SQLAlchemy Migrated from Mercurial to Git  - <AUTHOR> http://www.sqlalchemy.org/blog/2013/05/25/sqlalchemy-migrated-to-git/

<comment><USER2> Every project has the right to chose the VCS that they feel is right for them. However I find the reasons they give for the switch are pretty weak except for the last one (github is more popular).

1\. Repository size: Such size differences are uncommon, and mostly likely due to the fact that the git repo was a brand new repo created from scratch by converting the original hg repo. If they repacked the mercurial repo it would probably be greatly reduced in size. They could also do:

        hg convert --config "extensions.convert=" --branchsort sqlalchemy sqlalchemy-smaller

Which results in a reduction of the repository size from 45 MB in the original to 24 MB in the converted repo. This is not as good as git but quite close IMHO.

2\. This is not correct: Mercurial bookmarks _used_ to be an extension (a long time ago!) but they have been built into mercurial for a long time now. They are basically equivalent to git branches. So nowadays this is just a process issue. If using named branches is a problem just tell your devs to not use them and use bookmarks instead!

3\. Mercurial's rebase and mq extensions are part of core mercurial. They are packaged and distributed with mercurial, their test suites are part of the mercurial test suite and they are supported and developed by the core mercurial developers. The only difference between a core command and one of the official extensions is that these must be manually enabled to be user (by adding a line to the mercurial config file). This is a good thing! This makes it harder to mess up your repo if you do not know what you are doing. If you are not knowledgeable enough to find and edit the mercurial config file you should definitely not be using rebase or collapsing your changesets.

The last reason on the other hand is one that I can understand and which I think has merit. Is it worth the hassle of changing their DVCS system? Perhaps. However it bothers me when legitimate _social_ reasons to switch from mercurial to git are supported by not quite as clear cut technical reasons such as the ones put forward in this blog post.

<comment><USER3> > If using named branches is a problem just tell your devs to not use them and > use bookmarks instead!

but they do, because all the devs know git and are only using mercurial because they want to send you a pull request, and now their feature branch is _forever_.

Mecurial is unforgiving of mistakes - once in the repo, they are forever.

As for MQ, I've really tried to understand it, but it's just profoundly awkward IMHO. Mercurial's main benefit is that it's much easier to use and understand than git, so if I'm going to need to fire up the extra brainpower, I might as well learn git where these advanced patterns are extremely commonplace, and are part of the core functionality, not as a series of optional extensions that have been bolted on over the years. I've almost never seen anyone using MQ or rebase with mercurial (or even bookmarks for that matter).

I've tried carefully in my post to express that my points are all based on an overlap of social with technical issues. I am aware that _technically_ , hg has answers for all these things. But these answers don't pan out in the real _social_ world, for better or for worse. If git didn't exist, I'm sure there would be a much larger knowledge share for mercurial, and I was even betting on that in the beginning (certainly the "easier" tool will be more popular?) but it hasn't turned out that way.

<comment><USER4> > Mercurial's main benefit is that it's much easier to use and understand than > git

That's really only true if you're a beginner _and_ you weren't properly taught how git actually works. Fundamentally, git's data model is really simple and transparent. The commands are somewhat arbitrary, but no moreso than Vim's or Emacs's. As with Vim and Emacs, you don't need to know most of the commands anyway, except for convenience.

<comment><USER5> The simplicity of git's data model is the root of the problem; that is the reason it is hard to learn and hard to use. It operates at a lower level of abstraction than the level we are thinking at when we are actually developing code. Git is less of a version-control system and more of a library one could use to build one, but in absence of any canonical high-level git wrapper, we all end up implementing and running one in our heads. This is a waste of brain-power.

<comment><USER6> To say I disagree is a massive understatement. I've seen teams try to use wrappers and just mess everything up because they don't understand what's actually going on in the underlying system.

Git has the concepts it has because they're all important. It shows them all to unfiltered because to do so is vital.

<comment><USER5> HG seems to manage the same problem with less complexity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Largely due to the popularity of Github, Git has achieved a much higher > userbase, to the degree where we regularly have users requesting us to move > to Git so they can provide pull requests.

I am too a Mercurial refugee and prefer Git, but how is that even a reason? People don't want to contribute if it's on a Mercurial repo?? Python seems to be doing fine on HG.

Meanwhile, thanks for your amazing work on SqlAlchemy(&co), zzzeek!

<comment><USER8> I think what those users mean is that they want the project on Github. There's no concept of "pull requests" within Git.

Anyway, most Git users aren't Mercurial refugees; I wager we're Subversion refugees and kids.

<comment><USER7> > There's no concept of "pull requests" within Git.

<http://git-scm.com/book/ch5-2.html> "run the git request-pull command and e-mail the output to the project maintainer manually."

[http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/torvalds_github...](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/torvalds_github/) "Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, but GitHub instead decided to replace it with their own totally inferior version."

> I think what those users mean is that they want the project on Github.

that would be even worse. luckily as zzzeek explained below, it wasn't the case.

<comment><USER8> Wow. I had no idea about git pull requests, so I even googled it, and didn't see it on page one. My mistake, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very smart move. Some time ago Riak did the same thing. Their rationale was more detailed, but came to the same conclusion: [http://basho.com/a-few-more- details-on-why-we-switched-to-gi...](http://basho.com/a-few-more-details-on- why-we-switched-to-github/)

</comment><comment><USER10> 1\. What a huge saving — 0,002¢ per repo copy. Don't spend it all in one place.

2\. Bookmarks is core feature since March 2011. This basically means those who pushed "move to Git" decision, haven't checked if anything was updated in Mercurial (and with bookmarks in particular) since then at least. This is pretty understandable — it is known that only software gets updated is one you're paying attention to, others don't.

3\. As ezquerra mentioned, those extensions Mike is probably referring to, are shipped with Mercurial, and are enabled with only single line added to .hgrc. Not mentioning those extensions do not _emulate_ Git features, they _reproduce_ it.

4\. Only reason makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER11> Too bad there are no comments on the blog:

        SQLAlchemy's issue repository will remain hosted on Trac;
        while a Git repository can be mirrored in any number of
        places, an issue repository cannot (for now! Can someone
        please create a distributed issue tracker? Should be
        pretty doable, though getting Github/Bitbucket to use it,
        not so much...), so SQLAlchemy's long history of issue
        discussion remains maintained directly by the project.

<http://fossil-scm.org> !!!

<comment><USER12> There are tools like Bugs Everywhere [0], which mix well with distributed VCS. However, the question is if distributed bug tracking makes sense.

[0] <http://bugseverywhere.org/>

<comment><USER13> There are many different projects which implement distributed bug tracking[0], some better than others. The question of how much distributed bug tracking makes sense depends strongly on the structure of the project. If the project is developer heavy (such as developers responding to user help requests) it can work well, but if the project has several strata of developers and support people and users then it might not make as much sense.

[0] [http://travisbrown.ca/blog.html#TooMuchAboutDistributedBugTr...](http://travisbrown.ca/blog.html#TooMuchAboutDistributedBugTracking2013-04-20-83)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would something like Kiln Harmony work for storing the main upstream repository?

<https://secure.fogcreek.com/kiln/>

It seems that if KH translates seamlessly between HG and Git that a project could accept pushes from both, right?

I assume since KH is not open source / free that this would not be an acceptable method for maintaining the main repo, or that the translation would introduce interesting wrinkles, but it does seem like one could potentially have his cake and eat it too.

<comment><USER12> Thanks to hg-git, Mercurial users should have no problem using the git repository.

<comment><USER15> hg-git and Kiln Harmony serve different, though overlapping, purposes.

hg-git allows people who know both Git and Mercurial, but who prefer Mercurial, to work with Git repositories from Mercurial. No effort is made to hide the Git _model_ , and no effort is made to ensure that the Mercurial repository generated from the Git one is idempotent (i.e., a given Git repo will always generate the same Mercurial repo) or can round-trip (i.e., I can trivially craft repos that hg-git can work with just fine, but where pushing to a bare Git repo will result in a different Git repository from the original). The benefit to this model is that the Git users don't need to do anything different, ever, and no one needs to know that you were using Mercurial, ever.

