U.S. Homeland Security employees locked out of computer networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-dhs-idUSKBN160240?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58ac9d7304d30158a0ec7ad1&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook <comment><USER2> Part of me was hoping to see some sign of hacktivisim, not for any particular political stance, but because most of us probably agree the federal government has been slacking off as far as security goes. An eye-opening event might be beneficial.

"it appeared the domain controller credentials had expired on Monday when offices were closed for the federal Presidents Day holiday"

Oh, well that's not nearly as exciting. Still a dismal sign of the state of "cyber security" though.

<comment><USER3> One would think in 2017 there would be some kind of solution that allows to track all certs in the org and raise alert well before the cert actually expired (of course, nothing can prevent admins from ignoring the alerts). But given how many cert screwups happen around, looks like it's not happening. Maybe somebody should create a startup doing this? ;)

<comment><USER4> Yeah. It's called Acmetool, LetsEncrypt, Cron, and Nagios.

Problem solved. Free certs, automated, cronned, and externally monitored. What else do you need?

Oh thats right. The feds forbid LE. Alright boys and girls, go back to your $499 Comodo certs.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you can clear up something for me: I am in CC for an email discussion between 2 parties exchanging sensitive personal information.

Party A uses LetsEncrypt to protect the https site storing the information (And needs a username/password or something to grant access to Party B)

Party B does certificate pinning, and complains that Party A's cert changes every three months without warning and without being sure the new cert still points to Party A.

Party A says Party B should stop the pinning and just accept everything signed by LetsEncrypt.

Party B says they want a way to be 100% sure they are talking with Party A and need a better (EV?) cert.

The discussion is going back and forth for a few months now (and re-ignites every three months when communication goes down _again_ and pissing everyone off). Who do you think is right here?

<comment><USER6> 1\. Certificate pinning is not a solution to the problem. Certificates change without warning anyhow, because they may be compromised and revoked at any time.

2\. Let's Encrypt certificates are indeed the lowest grade of SSL certificate. That's not a criticism of Let's Encrypt, it's just the nature of the situation. There are legitimate reasons to consider it too low a level of assurance. I have no idea whether your parties have that level of need or not. But I can point out that if you want a better grade of cert than Let's Encrypt, you do need to go for the fairly expensive ones that require a lot of real, human validation. There's not much point in just getting another cheap- but-not-free cert that has roughly the same level of validation.

3\. There's another solution to this problem entirely, if you're communicating between two parties and that's all this cert is doing (i.e., you're not speaking to the general public with this cert). Make your own certificate authority, sign your own certs, have the public key of that CA inserted into the Java cert authority.

Creating your own certificate authority is very simple. To give you a sense of how simple, here's some scripts I bashed together to set up nodes that speak to each other over SSL: Set up the CA [1] Build a new cert signed by that CA for the node [2].

I am _NOT_ saying you can just use those or that you should even crib from them. These are generally intended for quick reference and testing only even in the context of this project ("real" users are expected to do their own cert management with real certs), and the needs of this project are significantly different from an HTTPS website. My intent in linking those is merely to demonstrate the rough complexity of setting up a CA is only a few lines in bash, not a monstrous impossibly-large undertaking, and you can Google this stuff up in a day or two, tops. The hard part is all around how careful you are with the private keys and revocation, and the fact you must set up and implement your own security policies around the certs. (My suggested revocation policy would be "we'll call you", and that if a cert is ever compromised, just re-roll the whole process from start to finish and create a new CA. "Real" revocation is somewhat complicated, and somewhat unsatisfactory anyhow. Take advantage of the smallness of the problem and the pre-existing personal connections. A lot of the at-scale SSL issues arise because we don't have those.)

[1]: [https://github.com/thejerf/reign/blob/master/create_signing_...](https://github.com/thejerf/reign/blob/master/create_signing_cert)

[2]: [https://github.com/thejerf/reign/blob/master/create_node_cer...](https://github.com/thejerf/reign/blob/master/create_node_cert)

<comment><USER7> I take slight issue with "Let's Encrypt certificates are indeed the lowest grade of SSL certificates".

Other issuers perform domain validation in the same ways (specific content at a specific URL, DNS records, e-mail validation, etc.) as LetsEncrypt. LE just makes it easier.

And, from a technical perspective, certificate X from issuer A is no different than certificate Y from issuer B (assuming both A and B are trusted root CAs, same key length, etc.).

If your issue is with DV vs. EV, yes, I agree that LE certs aren't on the same level as EV certs, but that's not the problem LE is trying to solve.

<comment><USER6> The existence of other vendors of the lowest grade of certificate does not mean that LE doesn't produce the lowest grade of certificate.

As I said, it is not a criticism of LE. It is simply what they are. It doesn't matter how we "feel" about that. It's not like the LE project set out to produce the highest grade of cert but failed; they accomplished exactly what they intended, and it is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Link to the article without the tracking BS.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-dhs- idUSKBN16024...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-dhs- idUSKBN160240)

<comment><USER9> Removing such information automatically is something HN could think about

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "...The source characterized the issue as one stemming from relatively benign information technology missteps and a failure to ensure network redundancy. There was no evidence of foul play..."

Yeah, right! That's just what they want you to believe! Come on everyone, adjust your tinfoil hats now!

lol ;-)</comment>


Password Managers Using Android O's Autofill Are Vulnerable to Data Leakage - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/commonsguy/AutofillFollies/blob/master/WHITE_PAPER.md <comment><USER3> AFAICT, the main problem is that android doesn't force the autofill provider to partition data according to which application is in use, in the same way that you would expect them to be partitioned based on domain name on the web.

However, the information (application_id) _is_ provided to the autofill provider, so it's not really fair to say that android itself is vulnerable: specific implementations of the provider may be vulnerable. Even if android could protect against this specific issue, you're still going to be placing a lot of trust in the autofill provider.

