BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/bitconnect-closes-exchange-as-states-warn-of-unregulated-sales <comment><USER3> For those unaware, Bitconnect was a Bitcoin-based ponzi-scheme that had operated 'successfully' for quite some time. I don't say 'ponzi' as an insult in the way some do for cryptocurrencies, it was quite literally just a bare- bones ponzi scheme, where you deposit your money (Bitcoin) on their website, buy their token, 'lock' your funds for some amount of time, and you are promised very high interest rates while encouraged to re-invest your returns.

What has happened today is Bitconnect has closed the exchange on their website, and so users flocked to some of the only other exchanges (of dubious reputation, since no reputable exchange wanted to list the BitConnect coin) in order to sell their now-worthless tokens, resulting in losses of around 90% today: [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitconnect/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitconnect/)

Many famous Youtubers and other individuals with influence convinced hundreds of people to put their money into BitConnect in order to profit off of referrals, leading to a lot of unfortunate losses and a lot of delusion and misinformation among devoted investors. The general sentiment towards those that lost money due to BitConnect has been a mocking attitude in the cryptocurrency investment communities, as BitConnect has been referred to by many as a blatant ponzi scheme for months.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Famous Youtubers and other individuals with influence convinced hundreds of > people to put their money into BitConnect in order to profit off of > referrals_

If you lost money in this scheme and are in the United States or Canada, contact your state securities regulator [1]. Mention any such referral sources. Those individuals may be liable for securities fraud under state and federal law.

If you're in the United States, send a copy to the SEC [2]. If you lost more than a token amount, I would also recommend contacting an attorney.

[1] [http://www.nasaa.org/about-us/contact-us/contact-your- regula...](http://www.nasaa.org/about-us/contact-us/contact-your-regulator/)

[2] [https://www.sec.gov/complaint/select.shtml](https://www.sec.gov/complaint/select.shtml)

 _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice._

<comment><USER4> Most of them took down their videos by now

<comment><USER5> @Bitfinexed [1], who tracks all kinds of scams (the Tether one is going to be the real doozy when that unravels) has been diligently saving Bitconnect videos, tweets, etc. He is pseudononymous, so the question now is how to effectively get these (apparently) hundreds of gigs of videos archived/shared. [2] I can't imagine he's the only one to have thought to do this, though. Bitconnect was simply too blatant of a skeezy ponzi for _no one_ to have bothered tracking down who all these people were...

[1] [https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed](https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed)

[2] [https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/953510174244986880](https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/953510174244986880)

<comment><USER6> They should get in touch with Jason Scott or Archive Team in general to get them in the Internet Archive, or upload them to the Internet Archive themselves.

EDIT: I don't have Twitter, if someone wouldn't mind, could they connect @Bitfinexed to @textfiles?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Worse, fake BitConnect support accounts on Twitter are "helping users expedite" BCC to BTC by having them send their BCC to these pop up Twitter accounts. One has over 30k BCC. Yes the price crashed but still..

@bitconnectw [https://twitter.com/bitconnectw/status/953432382119514112](https://twitter.com/bitconnectw/status/953432382119514112)

@bitconnectstaff [https://twitter.com/bitconnectstaff/status/95333597084946430](https://twitter.com/bitconnectstaff/status/95333597084946430)

@bitconnect_team [https://twitter.com/bitconnect_team/status/95340164519865139...](https://twitter.com/bitconnect_team/status/953401645198651392)

@bitconnectteam [https://twitter.com/bitconectteam/status/953500671558512640](https://twitter.com/bitconectteam/status/953500671558512640)

<comment><USER8> 5 hours later some of them have gone down and others are still up. You'd think Twitter's fraud team might have had a few tip offs...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm just going to leave this here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U)

<comment><USER10> Hard to believe that people watched this and still invested in this shitshow.

<comment><USER11> I've been to a MLM conference once (or well, a conference by a company who distributed purely via MLM) and I saw people buying into it as well. When I googled them (this was back around 2006), I saw tons of domains and websites with these products all from people with their own "company" (lol).

You know what sells? Sampling, and success stories. The first thing I got told is that I must believe in the product. Yeah, that's true with any product, but where's the proof? Well, you can convince people with sampling. As for the success stories, people high on the pyramid are around at these conferences as well. The brother of my aunt (cold side) had earned more than a million with this MLM scheme. Which got me to check out the conference in the first place. At the conference he appeared to be well respected within the scene. I didn't know this beforehand (my aunt told me _afterwards_ even though she got me in contact with him) but what did he do before that? Well, he was in a cult. Now he was a hardcore Christian in a MLM scheme. As they say, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

I'm not _at all_ surprised there's these MLM-esque videos related to cryptocurrency out there. As far's I'm concerned, BitConnect is just the tip of the iceberg. We haven't witnessed the mask falling from Tether yet (many red flags have been raised though), nor Bitcoin in general (many red flags as well). Bitcoin value has been going _down_ the past days, btw, even _before_ BitConnect announcement. You can esp see the decline from Jan 15.

<comment><USER12> Had a very similar experience - a friend of our family (also a member of a, let's call it, high-intensity christian denomination) got started in a MLM (MonaVie) and invited me to their "internal" event (one aimed at people already in the network).

Oh. My. God. What I saw there was a textbook definition of a cult, a pure affective death spiral[0] instantiated in our material world. People were literally one-upping one another in telling how happy they are by being the part of this MLM, and how happy they will be when it makes them rich. The overall atmosphere was pretty similar to that Bitconeeeeeeeeeect video.

> _The first thing I got told is that I must believe in the product._

Yeah, that's the thing that kept me from getting recruited into MLMs back when I was more naïve about people involved - I could tell the products were bullshit, and selling them required you to lie about either the qualities of the product or your expertise on the topic (in case of financial products). Both of which I find to be _despicable_ behaviour.

\--

[0] - [https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Affective_death_spiral](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Affective_death_spiral)

"An affective death spiral (or happy death spiral) occurs when positive attributes of a theory, person, or organization combine with the Halo effect in a feedback loop, resulting in the subject of the affective death spiral being held in higher and higher regard. In effect, every positive thing said about the subject results in more than one additional nice thing to say about the subject on average. This cascades like a nuclear chain reaction."

<comment><USER13> I'd never heard of MonaVie so I Google'd it and read the Wikipedia page - <USER2> slightly surprised to get Amazon adverts for $40 bottles of fruit juice at the same time....

<comment><USER12> Fortunately, they seem to be defunct now. Good riddance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On the one side you've got an exciting unregulated universe developing at a very fast pace (with some really dodgy characters). On the other side you've got the traditional press, government and banking world, half tempted to embrace it but scared and quick to dismiss it... In the middle are the pundits mostly losing money.

It's a great time to be alive, this time will definitely be remembered in a few years, like the dot-com boom is.

<comment><USER15> either that or like the housing bubble is remembered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One scam down at least, next the Tether printer and BitFinex boys. Clean up in aisle HKG please.

<comment><USER17> Tether just hit a new all time high of $1.07, making the return on investment significantly better than most VC funds.

<comment><USER18> Isn't the entire point of it to be pegged 1USDT === 1USD? Obviously it fails at that by being backed by nothing like enough USD, but what does it being worth $1.07 even mean? Also, where do you sell Tethers given Bitfinex won't exchange them for USD?

<comment><USER19> doesn't the fact that its trading at 1.07 mean that tether doesn't have easy access to USD or an easy way to exploit the arbitrage. tether as a company can take USD and print tethers. so they could take USD $100, print 100 tethers, exchange them for USD $107 and walk away with $7 profit. i don't think people would even be mad if they did this. this is exactly what they should be doing to preserve the peg.

<comment><USER20> People have, in fact, been getting mad when it appears they may have been doing this because people are weird like that. (Though I don't think there's enough market depth for that particular Tether-related arbitrage to be profitable, unlike some of the other options.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They did give arguably one of the best memes in the cryptocurrency community though. [1] I'm sure you will see many a cryptocurrency thread today with some variant BITCONNNNNEEEEEECCCCC as a top rated comment.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U)

</comment><comment><USER22> BitConnect is definitely a ponzi, but I think this sets the wrong precedent. Exchanges should have voluntarily delisted BCC (many already have, but it still trades on some markets and is listed on coinmarketcap) rather than being forced by threats from the government. This gives regulators credence as our protectors and suggests they will try these strongarm tactics again in the future.

<comment><USER23> The regulators exist because the entire history of our financial and legal system demonstrates that companies frequently don't "voluntarily" do the right thing when there's money to be made.

<comment><USER24> Reference: Why mattresses come with warning tags [http://nowiknow.com/why- mattresses-come-with-warning-tags/](http://nowiknow.com/why-mattresses-come- with-warning-tags/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't even feel a little bit bad, there was repeated warnings about it being a scam. even the website code itself has been used in other scam ico's.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice to see a photo of something other than two golden Bitcoins. People who take & sell photographs of golden Bitcoins must be making almost as much money as Bitcoin investors, jeez.

<comment><USER27> I'm interested in investing in this golden bitcoin phography business. Will there be an ICO?

<comment><USER28> Of course! Step right up: [https://www.kodak.com/kodakone/default.htm](https://www.kodak.com/kodakone/default.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> maybe all the posts below are fake. i hope they are. kinda sad how many people were fooled into this so easily.

