Financial services industry given special powers to fight patents - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/in-a-bill-wall-street-shows-clout/

<comment><USER2> The comment I posted to NYTimes:

The motivation for this legislation actually passes the common sense test: it's absurd that there is only one company in the country allowed to process scanned checks. But a law that excuses the financial industry from business method patents is not the correct solution.

Any industry can be subject to this kind of absurd restriction. Financial services just happens to be the first industry where business method patents were invented. Some industries, like programming, are even more heavily affected.

The correct solution is to eliminate business method patents for EVERYONE.

</comment><comment><USER3> This makes the cynical parts of my brain howl with laughter. Apparently problems with the law aren't __real __problems until they inconvenience rich white financiers!

I mean, if they end up throwing out business-method patents, I'm all for it, but it's very sad that this is yet another political problem whose legislative resolution will be completely unrelated to the merits of the issue. One would prefer a resolution where the best arguments, not the deepest pockets, win an argument.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't be fooled by the current hate towards wall street (not that they don't deserve it). As far as I can tell this legislation would actually be a good thing.

Just read the part of the bill in question at <http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h1249/show>. I didn't see anything specific to the financial industry in there. Even assuming some nefarious special interest bankrolled the provision (section 18), it still sounds sensible to me. I think it just makes it easier to challenge "business method" patents. As far as I'm concerned the whole notion of a business method patent is utterly idiotic and counterproductive, economically speaking. So making it easier to challenge business method patents sounds sensible to me.

Seems that this news is being spun against wall street by a concerted lobbying effort: "Not surprisingly, the ever-aggressive plaintiff's bar is bankrolling a major lobbying effort to strip Section 18 from the Senate-passed reform bill when it comes up for a vote on the House floor." [http://thehill.com/blogs/congress- blog/judicial/168087-stopp...](http://thehill.com/blogs/congress- blog/judicial/168087-stopping-the-patent-troll-scam)

Reuters has a shorter piece in favor of the provision. [http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/05/bringing- se...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/05/bringing-sense-to- business-method-patents/)

<comment><USER5> No, there is no spin needed - this ONLY applies to the financial industry. You didn't read far enough:

(d) Definition- (1) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, the term 'covered business method patent' means a patent that claims a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service, except that the term does not include patents for technological inventions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the financial industry will get a "second chance" to subject business- practice patents to review and possibly get them invalidated. The author and most of the people he quotes are concerned about level of influence that Wall Street has demonstrated over Congress in this case (a concern that I share), but a re-review of business-practice patents seems like a good thing to me. My biggest complaint would be the narrow scope: why limit it to the financial industry? Why not allow a system-wide audit of all business-practice patents, and software patents too?

<comment><USER7> > Why not allow a system-wide audit of all business-practice patents, and > software patents too

I don't think they have that kind of manpower.

<comment><USER8> This bill doesn't require that the government audit the financial industry business patents, but rather lets the financial industry lawyers challenge the patents in court (currently patents have a presumption of validity that would prevent this in many cases). So it would be Google and Microsoft's lawyers that would be doing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So when will SV companies get together and lobby as a group for software patent review?

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't know how US politics works, but how can this slip trough without public outrage? I read a lot about things like the birth certificate and abortion. I always thought this is just in the media because your population is more diverse.

Here in Germany Merkel and Ackermann (Deutsche Bank) had one dinner together and there was public outrage and questions from the opposition.

<comment><USER11> The difference is that in Germany you have at least one party that is not completely in the pocket of the financial industry. We do not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why fight against this? Just remove the limiter and apply it to all patents. Especially software patents.

</comment><comment><USER13> Apparently what is good for the goose is not good for the gander...

</comment><comment><USER14> The crocodile tears of this article are just disgusting. "Wall Street throwing its weight around" against the biggest entity that is demonstrably _more_ parasitic and demonstrably _more_ unproductive of jobs or well-being for average American; the greasy, blood fattened lamprey's of the intellectual property mafia.

Even as this stands, if it passes, I suspect it will be a very good thing - the thin-edge of a wedge. A situation where "no patent is safe" should inspire ... fewer patents.</comment>


The 100 "best" fantasy and sci-fi novels were shockingly offensive - <AUTHOR> http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/08/i-read-100-best-fantasy-and-sci-fi-novels-and-they-were-shockingly-offensive

<comment><USER2> It is because these novels were not censored that make them the some of the best novels every written. You know the author is authentic to his works, instead of trying to suck up to others.

Alien just tore the your friend in half? Better not curse. Might offend the reader (and also, because in real life, people don't curse).

Imagine if all those authors have censored themselves for fear of offending their readers. What they would have written would be a nice story about a nice little boy who is very nice and sit around all day, making sure to not offend any one. He lives a very nice and non-offending life. And then he when he becomes nice and old, and... non-offending.

So boring.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I shortened the title to fit the character limit. I think this still captures the original pretty well.</comment>


Think you're living in a 'hellhole' today? Try being a billionaire in 1916 - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thinking-youre-living-in-a-hellhole-today-try-being-a-billionaire-in-1916/2017/05/05/475d7370-30f9-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html <comment><USER3> This argument is disturbing in a number of ways. The first and foremost of which is that it finds acceptable the fact that the middle class may only be better off from the ultra-rich from 100 years ago. In other words, the author thinks it's fine that the middle class is slightly under 100 years behind the ultra-rich in terms of quality of life.

The article makes no attempt at resolving the underlying and more important question: why is it okay that the ultra-rich of today have the ability to buy so much political power, have access to healthcare that is far more advanced than that which is available to even the middle class (let alone the poor), can live in such a way that causes so much harm to the environment or generally does damage to shared resources, and can have so much influence over information whether via the internet or through articles such as this one? In other words, why is okay that there inequality is so great and progress is applied so unequally?

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." \- William Gibson

<comment><USER4> > _In other words, why is okay that there inequality is so great and progress > is applied so unequally?_

Because inequality is the result of competitive capitalism, which allows some people to become extremely wealthy by providing value to others. Almost all of the advances in quality of life have come around because enterprising people were able to profit from providing them.

<comment><USER5> This one idea is a massively pervasive, invasive meme. It is not remotely true and it is used to justify so much of the harm caused by current neoliberal policy and the growing inequality in wealth and power it creates.

Most major advances we now take for granted were the results either of government research funding or passion projects of lone researchers and inventors. Often they were a combination of the two. Many of the lifestyle changing inventions we now take for granted were invented long before they became broadly marketable and often their creators never profited from them.

Markets are handy distribution tools and individual freedoms are important. But _profit_ is not the primary driver of innovation. Passion, curiosity, and desire to make the world a better place -- these are the drivers of innovation.

Of late, the drive toward profit has become a stifler of innovation as "competitive" capitalism, when unregulated under neoliberal policy, moves inexorably towards uncompetitive monopoly in the pursuit of profit.

<comment><USER4> I think you're placing too much emphasis on the act of invention itself. Figuring out how to build a microwave oven, i.e. inventing it, is but a small part of the enterprise of putting one in every home. Supply chains, marketing, servicing, cost cutting, etc. are all important and tricky parts of it.

<comment><USER6> Shenanigans. The same infrastructure serves basically all home delivery, marketing, service, etc. There's not a special new highway or chain store or advertising network for every kitchen gadget.

<comment><USER7> HD-DVD, Betamax and Flooz electronic currency had access to the same infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like to think about things like this. I also like to think about how Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg don't really have a quality of life that is much higher than mine, at least when it comes to technology and media. You can't buy a smartphone that is better than an iPhone 7 or a Samsung Galaxy S8. We all have access to the same shows on Netflix, and a practically infinite amount of music on Spotify. I think it would be exhausting to get dressed up and eat at Michelin starred restaurants every day - most of the time I just want something from a restaurant down the road.

<comment><USER9> Yes, from a material point of view, Bill Gates can buy exactly the same Coca Cola as a poor fishermen.

What more money buys you, now and in 1916, is social status. And that's always good for your subjective quality of life.

It wasn't always so---economies around the globe really only took off once the bourgeoisie could buy their way into status.

<comment><USER10> > What more money buys you, now and in 1916, is social status.

It goes well beyond that. With more money, I can pay someone to keep my house clean and maintain my yard, own a more reliable car, buy and eat better quality/healthier food. I don't have to care about how much it costs me to go to the dentist, nor how much I have to pay to vacation for two weeks in South America.

You can exercise money to buy social status, but at the heart of it, money buys ease of life. I bet Bill Gates very rarely thinks about how much money he has or how much something will cost him; your housekeeper thinks about that much, much more often.

