Indoor positioning, Unity 3D and Twisted. How's that for a tech-stack? - <AUTHOR> http://beestar.eu/blog/posts/rtls/indoor-positioning-unity-based-3D-maps-and-asynchronism-with-twisted-part-1.html

<comment><USER2> I did something similar to what you describe by writing a custom Python server to communicate with a Unity client.

Most highly interactive games can't just use TCP, because it has too much overhead and you want different reliability for different kinds of game-data. For instance, if you're sending a constant stream of position updates, you don't need them all to be reliable. E.g. just send the last N frames of updates in each unreliable datagram. That way if one is missed, you can just interpolate / extrapolate. Triggering particle effects or other non-critical eye-candy can also be unreliable.

Check out RakNet. It's a really solid C++ networking library optimized for games and similar soft-realtime use cases. Internally, this is what Unity's built-in networking is implemented with. Since I couldn't access Unity's RakNet directly, I wrapped the DLL for access from my own client-side Unity code. I used custom Python on the back-end.

Another option to consider is SmartFox Server. It does things like lobbies, IP block ranges, and sessions management.

Chances are you'll end up re-implementing a lot of functionality that they've written already. I was okay with that, because I wanted to learn how.

Hope this helps.

You should decouple your network polling from the game update loop to avoid headaches later. I.e. don't do it in Update. Also, Update is frame-rate / display-dependent, whereas FixedUpdate is not.

</comment><comment><USER3> The title sounded very interesting, I'm highly interested in Unity and Indoor positioning. But .. that's not part of that article. This is just a tiny C# class for network operations in Unity, it seems?

Disclaimer: C#'s what I earn my money with. That article confuses the hell out of me.

Why would you ever yield return a single value?

Why is the class name in lowercase/camelCase for 'networkSocket'?

Why are the method names following the (.Net standard) PascalCase convention in 'networkSocket', but using the (Java et al) camelCase in the samples below?

In my opinion this doesn't show a thing about the stack from the title and the C# is (arguably of course) a little messy. Even ignoring the inconsistent style (catching "Exception" comes to mind, public fields instead of properties, etc).

<comment><USER4> _Why would you ever yield return a single value?_

Thats a special case in the Unity game engine as the Update() functions of each script are called in the Game loop once per frame. Now if you do a WWW Request without yielding out of the game loop, the game will hang in that frame until the WWW Request is finished. By yielding it does the WWW Request asynchronous outside of the game loop and comes back to the Debug statement when the WWW Request is done.

I share your view on the incosistent Code Style though, it should be PascalCase all the way and i have always done it like that in Unity projects.

Public fields are another thing special to Unity, as you are able to modify public fields directly within the IDEs Object Inspector, which allows you to modify values while testing the game for example. You can also use Properties but those wont allow you said Inspector modifications (at least in Version 3.x that was the case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome, i have quite a bit of unity3d experience for game development and now as a freelancer would love to work on some non-gaming related Unity3d Applications.

We currently are in discussions for a project that will visualize a sailing race in 3D with live GPS locations of the actual boats. Viewers could actually see the visualized race in the browser (flash) or on their mobile device of choice!

As a performance hint: I dont think you need to read the Socket every frame (so 60 times per second at 60fps), doing it 5-10 times per second should be more than enough as there will be some latency involved anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, for simple indoor positioning, reading the socket 5 times per second is a good enough rate. For sport applications we'll probably have to increase it a bit.

Your 3D application sounds awesome, d'you have any link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could you expand upon the reason why you chose to use 3D over 2D floor plans? From a technological standpoint it's very cool, but I was wondering what value it adds for the business and customer satisfaction?

If I understand your product correctly, 3D may bog down your customer service channels because people will pay more attention to the accuracy of your model (when it may not matter) instead of the metrics you are trying to convey.

There are also some logistic issues that I'm wondering how you will overcome:

-If I'm a local technician, this will be a great tool to spot check the receiver locations. But I have no way to (accurately and easily) measure if it's 4 feet or 6 feet off the ground.

-If I'm a school admin, I need a quick graphic where the only change is the metrics I'm trying to analyze. Making me zoom/move around to see different classrooms / buildings on campus is time I probably don't have. Even pre-made locked 3D views distract me with extra information about the building when I'm really trying assess classroom attendance. And while showing the flow of students from classroom to classroom in 3D would be cool, it would again be much more useful as an analytical tool in 2D where the information being displayed is limited and focused on the task at hand.

3D is typically used to engage someone emotionally or show a highly detailed item. Emotionally, it allows us to connect to an event (such as the SailBoat Race) by filling our eyes with information that can only be gleaned at that time/space in reality. Analytically, it is a great tool to convey and compare important minute details, such as light coming into a room or organs wrapping around each other.

It's a great tool when used appropriately and I do see some value added by making an admin see/feel the cramped musky hallways of a building to explain emotionally why students go to class less often in certain buildings. But I equally wonder if you won't find yourself in uphill battle as people focus more on the problems with your model instead of the problems with their attendance?

On top of all that, what happens if:

-I have a Netbook/Chromebook with too little horsepower for 3D?

-I have to install flash just to use your product and can't (Mac)?

-My internet connection is slow, intermittent or a combo?

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a point about using 3D in the attendance monitoring for universities. In facts this is why the viewer employed there is gonna be 2D and used only in case of emergencies ( privacy is a big concerns for education institutions and we do not want to show where people are exactly, but monitor their attendance and gather anonymous stats).

What we are trying to accomplish with the stack we are currently using is a generic multipurpose demo IP platform that anybody can extend with their own applications. In this case the 3rd dimension is something that might be very useful to show case.

For what concerns the rest of your (very valid) comments, Unity3D can export to WEBGL and other engines, not only flash. We will consider our options but right now for this initial beta release, flash sounds good enough.

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-levin I am looking forward to reading the next few articles in the series. Mapping applications are awfully hard to get right [1]. There is just so much to do and do correctly that it is quite the technical achievement to create a functional mapping application. Doing it in 3d seems more difficult.

But, I have a huge philosophical disagreement with the (education) product that beestar offer. I am a university student, and the freedom and independence that comes with being a student is invaluable. I transitioned from the narrowly rule-bound high school to the liberated, independent university life. I feel it is _my_ responsibility and mine alone for my attendance. I would feel like I was back at school if my attendance was monitored. So many universities are places that engender freedom of thought, movement and expression. It seems as if this "were _you_ there?" Big Brother system stands in opposition to the liberty offered by universities. The system that can offer you freedom unlike in any other institution instead clamps down on you, Theory X style [2]. If I were to attend a university using this system, I would feel _less free_ than I do now. I don't think that removing someone's freedom to guarantee attendance is a worthwhile payoff for the education they'd be receiving

[1] www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-google-builds-its-maps- and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-everything/261913/

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y>

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand your concerns and in facts the system has been designed for 1) UK universities and it generates statistics based on 2) anonymous positioning traces.

Point 1) is important because due to the legislation in UK, students are obliged to scan their ID card at the barcode scanner in class to certify their presence at lesson. Just like employees at the supermarket. I feel that our system frees them to have to do that. The student positions are not visible unless there is an emergency and even in that case realtime viewer does not show any data on whom the student (or lecturer) is. It just shows to the firefighter that there is someone at the second floor in room 3A.

For what concerns point 2) you can think that we used anonymized positions as GPS navigators backend use the device traces to generate data about traffic jams, map corrections and so on. This data is used to improve campus life as it gives an idea how to distribute resources optimally. I remember that I was very frustrated as a student when I never seemed to find room in a computer lab while the classes adjacent where always very busy.

<comment> daniel-levin 'This data is used to improve campus life as it gives an idea how to distribute resources optimally'. My university really needs this; just today I wasn't able to get a seat in the lab for an originally 2-hour session. We were split in two groups and each group got 1 hour in the lab instead of 2. This is a real problem and I would agree to carry a beacon-card if you could guarantee that my data sent is anonymous. And given the fact that attendance certification is law in the UK, I think that the safety and security use cases for this technology are completely invaluable. The firefighter example shows that you could actually end up saving lives.

As CEO, you should note that your comment completely repositioned my attitude towards your product. This is because your website is clearly aimed at decision makers at universities, whereas all I (a student) saw was a system conducive to draconian monitoring system. You should probably make your site more clearly demarcated. At <http://beestar.eu/insight/learning-analytics> it seems as if about half the points are targeted at students while the other half at educators. It seems slightly mismatched. And you also don't mention _how_ this system could improve safety (I see the benefits of the firefighter case now that it's been explained)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to thank you a lot for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I will modify the website so that it will be clearer where we stand with our product

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> so using 3d/scenegraph/scripting engine for 3d and twisted (python networking engine) for networking. What's so special about that? Unity doesn't work on linux btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> For example the fact that the HW as well as the SW has been entirely developed from scratch by the same startup which is competing in a market where usually the software is deployed on a workstation as a custom windows executable connected to SQLServer backend and clumsy communicating with the HW through USB or, worse COMM ports.

RTLS companies are very conservative with technology. We are trying to modify the trend and use something a little cooler

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are your plans for new Macs that don't have flash?

