is supposed to be a PR move. And a cheap/ridiculous one at that.

<comment><USER4> Don't know why you are downvoted, but it's clearly a damage control move.

<comment><USER14> Damage control yes, but not necessarily external.

Google probably knows even though they're mostly in good terms, this may change.

I guess they got uncomfortable with people knowing too much already and don't trust too much

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's all about protecting the data from non-US interests, Google has probably already given the keys to the NSA.</comment>


Show HN: Shogun – drag/drop page builder that plugs into your website - <AUTHOR> https://getshogun.com <comment><USER2> This makes a lot of sense for companies who have marketers that rely on engineering to make web changes. It's an embeddable CMS, so I don't have to install a whole 'nother stack with a different login to get it going.

It's a pain in the ass for the dev to do some standard marketing that has to be responsive, especially if the text is left justified with some sort of background image that has to be adjusted for every responsive breakpoint. And marketing feels like devs are just dragging their feet, and can't get the stuff done fast enough to do A/B tests, ad tests, and other experiments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is exactly it. It's super easy to integrate and lets anyone build pages. Thanks for checking it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't like it.

1) $150 a month, 1 user, 10 pages?

How about I throw up wordpress, get thrivethemes and then as many pages as I want and as many users and $0 a month?

2) I'm not sure why anyone would want this. There are better things out there, like clickfunnels. Which is 10x better than this.

3) Finally, any decent agency will have a developer. It's pretty trivial to knock something like this up and have an in-house solution, again for $0.

I know, because I made my own for my own business and my own media buyers to use. I don't get bugged any more for developing pages.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice design but I clicked Publish... then what? The documentation is thin. How exactly do you embed this on a page?

No word on security on the sales page either. That would be my primary concern as a customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you hit publish on the demo, it publishes your modified page to demo.getshogun.com/your-demo-uuid.

Documentation definitely needs some work!

The integration is platform specific. For example, if you're using rails you just drop in a gem and it works. I'm the CTO so please feel free to reach out with any more questions - finbarr [@] getshogun.com.

<comment><USER4> Dropping in a gem doesnt explain how I embed it into my views. Maybe I'm confused about the use cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, the documentation is certainly scant right now. The beauty of Shogun is that you don't have to do anything beyond dropping in the gem and setting the ENV variables. When you publish a page in Shogun, it will be live at the path you set within a few seconds in your application, using your existing application layout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Guys, the pricing is insane.... $150 per month is asking too much for what you're offering.

</comment><comment><USER6> May get confused with the python machine learning library that has the same name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh! Thanks for pointing this out. I guess it's a popular name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you guys have any pricing plans available for agencies yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have any specific agency plans, but since our pricing is site based, an agency can push out multiple sites for clients and let them upgrade as necessary. Happy to chat further - finbarr [@] getshogun.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice, but so expensive!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for checking it out.

We think the price is reasonable when you compare it to the cost of maintaining web pages by hand. Engineering time tends to be pretty expensive (in many cases upwards of $100/hr). Shogun enables anyone on your team to manage your website with ease, which could save multiple engineering hours per day/week depending on how many pages you have.

<comment><USER8> Well, based on my experience, the pricing is way above the expectations - there were similar tools priced at $10-15/month with no limits, and even they weren't very successful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. Looks great!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Appreciate the feedback. We worked really hard on this!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Research Ideas - <AUTHOR>

As part of my studies in my MS program (Computer Science), I have this Summer to do some amount of containable research on a topic of my choosing.  If anyone has any unrealized ideas or work that they themselves don't have time to investigate that they'd like to share, I'd love to hear them.  Perhaps they will be helpful to others looking for topics too!
I have general interest/knowledge in a wide variety of topics across the computer science spectrum, so I believe I could tackle a variety of problems with some success. I would love to build or research something useful to the community but the short time frame makes finding containable ideas more difficult.
General topics of interest for me include web development/technologies/tools, user experience, robotics, collaboration, software processes, crowdsourcing, and more.  Really topics across the board could be candidates given the right context.
Any ideas/discussion would be helpful/greatly appreciated.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> Contact me</comment>