</comment><comment><USER4> The leakage is exactly the same as you get on your desktop computer - <USER2> webpage can hide a password dialog as well which can trigger hidden autofill.

Of course exploiting this can be a bit hard:

\- All current password managers will show UI before autofilling.

\- The app can really grab a password just for itself because of how managers lookup the password.

<comment><USER5> That's not always how it was though. Lastpass used to hand out all your data to pretty much any website that asked nicely[0].

I imagine password managers on mobile devices will have their own teething problems. I will just be patient and wait for them to mature

0\. [https://labs.detectify.com/2016/07/27/how-i-made-lastpass- gi...](https://labs.detectify.com/2016/07/27/how-i-made-lastpass-give-me-all- your-passwords/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think any type of auto fill software should show you everything they're giving up from you before they do it. I rather click Y/N once and have that "inconvenience" than just wonder in the back of my mind how much I'm being screwed by hidden forms. This is alarmingly worse on Android than the web due to being able to inspect hidden elements with a modern browser, but on Android you have to go through more hoops to look through the code for an app.

</comment><comment><USER7> Simple solution: Don't auto-autofill, ask the user, then autofill.

I setup my Keepass Plugin to not autofill forms and provide autocompletion only. That way it doesn't automatically spam any logins it can find into whatever form is present on the website.

Then again, since everything uses URLs of the websites, the only credentials a website has access to are it's own...</comment>


AI learned to use tools after nearly 500M games of hide and seek - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614325/open-ai-algorithms-learned-tool-use-and-cooperation-after-hide-and-seek-games/ <comment><USER2> In case people are interested in the paper [https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/emergent-tool- use/paper/...](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/emergent-tool- use/paper/Multi_Agent_Emergence_2019.pdf)</comment>


How to Download Facebook Videos? - <AUTHOR> https://www.socialconvoy.com/how-to-download-facebook-videos-on-windows-mac/ <comment><USER2> On your Facebook feed or timeline, Right-click on any video then "copy video at current URL".</comment>


Professionalism and TDD (Reprise) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.8thlight.com/uncle-bob/2014/05/02/ProfessionalismAndTDD.html

<comment><USER2> TDD and tests in general seem today to be something to do _instead_ of good architecture and code structure. Extensive tests are only good when the code is complex and difficult. There may be some cases when this is how things must be, but typically it means the code should be rewritten, not tests must be added.

<comment><USER3> A bad architecture and bad code structure can be achieved without TDD. I don't think well thought out design precludes unit testing.

I don't think producing bad architecture/bad code structure is goal of TDD and I suspect it's something to be thinking about regardless of whether you use TDD. If you're having to contort your code or change it just to make a test pass, that's probably a smell.

It just so happens that the SOLID principles (distinct from TDD) are beneficial for TDD and you would probably consider those to create a 'good architecture' and 'code structure'.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_%28object- oriented_design...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_%28object- oriented_design%29)

<comment><USER2> > A bad architecture and bad code structure can be achieved without TDD.

Of course. But TDD seems to be applied _instead_ of good architecture. The latter is way, way more important than some tests.

> I don't think well thought out design precludes unit testing.

It doesn't, but the latter is often applied without the former, resulting in claims "it has many tests, so it must be good code".

<comment><USER3> In that example I agree with you.

I've seen my fair share of bad design with good test coverage. Then I have also seen my fair share of good architectures with no test coverage.

When I see a good architecture with effective testing - that's just awesomeness. I think this is something to endeavour for. I'm not sure how you solve the problem of developers creating bad architectures with heavy test coverage but I don't think pure abandonment of TDD is necessarily the answer (for the alternative which is bad code with no coverage). I do not subscribe to the reasoning that Tests immediately cause a bad design - they definitely influence it but they are not the primary cause.

<comment><USER2> > I do not subscribe to the reasoning that Tests immediately cause a bad > design

Me neither. But tests are given much, much more attention than they are worth. Tests mainly make up for lack of clean structure and good tooling for static analysis. Strong static typing is worth attention. Static analysers and code proof assistants are worth attention. Simple design that make whole class of errors _impossible_ is worth it. Tests are not worth that much in this neighbourhood.

Having plenty of tests is OK when the code base is fragile _and_ it's not clear how to make it robust. Tests are a tool of last resort, if all thinking fails to produce something bug-resistant.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What it's like to be on the data science job market - <AUTHOR> http://treycausey.com/data_science_interviews.html <comment><USER2> Outstanding post, especially the supplement info from others. Most of the opportunities I've seen in DS also have emphasized engineering over science. (Maybe that's due to my job history.)

I've also wondered what fraction of DS employers use Hadoop but not enough data to warrant it. Certainly the DJIA giant pharma where I work doesn't.

<comment><USER3> That's bog standard -- every company uses hadoop. Then when you see the actual datasets, they're _maybe_ a couple hundred gigs completely denormalized. Yet you still have to use hadoop/hive/spark to access them, with all the inefficiencies, complexity, and slowness those bring.

One of the things Trey skipped -- he got the first two only -- that is very annoying is the big breaks in the data science field are data scientist / analysis; data scientist / builder; and data engineer/etl. Data scientists' work sits on top a giant batch of data engineering, and often companies (imo intentionally) try to hire data scientists by dangling interesting analysis or implementation work, but when you dig deep enough or worse, accept the job offer, it's really 80%+ data engineering. (And they get pissy when you quit two months in after discovering this, both because that's not what I want to do and because relationships founded on lies tend not to work out well for employees.)

