Ask HN: I make $30k/month thanks to Bitcoin. What should I do? - <AUTHOR> I am not here for boasting, but my question is purposefully meant to be provocative.
I used to be one of the biggest Bitcoin miners, back when the difficulty level was low enough that CPU mining was the norm. These days people mine with video cards but I am mostly out of the game...
Anyway, I have accumulated enough Bitcoins (73k BTC) and the exchange rate has skyrocketed so much ($27/BTC as I am typing) that I am currently selling on a daily basis as many as possible via MtGox. They have a limit of $1000/day, so I am effectively making $30k/month. (I do plan to report this income to the IRS and am about to hire a tax accountant.)
But the question I have asked myself is: what should I do with that money? Or what would you do if you were in my situation? I am a typical geek with a successful technical career: well-paid Senior Developer position, as an H1B visa holder, working for a large US company. I enjoy my job, but to be truthful I have always wanted to found a startup. However, as an H1B holder, I cannot start a company in the US.
If I quit my job I will be bored and run out of money after a few years.
If I return to my home country to found the startup I will regret the opportunities I may have in the US.
If I keep my current job I will regret the opportunities of not starting a startup today. <comment><USER2> Keep cashing out until you have enough BTC to fund your start-up, don't act as if you had a million dollars, because you still don't have them.

It's hard not to have ideas for startups based on Bitcoins honestly.

You may be interested in putting some of the money you are making into ensuring Bitcoin is a success. For example, at the moment I think that MtGox predominance in the market is a bad thing for the future of Bitcoin.

Also, don't give BTC to people who just ask for them, like me: 1BNbVQBhfb8G4yG81bbcXWQmt7uDLrVrk3

</comment><comment><USER3> If I were in your shoes, I'd hold a rolling percentage based on market performance and cash out via alternate channels than just MtGox 1k USD limits, you can likely find some reliable channels for conversion into alternate stores of value. I believe the #bitcoin-otc channel on freenode has cryptographically signed rep tracking systems for the market participants there, and if you can provide btc they probably would be only too happy to accommodate your desire to liquidate to a less volatile store of value.

When you finally have your wealth sorted, enter negotiations with your employer from a position of strength. If you really do actually like your job and think what you're doing is important, maybe see if you can roll some wealth into the business as an investor as well as an employee providing yourself with a motivation boost in performance in the process. If you don't like your job perhaps negotiating better conditions or conditions more suited to pursuing your own business interests is a better path.

With your experience in the bitcoin markets you might also be in a position to simply finance a really good bitcoin focused startup. I had an idea that I was going to try for myself but turns out I don't have the capital necessary to do so, so you're welcome to it if you like;

Create a superfluid buying agent consisting of two components, a basic exchange service like MtGox that cashes btc to a fiat currency on the backend, and frontend merchant widgets that update a given fiat currency price displayed in BTC to the actual user. This would give your users the ability to shop on any traditional internet shopping site and pay with btc transparently, you would assumedly implement the dynamic pricing in btc using a browser plugin of some description.

Further automate your trades so if the market is rising you hold btc, if it's falling you instantly liquidate to fiat for your received btc. It turns out to be basically a transparent way to accrue more btc in an upwards moving market and act as a fee charging instant electronic funds transfer provider in a downwards moving market. The dynamic pricing protects you from the volatility in the exchange rates.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck, and congratulations on spotting an early opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest finding a start up you like or other partners in whatever your interests are and then investing in them through phatom shares (consult a lawyer, its a fairly new construct).

You mentioned wanting to start a company with the money so find co-founders. From there create an operating agreement and register the company in a legal way that you can be an employee and owner (Inc, c-Corp etc). Obviously you will need to get a lawyer to do the appropriate wrangling but there are many ways to do this. Phantom shares, options etc.

Alternatively, you could do what one multi-national investor I know did and turn yourself into a company and sell shares of yourself to other investors. From there you can start up subsidiaries in whatever country through whatever standard private company (Inc, C-Corp) legal forms are permissible for a multinational to set up subsidiaries. Again consult appropriate lawyers, but I do know it is possible. This guy runs investment firms in India and America and has companies that run all over the place. It is possible when you have the money to do it. And if you want to create value its a good way to go if you find you have a nose for investments/opportunities.

Best of luck and congratulations on your new found wealth.

</comment><comment><USER5> For 5%, I'll dump $1,000/day on MtGox and send you the balance. Feel free to e-mail me.

</comment><comment><USER6> I believe you can cash out faster than that, if you go through an identity verification procedure, but I don't know the details. Send the MtGox administrators an inquiry.

You are now at the point of having no need to work, ever again, as long as you don't squander your wealth. Your first priority is to enjoy life - do whatever you enjoy most, without regard for whether it pays. If you'd rather have your current job than have an equal amount of free time, keep it. On the other hand, you can fit a lot of hobbies and socializing into the time a day job would have taken. Whatever you do, don't sit idle, that's less fun than you'd think.

You can probably find a way to found a startup in spite of your visa status; talk to a lawyer, you can afford it. Depending on what skills you have, there are a lot of nonprofits that would love to have you - and one great thing about volunteering is that, unlike working for money, it doesn't have to come with obligations or time commitments if you don't want them. Visiting the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (singinst.org) would probably be a great use of your time.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to maintain your wealth... I'd suggest cashing out as fast as you can.

Sure, things may go well and prices may rise more. But it's only a matter of time before governments start going after BitCoin.

Oh, wait. That started yesterday: [http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/08/government-crackdown-on- bi...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/08/government-crackdown-on-bitcoin/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I just watched some chart on bitcoincharts.com and considering what happened in june price-wise i'd suggest you to convert them in $ ASAP :) (lot of suggestions on alternative channels here).

Regarding the startup, money is not an issue, why not go back to your country for a while and then come back to the US opening your startup with an e-2 visa ($50000 minimum investment and if you want you can also be an employee somewhere else, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa>) (IANAL)?

I read something about this visa somewhere, if it really works as it seems it could be perfect for you. The immigration layer someone else recommended should be able to assist with this. Good luck, btw.

(Quite funny that nearly everyone is posting his bitcoin address, guys, it's time to buy some GPUs :D) (or ... what come next in bitcoin mining? memristors?)

</comment><comment><USER9> While none of us can predict the future - I think it would be silly at this point to think of BTC as anything but a fairly high-risk investment right now. Assuming you can live off this for years and not work is a very dangerous assumption. I'm not knocking on bitcoin - I think it has great potential, and some interesting things are going to happen - it's a game changer - but you need to think more near term.

Given the current values (and remember, i'ts a market) - figure out the best way to dump it on a schedule - faster than you are now, and the tax implications.

Then, just figure out what that unexpected money means to you and your life - nobody else can tell you that.

Me, personally (and I'm not you, probably not your age, etc) I'd just stick it all in the bank and keep on trucking for a while, knowing I have an awesome cushion of cash in the bank.

</comment><comment><USER10> You have more options! I think you should probably keep your job for a while with the plan to start a startup in the USA as soon as you have your visa issues sorted out or find a hot fiancée. At the current rate, you can easily have the beyond $1MM net worth where a good immigration lawyer can just make your startup visa issues easily ok. Plan on doing exactly what you want to do and live the life you want to live! Feel free to email me off-site.

Can you spare some Bitcents for this non-profit I volunteer for? Maybe you can find an accountant that thinks anonymous Bitcoin donations are tax deductible. :D

1NsFNk9nq8h5XnzHLdwLL7ysK63F69NJt4

<http://singinst.org/donate/>

</comment><comment><USER11> >If I quit my job I will be bored and run out of money after a few years. >If I return to my home country to found the startup I will regret the opportunities I may have in the US. >If I keep my current job I will regret the opportunities of not starting a startup today.

First, you should decide what you want. What you _really_ want. It may take weeks, months and even years, but there is no other way if you want to live your life without regret.

Don't ask others what should you do with money. Spend them on your goal. Your goal, not others goal.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe this will help: [http://k9ventures.com/blog/2009/09/24/my-story-and- support-f...](http://k9ventures.com/blog/2009/09/24/my-story-and-support-for- the-founders-visa/)

And, always good to contact an immigration lawyer to know exactly what you are legally allowed to do (I guess you can afford one now).

There was another thing I was reading about a while ago (but no sure what the case is with that), which states that you can get a special visa if you open up your own company (as an immigrant) which hires more than 5 people.

</comment><comment><USER13> Like someone said, you can find people to buy BTC with Dwolla in the #bitcoin- otc channel on freenode. The order book doesn't show much now but you might still find people there willing to buy if you want more cash sooner and more safely than paypal.

Do you have an idea you are set on? I am kicking myself today because I sold most of my few hundred bitcoins right before the market went nuts. I would love to have a technical cofounder and/or a small amount of seed money if you would consider me.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think to really discuss this you should send me enough coins to get a return flight to hang out with you for a while, I'm an awesome guy and totally fun to hang out with. The first step is to party hard for a few days then we can settle down and talk about all the concepts I have in mind, of which there are many. I'm sure that within 5 days we can have some completely bullet proof ideas nailed down! :) 1Nv3ovJQJ3xnNkJUiLBdVW1LmLszoxYJe5

<comment><USER14> If you don't decide to send me a load of bitcoins I will say that you should consider investing in robotics startups. It's a burgeoning industry which has a lot of growth projections and great social paybacks too.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To clarify, I don't actually think I will eventually run out of Bitcoin wealth, as I expect their value to keep increasing (unless Bitcoin crashes).

