Lobbyists Win Right to Bombard Student Borrowers with Robocalls - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/10/28/boehnerland-lobbyists-win-right-to-bombard-student-borrowers-with-robocalls/ <comment><USER2> Starting a few months ago, I'm getting a few robocalls a week from "your local google specialist" and such scams. My number is listed in donotcall.gov. It makes me want to not answer unrecognized numbers on my phone.

It's now the case that a database of every phone number (10 billion entries, highly compressible) could be mirrored to every phone, with a reputation score for each number. Or looked up in real time. The phone company won't do it -- it'll have to be independent, like an ad blocker. I'd buy a subscription to that database.

<comment><USER3> Try nomorobo. They get you to set up simultaneous-ring with one of their numbers. For each incoming call, if it fails their reputation scoring, their system simply "picks up" immediately and plays a pre-recorded message. Your main number then doesn't receive the call (timing issues notwithstanding).

They have an interesting way of building the reputation database: in addition to receiving customer reports, they buy Twilio's "dirtiest" phone numbers, the ones getting so spammed they're unusable by other businesses. If you call ~3 dirty numbers, welcome to the dynamic block list.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't work with the callers who spoof your own phone number.

<comment><USER5> Here in the UK, calling your own number seems to be used exclusively for configuration stuff (voicemail etc.).

Is there any normal use for it in the states? If not, surely you should just blacklist your own number?

(I'm aware that any time you say "you should just ..." it's never that simple)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can always setup an Asterix box and put Lenny on the case:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLduL71_GKzHHk4hLga0nO...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLduL71_GKzHHk4hLga0nOGWrXlhl- i_3g)

"Lenny" is a hilarious set of recorded messages designed to waste telemarketers' time."

On a personal note, I have to say that there is something so satisfying about a robot answering these calls. A caller normally has the advantage that you can't see them, have no idea who they are, and they can do it at scale. Lenny turns those very advantages against them.

<comment><USER7> How do you tell between telemarketers and legit cold calls? Maybe something like "if they say the word offer within the first minute, it's a telemarketer, keep them occupied"? Also, it's a bit dishonest to outright have the robot pretend to be the person, maybe they should say "Hello, I am Lenny, the phone secretary of so-and-so"? And once you pass the equivalent of a verbal CAPTCHA, you are allowed through?

<comment><USER8> There's a difference? As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as a legit cold call to my home number.

<comment><USER7> I only have one number, so people from work call me from time to time. Though I largely agree - in that case I just have their numbers in my address book copied from the company register, even though they've never called me.

<comment><USER8> Ah. "Cold call" as in "not in your contacts list." Cold call usually refers to a sales call to someone who you don't have a prior relationship with (i.e. isn't current customer or hasn't requested information).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anymore, answering the phone simply because it is ringing is an anachronism. Ditto to having a land-line (especially without caller ID!). These companies pushed so hard that they've pushed all the sensible folks out of their reach permanently. And kudos to the new wave of phone OSs that allow for blocking any number from your phone itself. We saw that the government wasn't going to do it, carriers certainly didn't do it, so companies and individuals did it.

<comment><USER10> It's almost like the best course of action for any of these communication systems is educating the user, and giving them the tools to do it themselves! Who would have thought?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bought my phone for my convenience, not anyone else's. It has a whitelist, and if a number isn't on it, it goes to voicemail. Which has a message instructing callers to send me an email, as I don't check my voicemail. I've been running this arrangement for some years now, and it works beautifully.

<comment><USER12> Bill collectors have been known to spoof caller ID with relatives' phone numbers. Yes, I know this is illegal, but it is still done.

The best approach is audio captcha where you have to enter a random 3 digit code to get the phone to ring. This throws off most call centers because, the part which makes the phone ring is automated. Once the line is answered, an agent is connected to the line.

If the collection agency does not use automated dialing, then DTMF passwords may be necessary. This is a pain for friends and family, but it can be a very effective filter.

<comment><USER13> A CAPTCHA is never the best approach to anything.

<comment><USER14> Depends on how much you like taking calls. Having CAPTCHA in incoming calls would be very appreciated by a large number of introverts.

<comment><USER12> Actually, it's very handy during voting season.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Spam and the like are going to ruin telecommunications like they've ruined email. It will be a slower process while they get bolder about skirting rules but they're going to get there.

Wait until these spammers and debt collectors get your social graph, your contact lists and the like, from failed mobile startups. You're going to start getting fake caller ID from friends and relatives.

The endgame is a balkanization of incompatible proprietary telecommunication clients all running you and your devices through a reverse Turing test to confirm legitimate communications. Oh, you'll still be able to get calls if you like, they'll all go to voicemail so your own neural networks can pick out the ones worthwhile to listen to.

<comment><USER8> I'm actually not all that concerned. Telemarketing has been going on for a very long time. That's what drove the do-not-call registry and related laws in the first place. I'm not saying what still exists (whether because of deliberate loopholes in the laws or simply breaking them) isn't annoying but it doesn't really seem to be getting worse either from personal experience or from the experience of others I speak with.

I get very few junk calls on my cell--though why there isn't a "report junk call" button I don't know. Home gets a steady enough stream to be annoying (2 or 3 a day) but they're easy enough to ignore if I don't recognize the caller ID.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The new number on my cell used to belong to someone with a debt. No matter how often I explain that the person they want is not and never will be available at this number again, they keep calling as they sell the debt and the info to new people.

So they continually robocall my cell phone chasing someone who isn't and never will be at this number. I do not have and never have had any unpaid debts to begin with.

I had to install a call blocking app and I just keep listing new numbers each time. It doesn't buy very much peace, but it blocks enough calls to be worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lobbyist and K-Street are at the core of the problem in the Beltway. I've spent a long time trying to figure out the root issues there, and I think short term limits are the best way to prevent this, because here how it happens.

You get elected on hopes and dreams, and propose a bill, but you are a freshman. The senior guy you ask to help you sponsor the bill which is only 10 pages long then says he will support you if you add an amendment that says X, even that amendment has nothing to do with the main bill, and he has been donated money or promised campaign support by $KSTREETGROUP. If you say no, you get derailed, the bill never leaves committee, and you have made an enemy. You agree, and then the floodgates are open for 10 other sitting house members to throw in their amendments too. Before you know it, your bill is 250 pages and they removed all your original text and it's no longer your bill. If you rock the boat, you make enemies and forever get shoved aside. Agree and support the bill _you introduced_ , that is actually now bad legislation, and all those people say they will help you next time.

In this case, it's more of the, _this bill has to pass, so we can add all kinds of little tidbits and the public won 't know about them in time to stop it!_. Then you might have a guy or two who actually put that tidbit in vote no just so he has some plausible deniability to his constituents who don't know any better because reports on the hill suck these days.

We need to get rid of excessive riders, last minute riders on big bills, extend time for public review, and give power back to congress/senate to take stances without being pushed over politically. The thing is that the lobbyist will mostly just promise to get the guy fired if they push back too much, or they will then donate to another guy who's been in for 18 years and get him to put the pressure on. If we put short term limits (and I don't mean 12 years, I mean 6 year limits) then you can get people who will do stuff and not care about getting booted out, because they never had the intention to turn it into a lifetime job in the first place.

Also, we need to stop the revolving door between the hill and k-street. Staffers should not be allowed to turn around and go work for them, as Jack Abramoff put it, once he promised a staffer a job, he found out that they would do more for him than he even asked them to do!

We have a broken system, and until we address these fundamental problems, all the other issues people are passionate about will never get fixed properly. Fix the system first, then work on the more mainstream issues.

Vote arca_vorago for congress.

<comment><USER18> One solution, (not that it would ever happen) , is to anonymize the bills. In order to submit a bill, you have to be a house member, but once you submit it your name is stripped off. everyone reviews it and either adds it to a larger bill or discards it. larger bills eventually make it up to group vote.

another deterrent would be a rule that every meeting between congressmen and lobbyist has to be recorded. So CSPAN can air what actually goes in at the negotiating table between these "lobbyists".

finally, if there were some kind of "citizens' lobby" that could influence these assholes the same way corporations do (even though this is how it was supposed to work all along). But the "citizens" are so divided on partisan and emotional issues they'd never agree to form a coalition and lobby on par with industry.

<comment><USER19> These "citizens' lobby" you pre-suppose exists. Many of them, actually. They tend to specialize. They have names like "The Sierra Club" and "The Nature Conservancy".

You know. Lobbyists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> i have been getting crushed by these. i freely admit that the debt is my responsibility ~6k credit cards. but every day 5 calls. fake numbers from my area code (town over) my state doesnt have a chase bank in it and prob no capital one either.

2 months late. call back after i have the money and say i will pay current in a week. all of the collection department (to be clear these are still part of the bank, represented themselves as banking employees, and get routed via a bank number) they offered me $90 bucks off. call back to make direct payment in line with the verbal agreement.

them: sir i have no call notes

me: ok, let me look. i actually do think i said i would phone you back and pay i have that in my call notes.