Show HN: Live Life, a simulation game based on learning strategies to adapt - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wisewolf <comment><AUTHOR> If you wish to join our open beta testing and try it, consider this link [https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.wisewolf/](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.wisewolf/)</comment>


Meritocracy and its discontents: The merits of revisiting Michael Young - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21736524-book-published-60-years-ago-predicted-most-tensions-tearing-contemporary-britain <comment><USER2> There are a lot of interesting ideas to unpack here:

\- As the initial meritocrats (does that pass as a word?) benefit from the meritocracy and accumulate wealth, they use that wealth to increase the odds for their children, resulting in a future where the "meritocracy" is made up of people whose merits in education were largely paid for, and so it ceases to be a meritocracy and ends up resembling an oligarchy.

\- People outside the meritocracy can't stand the smugness of elites, who have better opportunities and thus better outcomes.

\- This results in the breakdown of democratic function over time, because hating elites results in fact-denying when those elites are factually correct. An example is how the uneducated largely voted for Brexit, and won't change their minds in the face of evidence that it was a bad vote, because they don't want to admit that they were wrong and the elites were right.

For me this presents some of the issues brought about by large inequality, whether brought about by traditional feudalism, oligarchy, or new-fangled "meritocracy." It causes unrest such that inevitably results in revolution.

I also question the value of a meritocracy on its basic premise. It seems unfair in a society with so much wealth that "lazy" people or "dumb" people get such a short end of the stick when it is not their fault that they were born that way. Many of us _want_ to build cool things and make money and contribute to the world, and capitalism makes sure we're rewarded for it, but for those of us who don't I see no reason they should be condemned to poverty while there is the means to feed them.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if the first point is accurate.

If a system is meritocratic, doesn't that mean that merit is the filter?

Unless it's not based on merit (ability to deliver + actual delivery) then it does not guarantee that offspring of the meritous will merit advantageous position.

I think the presumption is everyone is given access to tools and then its up to the participants to take advantage of those tools. Not everyone has the same aptitude or ability, so not everyone will merit the desired achievements. What the spread between achievement and non achievement is, depends on their rules (taxes, other handicaps, etc).

Regarding Brexit, does it not potentially narrow the divergence between wealthy and non-wealthy? I.e. it has an opportunity to decrease inequality, even if it may result in diminished wealth for both?

<comment><USER4> That first point is one of the main thrusts of The Rise of the Meritocracy.

A true meritocracy is unlikely because of the advantages that the entrenched higher classes pass on to their descendents.

In part this can be higher ability due to better education.

However, another feature is by shaping the attitudes of a society to favour particular forms of achievement over others.

The only way to achieve a "pure" meritocracy as you describe it, would be to separate children from their parents before age 1, raise them all collectively, and instigate a 100% inheritance tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meritocracy is just a bare-bones version of a "founding myth" that a society adopts when enough people reject the traditional narrative.

The problem is that it is so absolutist that it is easy to find holes and internal inconsistencies in its story. Hence it can scarcely perform its function--namely, to provide a narrative that establishes the legitimacy of the ruling class--for very long.

Look only at the examples given in the article.

>The most effective way to rile the meritocrats is to attack their faith in expertise: Lord Turnbull, a former Cabinet secretary, has said that Brexiteers' willingness to question current Treasury forecasts of the impact of Brexit was reminiscent of pre-war Nazi Germany.

Of course there is nothing wrongheaded about contesting the findings of government economic forecasts--governments produce such forecasts out of necessity, not because they exemplify any paragon of scientific truth. Reasonable people often disagree about them.

>The easiest way to rile the populists is to imply that their attachment to symbols of national identity, such as blue passports or the Cross of St George, is a sign of low intelligence.

This is so absurd it barely needs any mention. Nation-states have existed for a long time, and preference for their symbols has nothing to do with intelligence or lack thereof.

So you have a dissident group making a claim about a point of fact, and the _soi-disant_ intellectually superior group responding with an ad hominem that slurs vasts swaths of the population. This is not a sustainable situation.