<comment><USER8> My main point is that a $700 smartphone is literally the best smartphone that money can buy, and there has never been a better smartphone in all of human history. I like knowing that the device in my pocket is the absolute pinnacle of mobile devices, and that no-one in the entire world has (or has ever had) a better smartphone.

Another point is about the utility of money. Once you reach a certain level of financial independence, your life is only marginally improved by private jets and private chefs. For instance, if you had $4 million in index funds, you could quit your job and live on an annual salary of $120k. You could hire cleaners, drive a very nice car, eat very good food, have great health and dental insurance, and go on vacation... permanently.

I think more software engineers should be thinking about financial independence, because it's so achievable in this industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in reproducing, and most people are, then it's relative wealth that matters. Sure, working in a factory in 1916 sucked. No air conditioning, long hours, terrible safety standards, frequent illnesses or debilitating injuries. On the other hand, today you can't even get a job sweeping floors without at least a high school diploma. Many people have been laid off and they'll never get a job again.

Would you rather risk life and limb to bring home the bread and keep your family of 5 happy and well-fed in 1916? Or would you prefer to be alone and addicted in opioid county, Ohio, today?

<comment><USER12> Actually poor people reproduce more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think complaints about wealth distribition are substantially about enfranchisement and regulatory capture. Material well being is important, but so is autonomy. If being disenfranchised and not able to control our labor or our fate is an inadequate cause for compliant as long as we have access to the material necessities of life, then we ought to be perfectly happy in prison.

</comment><comment><USER14> The only convincing things here are healthcare advancements (obviously).

Meanwhile, the 1916 billionaire can spend 95+% of their waking time in leisure or doing things entirely of their choosing, even if raising kids (various staff do the hard and not-intrinsically-rewarding stuff like prepping food, cleaning up their messes, shopping for them, and so on, you just play with them if you like, the drudgery is entirely out of your hands). I'd be lucky to average 25% leisure time over a year (including quality time with kids in that figure). This makes the health thing seem less obviously an unacceptable trade-off that it otherwise might.

Yeah, I'd miss Indian food, but I'd get over it. The media stuff--I mean, there's so much I'm practically drowning in it, and it's not like there's _nothing_ to do for the 1916 billionaire, it's just that less of it is watching screens or listening to magnets vibrate cones. I'd get used to not having AC, and buildings were designed for it back then so it's not nearly as bad as when the AC goes out in a modern house (source: have actually lived in a 1914-construction American house on the NHR, with no central AC). Just don't buy a vacation house in Florida then visit it in August. If you can manage that, you'll be fine.

[EDIT] and my 25% (again, optimistically) free time is much lower-quality that that of someone whose time is almost entirely free, since that other 75% is always looming an hour or so away, generating anxiety, breaking up free-time into tiny, nearly useless chunks, making me feel guilty that I'm not working on one of the many things that'll be in that 75%, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the article is working way to hard to make the 1916 worse than now. I find some of the arguments in favour of the 1916s, less precise watches sound stress reducing, as punctuality can be taken with a grain of salt. Take this: "If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017"

Depression, bipolar, and std's were treatable in the 1916. Maybe not effectively, but it is not like we are handling depression or bipolar satisfactorily now.

Looking at number of suicides then and now, would probably have made for a better argument. Or dwelling on just exactly how our treatments of illnesses have become better.

</comment><comment><USER16> I often think of this kind of thing when I buy things for practically nothing or see things which contain what we consider basic features that quite literally did not exist a few hundred years ago.

For instance, yesterday I remarked to myself when seeing colourful flag advertisements along the road for a new condo that the colours on the flags were at one time never possible to manufacture, the way purple was reserved for royalty and was impossible to reproduce until we managed to find an animal that produced the dye [0], and even then it took 9000 of the animals to produce a gram. Today, you can buy anything purple for pennies and throw it away without a second thought.

I wonder that if a King from the 16th century were to visit my (to me) basic apartment, the first thing he would notice before anything else would be how colourful everything is.

[0] [http://www.livescience.com/33324-purple-royal- color.html](http://www.livescience.com/33324-purple-royal-color.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe in 1916, the ultrarich were writing articles that said, "Try being a millionaire in 1816" to mollify the masses.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you think material wealth is what matters, then being middle-class today is better. If you think relative social status is what actually motivates people, then being a billionaire in 1916 is better.

May as well take the argument to its extreme - would you rather be a lower middle class person on welfare and no career prospects, but who has access to air travel, smartphones, Internet, etc...OR would you want to be emperor of Rome in the second or third century AD?

</comment><comment><USER19> I was just about to write a comment when I noticed that this article has been flagged to death. Personally, I find this troubling. I thought this was a very good article, well within the scope of HN. I wonder how much other good stuff is being flagged to death. The haters are winning. :-(

<comment><USER14> I thought it was a really lazy article that fails miserably to sell me on the idea that I've got a better life than a billionaire in 1916, including some really stupid stuff about there not being refrigerators (only iceboxes, on no! Who cares, the staff keeps it iced-up and I never even have to think about it, in fact I may not even know which room it's in, yay wealth!) or vacuum cleaners (I'm a billionaire in 1916, I have hand-knotted wool Persian rugs that the help clean regularly, why do I care?).

George Will had a deadline and was feeling lazy so he repackaged someone else's poorly-argued blog post and sent that to his editor. The only interesting thing here is that George Will doesn't mind putting his name on something like that.

<comment><USER19> Then express that opinion in the comments. Don't flag it to death so that those who might find value in the article or the resulting discussion never get a chance see it.

<comment><USER14> I didn't flag it, but it's of such low quality that I'd understand why someone might.

<comment><USER19> My comment was not directed at you specifically.

BTW, that piece was written by George Will. I'm personally not a big fan, but he is a Pulitzer Prize winner. If you think that one of his articles is "of such low quality" that it deserves to be flagged you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is with your reading rather than his writing.

<comment><USER14> This piece is definitely awful and lazy. I know who he is, that's why I wrote that the most interesting thing about this was that he'd put his name on it.

<comment><USER19> Ah, sorry, I missed that bit.

> he repackaged someone else's poorly-argued blog post

So you just accused a Pulitzer Prize winner of plagiarism. Do you have any evidence for this? Where is the original that you claim he "repackaged"?

<comment><USER18> The claim wasn't that he committed plagiarism, it was that he lazily "repackaged" a blog post: [http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html](http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html)

It's not plagiarism, but it's also not something a moderately talented high- schooler couldn't have done. I mean he even used the same food examples, the same real-estate examples, the same travel examples, the same home appliance examples...all he did is add some BLS stats.

<comment><USER19> Fair enough. I concede the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't believe George Will gets paid actual currency to trot out the old worn-out "look how good you poors have it today" argument. It completely misses the point.

The problem isn't that today's billionaires have more toys, houses, and concubines than the rest of us. The problem is that money is power--and they have so much of it that they can short-circuit the avenues of democratic self- government.

If your kids are in school, public or private, chances are Bill Gates has more input on how your kids are educated than you do. Or if an oil company wants to frack in your neighborhood, no matter how outstanding the town hall turnout may be, I'd put my money on the oil company eventually getting its way.

</comment><comment><USER21> Without a shadow of a doubt I'd rather be a billionaire in 1916 than middle class today. It isn't even close. The only way I can self actualise today is in the smallest of spheres, the most local of effects. I can command the movement and labour of very few people.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a terrific article that puts all of the benefits of living today in perspective.

The frustrating thing about many economic statistics, and this is talked about at length in "The Second Machine Age", is that they include very little of things we would deem very important. So things get "mathematically worse" but in reality are quite a bit better.

I don't want to go at length on this and beyond what my memory can recall, but an example they used in the book is Wikipedia. It's incredible obviously. But it does not factor in any quality of life or GDP statistic.

<comment><USER23> Those aren't economic achievements, they are science progress.

Meanwhile inequality is only rising. But we shouldn't care because look at all the cool things we now have?!

<comment><USER24> If by cool things you mean "improved cancer treatment" and "inexpensive access to entertainment" then yes, inequality IS less important because people have these "cool things". The idea that there is a gap is much less important than ensuring that those at the bottom have enough. Unfortunately they don't always, and that's a problem. Wealth disparity isn't always the right metric, though sometimes it is.

<comment><USER25> People had entertainment way back when - and made their own if they had to. Also most diseases these days seem to be caused or exacerbated by unhealthy modern lifestyles. I don't think people are objectively happier than they used to be. Netflix cannot replace a sense of community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm pretty sure Rockefeller would have turned down the offer to instead be a single mother living on $10,000 in rural Mississippi. And would I prefer to have the wealth and status of Rockefeller in 1916? _of course_.