Kiln Harmony does something different: it's designed to let a team use whatever tools they want. This means that Mercurial users don't have to learn the Git model, Git users don't have to learn the Mercurial model, and generally, everything "just works" in that situation. Doing that requires a lot more processing power than hg-git requires, which is part of why we only offer it as a hosted solution for the moment. It also works best when your central repository _is_ a Kiln Harmony repository.

I obviously think that's a fine trade-off, but if part of the main motivation of SQLAlchemy was GitHub, then Kiln Harmony probably isn't a good solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Git manages the size of the repository more efficiently; while the Mercurial > repository has been approaching 50M in size, the Git repository is only 17M.

17MB vs 50MB - almost a third of the size. That is definitely quite impressive.

<comment><USER17> I'm not the biggest git fan and I still think it's right choice, but how is this even a reason to switch? Unless you go in (older) Subversion ridiculousness how are 40MB of disk space even a concern? They even listed it first. At best it would be Oh, and we saved 40MB, the size of two raw pictures from a digital camera.

<comment><USER11> The size issues of the SQLAlchemy repository come from the way Mercurial handles copies and renames.

I prefer Mercurial because is much easier to use but this file rename issue always make me feel uncomfortable when reorganizing code.

These days I'm giving Fossil a try, which still is easier to use than Git and the repository size sits between Git and Mercurial.

<comment><USER18> From the other side of the mirror, I mean from the position of someone used to git, this comment seem weird.

Git is not hard to use. It is adding a few articulations in your workflow, and they are just allowing you to run faster.

One example: interactive staging with git add -p, this articulation masks it much easier to debug: add print all over the place, try some tweaks, find the one, stage this one snippet, checkout the files, run the test, and you're done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Could someone please explain me an argument about removing branch in git vs closing it in mercurial? As I understand, when you "remove" branch in git, just as when you close it in mercurial, it doesn't delete commits from tree either, since it can lead to disaster (if those commits were pushed already). So someone else could actually start new branch from commit which is in branch you just "deleted". Am I wrong here?

<comment><USER20> > Am I wrong here?

It sounds like you may be a little fuzzy on how Git works.

> when you "remove" branch in git...it doesn't delete commits from > tree...since it can lead to disaster

When you delete a branch, only commits and filesystem states that are no longer accessible from any other branch, tag, index, or stash become eligible for garbage collection. So in normal usage [1] [2], you shouldn't ever be able to delete the contents of any commit that exists in the history of any named commit.

A commit that is newly eligible for garbage collection will not actually be garbage collected during a grace period, I believe one week. During this time the commit is still accessible by commit hash [3].

Branches are kind of like variables in a garbage-collected language, and commits are like objects in that language. An object is eligible for GC if and only if there are no variables that point to it. Making new variables that point to the same object is a really lightweight operation since most of the data's shared. _Unlike_ many OO languages, objects in Git are immutable, which means git can safely collapse identical copies of the same object to a single instance (an optimization which git is quite aggressive about).

> it can lead to disaster (if those commits were pushed already)

If you want to cause a remote repository to delete a branch, look at the --mirror and --delete options for the push subcommand. AFAIK, pushing the deletion of a branch has the same effect as if you deleted the branch locally on the machine you're pushing the deletion to.

> someone else could actually start new branch from commit which is in branch > you just "deleted"

If another developer has merely fetched the deleted branch, their remote tracking branch will be deleted when they fetch again. If your colleague has created an actual local branch with the changes you deleted (as opposed to a remote-tracking branch), when or whether your colleague deletes that branch is entirely under his/her control [4].

[1] Using low-level git subcommands to force git to delete objects which are still referenced by other objects is abnormal usage.

[2] Corrupting the object database in your .git directory through unclean shutdown, hard drive failure, or vindictive hex editing is also abnormal usage.

[3] If you neglected to write down the commit hash before you deleted the branch, you can likely find it in the reflog. The reflog is a history of the commit hash at the tip of each branch. Alternatively, you can use git subcommands to browse the object database and find orphaned commits.

[4] At this point, git has no _technological_ way [5] for anyone but your colleague to delete the local branch from your colleague's machine. _Socially,_ of course, you can use project management techniques to encourage your colleague to delete the branch (e.g., if the official maintainers announce that the deleted branch is considered obsolete and will not support it or accept changes based on the version of the project in the deleted branch, that can be a compelling reason for people to stop using the copies that are floating around. Or your colleague's boss can tell him to delete it or be fired.)

[5] If you have git push access to your colleague's repository, or you have shell access to your colleague's user account, you can delete their branches. Footnote [4] is referring to the _usual_ case where your colleague's machine is a private box where you have no access.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for your answer. I really was never aware of git's GC mechanisms before, that's why I was sure that commits still hold inside a tree. And you perfectly answered my question (well, at least parts that I understood all details about, I clearly see I'd need to read more some time later).

I still find mercurial's branching model "the right thing" in terms of tree showing development history inside a branch, or overall (multi-branch) history-review (where you clearly see which commit was made in which branch), but I now see that it's really nice from repository-cleanup perspective to have features git has, to deal with non-needed branches and commits (via different mechanisms).

<comment><USER20> Git's branching model is "the right thing" once you learn the idioms of git development.

For example, if you want to build a new feature, make a local branch so your changes are isolated. You can make work-in-progress commits that split up a large change into pieces, some of which may be experimental, contain debugging statements, or temporarily break things.

Then when you're satisfied your changes are bug-free, you can use an interactive rebase (git rebase -i) to turn the commits into clean patches that would be something you might e.g. send to the mailing list if you're working on the flagship Git project, the Linux kernel.

I like to keep my history clean, six months from now I won't be interested in all the bugs I wrote when I implemented a feature, and all the fixes that I came up with for them during initial testing. I won't want to see the implementation of that feature scattered over multiple commits. I just want to see one clean, bug-free patch that implements the feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR - we didn't read the HG manual, so we had to change as we did't know how to use its features.

<comment> qu4z-2 Or because none of their contributors who only installed hg to submit a patch had read the entire hg manual.

<comment><USER10> Of course, all they had to read and follow was "contributing to sqlalchemy" manual.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Files for a Patent on a Restaurant Reservation and Ordering System - <AUTHOR> http://eater.com/archives/2013/12/13/apple-files-for-a-patent-on-a-restaurant-reservation-ordering-system.php

<comment><USER2> Smells like prior art all over. McDonalds has been taken my orders with a mobile device for years when its really busy.</comment>


Can Chrome Sync or Firefox Sync be trusted with sensitive data? - <AUTHOR> https://palant.de/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-sync-be-trusted-with-sensitive-data <comment><USER2> Poking around his previous articles I was surprised to see this:

> At the end of the day, OpenSSL is a library, not an end-user product, and > enc(1) and friends are developer utilities and "demo" tools.

I think most would be interested to know that OpenSSL doesn't consider the command line tools worth securing.</comment>


Beware of Juice-Jacking - <AUTHOR> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/08/beware-of-juice-jacking/ <comment><USER2> There is one easy way to solve this problem that I can think of: Neuter a USB cable by shorting the data pins on the device end and disconnecting them on the charger end.

Just be careful not to plug the resulting cable into a computer -- you are likely to draw more current than permitted by the USB spec, and could potentially cause an issue.

(I suppose you could potentially cause an issue with a charging kiosk too, if it's a computer rather than a dumb brick, but it's not really the kiosk I'm worried about.)

<comment><USER3> I know that some modern iOS devices actually require a specific voltage across the data lines to tell the device what wattage charger it's using. In that situation you would have to add a couple of resistors to the charging cable between the voltage and data pins, which definitely makes it a lot more difficult for most people.

You might find the following interesting: <http://www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/icharge.html>

<comment><USER2> You're right -- as an Android user, I was thinking about the USB 3.0 charging standard (and the pre-standard behavior which led to it), which Android devices generally follow.

If you have an iDevice, you have more work to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Damn, this is actually rather disturbing--my Nexus 4 automatically presents USB storage when I plug it in, and I can't figure out how to disable it! Locked or unlocked, you can access my files by simply plugging in the phone.