<comment><USER7> I'm not totally sure if this is relevant to the original post, but I think Unity also offer a browser plugin which, I assume, can be used interchangeably with the Flash export.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the info. You're right, I'll rewrite my comment to be more relevant.</comment></comment></comment>


You Can Only Do So Much - <AUTHOR> http://www.sachingupta.co/2012/12/you-can-only-do-as-much.html

<comment><USER2> Is it just me? I'm seeing this blog theme turn up more and more, and the "pop- out" on the right overlays the vertical scroll, making it really, _really_ inconvenient to read.

Do people simply not care about usability, and instead care more about how gorgeous and lush everything looks?

Bloody annoying.</comment>


Using React and JQuery Together - <AUTHOR> http://tech.oyster.com/using-react-and-jquery-together/ <comment><USER2> Cool stuff</comment>


An Aussie in NY - <AUTHOR> http://delimiter.com.au/2011/01/28/an-australian-developer-in-new-york/ <comment><USER2> I think this article perhaps focuses a little bit too much on the negatives :)

I'm an Englishman living in California, and I don't really plan to leave here. I like it here. I like the people, I like the weather, and I like the way things generally work from day-to-day. It's really easy to latch onto things that seem, to my eyes, badly broken, like health care, but forget that otherwise, things are pretty sweet.

Sometimes, people ask me what I think of the US. And I might mention health care or something, and they'll reply, "Yeah, the US sucks, huh?" My usual response is "If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be here."

What I don't really understand is that, at least in California, it seems most people see all the bits that are broken, and know they are. And then you get a President who is actually trying to at least place a band-aid over the wounds, and you get cries of Socialism and Nazis. That's the insidious bit of America that I can't stand: America is a country that constantly wants to, and tries to, reinvent itself. To always move towards betterment, as individuals, and as a country. And yet there are a great many vocal people who succeed in holding it back. The ills of today could be gone tomorrow, but they won't be, and that's a shame for everyone.

<comment><USER3> >America is a country that constantly wants to, and tries to, reinvent itself. To always move towards betterment, as individuals, and as a country. And yet there are a great many vocal people who succeed in holding it back.

This is kind of a partisan viewpoint. Both sides of the aisle believe that they are working towards the betterment of the country - they just have differing ideas on how to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a pretty spot on comparison. I moved here from Sydney about 3 years ago and feel basically the same. Though I don't have the same aversion to tipping that he has, probably because I (having grown up in the US before immigrating to Oz) understand how to work the system—particularly in bars. As for the unicycle/mustache thing, I lived in Newtown in Sydney, and that sort of thing wouldnt have garnered more than a doubletake there either ;)

Still, I miss my four weeks of vacation and my stress free access to medical care. Oh yeah, and the extremely efficient government agencies. The difference between Aussie immigration (DIMIA) and American (DHS) is striking.

<comment><USER5> You can pretty much get away with anything in Newtown :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I too am an Aussie in NYC, having moved last November for work (in my case, Google).

NYC is an amazing city, particularly if you're willing and able to pay the exorbitant Manhattans rents. Or you're sufficiently socially skilled and/or lucky to partake in the great private welfare system that is rent stabilization (and rent control but that's mostly irrelevant these days).

To me NYC exemplifies Western capitalism, both the good and bad parts. There'd is incredible commerce--and wealth--here. But there's also poverty and homelessness for those tha have fallen through the cracks in the system.

One thing America excels at is service, whether it be retail, restaurants, businesses or whatever. Ther are of course exceptions but for those Americans who complain about service: compare it to most other Western countries and you'll appreciate it that much more.

Despite all that the American experiment seems broken--eve dying. Health care is a disaster (not that I'm necessarily advocating public health care). Social security is a ticking time bomb. Most governments are in serious debt, even to crisis levels. Once you see cities _and possibly states_ default (or just require a bailout) you'll see a fresh eave of financial scandals.

Wall Street seems addicted to debt, to the point of being the engine of financial collapse. Most Americans live beyond their means. America has a number of engineering marvels from the 20th century that look like not being repeated any time soon. They're simply not economical anymore. Think the Moon landings, the Golden Gate bridge, the Hoover Dam, etc.

A lot of the country seems to be in decay. The culture seems increasingly fractured. Honestly it reminds me of the dying days of the Roman Empire. I'm sure there was incredible wealth in Rome the day before it was sacked.

Still, it's hard to argue with a fresh mozzarella slice from Bleecker Street Pizza.

Oh as far as tipping goes, I agree it's strange and I often have to check tipping etiquette in various situations but remember it _isn't_ mandatory (built in service charges in restaurant bills notwithstanding). Example: last week I took a cab from SFO to Mountain View (expensive!) and the driver had no clue. He kept going the wrong way, asking for directions from my phone, ignoring me telling him which exits to take, etc. I didn't feel bad stiffing him on the tip although he still felt entitled to it.

<comment><USER4> Mate, I think you're making too many generalizations based on things that feel true, you know, 'cause that's what everybody says.

Statements like "social security is a time bomb" belay a misunderstanding of what you're talking about. SS is just fine, there are many other, more real issues—but I don't want to get into a policy debate. My point is that you've been here 4 months and should give it a few years before making such sweeping, half-informed judgements.

Anyway, drop a line sometime if you want to grab a beer. I live in the WV as well and I can point you toward much better pizza than anything you'll find on Bleecker.

<comment><USER7> How is SS not a time bomb? In Australia you are required to deposit your retirement money in a super acct. But that acct is yours. It earns interest like an ordinary investment.

In the US you give it to the government as part of your tax and the government spends it on wars in Iraq, interest payments to China, and tax cuts for the rich. When it comes time to collect ... good luck with that.

I certainly agree there are many more issues (healthcare!).

I'd suggest Sydney->NY is not nearly the culture shock that Sydney->almost- anywhere-else in the US would be. I think whoever said Sydney is to LA as Melbourne is to NY was from Melbourne. (Although they do share awful weather in common.)

<comment><USER8> Not that I disagree about SS being a time bomb, but I think you're slightly mistaken about where SS revenue comes from (or I could be mistaken; anybody out there who knows for sure should please correct me). What most Americans think of as "federal tax" is actually several separate taxes, and which ones any given individual actually pays varies depending on their employment situation.

There's a specific tax that workers (either self-employed or otherwise) pay that goes to social security (as opposed to the general federal income tax), and as far as I know, those specific funds go to the central social security trust fund rather than the federal government's general fund. Funds used for invading other countries, paying off interest payments, etc. etc. comes from other revenue streams.

As I understand it, the reason SS is potentially in trouble is that, the baby boomers are beginning to retire and draw on the system. This represents a simultaneous large decrease in the number of people paying into the fund and increase in the number of people extracting money from the fund. The precise financial implications of this seem to be up for debate- some people say that there will be sufficient money to cover everybody, while others say that there won't be.

I personally don't see how it can possibly work, but I'm certainly not an economist so what do I know? At any rate, I don't expect to see a dime of it when my time comes. At this point, I view the whole thing as basically a charity for baby boomers, and from that perspective it kind of makes sense- unless we want to let them die/starve in the streets, we're going to end up paying for them one way or another; we may as well make use of the existing infrastructure for helping to support elders.

<comment><USER9> Again I could be mistaken and would really appreciate correction from someone who knows better by I am much more cynical about the SS trust fund.

As far as I can tell the really scary thing is that that "trust fund" has been largely "invested" in treasury bonds. That is the source of the massive "intragovernmental holdings" portion of the national debt. i.e. the excess income from SS tax has actually been spent on other government needs. [http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/retirement/social- security...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/retirement/social-security- trust-fund-illusion-debt-deficit-bonds-borrow/19806199/)

<comment><USER8> Fair enough, but if those treasury bonds don't end up being worth what they're supposed to to be worth, it seems to me that we've got bigger problems than SS going under.

However, I heartily agree with your request for correction by someone who knows better- this is about the full extent of my knowledge on the subject, and I'd love to hear from somebody with expertise in this field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a not born Aussie who lives in CA.

The post was fun to read and I can pretty much agree with everything.

One difference that I spotted was the accent barrier. For non English speakers Australia can be painful it doesn't matter how good your English is you find yourself repeating your sentences, or spell out every name in the family including my boys English names (no Aussie could understand the name Dean when it came out out of my mouth). In California no such issues (I felt vindicated when I moved over here) only comments that my English is too British (which is the result of the effort I put to get Aussies to understand me).

Another thing that I miss about Australia is that life aren't serious, every man is with in his right to make an arse of himself any now and then and that's just fine.

One thing that I don't miss is the property obsession, everything in Australia is about the property. We don't build proper highways because we can stuff in a few more units, we don't build a railway because it will generate noise which will hurt the property market in that area. If you want to build a startup it will sense only if it will: speed up building property, help people pay the mortgage on the property, help banks claim the mortgage on the property etc...

All I want to add is that I do wish the Health / Education to be here as in Australia.

<comment><USER10> Uh, you might have missed it, but there isn't much _usable_ land in Australia. That's why we're obsessed with property: There's not much for it.

Starting housing prices in the greater Brisbane area are about $400K. You can go down to $300K if you're willing to live an hours drive out of the city (Which means 1.5 --> 2 hour commute when there's traffic).

