What is the vesting period for co-founders in a start up? - <AUTHOR>

I know that the vesting period is the period of time before shares are owned unconditionally by an employee in an employee stock option plan. If his/her employment terminates before this period ends, the company can buy back the shares at their original price.<p>But if you award a co-founder x # of shares to be vested at x period of time during the critical phase of the start up life-cycle, how do you determine when to vest? 1, 2, 3 years... Assuming that the whole purpose of the process is to make sure that this person sticks around and earn their equity share. What if the person stop participating before the vesting period, do you have to buy back his/her shares or they just lost it? <comment><USER2> All the advice that I've seen, from lawyers to VCs, suggests periodic vesting. You want to have shares vest in equal increments every day, week, or month. Any longer than that and you're asking for trouble, like pre-vesting firings and the resulting bad-faith lawsuit.

The whole idea is to make vesting proportionate to work. So you don't want full vesting on day one. Your co-founder could quit on day two and leech the next few years of your hard work. (Plus any VC is going to make you revise that.) But you also don't want someone putting in three years of work and never vesting.

I would probably go with monthly to make it fair and easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your answer Markstansbury, let say the co founder owns 35% of the company...in a typical start up, when do you allow them to vest the last portion? after a year, 2 years or when the company gets profitable?

<comment><USER2> Do you mean the last 15% to bring to 50% ownership?

Without knowing the specifics I would think the best idea is to vest incrementally every week or so. Also make sure you've got accelerated vesting upon sale or IPO. (That's a nice thing to give your employees too.) And consider a right to buy back shares at cost upon for-cause termination.

I've never seen or heard of vesting upon profitability. I don't know if that's something that is done, but I would be hesitant to be on either side of that deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another idea would be a combination of cliff date + continuous periodic vesting past the cliff date.

A different approach to co-founders vesting that I read about earlier - Performance based equity vesting instead of the more common time based one. you can read more on this at the link given below :-

[http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/3056/is- performance-...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/3056/is-performance- based-equity-vesting-possible)

</comment><comment><USER4> How long is a piece of string?

Choose your vesting period based on the incentives you wish to give the recipient.

Put another way-- first, figure out exactly what it is you are trying to encourage/discourage, and once you have that in mind, pick a vesting system that fits.

If, for example, your goal is to keep a key employee on board for a long time, you might designate a chunk of shares to them, and vest them in 20% increments on an annual basis. If the person leaves after 3 years, they get 60% of the shares. Etc.

Note that depending on your jurisdiction, there may be tax implications of any kind of stock option plan-- be sure to check with your lawyer/financial advisor before finalizing any arrangements.

</comment><comment><USER5> Generally, the longer your co-founder remains a stakeholder, the longer he/she is going to be an 'asset' to your company, even if they are not actively involved in the company.

At the same time, not allowing them to cash in for a very long time, could backfire as they may become frustated and start being a pain.

A good balance might be to have a staggered vesting period for different percentages. example: if their total stake is 35%, then let them divest, in increments of 5% (max) each year, starting from end of year 2.

End of the day, you have to figure out what is the best and a reasonable configuration (for both parties) that will sustain your company while rewarding those early contributors.

</comment><comment><USER6> Standard is a 4 year vesting period. So, for example, if a cofounder had 100,000 shares, they would vest 25k shares each year--possibly with a one year cliff.

If you've already put considerable work into a company prior to any financing event, etc, it's common to keep 50% of your equity upfront and vest into the remaining 50% over a four year period.

Continuous periodic vesting is important. It's usually set at a quarterly or less time interval for the reasons mentioned by markstansbury.</comment>


Brexit needs a consitutional convention - <AUTHOR> https://mebassett.info/brexit-constitutional-convention.html <comment><USER2> If it didn't take one to enter it can't take one to leave.

<comment><USER3> I don't believe this needs to be the case. Joining the EU gave British Citizens new rights by treaty. I think it should always be easier to grant more rights and more difficult to strip them.

<comment><USER4> What rights did they gain ?

<comment><USER3> I currently have the right to live & work in 28 countries. I do not know if I'll have that right in 6 weeks time.

(Still, today, 6 weeks out, no-one can tell me what will happen to those rights. Which is quite awkward for me personally, as I currently live & work in one of those countries. You can imagine I quite readily agree with the supposition that we can't trust the current system to handle this well.)

<comment><USER5> Just as a note, one doesn't have an unrestricted right to live in other EU countries:

"Your host country can ask you to leave if you cannot prove that you have a realistic chance of finding work there."

[https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence- ri...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence- rights/jobseekers/index_en.htm)

In terms of working some countries also apply restrictions on classes of jobs ( e.g. civil service ) or quotas on non-nationals.

It's not as laissez-faire as often portrayed.

<comment><USER6> EU citizens have the right of residence for longer than three months if they

\- are workers or self-employed persons in the host Member State or are seeking employment (for a certain length of time);

\- are not in employment or are students or trainees and have sufficient resources and comprehensive health insurance cover;

\- have the right of permanent residence (following legal residence of five years).

\- Family members, regardless of their citizenship, accompanying or joining an EU citizen who satisfies these conditions also have the right of residence for more than three months.

So the underlying idea is that in order to reside for more than three months in another Member State, EU citizens must have sufficient resources for themselves and their family members not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State.

[https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on- foreigner...](https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on- foreigners/freedom-of-movement/freedom-of-movement-node.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Too late for that now, we just have to make the most of a bad situation.</comment>


Target's shift to digital is painful - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/23/investing/target-earnings/index.html <comment><USER2> Maybe because their website is so awful, the search so useless, and the detail pages contain so little information about the products. I stopped even bothering to look for stuff there.</comment>


CSS Tube Map - <AUTHOR> http://www.csstubemap.co.uk/ <comment><USER2> While its cool demo of what CSS can do... The reality is: CSS is not meant for this.

Its a cool demo but technical speaking its nonsense to use CSS for this. It should have been made with SVG, or a similar kind of technology. There are enough vector renderers for example the canvas element if there is no SVG support.

</comment><comment><USER3> This could actually have a very helpful application- generating maps with customised colour schemes. Anyone with a form of colour blindness will know that some of the lines on the standard map are basically indistinguishable from each-other, and while TfL does provide a black-and-white map, it's designed for ALL forms of colour blindness, so they've had to come up with a load of different patterns, making it a bit messy (<http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/14091.aspx>).

With this CSS map a user could customise the colour/pattern of just a couple of problem lines (I could already in Firebug, but it would be great if there was a control panel to fiddle these things and then provide print/save links). Just an idea!

<comment><USER4> Actually, SVG can use "classes" just like CSS, so it could be easily recolored in SVG too.

<comment><USER3> I suppose the main thing you'd need is a data source mapping the stations and lines, then build it in whatever technology from that. The information page doesn't mention where the data came from, so I imagine it was manually created. I don't think TfL would be too willing to provide that data either, judging by the comments regarding licensing etc. in this thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A+ for effort. But (and this sounds harsh I know) I fail to see any innovation here.

Codewise it's cute, but functionally wouldn't a canvas element make more sense than a couple of hundred list elements?

<comment><USER6> Canvas wouldn't graphically scale as nicely. You could argue that SVG would be more appropriate, but this solution works on the old Android 2 browser whereas SVG doesn't.

<comment><USER7> Could probably ensure it fits in the window nicely though, with zooming etc. Seeing only the North-West of London on screen without scrolling is not as useful. I'd imagine it's damn hard to use on a laptop without two direction scrolling. Functional over pretty, I vote :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did you have to get a licence to display this? TfL are pretty strict about reproducing their map, even more so if it's going to be available offline on a mobile device.

<http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/7482.aspx>

<comment><USER9> Does he need a licence if the entire map is built programmatically and no TFL 'resource' (as in artwork) has been used directly?