Edit: Figured it out, it actually only presents storage when plugged in if you unlock the phone. If you unplug the phone, let it lock, then plug it back in again, you're ok.

</comment><comment><USER5> So did this actually test if the phones were vulnerable? I know my phone doesn't turn on usb mass storage mode without asking; but this article doesn't even mention other methods.

</comment><comment><USER6> Clever hack. It suggests a product, a USB condom, the device has a USB plug and a USB socket, it connects the power lines but not the data lines. With a bit a careful surgery on a USB cable you could manually do this. I don't know if it would then charge though. A surefire way to build it would be to use an "FTDI cable" [1] and pull the power of to a USB socket.

[1] <https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9718>

<comment><USER7> SO MUCH EASIER: Carry a tiny AC->USB adapter and a USB->mini or USB->dock or USB->lightning cable. Plug into mains on these charging stations instead of USB. Done and done.

Added bonus: You can charge when you get to the hotel, too.

<comment><USER6> I realize you are being funny but what you seem to have missed (or perhaps you haven't experienced it) are public areas with exactly zero power outlets and several "charging stations."

Granted airports and what not are slowly coming around but having a 'red' charging cord which not only worked in your AC charger but could also be plugged into a random charging station and "do the right thing without putting you at risk" that would be moderately handy gizmo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't work on my Nokia N900.

If it's just pure juice coming out of the connector it just loads.

If there's some process that tries to initiate a data connection you get two buttons, asking:if you want a PC-Suite, or a mass storage connection.

That would look pretty fishy when I just try to juice up my phone.

That said I think he makes a very valid point and my phone is pretty much an exception nowadays (as, unfortunately are Nokia smart phones in general).

</comment><comment><USER9> If what he says is true, it's ridiculous that phones do this be default. Some clever hacker could create a virus that would sit dormant until your phone was plugged into your computer upon which it would steal all of your data. You'd think phone manufacturers would include some sort of way to disable auto-data sync as leaving it on is a major security risk given the number of people that charge via their computers.

</comment><comment><USER10> For newer iOS devices, I was under the impression that if a passcode is set and the screen is locked, the USB host can't access the contents of the device until the passcode is entered. However, once the screen is unlocked, iTunes on the host can obtain tokens to automatically unlock the device later on.

Do newer Android devices also have something similar to this?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, not sure when, but it's been the case that the MTP/UMS was unavailable if the lock screen was locked (with a pattern/pin/pw). I'm not sure if that also applies to adb. (If it doesn't, then the protection is useless since adb can pull data).

<comment><USER2> I think the theory is supposed to be that you don't enable adb unless you know what you're doing.

(As far as I can recall, adb works fine with the screen locked. The fact that I don't know for sure suggests that I do not, in fact, know what I am doing...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you have a multi-connector charge-only cable it's likely that the data lines aren't connected, so that's an option.

(Unless it's a multi-headed cable like: <[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11515>.](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11515>.))

</comment><comment><USER13> My Desire hd presents itself as a dumb brick by default. Until I explicitly say it to be something else it just sucks up juice. So maybe a bit more info like models, brands etc will be good to have.

</comment><comment><USER14> Which phones are unsafe when they are turned off?

</comment><comment><USER15> You can prevent this with a simple and cheap Nokia DC-16 portable charger put between the charging station and your phone.</comment>


Viral Marketing can go too far: How long until people stop trying to care? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/opinion/25gilbert.html?ex=1332475200&en=ea91fded4e5b9868&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss <comment><AUTHOR> I'll admit my mistake.

This isn't really a case of viral marketing as much as Compassion marketing, which is targeting a new market.

This would have been viral if instead of simply leaving keys on the ground, it encouraged you to "see if you can trick your friends" with the same set of keys, or a similar action element for you to push.

Mea culpa, but the point of the article still stands. I apologize for sidelining the conversation with a poor title.

To ask a (hopefully) better question, although I fear it may be too late for conversation in this thread- Is there a point where people start becoming less engaged in the world, because they're afraid that every action has a marketing angle behind it..

To quote Futurama-

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century? FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

I worry that as people get more and more used to seeing an ad behind every action, they'll stop caring about the actions, and stop investigating..

Look at the ATHF scare.. Imagine if that were more common, but if it were actually a fake bomb, as the Boston Police had suggested..

As you go to open it, it screams "BOO! Too bad you didn't have life insurance. Go to Omahalife.com to get some"

</comment><comment><USER2> Tricks like Nissan's are better-described as just "left-field", not "viral". I don't see how leaving phony keyrings lying around encourages people to pass on a message.

</comment><comment><USER3> Saying that people will stop caring about viral marketing is suggesting creativity is finite.

What has happened due to the YouTube revolution is that it is harder to be funny now. Notice it's just HARDER - not impossible. So while in the past year or two folks might have gotten around producing average stuff that became viral, the same level of creativity won't be viral in the future. I think that is the real point the article is trying to make.

<comment><USER4> I don't think he's asking how long until people stop caring about viral marketing, but how long until people stop caring in general, i.e. about humanity. I think the problem lies not in viral marketing itself, but in Nissan's implementation of viral marketing. I think that the methods of these different types of viral marketing are analogous to the goals of white hat and black hat hackers. A practice that may be generally good and clever can be thoroughly spoiled by those who take advantage of it for the wrong reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to agree with the writer of this article, except I think it would be better to remove the "Viral" tag altogether. I think that marketing in general has gone too far. Certainly appealing to the generosity of people and then throwing it back in our faces is beginning to go too far, and I think the author of the article does a good job of thoroughly describing where Nissan went wrong, so I'll just shut up now.

</comment><comment><USER5> Your best bet is to make something that is useful enough that you won't have to rely on tricks to get people to use it.</comment>


Texas sheriff linked to rogue US intelligence unit under criminal investigation - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-sheriff-arvin-west-linked-to-us-navy-unit-criminal-investigation-ak-47-silencers-a7340506.html <comment><AUTHOR> Stealing the top comment from reddit...

 _The former director of the intelligence unit, David W Landersman, a civilian, is facing federal conspiracy charges for allegedly orchestrating a mysterious scheme to equip Navy commandos with hundreds of untraceable AK-47 rifle silencers. A new wrinkle in the case, however, has recently emerged in US District Court in Alexandria, Va., where prosecutors have suggested that Navy officials from the intelligence unit also sought to funnel military equipment to rural Hudspeth County and set up a secret training base near the Mexican border. Even more unusually, two of Landersman's former subordinates have testified that when they were not working full time on intelligence matters at the Pentagon, they moonlighted 1,600 miles away as reserve deputy sheriffs in Hudspeth County, a desolate, Connecticut-size jurisdiction east of El Paso. Also serving as deputies to Sheriff West were Landersman, his son, and the husband of one of the Navy intelligence officials, according to two Pentagon officials and others familiar with the case. Why so many Pentagon officials and their relatives were working on the side as sheriff's deputies in Texas has not been explained in court, where much of the evidence has been sealed to protect national security. What a training base would have been used for there is just as murky._

A secret base, Pentagon intelligence officials and their family moonlighting as deputies, and a court case with a lot of sealed evidence..

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/55d8ag/a_texas_sherif...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/55d8ag/a_texas_sheriff_who_once_busted_willie_nelson/d89keyu)</comment>


Pharmacy receives first ever fine for breaking GDPR rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/20/pharmacy-receives-first-ever-fine-breaking-gdpr-rules <comment><USER2> ("first" here apparently being for the first fine under GDPR rules set by ICO)</comment>


Natively Format JavaScript Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://elijahmanor.com/format-js-numbers <comment><USER2> NOTE: This post is a sibling post to... Natively Format JavaScript Dates and Times [https://elijahmanor.com/format-js-dates-and- times](https://elijahmanor.com/format-js-dates-and-times)</comment>


Ask HN: Which software was used to create this animation? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beh1yunS6uM <comment><USER2> Probably After Effects, as it's listed on the creator's website: [http://www.fransolo.com/](http://www.fransolo.com/)</comment>


Special.fish - <AUTHOR> https://special.fish/ <comment><USER2> The first time I stumbled upon Special Fish was in the first comment on another HN thread titled "Rediscovering The Small Web" [1], so if you find Special Fish interesting you may also like some other things mentioned there.