The other very difficult thing you get is project tests; it's hard to test something deeply in 5 hours. Even when companies claim to want to test statistics knowledge, the tests almost always turn out to be dominated by data ingestion/cleaning work. Or they're simply too much work. eg Stitchfix wanted me to spend 10+ hours implementing an analysis after just speaking to a recruiter, without even having spoken to one of their data scientists because they were "too busy". The recruiter was grumpy when I stopped responding to email.

<comment><USER4> > Then when you see the actual datasets, they're maybe a couple hundred gigs > completely denormalized. Yet you still have to use hadoop/hive/spark to > access them, with all the inefficiencies, complexity, and slowness those > bring.

I was always under the impression that one of the benefits of NoSQL was its speed, but then watching a webcast the other day querying a very small dataset, I was shocked at how slow it was, and this was in contrast to another demo where a different query was mind boggingly fast compared to comparable performance on a traditional SQL platform. (Yes, I know the particulars matter here and it's not that good of a question without that specificity, but any light you could shine on this would be appreciated.)

For data of "a couple hundred gigs", what platform would you say is more appropriate?

<comment><USER3> no, the benefit of nosql, at least for data science, is scalability. ie what do you do when you can't fit the data on a single machine. This works great at a former employer, who really did have pb scale datasets. The vast vast majority of companies do not have pb scale datasets. Most don't have tb datasets.

as for what do you do, postgres / mysql; pandas /R; or roll your own code depending on precisely what you need. But you can rack a pretty beefy box with 256g ram in it, 2 xeons, and a ton of ssd + spindle disk for $10k. Nothing that nosql or hadoop or spark do can't be done easier, written way faster, executed faster, and kept running more easily on a single box or even better in a single process.

For example: at my current gig, I work on 20-40g raw datasets. Ingest to pandas and externalize user agent strings drops it to 5g or so. That process takes 30 to 60 minutes, but I do it once, cache the results, and update incrementally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone who isn't a data scientist, much of this applies to any interview experience, especially the latter part of the article.

Recruiters and companies tend to flip out when I push back, but you know what? That is an excellent signal that this is the wrong job for you. I only have a very brief time to form an impression of your company and your team; why come to me with irrational or unsupported by the data behavior? I really don't understand it. Everyone claims hiring is really hard, and then they do everything they can to alienate the interviewee, then wonder when the offer is turned down, or why the person failed to perform some stupid coding trick on demand they last saw 20 years ago, maybe, in a classroom.

Make the interviewee like you and want to work for you. That shouldn't be hard to understand. Then figure out what work you need to have done, and talk to them about it. It'll be readily clear in most cases. If you are lucky and land a live one, there mind will be straying far from the constraints of your little problem and pretty much have grasped your business, your problems, and are full of ideas of how to improve them all. If not, you probably still have a good worker (if they are able to do the work, i.e. didn't lie on their resume).

I would add to this article - do what you can to see the source code[1]. If you can't, often questions can expose what it is like. Most won't give good answers, but if you are put through the normal wringer one of the 6-12 people you talk to will be fairly open and honest. Every place has warts and limitations - the question is whether these are due to inavoidable tradeoffs (jump on board), or a horrible culture/infrastructure (run away unless you are being very, very well compensated to fix the problem).

[1] trawl the github/bitbucket page of every engineer if you have to, or of course the company's pages if they do open source. It's surprising how much undocumented spaghetti is released by companies in 'support' of their products. I'm mulling pulling it up on a laptop and doing a little code review if the questions for me get silly. But realistically, I'll probably not accept the offer to interview if it is really bad.

</comment><comment><USER6> has anyone tried asking technical questions back? e.g. a list of putnam questions.

<comment><USER7> Can you fit a parabola of arc length 4 inside the unit circle?</comment></comment>


Mixins in Backbone.js - <AUTHOR> http://open.bekk.no/mixins-in-backbone/

<comment><USER2> Great article!

Do you find that you are able to reuse your mixins easily, or do they evolve slowly to become general and reusable components?

<comment><AUTHOR> We came up with this when we saw that several of our components did too much and we had to much copy&paste going on, so we haven't actually created many from the ground up. But the one we created using TDD from the ground up has proven to be very reusable. So I guess my answer is both, but in the beginning I believe it's primarily the latter.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired through LinkedIn? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering whether people actually use LinkedIn to find talent for jobs (not just programming/tech jobs). <comment><USER2> I get contracting and fulltime job offers all the time through it. Many are junk, but one led me to a huge raise and better job at a company I am now thriving at. Separately from that I have been contacted by several local startups inquiring about my availability. It definitely drives investigation and starts conversations.

You have to build out a good profile though, both to trigger showing up in searches and also to make your profile interesting enough to read. The eye will just skip over a big list of jobs with no content (explanations of what you did or produced). Reshuffle sections to have it look solid and engaging. Profiles can feel warm or cold, and a "warm feeling" profile will get a lot more views and contacts.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the startup I work for, we use LinkedIn all the time as a way to check out non-technical hires. It was the same for my previous company also. It's also a good way to scout for any shared connections in case you want to get a third- party opinion on whether someone would work well in whatever position.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have not been, But my wife was offered an interview (Which led to being hired of course) based off of her LinkedIn profile.

I have about 1 recruiter a week asking me to apply for a job, I never do though...</comment>


Show HN: Asteroids game made with polymer - <AUTHOR> http://catalint.ro/asteroids/ <comment><USER2> At first, I thought the hitbox in front of the player was too large, but then I noticed the asteroid images are apparently being resized, so I suspect the hitbox for the asteroids is assuming the original dimensions, causing collisions in apparently open space. I'm only assuming this is what's happening, since I don't want to wade through that much javascript to find out.

Since this seems to be a demo i'm not going to get too pedantic about the gameplay, but that definitely is something you would want to address in an actual game.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, the meteor is replaced with an explosion, but doesn't keep up with the scale

you're right, it's a technology demo I had fun making, not that much invested in game-play

thanks for the pointers

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cut to Sam Jackson going "ASTEROIDS... HAVE YOU EVER SEEN IT?"