<comment><USER10> Yes. I've spoken to TFL Licensing a few times about their map and basically they will claim copyright over any map that features the circle line in a "bottle" shape.

There are also restrictions over the font, logos and symbols.

<comment><USER9> I have seen people get around it by making their own version of the map. Those maps usually end up having the stations match their respective locations to each other more closely. They naturally don't look as 'good' as the official map though.

But where does the copyright infringement start? Could you technically get around it if you changed a couple of the colours and fonts around and used slightly different angles?

<comment><USER11> #whole-map { rotation:180deg; }

It might result in a few confused travellers, but hey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice. Finally I can Command+F to find a station.

</comment><comment><USER13> I remember starting to make one for Paris a couple of years ago: <http://i.imgur.com/fbK6Org.png>

But I never took the time to finish it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really great work! I've bookmarked this as my go-to map, this is an impressive improvement in ease of use over the official TFL pdfs.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is also great (same author) <http://www.csstardis.co.uk/>

<comment><USER16> So in other words, the author of this and the original post is really good at using the wrong tool for the job. I think it would greatly increase his credibility if he would mention that this isn't what CSS is meant to be used for and is just doing it for demo purposes. Too many people seem to get the impression that CSS should be used for actually drawing things.

<comment><USER17> Who is getting that impression that css is supposed to be used this way? It's meant to show what is possible. That's it. I think it's already absurd that most of the posts here are dog piling on the creator for "using the wrong tool" but to say it decreases his credibility for not mentioning this is not what css was meant for? That's just plain wrong in my opinion. It's a fun thing, let it be what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks like someone was not happy with this map. Now visiting their website -

"Regrettably I have decided to take down this project whilst I investigate licensing rules regarding my use of the Underground Map which is owned by Transport for London."

</comment><comment><USER19> Our map changes 3-4 times per year for new stations / closures etc so supportability of something like absolute CSS locations would never fly. Fair play for giving this a go though, it's pretty darn accurate and super quick!.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice. Where did you get that Johnston-alike font?

<comment><USER21> Apparently it's London Tube Normal (<http://www.azfonts.net/load_font/londontube.html>). P22 Underground might have been nicer, but costlier. There's also Hammersmith One on Google Fonts: <https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Hammersmith+One>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So did you end up licensing the P22 Jonhston typeface or is this an alternative New Johnston lookalike? And if yes, which one?

</comment><comment><USER23> You haven't included the river (or, at least, it's not displaying for me)! :(

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice Work! Small typo.. it's "Elverson Road".

<comment><USER24> and "Wandsworth Road", "Brent Cross".... you should probably go through all of them quickly...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Disappointing, I was expecting mousewheel to zoom. Somehow a map without that functionality (even knowing it's CSS implemented) is unusable to me now.

<comment><USER26> Doesn't your browser use the mousewheel to zoom when you hold down the Ctrl key? Chrome and Firefox do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Incredible! But why @import?

</comment><comment><USER28> It's not valid HTML!

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't get it. Seriously. If you want to show off and build a map using CSS, create a codepen or something like that. But buying a domain specifically for this? This is nuts.

<comment><USER30> The official PDF tube maps are pretty bad.

I don't know what they did to the PDFs but they take 3 seconds to render on my modern laptop, and do not work with some opensource readers. Try it yourself[1].

I'd be more likely to refer to this map now than the official PDF, so it's nice that it has a memorable URL.

[1]<http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf>

<comment> UVB-76 Renders instantly in Chrome, looks great, and a PDF is far more practical than an HTML/CSS implementation</comment></comment></comment>


Judge dismisses Wikimedia case against NSA over Upstream surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/judge-dismisses-wikimedia-case-against-nsa-over-upstream-surveillance/ <comment><USER2> From the article: "Judge Ellis said: "For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program's operations. For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent."

This is why whistleblowers are so important. The "state secrets" firewall means that the public has no ability to police government surveillance.

It's a frustrating situation because intelligence agencies obviously do need to keep secrets while at the same time they can use this as justification to keep anything they want secret, even when there is no real national security concern with revealing the information.

<comment><USER3> > The "state secrets" firewall means that the public has no ability to police > government surveillance.

The public can change the composition of the Congress, which has oversight and lawmaking authorities over domestic intelligence agencies.

<comment><USER4> Why is this comment being downvoted?

What alternatives are there other than achieving meaningful representation in government e.g. Congress?

<comment><USER5> It's being downvoted because it's utterly fallacious. The democratic process has been captured by mass media and turned into a simulation of choosing change. Divisive bikesheds are played up to the max, while the fundamental substantive issues like this are off the discussion table. Any candidate that dares to break rank and bring them up gets labeled "fringe" and memory-holed by the maintream media.

The ultimate alternative is going to be voting from the rooftops, when we've finally become fed up with the results of their corruption.

<comment><USER6> This but it is not only traditional media gatekeeping. Google pulled the plug on Tulsi Gabber's ad account without explanation and she is suing Google over it.

"Google ad set up got them approved everything was ready to rock and roll I was the most googled candidate of the night as I have been for every debate that I've participated in the issue was during that first debate you know what while that peak period was happening our Google ad account was suspended by Google with no explanation whatsoever."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5o-zqII6eQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5o-zqII6eQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Being a fan of lightweight activism, I would like Wikimedia to please publish a list of sensitive articles, so that I can look at them occasionally or, better yet, write a browser extension that simulates looking through them that other people can run.

The default state of government is totalitarian dictatorship; democracy is carved out of that rock every time we the people reserve a right for ourselves. Clearly the Judiciary has lost the ability to keep the Executive in check - and no, I don't think we need new laws here. The 4th Amendment is clearly being violated for every American.

What intelligence is, what warfare is, has changed almost beyond recognition since the founding. Ubiquitous, computer mediated relationships, to an intelligence service, are achingly attractive. And yet, such a capability, which is embedded in the basic marble from which better government is carved, _should not be used_. I would have thought the 4th Amendment was enough, but clearly it is not.

(It is with great sadness I admit that since ~40% of Americans cannot recognize the obvious threat an un-restrained Executive entails, so it seems unlikely that they would recognize this more subtle threat.)

<comment><USER8> I'm not a big fan of NSA surveillance, but given that you acknowledge this case is activism, it's concerning to me that the nonprofit built to sustain the allegedly unbiased encyclopedia Wikipedia is moving in the direction of political activism.

Poor stewardship of Wikipedia is a far greater threat to democracy than what the NSA is doing, in my opinion. Wikipedia is literally writing the history book of the modern age, and the amount of power their administrators have over public thought cannot be underestimated enough. Sure, it's largely written by the "users", but an insulated class of administrators and super users largely decide which characterizations get to stay and which get removed.

No doubt there are going to be abuses of power at Wikipedia, but activism like this makes it clear that Wikipedia has a bias, and the mandate is coming from the top down. Again, I don't think the activism itself is problematic but precisely who is doing it is the problem.

<comment><USER9> That "insulated class of administrators" is unfortunately not enough, Wikipedia is being constantly modified to spread a specific agenda. I've caught a few occurrences but Wikipedia doesn't really have enough moderators watching over edits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been thinking about these types of cases lately. It seems like any proof can be dismissed by three letter agencies with them using their "state secret" card as evidence to the contrary. i.e We have evidence to the contrary but you cannot see it. Darn, guess the case can't proceed.

<comment><USER11> In cases where the state has evidence that it can not show the case should proceed as if such evidence does not exist.