[https://twitter.com/francispouliot_/status/95346257940123238...](https://twitter.com/francispouliot_/status/953462579401232386)

<comment><USER30> The chicken nuggets one is likely fake. That is an old meme / copypasta.

Dunno about the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm personally looking forward to these scams being weeded out. It's going to make the world of crypto even stronger.

<comment><USER32> How many different ways are there to say "actually this is good for Bitcoin"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did this trigger the drop of all other coins? it happened right about the same time...

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't understand the law here. Are ponzis only illegal when you make money on it? How all those 'victims' are able to sue 'scammers' while only difference is they were late to the scheme?

</comment><comment><USER35> To think they had a marketcap of $2.4 billion:

[https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20171231/](https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20171231/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder what happened to the onecoin scam

</comment><comment><USER37> Finally

</comment><comment><USER38> A couple people I follow have called it a complete ponzi scheme for months. I hope those behind this get what they deserve: a lot of bitcoin and a lot of flaming paper bags on their porch.</comment>


I Quit My Day Job.  Thanks. - <AUTHOR> http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.793588.19 <comment><USER2> Would be nice if the link showed this was from DISCUSS.joelonsoftware.com... My first reaction was "Joel quit his day job!?!"

<comment><USER3> mine was "wait...Joel had a job?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats Patrick!

For entirely selfish reasons, I hope you start consulting for AdWords/marketing/optimization stuff :-D (If you do, please contact me! (email in profile)).

BCC seems like a great way for you to have learned a lot, but I hope you find a new product that is really worthy of you!

Incidentally, is it normal for a company to want you to stick around for 6+ months? I usually give 2 weeks notice, but offer to stay for 4 if needed ...

<comment> Tuna-Fish It depends a lot on the job culture.

When you are downsized in the US, a security guard escorts you to the door. In Germany, an engineer I know was fired last year (business reasons). He will continue working until june.

<comment><USER5> might labor regulations have something to do with this? German corps might have an incentive to keep him working while he looks for a job rather than having to pay some kind of severance/unemployment?

I never really understood the rationale behind laying someone off then escorting them out the door. Presumably its so they don't damage the company in some way because they're pissed. But a major reason people are pissed is because their employer just fucked them over. People can handle being fired for business reasons if it doesn't throw them right out on the street. People can handle "I'm sorry, but we can't afford you past April. Let me know if you need a reference or need to take time for an interview." Apparently, HR is never taught common decency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> That is Patrick (patio11) of Bingo Card Creator.

</comment><comment><USER6> I reject this announcement as invalid, for having not been done on HN. _Scoff_

Really though, he hinted before, so this is good news. I can't wait to see what his sales charts start doing, once he's been full-time for a few months.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, discuss.joelonsoftware.com is for shareware developers.

<comment><USER8> A category which Bingo Card Creator fits into pretty handily.

<comment><USER9> This is sort of an aside, but I will _never_ describe my software as shareware within earshot of a customer. (I sometimes use the word as a shortcut for "I sell B2C software over the Internet" around other developers.)

I think shareware is an outmoded name, an outmoded distribution model, and has connotations that I do not want for my business. _Everyone_ selling software as a product has a "try before you buy" option these days. You can download an evaluation version of _Microsoft Office_. In that respect, shareware has conquered its rude conquerors.

But do I really want my customers sharing my software? No. I have a website, it is the authoritative place for it. I don't depend on viral distribution of my software, like classical shareware distributors did many many years ago when passing copies of executables to your friends was likely to result in a good user experience.

My customers (largely non-technical folks) may not understand what shareware means and, to the extent they have any impression of the word, it is probably negative. For example, they might think it is "software I don't have to pay for" or "cruddy software which is going to give my Google a virus." I don't want my customers thinking they don't have to pay for my cruddy software which is going to give their Google a virus. I want them thinking "I have a problem and paying Patrick is the fastest way to solve it." Branding myself as shareware does not get me any closer to that objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You know what the comments remind me of? The scene in the TV series "The Corner" when one of the female addicts finally decides to quit and go off into rehab, and how all the other addicts encouraged her and were happy for her, while themselves remaining stuck in their drug moor.

You should watch that show, by the way.

<comment><USER9> Are you under the impression that most of them remain employed as working stiffs? Because I know at least half of them are full-time (and my sales would be rounding error to most of them).

<comment><USER11> There are many lurkers living vicariously. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am sure Patio11 will go own to do great things. I often find myself saying "Damn this guy is smart" after reading his opinions on just about anything.

Good luck Pat.

</comment><comment><USER13> Not trying to be rude, but who is Patrick McKenzie? From what I've gathered, he created an app called Bingo Card Creator and blogs about it. I haven't had a chance to peruse his entire blog, but I'm assuming that his posts are pretty solid to justify this being news?

<comment><AUTHOR> His blog is a joy to read, and one can learn lots from it. But more importantly, he is always willing to help - just take a look at YC and BoS forums, he is always sharing his knowledge, giving advice etc.

Well deserved. Congrats Patrick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Congratulations and good luck!

Are you staying in Japan?

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice, congrats on making the jump Patrick, I've really enjoyed your BCC posts.

<comment><USER16> Awesome news! Glad to hear you are doing what you want to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulation Patrick!

I second John Clark's comment on the business of software forum. You should see if you can negotiate some freelance work with your ex-employer, that's what I did with the company I used to work for in Japan and it worked very well.

And, if you can justify a certain amount of revenue each months like this it can help renew your visa in Japan.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, congrats Patrick!

</comment><comment><USER19> I've been waiting for this for a long time. Congrats to Patrick!

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome! Been wondering when you'd get to that point, since you've been growing BCC at such a steady pace, with what seems like a limited time thanks to your day job.

Also, your comments about the way things are in the Japanese workforce make me glad I don't work over there ;-)

<comment><USER21> You shouldn't feel that way. Labor protection is much, much stronger in Japan than the US, or many other first-world nations, for that matter. Having said that he's right to point out that the social contract is generally more important, however if you're being taken advantage of the law is on your side.

As for self-employment I can't imagine it's much harder, if for no other reason than health insurance/care is cheap and easy to come by, but I don't have any direct experience there. Seems to be a fair bit of self-employed IT folks in Tokyo though, particularly among non-Japanese.

<comment><USER22> _Labor protection is much, much stronger in Japan than the US, or many other first-world nations, for that matter._

It's not that simple. Although permanent employees can't be fired easily, dispatched workers and temps are a significant (and growing) proportion of the workforce and may be fired at will.

We don't have long vacations like in some European countries, nor do we have "sick days" (lots of national holidays, though).

Some companies put a cap on overtime pay (not on overtime work), some smaller ones don't pay it at all. And so on.

You're right about the law being on the worker's side. Most people won't sue, though.

 _As for self-employment I can't imagine it's much harder,_

I think it's not hard bureaucracy-wise, except for potential visa problems. I wonder how Patrick will deal with that (I once had an offer to work as contractor but had to reject in part because of visa headaches).

Many translators are self-employed. But I don't know anyone working in IT that is self-employed, probably because most Japanese companies don't like to hire individual IT contractors. Or maybe my sample is too small.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Congrats Patrick. I'm planning to do the same soon, maybe in about 4 momth. The whole process of planning for it does feel like running off of a cliff for me. You have been a source of inspiration !!

</comment><comment><USER24> I know this doesn't add to the conversation, but Congratulations Patrick!

</comment><comment><USER25> Did he get a recoding contract? "Will single founders please stand up?"

<comment><USER26> <http://www.samonsoftware.com/?p=361>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Congratulations Patrick. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Best of luck with everything.

</comment><comment><USER28> Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, you're free at last!

</comment><comment><USER29> Congrats, Patrick!

</comment><comment><USER30> Congrats Patrick!

</comment><comment><USER31> Congrats Patrick! Excited to hear whats next.

</comment><comment><USER32> So did Rob Glaser.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand why this post has the #1 spot

<comment><USER34> As vijayr put it

 _That is Patrick (patio11) of Bingo Card Creator._

He's an active member of the community.

See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050982></comment></comment>


No, Chrome isn't killing ad blockers – we're making them safer - <AUTHOR> https://security.googleblog.com/2019/06/improving-security-and-privacy-for.html <comment><USER2> I've looked forward to Google going the way of Yahoo for a long time. It's finally happening :)

<comment><USER3> I would be interested to see a company like Google evolve into one that is a fiduciary to the people of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This text is pretty vague. Instead of adressing the layman they should counter the technical points instead so we could see the safeness (maybe they really are making things ..safer?).

For example points raised here: [https://secarch.dev/posts/plausible- deniability-and-gaslight...](https://secarch.dev/posts/plausible-deniability- and-gaslighting-in-fighting-ad-blockers/)</comment>


The Warren Buffett Inspired Keyword Strategy That Built a 180k Visitor Blog - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@iankerins/buffett-keyword-technique-141372fd7767 <comment> stone-monkey interesting article - value based investing is the general principle behind long term sports betting as well, though just as important in sports betting is the concept of bankroll management - but instead of figuring out how much time and effort you should spend on a given "value bet", you allocate chunks of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> great point - personally, I see so many people wasting massive amounts of time and money on content that goes nowhere. Content producers should approach content like investors and go after the opportunities with the best ROIs

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any questions about the method then just let me know.