Them: yes, it says you owe us $100 today.

me : (whered those notes come from mate) oh, ok so you were able to find thr notes. do you have the paymeny arrangements i made with lisa?

Them : no.

me: she offered me an arrangement.

them: oh i do see that yes $30 dollars

me: (i have detailed call notes with her and everones employee number i spoke with extrapolating the rapidly illegitimate deal they can't put in writiing because it is a service and convenience)

sure, well she offered me $90 and i will pay right now, even though i said it wpuld be a week, if you give me the deal she offered which might be in the notes if you look closer (you lieing dickhead)

them: no sir, i can give you $30.

me: let me think about it and consult my notes, i don't feel confortable paying today.

them: ok

\---- 2 minutes elapse

robo call local number from town over of 7k people. on line don't answer.

\-- robocall from same number. demanding payment. have similar accent to callcenter people, act like they arent affiliated.

look, my fault for not paying and sure i broke the agreement, but fuck this. i dont have to pay i will just never get a credit card this decade. but im trying even on shitty financial terms now to pay you because it is an obligation. but calling me 5x times from fake numbers is fucked up on a 2 missed payments over 2+ years of good standing. couldnt imagine what actual collections would do.

this story was about fictional bank p.j morgones.

also i want to note capital one was cool about it and as professional (or more) than me as i dis reneg on my card services agreement and they called from their real number

<comment><USER21> That sounds like it's not the bank, but some shady player that the bank sold your debt to for .01 on the dollar. If you want to settle the debt, do some research on these players so you don't just throw the money away without getting any credit for it on your credit report.

<comment><USER20> correct. I also believed I had been sold to a "debt collector". I do not know much about this, and it may be true but I spoke with the bank directly and they said that was not the case and the main switchboard provided the number to the collections office.

I confirmed the outgoing wire to chase so it is possible that the debt has been sold but they are still representing it? I did a bit of research but someone on reddit suggested a site that provides credit reports and info about the debt and it doesn't appear to be resold but who knows what "resold" means.

Maybe they do it like subprime mortgages and bundle them up or something. If anyone sees this, my advice is find the main phone number of your bank and ask to speak to customer service/ client services so you know you are dealing with them.

take as many notes as possible and record the call if you want. They will specify every phone transfer and often you are being recorded and IANAL but if a disclosure like this has been said, you may be able to record them, if unsure announce you are on the call.

pay directly to the creditor and get as much info as possible.

don't get in massive amounts of debt as it sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I worked in the collections industry for a while. It was my first programming job.

I don't understand debtors that don't want to get calls letting them know what is happening. I get it in the sense that they didn't pay their bills and they've chosen denial as their plan for dealing with it but I don't get why anyone else would want to validate that kind of behavior.

But if that is the route they want to go the FCDPA clearly states that they can force the debt collector to cease communication for the most part and the avenues that remain open are via written mail.

I understand that sometimes an old number or something might be called in error but that has be a pretty rare thing and something easy to deal with on the receiving end.

I think the best way to avoid robocalls from debt collectors is to not let your debt go into collections.

<comment><USER23> Echoing others, you may not have any choice in this.

Back in 2007 Certegy had a terrible data breach, an employee, sysadmin or dbadmin, sold info on 3 million people ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certegy#Consumer_information_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certegy#Consumer_information_compromised)).

Not all that long after that, pretty clearly based on information gained from Certegy or some other compromise of my most basic checking account information ---but bizarrely, not necessarily my name? Something was very wrong in the set of info---a debt collector claimed I'd charged hundreds of dollars to on-line porn sites to my checking account.

Which of course is particularly bizarre, because if it was real, why hadn't they just debited my account in the first place?

So, no debt, but it went into collections, and they didn't give up for more than a year. Can't remember why they gave up, other than that they pretty clearly knew the case was weak, assuming the whole thing wasn't a scam to begin with.

<comment><USER24> If your information was compromised, its at least possible that whoever was _not_ a debt collector, but posing as one supposedly collecting a debt associated with embarrassing info (that people wouldn't want to be associated with if there was an escalation to a lawsuit) so that they could extort money from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Next up: Anti Call Spam software for Mobile devices becoming a big thing. Built in by default in iOS12.

History repeating…

</comment><comment><USER26> I guess I don't understand the point of this. It appears that these legislators don't understand that permanent blocking of calls and texts from an annoying number are just a tap away in both Android and iOS. They'll be spending millions to harass no one.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't really understand that lobbying thing, who is paying who to officially make life worse for citizens and how this is justified? PS: I'm not american.

<comment><USER12> Instead of a government for the People, the People, and of the People, it's actually a government for the Opulent Minority, by the Opulent Minority and of the Opulent Minority.

James Madison stated: "Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability."

<comment><USER12> You know what, you guys who did this are better than this. If you are going to downvote, then explain why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How about this? I'll answer your calls, if you decrease my loan payment each time.

</comment><comment><USER29> The Washington Cartel strikes again.</comment>


KKR to buy digital-library platform Overdrive from Rakuten - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kkr-to-buy-digital-library-platform-overdrive-from-rakuten-2019-12-24 <comment><USER2> Unfortunate. Libraries are a public service and OverDrive has been one of the most widespread ways to offer 21st century online reading services to them. Private equity sinking this ship will be a terrible outcome for a lot of people.</comment>


The Next Chapter - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kippt.com/next-chapter/

<comment><USER2> This is shameless plug, but...

The startup that I'm at is working in a similar space. We're devoting a lot of resources to being able to easily search (from Google) your links, as well as share them. May be useful if you used Kippt, [https://www.kifi.com/](https://www.kifi.com/)

Disclaimer: Again, I work there, but I really like what we are building. :)

<comment><USER3> This is awesome – jealous I didn't think of it first. Well done.

Edit: Spoke to soon. Not a fan of sending every page I visit to you guys [1].

[1] [https://www.kifi.com/privacy](https://www.kifi.com/privacy)

<comment><USER4> (I work on Kifi)

Hear you loud and clear. We're working on a strategy so that it's not needed. Right now, that information is used _only_ to determine if you or a friend has kept a page, or if you have previous conversations on the page.

<comment><USER5> Can't it just be a hash of the URI?

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, that would often break. We've put a lot of effort into URL normalization (ie, [http://smile.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-WA701ND-150Mbps- Wireless-...](http://smile.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-WA701ND-150Mbps-Wireless- Access/dp/B002YETVVE/) is the same as [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002YETVVE/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002YETVVE/)). When we can do "good enough" on the client so we can provide the same benefits, we'll do it. Or: provide a setting that forces URLs to exactly match, and we can use a bloom filter to keep traffic down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kippt is a great product and Brian is very fortunate to have you guys join his team. And your talents will be multiplied at a place like Coinbase.

Congrats and best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sad to see Kippt go. I've been an avid user for about a year now.

Can you comment on what led to this change? Inbound traffic looks like it's still pretty solid. Was it just that not enough people were converting to paid plans?

<comment><AUTHOR> We never got to the level where things would have been profitable so the last year was mainly bootstrapping. Small bootstrapped business is also something we don't want to do forever so made the hard decision and move forward. It's hopefully needless to say that we're extremely happy about Coinbase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Checked out the demo, looks great! I am sorry it didn't work out like you hoped, but I'm glad you landed in a nice spot.

Would you mind sharing your lessons learned? Such as, why you think it "failed" to take off like you hoped? What were your plans/expectations vs what actually happened? Any critical mistakes or major external factors which impeded success? Anything you would have done differently?

Thanks, and good luck in your new venture!

<comment><USER9> I second this, would love to learn what you thought worked and what didn't. Your product was beautiful and useful, was it mostly about market fit, business model or something unexpected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Change is always good, whenever it happens. Success or failure is a relative thing in this world anyway.

I am just a user, somewhat technically savvy. Back in the days when new services were coming up frequently, all free for anyone to use; I had a feeling that this service is not going to go anywhere. Here you are few years later.

The business of letting people save bookmarks, tag, share, are long gone, and so are the services with them.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's always sad to hear when an elegant and useful application like Kippt has to be more-or-less abandoned. Still, congrats to Karri and Jori for joining Coinbase, where their style and keen eyes will certainly do some good.

As for Kippt, does anyone have a good alternative? In the event it does get shutdown, breaks, or some other event occurs?

<comment><USER12> We are developing an app called pagebox.es with a different focus but which could be used as an alternative.

We have links, files and notes as well, but we'd like to get better at structuring and sharing other kinds of contents, and turn the collections into simple sharable databases with a friendly front.

Although I got to say that it isn't as elegant as Kippt and Sendtoinc, maybe someday ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sad but not unexpected. Kippt has always felt like the kind of service that's nice and everybody likes but has a hard time getting any real traction. I'm sure being example site #1 on the official Bootstrap page was a good driver of traffic but sometimes the product just isn't vital enough.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sorry to hear this. Kippt is a great product that I use almost daily. Thanks for keeping it open for a while and not shuttering immediately. Do you guys have a timeline for when you'll eventually take it offline?