Sydney is worse, much worse. Housing prices all over the country are insane, and not going to get better any time soon. When I hear about housing prices in America pre-collapse, I just laugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As an American who worked in Australia, I can vouch that you guys (luckily) don't share our same crazy work ethic. I was practically alone in the office of a large corporation once the clock struck 4pm on a Friday. I think you'd fit in well in New York though because they have the same teasing sense of humor that I found everywhere down under.

<comment><USER12> As an Australian in California, and having lived and worked in two European countries too, I'd say that Australians work less hours but actually are more focused when they do work. I see a lot Americans at work, but not doing work. Long lunches, chatting to colleagues around the office, browsing websites etc. seems to be far more prevalent in American workspaces.

<comment><USER10> Interestingly, I once read a study that said that Aussies do the most overtime of any western nation, which seemed off. _Shrug_</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Jeopractice – A Jeopardy flashcard game using 200k past clues - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeopractice.com <comment><AUTHOR> I made this with Django on the backend, and React on the frontend, and it's hosted on Heroku.

Code is open-sourced: [https://github.com/brendansudol/jeopractice.com](https://github.com/brendansudol/jeopractice.com)

<comment><USER2> Was just poking around and came across this one: [http://www.jeopractice.com/?id=6177&x=3&y=2](http://www.jeopractice.com/?id=6177&x=3&y=2)

No picture is displayed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Tyler! Good catch; that does make this question a bit harder to answer... :) Will try to fix</comment></comment></comment>


Is anyone else to seeing this on 37signal's blog? - <AUTHOR> https://img.skitch.com/20120201-pxa9rx8g6te29di4hjha2td7yr.jpg

<comment><AUTHOR> clickable: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3090-basecamp-nexts- caching-h...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3090-basecamp-nexts-caching- hardware)

</comment><comment><USER2> yes</comment>


Mercurial 1.3 released - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general/14672

<comment><USER2> 'This release is dedicated to my grandfather, Walter Gordon Heffron, who introduced me to Unix 30 years ago, and who passed away yesterday.'

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the use case for subrepos? <http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/subrepos>

It it analogous to svn:externals ?

<comment><USER4> The Mercurial subrepos are similar to and inspired by git's submodules (but, presumably, less user hostile). You can use this to group your app with the libraries it depends on, for instance.</comment></comment>


The Black Cat of Microbenchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://mrale.ph/blog/2014/02/23/the-black-cat-of-microbenchmarks.html <comment><USER3> This was written in 2014, when Crankshaft was still the JIT in V8. Turbofan was shipped in late 2016 and made primary in 2017. It's a much better JIT - <USER2> is tolerant to many more code patterns, including ES6 features - but IRHydra2 no longer works with Turbofan, so this type of introspection is more difficult to do.

A few years ago I hand-tuned some kdb+/q interop code on Crankshaft using IRHydra2 and d8. The results were impressive: about 10x by just shuffling code around to be friendlier to the JIT. It was fun, but more than a little mysterious.

Tuning on Crankshaft was all about avoiding bailout ([https://github.com/vhf/v8-bailout- reasons/blob/master/README...](https://github.com/vhf/v8-bailout- reasons/blob/master/README.md#v8-bailout-reasons)). Tuning for Turbofan is less about "gotchas" and more about making sure your functions don't go megamorphic. Using TypeScript or Flow helps you do this just to get your code to typecheck anyway so it's a good habit.

As mentioned in this comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15067462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15067462)) there is still some minor analysis of the IR possible in IRHydra2 on TurboFan.

<comment><USER4> Was about to post this. In addition dead-code elimination is (still) disabled in V8 as far as I know and it's not that big of a deal anymore.

TurboFan IR (and Turbofan in general) is way simpler and more readable than Crankshaft. Figuring out what's optimized and how is easy with the CodeStubAssembler. I remember nights of head-scratching with CrankShaft :D

<comment><USER5> > dead-code elimination is (still) disabled in V8

How can you disable dead-code elimination in a graphical IR? I would have thought it was implicit?

<comment><USER4> I just checked the code - it is explicit (there is literally a file called dead-code-elimination.cc that shows the reductions) and it's turned on and it's added in pipeline.cc :)

So apparently it's been turned on for a while now which is good (it was off for a while before that).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ReFiddle: Fiddle for Regexp testing - <AUTHOR> http://refiddle.com/ <comment><USER2> Would be great if there were support for more Regex types. All those supported by grep (ie. BRE, PRE, PCRE) seem fairly essential – and being a Python guy, Python would be nice too (which are PCRE-ish).

Nice work, though.

<comment><USER3> I will second a Python vote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work! :)

<http://rubular.com> is also a good one (Ruby regexes).

<comment><USER5> Rubular is great - I like their UI better than the one of the [js|re]Fiddle[s]?.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps you mean:

        (js|re)?Fiddles?

<comment><USER7> I don't know, I'm pretty fond of |Fiddle myself ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you are looking for a command line regexp builder I highly recommend txt2regex. It is a giant bash script so it runs anywhere bash does and supports:

      a) +awk                                m) +mysql
      b) +ed                                 n) +ooo
      c) +egrep                              o) +perl
      d) +emacs                              p) +php
      e) +expect                             q) +postgres
      f) +find                               r) +procmail
      g) +gawk                               s) +python
      h) +grep                               t) +sed
      i) +javascript                         u) +tcl
      j) +lex                                v) +vbscript
      k) +lisp                               w) +vi
      l) +mawk                               x) +vim

<http://aurelio.net/txt2regex/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll go ahead and recommend RegexBuddy (<http://www.regexbuddy.com/>) as another useful tool for testing regexes. (No affiliation, this just happens to be one of the most useful programs I've bought with my own money.)

<comment><USER10> I was gonna recommend this as well, then I saw your comment, and then I saw your username, and then it got _really weird_.

<comment><USER11> Don't you hate it when you make a comment through an old HN account and then completely forget about it and post through your normal HN account a quarter of an hour later?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My entry into this category:

<http://regex.powertoy.org/>

It makes use of a hidden Java applet -- so it supports the somewhat larger Java regex syntax, doesn't send your data anywhere else for matching, and can hook into the string-probing to animate the process. (Click the 'animate?' link to show the animation step/speed controls.)

For example, you can watch the regex that tests whether a number is prime (by failing) or composite (by succeeding) via these two animations:

49: [http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\1+%24...](http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\\1+%24/&syn=perlSyntax&anim=1&rep=&in=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111)

47: [http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\1+%24...](http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\\1+%24/&syn=perlSyntax&anim=1&rep=&in=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111)

Is the applet requirement a deal-breaker for casual use? I might be able to feed the OpenJDK 7 regex classes through the Google Java->JS cross-compiler to get a pure-JS solution with the same syntax/animation capabilities.

<comment><USER13> I don't think its a deal breaker but if its a hidden java applet then why not have the regexes processed on the server as a servlet and sandbox them with a timeout?

<comment><USER12> That could work, but an original design goal was to avoid server dependencies or bottlenecks.

For instant display or the stepwise animation, the lag of a server roundtrip could be a problem; for some users, posting data to a remote service might introduce privacy concerns. (The regex-powertoy can be run completely locally.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've used lots of regex tools over the years, but I stopped looking once I bought RegexBuddy.

See a demo: <http://www.regexbuddy.com/demotest.html>

It's a Windows program, but runs on Linux via WINE. It lets you debug regexes, has live highlighting of matched text, generates regex code in 15+ languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, C, C#, C++, Delphi, Java, Javascript, MySQL, etc) and is all around awesome.

I'm not affiliated with this program, but it is the _BEST_ regex creation/testing program available anywhere.

It _will_ save you oodles of time if you create (or debug) regular expressions more than 2 times in a year. It's the best software product I've ever bought with my own money.

</comment><comment><USER15> Some other online regex tools that you may find useful depending you what flavour of regex you want to create and how proficient you are with them:

• <http://www.rexv.org/> — Supports: PCRE, Posix, Perl, Python, JS, Node.js modifiers. Only works online though.

• <http://gskinner.com/RegExr/> — Implemented in Flash. Desktop version available.

• <http://regexpal.com/> — Javascript regex only.

</comment><comment><USER16> The best tools out there for regexp testing is <http://gskinner.com/RegExr/> \- the only flash application i've ever used

</comment><comment><USER17> Rex V (<http://www.rexv.org/>) is my current favourite regex playground.

</comment><comment><USER18> Awesome! I'm however unable to make negative lookaheads and lookbehinds work right now – though Ruby & .NET are said to support them according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_regular_expressio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_regular_expression_engines).

</comment><comment><USER19> This regex creator is one I've used for ages; its a bit ugly but it generates the regex for Perl PHP Python Java Javascript ColdFusion C C++ Ruby VB VBScript J#.net C#.net C++.net VB.net. You type an example (or the actual) string you plan to search over, click submit and it generates a weird chart that you can use to select which bits you want your regex to find. Really advise giving it ago; no regex knowledge required and more importantly.. fast.

</comment><comment><USER20> I too have a website that does regex testing. It supports Java, JavaScript, .Net, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby & XRegExp, though some are more complete than others.