<comment><USER2> It's a great article.

Why are you sharing the technique though? This seems like it would work best if the rest of us aren't using this technique.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sharing is caring really. I've analysed numerous content niches with this technique (lots that I haven't produced content for) and there is so much opportunity there that I feel people should take advantage of it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Laptop similar to MacBook Pro in term of design - <AUTHOR>

I use a MBP 13' as my everyday laptop. Now It's been 3 years and I've been very happy with it, but now I would like to come back to Linux. It's not MacOS that keeps me from doing that, but the MacBook as a laptop, and its features/design.
Aluminium case, neat finition, robust case, backlit keyboard, multi-touch trackpad (that I heavily use), magsafe power port ... are the features that I will miss the most. Are you aware of a non-Apple robust laptop that could offer features somewhat similar ?
Note : I don't want to bootcamp with linux or refit on a MB.
Thank you for your insights. <comment><USER2> I have a Samsung qx410 which is somewhat similarly built and has a great keyboard but absolutely sucks for linux in the touchpad department.

I think you should look at thinkpads, even though they might not meet your specifications they usually work much better with linux than other brands and are usually well built.

<comment><USER3> I second the thinkpad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know if they'll be around for long — but what about the HP Envy laptop? The industrial design is very similar: [http://www.hp.com/united- states/campaigns/envy/index.html?ju...](http://www.hp.com/united- states/campaigns/envy/index.html?jumpid=ex_r11260_go/envy)

PS I'm pretty sure that Apple has a patent on magsafe, so nobody else will have that: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm in a similar situation, I'm replacing a Macbook4,1. I don't want to deal with EFI/refit/GPT/etc anymore. As far as 13' laptops go the ASUS U36SD-A1 is the most attractive to me, but I think I'm going to end up getting a SAGER NP5165 because I can get more power for the same price. The HP Envy series also looks pretty good, if you can find them for a decent price.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can't answer your question, but why don't you want to install Linux directly onto the MBP?

<comment><USER7> well outside of these design features that op mentioned the hardware specs you can purchase a comparable laptop with hardware specs for half the price.

<comment><USER8> What laptop can you buy for half the price of MacBook Pro that has the same feature set? Especially the giant multitouch pad?

<comment><USER7> well "giant" wasn't specified, but most new laptops have multi touch now. The difference is newer laptops by different vendors usually get heavily discounted or goes on sale much faster than mbp's. Just watch any deals site and you'll see. A nicely configured mbp will go for around 2k, you can easily get the same configuration for 1k, possibly much less with deals, coupons and discounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe something from System76, but that is the best I can think of.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ! I didn't know that brand.</comment></comment>


There is now a backprop principle for deep learning on quantum computers - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.09729 <comment><USER2> "A Universal Training Algorithm for Quantum Deep Learning" [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1806.09729/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1806.09729/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be a good question for the recent Scott Aaronson's AMA.</comment>


The Efficiency of Brazil's Elections Is a Stark Contrast to Voting in the U.S - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/the-remarkable-participation-and-efficiency-of-brazils-elections-proves-how-shameful-and-deliberate-is-the-chaos-and-suppression-in-the-u-s/ <comment><AUTHOR> I changed the title from 'The Efficiency of Brazil's Elections Is a Stark Contrast to Voter Suppression and Deliberate Chaos in the U.S.' because of title length rules on HN.</comment>


The Coming Collapse of Kleiner Perkins, the Green Economy, and VC as a Whole - <AUTHOR> http://thesecurepc.com/coming-collapse-of-kleiner-perkins/

<comment><USER2> "The economic collapse will hurt most companies in the financial sector, but Kleiner's position is particularly vulnerable because its investments critically depend on economic growth to produce the pain that these investments solve."

So economic collapse is assured but KPCB will be hurt more than most because of its portfolio.

<comment><USER3> Well, yeah. Which is not to say there isn't money to be made in such a mess, you just have to e.g. fulfill the real requirements of people and/or companies.

After a good fraction of a decade where the environment for normal VC was awful KPCB changed its business model to rent seeking but made a bad bet on the field to do that in. Other fields where there's real value, not stuff that depends on unsustainable in bad times government subsidies, will do better. Or at least less worse.

<comment><USER2> What is meant by collapse here? I think it means "general systemic failure" and, if it were to occur, hurt would not be limited to the financial sector. Everyone and everything would be involved. KPCB's investment choices would not have much significance one way or another looking forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Frankly, to know whether this guy is blowing magenta [anti-green :)] smoke, or has a valid point, I'd have to look at KP's green portfolio, and see how the companies there are doing. He doesn't give any data points that I can see.</comment>


Recommended Reading for Software Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/capgemini-dynamics-365-team/recommended-reading-for-software-engineers-6b2d09466b25 <comment><USER2> Just another spam collection of Amazon affiliate links.</comment>


Logging in to websites without a password at all - <AUTHOR> http://edi.budimilic.com/2012/11/15/logging-in-to-websites-without-a-password-at-all/

<comment><USER2> Considering the price of an SMS (which also differs from place to place), why does the temporary password have to arrive by SMS? Why not by email, since user's already online, obviously?

But given the novelty of this approach (although I'm pretty sure I read about it somewhere already, I don't know of any real-world implementation), it should definitely be used alongside optional passwords, for those who want that. At least until the rest of the web catches on...

<comment><AUTHOR> No you're not, that's it! App would solve the SMS problem due to costs but all should be optional like: password login, sms temp password, email direct login link. It seems like it's different and maybe a bit harder to code, but it's not rocket science. :)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it's not rocket science, obviously. It's computer science. :P

The way I see it, email is the simplest and cheapest way. Although I wouldn't like average Joe to casually login to their email account on public machines.

But then, chances are the email provider will have 2-way authentication, so it would be a bit more work to get to the account every time on a new, public machine, but I guess that wouldn't be that often and would be preferred to the current way of doing the same thing.

SMS creates cost which some sites couldn't bear and the app route creates greater cost of implementation (to be a true replacement - or should I say truly disruptive ;) - it would have to be cross-platform, IMHO).</comment></comment></comment>


Testing with Swift – Approaches and Useful Libraries - <AUTHOR> https://spin.atomicobject.com/2016/05/02/testing-swift-code/#.VydVY-RcsWY.hackernews <comment><USER2> There's also Swiftest[1], a Swift BDD framework for both Mac and Linux, created and actively maintained by old colleague Brian, who's very passionate about Swift and knows it inside and out. It only works on the open source Swift version, so if that's what you're using, it's worth checking out.

[(inc 0)]: [https://github.com/bppr/Swiftest](https://github.com/bppr/Swiftest)

<comment><USER3> I think the largest challenge with Swift testing at the moment is the lack of easy mocking. You can define inline classes, but it's far inferior to the functionality that something like Kiwi provided for Objective-C.

<comment><USER4> There are a couple promising open source libraries here:[https://realm.io/news/tryswift-veronica-ray-real-world- mocki...](https://realm.io/news/tryswift-veronica-ray-real-world-mocking- swift/?utm_campaign=This%2BWeek%2Bin%2BSwift&utm_medium=email&utm_source=This_Week_in_Swift_83)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link, I'll take a look.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Educate Gifted Child? - <AUTHOR> I know there are some smart folks in here, and intelligence is highly heritable so I'm sure some of you have exceptionally intelligent children. My son just started 1st grade, and (as we have suspected for a while) he meets the criteria for "gifted": RIAS-2 composite standard score 135, NNAT standard score 133, both 99th percentile.
I have some personal experience here as well; I also scored in the 99th percentile on pretty much every standardized test I was offered. My parents did an admirable job of ensuring I was placed in the most accelerated academic programs available in my public school district, but even in that environment I was frequently bored and depressed.
I'm not concerned about "achievement" and "potential" because I know from personal experience how pernicious those expectations can be. I just want my son to enjoy his educational experience and emerge into adulthood with a firm understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, and confidence in his initial career direction whatever that may be. I did not get that from public education, even the accelerated track, and I suspect that my son would not either.
Of course I am doing a lot of my own research, but it helps to hear personal experiences of what worked well in specific situations to guide that research. Parents of gifted children of HN, how do you help your child get an appropriate education? I'm open to all options. <comment><USER2> Some points, in no particular order:

1\. For kids that grow to become successful, content adults, intelligence is only one factor, likely not a determining one. If success is on your mind, qualities like lifelong curiosity or emotional self regulation are much stronger predictors. Hyper focus on measured aptitude can sometimes detract from good development of both these qualities.

2\. Good schools matter, a lot. At some point, sooner than you think, it's the peer group that'll shape what your child believes is time well spent. Aim to find a school with parents and a community who share your values.

3\. So many people get screwed over from this belief they're smart and therefore special. Think of it like a ML algorithm, working at optimizing a score. then you give it a real life task where the score is fuzzy and complex and looks nothing like the training. It's funny when you put it like that, but I've seen it happen in real life and it's the farthest thing from funny.