I am simply cashing out as fast as I can, in the short term, in order to diversify my wealth across BTC and USD to spread risk. I own the equivalent of $2 million in Bitcoins, so I would probably want to sell a quarter or a third of that.

<comment><USER15> sell me.

send me 20 BTC to 172LLtd45L9AunPJBWWsf3D15UeqMidqxZ and I will paypal you 538$ right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, it is too much hassle to deal with individual sales, making sure the guy is not a PayPal scammer, etc. Selling in a mostly automated way via MtGox is just fine for me.

<comment><USER15> that's too bad. fwiw, i AM legit.

it's just that i am sitting in .de and my bank wont let me transfer € to mtgox (been trying sine BTC was at 11, sniff).

worth a try, i guess. let me know if you change your mind, i would greatly! appreciate and pledge a 0,1BTC donation to bitcoinfaucet if you do^^

shameless plug [or you could just buy some gold: <http://bitcoincommodities.wordpress.com>] /shameless plug

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wanted to buy bitcoins last week when the rate was 9,5 $ I did a transaction to MtGox via my bank, and today, 8 days later, the payment still hasn't been processed, my bank usually takes 10 days apparently. But today the price has soared to 26 $ I was planning to buy 25 BTC, but now I probably can't do that anymore.

If you feel generous, 1Mgem1HSyeigrzaBajR3RHnC3qXUQd2LLs :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well done!!

I am looking at raising some funds to develop this idea:

[http://www.bitrific.com/2011/05/summery-simple-startup- idea-...](http://www.bitrific.com/2011/05/summery-simple-startup-idea- employing.html)

"for webmasters and writers to collect and present summaries of articles to help solve the 'tl;dr' problem"

Does it interest you?

</comment><comment><USER18> Blow and hookers.

Seriously though, I'd just cash out and keep your job. I'd also freeze around 80% of the money, so that you're not tempted to spend it all at once but still have play money. Have you attempted to get American citizenry? That would straighten out the main tangle there.

</comment><comment><USER19> You _could_ make a donation to existing startups that make free software, such as 1NcfPAHFnkvfgXi5avF3pHDbT7FT85K4zb

(Taken from <http://neosmart.net/donations.php>)

</comment><comment><USER15> well.. if you'd like to get rid of them faster, sell me some (20 BTCs, or so) via PayPal. maybe I can get one of my US friends to direct transfer. being serious, as noone else seems to be selling and i cant access mtgox. if you'd like, contact me on firstname.lastname@example.com

that said, i'd prolly cash out half and start a mining pool. get a garage/basement, invest 10k in some serious GPU shit and get at it. with the prices continuing to go up, you should come out ahead.

<comment><USER20> Do you realize that " get a garage/basement, invest 10k in some serious GPU shit and get at it. with the prices continuing to go up, you should come out ahead." is not real value creation and goes in face of Economics 101? If people can make money out of nothing, I'd say it is a bubble which will eventually pop.

<comment><USER3> Assuming the commodity has value, it's effectively the same as gold mining, it's just that the work is completely automated. The only "money being made out of nothing" is due to quantitative easing in fiat currencies. Bitcoins must be mined, and currently at least the setup and administration necessary to pull that off in a way with decent returns is out of the reach of almost all people (not necessarily people here, though).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Since you want to stay in the US, you should investigate the various visa possibilities there. Spend some money (few K) on an immigration laywer.

</comment><comment><USER22> The great part about bit coins is there is no FTC oversight, making pump-and- dump schemes very easy.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow, suddenly bitcoin sounds appealing. Is it to late to join the party?

</comment><comment><USER24> well, you probably should get a place for many computers (good aircondition), computers with low end cpus, but a few really good graphic cards inside and mine again. Then with the leftover you could start a startup, make websites or host them, or you could donate them to some great open source projects you rely on.

<comment><USER25> He can't sell his bitcoins fast enough... Mining for more after it has gotten exponentially less lucrative seems rather myopic on your part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hi,

Would you ever invest in bitcoin related startups?

If so email me firstname.lastname@example.com

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER27> I understand your problem and there are indeed multiple options for you. You should definitly not see this as a problem but as an opportunity! However, if you decide to keep living like now, and you do not wish to use that money for the moment, I suggest you put it in an investment (such as bonds) were you cannot easily withdraw the money. This is because otherwise you would be quickly tempted to use the money for your daily problems you would normally solve otherwise. So if you want to continue living like you did before, make sure the money is frozen or something but still invested so it doesn't use it's value over time (inflation). To make your decision, you should look into the options. First, do a lot, I mean really a lot of research on founding a startup. How much work is it? What will your life look like when you have a startup? Which things will you miss that you have now? Write down some pro's and con's.

My perspective is that you do want to continue living like you live now. If you are happy with your job, stay there for now, because it is not easy to find a good job. Also you can get a lot of xp and grow. You can have oppurtunities like you say and you will make a carrier. Something to be proud of. When you outgrow that job, you can think of your own business.

Of course I want to suggest to you to help me carry the burden and give me some of that large amount. It would be a nice reward for this advice, but I do not want anything in return for this, I give it to you unconditionally. However I do find myself in need of €2,500 to pursue my own dream. I do have a dream, and it is now that I have the chance to make it real. That is because now I do have time and I'm young, if I wait to long, I will end up in this society witouth any prospects and live a normal live. So if you are open to investing in someone's dream, please feel free to do so. I know this is what I want deep in side and will make me happy. Donation can be done on this adress: 1Q5JMqpGcGo7cz7eqrhuivyLsSCzTY9CQ5 I thank you in advance and I hope you can use my advice. If you need anything else ask me here.</comment>


Odo: Shapeshifting for your data - <AUTHOR> http://odo.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ <comment><USER2> Very nice. Having a one-line wrapper for the fast, native ways to do bulk data import for databases is fantastic on its own: [http://odo.readthedocs.io/en/latest/perf.html](http://odo.readthedocs.io/en/latest/perf.html)

I ended up learning how to do this from the various SQL shells. But, that was a bit of a cognitive load, especially when the CSV files were complicated. AFAIK, for example, SQLite won't properly ignore commas in quoted fields, so you have to throw in an extra utility (like csvkit) to change the delimiter before importing into SQLite.

sidenote: through Odo's homepage, I discovered this amazing library for generating network graph diagrams, NetworkX: [http://networkx.github.io/](http://networkx.github.io/)

<comment><USER3> NetworkX is very powerful, however for more hands-on network graph diagrams (perhaps more art than science) I rely heavily on [http://gephi.org](http://gephi.org).

(Here's my Gephi map of NSFW subreddits according to their links to each other: [http://electronsoup.net/nsfw_subreddits/](http://electronsoup.net/nsfw_subreddits/))

<comment><USER2> Nice! Have definitely heard of Gephi but haven't made an effort to use it, out of reluctance to learn a new GUI/system and how I rarely ever try to solve problems that require graph analysis. For that subreddit visualization, how much data prep/wrangling did you do (after making the API requests of course) before you worked with the data in Gephi?

<comment><USER3> Not too bad. I just had to get it in the format of one line per source-target pair. The data came from /u/uglyasblasphemy in SQL format though apparently he's removed the link. Most of the fun was in arranging nodes with the move tool. With the layout I used (Fruchterman-Reingold) the nodes form a circle and you can pick up clusters and move them where you want them. Useful to make things more meaningful to the eye, if probably less mathematically correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a great tool. I'm going to bookmark odo's homepage so that I don't have to wait three seasons to find it again.

<comment><USER5> Bigger nerd? You for making that joke, me for getting it.

<comment><USER6> Statistically it was likely that at least one person in this audience would get it. Therefore I think that OP wins this nerd throwdown.

Full disclosure: I still don't.

<comment><USER7> Throw us a clue?

<comment><USER2> Odo is the name of a shapeshifter on Star Trek: Deep Space 9, who doesn't know his origins or homeworld until around season 3. I guess the homeworld isn't revisited as a major plot point until season 6? I don't remember...seasons 6 and 7 were honestly kind of a blur for me.

[http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Odo](http://memory- alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Odo)

<comment><USER8> I think prior to season 6, the Klingons and Romulans tried to destroy the Dominion by taking out Odo's homeworld in a sneak attack. Odo's people turned out to be the rulers of a large empire that sought to conquer solids (non- shapeshifters).

<comment><USER9> Cardassians, not Klingons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does it have to travel to its homeworld to learn the full range of its shapeshifting abilities?

<comment><USER11> Yes, and it also has to be electrocuted repeatedly before it runs for the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also today is the 23rd anniversary of the premiere of DS9.

<comment><USER13> I love how more DS9 community got sparked to life after Netflix decided put it up.

<comment><USER14> TNG and DS9 being on Netflix is the very reason I signed up and stayed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've loved the idea of Odo since I first saw it, but I've always been wary: the devil is in the details. I'm curious when and how information gets lost during each transfer because of the peculiarities of each format, or how those decisions are made and exposed.

Min/max limits, truncation nulls, floating point precision, encodings, picking CHAR vs VARCHAR or string vs categorical, metadata like indices, etc are some of the hard problems behind bulk loading.

</comment><comment><USER16> Very nice! I have been working on a similar library in Swift [1] which does this, but also has a nice user interface on Mac and (soon) iOS [2]. Coincidentally also uses a Star Trek themed name :-)

[1] [http://github.com/pixelspark/warp](http://github.com/pixelspark/warp) [2] [https://warp.one](https://warp.one)

<comment><USER17> Neat! Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think Odo is more general, though, in that you don't need to pass data through any sort of unified Dataset protocol: there's a graph of direct translators between formats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I use odo a lot to take any data source into pandas or blaze and it's been great so far. For my it's the lazy and easy way of moving data around.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wish it supported large csv to partitioned parquet. THAT is something I need a good solution for.