(This is a side scrolling game which has rocks to shoot)

</comment><comment><USER4> The licensing notes all over the source code are pretty obnoxious. I mean 27 times in one file? Come on!

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, you mean the polymer licensing right? I have none :) actually you can even see the full code here, it's open sourced [https://github.com/catalint/asteroids](https://github.com/catalint/asteroids)

<comment><AUTHOR> also, it's 27 times because of bundling, and their way of typing license in each file header

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Try it on mobile also</comment>


Out of Sync: Puberty at age 9 - <AUTHOR> http://goodmenproject.com/2010/06/02/out-of-sync/ <comment><USER2> Why are people upset at the article?

I look at it and I see a boy who had a medical disorder, but managed to grow up, is finishing college at 19, has developed useful skills, and has developed good decision making skills. Along the way there were some emotional problems and unfortunate incidents. But guess what, nobody learns to make good decisions without making some bad ones along the way.

Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome. Admittedly I'm far from an expert, but as a parent I consider it my duty to read and think enough to have a reasonably well informed opinion.

(I'm curious how many of the people who are offering blanket advice are parents. As one friend told me, "It is amazing how much more I knew about being a parent before I had kids.")

<comment><USER3> Since I came out and flatly said I see this as a serious case of a lack of good parenting, I'll satisfy your curiosity one step: I'm a parent.

 _Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome._

There is a _wide_ gamut of parenting behavior between "laying down the law" and just letting your kid do whatever they like without any monitoring or guidance. Neither approach is good - you need to work out a middle way that gives your child a wide scope for autonomy but with defined boundaries that allow you to notice and correct/repair/talk about unreasonable behavior.

Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut.

<comment><USER2> _Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut._

If you think that he was granted that access at 9, or that he was granted access lightly, you didn't read the story very carefully. Go back and search for the comment near the end from Alex' father for some more context.

Now refresh your mind as to the effects of testosterone. It is the chemical that makes previously complacent boys seek out sexual behavior, assert their own identity, challenge authority, and attempt to establish themselves higher in whatever dominance hierarchies they find themselves in.

Sure, chronologically he might have been 11. But biologically he was more like 16. With all the conflicts and behaviors that go with that. (How many of us would like to be reminded of the stupid things we did at 16? I sure wouldn't...) How big a set of fights do you want? Because his brain chemistry is prepping him to give them to you.

My attitude is that childhood is where we do our best to lay a foundation. Puberty is where we have to cross our fingers and hope that we did a good enough job. And adulthood is where we hope to find validation that we did OK.

I don't expect to face those challenges that young or that severely with my children. But in this case their son's accelerated pace has already got him to adulthood. And the results seem pretty good. It seems likely that my standard for parenting is different than yours. But by my standards if the kid winds up capable, high functioning, healthy, and thankful for his parents, then you succeeded.

<comment><USER4> "My attitude is that childhood is where we do our best to lay a foundation. Puberty is where we have to cross our fingers and hope that we did a good enough job."

That is precisely the problem with early puberty. You lose multiple years of the childhood necessary to lay the foundation for the onset of puberty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is just your regular puberty story, displaced a few years. I fail to understand the alarmist responses of the medical professionals. Why would they worry about pregnancy with someone age 9, but not age 11? The parents seem to suffer from a 'we are so special; our problems were so different' syndrome. Why would allowing someone aged 11 to watch porn be a larger issue than allowing your child aged 14 to watch porn? Since when is a child hitting his dad at 15 different from one hitting his dad at 17?

<comment><USER6> The worst thing about it is that they wanted to put him on severe medication with nasty side effects, some of which they can't even quantify. A lesser parent would have gone for that without consulting their child. The arrogance of the medical profession to just 'throw drugs at the problem' astounds me.

As for the 'we're so different' aspect of it, I disagree with you there. It does seem to present a major challenge, and it's a personal story, very well written, and one which I for one really enjoyed reading.

<comment><USER7> The nasty side effects of the drug have to be weighed against the nasty side effects of the condition that the drug is meant to treat, and from the article, the parents didn't do that. The kid hated needles and didn't want his balls to shrink (when oversized testicles was _one of the symptoms of his condition_ ) and that was the end of it.

I'm sure that lots of people with juvenile diabetes, when they were first diagnosed, hated the idea of injecting themselves with insulin every day, but they learned to cope. This child could have learned to cope.

 _ETA:_ According to a comment by the father toward the end, the endocrinologist agreed with the decision not to give drugs.

<comment><USER6> So, if he agreed with the decision not to give the drugs, why were they recommended in the first place?

Also, I don't think regulating someone's blood/sugar levels can be equated to altering the course of their puberty and shrinking their testicles. The damage could be untold and irreversible.

I don't share your faith in the medical system, and it's infallability (although many do a great job under difficult circumstances), and I'm definitely not alone there. Many respected cellular biologists are claiming that the medical profession has got it wrong in relation to treatment of many conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Poor Alex. For the rest of his life anyone who googles his history will be reading about how he threatened his mother, attacked his father, and loved hardcore porn at 12 years old.

<comment><USER9> Actually, no: the article doesn't currently show up until page 8 of a Google search for alex peppe. I would imagine that in a couple of years it will be even further down the search space.

<comment><USER10> The HN comments are on page 2, though.

<comment><USER11> It wouldn't surprise me if that dude found this discussion, actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a little confused. I haven't read the article word for word, so I may have missed something but

The article paints it like the problems are because the boy has multiple times normal levels of testosterone (not for his age, but for men at all), but I didn't see any mention of tests or levels. So, if the testosterone levels were a problem but didn't exceed natural levels (at any age), why were there problems?