<comment><USER6> _Of course there is nothing wrongheaded about contesting the findings of government economic forecasts--governments produce such forecasts out of necessity, not because they exemplify any paragon of scientific truth. Reasonable people often disagree about them._

It's an interesting situation in the UK because the civil service which created those forecasts cannot respond to the criticism, they are not allowed to under their remit. Normally politicians would defend this work but what government politician would defend something so bleak, no matter how accurate it may or may not be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not a true meritocracy if some people have better access to opportunities such as education and jobs because of where they were born or who their parents are.

That's not to say that the criticism of meritocracy isn't valid.

<comment><USER8> I think we can agree meritocracy means the best people for the job get the job. But, your contention points out what factors we evaluate when we say "best". Do we take "best" to mean when they apply for the job after years of some environment? Or "best" to mean the original genetic disposition independent of environment?

<comment><USER7> Good point. The article suggests that the original definition was more oriented to finding those with the "best" attributes at a young age and putting them at the top. E.g., 'They were the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan report, which opened civil-service jobs to competitive examinations, and the Education Act of 1944, which decreed that children should be educated according to their "age, ability and aptitude".'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also:

\- "Down with meritocracy" by Michael Young – [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment)

\- "What's (still) wrong with meritocracy" by Toby Young – [https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/whats-still-wrong- with-m...](https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/whats-still-wrong-with- meritocracy/)</comment>


Eigenmorality (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820 <comment><USER2> > Ah, I thought—this is precisely where linear algebra can come to the rescue! > Just like in CLEVER or PageRank, we can begin by giving everyone in the > community an equal number of "morality starting credits."

Two metaethical presuppositions stand out:

* That right and wrong (or right- and wrong-making action features) are discrete and quantifiable.

* That right and wrong (or ...) are expressible over communities as consequences to external individuals, rather than the properties of (potentially ineffectual!) actions themselves.

Written as counterclaims:

* We have no reason to believe that any right or wrong action corresponds to a _particular_ number of morality credits, or that actions are independent (consider: most of us have some sort of intuition about bad things being excusable or forgivable if done only once).

* We have no reason to believe that the outcomes of our actions are what make them actually right. Consider the murderer who cooperates with the "moral" group to find ideal victims, but fails to kill them out of cowardice or incompetence -- a reasonable intuition to have would be that the murder _is_ bad, despite external cooperation to the contrary.

<comment><USER3> _That right and wrong (or right- and wrong-making action features) are discrete and quantifiable._

The thought that such a thing was possible is so scary. Please, let me act (mostly :) legally and keep your ideas of morality out of my life.

<comment><USER4> What is legal is very much influenced by what is considered moral. See: slavery, sex outside marriage, homosexuality, free speech, the very notion of murder (stand your ground vs excessive self-defence) and of crime in general (whether malicious intent is present).

Sorry, laws of society are not laws of nature.

<comment><USER3> There are two opposite approachs to establish rules for a society: imposition and negotiation. I prefer negotiation. Morals tend to work in absolutes, so morality gets into laws by negotiation because persons with different morals make a deal. When majority morals gets unimpemded into law, with no regard for minorities, the result is not pretty.

<comment><USER5> Negotiation at the level of individual relationship to society and law is imposition with extra steps, but it is a desired sophistication of force. Sovereign citizens come to mind, talking about social contracts and moral law, but such things do not intermediate their relationship to government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > A moral person is someone who cooperates with other moral people, and who > refuses to cooperate with immoral people.

One immediate property of this is it is too symmetric: assuming "honor amoung thieves" (immoral people cooperate with immoral people and refuse to cooperate with moral people), it is unchanged under interchange of "moral" and "immoral". That is, it can't tell you whether it's calling good "moral" or evil "moral".

Anyway, the circular definition I'm interested in is Sausserian structuralism: the meaning of a sign is determined by its place in a system of signs. I suppose in linguistics the article's construction then leads to eigenwords, but I am skeptical that eigenwords actually advance our understanding of semantics. I'm not as optimistic about the power of this construction to advance our epistemology as the author.

<comment><USER7> I think it's interesting _because_ we don't assume "honor among thieves". Otherwise there's no useful way to distinguish morality from immorality.