<comment><USER20> Are you familiar with fastparquet ([https://github.com/dask/fastparquet](https://github.com/dask/fastparquet)) and pyarrow ([https://pyarrow.readthedocs.io/en/latest](https://pyarrow.readthedocs.io/en/latest)) ?

<comment><USER21> Your link is malformed. [https://github.com/dask/fastparquet](https://github.com/dask/fastparquet)

<comment><USER21> ...and its fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh my god it looks beautiful</comment>


The SCUMM Diary: Stories behind one of the greatest game engines ever made - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/196009/the_scumm_diary_stories_behind_.php

<comment><USER2> This has already been discussed today, the other entry is still on the HN home page right now.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6301050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6301050)

</comment><comment><USER3> Single page version: [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/196009/the_scumm_diary...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/196009/the_scumm_diary_stories_behind_.php?print=1)</comment>


Ask HN: Why all websites are not statically generated? - <AUTHOR> I want to know the different reasons as to why you may still use dynamic page generators as opposes to static web generators like Jekyll, Hugo and Lektor?<p>Don't statically generated sites save a lot of computational resources? <comment><USER2> If you only did not need to deal with people who are not developers or techies, then perhaps. But words like "Jekyll", "Hugo" and "Lektor" don't mean anything to a lot of people who own and run websites.

A lot of websites are powered by WordPress. Most of the users who run those sites don't even know the difference between Static and Dynamic (I explain this all the time to clients). They don't care. They just want their website to work.

</comment><comment><USER3> I tried Pelican for my blog a while back, and the biggest problem was that I'd forget the syntax of the blog file, and the sequence of actions needed to publish it, if I went more than a day between blog posts. Useful for a professional blogger, I suppose, but not for the casual user. Also, quite complex code to understand, debug, and tweak, compared to the elegance and simplicity of a Flask or even (gasp) PHP webpage.

I have thought, recently, about the possible utility of a _dynamic-site generator_ for things like CMS or even ERP. Imagine you are designing an open source ERP to be customized for different companies. Instead of having sensible tables like "customers", "products", "orders", etc., you have these weird higher-level "table" tables to allow different users to customize their own schemas.

Maybe what you could do to simplify this is create a _generator_ that spits out _dynamic_ sites without the overly abstract data model...

</comment><comment><USER4> Imagine you have a news web site with decades of news articles. You add a new article, which changes the "Top articles" section on a side bar. With a static generator, you would need to rebuild every single article, which may take minutes or even longer, using both CPU and disk I/O.

With a dynamic generator, you might maintain a cache of the latest articles somewhere, and stitch it into another cached copy of the newspaper section chrome, and then insert the content. It might be more CPU in total, but the changes are live faster, and the total disk I/O would be much lower.

Also, you'd need more disk space with a static generator.

For most simple sites and blogs, there's no real resource use regenerating the entire site, so you get all the benefits of the static generator, and almost none of the drawbacks.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think in general we can classify websites into 3 categories: static sites with no dynamic content, static sites with dynamic content (through, for example, REST API calls), and non-static sites (where the delivered HTML/front-end code is server-generated).

When there is no dynamic content, using a static site tends to make the most sense. For example, a WordPress site with no moving parts (i.e. no comments) can be easily converted into a purely static site, though adding a cache in front achieves basically the same result.

Things get more complicated when a site or app needs dynamic content. Using API calls, the server doesn't need to generate the HTML every time, but performance-wise, you would also need to factor in the additional round-trips performed to fetch the data.

</comment><comment><USER6> Because data is rarely static.

In the instance where data changes rarely, static output can be cached, but you still need a way to generate the output dynamically.

</comment><comment><USER7> Put a cache in front of a dynamically generated page and you have a static page again.

Now... when should the cache expire?

<comment><USER8> Manually or automatically upon update of the website?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd say it's a mix of laziness and convenience. Unfortunately this results on 3.5 MB pages that take ages to load, and then publishers wonder why the user is blocking scripts and ads...

</comment><comment><USER10> Just compare the typical process for deploying a Jekyll website vs. the "one- click-installer" most hosting providers have for WordPress.

</comment><comment><USER11> Most websites are not constantly changing and would benefit from static hosting.

I guess the dynamic page generators are simpler.

You need to change a lot of the static generators for custom solutions. A lot of tinkering is involved.</comment>


Where to start for learning Robotics? - <AUTHOR> Hi I am a full stack developer building web application for past 8 years. I want to move to systems programming and eventually work on Robotics. I know the field huge and the scope of the question is too broad. I want to start and eventually figure out what specific field i want to  pursue in Robotics. I have an electronics background so circuits are not new for me. I love programming over mathematical modeling so i am not looking at AI/machine learning as of now. I am confused on where to start. As of now i focussed on learning systems programming. <comment><USER2> I am the first to admit I don't know much about the field. However, I did notice this last week, when looking to skill up. Would love to here the jury out there on whether it's useful? [https://www.udacity.com/course/robotics- software-engineer--n...](https://www.udacity.com/course/robotics-software- engineer--nd209)

<comment><USER3> I'm not a roboticist, but have some familiarity with the field. This looks to be a practical course covering the more important topics in high level robotics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Start with figuring out whether you want to buy a robot platform and go from there for learning resources or whether you want to build from the ground up. If you buy a robot platform, you'll be jumping right into the advanced topics if you buy the right platform (high degree of freedom humanoid or hexapod). If you build from the ground up, you can focus more on the lower, system level and electronic control systems. In either case, once you get to having a stable robot, you'll be ready for exploring sensing, mapping, pathing, motor control, and all the other fun stuff.

I'd recommend starting with the good old robotic arm before jumping into anything like an autonomous vehicle. You'll see different challenges and functional areas depending on whether you go with ground, underwater, or air robots. At the same time, you'll see way more practical, industry work based on the relatively simple arm than you will with what is essentially still in heavy R&D with vehicles and legged robots. Alternatively, the LEGO robotics platform has a tremendous community (CMU established C/C++ as a near standard for the NXT and an open source group has enabled a feature-packed Java environment for it)

Either way, choose or build a platform that you'd have fun with though, it's not cheap. If budget is no concern, there's no limit to what you can advance to (some humanoid platforms start at $20k). On a relatively reasonable budget (Apple desktop scale), though, you can build or buy some awesomely expressive (high degree of freedom) hexapods, RC trucks, or very nice polycopters.

Adafruit - best place to start with physical computing and ground-up robotics [https://learn.adafruit.com/category/robotics](https://learn.adafruit.com/category/robotics) Sparkfun - another good place to start [https://www.sparkfun.com](https://www.sparkfun.com)

Math fundamentals for robotics [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~me/811/](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~me/811/)

Robot platforms for sale [https://www.robotshop.com/en/robot- kits.html](https://www.robotshop.com/en/robot-kits.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe this is supposed to have a title starting with "Ask HN: "</comment>


ProtonMail is dropping support for Internet Explorer 11 - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/blog/internet-explorer-support/ <comment><USER2> Nice for them!

We launched a web application for construction companies in Switzerland a few months ago. And quickly learned the hard way that we have to improve the IE compatibility. The last 90 days IE11 was used for 36% of all traffic.

Too bad the new Edge isn't called IE12 and automatically deployed as a replacement through Windows Update :-)

<comment><USER3> Sadly, Edge is completely different from IE, and still cannot replace it in most cases. There are still too many public websites (e.g. online banking and other sites using digital signatures), and even more enterprise intranet sites, that require legacy ActiveX, Java applets, or Silverlight.

I'm fairly sure Microsoft is not fan of IE either, but they will still be stuck with it for many years. The most they can probably do, is to not have it installed by default in future versions of Windows 10, but I have a feeling that it will stick around for longer than IE6.

<comment><USER4> Do you have examples of this? My sense is why this had been the case, it's been several years since I've encountered a site that doesn't work with some combination of the HTML5 web stack and flash.

<comment><USER5> Is this still current?

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet- exp...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet-explorer-its- the-law/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd be pretty shocked if any ProtonMail users used IE.

<comment><USER7> Yes that seems a pretty odd combination, you want more secure email but using IE11 at the same time?

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't be surprising to find that security conscious people are more apt to alter their user agent string or have a plugin that rotates it often to counter fingerprinting. There are probably fewer genuine IE11 users than what is being detected.

<comment><USER9> >or have a plugin that rotates it often to counter fingerprinting

That's not going to fool any competent fingerprinting scripts. Blink/webkit/gecko have different javascript implementations so it's easy to cross-check whether your user agent header matches your "real" user agent. The only thing you're really going to fool are server side logs for user agent. If anything, using user agent spoofer is an entropy source (makes you stick out more) because most people don't spoof their user agent.

<comment><USER10> Rotating the agent _alone_ , right, but it's part of a larger set of tools usually. I don't think anyone is implying that security conscious users are _only_ doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slack dropped it last month: [https://get.slack.help/hc/en- us/articles/115002037526-Minimu...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en- us/articles/115002037526-Minimum-requirements-for-using-Slack#-web-browsers)

</comment><comment><USER12> I understand them wanting to discontinue browsers that have very low usage and have discontinued support from Microsoft, but I can't help but feel a little sad about the narrowing browser engine ecosystem.