For anyone looking for alternatives, my startup is working on something similar (share + chat what you find with your team: [http://piethis.com](http://piethis.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend how we haven't seen anything new in Kippt. I have been one of the first users of Kippt. Somehow the product was becoming slow for me. And I was not sure where the team and the product was headed.

Kippt helped me a lot with organizing things that I share. I hope this was a good journey for the Kippt team and I wish them all the very best for their future endeavor.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats to Karri and Jori. Really enjoyed collaborating and helping out with developer resources while building FeedLeap. Best to both.

</comment><comment><USER17> Oh, no! I loved my Kippt account. Sad to see it go, but I totally understand, it's hard to keep a project going without growth in the userbase.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is there an export? I couldn't find it easily.

<comment><USER19> [https://kippt.com/extras/export](https://kippt.com/extras/export)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What will become of sendtoinc.com?

<comment><USER20> / I just became a customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're keeping Inc up as a side project. If you need to get in touch, firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER20> damn. I was uber hoping for a mobile app/ I was banking on you guys building one. argh.

Congrats either eway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So sad :( Love Kippt!

</comment><comment><USER22> That's some [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com) material right there.

<comment><USER23> Since the service is still up and users' data is respected, I don't think it really applies.

<comment><USER24> Have a look at that tumblr - it's not the day of acquisition announcement that matters here...</comment></comment></comment>


You don't need Java - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2012/09/03/you-dont-need-java/

<comment><USER2> > My recommendation to users that do not know if Java is installed on their > system is to either disable the plugin in all Web browsers, or uninstall > Java completely from the operating system.

There's no need for the second step -- there's no vulnerability involved in having a Java runtime engine on your system. The current problem is limited to the browser plugin, so the first recommendation makes perfect sense.

There are plenty of Java desktop applications that need the Java runtime to be present. You won't know which ones they are until they stop running because you removed Java entirely.

Even apps that aren't Java apps per se, like LibreOffice, need Java to be present for certain things.

So the tl;dr is -- deactivate the browser plugin, but don't uninstall Java. IMHO.</comment>


Screw stigma. I'm coming out. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/journalism-deliberated/6809e83f355e <comment><USER2> This is admirable and I wish the author well. His example may also help others.

It should not be taken as a signal that "outing" oneself is advisable for others in comparable situations. This guy is very fortunate that he is well established in a career and can point to good performance in his positions, unaffected (from the employer's point of view) by his condition.

Others are much more vulnerable to prejudice and discrimination, and might be better advised to stay closeted.

<comment><USER3> US law means you must disose your illness if you wish to use anti- discrimination protections.

(As I understand it; I am not a lawyer; corrections welcome).

<comment><USER4> That's absolutely ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing I'd like to add to this discussion. It may be difficult, and it may not be something you should do until they're older, but talk to your children about issues that you have and that run in your family. It can save them a lot of heartache and difficulty down the road if they have similar issues. In particular, knowing my family's history of alcoholism and drug abuse helped me avoid both. Given my issues with depression, if I was drinking like my peers in college, I probably wouldn't be here today. Similarly, I didn't know the cause of their issues (depression) _until_ I was already deep into an episode that lasted a couple years. If I'd known beforehand what to look out for, and that it wasn't uncommon in my family, it might not have lasted as long.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to struggle with Bipolar Spectrum disorder. After 9 years of medication, therapy, prayer, and a lot of ups and downs I've been declared free of the diagnosis by my psychiatrist.

I gained a lot of weight because of medications (normal weight is 210lbs, which is fine for my 6' 4" frame, but medication caused me to balloon up to over 444lbs). I have not been able to work at my peak for many years. I'm now almost 45, and I feel like I'm starting to get my life back. Now that I'm off the main drug that treated my disorder (risperidone) my weight is starting to drop.

I know people are scared of mental illness. I see it in their faces, or the way they treat me differently as time goes by. But that's okay, I have close friends who have accepted me for who I am without that fear.

My wife wishes I wouldn't tell people about my history. My health is no one's business but mine. However, I choose to tell people about it, because of the stigma. Because I'm neither ashamed or afraid for people to know. I _will_ lose friends, work, and opportunities because of my choice to be open about it, but I don't care because I want to fight the stigma.

Everyone has a friend or family member that struggles with some form of mental illness. Everyone. I have seen too many people suffer in silence, and some even take their own lives because the pain is too much.

I was suicidal years ago. I suffered horribly for many months on end, waking up in the morning and just focussing on getting through the next hour, until I finally reached the end of the day and could go back to sleep so I could have some relief.

There is no shame in mental illness. People used to be afraid of people who had heart disease, as if they might "catch something" from them. The brain is the most complex organ in our bodies, and it's prone to have problems just like any other organ.

My name is Miles Forrest. I have wrestled with mental illness for many years, and I'm happy to say I have overcome it with help from doctors, family, friends, and God (if you're offended by my attribution to God, please don't be. I respect a person's right to believe whatever they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want). I can't say I'm cured, because there's a possibility I might relapse at some point in the future. But I have acquired the skills, knowledge, and support network that I know, without a doubt, I would be able to beat it back down again. Mental illness doesn't define me, but learning to fight, persevere and lean on others when I need to has made me a better man.

You can mock or ridicule me if you want, but I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the man or woman out there who is afraid there might be something wrong with their mind, and who feel alone and afraid. I know how scary it is. I know how you feel like you're the only person in the world who has felt the way you do. You're not, and you are not alone. If you are that person, email me at email@example.com, and I will walk with you as a friend and stranger to get you help.

<comment><USER7> I think one of the benefits of mental illness is it makes a person incredibly empathetic and in tune with other people's pain. Being in such a dark place and succeeding in getting into the light makes you want to save everyone from ever having to relate your experiences.

It is still hard to be this honest and open. To put your full name on something like this. I respect the hell out of you and we share a disorder, thank you for your post.

<comment><USER8> It depends on the illness. Psychopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and similar diagnoses, are marked in large part by the _lack_ of empathy presented.

<comment><USER7> That is a really good point and something I hadn't really considered. I could also see a lot of my feelings of empathy being instead turned into anger if things had been different so I might have generalized a personal experience.

<comment><USER8> I'm well out of my pay grade, but with the various anti-social / psychopathic disorders, it's not an empathy/anger axis so much as just _not caring_ about consequences for others. It's a total disregard. More troubling: there's very, very little by way of treatment for many of these disorders, whether you're looking at pharmaceuticals or talk therapy. The DSM can make for interesting late-night reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Showcasing your own story to set the precedent for people to acknowledge mental illness as a real illness is a bold and admirable move. I would note however, that the recovery process for every individual is wildly different and shouldn't be overlooked.

Acknowledgement of the mental illness issue is one part of the problem, which will hopefully lead to better, more integrated treatment lines in the future.

</comment><comment><USER10> This quote seems apropos:

 _Though many object to psychiatry's perceived encroachment into normality, we rarely hear such complaints about the rest of medicine. Few lament that nearly all of us, at some point in our lives, seek care from a physician and take all manner of medications, most without need of a prescription, for one physical ailment or another. If we can accept that it is completely normal to be medically sick, not only with transient conditions such as coughs and colds, but also chronic disorders such as farsightedness, lower back pain, high blood pressure or diabetes, why can't we accept that it might also be normal to be psychiatrically ill at various points in our lives? The answer seems to be that psychiatric disorders carry a much greater degree of stigma compared with medical conditions. People worry that psychiatrists think everyone is crazy because they make the mistake of equating any form of psychiatric illness with being crazy. But that's like equating a cough with tuberculosis or lung cancer._

[http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/have-psychiatrists- lost-...](http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/have-psychiatrists-lost- perspective-on-mental-illness/)

</comment><comment><USER11> This was really well written. It says a lot of things that I feel the tech industry tends to ignore.

</comment><comment><USER12> Aside from medication, for OCD in particular there are therapeutic options that can be (life-changingly) effective. The OCD centre [[http://www.ocdcentre.com/about-us](http://www.ocdcentre.com/about-us)] is one such place. If you think you might have OCD (last I read the incidence was around 1/30) talking to someone about is the best first step. Especially as one common and pernicious effect of OCD is that it will convince you that you do not have it.

</comment><comment><USER13> This will not be a popular opinion, nor is it a nice opinion, but sometimes the truth is neither and I think it is valuable to be explicit about these things sometimes.

The "stigma" against mental illness makes sense in a lot of ways.

I do not mean: that the mentally ill deserve fewer legal rights than others, deserve any kind of bad treatment or violence or ridicule, shouldn't be "accepted", or bear any "responsibility" for their condition.

I do mean: life is full of subtle social contracts that mental illness often causes people to flout. Mental illness (in many cases) makes people less predictable and reliable. Harder to deal with.