Yes, you could have problems with a child with high testosterone levels, but the article also seems to be claiming everything else about the boy was developing at the same rate- that is to say, while chronologically he was one age, his body AND mind AND everything else were some other age, _but all the same age_. Why would this be a problem? There's plenty of normal teenage boys out there of equivalent biological age, and the number of candles on their cake doesn't determine how unhinged they may be.

I've phrased all this poorly as I can't quite work out how to put it, and maybe I've missed something, but I didn't find any evidence that he wasn't anything other than just pretty much a regular boy with a somewhat accelerated clock.

<comment><USER13> He had a rather highly accelerated pubescence which increased the alienation that teenagers often feel from their peers. Combined with an emotional immaturity (this you will note was is not accelerated as it is learnt rather than grown) lead to some serious difficulties for him and his parents.

<comment><USER12> Alienation I buy, but it seems unlikely it would be the most important factor.

Emotional maturity (or lack thereof) is what I'd normally attribute it to, but I'm not quite sure how that develops. Is it truly purely a learned trait? If so, I'd agree with you that would be the biggest stumbling block. I thought of it myself, but discounted it.

<comment><USER13> Have a full read of the article, his actions bear all the hallmarks of emotional immaturity combined with heightened hormone levels. And don't discount alienation, we're social animals and puberty is where this need for strong interaction with peers is initiated and grows to form our adult emotional and social intelligence.

And no emotional maturity/intelligence isn't purely a learnt trait, rather there parts of the brains that function to provide us with a place to learn these behaviours which is why physiological disorders can affect it. There a number of documented cases where a child has been deprived of social stimuli (such as a case where a child was brought up living in with her parents dogs), these children's brains are underdeveloped in the parts of the brain that deal with social skills (and language).

A particularly horrific example of the argument of nature vs nurture.

<comment><USER12> That's interesting to think about. The natural solution that first pops into my mind is to teach them emotional maturity, or in other words 'make them grow up', at an early age. Responsibility or 'rise to the challenge' type trauma. (of course, it's really not something that can be easily 'taught' in a structured way)

Today, that doesn't happen much, but centuries ago I'm sure it did, which makes me wonder if people like David Farragut were humanity's Alexes of the past.

<comment><USER13> Good point, though do you develop a well balanced individual that way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This online mag is amazing. The writers are actually good essayists, and the themes are more elevated that what you'd expect from a more typical "lad mag" like Esquire.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Eric and I agreed that Internet pornography would allow Alex a sexual outlet that was the safest of all the alternatives. [..] Looking back, I realize I knew nothing about boys and pornography. I'd never seen online porn and assumed that Alex was viewing still pictures similar to print magazines. It wasn't until Alex was 12 that we learned that he'd been downloading video clips and visiting adult chat rooms._

This article lost its legitimacy when I discovered that this poor lad merely suffered from a lack of good, disciplined parenting.

Not everyone turns into a secretive, manipulative sex addict a few years after puberty whether it happens at 9, 11 or 13. Letting a 9 year old browse porn and interact on "adult chat rooms" shows, to me, a lack of care that could (did?) cause serious psychological trauma in someone so young.

<comment><USER15> Having just finished the article, I have to strongly disagree with you, I think they did a great job parenting.

Giving their son unrestricted access to pornography was a smart thing to do, especially considering, as explained in the article, he could get it either way.

If your child is smart and educated about the potential dangers associated with online sex chatrooms and the like, there are only benefits to reap.

Pornography does the world a load of good. In countries that are sexually liberal, and where sex is not as taboo as it is in other countries, the population has less sexual crime. The opposite is true of sexually repressive countries. Why this is so shouldn't be difficult to understand.

Pornography gives sexually charged males an outlet, one that does not involve raping and abusing women.

What matters most with respect to porn, is not whether someone has access to it, or even the sort of porn they watch, but their own character, which determines how they react to it.

Or would you have preferred that they block his internet access (a futile endeavor as explained in the article), made him resent and rebel against his parents more, and forced him at the age of 9 to turn his sexual drive and impulses toward the underage girls around him? Turning off the porn doesn't turn off natural sexual urges, if anything, it ensures they're at the forefront of his consciousness. Any honest person with a penis can tell you that.

For a child in his position, he turned out remarkably well. This should not be surprising considering the excellent parenting he received. They didn't give up on him, they home-schooled him and taught him well, and they gave him freedom to learn from his own mistakes:

 _Alex took the therapist at his word and walked out of the office to go live with his girlfriend. He was 15. I reported the incident and the therapist to the Department of Human Services and called the police, who monitored Alex from the distance. Two-and-a-half difficult days passed before Alex returned home, his body language meek and his words—to me, at least—repentant. He barely spoke to his father._

Down the road, Alex realized how blessed he was to have such great parents:

 _A strict vegan, Alex had just apprised me of new research on latent carcinogens in poultry as well as the news that he was to receive the award for the university's Outstanding Computer Science Student of 2010. Holding a corn chip midway to his mouth, he said, "I appreciate all that you do for me. I know I couldn't have come this far without you."_

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the pro-pornography manifesto, but you're falsely assuming I'm against it. Quite the opposite - I'm pro pornography and a fully paid up pro- sex disciple of Dan Savage :-) No-one's ever going to be seriously injured by seeing a few genitals.

I just don't think a NINE year old should be implicitly given _free rein_ to browse hardcore pornography and to have sexual discussions in adult sex chatrooms with strangers. Straight up softcore porn is no enemy, but it's easy to go way beyond that. A 9 year old is emotionally and mentally streets away from a teenager, whether they're hitting puberty or not.

I've tended to think of myself as a mostly liberal guy, but seriously, if people think that letting 9 year olds check out pornography and talk on adult chat rooms is OK (judging by all the upboats you're getting), then today is the day I've finally become sexually conservative - at least compared to some of you(!)