I spent a couple of hours sufring the site and various personal pages linked within some profiles. From my small sample, it seemed to be popular among some sort of lo-fi designer/technoartist crowd. It was different enough from my usual intake of the web to hook me up for a bit.

I was tempted to register an account, but gave up after reading the pitch: "Special Fish is a place for exploring logs and lists." I mean... I've done blogs (on both home-made and stock tools), tumblrs, micro-blogs (Twitter and Identi.ca), small project-based websites, you name it. What is left to explore on the logs/lists space, especially given the simple pages I've witnessed across the site (and the simple tools given to authors, I guessed), that signing up would be compelling? What are the results of this exploration on Special Fish that are worth mentioning?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23326329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23326329)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. This is something I've been thinking about a bit since launching it. I don't think SF necessarily does anything new or hooks users and I'm okay with that. I actually intended the site be more focused around the lists, but people really seem to enjoy logging their day-to-day lives. Personally, I like reading these automatic thoughts from strangers. Many people talk about quarantine routines, life goals, and ongoing projects. It's cool to see all this overlap in how people are thinking right now. So again, nothing new here, just a slightly different approach to a community website.

I totally understand your hesitance on registering an account. There are so many ways of blogging/journaling on the web already. I actually think it's a good site to browse without ever needing an account. I'm looking at added RSS soon so you won't even need to really visit and can use something like Fraidycat to check in.

Also, SF was mentioned on Kicks Condor recently [1]. I like how they talked about the site... "but it hadn't even occurred to me to make a social network that is just a directory". I hadn't really thought of SF as just a directory either, but I like the idea that its only purpose is to be a directory of people doing DIY stuff on the web.

[1] [https://www.kickscondor.com/special.fish/](https://www.kickscondor.com/special.fish/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey there, sorry that the site is down! Looking at getting things up and running asap. Special Fish is a small community website so it wasn't built to scale lol. For now, as mentioned by @bertman, you can browse an archived version: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200420171359/https://special.f...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200420171359/https://special.fish/) Thanks Wayback Machine!

<comment><USER3> Cached version of the site is up again. Working on clearing up auth issues now. Stay tuned...

Update: Okay we are back! Implementing more caching but should be working for now.

<comment><USER2> Is Random now cached? I always stumble upon the same guy.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for reporting. Should be fixed now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Archive version: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200421005016/https://special.f...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200421005016/https://special.fish/faqs)

       Special Fish is a place for exploring profiles and lists.
       You could think of Special Fish as a public word processor.
       Usually rtf/txt files just sit on a user's computer.
       SF is about making those documents into a social network.

<comment><USER5> If you're still confused, click on the dot in the upper left corner and you'll be on the home page. Each of those squares is someone's profile page. Many are just made of random lists or links. Others are detailed journals.

I think it's turned out to be a great place to discover new people and as a portal to unfamiliar places on the Web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems to be dead.

            °
           °
            °
           °
          <ₒ))><
        <comment><comment><comment>~

<comment><USER7> Dead fish tends to float up. Just saying.

<comment><USER8> Typical human cultural prejudice!

In fish culture "down" is of course the direction in which one falls, and this is correctly depicted in the image.

It's a common confusion, as Down vs Up is more nuanced in Fish culture. Fish technology is extremely under developed: imagine inventing the screwdriver, having it slip through your fins, and it immediately floating "up" into oblivion.

Debate is still ongoing as to if this is why fish do not use screws, or if it's the other way around — if lack of screws was the reason they never invented screwdrivers.

<comment><USER9> This genuinely looks like it could have been generated by GPT-2 and now I can't tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I actually really enjoyed this site. It was interesting driving into different people's headspace or at least that's what it felt like.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a good day to visit Hacker News. Lots of interesting and insightful submissions, including this one.

I especially get a kick out of creative domain names. This is one of my favorites.

</comment><comment><USER12> special.fish commercial: [https://youtu.be/BAS-70KpNNA](https://youtu.be/BAS-70KpNNA)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is very interesting. Does anyone else have concepts for anti-social networks?

</comment><comment><USER14> What is this? Just a strange color theme for someone's blog?

</comment><comment><USER15> This had better be a story about food!

</comment><comment><USER16> Failed to open :( ::<>

</comment><comment><USER17> Last time this was posted I took a look. It's a lot of gibberish and spam.

<comment><USER18> This seems subjective.

I'd use the same words to describe some other social networks.

<comment><USER17> You may, it doesn't change my comment though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> .......what....?

</comment><comment><USER20> what a fun website

</comment><comment><USER21> Connection times out.

</comment><comment><USER22> Special fish died

</comment><comment><USER23> Didn't open

</comment><comment> kalium-xyz Its dead jim</comment>


Mark Cuban: The most patriotic thing you can do is "get rich" - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2009/08/13/the-most-patriotic-thing-you-can-do/

<comment><USER2> "[when that tax bill comes your thought should be]... a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you."

Right, so I bust my ass in school, non-paid internships, contracting as much as possible, and 50 hour work weeks on my startup... and the reason I'm making money is b/c I'm more "fortunate" than the slob who is still playing video games in college after 6 years and the idiot who chooses to have kids he can't afford?

OK, got it... making wise choices makes you "fortunate"... and it's "unfortunate" when idiots who make poor decisions just don't make quite enough money to afford cigarettes, bling for his car, and health insurance.

Another serious flaw in this article, besides his inept philosophy: money stolen from us by the government is not "helping to support millions of americans"... it's being completely wasted by GovCo, for the most part, or at minimum used very inefficiently.

<comment><USER3> Wow that's cold.

It's a bit ugly that you can loop everyone that can't afford healthcare, mental health issues or drug addiction into a single bucket and dispose of them.

Those who can afford to spend 6 years in college playing video games, rarely are the ones who are doing it on the gov't dime. Its the kids that grow up in crappy underprivileged neighborhoods with poor school systems and no guidance are the ones that need help. But hey its their parents fault right?

You sir, compassion less, and cold spirited and are the one I can do without.

<comment><USER2> And, you sir, live in a false reality.

I bet you'd love to tell us how socialism would work if we "just gave it a chance." Let me guess... it "hasn't been implemented properly" yet right?

<comment><USER3> Wow which false reality is that?

I'm well aware of how much I pay in taxes, its significant and getting worse since I started my own business this year.

But I believe that my taxes fill a need society and in fact even have a pragmatic slant (one which Cuban raised) in the Keynsian model more taxes = more spending by gov't and the only real way to stimulate economy.

Win/Win I help people and make more money with a better economy.

<comment><USER4> Show me one example where government is able to stimulate economy. First, you will have to clarify what 'stimulating an economy' means. Once you have specified what it means, you will have to explain how each dollar spent has somehow stimulated the economy.

I think you fail to comprehend how complicated modern day economy is. Have you heard of 'I, Pencil' story? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vjrzUplWU> The gist is that no single person knows how to make a pencil. Because of co- ordinated efforts of thousands of people, working for their own goals, makes it possible to manufacture pencil and deliver it at your local store where you can buy it for dollar a piece.

Do you really think that few hundred bureaucrats in DC can decide how billions of dollars should be spent so that economy is stimulated?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cuban is well known for speaking his mind, and he lived up to his reputation in this interview. Thats what we are all out here to do. And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time.

Mark Cuban said that we need to make a boatload of money, but does not say how exactly to do that. At this point, you cant go by the Mark Cuban book. Dont try to duplicate what he did. Aside from the rare occassion of the German based ebay copycats whom later became reviered VCs, The European Founders (<http://www.europeanfounders.com/index.html>), you have to create your own path. What do you enjoy? Where is there a void in the market? Etc.

But, hopefully, you are not trying to "Get Rich Quick". Create your entrepreneurial venture off of passion and a genuine interest in what you are creating. Dont need it to blow up and produce millions over night, because you have to pay your electric bill. Thats not the way.

<comment><USER6> _"And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time."_

I'm pretty sure that if this country was "built on" a concept, it was intellectual freedom. Entrepreneurship is perhaps a nice consequence of that legacy, but let's not confuse which end wags the dog.