Some people reading this will say "obviously that is true, which we all acknowledge but have no reason to dwell on, and that is why it is a complex situation that demands awareness". Others will say "that is false and you are a bad person". First group, I refer you to second group.

If you are 100% committed to the goals of your organization (growing a startup, winning a war, whatever), you will be very hesitant to add a mentally ill person to your team/company/platoon. This makes sense. It sucks. Being mentally ill sucks. This is one of the ways.

That doesn't necessarily mean anything needs to or can be done to change it.

<comment><USER14> There's a huge list of highly successful, productive people who are a credit to the projects they work on, who have or have had mental health issues in the past.

If I had the chance, for example, I wouldn't be at all "hesitant" to work with actors Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, or Johnnie Depp, despite all of them having well-documented mental health issues.

I'd also be very happy to work with Richard Branson (ADHD), or if he were alive today, Nikolai Tesla (OCD and anxiety).

<comment><USER13> But these examples stand out because they are unusual exceptions.

Also, it is possible that acting is a profession unusually accessible to people with certain mental illnesses.

<comment><USER14> I've also worked with multiple people with various mental health conditions, who weren't actors, but whom were extremely good at their jobs and I'd cheerfully hire again.

Honestly, I've never seen a correlation between "mental health issues" and "would not hire".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From day one here at HN my profile states that I am schizophrenic... Not that it's done me any good here, but I don't see why I should hide this fact from people I am likely to never meet in real life.

Kudos to those who could care less about social stigma.

</comment><comment><USER16> In case you never considered it before there is a heavy PROFIT INCENTIVE for your psychiatrist to diagnose you with some form of mental illness that he is familiar with. You need to become a domain expert yourself in order to figure out if you're being manipulated for profit or if the diagnosis is legitimate.

<comment><USER17> At this point, does it really matter if the diagnosis was legitimate? The treatment clearly helped him improve his life dramatically.

<comment><USER16> Fair enough, although I suspect it was the act of taking time to reflect on his own inner processes which helped him and this could have occurred outside of the context of a "diagnosis" and without drugs. It's sad that in modern society people are trained to not talk to each other about their emotions and feelings outside of the context of a "sick ward" where one party is being financially motivated to behave in a certain way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I enjoyed that read. I think the world is a better place getting to hear his story.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's wonderful to have a courageous person breaking the ice on difficult topics. Bravo to Mark. And the love shown by his wife is deeply touching.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a courageous article.

Sadly, it seems mental illnesses are one of the great taboos of today (and don't even get me started on the state of mental health care in the US). Similarly, mental illnesses are extremely misunderstood, and people tend to distrust people who suffer from one even though illnesses such as depression may affect 5 to 10% of the population [1] and as much as one in four adults are affected by a mental illness in general in a given year [2]. A significant portion of the population is affected, but for the most part it remains unadvisable to talk about it. It's the elephant in the room.

This is compounded by the fact American culture in particular tends to disproportionately value extroversion and appearance of happiness. This leads many people to remain closeted by fear of repercussions, both on one's social and work life. Even worse, it prevents people from seeking necessary help because of the attached stigma ("but I'm not crazy!"). There are known cases where people are punished for having seeked professional help. For exemple, people who admitted to "suicidal tendencies", however serious, may be refused US visas [3]. The discrepancy between how willingly people talk about their trip to a doctor vs. a therapist is huge and obvious, and it shouldn't be.

Now why should this be relevant for the HN crowd? As someone who's very close to these issues, it seems to me this is one of the few social issues where the tech industry is not as progressive as it could be. Our industry tends to produce myths of super(wo)men with alpha personalities; we admire leaders, disrupters, bigger-than-life personalities, sometimes even assholes. Furthermore, this is a small world where, for better or for worse, a lot depends on word-of-mouth and personal reputation, and where "cultural fit" is openly hailed as a criterion for employment despite the vagueness of the term, which can hide what would otherwise be considered blatant discrimination (cf. that article on ageism not so long ago). The same goes for founders: would you think twice about investing in a non-established individual with a history of OCD? Depression?

What I am getting at is that mental illness is a combination of neurobiological and psychological causes, not a weakness in character -- but in an industry that values strength of character above everything else, the fact many ignore this can be extremely destructive.

We can do better. The author has done the world a great service by publishing his story. I hope more follow suit.

[1] [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1mdd_adult.shtml](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1mdd_adult.shtml)

[2] [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers- coun...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental- disorders-in-america/index.shtml)

[3] [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-health-issues- can...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-health-issues-can-make-you- inadmissible-the-us.html)

<comment><USER21> Thank you for these comments. I really appreciate your thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> ERP and mindfulness are really, really effective in treating OCD. I know, because one of my children had a crippling case and now is free of it. I spent several months at UCLA's Pediatric Intensive Outpatient Program with him and have seen it work on about a dozen children. The same treatment can also be used on adults.

ERP stands for Exposure and Response Prevention. The idea is that you progressively expose the person with OCD to their fear(s), during which, they cannot perform any compulsions. Eventually the brain is retrained and the OCD falls away. For example, someone with a fear of germs would be asked to touch a door handle and then not wash their hands for as long as possible. This is extremely hard for them. However, this simple technique, applied over weeks or months in conjunction with therapy and meds, can reduce a person's OCD to almost nothing.

Another point is that the kids respond to the group setting. They form bonds and support each other during the process.

The UCLA team is absolutely amazing at this: [http://www.semel.ucla.edu/adc/ocd_treatment](http://www.semel.ucla.edu/adc/ocd_treatment)

If you have or know a child suffering with the disorder, please look into this program or one like it!

If you have any questions for a parent that has been through this with a child, contact me at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure what to think about this. I accept that the author is suffering and in anguish, and I truly wish him well. Despite his obvious accomplishments and all the trappings of success, I would not trade places with him. His subjective experience seems to be painful and is no less real to him than mine is to me.

At the same time, I don't think he is ill. While I don't doubt that he is suffering, I don't think it it is helpful to class his suffering as an illness. I don't think anyone argues that his symptoms are caused by an infection or a defect in an organ, so his disorder lacks the physical basis for a typical illness. At the same time, he has symptoms. And therapy, and possibly drugs, make him feel subjectively better. He chooses to engage in a regime of therapy which (presumably) has self reported benefits.

But I don't think it is helpful to think of his plight like we think of malaria or polio or heart disease. When we talk about 'emotional disorders', we implicitly take on an enormous amount of cultural context as well as normative judgements about how someone 'should' feel. And the danger is that one will come to believe that an unpleasant mental state in an otherwise healthy brain is something to be cured through the application of science.

That being said, I agree with the main point -- that there is no shame in his mental state. I suppose my point is that it is not necessary (and should not be necessary) to reclassify what a disease is in order for a class of people to maintain their dignity. And above all, I wish this man well and by no means mean to diminish his pain, or the courage it took to write this.

<comment><USER24> This attitude--that mental illness is not a real disease--is what helps the stigma to continue.

You mince it up with nice words around the edges, but it boils down to this: you're part of the problem.

<comment><USER23> I would say it boils down to this: I believe that mental illness is fundamentally different than infectious disease and defects and injuries to organs, and it is not productive to treat them as fundamentally alike.

If that makes me part of the problem, I guess it's not clear to me what the problem is.

<comment><USER25> I will try to answer you authentically. Your belief is not _necessarily_ a problem. Every illness is different; that's not really debatable. The problem is how you treat people who suffer from an illness.

Imagine a friend is lying in bed and refuses to get up and go to work.

Let's go through some scenarios: 1) His pelvis is broken from a recent car accident. 2) He has a fever and fatigue from the flu. 3) He has testicular cancer and is recovering from yesterday's chemo. 4) He is depressed.

These scenarios are all fundamentally different. It's common for people to have sympathy in scenarios 1, 2, & 3: "Of course you can't get out of bed, poor fella'. Anything I can do to help?" It's common for people to be skeptical and annoyed by scenario 4: "Why won't you just get out of bed? What is wrong with you? Jesus, go for a walk or something. You need to get your act together."

These responses are caricatures, but they represent "the problem" that often results from people saying they believe "mental illness is fundamentally different." Mental illness is not identical to other illnesses, but to the sufferer, it is just as real and just as debilitating. The problem is that people treat it as less real – not a disease but more of a personal failing that needs to be overcome. You wouldn't tell a cancer patient to just get over it, but for many types of mental illness that is society's attitude.

Does that clarify anything?

<comment><USER26> _You wouldn 't tell a cancer patient to just get over it, but for many types of mental illness that is society's attitude._

Of course, because we understand how cancer works, enough to know that wishing it away, or meditating, is unlikely to address the problem, and has not been scientifically demonstrated to fight cancer.