<comment><USER16> i don't know. your argument feel intuitive, but itistoday has concrete examples of why the situation was actually positive. that _"A 9 year old is emotionally and mentally streets away from a teenager"_ is an abstract concern to me - what exactly is the problem here? compounded by the fact that things turned out fine for the kid in the story.

<comment><USER3> People frequently have positive adulthoods after suffering abuse earlier in life. That's mere correlation, not causation, and doesn't mean the abuse is good.

People with pleasant childhoods can turn out bad. People with get beaten every day as kids can turn out good. That's as much not an argument to beat children as yours is to give them free access to adult, sexual situations.

<comment><USER17> So are you arguing that the porn was unpleasant to him? Because if it wasn't unpleasant to him at the time (like physical abuse would be), nor did it hinder his development, then where is the harm?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TL;DR: Hysterical parents and doctors freak out over son who is perfectly fine and even abnormally intelligent, publicizing lots of incredibly personal information in the process.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, it was more interesting than I expected.

</comment><comment><USER20> A colleague of mine has a daughter who went into full-blown puberty at the age of 7. Bodily changes, emotional lability - everything that usually happens at 13. The doctors recommended they cut out the use of plastics and household cleaners... so, off to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER21> At one point the mom says she asked him whether he wants to take the medication ("it is his life"). I wonder whether she asked his permission to publicize the intimate details of his growing up.

<comment><USER22> If you have read the comments, than you would have realize that her son was looking over at the whole things and deciding what to include and not to include.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Terrifying. But it doesn't sound that far removed from any other mal-adjusted kid who was obsessed with computers and porn.

I'd forgotten how miserable puberty was. Ahhhh kill me now.

</comment><comment><USER24> I just got done reading this article and don't blame the parents at all. It is always easier to criticize another parent's decisions but you are in their shoes, the whole perspective is different and you will end up doing whatever you think is best for your kid.

btw. This is his website. <http://www.alexanderpeppe.com/>

</comment><comment><USER25> Huh? Seems to me not testosterone, but hysterical parents are the problem here. Quote from the doctor: "He can get a girl pregnant. He will not hesitate if given the opportunity." WTF??? What a bunch of nonsense.

<comment><USER2> On what data are you basing your opinion?

The doctor accurately describes what testosterone does to boys. Once a boy starts producing testosterone in large amounts he matures sexually, becomes capable of getting women pregnant, and develops a strong interest in doing so. The result is called puberty.

This is as true at 9 as it is at 16. It is much rarer for boys to start producing testosterone at 9, but if it happens, the results are perfectly predictable. (Ditto for girls. There is no known lower age limit at which the body responds to sex hormones. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina> for an extreme example.)

<comment><USER25> But even with Testosterone, boys don't try to impregnate every girl they are alone with. Maybe they'd want to, but they are not completely brainless.

<comment><USER2> This boy had higher than normal levels of testosterone, and was facing it with unusually little maturity due to his young age. Both factors bode poorly for self-control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> opposite of my family: 3 boys, puberty at 16, 17, and 18 (almost 19). That last one they were about to inject with all sorts of ugly drugs, when ole puberty came shuffling in late but otherwise normal

</comment><comment><USER27> Parenting is a tough job, especially with your first child when you have no experience to fall back on. But OMG do I think they made a bunch of bad decisions with this kid.

<comment><USER28> Agreed, the parents asked the child's permission too frequently rather than simply taking control.

I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside, but I see many owners that do and they have dogs that quite frankly I would be scared to let small children be near. And I truly believe the same principles apply to children as animals, the nature of the relationship is vastly more complex but authority isn't. You're the boss or you aren't.

These parents were not the bosses of the household, Alex was. My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told not to do it again.

<comment><USER29> > _I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside,_

I hope that you don't feel the dog-to-child comparison is 100% accurate. Running your house like a pack of dogs (or frankly a boot camp) might not be the best way to raise children. You don't want to raise children that: 1) can't think for their own b/c they only know how to memorize/regurgitate or 2) will instantly rebel and 'go wild' when control is released (i.e. university/college).

> _My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very > little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got > disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told > not to do it again._

This evidence is just as anecdotal as the people that say, "My computer runs Windows and I've never seen a BSOD so therefore anyone that experiences a BSOD must have been asking for it." Also, read the comment (currently) above this thread that refers to further information that was cut from the final draft of the article at Alex's request. It adds more context to the story.

On the other hand, there is _some_ evidence for having a strong father figure. e.g. Ted Nugent has stated that it was his up-bringing that kept him out of drugs and alcohol even while hanging out with notorious drug users like Jimi Hendrix. (Though many people might not see the 'Motor City Madman' as a role model to aspire too; I don't share a lot of his views on politics, etc)

<comment><USER28> I said, I believe the principles apply, it's not 100% accurate because humans are infinitely more complex than even the smartest breeds of dog. However the principles do apply.

I believe in authority not in a disciplinarian as the head of the household. I've seen parents who are simply discipline 110% of the day, and you don't necessarily just get #1/#2 that you pointed out, you too frequently get #3 which is balls-out-psycho-shit teenage runaways and daily physical altercations. Incidentally, this is seen in dogs and especially in the obedient breeds who can be consistently disciplined and obey.