<comment><USER12> The state has an advantage here. They can use evidence that can't be presented in court to construct a case in parallel. That is, after enough surveillance, they'll know when to expect e.g. a conversation that will appear incriminating when stripped of context. They'll fake an anonymous tip in order to get a real warrant for surveilling that conversation. If this scheme doesn't work the first time, they'll repeat until it does work. Now they don't have to admit they were just snooping on all people everywhere when the defendant first attracted their attention.

On the other side, when defendants need evidence the government has, as in this case, they have no way to get that evidence.

<comment> o-__-o >They'll fake an anonymous tip in order to get a real warrant for surveilling that conversation.

The reason this works is because of the Good-faith exception[0]. The police acting on the tip, must investigate first. The investigation can lead to a finding which gains a search warrant. The executed warrant finds above and beyond the tip so The state is notified.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good- faith_exception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-faith_exception)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does doing something seriously evil necessarily imply secrecy?

I am thinking it might but I am not exactly sure why I think this.

Ae there examples of evil things (known to be evil at their time) done in a widely public way?

On the other hand, the converse is not true; this is far more straighforward: something secret is not necessarily evil

In any case I have decided that I have to be EXTRA SUPER cautious that I am not complicity engaging in evil behavior whenever someone asks me to keep something secret.

I don't think that secrecy is quite the same as privacy (not sure as to why), they are just very similar.

<comment><USER14> I think game/app developers getting children hooked on gambling through lootboxes is evil, and that's out in the open. Luckily governments are starting to crack down on it.

<comment><USER13> It's very similiar to running a casino

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ooh, this is a tough one.

I was initially going to inquire why someone like Binney, Drake, or Snowden couldn't just testify to the fact that they could retrieve results where the source data obviously was not (or could not have been) collected through one of the PRISM partners. But because of Wikipedia's general transparency, the gov't could just come claim that, say, the IP associated with the edit history was retrieved at the time of the search or something so it doesn't prove bulk collection.

I guess you'd have to have a search that returns data clearly not public like the Wikipedia _viewing_ habits associated with a given selector or set of selectors. E.g., something that necessitates having stored the bulk data at a previous point in time.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why can't there be an independent party with top secret clearance do a code inspection and see if the hypothetical theory holds water? It seems like there should be a way to testify about it without compromising secrets.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that those get stacked with defense hawks not civil liberty activists and you're back to square one.

<comment><USER18> Pick twelve people uniformly at random from the US population and require them to be read in to all relevant clearances. This is a solved problem and has been since at least the 1700s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is how democracy dies. In secret.

</comment><comment><USER20> Shouldn't the Supreme Court weigh in on some of this stuff? IMO this is a constitutional issue of the highest magnitude.

<comment><USER19> Isn't the problem that no evidence can be presented, even to the Supreme Court, because everything is marked super tip-top maximum secret?

Clapper flat-out lied to congress, he even admitted he did later, and even the few congress members who knew he was lying could not do anything about it because the evidence was top secret.

<comment><USER20> The argument needs to be made about the secrecy level. It's really odd if the Supreme Court can't rule on constitutional issues because "it's secret". Then there is no point in a constitution (which was my point)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can they not seal the court proceedings instead

</comment><comment><USER22> _Judge Ellis said: "For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program's operations. For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent.

"Thus, the case must be dismissed, and judgment must be entered in favor of defendants."_

Ellis is a traitor in the legal sense of the word, and (though it's been obvious for a while) the court systems are broken.

Formerly, Ellis has similarly sided with the CIA against Khalid El-Masri, a man who was "allegedly" tortured by the CIA, despite being fully aware justice wasn't being dealt. To quote him:

 _" If El-Masri's allegations are true or essentially true, then all fair- minded people, including those who believe that state secrets must be protected, that this lawsuit cannot proceed, and that renditions are a necessary step to take in this war, must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country's mistake and deserves a remedy."_

[https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/day-court-denied- victim-...](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/day-court-denied-victim-cia- kidnapping-and-rendition-khaled-el-masri)

Given that the Judicial Branch can be considered compromised, the Executive Branch is the one being accused, and the Legislative Branch allowed this to happen to begin with, _everyone_ should act as if the U.S. government is a hostile, compromised actor. Don't attack it, but defend yourself.

Avoid allowing proprietary software from touching any of your secrets (ideally go for software created by foreigners). Keep your communications safe and encrypted. Standard stuff, but there's more of an incentive to use it, now.

<comment><USER23> I read that quote as Ellis siding with El-Masri (notwithstanding that he still ruled invocation of state secrets as valid) - how do you read it?

<comment><USER24> I read it the same way, and I don't see how one would read it any other way? Removing the qualifiers -

"If El-Masri's allegations are true [..], then all fair-minded people[..], must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country's mistake and deserves a remedy."

<comment><USER25> The quote there is just the recognition by him that the CIA committed crimes. The context of the rest of the decision still finding for the CIA is the half that you're missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> State secrets should not exist.

<comment><USER27> So should the plans for atomic weapons be available to anyone?

<comment><USER25> I mean, they are?

[http://alexwellerstein.com/atomic_patents/](http://alexwellerstein.com/atomic_patents/)

Atomic bombs are literally 1940s technology; it's not that hard to figure out even if the weren't already published.

<comment><USER27> The technology to make small, compact, high output thermonuclear weapons isn't out in the open nor is a lot of the technology used to reduce the CEP of ICBM warheads.

<comment><USER25> The big thing we're missing for modern weapons is the nature of aerogel between the primary and secondary stages. You'll still get a nice boom if you screw that up.

<comment><USER28> Ooh neat, I had never heard about this use for aerogel.

Do you have a speculation on the function of aerogel in a warhead? Useful for its thermal insulation properties?

<comment><USER25> It's this stuff [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK)

Basically we know why we want it (optimally igniting the second stage using the energy of the first stage), but we don't know exactly what it's made out of or the process for making it. We know it's gnarly, toxic stuff though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Accepting My Fate as a Millennial Software Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://joygao.com/accepting-my-fate-as-a-millennial-software-engineer <comment><USER2> In my humble opinion, younger engineers are not well served by the notion that compilers, operating systems, network stacks and low level code are "solved" problems.

I'd argue this from two angles. First, are people still complaining about problems with operating systems and languages? Second, is innovation still occurring? I'd argue that the answer to both questions is a resounding yes.

Even in something as simple as network stacks, the relatively recent explosion of mobile devices and the IOT has driven change. How about low level languages? Rust has just shown up on the scene showing that low level programming wasn't "solved" by C/C++. And I think we can all still think of big problems with our favorite operating system.

Last, consider a far older technology - the automobile. Are exciting things still happening with cars? Sure, innovation has greatly slowed down, but the electric car has the promise of reinventing the entire industry - and that's innovating the most fundamental mechanical components like the drive train and energy source.

I think computing technology, being way younger than the automobile, still has room for big improvements at all levels of the stack.

</comment><comment><USER3> Commercial software will always be a "black box". Many, many companies use commercial software. This is not really anything new. I will admit that the complexity has grown so much that it's nearly impossible to understand any significant software system in its entirety. That's not new, either, just more prevalent than it used to be.

</comment><comment><USER4> Quantum Computing is so new, it's in the realm of op-code level abstraction, maybe even processor architecture.

<comment><USER5> Definitely processor architecture, if we're lucky. We're still looking for quantum systems to feasibly use for qubits at scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> goto grad school and write papers. you can explore topics that interest you more deeply, and while you may not know everything about a large topic like ML, you can focus in on a specific sub-topic and become the world's leading expert.

[https://www.datarobot.com/blog/a-primer-on-deep- learning/](https://www.datarobot.com/blog/a-primer-on-deep-learning/)

You probably know most of the information in this post about ML, but this picture at the top shows what researchers are trying to discover about ML.

Basically, researchers are inspecting the middle layers of neural networks to determine patterns. It's kinda a backwards approach to understanding nn's, as we already can use them without understanding them, but this should show that there's opportunity to really dive into these "deep" questions in academia.