And it supports sharing & a cookbook too.

<http://www.regexplanet.com/>

</comment><comment><USER21> For a CLI debugger/play-through have a look at Regexp::Debugger (I posted this video link yesterday - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4136179>)

</comment><comment><USER22> More contrast, please. I can barely see the green matches on my screen.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've always been a fan of Reginald (<http://atastypixel.com/blog/reginald- regex-explorer/>) on OS X.

<comment><USER24> I can totally recommend Patterns, with support for java, python, ruby etc

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/patterns-the-regex- app/id4294...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/patterns-the-regex- app/id429449079?mt=12)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been using RegExr[1]. It's Flash/Flex, the "Community" tab is useful for finding common RegEx's.

[1] <http://gskinner.com/RegExr>

</comment><comment><USER26> I use sublime text for this. Considering how many regexes I write a day, I actually need a text editor that has this support. Don't you ? :)

<comment><USER27> No. Regexes are a hack. I don't write them every day, I write them when I need a hack to get around a problem there isn't a good solution for.

<comment><USER26> Why do you say regex's are hacks? Aren't they nice to use in order to search and replace text? It's really powerful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you work with .NET regex, I recommend <http://regexhero.net/>

</comment><comment><USER29> Very nice, please add Java and Python support, but otherwise really dig it.. the tests are especially neat.

</comment><comment><USER30> <http://www.regexpal.com/> is a good alternative too

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice work! It sure do got a purty mouth.

</comment><comment><USER32> Cool! Is the code open source?

</comment><comment><USER33> You are my hero.</comment>


Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/labor-backdown-federal-government-to-pass-greater-surveillance/10591944 <comment><USER2> Somebody over on Reddit [1] went through all the submissions (there was a consultation period) and summarised and tallied them [2]. Fully 99%+ of submissions were against the bill. A sad day for democracy indeed. A church in Tasmania was in favour, because child pornography.

1\. [https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/a3j466/assistanc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/a3j466/assistance_and_access_bill_2018_just_passed_the/eb75et6/)

2\. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dowpZ_Xtr1N_DgkHJN8i...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dowpZ_Xtr1N_DgkHJN8iinbqRd1peTgQp_fSL0vELDA/edit#gid=0)

<comment><USER3> Lots of people reporting that the offices of MPs and senators were inundated with calls today and over the last few days. Twitter was on fire too. Ignored, just like the expert testimony before the PJCIS. Who do these fools think they were representing?

Today I watched my country's democracy die via livestream, with the words "Labor withdraws all amendments".

<comment><USER4> >Who do these fools think they were representing

Voters? I don't mean to be snarky, but while Tweets, submissions and letters may inform the content of bills in democracies, but the counts of these are not numerically representative of much, apart from the feelings of people who feel strongly about an issue.

That said, these laws sound exceedingly stupid.

<comment><USER5> As Churchill said, the strongest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The voters are getting what they voted for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of the comments so far seem to suggest that this bill would require software to include backdoors. However, it looks like [the bill's PDF]([https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r6195_first- reps/toc_pdf/18204b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/r6195_first- reps/0000%22)) includes:

> Division 7—Limitations

> 317ZG Designated communications provider must not be required to implement > or build a systemic weakness or systemic vulnerability etc.

> (1) A technical assistance notice or technical capability notice must not > have the effect of:

> (a) requiring a designated communications provider to implement or build a > systemic weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic > protection; or (b) preventing a designated communications provider from > rectifying a systemic weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, in a form of > electronic protection.

> (2) The reference in paragraph (1)(a) to implement or build a systemic > weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic protection > includes a reference to implement or build a new decryption capability in > relation to a form of electronic protection.

> (3) The reference in paragraph (1)(a) to implement or build a systemic > weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic protection > includes a reference to one or more actions that would render systemic > methods of authentication or encryption less effective.

These limitations would seem to imply that the bill can't require a "systemic weakness", either by introducing a new one or prohibiting the patching of an existing one, which would seem to suggest that end-to-end crypto wouldn't be affected.

Is this a correct reading? Or are there concerns that the government might, say, require end-to-end crypto to be vulnerable to a government-held golden key?

\---

Edit: Part of the text,

> to implement or build a new decryption capability in relation to a form of > electronic protection

, sounds like it's prohibiting golden-key-based schemes.

<comment><USER7> They were going to supply a definition of "systemic weakness", but I can't find one in the bill itself.

I'm patiently waiting for their proposed method of reading end-to-end encrypted messages without introducing a systemic weakness.

But the meaning of words don't seem to matter anymore in the reality distortion field that is the Australian government. This is all supposedly to somehow make us more secure for Christmas.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, the laws of mathematics make this impossible. Count yourself lucky to be living in a country where the laws of mathematics don't apply.

<comment><USER7> The laws of mathematics are "commendable", but they're nothing compared to Australian laws hurriedly passed 5 minutes before the Christmas holidays.

History will not remember these people well.

<comment><USER9> History will most likely remember these people as the completely incompetent board of director of the fossil fuel industry that presided over the final execution of the planet's habitable eco system. The fact that they were politicians or even the Prime Minister for 5 minutes briefly in late 2018 won't even be a footnote...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> white-flame This is government-compelled labor, whose product is only of value to government, and which labors in direct opposition to the personal safety and well-being of the entire general population.

Australia, you fail at the very notion of free western civilization.

<comment><USER10> It's also government compelled lying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing).

This bill does nothing to prevent the kinds of things it is intended to prevent. The apps this law targets were engineered specifically to prevent this kind of interference. The idea that passing legislation will suddenly change that, magically allowing decryption of messages is beyond idiotic.

The legal and technical barriers to getting anything useful from this legislation are huge. Not to mention the ease with which this can be bypassed (run OpenVPN and IRC on an overseas server, done).

The justification for rushing this was so that Australia could be kept 'safe' over Christmas. It's beyond difficult to describe how ridiculous that is.

Edit: Sorry, I also have to add that in the same sitting of Parliament the government also filibustered legislation that would have enabled medical evacuation of refugee children from child detention on Nauru. It's been a bad day for Human rights in Australia.

<comment><USER12> > This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this > country (sadly, that list is long and growing).

I don't support this legislation, but I have to ask, which country is doing a better job on human rights issues than Australia in your opinion? Surely not China or nearly any country in Asia, Africa, or South America? Surely not the US? Probably not much of Europe?

<comment><USER13> This is a classical'whataboutism' trying to deflect from the real subject by bringing up another. But keeping in line with that theme: what about detaining immigrants in Nauru, Christmans Island, Manus Island etc. under doubtful circumstances with no open access for press and NGOs?

<comment><USER8> I didn't read the comment as tu quoque, I read it as "it's a bit shit everywhere". Even Canada treats native populations badly, I don't know what things are like in the Scandinavian countries.

Too bad, it's almost 2020 and we still can't get "treat people well" right. What hope do animals or the environment have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are an Australian software engineer, you have one advantage that other nationalities do not: the E3 visa. It is a US working visa that is _specifically reserved for Australians_ and consequently it is much easier to get than an H1B.

My advice is that the Australian tech industry just got nuked from orbit, so come work in the USA. The pay is better, the work is more interesting and the tech companies actually have sway over policy here.

<comment><USER15> I am not sure that migrating will help. If I read the bill right, it implies that every person providing any service used (or "likely to be used") in Australia is under legal obligation to insert these backdoors. I don't think it specifically mentions software developed in Australia.

The bill seems to be a nightmare - it even says that the technical assistance request can be given orally. What the bloody ....?

To me, it reads like this - if you're a Nigerian developer working in Germany and refuse to do this for some software (after all, every software is "likely to be used" in Australia), you are still breaking the Australian law. But you need not be prosecutable if Germany does not have an extradition agreement with Australia. If you are an Australian anywhere in the world however, then refusing this makes you a criminal, probably later a fugitive. This is my understanding. Can someone confirm?

<comment><USER16> Australia does not have the economy to force such a perverse violation of privacy on foreign business. If they try it, Google et al will be much better served pulling a Spain and blocking access in Oz than by complying.

The courts of most nations would laugh out the notion of extraditing their own citizens to Australia for hosting a website and not giving the AU government a backdoor to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am an Australian software developer and am currently getting [https://www.lifepim.com](https://www.lifepim.com) ready for release which, funnily enough has the main selling point as "Your data is private, secure and free from adverts" \- what a joke.

The scary part is not knowing how the law is going to be implemented - I am hopeful that smart people work on the implementation of it in terms of practicality.

If it is an on request thing "give us the details of firstname.lastname@example.com" then that is doable, but if they really want backdoor access to all accounts, then that is ridiculous amount of work and a lot of security risks to worry about.

Wait and see I guess.

<comment><USER18> Don't launch in Australia.

Or don't launch in Europe.

GDPR and this legislation are in direct conflict. Pick a market...

<comment><USER17> Can launches can be targeted (legally) to a country? The site is hosted in London and am already GDPR compliant - wonder if this is means it is not under Australian laws?

<comment><USER18> If you're not an Aussie company, and don't have any staff in Australia, then it's a long reach for them to do something to you.