<comment><USER5> Without entrepreneurship, there would be no Ford, no Microsoft, nor many other "must haves" that we enjoy today. Entrepreneurship created the automobile, the computer as we know it today, the website that we are discussing on right now, and all the startups that Y-Combinator supports.

Allow me to rephrase. Entrepreneurship is what our economy is built upon. Not intellectual freedom. Granted, intellectual freedom created peanut butter, the lightbulb and more. But no one was attempting to create these items for sales purposes initially. Peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver, not Jiff.

And I wouldnt say that intellectual freedom is what built this county. As so many whom actually put in the man hours, hard work and physical suffering to build this country, did not have any intellectual freedom, and died in the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> demonizing the productive rich along with the hereditary wealth parasites is a fatal mistake for a civilization IMO.

<comment><USER8> There's a huge difference between the rich and high income earners. The rich/wealthy often favor higher taxes because their income is from tax-free bonds or from control of assets, where income is deferred and usually part of a one-time transaction, like sale of a company, where taxes can be avoided.

High-income earners, on the other hand, often have negative net worth (school and housing debt). The rich want high taxes on the high-income earners because they don't want the upstarts competing with them for control of assets...they want to make it harder for the next wave of entrepreneurs to build disruptive or competitive businesses.

It is ironic, but taxes on new capital formation directly benefit those who already have capital.

<comment><USER9> This is an astute and important point. I have always found it flawed that a middle-class American family making around $100K in income will pay more taxes than someone with $10M+ portfolio of municipal bonds.

With that said, I agree with Mark Cuban's philosophy here, and do not get personally upset with paying taxes.

I don't think the solution is to complain about taxes on high income earners. Rather, there just needs to be more pressure on instituting equivalent taxes for other forms of wealth generation (i.e. get rid of tax-free bonds).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Make a boatload of money. Pay your taxes. Lots of taxes. Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services. Pay more taxes."

Don't most wealthy people hire lawyers and lobbyists to help them not pay taxes? Don't they also move jobs overseas to reduce how much they pay to their own economy?

Cuban seems to be living in a dreamworld.

<comment><USER11> They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this. By "pay more taxes" he means that the more money you make, the more taxes you have to pay. I'm sure that if you asked him, he'd say it's also your duty to pay as little tax as required.

<comment><USER12> _They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this._

I'm pretty sure Warren Buffet proved otherwise:

[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ec...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece)

<comment><USER13> You're talking percent, he's talking gross.

<comment><USER12> I don't want to speak for him, but I'm pretty sure Cuban is talking percent too, given that he seems to be encouraging the paying of full taxes sans loopholes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _and your 3rd [thought] should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you._

So just to clarify-- if you become successful, it was a combination of hard work and good fortune but if don't become successful, it was just poor fortune?

<comment><USER15> I think so.

Consciousness is a gift through fortune. Through consciousness, you eventually come to a realization that you should work hard and endeavor to become successful. The less fortunate never reach such a level of consciousness.

<comment><USER14> I agree that both are necessary but insufficient conditions independently but I've always been irked by the fact that the hard work/motivation part is always immediately dropped when you talk about average working stiffs.

It's like some bizarre fear that by admitting that _some_ people are simply feckless and/or unmotivated you risk marginalizing everyone hasn't "made it" whereas in reality incentives are a huge part of the productivity equation (as anyone with a knowledge of basic economics can attest).

<comment><USER9> Your point is well taken that it's easy to treat fortune differently in different situations. Hard workers that don't make it are "just unfortunate." Lazy people that win the lottery are "just fortunate." Hard workers that make it "earned it."

However, I think randomness (i.e. "fortune") generally plays a much larger role in all of our lives than we care to admit. The American obsession with hard work and merit fuels this misconception. Our brains are also somewhat intrinsically hardwired to intuit simple causes and effects, even when none truly exist.

If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading "The Drunkard's Walk" by Leonard Mlodinow. [http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness- Rules-Vintag...](http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules- Vintage/dp/0307275175/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He makes an argument for making money, but not for getting (or being) rich. What societal advantage is there to one person amassing wealth? It seems like Cuban is saying that if you create wealth, you can pass it on to others. So wouldn't that mean that it would be better for society if you were just a conduit for wealth, paying your employees, contractors, and suppliers as much as possible?

It seems like the most beneficial thing would be to "Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services." but not skim a bunch off the top for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER17> Getting rich by creating American jobs that manufacture goods that we sell to Asia and re-balancing the trade imbalance would improve the dollar strength and create American jobs, that'd be ok. If I get rich by putting Applebees out of business because I made a slightly better boneless buffalo wing, nothing would be gained.

</comment><comment><USER18> _"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."_ \-- Samuel Johnson

 _"The most patriotic thing you can do is get rich."_ \-- Mark Cuban

Sounds about right.

<comment><USER19> You're mis-reading Johnson. He's not saying that patriotisim is bad - the word "last" is important.

Asimov's "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." has a similar trap for those who don't read critically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would also like to point out that Cuban has incentives to have his fan base think of him as patriotic: he wants patriotic people to consume his NBA entertainment and think well of him.

Just because someone posts something on their blog, does not mean it is what they truly believe. It is only what they want to appear on their blog.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm almost certain there there may be flaws in this though but:

Isn't there a limited monetary supply at any given time? So the richer I get, the less rich other people become. Even after I pay rents and salaries and everything else, if I'm richer than I was before, then there is less wealth available for everyone else.

<comment><USER2> You've highlighted one of the most important fallacies in the modern liberal's mindset, in my opinion...

PG touches on this: "The Pie Fallacy" in <http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

My 2 cents on it: Wealth is created. Currency is a limited resource that represents that wealth. The value of a single unit of currency is increased every time more real wealth is created. Wealth is created when goods or services that people actually want are produced.

<comment><USER21> _You've highlighted one of the most important fallacies in the modern liberal's mindset, in my opinion..._

Completely unnecessary partisan drivel. The man asked a question and you made a useless generalization that shows, more than anything else, that you don't understand your opposition's socioeconomic philosophy.

However, you are correct, currency is simply a tangible representation of value. Wealth is not a zero-sum game. Consider a screwdriver. Physically, this screwdriver is simply its raw materials. However, by organizing the materials in the right way, this screwdriver becomes more than the some of its parts and increases its value accordingly. Thus, by selling this screwdriver for its perceived value, one can create wealth in the difference of costs vs. revenue. Of course, a simplistic example, but one that answers the question fairly well.

Edit: Maybe I should cite pg and get on the bandwagon...

<comment><USER2> And, you are correct; I don't understand the socialist philosophy, it's incredibly illogical.

<comment><USER21> Ah, well, at least you associate "liberal" with socialist. Lots of progress made today...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Epicurus Matters Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.mantlethought.org/philosophy/why-epicurus-matters-today <comment><USER2> The way I differentiate Epicureanism from Hedonism is the difference between maximization and optimization. Hedonism seeks to achieve an absolute maximum pleasure, irrespective of the cost. Epicureanism seeks an overall optimized pleasant life. Hedonism is Max(pleasure). Epicureanism is the integral of pleasure over a lifetime.

Understanding it that way shows illustrates that a night of hedonistic heavy drinking, singing and dancing with friends, which may be a blast as it transpires, comes paired with a day of massive headache and lethargy.

Whereas a night spent watching a favorite film with a new friend, and discussing it's merits afterwards is followed the next day with reflecting on the discussions and further enjoying it. The experience may not have the intensity of the drinking, but I'm left with only positive memories, not a mix of pleasure and pain.

</comment><comment><USER3> I admire Epicurus for his many visionary ideas in several areas, but ultimately his philosophy rings hollow. Pleasure as an end in itself seems both circular and ultimately extremely dull. It's interesting that Epicurus condemns extreme hedonism, since I think the ultimate lesson one can get from it is the ultimate pointlessness of pleasure as an end in itself. Pleasure for its own sake is boring.

Epicureanism sort of strikes me as Buddhism without enlightenment-- all the moderation and Earthly wisdom but none of the transcendence. It seems like a sure fire evolutionary dead end in every respect.