<comment><USER13> Exactly how many browser engines do we need? There's currently Blink(Chrome|Edge|Brave), Gecko(Firefox), and WebKit(Safari and various OSS browsers). With web technology standards, it doesn't really make sense that there would be _that_ much competition, so having 3 competing engines seems sufficient to me.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure some won't like this comment, but there are only two that matter: Chrome and Safari. Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%).

<comment><USER15> > Firefox's share is about the same as IE 11 (2.0 -> 2.5%).

No? Most browser share analysis put FF at #2 (9-10%), for desktop/laptops and at #3 (5-6%) for mobile.

<comment><USER16> In minds of developers/managers/testers. I find too often sites that do not work correctly in Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Maybe I'll be able to reach other ProtonMail users here - does anyone else have persistent issues logging in to the web client? I use Firefox, LastPass, and Authy for 2FA. I have to try 6-7 times to log in every time, it drives me nuts. If it weren't for the mobile app I would have dumped this service long ago (for which I pay $50/year). This is the only site where I have issues logging in.

<comment><USER18> I've been using ProtonMail for about a year and I've never had an issue logging in. The web client is the primary interface I use.</comment></comment>


The History Of Lean Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.saintsal.com/2012/12/the-history-of-leanstartup-and-how-to-make-sense-of-it-all/ <comment><USER2> history doesn't move in concrete steps.

people have been running lean start-ups and building products via a customer- centric approach way before either of these guys put pen to paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally. I was trying to explain how the concepts and people fit together, to give some context to the tools and approaches we have to choose from.

To your point more directly, I'm of the mindset that you can "do Lean Startup" without explicitly subscribing to it as a methodology. My goal is to help people understand the underlying concepts to see which approaches make the most sense for them, and even to the point where they can adapt them and come up with their own ways.

One of my favourite serial entrepreneurs, Nick Imrie, once told me: "We used to do Lean Startup. We just called it getting experience."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for not creating a shitty infographic!

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty good read as always, Sal!

</comment><comment><USER5> Steve Blank, Eric Ries and the history of a new way of doing and understanding entrepreneurship</comment>


Good Samaritan Backfire or How I Ended Up in Solitary After Calling 911 for Help - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@peretzp/good-samaritan-backfire-9f53ef6a1c10 <comment><USER2> By throwing in a petty, prejudiced comment from the very outset ("a _stocky_ female of _South Asian complexion_ "), focusing on attributes completely unrelated to the case, the author's quotations lose credibility.</comment>


Ask HN: What's a hacker's setup for home automation in an Internet of things? - <AUTHOR>

If you as a hacker would build a house, what kind of home automation system would you choose? Would you go for a wireless (WLAN/radio/bluetooth ...) solution, the KNX bus system, extensive ethernet cabling, some new system that's in some start-up's pipeline, or a home brewn system? In other words: what's your bet on the future of the industry; which technology is most promising, both from a hardware and software point of view? <comment><USER2> Fiber Optics and USB[X.0] ran everywhere.

Projectors would be more commonplace.

Better home security would be way more affordable. Facial recognition, retina scanning, finger prints etc.

Just a few guesses from the top of the head.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would design the electrical system to support PLC control for all outlets and built-in appliances.</comment>


Tesla 5-1 Stock Split - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020039353/tsla-8k_20200811.htm <comment><USER2> Does anybody else share my sort of shell-shock WRT Tesla? I'm one of those who thinks its stock (and probably all the big tech names) are in a bubble. But whenever I say that I get shouted down, downvoted, told I'm an idiot, etc. I'm hoping this comment is vanilla enough to be safe... just curious if others have had the same experience.

To be clear: I'm not interested in debating the value of Tesla. I'm curious if others have the same emotional reaction at this point. That's it. If you think Tesla is worth $1T, good. Fine by me. I don't want to debate it or be told I'm a piece of garbage.

<comment> o-__-o If they can successfully enable fully automated self driving cars, then I think the value is entirely justified. See FaceBook.

Disclaimer: I bought Tesla calls today and now assume I'm rich so your opinion may differ

<comment><USER3> I bet on self-driving trucks instead. They can go like 95% of the way via highways driverless, only accepting a driver to drive it through a city to a loading ramp, and maybe to a pump midway a very long trip. Drivers will not disappear soon but will provide local service.

Having a driverless _car_ which can navigate through a city would be great, but it is a much more complicated problem to solve.

<comment><USER4> Is there a good asset to buy to bet on those?

<comment><USER3> I wish I knew! There are a few, and different experts suggest different winners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole notion of individual shares with prices is legacy baggage from decades ago when trading was done with paper stock certificates. What really matters is the percentage of the company you own, regardless of how that percentage is sliced into units. Some retail brokerages already offer fractional share tracing so for those investors a stock split is mostly irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER6> Meh. Total non-event. Once upon a time I hated splits because they made record-keeping more complicated, but the online brokers do a good job of tracking basis across splits now. Once upon a time there was a real reason to do splits to enable easier purchases, but the online brokers allow fractional shares now. So, just not excited either way about splits anymore.

<comment><USER7> Matt Levine made me notice that there's still an effect of stock splits on making options more accessible i.e. there are brokers for fractional shares, but not options on fractional shares/fractional options.

I am pretty sure this is irrelevant, but it's interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Speaking of splits, I love how Apple's stock split justification is: "We want Apple stock to be more accessible to a broader base of investors." [https://investor.apple.com/faq/default.aspx](https://investor.apple.com/faq/default.aspx)

Yet it's one of the top stocks held on Robinhood (#3 at 700,000 users)

[https://www.robintrack.net/symbol/AAPL](https://www.robintrack.net/symbol/AAPL)

<comment><USER9> Apple is in the DOW and the DOW is a stupidly weighted index where share price affects what percentage of the index that company holds. Right now a 1% increase in Apple pushes the DOW up 10 times more than a 1% increase in Cocoa Cola.

Companies in the DOW _tend_ to have share prices below $500/ share and most are under $200 and the DOW won't add companies with high stock values as a result (Apple was added only after their last split).

It's likely being in the DOW bolsters and stabilizes stock prices as a lot of indexes are based on a the DOW. It also brings a company a certain prestige.

Whether any of this affects the Apple board's decision to split the stock or not is entirely speculation... it just seems a far more likely reason than the idea that they are splitting to make it accessible to people with $500 they want to invest.

<comment><USER10> Very few people invest in the basket of companies that make up the Dow Jones. Its use as an index of how the stock market is behaving is really a historical artifact at this point. One ETF in the top one hundred [1] ETFs is based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and that one is ranked 43rd. Joining the S&P 500 is a big deal, on the other hand, as the three biggest ETFs are S&P 500 funds.

[1][https://etfdb.com/compare/market-cap/](https://etfdb.com/compare/market- cap/)

<comment><USER9> Fair enough. Even so, I think inclusion/ exclusion in the DOW is far more likely to affect Apple's choice to split or not than making the stock more accessible to investors.

<comment><USER11> I doubt it, and I think there is a misunderstanding about the investors Apple referred to in their public statement on the split. As a company's share price rises the stock becomes less liquid, because trades happen in smaller quantities; Berkshire Hathaway's class A shares are probably the most extreme example. Low liquidity is a problem for mutual funds, which have to sell assets whenever an investors sells their shares in the fund (which may be a relatively small sale e.g. a retirement account distribution), because low liquidity makes asset sales more difficult. In general institutional investors will have liquidity rules that constrain the assets their funds can hold to avoid that kind of problem.

Given how much investment capital is held by institutional investors, companies have a good reason to split their shares if the share price is too high. Berkshire Hathaway created a new share class to support the needs of institutional investors, and I would read "accessible to investors" as "conforming to the liquidity requirements of institutional investors."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A more informative link [1], also on sec.gov, explaining the nature of the operation, says:

 _PALO ALTO, Calif., August 11, 2020 – Tesla, Inc. ("Tesla") announced today that the Board of Directors has approved and declared a five-for-one split of Tesla's common stock in the form of a stock dividend to make stock ownership more accessible to employees and investors. Each stockholder of record on August 21, 2020 will receive a dividend of four additional shares of common stock for each then-held share, to be distributed after close of trading on August 28, 2020. Trading will begin on a stock split-adjusted basis on August 31, 2020._

[1]: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459020039353/tsla- ex991_6.htm)

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't really understand stock splits. Is the only point to allow people to buy shares who could previously not buy because one share was too expensive? If so, why not just introduce fractional shares into the stock market with some fixed point number of decimal places? Or just keep track of ownership fraction (e.g. 0.0043% of the company)?

<comment><USER13> There are weird incentives for this.

In US the tick size for any stock is always $0.01. So a stock with a price of say $1 has a minimum bid ask spread of 1%, which is a lot.

On the contrary, if one share is too expensive, it limits liquidity in a stock. This is usually bad, though Berkshire Hathaway voting shares are deliberately kept expensive to stave off speculators.

This then get meta-player. A split suggests the company expects a price increase, and vice versa (reverse splits area thing too).

<comment><USER14> It seems very strange; can a share not be worth less than 1 cent, or can it for ask but not bid?

<comment><USER15> It can be "worth" less than 1 cent. That simply means if you put in an offer at 1 cent, nobody will buy it, because they think it's worth less.

<comment><USER14> I meant if the bid-ask spread must be minimum 1 cent, then is it true that bid can't be lower than 1 cent as long as ask is semipositive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> TSLA stock is up over 7% after hours now. ~$15 billion of "value" created out of thin air. Sounds ridiculous.

<comment><USER17> About $6 trillion was "created out of thin air" in the S&P 500 since mid March. But don't confuse value with output or wealth. The market is forward looking and valuations are pretty unstable long term.