I think this is the actual paper, but it seems to have a wider topic:

[http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~rgrosse/icml09-cdbn.pdf](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~rgrosse/icml09-cdbn.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> I strongly encourage you to go off the beaten path with the three ideas you have there - but spend time looking for places they have been done. It does feel at times all we've done is build all these things up for webapps.</comment>


Deny PRISM - Generate a PRISM involvement denial statement for your company - <AUTHOR> http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism/

<comment><USER2> [http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Internet](http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Internet)

</comment><comment><USER3> I laughed and then I cried a little.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cat Facts denies it's involvement with PRISM

[http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Cat+Facts](http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Cat+Facts)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've posted this for the nth time so I'm sorry to do so again...but...let's play the game of, "What if"...as in..."What if Google and Facebook _did not_ cooperate with NSA's PRISM?"...what would you expect their denial statements to read like?

Let's say that it's reasonable that both Page and Zuckerburg would, in this hypothetical reality, have to meet with their lawyers and relevant managers to personally confirm that their companies have not been involved in PRISM, which would explain the time delay between yesterday's reports and today, and also, some of the formality in the language of both letters.

That said, both have made statements that, on the face of them, read like how _I_ would expect a sincere denial to read like:

Page said:

> _First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. > government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the > U.S. government does not have direct access or a "back door" to the > information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called > PRISM until yesterday._

Zuck said:

> _Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or > any other government direct access to our servers. We have never received a > blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for > information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. > And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn 't even heard of > PRISM before yesterday._

OK, so the other argument that has been pitched (including by the OP) is that...Well, these statements sound _too similar_...Uh, OK, what is the litmus test for that? Let's say the police have arrested two brothers on the suspicion of murder, and both brothers say more or less the exact kind of denial: "I didn't do it, I was with my family that night, watching TV"...which is what you would expect them to say if they _were actually innocent_...but now, should these brothers be judged guilty on the possibility that their denials are both so strong and so similar that _they must be in collusion_?

The point has been raised that both Google and Facebook allude to the Verizon case, even though that is an entirely separate case. You might argue: _Isn 't it suspicious that they would take time in their terse messages to address that shitfest specifically?_ Sure...but on the other hand, can you blame them? Even many of the thoughtful HN readers have conflated the two incidents, so much that FB and Google both have to say, "Not only are we not part of PRISM, but we are definitely not as bad as Verizon, which exists on its own level of shit-storm".

Finally, there is one key thing that the alleged conspirators seem to be ignoring: so far, Google and Facebook are the only companies in which the CEOs have issued such forthright statements...where are the other ones listed in that leaked PowerPoint slide...including AOL, Yahoo, PalTalk, Apple, Microsoft? I know that the other companies have issued statements through PR people (here's Microsoft's [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06st...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06statement.aspx))...but that's not the same thing as what FB and Google have done, so far (and I apologize if I've missed the other CEO statements).

But I guess you can say "Well, the non-coordination of CEO statements is _exactly_ what guilty companies _would do_ to throw off suspicion"...which leaves us back to the same nowhere position we were before.

Does anyone remember the whole SOPA thing a year ago? From my recollection, the SOPA supporters (the big media companies) accused the anti-SOPA group of being Google's sheep because of how uniform the anti-SOPA rhetoric was...and of course, those who were in the anti-SOPA group argued that that uniformity is a necessary consequence of their principled solidarity.

So, the question remains...how exactly do we take a company or activist at their word? Or are we condemned to see only conspiracy if our preconceptions and biases suspect a conspiracy?

<comment><USER6> I've seen this attitude several times now and I simply do not understand it.

This is not "conspiracy". It would be unfair in the way you state if there was no evidence, and then these companies' denials was taken as evidence that they participated.

But that's not the situation. What we have is the _US government_ saying (albeit unwillingly) that these companies are involved. It's not "conspiracy" to think that they are, in fact, involved, it's just obvious.

No, there is probably nothing these companies can say that will not look suspicious. That's not being unreasonable, that's simply looking at the evidence and realizing that the evidence against these companies outweighs their statements of denial.

We're just short of finding a guy with a bloody axe standing over the still- bleeding corpse of his victim, and you're complaining that nothing the murderer can say will clear his name. Well, yes.

<comment><USER5> > _But that 's not the situation. What we have is the US government saying > (albeit unwillingly) that these companies are involved. It's not > "conspiracy" to think that they are, in fact, involved, it's just obvious._

Hmmm...it's obvious, but only in the way that circular logic is obvious to the one in the circle...Your claim that the U.S. government is saying that these companies are involved is not what I've seen (though I admit I may not have read every article on this). What the U.S. government has said is:

1) The executive branch is allowed to conduct legislatively and judicially approved surveillance and some of this surveillance is in coordination with communication companies.

2) The recent reporting on the NSA has contained several inaccuracies

I haven't seen any tacit admission of PRISM. If you want to argue that the president admitted to the program by not outright denying it (in this press conference, for example: [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2013/06/07/statem...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2013/06/07/statement-president))...well, that again is a questionable standard of judgment, and one that is vulnerable to false positives.

You don't have a smoking gun here. You have, so far, 4 PowerPoint slides of a heavily-redacted 41-slide presentation. You have the opinion of the career intelligence officer who leaked those slides. And you have the two strongly worded denials of Google and Facebook. Note: _this does not mean that the companies aren 't just outright lying_, which is always still a possibility. But I'm saying, from what we know so far, what has been actually said is kind of what I would expect them to say if they were telling the truth (admittedly, I may not have a very creative mind).

<comment><USER7> First off, the generator is awesome! Second, (and i cannot remember who famously said this, sorry) the best description of any system is its results...

What does it matter whether they knew or did not know? The end result is the same, they are going to lose my (future) data!

<comment><USER8> I think Hillary would agree. ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvLjwB1tDMQ&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvLjwB1tDMQ&feature=youtu.be&t=10s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Nuthin%27+...](http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Nuthin%27+But+PRISM)

</comment><comment><USER10> Damn, Angela Lansbury's in on it too. They got everyone in PRISM: [http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Angela+Lan...](http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Angela+Lansbury)

<comment><USER11> This reads a little more smoothly, I think: [http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Urban+Dict...](http://colingourlay.github.io/deny- prism/?company=Urban+Dictionary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> yea, exactly; it's all obviously BS

</comment><comment><USER13> UTF-8, not ISO 8859-1.</comment>


Ask HN: What web framework to use in 2020? - <AUTHOR> I used to build my applications with Sinatra + Ruby as the front-end.
Using custom authentication parts, etc.
It's almost 2020.
There's a myriad of different (and new) web frameworks.
I need authentication / being able to create / delete new user accounts.
So keeping that in mind, how in the heck do I choose a framework to use? <comment><USER2> Well, it depends on the language.

Are you familiar with Python? Django

Ruby? Rails

JavaScript? There's a lot, but the most popular are React and Vue.</comment>


Plane Crash Parachute Protection - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/videos/10153235857716512/ <comment><USER2> This is quite interesting.

However I think another good use would be to pre-load the passengers into these pods, and then attach it to the plane for take off. That way you could probably make things a bit more efficient.

Maybe just for cargo since passengers might have a lot of use cases not covered by this design but I'm guessing for loading and unloading ship containers it could work.