<comment><USER4> I am going to do something different from the other comments here and I'm going to agree with you. The reason why most people will disagree with you is because most people are terrified of suffering. They can't see suffering as the thing that makes life interesting, for them everything good comes from pleasure which is a mute point. They expand the definition of pleasure until the point where no argument could be had.

But indeed suffering makes life interesting. I just saw Meru, a documentary of a group of Alpinists trying to climb a very difficult mountain. Most hedonist would explain their behaviour with some bullshit like: "They do it because they feel pleasure from it" Which is total nonsense, specially when you are aware of all the pain and suffering involved in climbing a big fucking mountain.

It wouldn't be much of a challenge without suffering, there wouldn't be a grand obstacle to overcome. You can get more pleasure to stay in your couch smoking weed, but climbing Meru makes life more interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the one and only thing that humans can derive pleasure from is progress. In order to progress, however, one has to continuously expand their limits and that is painful. So really (true, sustainable) pleasure and pain come hand in hand. The 'secret' to maximizing happiness is to avoid the pain that doesn't lead to progress.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Some ask whether it is worth studying ancient philosophy at all."

I'm one of those persons who thinks it is worthwhile to do so. Frederick Copleston's[1] _A History of Philosophy_ series[2] (the early volumes in this case) is a good resource for getting one's feet wet.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Philosophy_%28Cop...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Philosophy_%28Copleston%29)

<comment><USER7> Also strong recommendations: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (himself also more than worthwhile a read!)

<comment><USER8> From what I've read it's generally considered to be a very subjective work, and intentionally so. That said, I really liked it _because_ of this, as it leads to a coherent, 'fluid' progression.

I vaguely recall a chapter on one pretty important philosopher where Russell concludes with something close to 'obviously this guy is full of shit'.

<comment><USER9> Only one? He dissed Hume pretty badly, something along the lines of sorry you don't think the scientific method is internally self contained, but pragmatically it works pretty well, so WRT that definition of truth, oh well. Also, he actually Godwin'd Rousseau, although that's more claiming evil than claiming BS, plus or minus a worldview that evil is just successful BS... or is it? And the Dewey chapter isn't really a Dewey chapter but mostly is a rant on the evils of intellectual arrogance although I don't remember if he specifically attacked one individual, other than happening to locate that rant in what turned out to be the Dewey chapter. He was more or less complimentary or better on average to everyone else.

The great man theory of history is highly politically incorrect at this time, or maybe highly out of fashion, style, or fad. Yet its very popular when teaching the history of philosophy. Perhaps that says more about the validity of being anti-great man vs what it says about teaching philosophy. Still it would be interesting to identify "the best" non-great man philosophy book, assuming there are any good ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Combine all your store loyalty cards - <AUTHOR> http://www.justoneclubcard.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Note that this site also links you to another site that makes plastic cards. I like that site less because of its privacy policy.</comment>


Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber's Board - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-board-bill-gurley.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share <comment><USER3> For all the future founders on HN, the lesson here is to never do business with Bill Gurley. He's one of the reasons AngelList exists. I hope his lesser known reputation finally catches up with him and forces him out of Benchmark and out of the VC industry entirely.

The Ravikant v. Tolia (and Bill Gurley) Lawsuit: [http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravika...](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravikant_v_toli.html)

<comment><USER4> I've never heard of the guy, whats hew known for? Also what's wrong with angellist?

<comment><USER3> Everything you need to know is linked to on that page I linked to.

Nothing is wrong with AngelList. AngelList is great. It was Bill Gurley's slimey VC actions to conspire with Nirav Tolia against the other Epinions founders and early employees that led Naval Ravikant to found AngelList as an alternative to the VC system.

<comment><USER5> That article doesn't say much. Which link in it has the meat?

<comment><USER3> The first link which is the actual claim filed in a US court of law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks.

It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to do so. That would have made sense.

But instead they are getting flayed alive by not much more than bad press for being jerks. Makes no goddamn sense.

<comment><USER7> A jerk is someone who borrows your car and doesn't pay for the dent he puts in the bumper. What happened at Uber was the creation of one of the most insanely hostile work environments in living memory, where flouting not just the law, but also basic standards of human decency, was not only accepted but encouraged at all levels of the company.

<comment><USER8> So basically all investment banking divisions should be treated with the same regard?

I find it strange that we seem to give finance a pass when they've engaged in this sort of behavior for decades.

<comment><USER9> Do we actually give the finance industry a pass? The fact that "Wall st" is a pejorative these days is some indication that's not the case.

<comment><USER10> The fact that there are never any real consequences to Wall St actually tends to prove the opposite.

<comment><USER11> Wall St has deeply and thoroughly captured all of the regulatory agencies charged with overseeing it, as well as most of the powerful organs of government, and thus sits comfortably above the law.

<comment><USER12> But not above the ire of the media. The media is just as money-corruptible as every other business enterprise and it found a shiny new toy to play with with Uber. There are likely orders of magnitude more workplace culture issues in finance, yet the media has largely moved past lambasting financial firms for that because it doesn't earn them enough eyeballs. Uber is only getting more attention for something many many many businesses are guilty of (and to a far greater degree) because no other company is as lucrative to write about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm unsurprised. Kalanick has enough support on the board that I'd imagine they'd make it uncomfortable for Gurley to stay. The whole situation is fascinating as it has shown how important the soft power board members hold is. Strictly speaking, no one can force Kalanick or Gurley out, but out they are.

<comment><USER14> The reason they were fired was because this whole mess got a lot of publicity. If there was no publicity, nothing would have happened.

Ask Warren Buffett even he complains board members dont do much work they just blindly follow what the CEO says.

<comment><USER15> Maybe. There are also a couple lawsuits in the mix, and the harassment issue was a lot more than just press.

<comment><USER13> Yup. The Holder report seems scathing, too, from what little we've seen. I would think that everything we've seen would have lead to a significant down round if Kalanick hadn't resigned (we still probably will). Given Uber's lack of profits & burn rate, a down round could send them into a death spiral.

<comment><USER12> All that we've seen is a list of recommendations. How did you go from a list of recommendations with no explanation as to how each recommendation was arrived at to "seems scathing"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if Travis resigning was contingent on Bill Gurley leaving the board. As Bill seems to be the main anti-Travis actor on the board.

<comment><USER17> It's unclear if Gurley actually wants to leave the board. Part of me thinks that he knows something really bad is coming down the pipes (e.g. potential criminal liability re: Otto, etc) and he wants to distance himself now. It's half a conspiracy theory, but makes you think ...

<comment><USER18> It's got to be the Otto lawsuit, that's obviously coming, after Levandowski dropped the ball with that "plead the Fifth" stuff.

Even the Google network forensics team have him bang to rights[1] taking data while on-site at the campus, Google would be mental to not launch a volley and destroy a potential competitor in the process.

And you don't drop $680m on an acquisition without going through board approval first, surely? Somebody's definitely complicit.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-waymo-just-dropped- exp...](https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-waymo-just-dropped-explosive- lawsuit-uber-stealing-self-driving-tech/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can't imagine Uber doesn't start raising prices and drop out of markets they aren't profitable in.

No way they can bring in more investments (although maybe they could get a loan). Given the changes and their runway, I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.

<comment><USER20> Why do you think they can't get more investments? They just completed this report and now Travis is out; unless you have proof you can't say they _didn 't_ fix their issues. So not only have they shown concern to solving a major PR and culture issue but they're absolutely HUGE. If they IPO it could be an incredible exit.

Am I missing something? They seem far, far more investable now.

<comment><USER21> Yes, you're missing that this is all wish fulfillment doomsdayism. People are nursing some recreational outrage because of the revelations regarding Uber's culture. So now they all have a pet theory that Uber will fail. They're working backwards from what they _want_ to happen though, so their "theory" can explain anything: "Kalanick is a loose cannon who's going to run the company into the ground" _Kalanick steps down_ "They have no leadership, they'll close their doors in a week" etc.