"x cooperates with y" and "y is moral" shouldn't imply "x is moral".

<comment><USER4> To me, there is a clear indicator: human suffering.

A group that strives to induce suffering on the outgroup, or on uwilling members of ingroup, are "bad guys".

A group that strives to limit and reduce suffering, for the ingroup, outgroup, or both, are "good guys", as long they don't match the previous definition.

Corollary: "good guys" normally stay away from aggression.

<comment><USER8> > To me, there is a clear indicator: human suffering.

I like to divide morality into happiness ("utility") and rights. All else equal, increasing aggregate happiness is better. However, if increasing (the authority's measure of) aggregate happiness tramples a lot peoples' rights, that sucks.

Rights (and their implications) are easier to codify legally than happiness maximization. This eigenmagic seems easier to compute (because it's easier to encode) for happiness than for rights.

(One can frame rights as an implication of happiness maximization. Some economists do this. A (properly bounded) right to private property, for instance, increases net happiness by avoiding tragedies of the commons. Thievery should be illegal because stolen goods are on average less valuable to the thief than the victim. I don't know whether such analyses imply all the rights we'd like, or how absolutely.)

<comment><USER4> Indeed, "rights" is a reasonably good proxy for not increasing suffering. If nobody is entitled to arbitrarily take your possessions or do bodily harm to you, a number of the worst sources of suffering are removed, at least most of the time.

Since both happiness and utility are strictly subjective (e.g. not directly measurable or comparable), such proxies is our only hope to produce some formal, computable approaches to limiting of the suffering.

But the _intention_ to limit suffering for most of the outgroup seems a key indicator for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because the Eigenmoses matrix contains negative values, the Perron–Frobenius theorem does not apply, and so there is no unique largest eigenvalue, necessarily. This can be observed in the form of holy wars. Moreover, I think we can construct real niceness matrices none of whose eigenvalues are real.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt:

"Back then, I was extremely impressed by a research project called CLEVER, which one of my professors, Jon Kleinberg, had led while working at IBM Almaden. The idea was to use the link structure of the web itself to rank which web pages were most important, and therefore which ones should be returned first in a search query. Specifically, Kleinberg defined "hubs" as pages that linked to lots of "authorities," and "authorities" as pages that were linked to by lots of "hubs." At first glance, this definition seems hopelessly circular, but Kleinberg observed that one can break the circularity by just treating the World Wide Web as a giant directed graph, and doing some linear algebra on its adjacency matrix."

</comment><comment><USER10> (2014) old discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7925375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7925375)

<comment><USER11> Also 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378741)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are there still ongoing iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments that we can submit code to online?

The idea that you can submit "code of ethics" to duke it out in a simulated environment is pretty fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting how multiple people can have the same idea — about 10 years ago I was working on the problem of having people on mechanical Turk label terms with meanings, and determined that applying page rank to the connected graph of nodes (where nodes where turkers, and edges were agreements in labeling) would allow me to derive a trust metric for each agent, allowing me to discard noise/bots easily from the dataset.

</comment><comment> swagasaurus-rex Eigenmoses has negative values, Eigenjesus is clamped to 0.

What about a leaky RELU like function? Cooperation is noted and rewarded, but uncooperative behavior is given some benefit of doubt - to a point.

</comment><comment><USER14> > The players are bots, which do whatever their code tells them to do.

Interesting dualism (bot & code vs bot===code) which sums up current philosophy of mind despite best efforts of neuroscience</comment>


Integrating Public Transportation into the Uber App - <AUTHOR> https://www.uber.com/newsroom/publictransit/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sometimes I don't investigate the public transportation options while I'm traveling. This seems like a smart move but curious what Uber actually gets out of this, your 'transportation hub', municipal goodwill?</comment>


Tech executives to Obama: NSA spying revelations are threatening business - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2013/12/17/6569b226-6734-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_print.html <comment><AUTHOR> "One participant suggested the president pardon Snowden. Obama said he could not do so, said one industry official."

I wonder who that is.

</comment><comment><USER2> Billions in tax breaks says contrary.</comment>