If you specifically reject all customers attempting to sign up from an Aussie IP address, or with an Aussie physical address (if you have that), then you're on pretty firm ground to tell them to piss off if they come knocking.

But, y'know, I'm not a lawyer, and you might be subject to whatever whims any country cares to hit you with. Get some legal advice before trusting some random internet comment ;)

<comment><USER18> I guess the poster child for this is Kim Dotcom. Launched a file sharing service from New Zealand that didn't break any NZ laws.

USA didn't like it though, and asked NZ to extradite him to face charges in the USA.

Legal battle still going, I think... but the business is dead.

I doubt Australia has that much clout, but you never know when an extradition will be the price of some favour to someone...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have to say, the coverage of this bill on the news has been atrocious.

I've seen zero discussion of the possible ramifications of losing all security companies in Australia. Any software company that depends on security (and which one doesn't?) would be insane in the membrane to think they could credibly work in Australia now.

All they are saying is "the bill was passed to access encrypted communications of terrorists and criminals".

No discussion of no judicial oversight either.

News orgs are shooting themselves in the foot because there's no possibility of a journalist protecting their sources anymore with this nightmare.

<comment><USER19> Australia doesn't have much in the way of judicial oversight. The joys of parliamentary supremacy and a weak constitution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To anyone with a business from anywhere else in the world. Yes please do, publicly and loudly, cease to deal with us (Australia) due to the very real possibility that all of you private and commercially sensitive communications will be monitored and recorded (Also given the five eyes agreement shared with other countries.) Australia already have a history of using their spy services for commercial gain. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93East_Timor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93East_Timor_spying_scandal)

<comment><USER7> God this is so true. I am so ashamed of our so-called representatives.

Please, Apple, do what you know is right and disable all iPhones in Australia. Google, please do the same with Android.

If you have a website, geoblock Australia from it.

Quarantine us from the world. We are sick and will infect you all.

<comment><USER21> > If you have a website, geoblock Australia from it.

Just did.. won't even respond to icmp. My Tokyo and UK sites.

<comment><USER7> Thanks.

Actually, if it's possible, you could redirect to a page saying the reason you are blocking, that would be even better.

Seriously the world should quarantine us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does this mean that if I take my iphone into an Apple Store in Australia for repair that a Genius could load unknown software (under legal compulsion) without Apple itself knowing?

<comment><USER23> They have to attempt to keep Apple from learning about it, as I understand it. I wonder what steps Apple will take to bar this kind of eventuality. If an employee makes a good faith attempt to comply with this request, which is then blocked by the overseas manufacturer, can they throw their hands up and say, "Well, I tried!"? Would this allow them to avoid the $50k fine and 10 years in jail the Government can hand out for not complying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Literally zero percent chance I touch any software made in Australia now.

<comment><USER25> Isn't Atlassian Australian? Or did they move?

<comment><USER26> They're Australian but have offices in other countries. I believe they would move for the right reasons. This seems like a pretty big reason, considering they're targeted at enterprise. But move where? UK will have this next, America does this without any laws at much greater effect and scale.

<comment><USER27> California. I had to agree to some changes to their ToS the other day (for Bitbucket) in which I agreed to dispute resolution under California law. I suppose that's a pretty good indication of their thinking. It's not like this legislation is unexpected or sudden.

<comment><USER28> Are the U.S. "gag orders" equivalent to this new Australian law?

<comment><USER29> No, the new law has no judicial review and has a few other things that wouldn't fly in the US. It's markedly worse (though don't get me wrong, the US definitely has it pretty bad in this area too).

<comment><USER30> You say that like FISA Courts are actually judicial review and not rubbing stamps... where you win is that you have a stronger set of rights and case law about it.

<comment><USER29> The difference is that there isn't even _fake_ judicial review. And I disagree that we have a stronger set of rights -- the difference is that the NSA explicitly ignores your constitutional rights.

All of our rights (other than the right to a jury for certain criminal trials, freedom of religion, the aquisition of property must be 'on just terms', the right to be a senator if you can vote, and the right to vote in federal elections) are in common law. This means that any new law can overturn those interpretations.

Personally I think Australia needs to push for a constitutional bill of rights. Unfortunately this is going to be a very hard battle to win, given the enormous requirements to get a constitutional amendment passed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't this also effect git repositories maintained by Australians? (I say this as an Australian who wants secure software)

All it takes is one malicious npm package

<comment><USER29> As an Australian software developer who has written encryption software in the past, I'm also very concerned. I'm also doubly concerned that projects will now reject my patches because of my nationality. What an amazing shitshow of a government.

<comment><USER10> I'm seriously considering moving from Australia to a country that isn't part of the Five Eyes.

<comment><USER7> I'm thinking about moving to NZ. How are they?

<comment><USER32> They are in Five Eyes, were instrumental in Echelon, illegally raided Dotcom... NZ is a beautiful country, but one of the weakest-willed in international terms. (Also, by all reports, internet connectivity sucks big time).

<comment><USER3> NZ actually took inspiration from our (Australia's) fibre-based national broadband network back in 2010 or so (before the current Australian Government got in and turned it into an absolute farce - instead of a new fibre network it became an upgrade to the existing old copper network, which is basically a few years off end-of-life, with the change supposed to save billions but that somehow managed to cost just as much money in the end).

As a result you can get gigabit fibre in places on their UFB network for a similar price we pay for 50-100Mbps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could an expat Australian dev be compelled to put backdoors in software even while overseas, under threat of being prosecuted when he returns?

If so, Australians can't even be employed in foreign software companies.

<comment><USER33> Could any developer put backdoors in under promise of a suitcase of cash?

If your review system fails because your Aussie developer "may be compromised", it fails because your $good_country developer may also be compromised.

<comment><USER34> The difference is the type of person that would do it for cash likely has other personality traits that make them at least somewhat easier to spot. If this could compel upstanding, trustworthy individuals to do the same, that's a bit harder to handle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Business opportunity for EU devs provide Australian businesses with PR and code review to ensure their software isn't backdoor'd

<comment><USER7> And if it is, then what?

Good idea though. Maybe some kind of Certification?

<comment><USER35> Well ideally you get in early and catch it in a mandatory PR process, all PR's pass through EU devs who are the only ones who can merge.

Otherwise yes, security certification process to review existing code and then maintain as above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Full text of bill: [https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6195)

</comment><comment><USER36> > "Do I go home and say well I hope nothing happens and I hope that the > Government's politics don't backfire on the safety of Australians? I'm not > prepared to do it," Mr Shorten said.

And yet, that is precisely what has happened here.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is there a (non-alarmist/non-defensive/non-partisan) summary available of what the bill actually contains and what its practical effects might be?

<comment><USER29> I'd recommend actually reading the bill to form your own conclusions. The main problem is that it mostly is a series of amendments, and many of them are quite unrelated.

Most of the discussion is about the Technical Capability Notice section (which allows the government to compel a telecommunication provider, under threat of 5 years imprisonment, to create the ability to access communications otherwise inaccessible) but very few people are talking about the Computer Access Warrant sections...

 _And_ it's possible for employees to be forced to do this, and you cannot reveal information about these technical notices to your employer -- in fact you are given immunity from civil persecution precisely for this reason. So you now have to sabotage your employer because of an order by the Australian government. Good luck keeping your job.

<comment><USER38> The best discussion I've found in terms of the legislation is at [1].

The most insidious part to me as a programmer, is the definition of a "Designated Communications Provider" which (amongst others) includes (S317C, item 6):

"the person develops, supplies or updates software used, for use, or likely to be used, in connection with: (a) a listed carriage service; or (b) an electronic service that has one or more end-users in Australia"

and the "eligible activities" are:

(a) the development by the person of any such software; or (b) the supply by the person of any such software; or (c) the updating by the person of any such software"

[1] [https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/billsdgs/6370016/upload_binary/6370016.pdf;fileType=application/pdf)

<comment><USER39> So australian software developers have become pretty much toxic now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's over. I may as well not be a programmer anymore.

The government has effectively made it possible that anyone and everyone who develops software or hardware used by anyone in the country, or where they feel national security comes into play, must compromise their software, and tell no one.

They can ask any intern to break the software, and not tell their employer.

It's bad enough to have a gaping hole in your security, but now they can ask people who have no idea what they're doing to create a backdoor.

All Australian software has now been rendered completely untrustworthy, and when those compromises in security are found, by the nation states who now know that Australian software will have holes in it, it will result in the very thing that this bill claims to prevent.

Our infrastructure has been opened up for attack, by any of our neighbours who have a reason to do so, whilst simultaneously gutting the economy of IT in Australia. Who wants to buy shitty backdoored Chinese software? It's the same now for Australia.

Australia's government has now opened the door for widescale cyberterrorism to have a chance at wreaking destruction.

<comment><USER41> Isn't this pretty much the same as the US and their National Security Letters? They can compel engineers/companies to do pretty much anything, and the veil of secrecy is the same.

<comment><USER42> National Security Letters can't compel engineers/companies to do pretty much anything. National Security Letters can only request non-content information. A NSL also can't compel the gathering of additional non-content information beyond that already being gathered.

So a NSL could request the records for who you are sending encrypted messages to but not the content of the messages and if your messaging provider can't or doesn't already gather that information they can't be compelled to start gathering such information.