I don't mean treat our children like they are dogs, but treat them evenly, fairly and consistently like you would your dog. The parents in the article _never_ acted consistently, they fully knew what behaviours they wanted out of their son but never showed the consistency in their efforts to control it. (I understand there was more in the story about him accessing pornography, however there's ways to relent on a situation without essentially saying 'fuck it, do whatever you want', they could have bought him a playboy subscription either magazine or TV rather than give him free access to the billion different fetishes available online that - allegedly - manage to screw up the marital lives of mature adults)

I mean I lost all respect for these people when they not only flat out gave up on stopping their son trying to date a homeless woman, but aided their son in doing so by moving her into their house, buying her clothes and trying to help her. (It might sound like a noble act, but they essentially bought a homeless woman as a prostitute for their 15 year old son)

It's simply ludicrous why these adults thought this was an appropriate thing for them to be doing. They gave their son free access to pornography _and_ essentially bought him a prostitute. It's a miracle they haven't been charged with aiding and abetting child abuse by repeatedly allowing a legally responsible adult to have sex with their under-age child.

<comment><USER29> If you read the father's comments on the article, the courts _were_ involved with trying to separate their son from the homeless lady, but apparently not even that was enough to stop it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Tunnel of Samos (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-tunnel-of-samos#email-newsletter <comment><USER2> _"The distance around Mount Castro along this path is less than 2,200 meters (275 bow lengths), so an error of two millimeters per bow length could give a total leveling error ofabout 55 centimeters."_

I don't see a reason to assume any correlation between errors, so one would expect about sqrt(275) or 17-ish times 2 millimeters of total errors, or a few centimeters.

On the one hand, that makes it easier to use such a construct. On the other hand, I suspect the '2 mm' figure was at least partially made up to fit the data.

Also, I find it weird that the text doesn't mention any attempts to locate the various stone pillars presumably constructed. Surely, some remains should still be there?

</comment><comment><USER3> The evidence that they dug from both ends is pretty compelling.

Otherwise I would have assumed they just started digging in the right general direction, used a water channel to keep things level, and sighted along the tunnel to keep it straight.

</comment><comment><USER4> What a wonderful reading experience, and commenting/exploration process.

<comment><USER5> If you print it maybe (as it is clearly a layout meant for print reading). In the browser it is clearly not an optimal reading experience. The 2 column layout forces you to scroll up and down to carry on reading, and it has hijacked left mouse click to reveal a sing in side bar.

Really genuinely interested din understanding why you found the reading experience wonderful! (no snark intended =)

<comment><USER6> As a scientific researcher who reads many 8 1/2 x 11 documents every day, to replace printing every paper one really needs a very large screen. Scrolling is too distracting so the full page needs to be completely seen in its original size or maybe a little bit zoomed in. Then it is really nice to be able to have another window next to it at full size to display the figures. Many times the figure the text is discussing is on the next page. With paper you just have the two pages next to each other, but this does not work on anything less that a huge screen.

I really had a hard time finding screens tall enough to do this, as computer screens are made super wide to view movies. Turning a 27" monitor upright does the trick, but I would rather have a screen in the shape of a square that was about 22" on a side.

This doc would also benefit with much higher resolution scanning, as the map on the first page is looks wonderful at first glance, but its details are not legible.</comment></comment></comment>


Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform - <AUTHOR> https://developer.automatic.com/ <comment><USER2> I didn't know there was already a second generation Automatic.

I pre-ordered the first one and had a lot of problems with it constantly losing connection and not tracking trips. I checked the app a few times to find out that data was just not collected, and it was just cumbersome to get the device to reconnect, with having to turn off my engine and do a dance to get it to talk to my car, that it just became a pain and sat in my glove box for months.

Hope they've fixed these issues, but I'm skeptical about buying a 2nd gen after that experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry you did not have a great experience with our first gen device. We're announcing the second generation device today with the developer platform. The connectivity issues some of our users experienced with the first gen device were mainly due to BTLE. The second gen device has MFi support which allows us to support classic Bluetooth with iPhones. It's much more reliable. You must have received an email with a discount code. I hope you try it. We're also happy to help you get to the bottom of your issues if you write to firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER3> You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

<comment><USER4> I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria.

How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving...

I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in accessing their data, sounds like an edge case.

I imagine that it'd be easier to either get rid of one of your accounts so everything goes to one single account, or have multiple plugs, and you swap out based on who is driving.

Also, I got a discount as an original kickstarter. You should check your email/spam folder to see if you got one as well.

<comment><USER5> In my case I have one car and one account but my wife is usually driving in the morning and drops me off. So those trips get chopped in half and messes up the data. I basically use it only as a novelty at this point.

I could set it up on her phone but then we have the two phones problem. Obviously she isn't the driver all the time so I can't just delete it from my phone either.

Ideal would be to connect two phones to one account and if one phone disconnects then resume the trip on the other phone. If the data is in their cloud anyway this should be possible.

<comment><USER6> I have the exact same situation (1st Gen Link). I take the public transport to office and my wife drives the car during the day. So, the app only registers data when I'm driving (evenings/weekends). All the data during the day is not registered :(.

Perhaps the 2nd Gen Link solves this, now that it has a built-in GPS?

Also, of late, it's been really troubling me connecting to my iPhone 6. I have a support ticket open with Automatic, where they basically suggested deleting and re-installing the Automatic iOS App. Going to try that today to see if it works.

I'm considering getting the 2nd Gen Link, but would love to know if these issues have been resolved. Also, a discount would be nice :D!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My friend and I built something similar to this a few years back, but we never found the right audience. Here's the old kickstarter page: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1847359812/motobox- conn...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1847359812/motobox-connect-with- your-car-on-a-deeper-level)

Ours connected to WiFi in driveways and dumped all driving data to servers that users could connect to via an API and web tool. I suspect our messaging and graphics were not polished enough, even though our hardware and software was cool.

I'd be really curious to find out what the most popular use of this "Automatic" device is. I'm always excited to hear about new uses for automotive data.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm browsing this website for 5 minutes, and still dont fully understand what they offer. Do they offer an api to get data of their own drivers on the road? Or do they offer an api to get data of any car out there? Or do they have a box you need to install in your car, which has a built in rest api to get the data you need? I think the initial value this company provides should be more clear on the landing page.