Probably it's an engineering challenge not worth the cost (yet), but it definitely looks like something could be worked out starting with this idea, no?</comment>


I quit my job. Today is Day #64 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nevertryneverfail.com/i-quit-my-job-today-is-day-64

<comment><USER2> Discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8142897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8142897)</comment>


Parrot has a roadmap - <AUTHOR> https://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/ParrotLongTermRoadmap The main part of the Perl6 development effort, famous of it's elusiveness and delays, just got a time line.  Now it is only matter of waiting untill 2010 for a production version :) <comment><USER2> What has gone wrong in the development of Parrot that it's taking so long? Also, what about Perl 6? Is it just because Parrot isn't 1.0 yet, that it's not out?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was just much more difficult than anyone would predict. Now - with that roadmap - this is a different game, now you can check if the project is proceeding according to the timeline. I hope it will - and this should be the end of the arguments that it will never end.</comment></comment>


The Science & Engineering Education Myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2007/sb20071025_827398.htm <comment><USER2> I think the comments by "Lowell & Salzman L I E" rebut this well:

The methodological problem in the study is it, surprisingly, uses the narrow employment designation of "science and engineering occupation". The National Science Foundation specifically warns, �??The S&E labor force does not include just those in S&E occupations. S&E skills are needed and used in a wide variety of jobs.�?? However, the study used a 4.8 million figure for science- related jobs, which is the number for those in occupations formally defined as S&E, even though nearly 13 million workers say they need at least a bachelor's degree level of knowledge in science and engineering fields in their jobs. In other words, the study reached its conclusion primarily by ignoring about 8 million people in US labor force. That appears to be reason the study arrived at the claim that US has about three times as many S&E graduates as S&E job openings each year, even though there is no evidence of massive unemployment among recent graduates in these fields.

The broader problem with the study is it assumes a "bean counting" approach to what is dynamic in nature. After all, there was not even an Internet economy two decades ago, so to assume that we have plenty of talented people, assumes that we have created all the innovations we need and, therefore, American companies should stop trying to invent and innovate. A market economy can never have too many talented people, since, as we have seen, smart employers and entrepreneurs will utilize this talent to improve all our lives. __* -- Pages 10-11 of Talent Search: Job openings and the need for Skilled Labor in US Economy, NFAP Policy Brief, Mar 2008<http://nfap.com/pdf/080311talentsrc.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like the methodology that they are comparing is very different. The BusinessWeek article cites things like increasing numbers of people achieving in those subject areas. The international surveys look at the average achievement in those subject areas.

To simplistically illustrate with made up facts:

Let's say BusinessWeek finds that in 1990, 5% of students achieve an excellent result in math and in 2000 10% of students achieve an excellent result in math. That's quite an increase. Let's say that there were 100 students and so the "A" category increased from 5 to 10 students. Awesome! However, that doesn't tell us what the _average_ student is achieving.

The OECD and others usually look at the average (mean or median) achievement. It is entirely possible that elite education is increasing while average education is decreasing.

To put this into numbers:

      --1990</comment><comment></comment><comment>-----2000--
        A:5                  A:10
        B:10                 B:10
        C:50                 C:30
        D:25                 D:25
        F:10                 F:25

If you look at those two distributions, you can come to different conclusions based on your methodology. By mean average, the US is declining from a 1.75 score to 1.55. However, the US also has more achieving really excellent scores.

One thing to note about a study like this is that the United States tends to have more immigrants than other nations. Immigrants are fine people, but they face disadvantages in integrating into a new society. Often times there are language and cultural barriers that slow learning as, well, part of their learning is spent overcoming those barriers. This could drag down average US scores in academics when comparing them to countries that don't have immigrants that might spend a lot more time learning the spoken language over studying math. If you're dealing with two people of equal ability, but one has to study a second language to become fluent first, that person's achievement won't be as great (or at least will be delayed as they have taken time to study something else). This isn't something bad about immigrants, but it does say that there might be biases in the results of a study if one group includes more immigrants.

There are also much greater selection biases in other countries. Take France vs the US as an example. In the US, most students attend a traditional high- school. Yes, there are vocational schools, but those aren't stressed. So, in the US, an academic test is likely to cover a decently random sampling of the population at any given age. In France, secondary education is very segregated. As such, it is possible that there is quite a selection bias for the exams between those that are studying sciences and math and those that are doing vocational studies in who takes the exam.

I do think the US should be doing more to promote math, science and engineering, but I wouldn't be so quick to say that the US is fundamentally behind. The US education system does face challenges that many other systems don't - such as absorbing a greater number of immigrants, dealing with historical prejudices that have disenfranchised and disadvantaged many, and trying to academically (vs vocationally) educate the vast majority of our children.

I'm not saying that anything in here is correct. I haven't studied international education enough to make any conclusions. This is simply meant to raise the possibility that the statistics aren't the full picture.

</comment><comment><USER4> My opinion:

We can't have enough S&E people:

Every scientist who discovers a new class of drugs requires ten* more to study all the derivatives.

Every engineer who creates a new machine allows ten* more to build machines that use this machine.

S&E create wealth. The other top-paying degrees -- law, business -- don't create wealth. They may allow the S&E to more efficiently create wealth, but they don't create wealth.

*Number made up, but it is certainly greater than zero

<comment><USER5> And a business guy who who handles the business end allows ten more engineers to build useful machines.

A natural extension of your logic: GvR or Stallman may allow S&E people to more efficiently create wealth, but he doesn't create wealth himself (Python, Emacs, etc are only tools to create other stuff)

The ability to create wealth is, itself, wealth.

<comment><USER4> This topic is disappearing, but I'd still like to address your point.

Wealth def. 3b: anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged.

Python and emacs fit the definition, but making decisions in a company produces nothing that can be "appropriated or exchanged". Python and emacs are wealth just as much as a screwdriver and hammer are.

Also, if 100% of people functioned as scientists or engineers, things (wealth) would still be made. Money is just a claim against the wealth of the nation; just because you can earn more money doesn't mean you've increased the collective wealth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"Salzman says that reports citing low U.S. international rankings often misinterpret the data. Review of the international rankings, which he says are all based on one of two tests, [...] show the U.S. is in a second-ranked group, not trailing the leading economies of the world as is commonly reported."_

If I am understanding that correctly, that is not so much _misinterpreting the data_ as _not being able to frickin read_.

 _Misinterpreting data_ , to me, signals an improper application of statistics to some raw data to assert something.

Not being able to look at a grouped list of rankings and realize that just because a certain group _as a whole_ is below another group _as a whole_ does not imply that every country in the second group is below every country in the first group is, well, sheer idiocy, not merely _misinterpretation_.

If the basis of the 'US is behind in math' idea is really that policy types and journalists can't properly interpret the set of rankings, then it really scares me that they are in charge of our public discourse/policy.

<comment><USER7> The OECD rankings look pretty clear to me:

<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923110.html>

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7126388.stm>

<comment><USER8> For those who don't follow the link, the first link places the US, with 95% confidence intervals:

\- 25th to 28th among the 40 countries on math; \- 12th to 23rd among the 40 countries on reading; \- 20th to 27th among the 40 countries on science.

The second link just divides the countries into above average, average, and below average. The US is "below average" on math, and no reading rank is reported.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Finding unwanted domains a good home? - <AUTHOR>

In my search for the domain name I wanted to use for my hobby site, I've accumulated quite a few that I later decided wouldn't work for me. Now, I'm looking for a way to get them off my hands.
They're hobby/personal domain names -- not keyword heavy -- so I think that piling ads on them or trying to sell them wouldn't get me very far. (Not that I've tried.) But really, I'm not terribly concerned with money from these, besides maybe covering my costs.
I could just let them expire, but I'm reluctant to let them become a part of some domain squatter's portfolio (not that they'd be that interested, I think, but they seem to snap up just about anything).
What's the best way to find them a good home? <comment><USER2> I hate to rain on most of the parades around here, but chances are your domain is worthless. If you hand registered it and even you don't like it, the odds of it selling for anything above your registration fee is pretty unlikely. Domain names are some of the most illiquid assets in terms of web stuff. The only liquid aspect is the reseller market, and that is based mainly on traffic/revenue or some special cases of generic/keyword names. So, your best really is to just let them expire, perhaps your registrar has an agreement to give you some of the cash if they get snapped up at auction upon expiry (Fabulous, my registrar does). Other then that, finding them a good home, even for free, is going to be a waste of your time.