There's a spectrum of severity and causes of mental illness. In some cases a patient needs to be medicated just to be able to get through a therapy session; in slightly less severe cases therapy can be tried first, but perhaps without medication the patient will never be normal. In a lot of cases, I think probably the majority, patients on psychotropic drugs could improve well into the normal range through therapy alone without meds. And there are cases where a particular social environment—like a middle class urban lifestyle, trying to make ends meet—may cause certain psychological disorders even when the same people in a different environment would be perfectly happy. Especially in that latter case, can that be called a "disease"?

If psychological intervention or environmental change is enough to turn someone normal, what does it mean to label them "diseased" before the intervention... particularly if the "disease" was due to bad prior psychosocial development (bad parenting and/or bad school/peer environments, generally), rather than genetics or something in the air or water? In other words, if the same person had grown up in a different social environment, or in a different culture, and failed to develop the psychological illness, can it be called a disease or illness at all?

(Of course, availability of professional therapy, or peers or parents who know how to intervene productively, may not exist in many cases. That's a separate issue.)

Psychiatry does not really distinguish the forms of psychological disease based on their likely cause, nor on whether they can be treated to acceptable norms without medication. I think that's what frustrates a lot of people who either object to, or are uncomfortable labeling DSM diagnoses as illnesses or diseases.

<comment><USER3> ... But you can see that there's a difference between 8 hours of CBT (at one hour per week with a skilled therapist) and someone saying "Cheer up!"?

I've met people who had severe OCD but who had their life changed by talking therapy. I have no problem calling it a disease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One thing I would like to offer would be for American doctors to perform comparisons across cultures, countries, and societies. I am restricting the above purely to mental illness. There are many mental diseases I only witnessed in America, and not in Africa. I do not know what the meaning of this observation would be if proven factual, but I think it is worth exploring.

<comment><USER28> This is definitely an observed phenomenon, such illnesses are known as culture-bound syndromes. There is the sub-field of transcultural psychiatry which examines these and other cultural differences with respect to mental disorders.

Out of interest, what were the mental illnesses you refer to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Speaking of stigma keeping people from seeking treatment, how does this interplay with the fact that most people in America get health insurance through their jobs? Aren't people afraid that some information will leak out if they seek mental treatment through their insurance? And what about the "counseling" services many large organizations offer?

</comment><comment><USER3> People say the treatment in England is much better, and it is, unless you are under 18.

MH treatment is underfunded in England (and this has recently been written into commissioning contracts) and it is worse for children and young people.

In patient beds for children are limited. A child who needs an in patient bed may have to travel hundreds of miles to get that bed. They may even need to travel to a different country.

A child in the south of England may not have a bed available anywhere in England and might need to go to Scotland for a bed.

Apart from the obvious cost of distance and the distress of being so far from home (although getting distance from an abusive home can be useful) that child is now under a different legal system. Thus, the rules for detaining them against their will; force feeding; forced medication; etc etc are all slightly different.

<comment><USER30> I used to work in an outpatient neuro department that had a large paediatric patient population. One of the paediatric neurologists there had done her training at a famous children's hospital in London (GOSH) and said that it was a fantastic place to train in, but terrible for the outcome of the children.

Where we were in Melbourne, we had four paediatric neurologists for a catchment area of about 400k give or take. GOSH had six neurologists for a catchment area of 2 million. "By the time the kids in London got to see us, the symptoms were so florid and easy to see. Great for training, not so great for outcomes".

She did her training in the 90s, so it may have since changed. It's also a story about neurologists, not psychiatrists, but I imagine it wouldn't be that much different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Someone very close and dear to me has a mental illness. She was super nervous to disclose this to me for fear that I may think differently of her. The thing she most appreciated about my reaction was that I said "Let me know if there is anything that I should know about your illness that may affect you in a way that may make you behave differently than you normally do, otherwise I will behave and act as if it simply doesn't exist." Suffice to say, I don't actually remember what illness she has.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another "coming out" story is from Michael Landsberg, a Canadian hockey analyst on TSN. His hashtag #sicknotweak inspires me when I'm feeling like crap. [http://www.thelavinagency.com/blog-mental-health-speaker- mic...](http://www.thelavinagency.com/blog-mental-health-speaker-michael- landsberg-on-the-cover-of-vista-magazine.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> Thank you for posting this.

The testimony on intrusive thoughts hits so close to home, I'm considering seeking professional help. I wonder if there is a different way to think and live!

</comment><comment><USER33> Cyclothymic. That's a bipolar spectrum disorder, but it doesn't match the lay image of the manic-depressive. The episodes are milder and shorter, but they come on quickly. A "depression attack" can last 3 hours, resolve in a panic attack, and be gone 20 minutes later. Most people who know me wouldn't know that I have it. The one "insane" thing I've done (trolling, back in the day) had the specific purpose of keeping insanity out of my "IRL" existence.

As with all spectrum disorders, people seem to focus on the visible, uncontainable, and publicly dangerous 0.1% and ignore that 99.9% of people with the disorder or "on the spectrum" are not dangerous, wouldn't fit most people's image of "mentally ill", and can be very well-adjusted.

I tend to think of mood disorders as anti-psychopathy. Psychopaths have low or nonexistent mood and emotional sensitivity, which is why they're social high performers and (if ambitious) excel in the work world. Some mood disorders seem to be uncorrelated to context (i.e. episodes happen "for no reason") and that's probably more true of the severe cases, but _most_ people with mood disorders are normal people with hypersensitivity, such as the OP whose brain would take personal criticism extremely seriously, unable to block it out or cope.

Aaron Swartz comes to mind as a archetypical anti-psychopath. They tend to be moralistic, less fearful of negative consequences when doing what they think is right, and prone to mood and anxiety disorders. Anti-psychopathy isn't a desirable thing. It can be just as ill-adjusted. Just as psychopathy tends to be good for the individual (in terms of material prosperity, social rank, and sexual access) but bad for society, anti-psychopathy tends to be good for society but harmful to the individual.

What's happening right now, in Silicon Valley, is a battle to the death between real technologists (who tend to be _anti_ -psychopaths) and the mainstream business culture of entitled executives and board-whores (psychopaths). With Snapchat and Clinkle setting the tone in the current Valley, rents becoming unaffordable, and no-poach agreements all over the Valley, psychopaths seem to be winning.

I think that mood disorders in particular require a certain balance. People tend to do unwise or harmful things, especially when inexperienced, and those with mood disorders are not exceptions. You have to own your actions, even if you made them in a struggle that most people wouldn't understand. That said, it's also important to realize "it's not me, it's them" and keep your pride intact. Mental health issues often give you a front-row seat for how shitty people can be when they think you're weak.

Much of what comes out of these disorders isn't harmful in the least. It's just slightly embarrassing, but plenty of people will hang you out to dry just because they're weak, useless cowards. This may be why people with mood disorders (at least, the milder kind that won't interfere with ethical behavior; a truly "manic" person, noting that mania-- not the milder hypomania-- is very rare even in people with bipolar, does not know who he is) tend to evolve into moralistic, hyper-ethical anti-psychopaths.

I'll give a semi-fictional example. Let's say you're a programmer and you have a hypomanic episode. You still go to work, don't cause any issues, and spend 2 weeks building something you were never assigned to do. It turns out to be really good work and useful to the company (as much, or moreso, than putting that time in on your assigned work) but your boss is pissed off that you were working on this side project, instead of your assigned work, and tags you as "unreliable". A morally decent person would recognize that as wrong (it's health discrimination, and counterproductive, to punish people with "creative flare-ups") but, even still, stories like that are so common in Silicon Valley as to be unremarkable. Anti-psychopaths tend to need an R&D environment where they're measured by performance over time, rather than minute-by-minute superficial reliability (at which they can't possibly compete) and those, sadly, tend to be turning rare in the current anti-intellectual (and pro- psychopathic) environment.

<comment><USER34> > You still go to work, don't cause any issues, and spend 2 weeks building > something you were never assigned to do. It turns out to be really good work > and useful to the company (as much, or moreso, than putting that time in on > your assigned work) but your boss is pissed off that you were working on > this side project, instead of your assigned work, and tags you as > "unreliable". A morally decent person would recognize that as wrong (it's > health discrimination, and counterproductive, to punish people with > "creative flare-ups")...

Isn't this behavior psychopathic by your definition? the person goes to work, disregards agreements he's made with his coworkers and does whatever he wants.

<comment><USER5> It depends on the why. Using michaelochurch's classifications.

Psycopathic: I break the agreement because I want to do what _I_ want to do.

Anti-psycopathic (particularly for the manic/hypomanic phase): I break the agreement because my brain is creating thousands of ideas a minute, I'm churning out code, I've solved 20 problems that we'd been having just this morning, but none of them are my assigned task(s). It's almost a compulsion, and not one driven from personal want. I don't _want_ to delay the actual work, or procrastinate, but my brain keeps focusing on all the wrong (for work) things.

EDIT: Another fun bit is the after effect. After that spirited creative period, you realize what you've neglected and it feeds the part of the mind pushing you into depression as guilt.