4\. I recommend you read B. Fuller's essay on the Great Pirates, which Steve Jobs creatively stole when he said "Be a Pirate". [https://atrightanglestoreality.blogspot.com/2016/03/the- grea...](https://atrightanglestoreality.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-great- pirates-by-buckminster-fuller.html)

5\. Formal education is great, and the more a child is equipped with methodically learning how to learn (which only happens by doing) the better. Second the opinion to reward effort, not achievements.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am in a similar situation with my 7 year old daughter.

What I try to do at home is find interesting projects where she has to learn certain things to complete the project.

This might include programming a robot or making a video game in Scratch.

I look for projects that teach practical knowledge. I try to expose her to other subjects like Philosophy ( Introduction to Philosophy for kids) and neuroscience ( Learning How to Learn )

Projects with electronics are some of her favorites. I think these are great because there is so much you can with these.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a very short advice, that I very much believe in.

Reward hard work, not achievements. Working 40 hours and getting a semi-bad grade in biology is much more important than studying 4 hours and getting 100% in math.

Now this is me being cynical, but please really try to find a decent school. One reason I'm against having children personally is that the schools here were I grew up are terrible for some people and I didn't even go to a bad school. But it was easily the worst time of my life..

<comment><USER5> > Reward hard work, not achievements. Working 40 hours and getting a semi-bad > grade in biology is much more important than studying 4 hours and getting > 100% in math.

That makes me picture someone staying up all night every night, hindering their ability to concentrate and work effectively at all, because working hard is more important than working effectively.

Pushing it to a further extreme, maybe they can go out and dig holes and refill them, or move a bunch of heavy rocks from one spot to another across a field and then move them back. They could do this dawn to dusk every day. That's harder work than studying, so why prefer studying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't relegate his physical development to a second place.</comment>


Some of the lesser known tips for new web developers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.georgi-yanev.com/software/how-to-become-a-good-developer <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a small opinionated post trying to share some of the things I learnt in the past 5 years to help out fellow developers who are just starting out.</comment>


Google's Eric Schmidt: If you care about security, get a Mac, not a PC - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/06/01/schmidt-if-you-care-about-security-get-a-mac-not-a-pc/

<comment><USER2> Yes, Windows has many more exposed security risks. Mac's have around an 8-9% market reach right now. As Apple's market share raises you'll see more and more viruses targeted at Mac's as we have in the last couple of weeks. Let's see what happens if Apple ever is able to get 25%+ of the market using Mac's.

In 16 years of using Windows with no Anti-Virus software installed, I have never gotten a virus. Maybe Microsoft should do a better job of educating users on what not to click on.

I run a company that does IT Support for businesses. Once a week or so, I'll have a CEO bring in his kids Laptop with a virus and a good number of times it was caused by their kid using some p2p file sharing program and downloading and running cracked versions of software which contained the virus. This is not yet as big of a problem for Apple as the number of software titles in general is much smaller and thus people downloading cracked copies which might contain a virus is going to be smaller.

Two cents.

<comment><USER3> What about a firewall? Because I have seen Windows machines infected through no fault of their users within your 16-year period (Blaster being the most triumphant example). Admittedly this is probably a minority of malware installs out there, but I think it gives Microsoft a little too much credit and their users not quite enough to suggest that it's 100% caused by them clicking on ILoveYou.jpg.exe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would you rather go to a place which has no defenses because they never got hit or to a place which is constantly improving their security?

The recent mac defender showed how simple it is to social engineer mac users because they think its secure.

If you are worried about security , don't do stupid stuff

</comment><comment><USER5> Eric Schmidt is giving poor advice in an area that is far outside of his expertise. I would be surprised if he even knows what DEP and ASLR are.

<comment><USER6> You don't need to know what either of those things are to make the (correct) observation that the majority of malware targets the systems on which it'll get the most bang for its buck.

At least currently, that means targeting Windows users - solely because there are so many more of them than Apple users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Of course we should all use Chrome. That way, Google can keep tabs on us! Seriously, more bad advice that plays on Apple's security through obscurity.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what his advice is for people that care about privacy. All indications so far have been: don't worry about it.

In my personal spectrum of concerns, having my machine occasionally violated by a virus is not nearly as disturbing as full multi year search and browsing histories being stored and shared without my permission or online profiles being consolidated into a single identity. I'm not saying that google does all this - but it's a lot more scary than a virus.

<comment><USER9> >I wonder what his advice is for people that care about privacy. All indications so far have been: don't worry about it.

I read most of these cases were intended to be jokes.</comment></comment>


End-of-buffer checks in decompressors - <AUTHOR> https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/end-of-buffer-checks-in-decompressors/ <comment><USER2> _...if after swapping buffers around, our input cursor hits the mark again, we just hit the refill path again to generate more zeroes. (This is why the copying code uses memmove)._

This misses one more optimization: if you consume bits by shifting them off the end of your word, then you are shifting in zeros in their place. If your semantics are that all reads past the end of the buffer return zeros, then once you have hit that end, you can just set bitcount to LOTS_OF_BITS (an arbitrarily large constant).

That is, you pretend your 32-bit word has a lot more than 32 bits in it. Then you're extremely unlikely to ever hit the refill code again. For extra points, you can make the constant something that can easily be represented as an ARM immediate, like 0x40000000.

We do this in the bitreaders for Theora, Opus, and Daala (thanks to Simon Hosie for contributing the idea to Theora back in the day).

<comment><USER3> _you can just set bitcount to LOTS_OF_BITS (an arbitrarily large constant)._

You don't even have to explicitly set it if you just let it go below 0 and automatically wrap around to FFFFFFFF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really enjoy reading such articles that focus on the details of a topic that at first would seem trivial and boring, but actually turns out to be far more interesting.

 _If we start getting too close to the end of our "real" input buffer, we can just copy the remaining bytes over to a small temp buffer_

You can also just make the input buffer slightly larger that required, so the "padding" is always present at the end and no copying/extra logic is required at all.</comment>


NAACP returns Facebook donation, calls for boycott on Tuesday - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/naacp-returns-facebook-donation-calls-for-boycott-c60ef129-457d-4847-80e3-1d7fdb5764dc.html <comment><USER3> "...following revelations of how its platform was used to manipulate black voters in the 2016 presidential election."

This seems somewhat misguided... I know Facebook is the whipping-boy de jour, but it seems evident that Facebook is the biggest victim in all of this.

All of the bad press FB is getting lately... literally _years_ after events occurred and after they've been working to rectify the issues is curious.

After all the bad press that was hammering Tesla for an extended period of time quickly dried up (after Elon Musk showed just how far he was willing to go to shake the short-sellers), Facebook suddenly took its place.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it really feels like someone with a lot of power has organized and weaponized information for the sake of manipulating stock prices.

That doesn't have much to do with the NAACP itself, but these information campaigns have a side-effect of modifying public opinion and sentiment.

I really kind of feel ashamed of posting this -- it seems like such a low- value conspiracy theory, but it just seems strange to me how all this is playing out.

<comment><USER4> FB is getting bad press because:

a) historically it's done a lot of shady stuff and gotten a pass on that,

b) it really screwed up around election time, with major / unprecedented geopolitical and economic consequence,

c) it doesn't seem to have fully understood let alone fixed the problems,

d) it's business model is interfering with fixing these problems, and

e) it's managed this situation from a PR perspective very poorly.

All of those are facts on the ground that would suggest FB is operationally not as solid as people previously assumed, and that it has many (possibly inherent) vulnerabilities that are not easily fixed that add risk to the business - risk of people abandoning it, risk of regulation, risk of being manipulated for political purposes.

Certainly FB was _used_ by those looking to manipulate public perceptions during the election (and since), and that makes it in a certain light a 'victim'. But they were also the creators and popularizers of this new way of being manipulated, and thus an excuse of being ignorant of the implications is a bit weak, especially because of how they've handled things since.

Just practically, it's extremely unlikely that independent news & research orgs are all conspiring to manipulate FB's stock price. At some point people stop giving companies or individuals benefit of the doubt, which is what's now happened to FB.

This pattern of bad press you're seeing with FB is going to happen a lot in the future with our 24/7 news cycle and rumor mill. Something will come out about a company or individual about them doing something bad that will get a lot of visibility. In that process a lot of their past transgressions will come out, or be re-evaluated in a new light, and it will happen through a slow drip of new discoveries that will keep them in the press for a while. This will break into mainstream discourse, and it may permanently damage their reputation. This is a pattern inherent in the mix of people/companies royally screwing up, the existence of deep digital info trails, social media giving a voice to every person to share juicy info, and the instantaneous social media news cycle.

<comment><USER5> Let us not forget that Facebook has enabled in a way a form of direct democracy. Subversive globalist players without any moral compass (such as George Soros and Hillary Clinton, whose foundation connections are being interrogated as we type) are just angry that they lost in a long time.

George Soros frequently propagates propaganda via his Open Society Foundations about the dangers of Facebook. Because he lost.

No wonder it is being attacked.

<comment><USER6> > George Soros frequently propagates propaganda via his Open Society > Foundations

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with that, but so what if he does? He is a private person and you don't have to consume his politics just as I don't consume his political opinions or consume any trash on Facebook. It is the nature of liberty that people are allowed to express opinions you find offensive.