The only alternative I can think of is offering them for free to whomever submits the most creative idea for each one, but you have to do it somewhere (like HN/Reddit/etc) or your own channels (if you drive decent traffic).

</comment><comment><USER3> You can try selling it at <http://brandstack.com/>. You'll never know... someone might be interested in your domain.

best of luck!

<comment><USER4> I'm glad there's finally a decent domain/web site marketplace with a nice user interface and no obvious glitches. Afternic and Sedo are terrible. I always thought it was because the domain industry itself is so low-end, with very little creativity involved, that the general marketplace can't be any good. Now, BrandStack looks great. I'll probably transfer all my unused domains to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try listing them on Sitepoint. You should easily get at least the reg costs. Who knows, maybe someone will see something in one of them and give you a really nice chunk of money.

Don't expect to make zillions out of them. Maybe enough to take your better half for a nice meal.

<comment><USER6> Just in case anyone gets interested in this... the SitePoint Marketplace is now called Flippa (<http://flippa.com>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm the same way - I have probably 20-40 that I would get rid of cheap if I could find an easy, non-managed way to offload them. I've tried a few of the services through the years (like sedo) but haven't had much luck.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just parking it on Google will cover your domain registration costs.

<comment><USER9> Not really. I have several parked there. If it isn't an obvious mistyped domain, or had a previous live site, you will not get any traffic, and as such, no money. I have several domains parked, but only one (a closed site) generates any income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There used to be a HN thread of domains people were willing to giveaway/sell to interested parties. Perhaps it's time for another?

edit: spelling

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I remembered that, but I couldn't find it on searchyc again.

And even if I did, I wouldn't want to resurrect a long-dead thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Auction them off through moniker.

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone thinks its a good idea to launch a site, where people can contribute domain names. And the community can develop some cool sites, sort-of like open source web development.

</comment><comment><USER12> Think up ideas for them and launch some interesting websites. If you don't have the time, list them here and get the community to do it for you.

I am a web designer and I can design the websites, if anyone's interested.

<comment><USER13> .. and I am a programmer and I can develop web apps if you want me to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _I'm reluctant to let them become a part of some domain squatter's portfolio_

In what substantive way are they not, already?

<comment><USER15> In that if someone asks for them, they can have them for free</comment></comment>


Automated password changing - <AUTHOR> https://www.dashlane.com/password-changer-beta

<comment><USER2> The concept is really, really good! I'm curious how they had all these providers let them change users' passwords though, most of them don't have any public APIs for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: _I work there_ We don't use any APIs, we just get in there with a headless browser (phantom) and mimic the user actions to change his password.

<comment><USER2> Won't you get targeted by anti-bot systems pretty quickly? Are you doing these changes on the user's computer or in the cloud?

<comment><USER3> >> Are you doing these changes on the user's computer or in the cloud?

I'm surprised this wasn't covered in the blog or FAQ. Seems like an important detail that security-minded customers would care about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone smarter than myself tell me how secure this is? If I was a hacker wouldn't i just hack Dashlane and have all the passwords?

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. On your site it says its free. How is it monetized?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a premium version [1].

1: [https://www.dashlane.com/premium](https://www.dashlane.com/premium)</comment></comment>


Emacs.dev is redirected to Vim website - <AUTHOR> http://emacs.dev <comment><USER2> Not the same, but related. :-)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279489)</comment>


When the Body Attacks the Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/when-the-body-attacks-the-mind/485564/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Sasha and his family were very lucky to know someone qualified and willing to give a second opinion. In my experience, once a doctor decides on a psychiatric diagnosis, it tends to turn into a black hole that "explains" almost any symptom short of gross anatomical damage.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the last few years I've been keeping an eye on Geneuro [1]. They're trialling a HERV-W antibody on the theory that this endogenous retrovirus triggers an immune reaction in the brain that causes multiple sclerosis. Schizophrenia may also share a similar etiology [2]. When/if it does get approved for MS, I will be asking if it can be tried off-label on my brother with schizophrenia (although of course it may be too late now anyway, 15 years after his diagnosis).

[1] [http://www.geneuro.ch/en/news-press](http://www.geneuro.ch/en/news-press)

[2] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26404170/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26404170/)

<comment><USER4> To late in the sense that his mind is already gone at this point? I have a brother who also has schizophrenia, and as time goes on I wonder if any chance of return to normality still exists...

<comment><USER3> It's impossible to know. There are examples like John Nash where there is apparently a very good outcome, so I wouldn't lose hope. However, I would be concerned about long term physical changes from both the disease and the existing treatment. Separately I don't know how one would cope with "waking up" from years of schizophrenia - would the delusions persist even if the initial cause is removed?

<comment><USER5> My mother was diagnosed schizophrenic at around 38 yrs old. She was hospitalized after every relapse, probably a dozen times. Each time she relapsed, it was at least a month, if not several months before we were able to get her in to treatment because of her refusal. It would take an incident with the police to initiate the process. My mom is now 62. She's medicated, happy, and perfectly normal. She hasn't had a full relapse in about 10 yrs, there were moments when hints of it would return, and she would be aware enough to self-correct and continue medication. The only problems she says she has is that she doesn't feel as quick-witted as she used to be. As for the memories, she occasionally has a hard time distinguishing real memories from invented memories. Most of the voices were obviously fake to her, now that she's clear headed and can reevaluate what happened. There were occasions where one of the voices she had was her sister's, and she now has a hard time reconciling real memories from false ones in that situation. She tends to avoid talking to her because when she hears that voice, painful memories come back and she gets stressed. Stress is a major factor in relapses, so she sadly tries to avoid it. At least in my mom's case, this anecdotal evidence suggests it's definitely possible to recover after being "gone" for months at a time. Not enough families are able to cope with the trauma this causes and fight this disease and, instead, let their family member "do what they want." Which usually means they become homeless and lost until they die. Happens a lot here in LA (skidrow). I personally know people that couldn't cope with the trauma it caused their family so they let them wander off to whereever they wanted. Almost without fail, they end up in skid row. Strangely enough, we have a history of auto-immune disorders in my family: Hashimoto's (2) and Alopecia Areata (2). Depression and bipolar as well (most likely every sibling, diagnosed or not). It's an area of study I've recently been interested in because it seems promising in preventing schizophrenia and maybe curing our depression. There's so much great research going on in this area, from anti- virals, immunosuppressive drugs, to even dietary changes and fasting (something I've recently piloted on myself). It seems promising. In my case it's already yielded results in that I'm no longer constantly sleepy. Hopefully we'll have this fully sorted and cured in under 15 yrs. I think it has the potential to be revolutionary on a global scale.

<comment><USER6> People with bipolar tend to have higher antibodies to gliadin (gluten) than controls. People with schizophrenia have higher casein (dairy) antibodies than controls. In neither case does it cause the illness, but in both in can impact severity of symptoms. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21320252](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21320252) And [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22801085](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22801085). It does not mean it applies to everyone, but scandinavian/Northern European people with milder cases of both illness often actually have autoimmune disease. One study found 7percent of schizophrenia inpatients actually had Celiac, to say nothing of other autoimmune disorders. More: [http://www.celiac.com/categories/Celiac--Disease-- Research.....](http://www.celiac.com/categories/Celiac--Disease--Research..-- Associated--Diseases--and--Disorders/Schizophrenia--_____--Mental--Problems-- and--Celiac--Disease-c-3375.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In this wider context of psychological issues not not as physical disease problem:

> What if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?