<comment><USER35> Outside people tend to judge you on what you _do_ , not on what you _intend_. The latter is invisible to them - they can't reach into your mind and understand what was going on. So from an outside perspective, someone who breaks the agreement because they _want_ to and someone who breaks the agreement because they mentally _have_ to is indistinguishable.

<comment><USER5> This is true. First, get help from a therapist. Second, if you're finding yourself unable to focus on the actually assigned work, but something still useful, try to sell your bosses on it. If you can't convince them, and still can't regain focus, hopefully your therapist/doctor can help you find a way to regain that focus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


File Transfer with SSH, Tee, and Base64 - <AUTHOR> https://susam.in/blog/file-transfer-with-ssh-tee-and-base64/ <comment><USER2> This is a problem I used to solve with 'zmodem' which you can install on both ends and use to perform text transfers, solely over the interactive channel.

I think the binaries were named 'zs' and 'zr'. It's been a _long time_ since I needed to do this anywhere...

<comment><USER3> You're close on the names of the binaries. They're 'sz' and 'rz'.

I used the crap out of them dialing-in to systems back in the day. I had TELNET and FTP access to the Internet out of a dial-in to a shell on a Unix host in the mid 90s (no SLIP, PPP, or SLiRP from the provider at the time. It was great to be able to ftp down files to my home directory then 'sz' them back home.

<comment><USER4> I wish terminal emulators still supported zmodem natively like some of the better emulators many years ago. It's not too difficult to configure iTerm2 to invoke rz when detecting the escape sequence[1], but it's still too much friction. sz/rz is something I would be using everyday, but I prefer sticking to Terminal.app on macOS--I prefer zero-config environments because of all the various systems, local and remote, I interact with on a daily basis.

scp and sftp are great, but the nice thing about in-band file transfers is that your shell session already has the current context for simplifying the transfer. For example, you often want to send to or receive from the current working directory, or something nearby, and interactive file globbing is just a single tab key away, without having to switch sessions, login all over again, copy paths, etc.

[1] I don't miss automatic printing without confirmation, though. The prank of `cat /vmlinuz | write user` wasn't that funny when the service desk hands you an entire ream of garbage along with a reprimand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My solution in these cases:

        ssh hostname tar cvjf - /path/to/folder | tar xjf -

Basically I ask ssh to execute tar on the remote host to create a compressed archive. ssh will output the archive contents on the local host; this data is then passed on to a local tar for extraction.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do mention in my blog post that the SSH gateway in between forbids execution of remote commands without a login shell, so this rules this out as the solution. Otherwise, yes, this would have been a fine solution.

<comment><USER6> Would this make it through the SSH gateway? It creates a pseudo TTY and executes bash as a login shell within it.

      ssh hostname -qt 'bash -lc "tar czf - /path/to/folder 2>/dev/null | base64"' | base64 -id | tar xvzf -

<comment><USER4> Probably want to prepend a prefix so you can extract only those lines and filter banners, motd's, etc, like:

      "... base64 | sed -e 's/^/~/'" | sed -ne 's/^~//p' | base64 ...`

BTW, base64 isn't a standard command (nonexistent on OpenBSD), and the options can vary based on implementation even when it exists (decode is -d for GNU coreutils base64, but -D for the macOS command). You can whip up an alternative using od(1) and printf(1):

      #!/bin/sh
      # encode as backslash-escaped octal (\0NNN)
      export LC_ALL=C
      od -An -to1 -v \
      | sed -ne 's/\([01234567][01234567]*\)/\\0\1/gp' \
      | tr -cd '\\01234567\n'

      #!/bin/sh
      # decode backslash-escaped octal
      export LC_ALL=C
      while read -r L; do
        printf "%b" "$L"
      done

It might not be strictly POSIX compliant, but I don't think there are any environments where printf isn't 8-bit clean in the C locale. I've tested something similar (see below) on various versions of bash and d?ash, as well as /bin/sh on AIX, FreeBSD, macOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris.

You can implement base64 as a shell script using the above techniques, and do so without relying on awk, which isn't always available. If od(1) isn't available you can use dd(1) to extract stdin byte-by-byte and convert with printf(1), but that gets really slow. I've written an implementation that only needs an 8-bit-clean but otherwise POSIX compliant shell, printf, and either dd or od. It doesn't need tr, but it's even slower without it. It just converts the bytes to decimal and uses plain shell arithmetic for the primitive encoding and decoding, similar to how it would be done in any language.

<comment><USER6> It certainly isn't a complete cross platform solution but to address the inconsistent options problem and some of the availability issues openssl could be used instead.

      ... | openssl enc -base64" | openssl -base64 -d | ...

<comment><USER6> Self reply. Noticed I left out the enc option from the 2nd openssl command. Should be:

      ... | openssl enc -base64" | openssl enc -base64 -d | ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a CTF trick. If I were faced with this problem, I would do an SSH local port forward, and then just wget the file, hosted locally with python -m SimpleHTTPServer

<comment><USER8> I think we can assume that if they are restricting things as the article describes they also disabled port forwarding.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24507146](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24507146) for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The instructions in this article should work, but they're more complicated than necessary maybe. If you don't have scp, you can usually just do something like this:

      ssh user@host cat remote_file > local_file

to copy the contents of "remote_file" on the server to "local_file" on your local machine.

<comment><USER10> > If you don't have scp [...]

scp is deprecated [1]; use sftp instead. At the very least, sftp should be your preference over scp.

[1] [https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/571293/is-scp- unsaf...](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/571293/is-scp-unsafe- should-it-be-replaced-with-sftp)

<comment><USER11> Your link doesn't say it's deprecated...

the sftp command has lousy ux, it's unlikely people will switch to it en masse.

<comment><USER10> > The scp protocol is outdated, inflexible and not readily fixed. We recommend > the use of more modern protocols like sftp and rsync for file transfer > instead. [1]

> From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [jargon]:

> deprecated adj.

> Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the > process of being phased out, usually in favor of a specified replacement. > [..]

[1] [https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-8.0](https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-8.0)

<comment><USER11> But your cited definition agrees with me? It's not being phased out, hence not being deprecated.

<comment><USER12> > The scp protocol is outdated, inflexible and not readily fixed. We recommend > the use of more modern protocols like sftp and rsync for file transfer > instead.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure what the misunderstanding is here.. The above text says there are better protocols and recommends their use over scp, but doesn't say scp is being phased out or discontinued in the future.

On *ix things stay around for pretty long. You still have ed and ftp on Ubuntu 20.04!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the ssh gateway OP mentions is just a ssh server, a ProxyCommand should be used, and the gateway should be transparent after that.

        Host rcpu-tun
          User YOURLOGIN
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/YOURSECRET
          ProxyCommand ssh -q -W HOSTBEHINDFW:22 -l PROXYLOGIN SSHGATEWAY
          HostName HOSTBEHINDFW

<comment><USER4> ssh -W requires that the gateway support port forwarding, which is probably disabled if its enforcing interactive logins. (-W also implicitly sets -T, though I don't know if that would fail the login or not.) Likewise, -J is shorthand for a ProxyCommand that runs nc on the gateway, which also won't work if the gateway requires interactive (i.e. TTY interposed) logins. (EDIT: Looking at the OpenSSH source code, -J is shorthand for generating a ProxyCommand using ssh -W. Either it was refactored to use -W after -W was added, or I'm misremembering how -J used to work.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you can SSH directly into both systems, then you don't need to print anything directly to the terminal. You can go:

      ssh system1 'cat payload' > temp
      cat temp | ssh system2 'cat > payload'

Or cut out the middleman, as long as getting two password prompts isn't too confusing:

      ssh system1 'cat payload' | ssh system2 'cat > payload'

I've found the base64/copy-paste trick useful when I _can 't_ do a conventional SSH. Usually this is when one of the machines is accessed via a serial console.

In that scenario, it can help to compress the data before base64-ing it:

      machine1$ cat payload | gzip | base64
      <output>
      machine2$ base64 -d | gzip -d > payload
      <paste output>

<comment><USER15> They mention that you can't run commands without an interactive shell. I believe that knocks out your proposal because then rsync+ssh would work without all the complexity you have in your post with all the same benefits. Could be wrong though.

<comment><USER14> I see, I did miss that.

I do wonder if there's a workaround for that, though. "bash" has the "-l" option for "Make bash act as if it had been invoked as a login shell", and also "-i" forces interactive mode. For ssh, "-t" is "Force pseudo-terminal allocation"; would that work?

<comment><USER16> I don't follow. How would any of these option help?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just confirmed this can also work using AWS Session Manager (a "secure" and easily-auditable way to provide shell access to EC2 instances):

        $ aws ssm start-session  --target i-XXXXXX | tee base64.txt

</comment><comment><USER18> I do something similar to move small files via copy-and-paste to/from hosts that I have to reach through an intermediate jump host.