So, given that bit of common sense, what makes this argument pointless and/or irrelevant? Should I just descend into complete and abject despair over the nice stuff we'll have in 2116? There's something obviously wrong with this line of reasoning.

Maybe it's the fact that regardless of how much nice stuff we have today, our class and wealth still largely determines what we do with our lives and our relations to others, and those can be arbitrarily hellish regardless of the material comfort involved.

This sort of argument is as miserable as that Fox News segment a few years ago that tried to downplay how miserable poverty can be by citing refrigerator and microwave ownership rates. Not surprising that a paleocon pseudointellectual like George Will would latch on to such a shallow and frivolous argument.

<comment><USER27> > And would I prefer to have the wealth and status of Rockefeller in 1916? of > course.

You would prefer to live in a world without penecillan if it meant being richer than everyone else?

<comment><USER26> Somehow my choice precludes the development of penicillin? What exactly are you trying to ask?

<comment><USER27> That was one of the central arguments of the article. Even the poorest of us have a lot of nice things that even Rockefeller didn't have access to, such as access to penecillan which was discovered in 1928. If you are taking the other side of his argument, you are saying "I don't care about like penecillan, being richer than others is worth being without them".

<comment><USER26> Yes I'd take those odds because of the mind boggling social power and freedom that comes with being a billionaire. Although yes, penicillin and vaccines are the best argument for living now than then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Penn Jillette said there are two certainties:

1\. The world is always getting better.

2\. Everyone thinks it's always getting worse.

<comment><USER29> Maybe the two cancel each other out and things don't change as much as they seem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What is wealth? Let me try a slightly non-standard answer to that question. Wealth is a measure of your ability to do what you would like to do, when you would like to do it - a measure of your breadth of immediately available choice. Therefore your wealth is determined by the resources you presently own, as everything requires resources.

For the sake of argument, let us say that your resources presently amount to a leather bag containing a hundred unmarked silver coins. Interestingly enough, by the "what would you like to do" measure, you are fantastically more wealthy than any given ancestor put in the same position of ownership. You have immensely greater choice. Clearly there is more to wealth-as-choice than present property. We must also consider the historical investment made into increasing choice, and into lowering the cost of specific - usually popular - choices. The engines of technology and open, free markets are turned by people to create new, better, cheaper choices. The choice to fly, the choice to remain alive with heart disease, the choice to avoid that heart disease.

Where do silver coins - or indeed, any other resources you might own - <USER2> from? Where does investment come from? After all, we don't come into this world with the proverbial silver implement between the teeth. No, we worked for those coins. We spent time and negotiated payment for that time. Why? Because time is valuable.

But time spent alive, measured in the ticking of heartbeats, is more than valuable - it is wealth itself, the source of all other measures of wealth. All property was created by someone, somewhere, taking their time. The creation and exchange of property is a way to make time fungible, transferrable, a more valuable resource. Time spent alive is the root of all property, all human action, and thus all wealth - both the silver in your pocket that provides for present choice, and the wealth of possible choices created by past investment.

Time is everything. How much have time you spent reading this far? Could you have been doing something more useful, more optimal from your perspective? We make these small evaluations constantly, because time is the most valuable thing we have.

We all go through engineering our cycles of property and time; how can we best optimize time to generate property that can be used to make our time more effective? We do this in small ways and large, but everyone does it. Some people do it so effectively they launch themselves into property escape velocity, exponentially increasing the effectiveness of their time and exploring the outer limits of what it means to maintain ownership of a great deal of property.

Interestingly, despite the grand importance of time as the absolute foundation of wealth, very little progress has been made in the most obvious optimization of all: creating property that can create more time. More heartbeats, more health, more time spent alive and active. Rejuvenation medicine, capable of repairing the damage of aging. Tissue engineering to generate replacements for worn organs. The cure for cancer. If you could do all that, then the much more productive form of escape velocity becomes possible - longevity escape velocity. Why strive to maintain an empire of property that will crumble to dust when the degenerations of age catch up with you when you could be that fit-looking guy having a blast swimming in the breakers every other Sunday for as long as you like?

Wealth is exactly time, and here we are, bordering the era of biotechnology for the repair of aging. Planning ahead for the best possible personal future starts with investment now. Think about it.

<comment><USER31> >Wealth is a measure of your ability to do what you would like to do, when you would like to do it - a measure of your breadth of immediately available choice.

This ties in well with what Oscar Wilde wrote:

"Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand 'under the shelter of the wall,' as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this."

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Kind of silly article, but was a fun read. While the article does trigger a "wow we actually have it quite good now" feeling, don't forget being a billionaire means more than having a lot of money.

It means you had major success and you are one of the greatest. It means you have status and respect. It means you are capable of financially supporting other people, helping them and help fixing their problems.

Not only can you provide for yourself up to highest of standards of living of 1916, you can provide for 1000s of other peoples up to the higher standards of 1916. Helping people is fun :)</comment>


The Arsenic Eaters of Styria - <AUTHOR> http://www.ultimatehistoryproject.com/arsenic-eaters.html

<comment><USER2> Interestingly, arsenic has long been suspected of being an essential nutrient in mammalian biology. There are wasting diseases that are nominally caused by extreme arsenic deficiency and adding arsenic to animal feed in certain regions of the world (presumably with extremely low environmental arsenic levels) has been practiced because it increases animal weight and fertility. And fact is, in some parts of the world (including some regions of the US), extremely high natural arsenic levels in the water and environment exist at several times the EPA maximum designated levels with no obvious adverse consequences. I do not think there is any rigorous scientific evidence for acquired tolerance but it is a possibility; at a minimum, populations living in naturally very high arsenic environments don't seem to accumulate notable pathologies as a result.

The old saying that "the dose makes the poison" probably applies here, and bioavailability of the arsenic forms probably plays a role. However, the line from poison to harmless is rarely straight and in many cases is bimodal i.e. too little is as bad as too much. Many common vitamins have a similar toxicity curve. Even alcohol consumption has a bimodal distribution in terms of its effects on mortality. Arsenic having a bimodal toxicity would not be surprising, even though it is presumed to be linear by the EPA. It would be somewhat surprising to learn that a high degree of tolerance can be developed but not unprecedented.

An alternative hypothesis is that arsenic bioavailability varies considerably. What may be interpreted as tolerance is actually a circumstantial lack of bioavailability. There is scientific evidence lending credence to the idea of incredibly low bioavailability of dietary arsenic in some cases such that it might be possible to consume large quantities without actually absorbing it. Some plants are known to be aggressive concentrators of environmental arsenic without being particularly toxic to critters that eat them. In some contexts most of the arsenic may go in one end and out the other.

Arsenic is quite interesting from a biochemistry perspective. It can be extremely toxic, which is well understood, but the variability and the effects in lower doses is not. Plenty of interesting research still to be done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Reading further about its mechanism of action[1], it seems like it decouples the electron transport chain. There are other substances (for example, the famous DNP fat burner) that do this was well, and they all seems to have a narrow therapeutic index[2].

Take home message: Don´t mess with the mitochondria and, as you commented, research into its therapeutic potential.

"The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy" [3]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_toxicity#Mechanism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_toxicity#Mechanism)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index)

[3] [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/paracelsus300347....](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/paracelsus300347.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was born in Cilli, now named Celje, part of Slovenia, but have never heard of this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Google gave me [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23070617?dopt=AbstractPlu...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23070617?dopt=AbstractPlus): "Possible positive selection for an arsenic-protective haplotype in humans"

PDF at [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3553437/pdf/ehp....](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3553437/pdf/ehp.1205504.pdf)</comment>


FLIR – Thermal Imaging Device for iPhone 5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.flir.com/US/ <comment><USER2> Relevant:

Turn cheap FLIR into expensive FLIR imager: [http://hackaday.com/2013/11/04/manufacturer-crippled- flir-e4...](http://hackaday.com/2013/11/04/manufacturer-crippled- flir-e4-thermal-camera-hacked-to-perform-as-high-end-model/)

Kickstart Phone Thermal Imaging: [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mu- thermal-camera-a-great-...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mu-thermal- camera-a-great-tool-to-save-on-energy-costs)

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyrawson/ir-blue- therm...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyrawson/ir-blue-thermal- imaging-smartphone-accessory?ref=card)

<comment><USER3> From that indiegogo, this kind of thing always gives me pause: "We'll send you a Mµ Optics Thermal Imager for $125. ... This represents $200 off the MSRP."