<comment><USER18> Everything is relative, we're printing a lot of money right now, possibly for the right reasons. In general though those valuation probably do make sense in a world where money is plentiful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For reference, here's a short amusing thread about the original Tesla IPO (even replied by Musk himself): [https://twitter.com/Mark_Goldberg_/status/129281818458888601...](https://twitter.com/Mark_Goldberg_/status/1292818184588886016)

</comment><comment><USER20> Hope you guys had some tesla calls :p</comment>


WannaCry – The largest ransom-ware infection in history - <AUTHOR> https://blog.comae.io/wannacry-the-largest-ransom-ware-infection-in-history-f37da8e30a58 <comment><USER2> These are the three Bitcoin addresses referenced in the article:

[https://blockchain.info/address/115p7UMMngoj1pMvkpHijcRdfJNX...](https://blockchain.info/address/115p7UMMngoj1pMvkpHijcRdfJNXj6LrLn) [https://blockchain.info/address/12t9YDPgwueZ9NyMgw519p7AA8is...](https://blockchain.info/address/12t9YDPgwueZ9NyMgw519p7AA8isjr6SMw) [https://blockchain.info/address/13AM4VW2dhxYgXeQepoHkHSQuy6N...](https://blockchain.info/address/13AM4VW2dhxYgXeQepoHkHSQuy6NgaEb94)

As of now, the three addresses have received a total of about 20 BTC, or about $36,000 at current exchange rates. The most typical transaction sends about $300 to the addresses. No funds have left the addresses yet.

<comment><USER3> What's with the people sending 0.0001 BTC (~17 cents), and paying a .0004 transaction fee (~82 cents) all about?

<comment><USER4> This is pretty common whenever there is a Bitcoin theft people sent small amounts of Bitcoin to the suspected theft address. I believe they do it as a means to tracking what happens to the stolen funds. It keeps them from having to keep track of every address instead they just send a small amount of BTC to it and then they just need to remember their wallet address in the future to track to all the addresses they "marked".

<comment><USER3> Another theory is that it's Law Enforcement. In order to get a conviction, their case is improved if they can show a trail of money just in case they can't get a witness that paid the ransom to testify with proper documentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't quite understand how WannaCry became such a big deal. Ransomware is already old thing, SMB worms even older. WannaCry didn't even use a 0day ffs, the patch for this was already published few months ago (and not particularly quietly I might add). There is very little novel about WannaCry as far as I can tell. Additionally W10 apparently was not vulnerable in the first place.

All this, and still WannaCry hit the main evening news, which at least around here is somewhat high bar. Not sure what to think about that.

<comment><USER6> >>the patch for this was already published few months ago

2 months ago, March 17th, and many organizations do not patch as often as they should, Many have even started delaying longer since MS patches of late have been causing more problems for people breaking Office, Breaking WiFi and breaking other critical systems with MS normal response of "opps our bad, well fix it in another month until then get fucked"

> Additionally W10

Win10 has about a 12% Market share, about the same as Windows XP still does.

Win10 has not been widely adopted outside the consumer market.

>All this, and still WannaCry hit the main evening news,

Made the news because of the numbers of systems, and number of high profile systems like Hostipols that were infected not because it was a Technical marvel of malware engineering

It also made the news because the NSA is indirectly responsible for not disclosing these vulnerabilities when they were discovered until they weaponized them for their own gain. While I do not blame the NSA for this infaction, I believe they should be forced, today, to disclose to all software vendors any other vulnerabilities they want to play Hacker with....

<comment><USER7> you can postpone general updates while still having critical/security updates go through at the normal pace

And, shouldn't a workplace be setup for re-imaging if updates go wrong? I know its easy to just store files in C:\user\name\documents, but then it makes it just as easy to be forced to pay $300 for each computer in the network

<comment><USER6> Many of these systems infected are server systems, not End User Desktops.

That said, yes in a perfect world everyone would have perfect backups, and perfect imaging systems that makes ransomeware a non-event, we do not live in a perfect world and it is easy to monday morning QB the IT Staff.

Most IT depts are understaffed and corners are cut because you have to keep your head above water, business do not want to pay for proper staff or proper infrastructure,

IT is a "cost center" that should be cut every year in perpetuity, after all everything is working so why do I need to pay you to sit there all day

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One day someone is going to write a filesystem filter driver that does this and build in a much longer delay, which will allow the malware to spread for a lot longer before dumping the keys and demanding ransom.

The filter driver would ensure access to the files continues transparently even though the underlying data is encrypted.

Things will get much worse.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand how a machine becomes infected, it is perhaps not very clear yet? this article explains receiving an email containing a link OR a PDF with a link to a .hta file ? what a strange sentence. Can one get infected without user interaction, or even with a passive client ?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what I want to know[0] too.

To mitigate, you can disable SMB1.0 with the following command. Make sure to run as administrator:

        dism /online /norestart /disable-feature /featurename:SMB1Protocol

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335845)

<comment><USER6> To mitigate, Install Security Patches in a Timely manner.

Also note that only works on windows 7 and later, dism is not a tool for XP or Windows 2003 which seem to be the largest numbers hit by this since there is/was no patches for them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish they hadn't patched XP so we can collectively put that one to rest.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have an estimate of how much money WannaCry has made in total?

Incentives matter, and if the ransomeware developers are actually getting paid a lot, they will continue exploiting these vulnerabilities. On the other hand, if it turns out people don't actually bother paying despite being locked out of their computers, would the hackers even bother continuing this line of attack?

<comment><USER12> Some numbers I saw going around yesterday that were looking at the discovered Bitcoin addresses totaled around $18,000.

<comment><USER11> $18,000 (or $36,000 as another comment suggests) seems incredibly low for "The largest ransom-ware infection in history"... how can this be worth it for the hackers?

<comment><USER13> > how can this be worth it for the hackers?

Depends on where they live. For most people on Earth this is a very large sum of money that will go a long way (just not 'here' in the countries where the virus spread).

<comment><USER14> Just realized we could pay them many times this amount just to not make ransomware :|

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So big that MS has to release a patch for Windows XP!

<comment><USER16> XP, 8 and Server 2003. Patches for 3 unsupported versions

edit: 2003* my bad

[https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/wcry-is-so-mean- mic...](https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/wcry-is-so-mean-microsoft- issues-patch-for-3-unsupported-windows-versions/)

<comment><USER17> Since when was Windows 8 unsupported?

<comment><USER18> Since January 2016. You have to upgrade to Windows 8.1 to be supported and up to date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the meantime, what are doing the FBI, the NSA, and other agencies that exist precisely to avoid that?

<comment><USER20> The ransomware was built from NSA tools, and I think it's illegal for them to comment on leaked classified information.

The FBI doesn't publicly comment on on-going investigations. You might be able to ask them if one exists, though.

<comment><USER19> My point was about those agencies catching ransomware authors.

<comment><USER21> Theoretically there's nothing _legally_ stopping a NSA/GCHQ tag team from mercilessly hunting down and destroying ransomware operations.

NSA only has red tape when it comes to U.S. citizens, but GCHQ doesn't. GCHQ's mandate also includes _serious organized crime_. Moreover, considering the damage ransomware can do to critical government infrastructure (for example NHS), it's not a stretch to imagine that targeting ransomware operations would fall under legitimate national security grounds.

Personally I'm surprised they don't just completely fuck these people up to set an example. On the other hand, there's always the possibility WannaCry could be a mud slinging attempt from a state actor, given the much-publicized fact it uses leaked NSA vulns.

<comment><USER13> > […] fuck these people up to set an example.

I don't think it would be very effective.

There are three reasons for hunting down and persecuting perpetrators of crime: vengeance, setting an example, and undoing the damage.

Only the last reason makes any practical sense here.

This attack works, so there will be others in the future, but it will happen regardless of the threat of punishment. Sure, if you set an example some people might be deterred, but surely not the bright hacker in a basement in Yekaterinburg, or the determined gang in Nigeria, or the mobsters in Chengdu City; i.e., anyone, anywhere without much to lose?

<comment><USER22> Its also put presure on govemnets that in the past dont coperate with extrdaitions.

Puting 50% of your diplomats on a plane with 48 hours notice sends a message - you can also start having the IRS / HMRC invstigate rich expats friedly to the regime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Everyone talks about how people get infected but is there a guide around somewhere about how do I protect my computer from such attacks? I install all updates and I have an antivirus program but I don't know what else can I do.

<comment><USER24> Don't open dodgy files (like in emails), or if you must, do it in a VM.

Run adblock and no-script on your web browser, only visit trusted sites. If you must, use a VM.

Don't download and install software you don't trust. Either it should be a big company in the news regularly, have good reviews from people you trust, or it should be open source. If you must use a VM.

Backup your files regularly (and have offline backups, the data is the most important thing), reinstall your OS regularly (this gets rid of old and outdated software you don't remember; because I doubt you install all updates, have you updated Java recently? How about adobe flash or reader? How about the chipset drivers that likely came with your machine?).

<comment><USER23> I'm more interested in the passive infections where I get infected without my prior actions (some comments say it is possible). Java is not a good example because I program (sometimes in java) and it is always up to date. I uninstalled Flash and I have the automatic updates enabled in all software I use day-to-day. Doing regular re-installs is a good idea though. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Could someone explain how this spreads and then executes itself on other machines? Does it require user interaction?