<comment><USER22> you're acting like this is the start of the idea that perhaps the entire taxi industry is not worth what Uber is claiming, or that having a bunch of autonomous vehicles is probably hard for an iOS app company to manage, or that they ultimately have never proven they can keep drivers happy without subsidizing prices, or that they might not get huge backlash from legal action around driver status, or .....

There's an argument for Uber's eventual success, but there's a lot of stuff against it too. It's not an absurd theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wait so first he demands Kalanick resign, then he resigns? Did he burn all his bridges, or was there some strategy here?

<comment><USER24> Kalanick forced him to resign as a condition of him resigning

<comment><USER17> It's the f'ing House of Cards, but real life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Meanwhile all of the rank and file employees keep the lights on and the ship afloat. Wishing their on-call teams all the best.

</comment><comment><USER26> Could someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees? Drivers are not employees, there is no content to curate, no brick & mortar operations, the app and tech stack is pretty much developed and stable. Sure the Otto and UberEATS are part of that number but still. Did I miss something?

<comment><USER27> _Could someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees_

Because they can afford it and desperately want to grow. Let's say Uber operates in about 300 cities around the world and have their eyes on another 100. Dedicate an average of 3-4 people to grow and market your services in each city plus another 3 to handle local staffing, admin and regulatory issues and you're already at ~2500.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Finally! After years of assholes being assholes because it's not illegal to be assholes, now finally they are finding that there are repercussions.

if you piss off everyone, then you better hope like hell that you don't fall and need someone's help.

tldr: assholes.

<comment><USER29> Unfortunately, it seems the true lesson is "after years of being assholes, they get to go home with more money than many of us will ever see".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Hey, anyone remember how this company is supposed to run? Anybody? Wasn't ANYBODY here before? Hey, we're still worth $70 billion right?"

</comment><comment><USER31> How well is Garret Camp doing with running Expa?

</comment><comment><USER32> Uber is now more popcorn worthy than both HoC and Trump administration combined.

</comment><comment> V-eHGsd_ that person has been elected president.

<comment><USER33> Would you please not take HN threads on generic political tangents? They lead to flamewars and trainwrecks, as seen below. We're hoping for better than that here.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14609910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14609910) and marked it off-topic.

<comment> V-eHGsd_ pardon?

can you help me understand how my reply was off-topic given the question:

> As an analogy, take every major political scandal you can think of - <USER2> > Lewinsky, Watergate, Iran Contra, Chappaquiddick, etc - and imagine a single > elected official perpetrating them all within the course of a year. How do > you think they would be treated?

<comment><USER33> It's a matter of degree. At least the parent comment was loosely tied to the original topic, where yours went off the moorings altogether.

It's often a judgment call where to clip these threads, sort of like the temperature at which to save a boiling frog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Did he resign in a show of support for David Bonderman, because he thinks women talk too much too?

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if Kalanick saw the writing on the wall and is getting out of the way of the oncoming train wreck, in order to set up a Jobs-style comeback at some point...

<comment><USER36> Considering Kalanick was one of the people doing the writing I'm sure he did.</comment></comment>


Adobe reacts to Apple's about-face - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html

<comment><USER2> _Apple's restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place_

Yeah right. More like: Adobe's incapacity to build a suitable mobile Flash plugin, one that doesn't suck and which won't make the web experience feel like walking through molasses, remains in place.

<comment><USER3> The whole of iOS 4 running on my iPhone 3G feels like walking through molasses, so don't Apple hold themselves to the same bar?

(I haven't installed this week's firmware update yet. I hope that does in fact improve things)

<comment><USER4> (Yes, it does. You should install it.)

<comment><USER5> (But it's still slower than iOS 3, so consider downgrading/not bothering upgrading in the first place unless you really need the 1 or 2 features of iOS 4 that they actually provide to your phone)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surprisingly civil, for all the fun that was occurring earlier. It's probably the best statement they can make on this.

<comment><USER7> Except for the fact that they're still blaming Apple for lack of Flash in the browser.

<comment><USER8> They can't go without mentioning it, though, and they can't exactly say "But remember, there's still no Flash in the browser, because we haven't yet made a plugin that works well." This really was the best statement they could make. (That said, I think the claims of how bad the mobile plugin is are drastically overblown -- it works nicely on my Droid)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apple still call the tune here, and can bring in further anti-Flash restrictions at any time they choose, retrospectively if they want. However, it's completely worth Adobe's while to react immediately in this fashion. That seems scary to me.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, Apple doesn't have to approve apps written in Flash. Moreover, users that find a Flash app wanting can give it a negative rating.

<comment><USER11> Actually, unless it sucks they pretty much have to - otherwise the backslash against them is going to be way bigger than it was last time.

And yes, users can give apps they don't like a bad rating, but that is something they can do no matter what language or framework the app is written in.

Finally, there is no reason to expect that an App written in flash is a priori inferior to one written in objective c; especially not as a developer of a higher level language can spend more time matching the capabilities of his app to the expectations of its users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is an interesting comment:

 _"Looks like the new policy would allow to have VM included in the app itself. Why not focus instead on the VM instead of this as3 to native code conversion (sure the innovation in one can already help the other but still it's the VM which since in need of a bit more love)."_ [1]

Now that Apple allows interpreters (as long as they run code packaged embedded in the app), I wonder if this approach would be easier for Adobe to maintain than the AS3-to-assembly compilation they do now. Arbitrary SWFs could be paired as data with a standard interpreter app.

EDIT: I suppose this would make the packager a lot more like AIR for Android( <http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/android/>).

[1]: [http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news- for-...](http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for- developers.html#comment-1250)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Adobe posted a packager refresher for iPhone.

"Now that we are once again committed to the iOS platform, we will work on tools and frameworks to make developing iOS applications much easier. I'm currently using early versions of these projects for Android development, and they are extremely easy to use and help to create a very efficient developer workflow."

[http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/archives/2010/09/packager- fo...](http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/archives/2010/09/packager-for-iphone- refresher.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> "Adobe will continue to work to bring full web browsing with Flash Player 10.1"

So, according to Adobe, by browsing with flash disabled, I'm missing out on the full web experience?

Funny, I don't notice anything missing except a crapton of ads.

On another note, I do hope that browsers will add the option to selectively enable/disable html5 audio/video, because that'll also get rid of ads coming in the future.</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg's multi-account password was 'dadada' - <AUTHOR> https://thestack.com/security/2016/06/06/zuckerberg-dadada-linkedin-ourmine-breach/ <comment><USER2> That'll be an excellent example on many security talk slides in the future (PW strength, reuse of PWs, salting)

They probably could have made some money by combining some day trading of FB stock with a well timed announcement of resignation due to health concerns or something. Announce, anticipate drop, buy...leak it was fake, sell. Or whatever else you can come up with with some thinking. [maybe not because he'd post that on FB]

<comment><USER3> I don't understand your logic.

"If you're going to trespass on someone's property you might as well deface it and steal some of their stuff"

I am not a lawyer but I could see password breaching in the interest of white hat security could be is looked an a lot differently by the courts than what you're suggesting

<comment><USER2> I believe the passwords came from the 2012 LinkedIn breach and was referring to the original criminals. If you have the criminal energy to steal that data you might as well use it. I don't think there was anything white hat about that incident.

<comment><USER4> _> If you have the criminal energy to steal that data you might as well use it. _

No no no. Any self-respecting criminal will not gain directly from a break-in, but rather sell the goods on to someone with a credible laundering story (or at least someone who will put further space between him and the goods).

<comment><USER5> > Any self-respecting criminal will not gain directly from a break-in, but > rather sell the goods on to someone with a credible laundering story

I think that contains a contradiction.

<comment><USER4> ok, "will not gain _from directly leveraging goods acquired in a break-in against the same victims of such break-in_ ". Thieves usually don't try to sell your TV back to you, and the ones who do are widely mocked.

But you know what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "No Facebook systems or accounts were accessed… The affected accounts have been re-secured."

Sounds to me like they weren't very secure to begin with. So they would be "secured" now, not "re-secured". It's crap like this that makes me miss George Carlin.

</comment><comment><USER7> All I can think of is that song... Ich lieb' dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht. Da da da.

</comment><comment><USER8> So the combination is... da, da, da? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

<comment><USER9> da, da, da?