> A new study supports what a small group of military researchers has > suspected for decades: that modern warfare destroys the brain.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd- is-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-is-more- physical-than-psychological.html)

<comment> angry-hacker Out of interest, if anyone knows: why "modern" warfare? Is this some kind of expression? The old school wars must have been worse for one's mental health, or not?

<comment><USER8> Ancient warfare: anxiety as one anticipates impending war, which may be known months or years in advance (armies were slow), and very bloody melee combat which probably left survivors with PTSD.

Pre-modern warfare: relatively few people lined up and shot each other to death from long distances. People on the front lines knew they were likely going to die.

Modern warfare (WWI and beyond): constant artillery fire inflicts chronic and acute shell shock [1].

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

<comment><USER9> Except thar I recently read that some are thinking that PTSD is the result of concussion from being near explosions. PTSD may well be mechanically induced.

<comment><USER10> It doesn't explain non-e plosives PTSD, such as procured by military drone operators.

[http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumati...](http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumatic_stress_disorder_why_drone_pilots_are_quitting_in_record_numbers_partner/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >have found, for example, that simply activating people's immune systems as though they were fighting a viral infection can cause profound despair and suicidal thoughts.

reminded about that trial when anticancer drugs suppressing immune system were successfully used to treat chronic fatigue syndrome.

The Sasha's case from the article sounds like from Dr.House series, and reading the article i was waiting for when bone marrow transplant will be brought up.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for beta testers for Cupcake, a color code editor for mac - <AUTHOR>

This is my first Mac app as an indie developer. I have a small network and I need help finding beta testers.
http://colorcupcake.com
Who might find this useful:
- Designers who write code (HTML, CSS, and Cocoa)
- Developers who work with colors
Features:
- Works practically anywhere you can select text (Use your favorite editor).
- Very fast workflow for manipulating color codes. Much simpler than switching between your editor and Photoshop, using copy and paste, or writing down color codes.
- Save your favorite colors, e.g. "website link color."
- Keeps a history of your recently used colors.
- Quick Adjust picker for making small changes to saturation and brightness using only the keyboard.
- Supports common color code formats used in web design and Cocoa (Hex, CSS RGB, CSS HSL, NSColor, UIColor, and CGColor). <comment><USER2> Looks cool. It would be helpful for those not using Panic Coda. Coda has an in-built support for a similar functionality.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks useful, signed up. [also finally signed up here at HN :)]</comment>


The European advantage: product design - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2007/01/engineers-of-west-engineers-of-east.html

<comment><USER3> From the article: European cities have a calm and tranquil atmosphere, Asian and American cities have a hectic and confused atmosphere.

This is the same sentiment as <http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html>

<comment><USER4> Partially Wrong. It all depends where you go in europe. I know plenty of European cities, that are pretty lively and almost chaotic. They seem to be in places where there is warmer weather. These quiter places, are more in north europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh, BTW, Apple's lead designer is a brit, Jonathan Paul Ive CBE. Good Old Europe, bloody yes. And his main inspiration? Old Braun designs.

"So European electronic companies should not be pursuing the faster-quicker- cheaper road, but the beautiful-elegant-simple road". I finally found the words to express well what I was thinking.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hopefully this racist drivel won't make it to the front page. The only merit in this piece is that it illustrates the current fashion in Europe for taking pride in narrowmindedness and bigotry (a trend that is, according to a sociologist friend of mine, strongest in the author's country - Denmark - <USER2> my own - the Netherlands)

<comment><USER7> I'm the guy that wrote this, and I'm sorry if I offended you. I never meant it to be racist in any way, and I hope it doesn't come through that way - if it does I am to blame.

The point of the article is that we must all try to look at what we do best and focus on that. It seems that Europeans are unable to compete in the better-faster-cheaper hardware market, and thus have to try to find another advantage to exploit in order to become competitive.

I'm not in any way trying to degrade Asian countries. On the contrary I am saying that they have a distinct advantage in hardware production, and try to come up with a model for European competitiveness. Because we are behind Asia in this market.

And yes, I have a certain affection for my home country - but don't we all?

<comment><USER6> It seems to me you're suggesting that Asians are less capable of producing elegant design than Europeans. Which seems to me fairly racist.

It's also not true. Most European companies are not Bang & Olufsen. The products of Philips (a Dutch company), for example, are fairly mediocre as far as their design is concerned. That does not prevent Philips from being a major international electronics manufacturer. The Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony, on the other hand, does in fact do design reasonably well.

So I don't think elegant design is a distinctly European virtue. Instead, the reason a lot of cheap Chinese crap is ugly is simply that it's just that - cheap crap. The fact that it's Chinese doesn't have anything to do with it.

It's also not true that Asian companies merely copy. At a certain stage during their development they do - that's how the aforementioned Sony started out, for example - but at a certain point they will start engineering their own products, like Sony did in the late 1970s or like Samsung started doing in the 1990s. It stands to reason Chinese companies will also, at some point in the future, begin to create their own products and start to compete with Bang & Olufsen, Philips and Sony.

<comment><USER7> I believe that there are cultural differences that make certain countries and regions better at different things than others. I like my sushi done by the Japanese, my Pizza done by the Italians, and my burger done by the Americans. Not because any one of the countries is superior, but because chances are that the Italian will make the best pizza. This does not imply that Italians are better at anything other than making pizza. Just look at their politics...

Also note that I'm talking about general trends, so of course you can find companies that contradict the pattern - but overall I stick to my point of view.

<comment><AUTHOR> At any rate, you all should post more stories from your side of the world. We Americans need some enculturatin';)

<comment><USER7> Actually I find it rather flattering that someone found this good enough to post to YC news, I haven't updated my blog for years and I mainly kept it as an exercise in writing. I never made an effort of promoting it.

But I like the discussion here, including the users that don't agree with me. It means that I have to think about my standpoints, and defend them intelligently if I am not convinced that I'm wrong.

So maybe I should start updating...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacking Team Uses UEFI BiOS Rootkit to Keep RCS 9 Agent in Target Systems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/hacking-team-uses-uefi-bios-rootkit-to-keep-rcs-9-agent-in-target-systems/

<comment><USER2> This is the most interesting Hacking Team revelation yet.

First, a production UEFI bootkit! Yahoo! That's a milestone.

Second, fiddling with Bitcoin wallets. Between the bootkit and the Bitcoin fiddling, Hacking Team is just a small step away from a Zeus Botnet. That is, HT is hanging ten on the precipice of crime, it looks like.

Third, this line from HT CEO David Vincenzetti:

 _a modification of the actual Bitcoiin [sic], something different, fully traceable and supported by clearing houses and the global financial system as a whole might have a future._

If truly Vincenzetti's viewpoint, that line demonstrates a slide to authoritarianism. According to accounts, Vincenzetti was an early privacy advocate. A cypherpunk wouldn't be able to speak the phrase "fully traceable" except as an insult.

Are we seeing the result of money corrupting, or are authoritarian world views the inevitable result of working in the defense industrial complex?

<comment><USER3> Vincenzetti ends several emails with clear neo-fascist slogans ( _" Boia chi molla"_ etc). Some circles in the Italian hacking scene have long had right- wing connotations.

 _> are authoritarian world views the inevitable result of working in the defense industrial complex?_

Is this even a question? If your livelihood depended on selling batons, you'd be extremely supportive of the police, wouldn't you?

<comment><USER2> There's involvement and then there's commitment, as the pig said to the chicken about breakfast.

I'm wondering if merely getting a job programming for a defense company leads to a moral slide into authoritarianism. You know, suppose you're doing sysadmin for HT - is that enough to start warping your view of the world?