If a NSL requests information which the recipient believes violates that guidelines of information which can be requested they can disclose the NSL to legal counsel and challenge the NSL in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I live in Australia and this is the dumbest bill I have ever seen in parliament. Australian politicians have no clue what the fuck they have just done. Rushed through in less than four days so they can go on holidays. Bigots.

<comment><USER38> To quote our last PM (well, this week anyway):

"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."

<comment><USER44> Oh god. I left Oz in 2008 when Turnbull was a small-l-liberal, pro-business, pro-tech guy. From what I hear from home he became another deliberately ignorant Aussie conservative.

<comment><USER45> Ha, you forget how often we change our PMs :p

<comment><USER44> When I left it was just Kevin 07, before all that started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's a stupid law passed by stupid politicians. The only thing to do now is to demand that ALP politicians reverse it in the next sitting of Parliament.

<comment><USER29> ALP voted for it unanimously. I don't hold out much hope that they'll reverse course -- we should push for third parties in the next election.

<comment><USER38> They voted for it to cover Bill's ass on the last day of parliament and 2 weeks of Dutton and ScoMo getting dumb people scared about Xmas.

The amendments to this stupid act do gut a lot of the stupidities (not completely), so the pressure now is to make this (and the Nauru re-settlement) the _only_ thing that the ALP allows on the first days of parliament next year.

Write to your MPs, the shadow ministers and the cross bench.

Writing to the LNP politicians is a pointless exercise.

<comment><USER46> Cop a beating over Christmas, who cares? No one is going to remember by election time anyway. The opposition had an easy win today, and they threw it back to the gov.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Can somebody write up a tutorial/guide on how to block all network communications (incoming or outgoing) with Australian IPs, on all or select ports, under common OSes (Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD).

<comment><USER21> Can't write the guide for you, but the raw material can be found here (and other places): [http://www.ipdeny.com/ipblocks/data/aggregated/au- aggregated...](http://www.ipdeny.com/ipblocks/data/aggregated/au- aggregated.zone) That's a list of the (current) IPv4 Australian blocks. Each value (e.g. 18.104.22.168/22) can be used directly as a parameter for iptables on Linux, e.g. /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 188.8.131.52/22 -j DROP (to really block any communication - or use REJECT instead) A script to walk through the file works fine.

<comment><USER47> Great starting point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> As an Australian citizen who has spent many years in the US, I can say that this law is in line with the main ideology of the Australian government: extreme parentalism. You run a red light: fine for $450 in the mail. No court date, no arguments. You exceed the speed limit by 5km/h: $200 fine in the mail. No arguments. It is brutal but it's hard to deny that it works. Australia has some of the lowest per capital road deaths in the OECD. The problem is that the government wants to regulate the internet the say way they regulate road traffic. You can read up all the idiotic attempts here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia) I wonder if this means Australia will have the ability to ban apps like Telegram from the app store?

<comment><USER7> They are trying to _secretly force tech companies into unpaid labour to destroy the security of their own products_ in their ham-fisted stupid attempts however.

This is much worse than the authoritarian way they handle traffic fines.

There is no legal representation, no judicial oversight and no actual definitions of essential terms in the bill.

Make no mistake, this is a dictatorship.

<comment><USER7> Oops. Actually, it's a totalitarian regime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Okay - a quick question: how does bitbucket deal with this, since Atlassian is an Australian company? Am I making an error here?

<comment><USER49> 1 billion lost from the company already. I am hoping for them to depart Australia for good on this.

<comment><USER50> > 1 billion

Is that metaphorical or actual number? If latter, I am interested in the source.

<comment><USER51> Their stock is down 4.3% today and their market cap is around $20B

<comment><USER21> Thay _may_ be unrelated - most stock markets went down about that much today (and I'm glaring at my own stocks at the moment - none in Atlassian, they're down an average of 4.23% as of now)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Bill Shorten is an idiot for letting this get through.

<comment><USER53> He was a push over on metadata retention, why would it have been different this time? What a joke!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is a big deal for people of all countries as the major tech firms will quickly build-in the required backdoors to stay in compliance -- and they won't just be there for Australian citizens; they'll be there for all of us.

<comment><USER55> Will they? Is Australia a big enough market to give up global credibility as a company?

<comment><USER54> We can only hope not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Ouch.

Since I'm using Fastmail ... can anybody recommend a good alternative? I don't mind paying for a good and secure E-Mailprovider.

Protonmail looks nice, but it does not seem to offer IMAP (because mails are end2end encrypted).

<comment><USER57> From what I remember fastmail has always cooperated with law enforcement. It is not zero-knowledge so they always had access to the user data already.

Their promise has been to not use it for advertising purposes or share it with third parties. I don't see much changing here, but I would like to know if it is.

<comment><USER58> Yep, we already blogged about this. It's shit legislation, but it is unlikely to affect our customers at all. Public perception on the other hand, it's going to hurt that plenty.

Like basically all of Australian tech right now, we're super disappointed in our politicians and their games. I spoke to a couple of senators' offices today, and they were sure it would die in amendment hell. Genius.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> What kicked this off the front page?

Note that the most-upvoted post in the past month, critical of Google, was at the time mysteriously kicked off the front page as well.

<comment><USER60> I believe HN has a flame war detector that trips when the number of comments is greater than the number of votes, and pulls the submission off the front page. (I haven't looked, but this is probably what happened to the Google post as well.)

Since it's back on the front page now, I'd guess that the HN mods decided that this was important and un-tripped the detector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Can anyone comment on how this affects those of us in other five eyes countries? Are we now subject to any provisions of this law by proxy?

</comment><comment><USER62> Obviously this law and ones like it have no place in a modern, free society, but in regards to the risk with using business apps, it's just the same as before. You can not trust app's from companies incorporated in the five eyes [1]. If you are using a product made in any of the five eyes you are already compromised. By compromised, I mean you can be almost 100% sure that if the owner's of those countries want your data they will get it, and they will get it easily too. They do not need warrants, courts or judges to sign of on anything and haven't done for a long time. To clarify my position on this. Whether a law like this is actually passed or not, you should assume that every company incorporated in these countries have been forced to place backdoors in their systems. I'm not saying that every company has done this. I'm saying you should assume they have.

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

</comment><comment><USER63> Australia -- the 1st world leader of the modern Progressive policies.

2018 -- citizens loose communication privacy protection [0]

2017 -- whistleblowers and dissidents are committed to mental institutions [1]

2016 -- citizens loose financial transaction privacy (the cashless society with finalized transition by 2020) [2]

1996 -- government confiscated all firearms from the hands of private, law abiding citizens

Sweden, and Canada are next.

Basically -- step-by-step methodology to run country-sized Mafia operation is being implemented.

[0] this article

[1] [http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/are-the- though...](http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/are-the-thought- police-coming/)

[2] [https://bitsonline.com/australia-cashless-2020-payments- netw...](https://bitsonline.com/australia-cashless-2020-payments-network/)

<comment><USER64> _> government confiscated all firearms_

It's relatively easy to get access to firearms in Australia, including semi- automatic pistols. [0]

The gun control laws mainly affected semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

[0] [https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/10/04/australias- gun-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/10/04/australias-gun-laws- arent-as-tough-as-you-think-and-standards-are-slipping_a_23233112/)

<comment><USER63> thx for the correction. You are right.

I should have said the confiscation (mandatory bayback) started with all semi- automatics and pump-action in 1996.

WRT pistols, the pistols that are allowed, have less lethal power than bow and arrow (if the below excerpt is correct).

"....

they can then attend at a licenced firearm dealer and select a handgun which is suitable for the competition in which they intend to take part. This firearm may be a single-shot air pistol, a single-shot .22-calibre pistol or a .22-calibre revolver or self-loading pistol. …"

[https://ssaa.org.au/news-resources/research- archive/handgun-...](https://ssaa.org.au/news-resources/research- archive/handgun-ownership-facts-in-australia/)

not sure if this was also the case before '96 and self-defense was already banned then.

The bolt actions that are allowed, cannot have pistol grip and must not look 'military'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> How can someone know whether their software is compromised by this?

<comment><USER10> Officially, they can't, but you can be absolutely certain that iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram are going to be immediately targeted with TCNs (technical capability notice), requiring them to bundle Australian government spyware and requiring that those apps send all conversations to the spyware.

<comment><USER29> This isn't quite true. The bill allows companies to provide statistics on how many TARs, TANs, and TCNs they've been served within a 6-month window. The obvious problem is that nothing stops them from lying or just omitting that information -- because why would you admit that your software is insecure?

<comment><USER40> Employees of a company may also be served, and required not to tell their employer. So a company may not know if they are compromised.

<comment><USER53> I seriously wonder how that would work in practice?

"Hey Joey, will you work on the fizzibizzi feature that does xyz?"

I can't, I have other stuff to do?

"What kind of stuff? This feature is the top priority for the whole team?"

I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU OKAY!!!

<comment><USER7> Also, you can't ask anyone else on the team for help implementing it.

These backdoors are going to be the worst code possible. What kind of crap quality code do you think a single dev under threat of jail time and the pressure of not being able to communicate with his co-workers or legal representation is going to pump out?