<comment><USER9> From what I gather, it's a bluetooth device that you plug into your cars OBD- II port. That transmits data from your car to your smart phone. Your phone, then, transmits the data to automatic.

So, you can look at daily gas mileage stats, error codes, and things like that. I assume the GPS parts come from the phone itself (while in the car).

The idea sounds interesting but I wouldn't want the data to be transmitted to the cloud. I'd also be worried that the data might be permissible in court if you were in an accident, for example. As a result, they might see that you were going 10 over at the time of the accident or that you had been doing so 2 minutes down the road. Lots of invalid conclusions can be made on such data and I wouldn't want to share it.

<comment><USER8> Ah indeed. Good point about privacy. Also they are not available in Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For Android developers who don't want to get locked into Automatic as a platform I recommend the Torque app. It has the same basic functionality, costs less, supports a variety of third-party Bluetooth OBD2 readers, and provides a plugin development API.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque) [http://torque-bhp.com/](http://torque-bhp.com/)

<comment><USER11> Does torque give an api to access that data?

<comment><USER10> yes [http://torque-bhp.com/wiki/PluginDocumentation](http://torque- bhp.com/wiki/PluginDocumentation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The actual car events listed on their website is incredibility limited. Anyone who has spent time dealing with OBD-II ports, canbus, etc. knows that getting access to data beyond basics like RPM, Speed, and maybe braking (Mode 1 PIDs) is typically vendor specific and can vary between years of the same model, let alone models within the same manufacturer.

Someone mentioned VW below. Remember, there has been discussion that the automotive vendors want to lock access to OBD-II/Canbus info.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right that there is a lot more information in cars than we expose right now. What we're announcing today is the first step. The goal is to continue to expose more and more data over time via simple to use APIs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know if this works for any bluetooth obd-ii adapter? I have another one I've used with Dash but wasn't sure if it will work with Automatic or if they use proprietary hardware/software.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey, is there any difference between this hardware and your typical OBD-II Bluetooth adapter? In case not, they could market the app separately and allow people to use their existing adapters.

<comment><AUTHOR> The last thing we wanted to do was build hardware! But, we could not deliver the experience we wanted to without building it. This blog post describes some of the reasons we built hardware - [http://blog.automatic.com/why-we-built- the-link/](http://blog.automatic.com/why-we-built-the-link/)

If you want to learn more about the latest generation hardware - [https://www.automatic.com/adapter/](https://www.automatic.com/adapter/)

<comment><USER6> @thejo so if we buy the 2nd Gen Link, will it keep exposing more data, simply via firmware upgrades, or will there be a 3rd Gen Link, at some point? I guess my question is, will these features be purely firmware-based, or will they actually require upgrades to the Link hardware as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What do you guys use to collect / aggregate / store / analyze your users' data? Do you do any kind of aggregate analysis to get insights into patterns / behaviours?

<comment><USER16> We store the data in Apache Spark using Databricks and Spark Streaming. We are working on a bunch of really cool aggregate analysis that we plan to surface in the app. Things like how does my car perform vs cars in my same class.

[https://spark-summit.org/east-2015/talk/spark-plugs-into- you...](https://spark-summit.org/east-2015/talk/spark-plugs-into-your-car)

We have to be really careful about user's privacy, so we haven't released much yet other than our dashboard: [https://dashboard.automatic.com](https://dashboard.automatic.com), but I think we'll be able to start pushing insights directly into the app in the next release.

Best Regards, Rob Ferguson Director of Engineering Automatic Labs [https://twitter.com/RobFergusonIII](https://twitter.com/RobFergusonIII)

<comment><USER15> Shameless plug: have you checked out mnubo.com? We provide a complete data pipeline, from ingestion to visualization, for connected devices like yours. PM me at email@example.com if you'd like know more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've never thought about this because I don't even own a car anymore. Essentially it's a device that converts diagnostic data to a standardized format (and displays this in a corresponding app)? +now you can use the data in your own apps

Is the app required or is there a device that I can plug in, read data for a while, unplug and get the data to a desktop (like a usb key)...because that would be interesting for me. Anything with a mobile connection...scares me :D

<comment><USER18> Data logging software has been around for a long time that does exactly that. Some quick searching for your car should turn up some results.

<comment><USER17> Yes I searched for it and there seems to be plenty of stuff for specific manufacturers or models but I didn't find anything that is universally useful and converts everything to a unified JSON or XML format. Sorry if that wasn't clear. And like I said I don't own a car :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Concerns that was brought up on another forum was the distribution of user information to third-parties ie. insurance, auto manufactures, etc. I was able to test the first iteration of the product a year ago and noticed it worked fine for basic needs (seamless UI experience, useful information) but it wasn't useful after a week of use.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wish you had international shipping. I have an OBD adapter but no good application.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've started accepting international pre-orders today!

<comment><USER21> I really hope you've had some good legal advice on your international returns policy: In particular I imagine that "our policy cannot cover damage incurred during shipment" is not going to prevent CC chargebacks if that were to happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks like part of the movement into a world where I need to "sign in" before I'm allowed to build software. I'm sure Orwell would love this but I don't.

<comment><USER23> The real question, given your reaction, is why you'd want to build software for a closed platform?</comment></comment>


9 track tape drive in Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to read a few old 9-track, 1600BPI open reel computer tapes from the 1980s. Unix TAR format. Anyone still have that capability? <comment><USER2> I have a tabletop 9-track drive, no attempted use in many years. SCSI I think (for a Sparc workstation).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (This was supposed to be an "Ask HN", but I apparently clicked the wrong link for that.)

<comment><USER3> You could re submit it as an Ask HN. It's likely the community would enjoy this</comment></comment>