<comment><USER2> Not endorsing... I just had looked into some options awhile back.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I was just talking about selling something at or below cost initially but then having a much higher MSRP, then saying that "clearly there's a market there." Just seems like a lot more people would buy this as a fun accessory at $125 than $300.

<comment><USER4> 100% markup is pretty standard on nice hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I took of pic of one in action last night:

[http://imgur.com/vT4vl2o](http://imgur.com/vT4vl2o)

Seemed pretty responsive. Good enough to capture the residual temperature from someone touching a table. Not pro level stuff obviously but worth exploring for basic thermal imaging applications it seemed to me.

<comment><USER6> Good enough for seeing what PIN was typed on the atm machine?

<comment><USER7> You mean, so you can 1) mug the cardholder, and 2) try all the 4x4 combinations (or 5x5 for mine), which I believe will get the card eaten after a small number of failures? Seems like it would be much useful for snooping pinpad door lock codes, which often don't seem to care how many errors you enter in a short period.

<comment><USER6> Good point. Real criminals attach an inconspicuous cam and a skimmer to the machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All down to the resolution. Judging by the product binning on the rest of their cameras, this will be a 4x4 pixel sensor.

The real URL for this submission should be — [http://www.flir.com/flirone/](http://www.flir.com/flirone/)

<comment><USER9> While they didn't say anything about the specs of the infrared part, the device seems to include a VGA camera for the multi-spectrum blending mode. If the infrared camera is similar... well, it won't win your infrared photography any awards at the art show, but it's not the worst.

Postscript: A nearby link to Hackaday talks about a 320x240 resolution that was firmware-limited to some fraction of that on the cheaper model. I'm going to throw out a wild-ass guess that they'll have a similar sensor here.

<comment><USER8> It'll probably be the exact same sensor, the question is can the software be hacked to make it anywhere near useful? If it's cheaper than their cheapest normal camera (it is) we can only assume it will have a significantly lower gimped resolution as a result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Imaging is going to be the next "big" ITAR battleground. I think the "Camera Wars" will stir up more public controversy than what we had with the Crypto Wars.

 _Crypto is not the only munition in disguise._

<comment><USER11> Thermal imaging sensors have been export-restricted for some time, though the details depend on the type of sensor. Here's a handy chart from DRS Technologies, which makes thermal sensors:

[http://www.drsinfrared.com/Support/ExportGuidelines.aspx](http://www.drsinfrared.com/Support/ExportGuidelines.aspx)

<comment><USER10> I recognize that there have been imaging restrictions in place for some time. It is not just thermal imaging, there is a frames per second ceiling, but I do not recall the number. I think the "Camera Wars" are around the corner because the prices are coming down dramatically not because of new legislation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who has spent the past month fighting with FLIR customer support to get a $5000 camera working robustly and correctly I doubt that this will be a good product. We have dozens of FLIR cameras and at least a quarter of them have been sent back for re-calibration. We're about to send one out for the second time. Also, forget about open source support.

<comment><USER5> This is meant to be pretty basic. Can you think of anything that could replace it? It seemed to work well when I demoed it, but for pro stuff obviously you wouldn't want to rely on it.

<comment><USER12> The FLIR machine vision cameras for industrial applications are driving me nuts. To a degree all machine vision cameras can be persnikety when you want to try and use them with FOSS software like ROS. Right now we are fighting with non-uniform correction of the cameras. Basically this is the camera's auto exposure. It consistently gets all out of whack. Also the GigE IP stack on the camera was a righteous bitch to get working. Once you buy the camera you have to spend a small fortune for an GigE SDK that doesn't even work on anything but CentOS. We ended spending a whole weekend doing some basic kernel patches to get the damn thing to kinda work on Ubuntu.

All of this is to say, it will probably work, but don't plan on building after-market apps on top of the camera technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For some reason I'm tickled that the security application of this add-on is illustrated by a man lurking around the side of a Scion xB in a parking lot, as though the user constantly has the app up and is holding the camera in front of them everywhere they go.

</comment><comment><USER14> Shouldn't this be titled "A FLIR camera for your iPhone 5", or something? It's a backpack, not a modification of the phone itself.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm reluctant to buy something like this that'll become useless the moment I decide to change/upgrade phones.

<comment><USER16> Agree, plain USB (i.e. something like a webcam) would be a much better interface.

On the other hand, if this really catches on, and the sensor technology cheapens, in a decade or two we may start to see generic webcam-like thermal cameras from China showing up in the $10 range... which would be rather fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting that they aren't using the built-in iPhone camera for the visual spectrum part, but are still using their own. (FLIR uses a visual spectrum camera to do edge detection, and then overlays that on the IR image to make it easier to see what is going on.)

<comment><USER9> This way the visible and IR cameras are right next to each other.

<comment><USER17> And they don't have to worry whether the two cameras are pointed in the same direction. And they don't have to worry about the pointing shifting over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What distances is something like this accurate to?

I just ordered a 3DRobotics Iris and I'm interested in mounting some thermal/IR/multi-spectral imaging to it ... could something like this work from the sky?

<comment><USER5> I tested one out last night a little bit, guy said it was about half as accurate as a normal retail FLIR model (accuracy in temp differentiation, which surely has an effect on distance). Here's a pic:

[http://imgur.com/vT4vl2o](http://imgur.com/vT4vl2o)

I was too absent minded to ask about distance specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there anyone that does photography where the R in RGB is replaced by thermal values? I've always been curious what the world would look like if our red cones were replaced with a thermal cone cell.

<comment><USER20> There is multi layer (channel) color infra-red film that does what you are asking. Ad for digital, the technology is slightly different, but explained here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography#Digital_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography#Digital_cameras)

With modified D200s being one choice,

[http://gmv.cast.uark.edu/photogrammetry/photogrammetry- hardw...](http://gmv.cast.uark.edu/photogrammetry/photogrammetry- hardware/nikon-d200-ir/)

and this another:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If anyone can send me a sample of the Lepton camera module so I can connect it to my microquad, that would be awesome. Message me if you can help.thx email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER22> I wish they mentioned pricing. Of course IR cameras exist, the thing that makes it interesting is how much it might cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Says "under $350" [http://www.flir.com/flirone/press/assets/Discover/FLIR%20ONE...](http://www.flir.com/flirone/press/assets/Discover/FLIR%20ONE_Launch%20Release_FINAL.pdf)

<comment><USER23> The i7, one of the lower priced units is around $2k, so if it can do the same thing (appears to be the same resolution) it is a win.

<comment><USER24> What makes those cameras so expensive? I assume it's the customer base (industrial applications, small customer base compared to the consumer market) that makes them expensive, not so much the cost of actually making them at scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.flir.com/flirone/](http://www.flir.com/flirone/)

is the more direct link.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why would anyone need this?

<comment><USER26> I have a 100 year old house that I've been remodeling, and this would enable me to easily find air leaks. I'm skeptical that it will enable me to find studs through horsehair plaster (they show visible studs in the gallery), but it will certainly make it easier to locate the position of forced hot water pipes in the walls and ceilings.

<comment><USER27> You can clearly see the studs in in the second picture:

[http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal- imagin...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging- camera-teardown/msg345222/#msg345222)

That's a 1927 house with plaster & lath walls.

<comment><USER28> I like this application--would be handy for anybody doing repairs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shiny Demos, new HTML5 showcase by Opera - <AUTHOR> http://shinydemos.com <comment><USER2> Many of them seem to require the alpha or beta of Opera. Most of them don't seem to work for me in Firefox or Chrome.

I wish they would explain what parts of each demo is HTML5 and how it works.

<comment><USER3> Yeah this was just a soft-launch for MWC. We're planning a proper launch soon with more context for the user, proper feature detection, categories, etc.

The goal is to get something decent on all browsers--and we'll open the repo on github for those who want to help us get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "Rock Piano" keys get stuck by simply clicking a key, holding, and moving the cursor outside the key. A bit finicky :)

<comment><USER2> That's a common problem, a key just can't register a mouse button release outside of itself.

<comment><USER5> Could it check if it is still in a pressed state? There would be a lag, but it wouldn't be broken. I guess.

<comment><USER2> I imagine there's several ways to do it, it's a matter of figuring out which one is the most efficient for the situation at hand.

For instance, you could log what key was pressed with its own mouse event, then detect a generic mouse release event not tied to the key, look up the log that recorded what key was pressed, and then react accordingly to that. I wouldn't think it would be the best method for a multi-touch device though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great demos. I didn't know Chrome had landed webcam support. What a great way to start the morning

</comment><comment><USER7> Clock and Color Picker both appear to be broken for me...