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

<comment><USER10> An infant could have come up with that combination!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As soon as I saw the password I wondered if Mark was left-handed.

Turns out I was spot on: a bit of googling revealed he was.

<comment><USER12> I'm a southpaw myself, and therefore quite biased, but I've always been struck by the prevalence of CEOs, Presidents, notable scientists, etc. that I have met who are fellow lefties. Don't have a p-value, but it seems much higher than the ambient (~10%) rate.

For instance, for the last 4-5 years in our computational science research group, we have been sitting pretty steadily near 50%.

<comment><USER13> Selection bias? There are some studies indicating left-handed children tend to score lower ( _on average_ ) on IQ, verbal scores, etc: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16643966](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16643966) (Edit: Seems the IQ difference varies between studies and is negligible, if even exists.)

Hypothesis is that left-handedness can be caused by early brain trauma, so if "lefties" are disproportionately represented in such positions, the ones with non-pathological causes would seem to have an even bigger advantage over the right-handed to make up for the lower mean. Or perhaps it's associated with other talents that make up for the deficits. (Edit: Wikipedia seems to support this - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness#Intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness#Intelligence))

Or perhaps the research conclusions are just wrong.

<comment><USER14> It's possible for both phenomena to coexist. Extreme case: Suppose 95% of left-handers are low-functioning, and 5% of them are INCREDIBLY high- functioning. You'd then have them simultaneously overrepresented in top positions AND scoring lower on IQ, verbal scores, etc.

If true (in a less extreme sense), I imagine it would be vaguely correlated with post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. Some of the most amazing people humanity has produced went through unimaginable suffering. And yet the vast majority of people who go through hideous suffering end up dysfunctional.

So it's something like– most people with a disadvantage get messed up, but the few who manage to overcome it, manage to overcompensate dramatically.

<comment><USER12> > You'd then have them simultaneously overrepresented in top positions AND > scoring lower on IQ, verbal scores, etc.

Yep... you can have distributions with identical means, and fatter tails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842635)

</comment><comment><USER16> Ich lieb dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht. Da da da!

(am I the only one who remembers Trio of their song that VW used in ads a few years ago?)

<comment><USER17> Don't know about the ad, but I remember the 80's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "...though at $50 a claimant, no-one stood to be much enriched out of the settlement..."

The lawyers must find that mildly amusing.

<comment><USER19> How do I go about claiming my $50?

<comment><USER20> You file the claim form and submit it before May of last year... But you also had to have paid for LinkedIn premium for to be eligible.

Source: www.linkedinclassactionsettlement.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> relevant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm waiting for the dadada t-shirt. :D

<comment><USER23> Here you go [http://www.zazzle.com/dadada_tee_shirt-235801669209689823](http://www.zazzle.com/dadada_tee_shirt-235801669209689823)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Since when has SHA1 been crackable in three days? AFAIK with proper passwords SHA1 is nearly impossible to crack. Did I get something wrong? Salting does make the process slower with bad passwords, but with good ones there's very little difference. Just my gut feeling.

<comment><USER25> It seems like it's easy to find collisions from the hash.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.h...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html)

<comment><USER26> Yes, here is more info on SHA1 being broken.

[https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3690/no- sha-1-col...](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3690/no- sha-1-collision-yet-sha-1-is-broken)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about his Pinterest and Twitter accounts. He created them to scope out the competition and doesn't care if they get compromised. That's why his Instagram didn't get affected; he does care about that one (or at least somebody on the team of people he employs to protect the security of his websites does).

Now, I'll bet the lesson Zuck takes away from this is actually that other people care more about his Pinterest than he does (e.g. If John Doe sees Zuck pin something John may be much more likely to check that product out).

<comment><USER28> So the takeaway is to use a fake name as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am using that password for dummy accounts (internal) all the time. As an Eastern European it means something in the language (yes). What does it mean in English?

<comment><USER30> I am not aware of any meaning in English

<comment><USER31> Was ist los mit dir, mein Schatz?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> As long as we have way too many unnecessary passwords, this will happen.

Merchants have figured this out. Many now allow purchases without creating an account (no doubt also because if people have to create another password, some will just abandon the purchase.)

I was reading about the Eero router. They figured this out. They get the user's phone number and send a token by text.

Passwords are horrible for usage and horrible for security. Just horrible all around.

</comment><comment><USER33> How is that possible? Many systems require at least 1 digit, and/or at least an uppercase character.

<comment><USER34> Yes. _These_ days they do. It wasn't so in the past. Look at how many times the four-letter sequence "asdf" shows up in password dumps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Its kinda hard to believe that he used "dadada" as a password. Anyone who have a bit of understanding about how passwords are cracked would never use such a sloppy password. And he had one password for all the social accounts? Ew... How could he be so stupid?

</comment><comment><USER36> Maybe ahahah is another password - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg)

</comment><comment><USER37> I think he was paying to someone else to manage his media.

</comment><comment><USER38> Makes me wonder how securely passwords were stored when he first opened Facebook to colleges.

</comment><comment><USER39> And see here I was about to go and change all my passwords...

</comment><comment><USER40> still better than me ... abc123

</comment><comment><USER41> haha easy to remember..

</comment><comment><USER42> Daddy issues?

</comment><comment><USER43> Memes are coming...

</comment><comment><USER44> to which I say "hahaha"

In all seriousness, many people choose shit passwords for the accounts they don't care about. I'm sure Mark's password for his admin account on fb is probably harder to guess.

<comment><USER45> dadada1

<comment><USER46> Which raises the entropy from 2^6 (64) to 3^7 (2187)! An increase by over 3000%! So much more secure!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Well...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7abNYC0KQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7abNYC0KQI)

</comment><comment><USER48> I had no idea he was into avant-garde art!

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

</comment><comment><USER49> Everyone who works at Facebook should watch out right now. Endgame Systems (CIA) is trying to hack profiles right not to terrorize people. This is only the beginning.</comment>


The half-life of WordPress code - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yoavfarhi.com/2016/12/06/half-life-wordpress-code/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to get a thoughtful explanation for mid-2012, I understand it as a rewrite + removing "wrong" design decisions made in 2009.</comment>


Compress the route between ports up to 94% with Ramer–Douglas–Peucker - <AUTHOR> https://www.notion.so/portcast/Compress-the-route-between-ports-up-to-94-with-Ramer-Douglas-Peucker-27e0252497344072bc6064db35beb275 <comment><AUTHOR> Compress the route between ports up to 94% with Ramer–Douglas–Peucker</comment>


With ingestible pill, you can track fart development in real time on your phone - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/with-ingestible-pill-you-can-track-fart-development-in-real-time-on-your-phone/ <comment><USER2> fart development, like front-end development moves fast with lots of different farts being developed, leading to fart fatigue.</comment>


Book Summary: Blitzscaling, by Reid Hoffman - <AUTHOR> https://www.allencheng.com/blitzscaling-reid-hoffman-pdf-summary/ <comment><USER2> Except for Google, Apple, and Microsoft (all of which give me good value for my money for GSuite, books, movies, gear, compute services) I am kind down on mega corporations right now.

As a result I am more inspired right now by books like A Company of One than by books like Blitzscaling. As consumers and business people I think it is in our interests to favor small local businesses. We do vote with our wallets and can have some affect on the future of business.

</comment><comment><USER3> You don't need to buy the book. It's very simple: create a product that people really LOVE. Word of mouth will boost and sustain your growth >10% week-over- week. It's really that simple of a logic. The hard part is just moving up your ass and talking to users :).

<comment><USER4> That's not how LinkedIn grew. It grew via user-hostile patterns like emailing everyone's contact lists on their behalf to sign up.

<comment><USER5> I was about to say the same and add: is there anyone who actually _loves_ LinkedIn?</comment></comment></comment>


PayPal abruptly cuts off Pornhub's payroll - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20965167/paypal-pornhub-payroll-model-program-payment-options-paxum-verge-performers <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21538460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21538460).

<comment><USER3> Thank you for being fair. I realize you didn't have to be.

I hope you're doing well. Attempting to replicate HN helped me appreciate just how much work you put in each day. Take care.</comment></comment>