Rather than copying the file to the jump host, then to the remote host, I'll just gzip and base64 encode it, then copy and paste it to the remote host.

<comment><USER3> I've done this to get files into VMs that have poor or no network connectivity, too. If I can get a console session w/ the ability to paste keystrokes I'm golden... >smile<

<comment><USER19> Heh, thought I was not alone! Although I do not use SSH, I just use netcat. Shared directories are a hassle. :D

<comment><USER3> That's a litmus test for me when working with other technicians. If they need to transfer a file to me across a shared LAN and they offer to pipe the file over Netcat (and they just expect that I know what they mean) then they "rate". If I suggest Netcat and they understand they "rate". If they have no idea what I'm talking about or, worse, suggest a "cloud" service, then I file them appropriately.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm talking about transient situations-- like when I'm working with another contractor on a day-long gig, etc. Obviously, for an established LAN piping files to each other over isn't a sensible or secure file transfer method.

<comment><USER19> I do not know why you are being down-voted. I would expect people to know what netcat is, and what it is used for. If all someone can come up with is related to cloud, then I would dismiss them, too. These "problems" have been solved a very long time ago, and we have great alternatives.

For myself I have written two shell functions; _nc_send_ and _nc_recv_. It uses Nmap's ncat with SSL. It uses GPG and to verify data integrity, I use _b2sum_. Simple, yet perfect for the task. I use it often besides _scp_ , but of course sometimes _netcat_ is all I need.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't necessarily "dismiss" somebody, but knowing about simple tools is a proxy in my mind for experience level. I can tailor my communication appropriately when I have some idea of experience level. If I know I can't say to somebody plugged-in to my laptop directly w/ a patch cable "Give me the last two octets of your APIPA address and start listening on port 31338 piped out to a file" then I know that there are a lot of other tasks that I'll need to break down in minute detail.

<comment><USER19> Okay, you are right. I would not dismiss them either for this alone, I would first perhaps ask them why they think that it is the best option, or what alternatives there are, and so forth.

> Give me the last two octets of your APIPA address

Is not APIPA Windows-only, by the way?

I can definitely give you two octets of an IP address through using awk, sed, or using C and bitwise operations. Do I pass? :D

<comment><USER3> APIPA was standardized as IPv4LL in RFC 3927[1]. I never remember the acronym IPv4LL-- I always remember APIPA instead. It was a Microsoft construct, but it has fairly broad OS support now, to my knowledge.

[1] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3927](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3927)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > sed '1,/$ base64/d;/$ exit/,$d' ssh.txt

Huh. I'm surpised this works, because $ is not escaped.

<comment><USER20> Single quotes.

<comment><USER16> No, I mean $ usually means end-of-string (or end-of-line) in regexps. But TIL in BREs, $ means literal character in the middle of an expression:

[https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd...](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap09.html#tag_09_03_08)

<comment><USER20> Oh I see now, I never thought about $ being usable anywhere except at the end as an anchor!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> scp is so slow, does anyone want to improve this?</comment>


Germany warns against use of Firefox browser due to security issues - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8580716.stm

<comment><USER2> I recommend removing the Adobe Acrobat plugin from FireFox. Just last night while visiting a trusted site, it tried to launch an exploited Adobe Acrobat file. The file was served from a 3rd party ad site that had been hacked. Dangerous.

<comment><USER3> Very good advice. Also, if you do use adobe, make sure you are fully updated (9.3.1). The 9.3.0 libtiff exploit is available via metasploit:

[http://www.metasploit.com/modules/exploit/windows/fileformat...](http://www.metasploit.com/modules/exploit/windows/fileformat/adobe_libtiff)

Adobe themselves also need to update, since if you go download from their website, they'll give you 9.3.0:

[http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/9.x/9.3/enu...](http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/9.x/9.3/enu/AdbeRdr930_en_US.exe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Firefox was not immediately available for comment._

... Hopefully the non-sentient Internet browser will have something to say for its self a bit later on.

</comment><comment><USER5> A government office which warns when widely used browsers have vulnerabilities – good idea or bad idea? I'm not really all that sure about that.

(But here's a idea for you: find a way to keep the 4+ browsers I have installed in sync so that I can switch at a moments notice without any problems.)

<comment><USER6> <http://www.xmarks.com/> comes in quite handy for this purpose. No Opera support, though. :/</comment></comment>


Another barrier to fusion falls? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120423143128.htm

<comment><USER2> The sun is an extremely diffuse energy source. If we wanted to power the US using a power source with the same volumetric efficiency as the sun you'd need a device that's about 3000 cubic miles in size.

Assuming a 100 foot tall building, that would be a building 400 miles on each side. For comparison the amount of solar energy delivered to that same area is 20 times higher! (Assuming you could capture all of it.)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%283.3991%C3%9710^12+wa...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%283.3991%C3%9710^12+watts%29+%2F+%28%28%283.846%C3%9710^26+watts%29+%2F+3.388%C3%9710^17+cubic+miles%29%29)

So to make fusion practical for human use it's not enough to duplicate the sun - they actually need to make it work far better than what happens in the sun. That's one of the reasons they use D-T reactions instead of H-H - it's much faster.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you are talking about volumetric efficiency - the portions of the sun where fusion is actually taking place are far more efficient than that surely?

I always believed they were trying to duplicate the suns core, not the whole ball of gas.

<comment><USER2> That's easy enough to calculate. You end up with 46 cubic miles. That's equivalent to 100 foot building 50 miles on each edge.

Much smaller - still pretty large, but doable. Your energy output in comparison to capturing solar energy is now 3 times as much rather than 1/20 as much.

<comment><AUTHOR> In which case, I can only assume we are aiming for greater efficiency than the sun. Thanks for your answer!

<comment><USER3> Jet is 1980's technology and it's already produced 16 megawatts from 200 cubic meters in 1997. <http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/JET.aspx> Compared to "the center of the sun, fusion power is estimated by model to be about 276.5 watts/m3" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core>

Which works out to 290x the energy density of the core. Direct comparisons of the Continent vessel vs the volume of the sun are even higher.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention getting 5.4 yottawatts from roughly the same volume, if not for the same amount of time:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Original article: <http://www.pppl.gov/polPressReleases.cfm?doc_id=1242> (includes link to podcast with authors)

Article in _Physical Review Letters_ : <http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i16/e165004> (paywalled)

Freely accessible preprint: <http://www.pppl.gov/pub_report/2012/PPPL-4728.pdf>

<comment><USER6> It's really unfortunate that the "podcast" amounts to the authors reading a press release. Good physicists -- and I think these guys probably are good physicists -- can often give an intuitive picture of what such a density limit is, why it exists, what we think is going wrong in the field today. Because they were confined to just two minutes, it seems, they were forced to alternate awkwardly between reading a prepared statement which explains little and name-drops a couple of ridiculously broad fields ("radiation physics" and "magnetohydrodynamics") briefly.

I mean, there is always a problem with oversimplifying these things, but talking to a layperson doesn't have to be too much different from talking to a fellow physicist; the key difference for me seems to be presenting two or three perspectives on the same thing before going forward.

Here is the backstory to this paper, as I would explain it to laypeople: "So we've got this plasma -- plasmas are like a metallic gas, lightning is a good example; the electrons get shared between the gas molecules so the gas becomes an amazing conductor. Same thing happens whenever we superheat any gas, really. So we've got this superheated gas in a tokamak, which is a big ring which uses magnets to keep the plasma spinning around in a circle without hitting the edges. It's a neat trick, a bit hard to do. Now if we could get the plasma hot enough and dense enough, we could recreate the conditions in the Sun with it, and solve the energy crisis -- this is what's called fusion energy, much cleaner than nuclear fission. But how do we heat it up? Well like I said, this plasma is metallic, it's just like the wire in a light bulb, so we just put a lot of electricity through it, and it heats up and glows. We call that "ohmic heating". But there's a problem. Before it gets hot enough for controlled fusion, we basically run into a wall, we try to pour more current into it and it doesn't get hotter, doesn't get more dense.* And until now we didn't really know why this happened. It's as if the laws of nature just said, 'Eff you, I'm not letting you solve the world's energy problems that easily.' We have an explanation, now, why..."

I haven't read the paper yet but I hope it can rise a bit to a better technical level than the press releases. The press releases are a little elliptical about what their solution entails but it sounds like you have to understand what's happening with certain observed impurities in the plasma.

* From what one of the press releases says it sounds like it might actually kill the containment field and fly apart, but that sounds really strange -- as if it would destroy the tokamak.

<comment><USER2> > kill the containment field and fly apart

It's _really_ hard to keep the magnetic field right. It's not a stable system, it needs to be dynamically controlled. Presumably these defects mess up the magnetic field to the point that it's impossible to contain it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article's title alludes to scientists seeing a "solution" that is nowhere to be found in the article itself. It seems more like we understand the problem better rather than have found a solution. Am I mis-reading?