<comment><USER66> It'll be handy cover though if you get caught introducing your own backdoor code.

"Git says you were the person who introduced this backdoor into our banking platform. We could loose millions though that. Explain yourself now before I call the cops!"

[whilst tapping nose] "I'm sorry boss I've been told not to discuss that with anyone..."

"Say no more. I understand perfectly. ;) Carry on and don't tell the others."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Reminds me of that book</comment>


Vizeddit: Visualization of Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/vizeddit-visualization-of-reddit

<comment><USER2> It would be cooler if it could go further back in time and give you the meta- story of reddit. As is, it's as equally interesting or boring as reddit.</comment>


Neo-Nazis are taking genetic tests and are deeply upset by the results - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/neo-nazis-genetic-tests-white-supremacist-stormfront-racial-ethnic-african-jewish-asian-dna-a7899746.html <comment><USER2> It cuts both ways:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3307287/One-British- bla...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3307287/One-British-black-man-in- four-has-white-ancestor.html)

'One of the volunteers featured in the programme was Mark Anderson, 23, from London who works in the music industry. He said he was "gobsmacked" when he learned of a white ancestor far back in his father's side of the family.

"It beggars belief. I'm thinking how on earth is that possible?" Mr Anderson added.'

<comment><USER3> While he may have been shocked - I don't think he was describing upset in the way that these Neo-Nazis are. An love how you dug up and article from 2003 to support this...

<comment><USER2> I have a good memory and saw the original documentary. The worst/funniest part was when he travelled to a remote part of Nigeria to meet his supposed long lost relatives and during this once in a lifetime homecoming chose to sit with them with his shades on and earphones in.</comment></comment></comment>


What you are missing when you work from home - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-31/what-you-re-missing-when-you-work-from-home <comment><USER2> Meh. Lots of interesting assertions accompanied by no evidence. From where I'm sitting, it appears there are existence proofs that distributed teams can work quite well (see: most open source projects, as well as many companies).

That's not to say that some of the things the author of the TFA refers to aren't legitimate concerns. But I don't see any reason to treat any of those things as the "be all, end all" in the discussion. Everything has tradeoffs and advantages and disadvantages. Workers working remotely get less "sub communication" (disadvantage) but are more productive due to lack of disruptions (advantage). Which one wins out on balance? Hard to say. But I'd want to see more than a bunch of unsupported assertions and some vague narrative before accepting that remote work isn't a good option.

<comment><USER3> In fairness, an "open source project" is not a business, and the same considerations are not in play.

When I work from home I accept there's a tradeoff. On balance, it's better for _me_ and _my_ productivity, but overall to the _company_ the wins are less clear.</comment></comment>


Bitcoin drops below $10K after three days of cryptocurrency correction - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/bitcoin-drops-below-10k-after-three-days-of-cryptocurrency-correction/ <comment><USER3> Thank god I cashed out everything in eth at $1410. Was only a matter of times with those insane climbs in December.

I feel sorry for the huge increase of people who got in post October, but I mean, my winnings had to come from somewhere and it sure isn't the real world application.

<comment><USER4> I feel sorry for the people who still haven't learned that electronic currency will recover.

It's going to rise again and these crashes are going to happen a few more times before it crashes for good.

Now is a good time to buy, like every crash before.

edit: Wait, I'm doing it wrong... Everybody should panic. This is the end!!111

<comment><USER3> Oh I'm sure it'll recover eventually. I'll be putting 10-20% of my winnings back in once it stabilizes, but the other 80% is going somewhere safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano "As someone who has spent a good amount of time trying to value Bitcoin, I believe that the total value of Bitcoin has the potential to be worth $180-$220B within the next 12 months. Given that Bitcoin now has a market cap of ~$166B, I believe Bitcoin is undervalued and would be a smart value buy."

... is a statement you will never hear

"It went up, then it went down, then it went up, then it went way down, so I think it will definitely go up/down now."

... is the entire internet today

This reminds me of the signs that show gamblers past roulette spins, so they can say things like "It was red 5 spins in a row, it's definitely going to be red again!". What else are bitcoin speculators looking at besides past price moves?

<comment><USER5> Pretty much. All this talk about "technical analysis" is nothing but tea-leaf reading. You're spot on with your roulette example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand all the hate on this site for Bitcoin. Yes it is speculation, but I rather have people speculate on something like a digital currency than on things like food prices or real estate. In my building 40% of all apartments are vacant because they where bought to store money, on the other hand there are 50 people showing up for every rental with a decent price. So, even if Bitcoin goes up to $250,000 it will not have the negative side effects of other forms of speculation.

<comment><USER7> The sad thing about this Bitcoin bubble is that it amounts to taking money from everyone who got in after you. That's the only thing that is giving it value right now: new people willing to pay higher prices for BTC. People have mortgaged their houses to get into this bubble, and many of them are going to be left holding the bag. It's not like people are buying BTC because it gives them a place to live or because it allows them to transact in a way they couldn't before.

<comment><USER8> The same thing can be said about the internet bubble.

<comment><USER9> The internet bubble created companies like Google or Amazon. When you bought into Google's IPO, Google received money which then purchased servers. At the end of the day, that's what stocks are all about. A mechanism to give your money to a public company.

A better example of recent history is how TSLA raised a bunch of money through stocks to build the Gigafactory. $5 Billion USD was raised through a combination of debt (aka: old-school banks) + Stock offerings, and now there's a working factory in Nevada churning out batteries and cars.

What does buying BTC do aside from increase the price? When you give USD to a BTC holder, all you did was reward that person for mining.

I think we can confidently say that all of the servers that were given to Google ended up creating something more than a a simple data-center. Google, as an entity, has more value than the sum of all of the servers that it runs.

Can the same be said about BTC mining equipment and BTC? No. Because at the end of the day, the value of BTC doesn't "grow" if you pump it full of USD. We already know the secret of blockchain.

Google's value grew in the 90s because buying more servers in the 90s allowed it to search more web-sites and build a better search algorithm. Putting $1000 into Google Servers made MORE than $1000 of gains later (as services like Google, GMail, Youtube, etc. etc. were all made on top of those servers).

In contrast, investing money into BTC doesn't actually do anything. There's no company that actually benefits, aside from bigger-and-bigger mining centers. The innovation is dead: the BTC community has become too bulky and politicized to accept even minor changes (like Segwitx2).

Besides, Segwitx2 doesn't need us to pump money into BTC miners for it to work or innovate. If BTC crashes tomorrow, the lightning network will STILL be developed and no harm will come to the innovators in the community.

<comment><USER8> Give it another 15-20 years and let's see what happens:

Ethereum, golem, decentraland, storj, ICONOMI,steemit, Basic Attention Token

funded buy bitcoin.

<comment><USER9> How is it "funded by" bitcoin?

Tell me. If all the money in BTC markets dried up tomorrow, would the cryptocurrency innovation stop?

I argue that innovation would continue, even if BTC crashes to $5 tomorrow. Because cryptocurrencies, as they are currently implemented, don't require money for people to improve them. The entire concept of "equity" and "market cap" is completely, and utterly devoid of meaning in this space.

If you buy up Google or TSLA stock, those companies have more money to actually make factories, data-centers, or buy computers. This happens through a mechanism called stock offerings. Ex: [https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/20/tesla-raises-146b-in- stock-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/20/tesla-raises-146b-in-stock-sale- at-a-lower-price-than-its-august-2015-sale-ifr.html)

If you buy up BTC, the innovators do NOT get money. Only the miners do. Its way better to just Paypal the money directly to BTC foundation or directly to Etherium developers if you actually care about "funding" those projects.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

As it stands right now, the Winklevoss Twins are getting more BTC money than the BTC core developers. The "investment" scheme of the BTC world is broken. BTC "market cap" does NOT benefit the devs.

[https://cointelegraph.com/news/winklevoss-twins-become- first...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/winklevoss-twins-become-first- official-bitcoin-billionaires)

<comment><USER8> if google, facebook etc get disintermediated by blockchain than the stock is worthless too.

The value is in the network. Not the code. Should devs get paid? yes.

why should a dev get any premium over any other early adopter that contributed value to a network?

In my opinion the work(dev, qa, docs etc) of a network should be put out for bid with a minimal as possible funded by trx fees.

Bitcoin already served it's purpose to get money into the crypto ecosystem.

<comment><USER9> > if google, facebook etc get disintermediated by blockchain than the stock is > worthless too.

Stock can be worthless, but the resulting company can still provide a useful service and job to many.

Still, high stock prices provide a benefit to the company. Everyone knows TSLA's stock is overpriced, but that's basically a good thing for TSLA.

BTC is the opposite. At $20,000 per BTC, it was impossible to transact BTC for less than $30 per transaction. The network grew less and less valuable as the price of BTC goes up (and as BTC Transaction Fees are typically paid in... BTC... higher USD/BTC means higher transaction fees).

A high-stock price is beneficial to the company. A high BTC price is detrimental to the BTC community.