<comment><USER7> It becomes problematic if it is used to lobby for political change with private funding as a magnifier. Once you start to pump so much money into political movements, you can co-opt and change them. You get to drown some currents and magnify others by simply providing infrastructure and funding. It can be as simple as providing a speaker system to a protest and deciding who gets to use it.

Its a question common to campaign contribution and whether super PACs are to be considered free speech.

<comment><USER6> > It can be as simple as providing a speaker system to a protest and deciding > who gets to use it.

That isn't a problem. Private individuals are not required to abide by a fairness standard when it comes to speech. Taken a step further talk radio stations are often extremely right wing are not required to fairly convey an alternate position. I am fine with that because as a consume I am not forced to consume it.

<comment><USER7> Multiple radio stations exist in parallel and you dont have to listen to any of them. Once you put up one speaker system at a location, like a central park that is the focus of a protest, you drown out everyone else. You are in control of the communication infrastructure and bought yourself an authority position.

The question of who is providing and controlling infrastructure is a real threat to protest movements, as it is easily possible to co-opt a political movement through funds this way.

We have clear limits on what lobbying is allowed to do and what kind of interference in a democratic system through funds is prohibited. Take vote buying as an extreme example or simply the ordinary regulations over campaign financing. We dont have that clear cut rules for what is acceptable in the case of non parliamentary political movements. Calling the targeted funding and co-opting of political movements problematic is appropriate in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fuck Axios. If you're behind a VPN they won't let you visit their site.

To Axios: No, I won't let you follow me all around the web and I won't give you any of my info. And yes, I will call you out for trying to exchange my privacy over your content. Fuck you.

<comment><USER9> Also screw news sites that update your history as you go down. No, me scrolling isn't me wanting to read another article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article itself missed some of the meat within the senate report. Just over being used to influence black voters is confusing for why they would boycott them over it when essentially any black focused media could be targeted - <USER2> lacking any lies, including of omission could be effective.

Doing nothing about voter suppression efforts however - yeah I can see why they would be mad about that given the history of stuff like 'going to vote when you have an unpaid parking ticket can result in being arrested and having your children taken away from you' manipulations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is an article containing the two reports commissioned by the Senate: [https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian- interference-20...](https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian- interference-2016-election-9d0daca6-1e2d-4617-9295-f8eec61c1719.html) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The press and influence groups have turned hard on Facebook because the realization has sunk in that Facebook is in a competition to the death with them. Who needs the NAACP when social media campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter catch on far faster and spread far further than any media campaign devised and executed by NAACP? And the media is a willing accomplice in going after Facebook, a company who is clearly looking to become a "trusted news source" and media outlet in their own right.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't make any sense. Facebook is just one social media platform. Nobody thinks social media or viral content will disappear if Facebook dies, so they're not going to purposefully waste resources trying to kill it. The media is happy to target Facebook because targeting Facebook is a profitable move to grab attention.

<comment><USER11> The current meme is that $100K in ads on Facebook swung a Presidential election. If that's true, why spend a billion on traditional media nationwide? No, social media won't go away if Facebook goes away but the media have collectively begun waging war on Facebook because they've woken up to the reality that Facebook wants to completely take over, not just infringe upon, their turf. Do a quick search for alternative media outlets who publish -- including regularly scheduled live streams -- on Facebook. This is an existential threat to traditional media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Those allegations are pretty serious. I am curious why the NAACP isn't calling for an all out boycott, rather than just a one day boycott.

<comment><USER14> They forgot to boycott WhatsApp.

Anyway, do you know what Facebook did here? The article only mentions Russia doing something.

<comment><USER13> It links to another article that articulates it more.

<comment><USER14> I read the linked article and it articulates nothing. It has info about Russia, but nothing about what Facebook did wrong.

<comment><USER15> Facebook created itself, allowing Russia to use it to do bad stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't get this concept of returning money.

If you disagree with someone KEEP their money!

IF Satan himself gives you $1M just keep it and use it for something good.

If you give it back he's just going to use it for something evil. At least you're using it for something good.

I mean there's the argument that now satan can now claim that he supports your non-profit but I think you can do more good than the bad...

<comment><USER17> Clearly you don't understand the concept of social signalling.

If they keep the money (even if they donate to a good cause), it allows adversarial PACs and organizations to make claims like "NAACP is a hypocritical organization for taking this money from Facebook". These will be more costly in PR to counter than the $1mm donation, and ultimately harm their cause.

In this situation, the only appropriate action is to give the money back, or not accept it in the first place.

<comment><USER18> I think this is an excessively cynical interpretation: sometimes people and organizations just return money because they think it's ill-begotten, not because they've calculated that keeping the money will either harm their reputation or cost them more than it's actually worth.

<comment><USER19> In a sense, making a public Twitter post, blog post, and hash-tag movement is leveraging that donation, even more than it's monetary worth, to advance the NAACP's own incentives.

So in that sense, they did indeed take advantage of the donation, not in the first-order monetary sense, but with the resulting publicity and press that probably surpasses the donation's intrinsic value.

Pretty good move on there part to be honest. I wonder what would've been the public outcome of them re-donating that amount instead to one of them "Soros- funded" anti-Facebook organizations as a "screw you".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is disingenuous. The Obama campaign had massive data access from Facebook in 2012, but the outcry doesn't happen until the "other guy" wins?

[https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook- data-...](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal- trump-election-obama-2012/)

If Hillary Clinton would have won, would this even be a story? It seems that outrage is directly proportional to how much the "correct" side benefits as opposed to the principles being espoused.

Also regarding NAACP, I remember a discussion on the efficiency of orgs whose mandate is to fix a particular issue, and whose existence is linked to the continued existence of the issue, leading to continually redefining the issue/moving the goalposts/changing the scope to stay relevant.

<comment><USER21> The "correct" side is defined by the principles espoused. It's impossible to honestly not conflate the two. This is not about political fairness as though every political party is entitled to rule equally independent of what their platform is.

Deceit is the Republican Party's brand. Of course there will be an outcry if they win under that banner. Nobody would care if they lost under it.

<comment><USER22> Why is deceit the republican brand? Seems like a fairly partisan statement.

<comment><USER21> Any statement other than "all parties are identical" is partisan. It's not a problem to say that they stand for different things. That's the whole point of them.

Deceit is the Republican Brand for the same reason the color red and elephants are the Republican Brand: they regularly use it to identify themselves.

<comment><USER22> I'm not even republican but that seems like an insane statement, for reasonable interpretations of "deceit" and "represents". Like, is this on their website or are you labeling it? To be charitable let's say you're reading between the lines.

Is this like people claiming the democrats stand for "welfare queens and social decay"?

<comment><USER21> Insane is an overstatement, don't you think?

Let's not nitpick vocabulary and miss the point. If Clinton won the election using Facebook's data, Republicans (who see democrats as deceitful) would be outraged at that deception leading to an election win. So the idea that this is a Democrat-driven manufactured partisan outrage is misleading -- it is outrage based on the _perceived_ unfairness of using deceit to win elections.

You don't need to read between the lines to see Republicans as deceitful. Trump (and pretty much his whole campaign team apparently) have been lying nearly constantly for the last two years. That's why it's their brand: the deceitful in a very public way. You don't have to read between the lines. It's written right on the lines. If you're instead looking for the truth to be dictated by their website or something, I don't know what to tell you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is the NAACP relevant in 2018?

Also why is Facebook donating to an openly-biased organisation? Seems weird from my (European) point of view :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the NAACP is still relevant in 2018 because the US still has problems with racism in 2018.

<comment><USER24> We do, but it's a broader problem than simply "minorities incur racism". Racism manifests in all directions and while it's valid to have support for minorities, it is nonetheless divisive that our society only takes racism seriously in one direction. All humans face turmoil and struggle because of societal implications, racism simply being one of many. It's not that the NAACP is wrong or pointless to exist, the problem is that as a society we should try to alleviate the suffering and injustice for all humans rather than grouping people by the millions and thinking that that macroscopic approach is going to solve our problems.

<comment><USER25> > We do, but it's a broader problem than simply "minorities incur racism". > Racism manifests in all directions and while it's valid to have support for > minorities, it is nonetheless divisive that our society only takes racism > seriously in one direction.

this implies to me that you believe racism against white people is as much of a problem as racism against minorities. i think this is an absurd claim to make, and i think there is ample concrete evidence in the form of both statistics and anecdotes that shows that racism is much worse for people of color (and yes, in particular, black people).

racism against white people is not a serious problem. at this point in our history, we need no organized effort to combat it.

> All humans face turmoil and struggle because of societal implications, > racism simply being one of many.

i don't see how this implies that we should not specifically fight racism. should all problem solving be labeled at only the most general level? should we not have organizations dedicated to fighting racism against minorities because it's only one of the many problems a human might face in the world?

<comment><USER24> As a white person who has been the direct target of racism - physical and emotional abuse, systemic oppression, social isolation, etc, I hope you can understand that what you are saying is very painful to me. You say that because the suffering of people like me is a minority case (the irony), that my desires for _all_ humans who have been wronged to receive support are negligible. I can tell you that writing this comes at no small expense to my mental state. I have lived with the pain that you would likely attribute to a minority. In fact for much of my life I was a minority.