Of the ones that work: Cool

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice showcase. The color picker demo seems to be broken.</comment>


Show HN: A technical standards search engine (IEC, ISO, etc.) - <AUTHOR> https://www.global-regulation.com/standards-search.php <comment><USER2> Very not free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I'm one of the co-founders of global-regulation.com.

The search is free but almost all of the technical standards aren't free. The reason for that is that the SDOs (organizations that make the standards) license them out and don't provide them for free. There's no way around that, except perhaps for people like you to use only free standards (although some are written into laws so there's no choice in the matter).

If you're someone who buys IEC standards then you'll notice that the prices of those are the lowest available because those are sold directly under a reseller agreement and we have some influence over the price.</comment></comment>


What is your best favourite KDE distro? - Linux notes from DarkDuck - <AUTHOR> http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/07/what-is-your-best-favourite-kde-distro.html <comment><USER2> In the past few years I've only used Kubuntu, which is a fine OS. KDE is the only GUI I use.

I think Microsoft's Windows 8 is going to make KDE look very old. Innovation would be welcome.</comment>


Mining your email to automatically broadcast your mood.  Can also broadcast collective moods (e.g., in an organization, country, etc.). - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> This can give you useful information. For example, you might delay an email asking for something if the receiver is currently in a bad mood or too busy.

This could also be useful for suicide prevention. Imagine Google doing this with gmail to keep its users mentally healthy and safe. Signs of depression would be reported automatically.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting idea, Jonathan Harris has already done something like this for the web.

See:

<http://www.wefeelfine.org/methodology.html></comment>


Do You Believe In Magic? - <AUTHOR> http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/07/do-you-believe-in-magic.html <comment><USER2> Maybe it's just me, but whenever something feels like "magic" to me, I just get this urge to open it apart and find out what is really going on.

</comment><comment><USER3> No lie, this was probably one of my favorite articles posted this year, definitely saving for later...

</comment><comment><USER4> After reading that article, I feel like there are some streets in the Bay Area I wouldn't dare walk at night, lest I get jumped by ruby programmers holding their glocks side-ways.</comment>


A Technique for Drawing Directed Graphs (1993) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/TSE93.pdf <comment><USER2> On a related note, you should check out this article which was trending earlier:

"How we got 1,500 GitHub stars by mixing time-tested technology with a fresh UI" [https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how-we-got-1-500-github- star...](https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how-we-got-1-500-github-stars-by- mixing-time-tested-technology-with-a-fresh-ui-b310551cba22) HN Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14567492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14567492)

Money quotes are:

"But after looking at the source code we found a fatal flaw in this tool: it used Graphviz — a decades old tool written..."

"...After a little research, we found the best library for the task— Cytoscape.js. ..."

... Although the code was much cleaner, the end-result was much worse compared to the original tool. Completely unusable. It appeared that there is no way for cytoscape.js to have edges that don't cross nodes. "

"...Don't judge code by it's age. Especially if it was written by tech giants such as AT&T Labs"

Turns out drawing/visualizing graphs is a really hard problem!

<comment> le-mark Graphviz is really good, but I tend to think it's held back graph drawing all these years. Anytime graph drawing comes the advice is to 'use graphviz' when nowadays there are some really good alternatives, most of them closed source commercial unfortunately.

<comment><USER3> > ... but I tend to think it's held back graph drawing all these years.

can you please elaborate a bit more about why you think graphviz has a negative impact?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Graphviz is a great tool.

The project seems to have some big problems though. The last stable release was three years ago. 100% reproducible regression bugs for very simple input are not even looked at for years. The build process is so complicated that even the project itself has given up on creating Windows binaries.

The website with the documentation is often down or extremely slow.

The dot graph description language is frustratingly non-composable. Clusters can just barely be used as a crude, limited workaround. A declarative styling mechanism instead of the current imperative state machine approach would remove so much pain.

It's also quite easy to run into crashes.

And still there's nothing better.

<comment><USER5> > And still there's nothing better.

I beg to differ, although I'm working for a developer of a (quite costly) commercial alternative. But the state in the open-source or free space has only few good options and many of them are sorely lacking in quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This textbook chapter has a good overview of the state of the art: [https://cs.brown.edu/~rt/gdhandbook/chapters/hierarchical.pd...](https://cs.brown.edu/~rt/gdhandbook/chapters/hierarchical.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, if it's made by Microsoft - let's ignore it: [https://github.com/Microsoft/automatic-graph- layout](https://github.com/Microsoft/automatic-graph-layout)

</comment><comment><USER8> I flipping love graphviz.</comment>


Secret life of the cat: What do our feline companions get up to? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567526

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, one of their favorite activities while roaming around includes killing a large number of birds[1]. While some may scoff at that, birds (even the ones considered less desirable) contribute to lowering the populations of insect pests that would annoy us or eat our crops. China nearly wiped out the common house sparrow in the 1960s and it helped lead to The Great Famine[2] as the sparrows ate much more insects than they did grain. Many types of the less invasive bird species also do not reproduce nearly as fast or in abundance as their feline predators. So while cats might have a few litters or more each year, the birds they are killing might only have one successful clutch, if that. Unlike mammals, most bird species also need both parents to raise their young. If one is killed, the other will most likely abandon the nest.

Countries like New Zealand[3][4] have had to worry about the size of cat populations lately just to keep birds like the kiwi from being wiped out. New Zealand originally had no native mammals and the birds there have not yet built up a sense of fear to them (or even us) in many cases. Although cats are a guilty party, we also did some damage by wiping out some unique New Zealand species, such as the Moa[5]. Until mammals came along, birds were the dominate species of the island, which is one of the factors that makes its ecosystem so interesting to study.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2013/01/29/170600655/beh...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2013/01/29/170600655/behind-cute-face-a-cold-blooded-killer-study-finds- cats-kill-billions-of-animals)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)

[3] [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10860618)

[4] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8021...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8021992/Deodorant- sought-to-save-New-Zealands-smelly-birds.html)

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

<comment><USER3> I think these studies underestimate how lazy a well-fed cat is. Lots of annecdotes ahoy!

I feed (and fix and tame and try to place) a decent number of local strays. In the past five years I've only seen a cat _really_ hunt twice - after being thrown out of his house (but before realizing I'd feed him) he killed and ate two squirrels. There has been maybe half a dozen mice and voles, and maybe twice as many cicadas. I've seen cats watch birds but I've never seen them pounce. Only very hungry cats bother with hunting fast moving prey, and our local bird population remains stable. (Counterpoint, I am pretty sure everything here nests in trees and out of reach of all but the most determined cat. Other areas with lots of ground-nesters are probably more vulnerable.)

What has been wrecked is the local snake population. The area used to have small, cute and harmless Northern Brown snakes everywhere. Adorible things, about 10 inches long and become tame after 15 minutes of handling and never bite. Every spring I'll pull a bunch of these snakes out of the jaws of a cat, maybe half survive. Snakes are too slow and irresistible to surive a bored cat.

Feed the cats and the birds will do fine.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storeria_dekayi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storeria_dekayi)

<comment><USER2> I tend to agree that domestic cats with owners are not really the problem (ours when I was a kid living a farm did kill some birds/snakes/rabbits, but not in large numbers). Although cats as pets might not be killing as much as their feral cousins, the impact of a bird being killed by a cat though is a bit worse than non-bird victims. The likelihood the offspring of the victim bird will not reach adulthood is near 100% versus only 50% (or less in animals that don't require parental rearing) with other animal victims[1].

The problem is more with feral cats that people dump and have no source of food other than what they catch. Combined with most of them not being spayed or neutered, the feral cat populations in many countries grows at an alarming rate as they tend to not have any natural predators. However, that has changed a bit here in the United States with the rise of the coyote populations recently and may help to stabilize the feral cat problem.

[1] near 100% since most birds need both parents to raise their young (and will likely abandon the nest if one is killed) and the 50% coming from the chance the animal killed was a female non-avian species.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what kind of equipment they use. I can't imagine strapping a Raspberry Pi to my cat to find out what he's up to. Do they use custom built hardware?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Cat-Secret-Life- Ca...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Cat-Secret-Life-Camera)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do not watch the video of cat number 4. You have been warned.

<comment><USER7> I imagine most cat owners are quite familiar with this.

<comment><USER2> I can guess what the video is about (not really wanting to watch it) and I saw it quite a bit of it living on a farm when I was younger where we kept cats to take care of the rodent problem.