BTC will survive this crash. Cryptocurrencies will survive. AND they will become more useful when the prices drops down to something reasonable (Watch as transaction fees are dropping with these lower prices). It sure sucks for the "investors" who were suckered into believing otherwise. But seriously, there's very little value in attracting "dumb money" investors who would have lost their money in the next dumb penny-stock herd-mentality scheme anyway.

<comment><USER8> Like a bad strand of DNA bitcoin will probably die. The miners had too much power and so the chain didn't adapt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A crash had been expected for a while. It was going up way too fast too quickly. However in the big picture, this crash from $19k to $9k is just a blip on the radar. Even if it crashed further down to $6k we would still be at the all-time-high of 2½ months ago: [http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/](http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/)

<comment><USER11> Don't forget the big picture that lots of people lost lots of money in the last couple of weeks.

People blow this off by saying that people shouldn't have invested money they couldn't miss, but those are the same people who kept telling everybody to 'hodl' and that it'll go to 100k. It may still, buy the people who need it the most can't wait for it to crawl back to 20k.

<comment><USER12> If anyone "needs" it to crawl back to 20k in a period of a couple months, they've made some terrible investment decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How could this surprise anybody? Even back in November, just by analysing the time-series, there was ample evidence of what was to come:

[https://mynabla.com/2017/11/30/bubble-trouble-exploring- an-l...](https://mynabla.com/2017/11/30/bubble-trouble-exploring-an-lppl- model-for-bitcoin/)

[https://mynabla.com/2017/11/09/a-monte-carlo-simulation- of-b...](https://mynabla.com/2017/11/09/a-monte-carlo-simulation-of-bitcoin- price-modeled-as-a-fractional-brownian-motion/)

<comment><USER14> Of course, you didn't short it by any chance did you? Since it was so obvious.

<comment><USER15> Legitimately asking: Can you even short Bitcoin? At least safely.

Shorts as a concept are designed around legally binding contracts. If you fail to pay out on a short you sell, they'll sue you and you'll be suspended in the markets. How would that work on something like Bitcoin?

<comment><USER14> Yes you can, without ever touching a bitcoin. CBOE offers cash settled bitcoin futures.

<comment><USER16> CBOE futures launched Dec 10 last year though, so they have only recently been an option.

I wonder how people trading those futures see the bitcoin market (my assumption is that many of them will be much more sophisticated than the typical "crypto" trader).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 50% down from its high in December. People are comparing it to previous 20-30% corrections, but 50% is very different. This reminds me of the Mt. Gox crash, but there doesn't seem to be a clear indicator of what's driving this.

<comment><USER17> early on bitcoin was, for a long time, regularly crashing to ~50% then rising to ~200%

2 - 10 - 5 - 20 - 10 - 40 - 25 - 100 - <USER2>

when it crashed to 50 from 100 in 2013? 2012? i really wanted to buy 10 of them as i had observed the pattern for a long time. wish i had. oh well.

so clearly now it's going to rise to ~40k (kidding)

<comment><USER18> Why wouldn't it? If it is truly being used by financial institutions to transfer wealth then those are big pressures for an upward slope.

<comment><USER19> transfer wealth - what a joke.

You will transfer a hell of a lot less wealth today than last week - what a great method of transferring wealth!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not even the seemingly-infinite pumping of Tethers (now $1.6 billion and counting) can keep the price afloat. We're going to see further correction before the end of the month.

<comment><USER21> I'm pretty sure we're going to find out that tether/bitfinex are insolvent fairly soon as people run for the exits and try to withdraw dollars.

<comment> FLUX-YOU I'm still trying to figure out if Tether is actually affecting the price

\- Can you buy/sell bitcoin for tether?

\- Has tether ever released an audit?

<comment><USER22> Yes you can, one of the bigger bitcoin US exchanges ONLY sells in tether. So if tether really did just print 1 billion fake dollars, that inflated the price of bitcoin substantially.

The had a CPA sign an affidavit swearing they had enough cash to match their tether tokens. The CPA firm seems legit. But he never looked at tether's books. The tether tokens are only one of many possible liabilities. If tether borrowed a bunch of money (from banks, users, etc), they could be easily insolvent while still having enough cash to only pay out tokens.

There is no legal mechanism to put tether token holders at the front of a bankruptcy creditor line.

And that was months ago. They printed 200 million tether yesterday. That amount seems unrealistically high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sigh. Those figures, why doesn't the Y-axis start at zero?

<comment><USER13> Either because the infographic designers haven't read what _The Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ about accurately depicting time-series, or because they have read _The Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ and are abusing its dicta to make graphs that are as dramatic as possible.

<comment><USER24> You seem to have understood close to the opposite of the author's intent:

"In general, in a time-series, use a baseline that shows the data not the zero point." \- Edward Tufte.

<comment><USER13> I'm delighted to see you're well-acquainted with the source. I'm absolutely certain he advocates having some kind of evident glyph in the Y axis to indicate discontinuity and the nonzero baseline, I think it was the classic // mark or something akin to it. Am I wrong? That's what I meant by _abusing its dicta to make dramatic graphs_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm of the opinion that while this is not an unusual move for bitcoin in its history, holders from the start who now have way too much of their wealth in coins should definitely cash out to a more reasonable amount.

There are lots of bitcoin millionaires out there who really need to think about what having >30% of their money in bitcoins really does to the volatility of their portfolio. It's still the same bitcoin from 2013, but do you really want it to be that much of your portfolio?

</comment><comment><USER26> $400B wiped out in the last few days. I wonder whose money it is and how much of it is real money from investors.

</comment><comment><USER27> The underrated scary thing is that this stuff is so new, no one has a good theory on how to properly price any given crypto. The price is purely changed as they change hands at the exchanges

</comment><comment><USER28> Great. Maybe now I can buy a 1080 TI.

<comment><USER8> Still > $900

[https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Auctio...](https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Auction=1&_nkw=1080+ti&_sop=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Store of value"

<comment><USER11> "1 BTC is still 1 BTC" seems to be a popular saying in the Bitcoin forums.

<comment><USER30> and BTC is becoming less useful in the real world (unless you convert it to a real world currency)

<comment><USER11> Yea, it's a shame. I couple of years ago, I ordered a pizza in BTC. It was odd, because the price of the pizza in BTC would swing up and down while in the payment time window. It was also cool. Now it's no longer cool, it's become a money grab for some and a huge bummer for a lot of people who got in in December with they end of year bonuses. The innocent fun has disappeared and transaction fees an times have gone way beyond buying a pizza.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dispatch – Open-source release of Netflix's crisis management framework - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@NetflixTechBlog/introducing-dispatch-da4b8a2a8072 <comment><USER2> You can also read it here: [https://outline.com/p3PBUY](https://outline.com/p3PBUY)

Medium really annoys me, because I can't even scroll without disabling my adblocker.

<comment><USER3> I have Safari configured to open all medium.com pages directly in Reader Mode. Takes care of all the noise/interruptions they throw up on the screen.

<comment><USER4> How do you do that?

<comment><USER3> \- Open a medium URL.

\- In your toolbar, click the site settings icon (might need to edit your toolbar if it's not there).

\- Check: "When visiting this website [X] Use Reader when available"

<comment><USER4> This is Brilliant! Thank YOu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Incidents basically represent engineering culture in extremis. Seeing how large orgs manage incidents really says a lot about culture. It's interesting to see Netflix go so far to automate what amounts to trivial amounts manual labor in (hopefully) rare instances. It says a lot about how they think about making mistakes and the developer experience working through crisis.

</comment><comment><USER6> So much of this is generalisable to just running a project or a company (comms, collecting metadata, making smart automation decisions to save time effort duplication.)

There is a deep business transformation lurking here. As a post here says Netflix clearly has at its heart "just automate it all".

</comment><comment><USER7> Python, VueJS and Postgres.

That right there is my favorite stack for prototyping. Though, admittedly, I only say that because none of my prototypes have taken off (yet).

</comment><comment><USER8> Fun to see `sentry.io` as one of the dependencies, kind of an interesting level of recursion on an incident mgmt app

</comment><comment><USER9> So in other words another over-complicated ticket system

<comment><USER3> No, there's a lot more that goes into handling incidents that affect large production systems. Getting things back up as fast as possible, coordination, communication, getting the right action items out of it. There are tradeoff decisions that need to be made, executives and big customers picking up the phone.

This kind of tooling is what arises in an effort to automate and streamline incident response. When you're operating at Netflix' scale, each minute is precious and if a tool manages to save 45 seconds on each incident, it can be quite valuable.

<comment><USER10> The incident workflow about halfway down reads to me like a lingoed-up version of "create a bug, escalate, put a Slack (etc.) URL in the bug, send the bug to blamees/ondutys, message boss(es), finish fix and push, schedule a meeting for the next day." Which it turns out that I've guessed reasonably well, having read the rest of the article. I mean, there's decades behind this very use- case, and at the end of the day it's possible to hook out to Slack from RT, too. But they're not using RT, true.

[https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/WorkFlow#Modeling_Wor...](https://rt- wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/WorkFlow#Modeling_Workflow_in_RT)

I don't have a problem with the work -- like I said, it's a persistent use- case -- it's just the way it's described here, as if it wasn't and with puffery. And the thin-ness of my skin with this is not the issue!</comment></comment></comment>