Also there's the involvement in actions just short of creating a banking- credential-stealing botnet. False BGP announcements, sniffing for bitcoin credentials and stuff is the domain of Russian and Romanian "Bad Guys". How on earth can an employee justify doing that sort of thing?

<comment><USER4> _is that enough to start warping your view of the world_

That's certainly how cognitive dissidence works. People will do great mental gymnastics to avoid seeing themselves as one of the bad guys.

<comment><USER5> while I think "cognitive dissonance" is the phrase you were looking for, you just came up with a great punk band name.

<comment><USER6> Also "cognitive dissidents", which sounds the same but is a noun and thus maybe better for a band name. Both already have hits on Google. :)

<comment><USER7> "Cognitive Dissidents" was used in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer. :)

glcd.bandcamp

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is what I thought when viewing my latest computer that came with an UEFI bios. That the UEFI BIOS is to large and too complex and has way to many functions to be a BIOS device, hence a perfect place to put advanced malware.

It's like an operating system before the operating system, has its own FAT32 system partition where you can store stuff.

Also after a few years your manufacturer will stop shipping uefi BIOS updates for your computer due to their interest in selling new computers and then there will be a lurking security whole laying around.

<comment><USER9> UEFI is simply over-engineered.

<comment><USER10> And yet traditional BIOSes reuse features, implementation and design from the dawn of personal computing. They strike me as an unreliable black art.

Bootstrapping computers is "hard" and there's a huge disincentive to breaking compatibility with operating systems' installation/bootstrapping.

I'm not sure if EFI/UEFI are ideal, but it strikes me as a net win.

<comment><USER9> Without a doubt, the classic BIOS needed improvement, but we didn't need this. The situation reminds me of IPv6, which is also grossly over-engineered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Look up Computrace; it's very similar in operation but is installed by default in most BIOS' as a theft-prevention measure.

 _Admins managing servers can also opt to buy a server with physical BIOS write-protection, wherein the user will need to put a jumper or turn on a dip switch in order to update the BIOS._

Motherboards with hardware write-protected BIOSes were common around the turn of the century, when flash EEPROMs started replacing EPROMs for BIOS storage. Too bad the amount of tiny extra BOM cost and what seems to be increasingly buggier BIOSes that require frequent updates has made them mostly disappear...

I wonder how much the "it can always be updated later" mentality prevalent today has lead to a higher defect rate in code - it seems to me that if it's harder to change something once it's released, there is more incentive to get it right the first time. I can't remember there being any significant bugs with BIOS in the early machines I used (386/486 era) and those basically never needed to be updated; although PCs have gotten considerably more complex since, especially with things like UEFI, perhaps not all of that complexity is warranted and it wouldn't have manifested itself if BIOS' had remained difficult-to-modify?

</comment><comment><USER12> All it takes to install a (BIOS) rootkit is root access ... In windows this means answering Yes on the question "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to your computer".

Remember to flash the BIOS if you've been hacked!

<comment><USER13> If your system firmware has already been compromised, you cannot trust that reflashing it will bring it back to a good state. Flashing relies on assistance from the existing system firmware on modern machines.

You would have to open the machine, desolder the flash chips and re-write them in a flash programmer to get a clean slate. Or, if your adversary is very high-level, just throw the machine away, since you'll never be able to find all the places one could hide persistent malware in hardware.

Once you lose physical control of a machine, it's game over if you are concerned about hardware/firmware attacks.

<comment><USER14> No need to desolder, several ones are removable

Some motherboards even have a backup one

<comment><USER15> > Some motherboards even have a backup one

Are they detached and non-writable while the primary ROM is active? I have consistently used Gigabyte boards for a decade because of the extra features that come with them, Backup BIOS being a key one — in the old days I would have to flip a jumper on the board to make the system boot from the backup, today the secondary ROM gets automatically enabled if the primary one fails to load.

I wouldn't trust the secondary flash ROM on my motherboard to protect me from APT, it's only purpose is to recover from a failed flash.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I'm not sure if they're read only without a jumper or software writeable without any protection

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> UEFI BIOS - Road to hell that was paved with good intentions

<comment><USER17> Why exactly? A lot of people's issues with uEFI seem to stem from Secure Boot (and the lack of additional CAs contained within). And while I grant that Secure Boot is problematic, uEFI is actually taking us away from black box firmware that was BIOS.

In many ways this type of stuff has always been possible, the only difference is the skill threshold has been lowered. So I guess the question is do you believe in the phase: "Ignorance is bliss?" Because that's what you're asking for, back to BIOS where these things are still readily do-able, just requires more technical skill and time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Luckily, this at least requires physical access.

<comment><USER19> Perfect for TAO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Silly question perhaps, but does this apply to Macs as well?

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey guys that BadBios is totally impossible, agreed? What a scrub, UEFI viruses are impossible. lol psychotic break amirite

I caught a message on the Windows install rebooot about "Intel AMT activated" during a clean reformat - but in BIOS it shows deactivated on reboot. Kaspersky/Malwarebytes/CCleaner shows clean on every scan for system files - I'm seriously wondering whether I need to dump this machine hardware and all. The cause for the reformat in the first place was a potential virus infection, maybe a rootkit. I didn't want to let it back on my network after I scanned a cryptolocker variant in my temp folder.

<comment><USER22> Just curious, is there any reason why you may be considered an interesting target to the NSA and friends?

<comment><USER21> No, I'm more suspicious of generic botnet/ransomware stuff. Which probably isn't anything that sophisticated.

That was yesterday. Having slept on it, I think the most likely cause is that I happened on a key combination that tries to poll status or activate AMT during POST/early boot (eg maybe something for service techs to load/auto- configure AMT off PXE or USB or something). An auto-loader for AMT wouldn't thrill me either, of course. Finding a cryptolocker installer in my Temp folder just has me running paranoid, I've never seen that particular message appear before, and it was gone before I could really get a good look.

Managed to dig up this paper on some of the potential black-hat applications of AMT [1]. Happened on another interesting one on Intel SGX [2]. It's certainly a net positive to have virtualization/sandboxing, secure enclaves, etc in our systems - but it always bugs me that they paradoxically create the potential for rootkits that are impossible to pry out once they're situated.

The idea of a platform-neutral technology that could serve as a vector for malware is a particularly disturbing one to me. Developing viruses for each individual BIOS implementation is something of a barrier to large-scale contagion of such malware, but there's probably a much smaller number of (eg) AMT or SGX versions with significant code overlap.

[1] [http://me.bios.io/images/0/0f/Csk_lacon12_intel_amt.pdf](http://me.bios.io/images/0/0f/Csk_lacon12_intel_amt.pdf)

[2] [http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/09/thoughts- on-i...](http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/09/thoughts-on-intels- upcoming-software.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Android bandwagon attracting developers and advertisers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_15421229?nclick_check=1

<comment><USER2> Sweet, we received a mention.

If you have any Android questions feel free to post them here or email me : aschobel [at] snaptic. com

<comment><USER3> Hi, could you tell us more about the employees at the company?

How many Android developers do you employ? What are their usual background? And how much do they get paid?

<comment><USER2> Sure, we have one dedicated Android dev with a background in J2ME and embedded device drivers.

On a platform like Android were memory / GC can kill you you need to make sure the lead fully understands the constraints.

Our iPhone dev rocks at SQLite3 so he helps with those portions of our Android apps.

We have commits from almost every member of the engineer staff to our Android apps, we are small enough were this still can work.

Re: Paid, I would feel uncomfortable sharing that information. When we looked at contracting some of this out on the iPhone side we were seeing consulting rates in the $150 / hour range for Bay Area contractors.

<comment><USER3> Thanks and I understand your discomfort in sharing the pay. I am thinking of applying for some Android positions which made me question the monetary compensations. Thanks again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>