<comment><USER8> I have no idea if the article is _accurate_ , but yes, it does mention a possible solution:

>"Among other things, they intend to see if injecting power directly into the islands will lead to higher density. If so, that could help future tokamaks reach the extreme density and 100-million-degree temperatures that fusion requires."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am pretty sure that an energy bill in the US from 2008 killed all US funding for the future fusion reactor in France. I can't find a source though. Anybody have any insight on that?

<comment><USER10> It was a refocusing of funds, but yeah. The US decided to put more effort into the National ignition facility instead of ITER. Still, we do research for/with ITER, just not as a partnering country.</comment></comment>


Radiohead: Artists often screwed by digital downloads - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080102-radiohead-artists-often-screwed-by-digital-downloads.html <comment><USER2> "if you're Radiohead, the built-in publicity makes a direct-to-fans model much easier than if you're, say, the "Free As In Beer" out of Dayton, Ohio."

Actually, I think for "Free As In Beer" from Dayton direct-to-fans is probably the best bet...</comment>


Luck of the English: A new history shatters myths about an extraordinary nation - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/tombs-english-history-uk/421995/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> "The worst crop failure of them all would strike Ireland in the 1840s—the potato famine that still haunts that nation's memory. The United Kingdom responded with the most ambitious program of food aid and cash relief ever attempted by any nation to that point, but one that still fell horribly short of the magnitude of the disaster. "

That's quite a nationalist spin. In fact, England _exported_ far more food _from_ Ireland than it provided in aid of all kinds, even if you don't count the grain consumed in making exported alcohol.

See [http://www.usbornefamilytree.com/irishfoodexports.htm](http://www.usbornefamilytree.com/irishfoodexports.htm) or Wikipedia's article for references.

<comment><USER3> It is so misleading that it calls the whole thing, book _and_ review, into question.

Yes, the pendulum has swung from "yay, Empire!" to "boo, colonialism" and this book is trying to push it back; but that means we need a careful unravelling of the issues involved, probably attributing them more to the good and bad actions of individual people or groups than trying to answer the single question "England: Good or Bad?"

Denying the role of English capitalist politics in worsening the potato famine is almost as bad as denying the holocaust.

(I'd settle for "England: Not As Genocidal As Belgium")

<comment><USER4> This was the chap England thought best appropriate to handle the famine.

"The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people. \- Charles Trevelyan, head of administration for Irish famine relief, 1840s"

He thought the famine would "thin" the population like you would do when maintaining a forest. It's borderline genocide.

<comment><USER5> I take it this is the same Trevelyan of "Fields of Athenry" fame [1], a great rendition of which can be heard at the end of Veronica Guerin [2]

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

2 [http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0312549/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0312549/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But since poor East Germany rejoined West Germany in 1990, England no longer > lags far behind Germany. Depending on which numbers you use, the English > parts of the United Kingdom may already exceed Germany in GDP per capita. If > recent trends continue, the U.K. as a whole could even overtake Germany in > gross output by the year 2030.

So after 2008/2009, when everything Germany did was great and everything England did was bad, because the crisis affected Germany much less than England, we are now back to extrapolating, after London got back on its feet?

In 2015 1.1 million people fled to Germany and birth-rates are rising. For me long-term estimates of economic numbers (which are largely based on demographic estimates) seem like complete guessings, because we simply do not know how this will play out.

<comment><USER7> Assuming all of those immigrants integrate successfully into German culture and there is no widespread right-wing backlash...

<comment><USER8> Assuming all of those immigrants want to integrate into German culture and there is no widespread religious backlash against secular culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a bit lost here, between the article and this discussion; I'd really appreciate it if someone could set me straight:

It seems that the English oppressed the Irish (the "800 year occupation"), the British oppressed the English, the Scots were paid by the British to oppress everyone else, and the Welsh (I just finished watching _Hinterland_ ) look like they've had their last puppy kicked. (Am I wrong in believing Wales to be the northern European equivalent of West Virginia, with a lot of hills and mines and a lot of people without shoes or teeth, where nothing pleasant ever happens?) Oh, and Northern Ireland is an extension of England (although the inhabitants are mostly Scottish) that has been declared a country, for taxation purposes I assume.

As I understand it, the Cornish don't exist any more except as place-names (understandable, given that Wikipedia says, "It continues to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples"), and the Kents never did exist. (But what about the Brigantes tribe from 62 Wallaby Street?)

Honestly, the closest analogy this intellect-deprived American can come up with for the article is whether Virginians are a large, nationless group of people in North America.

So, ok, here's my question. Can anyone lay their hands on two-three of these British folks? They sound like real bad-asses. With them, we should be able to set the world to right in a jif, what?

</comment><comment><USER10> This article seems to switch between 'Britain' and 'England' haphazardly, as in this example:

 _" What was distinctively English was the determined and costly campaign against the slave trade led by the British state"_

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's haphazard; much of TFA's point is that people don't make the distinction correctly.

So, here, it's saying that few Scots/Welsh/etc were involved in fighting the slave trade, politically.</comment></comment>


Exploding Software-Engineering Myths - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/nagappan-100609.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> TDD improves code 60-90% in defect density! Awesome read highly recommend!</comment>


Pagination Tunnels – An Experiment in Crawlability and Click Depth - <AUTHOR> https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/pagination-tunnels-experiment-click-depth.htm <comment><USER2> The visualization of "crawlability" is great, the graphs were intuitive to see how some methods are more effective than others in reducing long sequential branches of pages.

After finishing the article, I had a feeling that none of the pagination methods were "perfect" with a good balance of crawlability and user- friendliness. It made me think, for sites with a large number of pages, there needs to be more than just paginataion for navigating them - for example, navigating/sorting by categories would probably produce a different graph, closer to the ideal level of branches and depths.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about putting all titles in one "index" page so I (and a bot) can easily ctrl+F skim thru them?

<comment><USER4> That works until you have (like the example) 20k titles. That's a performance hit to the (assuming) database to send all of that data at once, to the web server for having to parse all of those results and generate the HTML, to the client browser for having to parse all of that HTML and render it. It's possible, of course, that it's better for the user. It just doesn't happen to be that way very often, from my own anecdotal experience.

<comment><USER3> Is it tho? It's probably half the size of any JS framework or library out there.

Yes, it can be slow if you wrap each line in tons nested HTML, inefficient CSS and tons of JS handlers, but it doesn't have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google's recommendation:

\- Do nothing.

\- Specify a View All page.

\- Use rel="next" and rel="prev" links

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en)

\+ sitemap:

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER6> In some circumstances a "random" button might be a nice thing to have, rather than a predictable mid-point, as it would encourage real users to sample different things from deep in the long tail. The crawler could also use this to find jumping off points. You could also then leave out the "last" option, and therefore you wouldn't need a "first" option to look symmetrical for human users.

</comment><comment><USER7> For crawlability you may be better of with an explicit site map. Pagination is very important and your focus should be on UX, not bots.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps)</comment>


Mosquitoes Are Deadly, So Why Not Kill Them All? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/mosquitoes-are-deadly-so-why-not-kill-them-all-1472827158 <comment><USER2> Is this an all or nothing solution?

If you could control the population in highly dense areas but leave the rest of the world alone, would it not mitigate some of the risks involved in messing with the ecosystem?

<comment><USER3> Completely agree. The way I understand it there are no extras in nature. Ecosystems evolved with all the organisms helping to balance the whole. Getting rid of one will put the system out of balance. Yes, they are dangerous to us but by getting rid of all of them it will effect a whole branch of nature. We are part of that system and ultimately we'll be sorry we got rid of them.

<comment><USER4> > The way I understand it there are no extras in nature.

There are no "extras" in the sense if you want nothing at all to change, you need to keep everything, but I don't think ecological niches go unfilled for long. The world would be pretty fragile if the loss of any single species completely destroyed an ecosystem.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the meaning of "Python's broken notion of lambda"*? - <AUTHOR>

* Hal Abelson in http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/hal-abelson/ <comment><USER2> He may be referring to the fact that lambda expressions in Python are limited to a single statement. If you want anything more complex than that, you have to define a function elsewhere and pass it by name.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two possible issues. As tmhedberg says (more or less), they're second-class citizens: they may contain one expression, and cannot contain any statements (e.g., 'print').

A more important issue: in LISP, ML, and other languages with a "proper" lambda, the value of a lambda expression is a lexical closure. Python's lambdas are dynamically scoped, which certainly qualifies as broken.

See, e.g., <http://math.andrej.com/2009/04/09/pythons-lambda-is-broken/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for explaining this.</comment>


Gay bashing is not "cool" anymore in Rap, just the opposite for misogyny though - <AUTHOR> http://rapalytics.com/articles/rap-and-homophobia-what-do-stats-say

<comment><USER2> "Rappers are more misogynistic than homophobic!"

I would like to see what constitutes either of these. I listed to lots of Gangter-rap in my youth and It never really centered around gay-bashing.</comment>