I like cats well enough, but I never really got used to seeing the results of their "sadistic side" (if you can call it that) and what they left behind. Kind of silly, but I would avoid them for a period of time after one of them decided to make a cardinal, rabbit or goldfinch its living play toy. We fed them well on top of the rodents they caught, but cats being cats, can't help themselves[1]. I know it's the way they are, but I like pretty much all animals, so seeing senseless killing was just somewhat irritating.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_Anonymous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_Anonymous)</comment></comment></comment>


Linsched: Linux Scheduler Simulator - <AUTHOR> http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/10/12/279

<comment><USER2> The original linsched paper:

<http://www.cs.unc.edu/~jmc/linsched/linsched_paper.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> I can see this helping very much with rapid testing of new scheduling ideas.

With good testing tools, development becomes much easier.

</comment><comment><USER4> What a sensible idea. Very cool.</comment>


The Python Grimoire - <AUTHOR> http://taoofmac.com/space/dev/Python/Grimoire <comment><USER2> Warning from the bottom of the page:

 _" The Grimoire has fallen into disrepair since 2008, and despite covering all the basics, does not fully address modern Python idioms and features."_</comment>


How my "impractical" humanities degree prepared me for a career in programming - <AUTHOR> http://shelbyswitzer.com/humanities_degrees_help_programmers/

<comment><USER2> I have very good economics/management degree from cool school in my country/country group, however, it makes me much better person in IT than persons with good education in the field, why? Because I care and understand much more about processes and people behind code written than average IT guy, also - I'm much more inclined to do my "homework" (research) and make solution for process not try fitting some idea in process thus making it awkward

</comment><comment><USER3> It wasn't your degree it was you.

You make your education not your school.

<comment><USER2> I agree with that, this requires certain mindset and skill, however I have seen some dismissing attitude from HR "specialists" and alike while real world seems to be quite different

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "But what most people can't seem to piece together is how I went from a degree where I learned medieval Welsh, recited Latin and Irish poetry, and studied Anglo-Saxon kings, to a career that seems so deeply rooted in modern technological culture: programming."

Love this stuff!</comment>


When we have money we'll do X - <AUTHOR> http://blog.antoniocangiano.com/when-we-have-money-well-do-x <comment><USER2> I think many (bad) startups suffer from this exact same mindset of "when we have [some external resource] we'll be able to do X."

To quote Tony Robbins' TED Talk: "it's about resourcefulness, not resources." (1)

Successful startups just make it happen with what they have. Unsuccessful ones tend to always look externally for solutions. "If we only had more engineers"... "If we only had VC"... "If we only had more users"... etc.

There is a long list of reasons why this mindset will doom any startup. Two, important ones are:

1) It makes you less creative (to look externally for solutions)

2) It slows you down (to wait on external resources)

And what do startups have going for them, but for creativity and agility?

(1) [http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we...](http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do.html)

<comment><USER3> I think that's a really good point--and it makes a startup seem like they're the victim. That being said, it's always a telling question to ask a founder what the first 3 priorities would be if he/she closed X amount of dollars today. It can really give insight into long term vision, as well as self- awareness (i.e. knowing what you don't know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I encounter a variant of this all the time in modeling projects at my day job, due to the fear of beginning an unknown process (in my case modeling).

Our clients often say things like, "We are not going to start modeling until "x" is completed."

To which I respond: "I'm not leaving my driveway, until all the lights are green."

It usually produces a chuckle, and helps everyone realize that we won't get anywhere sitting around waiting for the stars to align.

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Galactic_alignm...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Galactic_alignment)

Couldn't resist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's good to have the goal _so long as you work towards achieving it_. So (in my family at least) we say "We'll do X when we have Y money and we're saving Z amount off the top of each paycheque towards it"

<comment><USER7> I've often heard it said is when you want to do X but have no plan on how to get there your dreaming, if you have a plan on how to get X that's a goal. There's nothing wrong with dreaming, but it doesn't happen until you make it a goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great thoughts, and definitely inspiring.

Truth is, with everything, start with what you have and grow it. Don't know how to make a website? Get a WordPress.com/Tumblr/Posterous blog, learn little by little, try out some CSS/HTML, then get your own hosting when you can, branch out, and eventually you never know where it might go. It might go good, you might love it and learn a lot, but it could fail ... you'll never know if you don't try. And if trying doesn't cost anything, why not? Go with your basic resources, and give it a shot.

"Just do it" may be the best slogan ever.

<comment><USER9> My boss had a better slogan: JEDI (just effin' do it). We always took it to mean 'do it, don't just talk about it/don't ask permission, just get on with it'. Getting that JEDI mindset is important in lots of workplaces.

Back to the original point: don't wait. There are so many things you might be thinking of doing and saying 'When I get my new team...', 'When I get a free afternoon...', 'When I've fully mastered Rails testing I'll start doing BDD...'

</comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
      Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!

_faux-Goethe_ <http://german.about.com/library/blgermyth12.htm>

<comment><USER11> Interesting read. The real Goethe also had some nice lines. There was also a link to "Shakespeare in German" (<http://german.about.com/od/literature/a/Shakespeare.htm>) on the site you mentioned. Did you know that Germany has the world's oldest Shakespeare Society?

<comment><USER10> That link suggests "the beginning of the end" is from Shakespeare - do you know which work? I only know it from Churchill, and assumed it was his.

<comment><USER11> I am still searching. <http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cetag/1dshakes.htm> confirms "the beginnig of the end" but does not give a source.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ashakespeare....](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ashakespeare.mit.edu+beginning+of+the+end&aq=o&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

[http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/midsummer.5.1.html#spee...](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/midsummer.5.1.html#speech23)

"That is the true beginning of our end."

Actually it seems like Shakespeare may be doing a bit of wordplay here, "end" looks like it primarily means "goal" as in "the ends justify the means."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hear this sentiment a lot from people. In fact, I use to have this line of thinking. I've found that the only cure is to convince yourself to take action now or realize that it's not a priority.

It's kind of like when people say that they don't have the time when what they really mean is that it's not a priority.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's not bad advice per se, but beware of mortgaging the future to do something today.

As someone heavily in debt, I'd be better off by the opposite advice (learn not to indulge yourself). Also not that good advice for procrastinators (I'm also one)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think renting stuff makes sense a lot of the time. If you have to over commit yourself so that you can buy, it definitely makes no sense at all. Property is still significantly over valued even though we've been in recession for a couple of years and the future isn't guaranteed to pick up in the next year.

However, the thing with renting is the price goes up. Most years. The thing with buying - assuming you're on a repayment mortgage, is that one day IT WILL BE FREE :) Yours!

That's the attraction of buying to me, as otherwise when you get to 65 you'll still be paying significant rent. Which means you need to save more for your pension. (I'd be interested to see the maths on the how much more?)

Anyways just my 2p.

<comment><USER16> The decision to rent or buy is very dependent on inflation and future tax laws, which are hard to predict. Nevertheless, this New York Times rent vs. buy calculator is useful:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent- calcula...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent- calculator.html)

Make sure to adjust the "advanced settings" to fit your circumstances, because they can make a significant difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are plenty of scenarios were this is a good way to manage your resources though. When we have money we'll move to a VPS from a shared hosting environment. When we have money we'll stop checking IP to country locations manually and pay for a service that handles that. When we have money we'll be able to reinvest into the company instead of just bleed funds. I'm doing X to work toward this goal.

I want to buy a house, not just any house but the one I want to buy and I'll buy it when I have the money. I'm doing X to work toward this goal.

I want to buy a car, not just any car but the one I want to buy and I'll buy it when I have the money. I'm doing X to work toward this goal.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have the same problem when it comes to buying electronics. I've missed out on having a smart phone because I'm always waiting for the next iteration, or for my current contract to run out. It's an endless cycle of not buying.

What helps me break this cycle is to have specific monthly amount budgeted towards something I would otherwise have a hard time buying. If I put $100/mo towards my "dream X fund", then I won't feel this internal guilt when I finally buy X.

</comment><comment><USER19> With something like 1 trillion dollars in credit card debt in the U.S. I'm think it's safe to say many aren't "living in the future" at all.

<comment><USER20> The funny thing is, most of those who contribute to that number are probably still looking forward to what big purchase they can make next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Time and tide waits for no man" (Quote from Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) You have to make things happen, not wait for the things to happen.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good analysis. I have noticed this behavior is not as typical for poor Chinese (living in China). The new generations in China (under 30) are experiencing something closer to the U.S. "expectation" mind set. But Chinese from my wife's generation (late 30s) and her parent's (60s/70s) seem to be able to be happier and enjoy the moment a bit better.