<comment><USER26> It uses a vulnerability that allows another computer on the same network to execute arbitrary code on your computer. So you work for a UK hospital, your co-worker downloads an attachment and executes it, and that can be enough to get on your machine if it doesn't have up-to-date security patches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> yes, 'WannaCry Ransomeware Attack' is the largest ransom in history. However, it's the time to increase windows security and updates. So that anyone can't do this in future [https://wuinstall.com/](https://wuinstall.com/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Can it attack Linux desktops?

<comment><USER29> No

<comment><USER30> WannaBet? [https://twitter.com/hackerfantastic/status/86335937578792550...](https://twitter.com/hackerfantastic/status/863359375787925505)

<comment><USER14> That is magnificent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> does this affect the google drive sync folder on windows machines?</comment>


Email on Steroids - <AUTHOR> http://saascribe.com/email-on-steroids/

<comment><USER2> As if email wasn't distracting enough already, now you're giving it steriods???

(right, the article is a promo for Mail Chimp, which I use and enjoy. Just missing my /. days, when reading the source article was always bad form. Anyone else miss Soviet Russia, where television watches you? Oh, wait...)</comment>


Ask HN: Survey on diversity in founder teams and its influence on success - <AUTHOR>

Dear Hacker News,
for my Masters Thesis I am currently analyzing if diversity in founder teams is influencing a startup's success.
Now I need data to confirm my Hypotheses and am therefore conducting a survey. If you  are the founder [1] of an internet startup [2] I would like to ask you to help me by filling out my survey. If you have founded more than one venture you are welcome to fill out the survey more than once.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/founderdiversity
Thanks for the time you take to help.
Marcus
[1] A founder / co-founder is defined as someone "who has an interest, both financial and otherwise, in and commitment to the venture's future and success; whose work is interdependent in the pursuit of common goals and venture success; who are accountable to the entrepreneurial team and for the venture; who are considered to be at the executive level with executive responsibility in the early phases of the venture, including founding and pre-start up; and who are seen as a social entity by themselves and by others."
[2] Internet startups are defined as "new businesses which offer a product or service that is mainly distributed through online channels such as a website." <comment><USER2> > 5\. Which races can be found in your founding-team?

I only had humans on my team, I never bothered to check what races they were, so I won't be able to complete your survey.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the sentiment but it is a substantial part of diversity literature and therefore I decided to include it.

Generally it is not about a difference in race making someone better or worse but if this difference in ethnicity leads to social categorization which inhibits a team to work together efficiently and effectively.

If you are interested you can send me an email but I don't want to state what previous research has found here and possibly influence the survey.</comment></comment>


You Don't Get AMP - <AUTHOR> http://blog.153.io/2017/03/08/you-dont-get-amp/ <comment><USER2> Cleverly leaves out the part where Google siphons your traffic. AMP is the trojan horse and I don't "get" those welcoming it into the gates.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you use Cloudflare as your CDN, is Cloudflare "siphoning your traffic"?

<comment><USER3> Does cloudflare take users to a webpage that isn't yours with a header with a button that doesn't lead to your site?

<comment><AUTHOR> The page is still yours. You have absolute control over the branding, the analytics, the monetisation. Just because it happens not to be served from your domain doesn't mean it's not yours.

Let's also not forget that AMP is actively encouraging alternative caches: Cloudflare Ampersand[1] was announced literally an hour after my post. It's a whitelabelled AMP cache aimed at solving this exact problem.

[1]: [https://www.cloudflare.com/website- optimization/ampersand/](https://www.cloudflare.com/website- optimization/ampersand/)

<comment><USER3> Yes you still control most of it. My argument is that the traffic /would/ be going to your actual site (where you aren't limited at all) but now it is going to a google AMP page with strict limitations. Which isn't great, but the big deal is that bar on top that doesn't link to your site. That is so bad for your site and massively increases the bounce rate.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a sticking point for me. Alternative AMP caches (with alternative UX, e.g. Ampersand generally keeps users on your site when they bounce) go some way towards solving this, but they're not (yet?) first-class ecosystem citizens:

> But these are just guidelines, and Google can't guarantee they're behaving > well, so they're not first-class citizens.

> I'd love for this to be something you could statically verify, just like AMP > HTML, so that anybody could add a Cache to the ecosystem and get a lightning > bolt on Google search results and Cloudflare links and Twitter Moments™, but > I'm pretty sure this reduces to the Halting Problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Tap a Top Stories card, and bam, you're in the article. Takes maybe 100 > milliseconds, just at the edge of perception. You can't do that with a full > page load: not on a 3G network, not on a mobile CPU.

Yes you can, quite comfortably. Pre rendering is just patching the bloated web, not fixing it. If you want to make the web better focus on less javascript, with noscript on I get AMP like speeds almost everywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> But that's the point: AMP allows far richer pages than just totally cutting out Javascript. Like it or not, the web is an application platform.

<comment><USER5> What does amp give me that a non-js page can't?

Also, applications aren't the target for amp.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you write a carousel without JS? A live blog? Lazy loading images and ads? A stateful e-commerce product page?

Have a look through the list of AMP components, you'll be surprised what's possible. [https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components](https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components)

<comment><USER5> Good examples, but none of that is anything that I want. I'd much prefer small, simple, static pages to any of that. Additionally, they will load faster, and be easier to read. Those things are just trimming pages down to what Google wants, not users.

<comment><AUTHOR> As somebody who has implemented AMP for a major newspaper, these are in fact things that publishers want.

<comment><USER4> Adding shit because publishers want them is how things got so bloated in the first place. If it weren't for that we wouldn't need AMP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who has developed for mobile web, it can be surprisingly hard to push back on bloat from marketing / seo / analytics teams. I hope this becomes a W3C standard so us developers can show them the finger the next time they want to bring mobile web to a crawl.

<comment><USER5> Does Google not have any guidelines that say to keep pages small and fast? Seems like they should have a list of things to keep in mind when looking at search-rankings

<comment><USER6> It does, although only can only assume the effect of performance on search rankings. It's non-tangible metric as far as revenue is concerned.

<comment><USER5> Then what would be the difference between showing them the AMP standards, and just pointing them to those documents?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh, I get AMP just fine. I get that it's a power play by Google. The problem AMP is trying to solve is very real. But instead of trying to fix the problem, Google is using it to take an even greater chunk of the web.

No thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> > Google gonna Google. They've been dangling carrots in front of publishers > for twenty-one years.

<comment><USER5> I don't buy it. If that's true, how come all of the top results I get are slow, heavy bloated sites, yet small, simple, fast sites are ~10 pages deep?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, speed should be a ranking factor, but I'd much rather have a slow site that's relevant than a fast one that isn't.

<comment><USER5> How about a relevant page that is fast. We can have the best of both worlds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't that be nice. But Google don't control how relevant or fast something is, they can only decide how to rank them.

<comment><USER5> ... thats my point.

This is a problem that Google created. If they would prioritize small, simple, fast sites, and rank them higher, people would make more sites like that. Google is the one pushing slow, bloated sites to the top of the list. Now they are coming in to "fix" the problem that they made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you let GOOGLE control the browser, OS, search engine, keyboard, maps, and user created video content, what could possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER8> OP: You don't get HTML</comment>


Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks" - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23282308 <comment><USER2> Accompanying the article is a stock picture of an olive Olivetti Lettera 32. It's got its cover missing, poor thing, and it appears to have had a photoshop job to remove the label at the front. It looks like this is an Italian QZERTY version, which makes sense because the olive green is rare with other keyboard layouts. Millions were sold. They're nice machines - I have one with a cursive font that gives me a headache from the hammering noise whenever I use it.

<comment><USER3> I have an Olivetti... Studio, IIRC, that you can pry from my cold hands. Lovely machine.

It had a sister; unfortunately, we recently lost her to a flood. I would have preferred a rescue/rehabilitation, but it wasn't my call -- and, past a point, there's only so much you can hang onto.

Kind of negating my original point... But, that's nostalgia.

I don't want to live on one, but a good typewriter is a bit of a monument that deserves continuing respect. And sometimes, the quality of the engineering -- and design -- is timeless.

<comment><USER2> Look at the picture of the showroom - the Apple store of its time perhaps? [http://idreamlo-tech.blogspot.be/2012/07/olivetti- studio-44-...](http://idreamlo-tech.blogspot.be/2012/07/olivetti- studio-44-meets-its-match.html)

Their Venice showroom is a museum now: [http://www.negoziolivetti.it/photogallery-0](http://www.negoziolivetti.it/photogallery-0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked for a short while in a national lab. They used to call this "air-gap" security. i.e., there would be computers which would have no internet connection and no usb/harddrive inputs etc. If they needed data in there, they would have one person read data from one computer and type it into the secure one. Essentially there would be a literal air-gap between the secure computer and the non-secure ones.

<comment><USER5> The modern way of doing this is to have something called a 'sheep dip' station. This is an unconnected system that's used to check the contents of any import/export. The idea is that you cryptographically sign the material you want to import/export, burn it to write once media, pop it in the sheep dip box, confirm it's all hunky dory and if it is, import/export to/from the network. The media is then archived so it can be traced back.

Typically the sheep dip station has AV and some other antimalware tools, but depending on what you're trying to do you might have a dedicated sheep dip person that manually checks the content of what you're importing/exporting (particularly for sensitive IP in large engineering and research organisations). When this happens, it usually takes weeks to get anything approved for import/export.

<comment><USER6> This is fascinating! Let me understand one thing: The sheep dip station is network connected to the sealed computer? Doesn't that still pose a risk and violate the principle? It seems you'd be better off checking at the dip station and then reimporting on the sealed computer.