I won't compare my severity to others, only acknowledge it exists and that it has devastated my life to this point in various ways. I cannot trust society. I cannot trust my partners. I cannot trust my bosses and coworkers (who knows, maybe that's a perk). I lose many relationships with people I deeply care about because I grew up having to protect myself, and that meant never allowing myself to grow attached to someone less they turn on me too.

I'm not writing this to you to convince you to change your mind. I've learned long ago that people who can't conceive of white people being victims of racism, and who refuse to acknowledge their needs, are not going to change their minds. They will only dig and dig until the white victim is broken enough to not voice their concerns. At least, that has been my overwhelming experience. From strangers to friends to romantic partners. Everyone who can't entertain these thoughts and who immediately jump to "where's your evidence? White people aren't victims!" - they don't want a conversation. They want to validate their long held beliefs about how racism "really works".

I don't write this for you, I write this as a form of catharsis to myself and to hope that I can be strong enough to improve my situation and help others who are marginalized but rejected. I have cried the entirety of writing this. Having this relentless pressure for defending the idea that whites are the victims of racism too is agony.

You claim "Racism against white people is not a serious problem". Every time I have to fight this I relive those experiences. Every time I have to go back to those memories to articulate myself, it awakens that pain. But I won't stop talking about this pain because stopping means that racism against white victims, the disregard and disbelief of their struggle, will continue unchecked and likely grow.

That is not acceptable. Racism in any form is not acceptable. All humans deserve a fair and healthy life. And there's no fucking reason that in the age of big data and globalized computational efforts that we can't do better than lumping people into groups of tens of millions and saying "well that's all the better resolution we can get". It's irresponsible. It's evil. And it's so terrible that that is the world we have decided is acceptable. Care about all humans. Not just the ones that make you feel good to care about.

<comment><USER26> Yes, discrimination against whites exists.

I got pulled over by Chicago Housing Authority close to 20 years ago. Austensibly for not using my turn signal while changing lanes, after I watched the same CHA vehicle run a red light without signals.

White kid, out of state plates on his way to cram & take a final his senior year at a Southside university. Only time I've been written a ticket by one officer while the 2 other in the CHA van apologized. I was threatened with arrest on campus! Why? For refusing to answer where I work, which they have business knowing, anyway, and certainly not pertittent to a minor traffic violation.

Also, when they pulled me over...yeah, my signal was still on.

<comment><USER24> I'm sorry that happened. It's horrible to be a target of the system. It's doubly painful when no one will believe or appreciate what happened, or even flat out deny it happened. Dissonance is a hell of a drug.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Revocable File Sharing? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a fully revocable file/media sharing service?  I realize that there are ways of publishing movies and books with DRM which can disable display/playback after a certain amount of time, but I am thinking about a facility where end users can upload pictures and documents, then be assured that the contents will be securely erased after a certain time on demand from the user. <comment><USER2> The general consensus is that DRM cannot be made secure. Why? You are delivering content and the means of playing it to the user. If the user can play it, the user can copy it. Game over.

However, if the recipient of the shared document is also interested in the timed destruction of the document, you could encrypt the document and escrow the key on a web server. The host of the web server promises to erase the key after a certain time, and the recipient promises to delete all unencrypted copies of the document and temporary encryption keys.

What I have just described above is a much simpler way to implement Vanish (<http://vanish.cs.washington.edu/>) if you allow the use of a trusted web server. Note that the full Vanish implementation is insecure ([http://z.cs.utexas.edu/users/osa/unvanish/papers/vanish- brok...](http://z.cs.utexas.edu/users/osa/unvanish/papers/vanish-broken.pdf)).

<comment><USER3> What you are describing is the digital equivalent of hiring out films from a store but trying to verify that they didn't tape a copy before returning it. I guess the answer is to be affordable and convenient enough that it makes economic sense to hire it from you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> the file does not need to be erased, the file can be encrypted with a key which is hosted on a secure server. after a user uses a key for sometime, it would expire and they would need to request a new key from the server. however you can set the server to stop issuing keys, and hence the file would never be opened again. this is similar to shareware distribution, it has been done for ages i guess. think steam.

<comment><USER4> reading my comment again, it sounds like a great app idea. steam for file ftw!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Without some kind of encryption on the file being shared, what we be the basis for the assurance that the file is securely erased? A promise?</comment>


BASIC in C++ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rollbear/basicpp <comment><USER2> If you #define END as "return(0);}" and put "int main(){" at the bottom of basic.hpp, you can have a complete BASIC program with #include "basic.hpp" at the top as the only indication that it's C++.

        #include "basic.hpp"
        _10: LET X = 1;
        // ...
        _150: END

I think multiple data types could also be added in a way that mostly fits with BASIC syntax. GW-BASIC uses sigil suffixes on variable names to denote their type:[1]

        $  String variable
        %  Integer variable
        !  Single-precision variable (default)
        #  Double-precision variable

Something like this might be possible with unions (e.g. _10: LET X.D = 3.14; _20: LET N.I = 42;), or you can tolerate a few different LET macros (LETS, LETI, LETD).

[1] [http://www.antonis.de/qbebooks/gwbasman/chapter%206.html](http://www.antonis.de/qbebooks/gwbasman/chapter%206.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm still liking Visual BASIC 6.0 before the Dotnet era.

A shame that newer versions of Windows have problems installing it.

There is Jabaco that takes VB 6.0 syntax and compiles it to Java bytecode: [http://www.jabaco.org/](http://www.jabaco.org/)

It doesn't have ADO database support so I can't write apps with Databases in VB 6.0 and port them to Jabaco.

This trying to make C++ do BASIC commands is hard, might as well use this instead: [http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/](http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/)

You can find the Classic BASIC games here: [http://www.vintage- basic.net/games.html](http://www.vintage-basic.net/games.html)

They should work with PC-BASIC.

<comment><USER4> I remember of "on error resume next".

I also made ActiveX. It was a very good IDE.

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Wasn't the original Bourne shell also written with (more basic) C preprocessor macros to imitate original ALGOL-style constructs?

<comment><USER5> Yes. It was the inspiration for the IOCCC (International Obfuscated C Code Competition).

[http://www.ioccc.org/faq.html](http://www.ioccc.org/faq.html)

But the macros were the least of its problems: It allocated memory by trapping SIGSEGV (SIGnal for SEGmentiation Violation; that is, the signal the OS sends a program when it's tried to access memory beyond the region it owns); the function which caught SIGSEGV allocated more RAM. This made it difficult to port sh to the Motorola 68000-based computers which were the first generation of Unix workstations.

[http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/bourne/segv.html](http://www.in- ulm.de/~mascheck/bourne/segv.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8843951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8843951)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Only numeric variables are supported (no strings, no matrices)

Basic.hpp defines LET as:

        #define LET double [1]

Perhaps this would allow for a broader range of types, seen as C++11 is being used:

        #define LET auto

[1]: [https://github.com/rollbear/basicpp/blob/master/basic.hpp#L8...](https://github.com/rollbear/basicpp/blob/master/basic.hpp#L88)

</comment><comment><USER7>
        ] 10 PRINT "HELLO'

        ] RUN

        ERROR
        In file included from dummy.cpp:1:
        In file included from /usr/include/c++/v1/vector:243:
        In file included from /usr/include/c++/v1/__bit_reference:15:
        In file included from /usr/include/c++/v1/algorithm:594:
        /usr/include/c++/v1/memory:1425:36: error: calling a private constructor of class 'std::__1::unique_ptr<int,
        std::__1::default_delete<int> >'
        ::new ((void*)__p) _Tp(_STD::forward<_Args>(__args)...);
        ^
        /usr/include/c++/v1/memory:1358:14: note: in instantiation of function template specialization
        'std::__1::allocator_traits<std::__1::allocator<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> > >
        >::__construct<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> >, std::__1::unique_ptr<int,
        std::__1::default_delete<int> > &>' requested here
        {__construct(__has_construct<allocator_type, pointer, _Args...>(),
        ^
        /usr/include/c++/v1/vector:781:25: note: in instantiation of function template specialization
        'std::__1::allocator_traits<std::__1::allocator<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> > >
        >::construct<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> >, std::__1::unique_ptr<int,
        std::__1::default_delete<int> > &>' requested here
        __alloc_traits::construct(__a, _STD::__to_raw_pointer(this->__end_), *__first);
        ^
        /usr/include/c++/v1/vector:924:9: note: in instantiation of function template specialization
        'std::__1::vector<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> >,
        std::__1::allocator<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> > >
        >::__construct_at_end<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> > *>' requested here
        __construct_at_end(__x.__begin_, __x.__end_);
        ^
        dummy.cpp:7:37: note: in instantiation of member function 'std::__1::vector<std::__1::unique_ptr<int,
        std::__1::default_delete<int> >, std::__1::allocator<std::__1::unique_ptr<int, std::__1::default_delete<int> > >
        >::vector' requested here
        std::vector<unique_ptr<int>> bar = foo;
        ^
        /usr/include/c++/v1/memory:1997:5: note: declared private here
        unique_ptr(const unique_ptr&);
        ^
        1 error generated.

<comment><USER8> templates are a inappropriate macro language. Everyone knows this except the C++ aficionados.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't decide if this is brilliant or terrifying.

<comment><USER10> This is why D doesn't have AST macros, a preprocessor, and makes operator overloading difficult for any purpose other than arithmetic.