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe the startup version of this is "when we have users, we'll do X."

<comment><USER24> Could be; but in my startup it was still "when we have money, we'll do X." It ended up being one of the big disagreements between me and my co-founder-- a lot of the compromises (on quality and process) that I was willing to make when we were bootstrapping were, in my mind, no longer serviceable once we took VC money. He still wanted to do everything quick and dirty, and incur all kinds of technical debt.

From where I sit, the message of the OP is still to the point-- do what you want to do, now. Don't live for the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My version of this is: When we achieve X, money is a by-product ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> When I have time I will write a longer and more thoughtful answer.

</comment><comment><USER27> It really doesn't cost that much money, there are probably more substantial reasons for procrastination. Besides, the kids mostly call it "E" these days.</comment>


Mark Cuban Prodded Tesla's Elon Musk to Settle SEC Charges - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-cuban-prodded-teslas-elon-musk-to-settle-sec-charges-1538678655 <comment><USER2> Archive.is alternative - [https://archive.is/Zstq5](https://archive.is/Zstq5) (gets around paywall)</comment>


Project Oberon: Design of an OS, Compiler, and Computer – 2013 edition [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/PO.System.pdf

<comment><USER2> This appears to be a repost, we had a nice discussion of this work on Oberon yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6829464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6829464)

</comment><comment><USER3> He is 79 years old, retired, and he is still delivering. The ultimate computer scientist?

</comment><comment><USER4> This appears to be an updated edition of a masterpiece. But not the complete text?

<comment><USER5> Here you go: [http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/](http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Pricing B2B for Self-Serve SaaS - <AUTHOR> How do you price a B2B product for self-serve? I.e., what's the upper range for products that can be added to a business credit card without going through procurement?
The "SaaS valley of death" is that zone where a product is priced too cheaply to justify a sales team (e.g., <$25k/year) but too expensive for credit cards (e.g., $5k/year). So presumably the upper range is around $400 a month?
But that sounds theoretical and I'm curious to hear from those who have had real, trial-by-error experience playing in this upper SaaS pricing range. <comment><USER2> I run a b2b saas. We have clients who pay anywhere from 6k-15k per year on credit cards on average. We do have option to send a physical check or manual invoice/wire but has never been an issue.

You will be surprised about upper limits on credit cards. But it is more US centric as our european clients prefer bank transfer for larger amounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Interesting, do you require multiple calls to get them across the line? I guess I presumed if you could put it on the company credit card, we'd go from 4-6 calls down to 1 call or 0 calls.

<comment><USER2> sorry I didn't respond earlier. So yes it depends on the client and not so much about the Amount. For example, small/mid sized businesses where the decision maker is just 1 person, we sometimes get them to pay through credit card right away (even amounts like 20K). But sometimes we deal with larger companies and for the same amount, we have to deal with tons of red tape including procurement software and what not. So it is not so much about the actual amount but the type of client.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Based on my experience you can go higher than $5K / year on a card, definitely to just under $10K and possibly even a little more than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok thanks, great data point. In your experience, does that coincide with the max before it has to go through procurement, legal, etc?</comment></comment>


Apollo 8 Completes First Manned Moon Orbit - <AUTHOR> https://apesinspace.co/blogs/space-history/apollo-8 <comment><USER2> They saved 1968...</comment>


Hashpipe – Pipe iff the hash matches - <AUTHOR> http://jbenet.github.io/hashpipe/ <comment><USER2> I think this is a topic worth raising, I spend so much time auditing the "magic" in open source projects to try and find out how they work behind the scenes, and whether they are doing anything to protect me.

For example:

Pip (python package manager) tells you to run a "secure" script off the internet [0], where the only real protection is being behind SSL. But, surely I can just check the code of that script? Oh wait, it's embedding a zip file inside the python script, so I need to manually unzip it and look into it before I can start to consider it safe.

I like what CoreOS does, they don't even provide SSL download links for their isos, it's all plain text http, so they stress that you need to verify the image signature against their GPG signing key which is distributed via github.

[0] [https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py](https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get- pip.py)

<comment><USER3> >so they stress that you need to verify the image signature against their GPG signing key which is distributed via github.

If someone has the ability to MiTM HTTPS connections, they could just as easily MiTM the victim's connection to github to return a different GPG signing key. Also, the protection requires active checking rather than coming 'for free' like it does by downloading via HTTPS, so 95%+ of the users won't bother and won't have any protection.

I think CoreOS took a big step backwards here. Just offer the download links via HTTPS in addition to the GPG key. That way people that don't bother with GPG have protection.

<comment><USER2> SSL does nothing to guarantee the integrity of code you download and run off the internet.

I'm not worried about MITM attacks, SSL provides adequate protection against those in most cases; but if someone gains access to the coreos systems SSL would not help.

In this case, I have a GPG key saved for the coreos image signing, which hopefully is done offline and I got that through a third party which I have a certain amount of trust on (github), and I can always verify it on other channels.

<comment><USER3> But did you verify it on other channels? Or did you do like 99.9% of users and assume nobody would be attacking you? My point is mainly that gpg is such a usability nightmare that it's effectively a broken security model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this one isn't too far from useability:

curl -o filename url && sha256sum -c <(echo "PRECOMPUTEDHASH filename") && sh filename

And works without requiring installation of third-party tools too!

<comment><USER5> This is non-portable, as OS X has no sha256sum out of the box. But it does have shasum from Perl, and Linux distros typically come with Perl, so 'shasum -ba256' should work...

I wonder if there is any _concise_ way to do this without needing to save a file to disk. I can't think of one, as it requires splitting the input in two, which bash can do with >(command) but not sequentially or with the ability to communicate from the subshell to the outer one.

<comment><USER6> You need to buffer the entire input _somewhere_.

You don't get your hash without consuming the entire input.

You can't start feeding the input to the shell, until you verify the hash.

You don't want to download it twice, it case it comes back different the second time (or in case your network is slow).

At the point that you are verifying the hash, the entire file must exist on your system _somewhere_. Disk, memory, OCR-friendly printout, whatever.

Buffering to memory can only work if the input is "small", whatever that means. And pipelines aren't meant to do this, so you'll have to do something a bit odd (ie, confusing to anyone trying to understand your code) to make it work.

So, buffer to disk.

.

Or, use Perl. Perl solves everything.

<comment><USER7> > Buffering to memory can only work if the input is "small", whatever that > means.

Well, increasingly it means "up to 8GB or more". Or put another way, RAM is increasing faster than network speed (or the speed of light for that matter...). So, I'd say that, yes, for many things you'd want to download from the internet, caching in RAM is absolutely an option?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see how this gives additional security. When you run

       curl https://project.com/script.sh | sh

...you're relying on three things:

1\. That the people running the project are trustworthy

2\. That the server hasn't been compromised

3\. That the CA system will ensure you're talking to the correct server

(I can think of recent news stories where each of those were violated.)

If, instead, you go to `[https://project.com`](https://project.com`), read the instructions, and paste in the following command...

       curl https://project.com/script.sh | hashpipe <somehash> | sh

..then you're relying on those same three things! Someone who wants to serve a modified version of `script.sh` just has to serve modified instructions as well. You also have a new requirement: you have to get a trusted install of hashpipe first.

<comment><USER9> You add an extra layer of security, if you receive the hash over a different channel, such as encrypted messaging.

That means, that even if the CA system is broken, you only execute the intended contents.

<comment><USER10> > That means, that even if the CA system is broken, you only execute the > intended contents.

No it doesn't - how are you installing hashpipe? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Deployment one-liners with hashpipe will only work if hashpipe is installed, which would be equally difficult for users to install properly than the software itself. Then you'd need something like this:

> Simply install using `curl hashpi.pe | bash`

<comment><USER12> This is a really, really interesting point!

In addition to your point, (and perhaps this point has already been made elsewhere in the thread), but the type of people that would install hashpipe would be the kind of people to avoid the practice entirely.