Then again, I suppose in that case you could have malware that detects what system it's on and decides not to activate on the dip station :)

<comment><USER3> I think you misunderstood iuguy's description.

> unconnected system

I understood this to be a literal description.

I presume that this sheep dip station is maintained and updated, from time to time. However, that would be done using controlled, vetted media. And, if something goes wrong there, it has to been in the nature of something that will cause the masking of problems existing on the written/finalized media that the sheep dip station is in turn vetting. (Unless it's something that can "un-finalize" the vetting media and further write to it.)

Or is the sheep dip station periodically connected while it is itself maintained/updated? That I could see presenting problems.

In any event, I read this to mean in particular that the sheep dip station is _not_ networked with the air gapped system.

<comment><USER5> If ewe think the sheep dip station is connected to anything, then you're wrong.

<comment><USER3> Bah... ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The FSO has not commented on why it needs the old-fashioned devices.

But an agency source told Russia's Izvestiya newspaper the aim was to prevent leaks from computer hardware."

So someone already leaked they are trying to stop leaks. Very "Yes Minister"

<comment><USER8> Nobody leaked it. The contract for buying typewriters was posted on the public board of government contract accessible to everybody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hopefully they remember not to throw out the ink ribbon.

</comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine worked for defence research center. He had two computers on the table, one with Internet access and one for intranet access. The intranet was a completely independent network with separate cable wiring. Even cables have different color.

I mindly remember that was based on some NATO requirements.

<comment><USER11> I'm browsing from my separate internet-enabled machine right now. I'm not working in defense, but just a place that has secrets to keep. If you ask me, I'd say that is true for almost every organization, because most organizations have computer files on original research, sensitive sales-related or private information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Somehow I felt like network/usb disabled computers and typewriters would have sudden spike in sales. How long that will remain is the question unless there's an ink reservoir feed system for the print head (cause everyone hates ribbons).

Now there's a Kickstarter project waiting to happen!

Edit: Just found a very old model that had an ink roller system. [http://machinesoflovinggrace.com/ptf/Sun.html](http://machinesoflovinggrace.com/ptf/Sun.html) (First one, Sun Standard No.2 )

Surely, some industrious person(s) can come up with a more elegant way to do away with ribbons.

</comment><comment><USER13> > Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern > which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine

Many printers have this capability. Researchers cracked and published one of the codes way back in 2005 [1] [2]. Whether the manufacturers would provide the coding scheme to Russian intelligence services is another question.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/issues/printers](https://www.eff.org/issues/printers)

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

</comment><comment><USER14>
      Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said.

I thought printouts could also be traced back to individual printers? Leaks didn't start with printers. Just ask people who leaked during the Cold War and even long before then. Leaks go as far back as when text was used for communicating confidential information. Going back to typewriters isn't going to put an end to leaks, especially when leaks having occurring since long before the digital age.

<comment><USER15> It is not about leaks. It is about backdoors in hardware.

<comment><USER16> According to various news sources, they're buying Triumph-Adler Twen 180 and Olympia Comfort typewriters. Don't know about the former, but the latter seems to be a full-fledged computer, even having an option of a disk drive.

Certainly, the architecture must be ranges of magnitude simpler, compared to modern desktop computers, but still you won't know what's really implemented inside the CPU die disassembling the device and reverse-engineering all significant chips using scanning electron microscope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Before: copy file to thumbdrive/cellphone. Now: take picture with cellphone.

<comment><USER18> Collect cellphones at door. Put them in steel cabinet. When workers leave, they can get the phones on the way out.

<comment><USER14> How about one of the microfilm devices they used to use in 60s spy movies?

<comment><USER19> You mean Google Glass?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Watergate was done copying purely physical media.</comment>


Toyota Kyushu – The Manufacturing Ballet (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://kevinmeyer.com/blog/2008/10/jke-day-1-toyota-kyushu.html

<comment><USER2> I was impressed until I read that you can't take a leak, can't not come into work because you're sick.

This is what we celebrate, this is what we aspire to.

</comment><comment><USER3> A truly impressive read. Especially "Toyota automates only what is dangerous (welding) or too heavy for humans. Everything else is done by humans... because humans can create ideas for improvement." because I expected that in Japan there is even more automatization than in germany. The other impressive aspect is the problem fixing process.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Toyota let's their plants improve on an individual basis instead of forcing detailed standard work across different factories."

Take that, Scrum zealots!

</comment><comment><USER5> Very impressive. I've also seen how these cars get handled when they reach US ports. Absolutely atrocious. Shameful display, as they say.

</comment><comment><USER6> Make your best time the every time</comment>


World's largest advertiser cut spending on digital ads by +$100M – sales up - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/procter-gamble-slashed-spending-on-digital-ads-by-over-100-million-2017-10 <comment><USER2> Significant that these were probably ads that didn't drive you to an online purchase. Just ones that were supposed to boost your brand and culminate in a purchase later, maybe offline.

Results would be hard to gauge if you do a lot of that. Like running brand awareness on TV, radio, billboards, and online...for the same product. Which one is working?

<comment><USER3> That has always been the rub.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." John Wanamaker (1838-1922)

Of course, Wanamaker did not really know what percent of his advertising worked either.</comment></comment>


Disk-Locality in Datacenter Computing Considered Irrelevant - <AUTHOR> http://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/publication/disk-locality-in-datacenter-computing-considered-irrelevant/

<comment><USER2> From the PDF:

"This paper takes the position that disk-locality is go- ing to be irrelevant in cluster computing, and considers the implications this will have on datacenter computing research. The quest for disk-locality is based on two as- sumptions: (a) disk bandwidths exceed network band- widths, (b) disk I/O constitutes a considerable fraction of a task's lifetime. We show that current trends undermine both these assumptions."</comment>


Tech entrepreneurs' politics: Liberal, with one big exception - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/technology/silicon-valley-politics.html <comment><USER2> Far left no 80% of sv employees would be described as centre right (probably more socially liberal) in uk terms a wet one nation tory which is what pres Obama is.

If sv is so far left why do no sv companies have Union recognition?

Far left is those that support Assad and think that stalin was right aka "Tankies".

<comment><USER3> I think it's important to appropriate contextualize things like "left" and "right." Most importantly, why are we comparing Silicon Valley to Europe? They're completely different political climates, _in different countries_. Comparing political ideologies between two countries is a fool's errand more often than not.

Within the context of American politics, San Francisco (and SV to a lesser extent) is one of the most liberal places in the country, probably top 5 and certainly top 10. Even within the context of the California politics specifically (itself the 3rd or 4th most liberal state), it's center left.

Trying to frame San Francisco as anything right of center is ridiculous unless you're comparing it only to things like Communism and Socialism.

Edit: And let's not forget than most people want to frame themselves as either center left or center right. Very rarely will someone proudly say they are far left or far right, regardless of context.

<comment><USER2> its to the right of some conservative's in the uk

<comment><USER3> Did you read the comment?

<comment><USER2> yes and less American Exceptionisam might help in this discussion

<comment><USER3> It has nothing to do with American exceptionalism, it's about appropriate context. I don't see anything useful coming out of trying to force San Francisco residents and London residents onto the same political spectrum. They're two entirely different spectrums, and "left" and "right" mean different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Over all, the study showed that tech entrepreneurs are very liberal — among > some of the most left-leaning Democrats you can find. They are > overwhelmingly in favor of economic policies that redistribute wealth, > including higher taxes on rich people and lots of social services for the > poor, including universal health care. Their outlook is cosmopolitan and > globalist — they support free trade and more open immigration, and they > score low on measures of "racial resentment."

> On most culture-war issues, they are unrepentantly liberal. They oppose > restrictions on abortion, favor gay rights, support gun control and oppose > the death penalty.

> ...The study found one area where tech entrepreneurs strongly deviate from > Democratic orthodoxy and are closer to most Republicans: They are deeply > suspicious of the government's efforts to regulate business, especially when > it comes to labor. They said that it was too difficult for companies to fire > people, and that the government should make it easier to do so. They also > hope to see the influence of both private and public-sector unions decline.

<comment><USER5> ...so in other words, libertarian

<comment><USER3> > _some of the most left-leaning Democrats you can find_

> _economic policies that redistribute wealth_

> _universal health care_

> _support gun control_

Is that what a libertarian is to you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People should drop the "far". This is just propaganda talk to mark something you don't like as extreme.

<comment><USER7> The chart in the fine article shows the "technology founders" are about half as libertarian as the general Democrat and nearly twice as likely to support redistribution - but hey, let's not call that or them far left.

<comment><USER6> Watch what people do, not what they say. Technology founders are either capitalists already or aspiring capitalists. In theory they support redistribution as long as it doesn't come out of their pockets or equity. You can't call them far left on the economical scale. That makes that label meaningless which it is anyways. Americans should stop agonizing about what's left or right, Democrat or Republican and start thinking about issues. There are tons of problems this country has that can't be explained or solved by labeling them left or right. When I came to this country I thought it's a pragmatic country that gets things done but now I wonder it's just a bunch delusional ideologues based on the public conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Far-left is a bit of a stretch for me, this sounds slightly to the right of Canada's big-tent Liberal party, which is centre-left on a radical day.

For reference, a far-left party is the ML party of Canada.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Canada_(M...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Canada_\(Marxist–Leninist\))

That doesn't remind me of Elon Musk for some reason...