Programmers can (and do) still create DSLs in D by using string mixins and CTFE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> scala too [http://blog.fogus.me/2009/03/26/baysick-a-scala-dsl- implemen...](http://blog.fogus.me/2009/03/26/baysick-a-scala-dsl-implementing- basic/)

</comment><comment><USER12> That's wonderful/abusive. There used to be a macro assembler for the Apple ][ that came with an add-on package of macros that provided a BASIC-like language. It was heavily advertised in Nibble Magazine.

It seems someone managed to dig it up, collect some recollections by the author and demo it a few years ago:

[http://www.kansasfest.org/wp- content/uploads/2010-neubauer-m...](http://www.kansasfest.org/wp- content/uploads/2010-neubauer-macrosoft.pdf)

[https://vimeo.com/13739643](https://vimeo.com/13739643)

Circle is complete.

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's a version in Haskell implemented using a monadic DSL: [http://augustss.blogspot.in/2009/02/more-basic-not-that- anyb...](http://augustss.blogspot.in/2009/02/more-basic-not-that-anybody- should-care.html)

Also, here's ASM embedded in Haskell: [http://wall.org/~lewis/2013/10/15/asm- monad.html](http://wall.org/~lewis/2013/10/15/asm-monad.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you'd like to fool around with an Applesoft BASIC compatible interpreter that comes with almost 1000 listings, check out DiscoRunner [http://discorunner.com](http://discorunner.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> I did something similar in C but I called it HereC. I mostly just did #define begin { and #define end } the other thing I did was make && to AND and || to OR was fun for a few minutes, then I never went back to it.

<comment><USER16> But part of that was already done for you in iso646.h!

[http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_alternati...](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_alternative#Alternative_tokens)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> IIRC, Common Lisp has something like this:

        (tagbody
            10 (print "Hello")
            20 (go 10))</comment>


Malaysia Airlines Says It Lost Contact With Plane Carrying Over 200 - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-says-plane-with-over-200-aboard-is-missing.html?referrer= <comment><USER13> > UPDATE [12:37]: Tuoi Tre, a leading daily in Vietnam, reports that the > Vietnamese Navy has confirmed the plane crashed into the ocean. According to > Navy Admiral Ngo Van Phat, Commander of the Region 5, military radar > recorded that the plane crashed into the sea at a location 153 miles South > of Phu Quoc island.

[http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says- air...](http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says- airline-023820132.html)

<comment><USER14> Does anyone know if there's a possibility for survivors? Could a highly skilled pilot glide the plane to a _safe_ crash landing on the water given ideal conditions for an engine failure (assuming thats what happened)? Or does a crash landing over the ocean basically mean the worst? My thoughts and prayers go out to those involved.

<comment><USER15> It's a very different scenario, I know, but when Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 crashed into the ocean because it ran out of fuel during a hijacking, 50 out of a total of 163 people survived.

Of course that crashed happened close to shore and rescues started quite quickly.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> EDIT: The Guardian has a pretty good live blog feed giving constant updates - [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/malaysian- airli...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/malaysian-airlines- plane-live)

Very sad. Only the third crash of a 777 since being introduced in the 90s.

[1]Confirmed 14 nationalities amongst the passengers, including:

        China - 153 (including 1 infant)
        Malaysia - <USER2>
        Indonesia - <USER3>
        Australia -7
        USA - 4 (including 1 infant)
        France - <USER4>
        Canada - <USER7>
        New Zealand - <USER7>
        Ukraine - <USER7>
        Russian - <USER11>
        Italy - <USER11>
        Taiwan -1
        Austria - <USER11>
        Netherlands - <USER11>

[1]: [http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/site/dark- site.html](http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/site/dark-site.html)

<comment><USER17> Looking at the update at 2.32pm AEST makes me sad. Two people mourning over the loss of their relatives and everyone in the airport takes pictures of them. Here is the image (although I'm just spreading it around more): [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/3/8/1394249180451/dd3ed19d-b8cc-4791-a540-22aecf15f089-460x276.jpeg)

<comment><USER18> Taking pictures of suffering people is so inhuman, we rarely see this side when we look at the news.

<comment><USER19> This is really disgusting indeed. But journalists also do that the whole time

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> FlightAware track of the flight: [http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370](http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370)

EDIT: And track log: [http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1...](http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog)

<comment><USER21> The flightaware track for flights in the area doesn't tell much because apparently ground radar is relatively limited, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Philip Wood, an IBM Technical Storage Executive, was one of 3 Americans on the flight manifest.

[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/philip- wood/3/a46/4a9](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/philip-wood/3/a46/4a9)

<comment><USER23> What bothers me aren't so much the adults on the flight. They've more or less lived full lives, especially the ones from the US. What eats me is thinking that there were two babies on that flight =(

<comment><USER24> You realize that once you are dead it makes no difference how long you were alive right? When you are dead there is no inherent regret that you didn't live longer. Whether you were 67 or 3, you're still dead--the end result is the same. No one life is more valuable than the next. Think about that before you make any more short sighted comments.

<comment><USER23> > No one life is more valuable than the next.

I know you're speaking philosophically, but that's not true in every context like a wrongful death lawsuit. The younger you are, the more your life is worth. The higher your earnings bracket, the more your life is worth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Without disrespecting victims (RIP), can someone briefly explain how and why people die during plane crash? Is it lack of oxygen, or cold temperature or actually a hard landing on the water surface? AFAIK most studies conclude there is no good place on the plane to be safer than other, whether its front, back, left side or right. Any ideas how to expand ones survival chances? Will TSA let you in with parachute -- is it even worth carrying one??

<comment><USER26> > parachute

That would mean an opening if there's an opening in the plane, while still above the ground, the plane is done anyway.

I think it's the fire or suffocation (the plane is sealed) if it falls in the water. I really don't know. Go over to reddit, there people there are better chances of an answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is sad, but kind of strange with all the fear and media publicity of an airplane crash. For example, 1.2million people lost their life in road traffic in 2010 alone... We rarely read or fear about this fact.

<comment><USER28> I'm sure we would read about a single road accident claiming a few hundred lives as well.

<comment><USER27> Each day about ~100.000 people lose their life in road accidents...

<comment><USER28> That's actually wrong by an order of magnitude, but that's not the point. The fact that individual road accidents claiming a few victims are so common is exactly why it's _not_ news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Edit: the top reply made me realise what has probably happened. Awful :(

<comment><USER30> GPS just means the plane knows where it is. The equipment necessary for the plane to inform the airline ops about its location is still vulnerable to all sorts of problems, even with the kind of anal development practices required by FAA and equivalent agencies. Airports usually have have radars that track nearby airspace, but otherwise, I think most planes are tracked by the ADS-B signals that they actively transmit (insecurely).

<comment><USER31> Does that mean that they pretty much know where the plane is likely to be? I recall from previous accidents that sometimes they can't find the plane very quickly. I don't know much about this subject, but what stops them from locating the plane within just a few hours?

<comment><USER32> Over water or in other remote locations, there is no radar coverage thus there is absolutely no information about the plane location except position reports from the pilot. Airliners have "ping home" systems that regularly send various info (including GPS location) back to the central company servers using satellites. However, the reports frequency varies from 15 to 90+ minutes and even 5 minutes is A LOT for a plane traveling at MACH 0.7. But even if the position reports will be timely and accurate, during the descend (after a catastrophic event onboard), the plane might travel tens of miles from the last reported position. Then, ocean currents can move the pieces even further from the last reported position (as it have happened with Air France plane pieces).

Lastly, ADS-B is not a solution for over the ocean position reports - <USER12> radio is not powerful enough to transmit data over the long distance (this is why we need to build so many ground stations in the US to actually use it). Not to mention, that ADS-B is not fully operational even in US.

<comment><USER33> I think they could look at satellites looking at that region at the time. There are satellites just taking photos and they probably have captured something.

<comment><USER34> ...there really aren't satellites 'just taking photos' of the ocean. You might have a spy satellite taking pictures of a naval exercise. I think you are underestimating a) how vastly big the ocean is, and b) satellite capacity (most intelligence satellites are _over land_ ).

71% of the world is ocean. The ocean is vast, and most of it has very little going on. Last month someone washed up having been lost at sea _for over a year_ , having only seen two or three ships (which didn't stop). A few ships _in 13 months_.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jose-salvador-alvarenga- healthy-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jose-salvador-alvarenga-healthy- after-lost-at-sea-ordeal-but-in-no-shape-to-explain-anything/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> 3:30am update:

At Beijing airport authorities have provided buses for relatives to go to a hotel about 15 kilometres away for further briefings. Associated Press reported one woman on the bus was weeping while saying on a mobile phone, "They want us to go to the hotel. It can't be good!"

<comment><USER36> That seems to be a very sensible thing to do though. Consider that there are 153 Chinese nationals, the number of relatives waiting at the airport is probably at least couple hundreds. Since the event is ongoing and they have no idea how long it will take to have new updates, moving them to a place where they can be better accommodated while freeing up resources at the airport for its normal duties is probably a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Malaysia Airlines has a reasonable safety record. The 777 has a very good safety record. This specific plane apparently had damage to the wingtip from a previous on-ground incident/collision. It's a big mystery.