Perhaps there's some mechanism for convincing people to use the tool, and if that mechanism ends up being easier than convincing people to stop piping directly to bash, it sounds like it would be worth pursuing :)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, this is just a stopgap for me. in the end i want:

      ipfs daemon --mount &
      sh /ipfs/QmTpnQL97XEHmyt54mgEwf5BN8gJWvw4sGgwQzjqtBwLX6

(this actually works, btw :)

<comment><USER7> Thank's for pimpong ipfs -- I hadn't heard of it before. Initial discussion on hn:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069836)

github(?): [https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs)

Recent re-submission of new(?) home page: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9321209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9321209)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since the main use case for this utility is verifying network shell scripts, it would be interesting to see a query param convention, so we could use a tool such as:

> hashcurl [http://load.this/script?hash=](http://load.this/script?hash=) > QmUJPTFZnR2CPGAzmfdYPghgrFtYFB6pf1BqMvqfiPDam8 | sh

<comment><USER14> When the just-over-the-next-hilltop promised-land nirvana of content-centric networking arrives, the hash will be enough to locate & download the content – so you shouldn't even need an URL:

      $ hashcurl QmUJPTFZnR2CPGAzmfdYPghgrFtYFB6pf1BqMvqfiPDam8 | sh

Maybe it's even a special filesystem path, that contains (but does not list) everything-that's-nameable-and-findable:

      $ sh /everything/QmUJPTFZnR2CPGAzmfdYPghgrFtYFB6pf1BqMvqfiPDam8

(BTW, personally not a fan of the opaque 'multihash' format, which obscures the algorithm-in-use to save a few characters.)

<comment><AUTHOR> this already works. install ipfs: [http://ipfs.io/docs/install](http://ipfs.io/docs/install) then:

        ipfs init
        ipfs daemon &
        sleep 20  # sorry this will go away
        ipfs mount
        sh /ipfs/QmTpnQL97XEHmyt54mgEwf5BN8gJWvw4sGgwQzjqtBwLX6

you can see it on the web at: [http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTpnQL97XEHmyt54mgEwf5BN8gJWvw4...](http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTpnQL97XEHmyt54mgEwf5BN8gJWvw4sGgwQzjqtBwLX6)

<comment><USER14> That's great! I hope that IPFS, or something of its ilk, can be the promised- land to which I alluded.

If I were to install it, how hard/breaking would it be to change the access- path to something more grandiosely descriptive like '/everything/'?

<comment><USER15> its a simple matter of changing the ipfs config file

<comment><AUTHOR> <3

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Keep in mind whatever script you run through this could download additional unverified code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point!! -- \o read this everyone o/ \--

Please please dont use hashpipe thinking you'll be super safe about everything. It only raises the bar a bit! It solves my biggest gripe with most `curl <url> | sh` things, which is that any MITM can own my machines without compromising the origin http servers.

(of course, if the HTTP server + page you got the checksum from is owned too-- good luck!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You might want to `set -o pipefail` on your bash because a failing process does not stop things from getting piped:

`echo OK | false | echo OK2` --> this command returns zero exit code even though false does return non-zero exit code. If you do `set -o pipefail` entire pipe will fail with non-zero exit code (of `false`).

<comment><AUTHOR> great point. if you have a good idea of how hashpipe should do it better pls comment at: [https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues](https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues)

at least hashpipe stops the output, so this would not run the bad code. hashpipe would stop it:

      cat evil | hashpipe <some-other-hash> | sh

without pipefail, it would still exit 0, but at least the evil would be contained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Be warned that this reads everything until EOF into memory, doing something like:

        hashpipe QmUJPTFZnR2CPGAzmfdYPghgrFtYFB6pf1BqMvqfiPDam8 < large_file

will produce unexpected behaviour.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, hashes are decided by every single bit including the last one, and not a single bit should be output until the hash matches. It currently buffers everything in memory, but might do this: [https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues/1](https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues/1)

(some settings dont have disk though).

hashpipe is intended for most executable use cases (usually under <50MB)

<comment><USER19> Loading everything into memory at once shouldn't be necessary to produce a hash of the entire input. All of the hash functions currently supported allow for incremental hashing. That means you can hash in blocks instead of all at once.

<comment><USER20> The input still needs to be cached for eventual output in case the hash matches I assume.

<comment><USER21> More importantly, so nothing is output if the hash _doesn 't_ match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A polarizing name, if perhaps less so amongst programmers

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, i was going to call it `hashcat` -- maybe i should do that. or `pipehash`.

<comment><USER23> already have a hashcat purring on my computer...

[https://hashcat.net/oclhashcat/](https://hashcat.net/oclhashcat/)

<comment><AUTHOR> all the good names are taken. i guess it's time we give up on not clashing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If the code url and hash are provided at the same place, why wouldn't an attacker just MitM that and switch them both? What does this add?

Also anyone who is not serving code over https should fix that immediately.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would say the author now morally owes the world an equally convenient PGP- signer/verifier.

<comment><AUTHOR> you're right [https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues/3](https://github.com/jbenet/hashpipe/issues/3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Cool. The use case that comes to mind is knowing you are going to get the file you think it is if you are looking it up on some local or remote hash indexed storage scheme.

It would be nice if we had (it prob exists already) a standard block based scheme so files larger than the RAM could be handled without writing to disk. Making something like a .torrent for every file and using that as the per block checksum and then checking the hash of the concatenated checksums could do it. Right? I'm sure there is a real name for that but idk it.

Really this seems like something that the FS should be asked to do. ZFS seems to be close, but I haven't found out how to address a block by it's hash yet.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great, thank you for this software! Any idea if there are trusted 3rd party hashes for popular install scripts?

If a website wants you to:

curl "[http://sketchyurl.com/script.sh"](http://sketchyurl.com/script.sh") | hashpipe PRECOMPUTEDHASH | sh

it might be even worse, giving you only the facade of additional security.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a bigger problem, because we essentially need full PKI. My preferred solution is via [http://ipfs.io](http://ipfs.io) \-- but i may be a bit biased :)

I think we can get halfway there with a "signed hash" construction, but yeah-- PKI...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I love this idea, as it has bothered me for a while now that homebrew initial install just points to a script on github.

That said, now we just need someone to hack gobuilder.me and replace the binary distribution of hashpipe with something that always returns the input.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point!! working towards fixing that (the general problem of safe execution of binaries). signed releases will help.

I will release as self-describing signed package for this soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> How does it protect from man-in-the-middle attacks? The man in the middle can simply replace the hash. If there's an additional communication channel to provide the hash you could simply provide the whole command with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> not everything is hosted in the same place. most binaries use CDNs different from the websites. e.g. github + s3.

(see my other comments on this page-- hashpipe is only meant to raise the bar a little)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is cool. What was your thinking about potentially hashing whole commands (and even their executables) in addition to their parameters? You could be the hash (with as you say PKI) gateway for all execution... :)

</comment><comment><USER31> I implemented multihash in Haskell: [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/multihash](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/multihash)

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe OSX developers should just stop asking people to pipe random scripts into their shell. This is a nice idea with a clever name, but it's kind of a false sense of security.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hopefully people will only ever pipe from a HTTPS (PLEASE!), but this is still a great idea and a big step forward!

</comment><comment><USER34> I am rather amused that the author provides precompiled binaries without hash checksums. Heh.

</comment><comment><USER35> Getting this in before the gratuitous negativity brigade starts hammering down:

This an implementation of a stupid joke looking for a problem. If someone actually needed this in their toolbelt they could use perl or even (amazingly) bash to handle this problem.

I would personally not name anything I worked on after a song from one of Weezer's shittiest albums, but that's just me.

<comment><AUTHOR> many execution contexts don't have perl. i have some <10MB VMs in mind.</comment></comment>


Curious what happens behind the scenes at a startup? Follow ShopLocket Timeline. - <AUTHOR> http://timeline.shoplocket.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry to be a downer, but this is mostly gossip. For me, the most inspiring bit is the number of events they've pitched to. That sure helps with awareness, networking, recruiting, meeting advisors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback. The truth is that pitches, advisors, fundraising etc has been a very very large part of what we've done to bring the product to market. This timeline really does highlight the memorable moments on our journey so far. Sometimes it can be a long haul, gotta celebrate the highs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing, that's a good view into some of the hustle it takes to get good traction. Congrats on the raise too!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It was a lot of fun to put together :)

<comment><USER3> My favorite picture is the one of Dan!

<comment><USER4> My personal favourite is the one of Kat picking up pennies!

<comment><USER5> I like the "<iframe> != innovation". How a company responds to criticism says a lot about their culture - and these guys have a sense of humour!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to know more from the tech perspective. Like what features/changes/insights resulted in the biggest bumps for shoplocket? Were there many idea pivots before you settled on shoplocket? Any key takeaways for other early stage startups?</comment>


Would you live with a Trump supporter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/19/would-you-live-with-a-trump-supporter <comment><USER2> Read here: [http://archive.fo/8TepH](http://archive.fo/8TepH)

Almost a year old, BTW, though I doubt much has changed. It does anecdotally seem like pro-Trump people are a lot more chill about differences.</comment>