<comment><USER8> It appears the title has been un-editorialized! I take this back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At first blush, sounds like these folks are generally liberal as a result of their upbringing and higher education, and then they run into a spot in entrepreneurship where liberal ideology restricts business growth (ideologically to the benefit of the consumer). Reconciling high ideals with how they might restrict your business is always a struggle. Some may use those ideals to their advantage, some may embrace the cognitive dissonance, some may turn on their ideals altogether.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just want to say-- I will never come back to this site if it devolves into the political bull shit of reddit. If you folks want to reddit-ize HN, go for it, but be ready to reap what you sow.

<comment><USER11> To be fair, I think SV has been far too politicized and that's why you see it here.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TLDR:

> _The tech elite's mix of views is unique; no other group in the survey > favored both greater wealth redistribution and laxer regulation._

<comment><USER12> Of course. They were just not asked in details which way they would like the wealth to be distributed.

<comment><AUTHOR> They probably also didn't ask about details on regulation. Techies heard "regulation" and thought Uber/Airbnb, not runoff wastewater, asbestos, and formaldehyde (which is what many other people would think of when hearing "regulation"). I'd guess techies are similar to other liberals in wanting these other things regulated. They just don't want _tech_ to be regulated.

<comment><USER3> The article itself tells you what definitions they used. In the context of regulation and redistribution, they mean this:

> _the government should [not] tightly regulate business, and should [not] tax > the wealthy to fund social programs_

My default would be "should not" and "should," respectively, which is where most tech founders fell, and puts me in the minority in the other four categories.

We can argue about tax rates and deductions until we're both blue in the face but most people agree that the more you make, the more you should pay in taxes, as a general rule. And "tightly" has a distinctively negative connotation to me. I think something should be legal and unregulated until there is some evidence that it needs to be either regulated or outright illegal. Business, generally, should not be _tightly_ regulated, except in rare instances (healthcare, yes; banking, probably; insurance, probably).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If they side with moneyed corporate interests and management against labor then they aren't left wing.

The lack of an actual labor party in this country is a disaster, and is underpinning the wildly unpredictable and regressive nature of our current politics.

<comment><USER14> According to the article they only surveyed people who _are_ management and corporate interests - founders and billionaires!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mostly virtue signaling. The piece finally address labor at the very last graphic: most entrepreneurs think labor unions should have less influence. The NYT painting this as "far-left" is a sign of how far to the right the US has come.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is that "Far Left" by US standards or by those of the rest of the world ?

<comment><USER17> American : pro choice, universal health care, gay rights, and gun control, but anti labor

<comment><USER6> By today's standards they would probably mark Reagan as leftie. And most of Europe has dropped off the spectrum completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b Now this is an interesting study. In some ways it reflects the shift that happened in France lately, where the new president is doing pretty much that: increasing taxes on capital and decreasing regulations for businesses while being very liberal regarding social matters.

I also suspect that in silicon valley there is a difference between the 30+ age group and the 30-. It's a shame they didn't make that data available but it sounds to me that younger people are more libertarian than people in their 30s.

</comment><comment><USER18> Biggest surprise of the article for me: only 36% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans believe "florists raising prices on holidays is fair."

<comment><USER19> Yeah, seriously, this is Econ 101.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If HN's signalling is anything to go off with respect to political leanings, SV is mostly libertarian with a dash of social democracy to rein in the big players. This is hardly what anyone outside of an entrenched centrist news media institution would consider "far left."

</comment><comment><USER21> This isn't a study, it's a survey. Of course they're all going to say they're as far left as they can possibly be. Saying anything else will make them a target of the unhinged left wing nutbag brigade.

</comment><comment><USER22> Someone who hasn't read the article: please define far left.

I think you'll find _after_ reading the article that the term has been misinterpreted in order to follow a story arc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. I actually left "far" out of the original title when I posted on HN, because I didn't remember it being there - and because after having read the article I didn't get that impression. Granted, I live in CA, so perhaps my definition of "far left" is different than others, but I can see that others here seem to share my sense that this was exaggeration on the part of the NYT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> According to this study, you agree with "libertarian philosophy" if you agree with the following statement

 _> I would like to live in a society where government does nothing except provide national defense and police protection, so that people could be left alone to earn whatever they could._

What a joke. Of course, it turns out that technology entrepreneurs are not really libertarians when you ask it like that. What if they asked individuals whether they agree or disagree with the following statement:

 _> I believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world._

Would they get a different response?

<comment><USER24> What strikes me as incredible is that 44% of Democrats agreed with the original statement. I'm not an American, but isn't that totally incompatible with the party's ideals?

EDIT: The fact that the vast majority of them agreed with the two options that are for redistribution of wealth kind of confirm that, in my opinion.

<comment><USER25> I would say that our two party system is why this seems so strange to foreigners. Americans with nuanced opinions must shoehorn themselves into Republican or Democrat to participate in our democracy. This often means compromising on your ideals to have your voice heard on whatever issue is most important to you at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why did you change the original NYT title, which is "Silicon Valley's Politics: Liberal, With One Big Exception"?

What on Earth is "Far Left"? Surely Silicon Valley's politics are nowhere near Marxist or anarchist.

EDIT: apologies, you obviously didn't change it.

<comment><USER13> It was the NYT that changed it, not the poster on HN.

The NYT changes headlines constantly, it's actually sort of fascinating to watch in real time, which you can do by following this automated Twitter account: [https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/905407322658402304](https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/905407322658402304)

<comment><USER27> Damn dude, awesome work finding this.

Completely changes the dynamic of the accusation above.

It seems NYT follows the "post now, edit later" approach

<comment><USER28> It could be worse than "post now, edit later".

The author could propose a list of a few possible headlines, say 10, each more or less urging/click-baity/informative. Then let an algorithm choose the most click-baity headline as visitors click on the headlines in ads or in Google news (using AB tests or multi-arn bandit algorithms).

I don't know if any news site does this yet, but it could explain the increase of click-baity or uninformative headlines in Google news.

<comment><AUTHOR> WaPo AB uses a tool called Bandito to do just this: [http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/02/how-the-washington-post- bui...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/02/how-the-washington-post-built-its- tool-to-re-engage-the-attention-of-distracted-readers-on-mobile/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's mostly virtue signaling as far as the eye can see.</comment>


Canada, U.S. preparing to close border to non-essential travel - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-us-border-1.5501201 <comment><USER2> As soon as this virus broke out in China, I immediately remembered comments on HN from ~6 months re: open borders and mass population migration. I argued that robust border controls would be useful for preventing disease transmission and was criticized as connecting totally undocumented migrants to disease was "vile rhetoric". After all, "no one was suggesting restricting tourism to prevent disease."

Now here we are with a no-shit virus outbreak and neither the Canadians nor the Mexicans are interested in having Americans freely flowing across their border.[1]

I'd want to laugh at how the real world tends to shred the fantastical political/social positions of so many people....if it weren't all so tragic. :(

[1][https://news.trust.org/item/20200313151928-n3bce](https://news.trust.org/item/20200313151928-n3bce)

<comment><USER3> Actual germ control is not really an issue most people have historically taken very seriously.

You can't see germs. They are too small.

Out of sight, out of mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> with community spread being so prevalent, what is the logic behind border closings between two comparable countries? It's not like it matters any more if one sick person moves from Canada to the US or vice versa any more than any other movement.

<comment><USER5> It seems like we should follow the model of South Korea. They seem to have the pandemic under control and almost didn't close any borders. Testing and tracking seems to do the trick. Not sure why we like drastic measures and not look at the countries that deal best with it and copy what they do. It's kind of befuddling to me.

<comment><USER6> South Korea is a good model to follow but they were well-prepared, so it's not simple to copy.

How they could test so early: [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237058531410489345.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237058531410489345.html)

How they can test so many: [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1238890311272796160.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1238890311272796160.html)

<comment><USER5> Very interesting links. That makes sense of course. Being prepared is always better than being unprepared.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wishing good health to our Canadian brothers and sisters. We'll grab a beer when this is all over.

</comment><comment><USER8> Kudos to both governments for the way this is being handled. A joint announcement with considerations for maintaining trade and facilitating necessary travel, while curtailing unnecessary travel to minimize transmission. Should be better both for compliance and for long-term goodwill than a unilateral measure by either side.

Hopefully both sides can continue to employ significant social distancing while ramping up testing and other measures, so that outbreaks can be brought under control and this situation can be as temporary as is prudently possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nothing but love to the Canadians. USA's all-time best friend.

It's time to close the border.

</comment><comment><USER10> This puts Point Roberts WA in a weird spot!</comment>


Which books/site you suggest to learn about online marketing? - <AUTHOR>

Please suggest books, sites, learning resources on marketing your product online that describes the subject in practical manner. <comment><USER2> [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online- marketin...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketing- with-giant-infographic-11928)</comment>


Hadoop Toolbox: When to Use What - <AUTHOR> http://smartdatacollective.com/mtariq/120791/hadoop-toolbox-when-use-what

<comment><USER2> This has even more projects: [https://hadoopecosystemtable.github.io/](https://hadoopecosystemtable.github.io/)

<comment><USER3> I was about to comment on the original article that it does not cover a lot of projects.. This list is more exhaustive but it misses a lot of AWS projects.. I will probably fork it..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very rudimentary discussion.

<comment><USER5> Yeah but you kinda need a guide like that with the Hadoop ecosystem. There are so many projects in common usage, each with their own niche but with some overlap, vendor spin, etc... and it can all change so quickly. Newcomers really need a "field guide" to just explain what's what at a high level.

<comment><USER6> Yep, my team has started on the "slightly more data than our RDBMS can handle" route, and I've had the whole Hadoop-is-a-ecosystem thing-not-a-single- technology discussion multiple times with developers and product managers alike.</comment></comment></comment>