</comment><comment><USER37> After a few days of interesting aviation related stories here, this happens.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's not clear from the article: what happened to the flight?

<comment><USER39> It isn't known or at least not yet announced. If it crashes into the ocean (or somewhere remote) this isn't surprising. As for the cause, that will likely take months for a comprehensive report.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, it does seem to be the assumed case. Hope not. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Last transponder position of #MH370 was Lat: 6.90 Lon: 103.57

[http://pic.twitter.com/PVsNuYtbtS](http://pic.twitter.com/PVsNuYtbtS)

</comment><comment><USER41> Looks like they just located it, and are sending emergency teams now: [http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=vi&tl=en&js=n&prev=...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=vi&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvnexpress.net%2Ftin- tuc%2Fthe-gioi%2Fdo-duoc-tin-hieu-may-bay-malaysia-cach-mui-ca-mau-120-hai- ly-2960870.html)

<comment><USER42> those reports were already confirmed false (insane, less than a minute later)

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/malaysian- airli...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/malaysian-airlines- plane-live)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why is black box data only stored locally, thus requiring investigators to recover the box in order to figure out what happened?

<comment><USER34> Because transmissions are unreliable. If you're over the ocean there is no ground to send your transmission to. Black boxes store considerable amounts of data - telemetrics, voice recordings for the past two hours...stuff that to be useful you really have to stream.

So the only viable option for streaming that kind of data is over a satellite link, except it should come as no surprise that when you _most need the data_ the uplink won't work (maybe something ripped the fuselage and damaged the transmitter, power was lost, you no longer had line of site to the satellite because the plane rolled, etc).

There's no benefit. You are going to be sending people out to the plane anyway. If the plane is under the ocean you're going to investigate regardless. Flight recorders are designed to last - the Air France 447 recorders were finally found two years later, 4000 meters under water. Data links are unreliable, not there when you most need them, and not worth the trouble.

<comment><USER44> > There's no benefit. You are going to be sending people out to the plane > anyway.

This is a fantastic point. I can't think of many accidents that were resolved by the FDR alone. The FDR tells a substantial part of the story, obviously (flight control positions, instrumentation data, etc), but the _wreckage_ suggests where potential points of failure occurred. The importance of this cannot be understated, and I'd highly recommend watching (albeit rather dramatized) Crash of the Comet [1] and related videos for how important wreckage and metallurgical analysis has been in resolving otherwise difficult accidents.

To add to your comment, the FDR and CVR have demonstrated that they can function up to the point of impact (with some exceptions, such as a few accidents caused by severe in flight fires), which yields some very important telemetry as to the attitude of the aircraft, state of the engines, etc.

So really, if it's not broke...

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws- GAiQKsBs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws-GAiQKsBs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Can't begin to imagine how horrible it must be to be the one informing next of kin of what just happened.

<comment><USER46> Or, you know, to be next of kin. :( The last time Twitter was taken over by a Friday night flight was much more enjoyable, thoughts go out to all those affected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is one of the scariest thing i read on the internet in a while... I feel so sorry.

</comment><comment><USER48> Well this is very bad news that plane lost its contact with control rum, and its taking over 200 passengers. Hope for the best that they can contact soon with them.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is very sad. My thoughts with all those involved and those related. :(

</comment><comment><USER26> So, they made an announcement after 5 hours?

Lost contact: 2:40 AM

Announcement: 7:30 AM

<comment><USER50> Well it could have been so that they just lost their radio due to malfunction.

And after 5 hours i imagine the fuel would be about out so after that one can with a very high accuracy say that it was worse that just a radio glitch.

It would not look good to say that the plane crashed and then one hour or so later it lands on some remote runway.

<comment><USER26> But they could say after 30 minutes or 45 or hell, 60 minutes, "guys, we lost contact with our plane and that happened sixty minutes ago".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is very unfortunate, but why is it on Hacker News?

<comment><USER52> Because a lot of hackers care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Why is stuff like this on HN?</comment>


What tool do you use to focus? - <AUTHOR>

What technique do you use to focus while working? in the sense methodology like GTD, ZTD, Pomodoro or softwares like OmniFocus, Things etc <comment><USER3> On the Mac, Self Control every time! It'll block access to domains you define for a set period, e.g. news.ycombinator.com, email.

<http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

<http://gregdetre.blogspot.com/2009/10/self-control.html>

The only downside is that I can't seem to block reader.google.com without also blocking all of google.com...

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a really nice, and free, extension for chrome called StayFocusd that I use.

[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/laankejkbhbdhmip...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji)

You can mark sites you visit as "time wasters" (e.g. news.google.com, hulu.com, HN, etc.) as well as how much time/day you should be allowed to waste during work hours (customizable). It then logs the time you spend on those sites and after you've reached your daily limit, it will redirect you whenever you try to visit them.

Of course, you can work around it, but I find their redirect page wakes me out of an almost knee-jerk reaction to waste time throughout certain times of the day.

</comment><comment><USER5> I follow Pomodoro Technique with the timer-applet on GNOME panel with work and break presets.

Oh, and 'The Bomb Run' theme from Dr. Strangelove as the alarm sound.

</comment><comment><USER6> I turn off the internet if I need to do something task wise and have a shitty computer to get stuff done on that its a really old battered mac.

Not a fan of software since i'll try override any settings etc.

<comment><USER7> This. Do the same thing, but with variations based on how badly I need to focus.

\- First is a battered old internet-free linux box with a text editor and a few basic tools for focussed work / dev.

\- Second is to sit somewhere unfamiliar in the office / home with grid paper and a pen

\- Third, if something needs some proper, hardcore thought applied - <USER2> whatever I need, drive somewhere with a table (cafe, park, whatever), turn off all my devices and sit. Sit, read, think, write, repeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Music (specifically stuff I've listened to for years so I don't get distracted by something new and catchy).

</comment><comment><USER9> I've tried many things but nothing has helped more than turning off the internet.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is more of a methodology than a tool, but I uninstall Starcraft.

</comment><comment><USER11> Full-screen shell & text editor.

</comment><comment><USER12> Brainwave Entrainment ("music")

</comment><comment><USER13> A lens.</comment>


The Tiny Internet Project, Part II - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tiny-internet-project-part-ii <comment><AUTHOR> As mentioned in the article, part one is here: [http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tiny-internet-project- pa...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tiny-internet-project-part-i)</comment>


Show HN: Turn Any Tweet into a Temporary Tattoo - <AUTHOR> http://www.twittertats.com <comment><USER2> There was also a site with toilet paper print ;)

<comment><USER3> Haha that's great! Extra reading material when pewping.</comment></comment>


Genetically Modified Bacteria Conduct Electricity - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/genetically-modified-bacteria-conduct-electricity-ushering-in-new-era-of-green-electronics <comment><USER2> That is an interesting piece of work, it makes me wonder what happens if they escape the lab and into the soil around the building. What happens if these guys turn the topsoil into a giant conductive sphere. It will probably do wonders for the RF noise floor, considering everyone would be standing on a giant ground plane.

<comment><USER3> Fortunately the ground is already a giant ground plane.

<comment><USER2> Sort of and sort of not, it is an infinite (for all intents and purposes) a sink for charge, but its conductivity is low and its dielectric coefficient fairly high. As a result its reflectivity to electromagnetic waves is mixed. If it were to become much more conductive, its reflectivity would become much much higher and more uniform. RF energy would just bounce back up into the air on its way.

<comment><USER4> How much cooler/scarier would lightning storms then become? If the ground can hold considerably more charge near the surface can get to the point of ground lightning becoming considerably more common? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The X-ray diffraction analyses suggest that the metallic-like conductivity of G. sulfurreducens pili can be attributed to the packing of aromatic amino acids with a characteristic spacing of 3.2 Å, which enables effective -orbital overlap and electron delocalization."</comment>


Ardour 5.5 Released (A free and open source digital audio workstation) - <AUTHOR> https://community.ardour.org/node/14093 <comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of exciting projects in the Linux audio that may be of interest here. I'll just name a few, in no particular order, that have tickled my interest.

setBfree - A DSP Tonewheel Organ emulator. [https://github.com/pantherb/setBfree](https://github.com/pantherb/setBfree)

alvdrums.lv2 - a simple Drum Sample Player Plugin [https://github.com/x42/avldrums.lv2](https://github.com/x42/avldrums.lv2)

The rest of the x42 suite: [http://x42-plugins.com/x42/](http://x42-plugins.com/x42/)

The zam-plugins suite: [http://www.zamaudio.com/?p=976](http://www.zamaudio.com/?p=976)

giada - your hardcore loop machine [https://www.giadamusic.com/](https://www.giadamusic.com/)

Helm - a great sounding (to me) software synthesizer [http://tytel.org/helm/](http://tytel.org/helm/)

ZynAddSubFX's new GUI [http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/zyn- fusion.html](http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/zyn-fusion.html) An amazing software synth even without this new GUI.

Guitarix - a guitar/bass amp and effects modler [http://guitarix.org/](http://guitarix.org/)

Bitwig Studio - A proprietary DAW available on Linux [https://www.bitwig.com/en/home.html](https://www.bitwig.com/en/home.html)

u-he plugin suit available on Linux [http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=424953](http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=424953)

I'm sure there are a few more that I'm forgetting right now.</comment>