Wikileaks releases CIA's Marble: Malware obfuscation tools - <AUTHOR> https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_14588467.html?marble=1 <comment><USER2> How about instead of talking about whether Wikileaks is good or bad or whether you support them or not, let's talk about the content of the post.

From what I've read so far, this is pretty freaking cool. It's super interesting to read these docs and see their thought process involved, especially since the product their building is so different from what people are making on a day to day business. It actually looks pretty fun to work on. Also, I think it's neat to read about their need for developing frameworks that can be used around the agency to accomplish stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn't ready anything about self modifying code, which is probably the most difficult malware to detect and probably to write. Maybe it's in there though, I didn't read the whole document. I came to the comments about half way through to see dozens of people talking about whether they support Wikileaks or not which I think is fine, free country, but I'd like to actually know what some people who work with this kind of stuff think.

A framework for compiling to self modifying, yet correct, code wiukd be super cool. I wonder if it always has to be written by hand? Probably not but maybe that's a separate tool Wikileaks has yet to release.

<comment><USER3> Self-modifying the underlying machine code isn't what it used to be. Besides the difficulty in writing it, there's lot's of caveats about how it interacts with the cache and the instruction pipeline. It also requires setup, because with modern memory protection all the machine code is read-only. Changing the memory protection for some machine code to be executable and writable at once will set off some alarms (And isn't even possible on systems with W^X). So you need to change it to just writable, make your modifications, then change it back to just executable, which is less suspicious, it just looks like what JIT compilers do. But all in all self-modifying code doesn't really give you anything.

The exception to that is packers and other obfuscation techniques, which are related to self-modifying code. The general idea with these is that you take your real program and compress/encrypt/mangle/etc it and store that data in an executable. The code in that executable de-compresses/decrypts/demangles that data, sets it as executable, and then runs it. Unlike traditional self- modifying code, packing is orders of magnitude easier to write for the malware developer. The advantage here is that an antivirus tool can't determine what your real program does statically unless it understands how you mangled it, which is hard to do in general. To "unpack" an executable you've got three general techniques:

1\. Packers tend to get reused a lot, so just have a person write an unpacker for popular packers by hand, and do some pattern matching to figure out which packer an executable is using. This doesn't work for everything, but it's fairly simple.

2\. Dynamic Analysis. Run the executable and watch the contents of memory as the program unpacks itself, the real program should pop right out. Of course you have to run the executable in some sort of sandbox environment, and there's ways for the malware to detect that and alter it's behavior. This also isn't the most efficient process, so you can't really do this to executables during, say, an antivirus scan.

3\. Symbolic Analysis. Basically static analysis on steroids to figure out what the executable will do without actually running it. The malware can't stop this with sandbox detection. But it's super slow and is still an active area of research.

<comment><USER4> > Dynamic Analysis. Run the executable and watch the contents of memory as the > program unpacks itself

Of course nowadays the makers of fine malware detect whether they are running inside a sandbox, and won't activate.

<comment><USER5> You can always run it on a real, unimportant machine not connected to anything. (And never connect that machine to anything ever again.) That feature just makes it slightly more difficult and costly to compromise program security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've really turned on Wikileaks. Itd be one thing if all the major powers had equivalent leaks publishing, but focusing on the US basically serves Chinese and Russian interests far more than it does the citizens of the US. String obfuscation isn't stemming from some corrupt deal that needs sunlight... this is just doing a disservice to their original mission.

<comment><USER7> The truth isn't responsible for serving anyone's interests, and especially not the interests of the biggest secret keeper. The truth is not political, except that it is the natural enemy of politics which rely upon secrecy.

If your perspective is that more secrets are being kept by more egregious actors than the US, the truth welcomes your contribution...

<comment><USER8> The truth may not be political, however the curation is. Take the US election, for example. Wikileaks has released information about Clinton and the DNC, and claims they have stuff they never released about Trump and the GOP [1, 2]. Other sources have said the GOP was hacked in the same attack that got Podesta [3].

The only person less likely to criticize Russia than Trump is Assange.

Wikileaks lost any proximity to an alleged moral high ground when they stopped leaking everything they got, and started editorializing their release schedule for political impact, started talking about US politics, and held back bad things about people they like.

(I say this as someone who is very pro-Snowden.)

1/ [http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential- races/29345...](http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential- races/293453-assange-wikileaks-trump-info-no-worse-than-him)

2/ [http://theweek.com/speedreads/645239/julian-assange-tells- me...](http://theweek.com/speedreads/645239/julian-assange-tells-megyn-kelly- why-wikileaks-isnt-releasing-dirt-donald-trump)

3/ [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russia-hack-u-s- politics...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russia-hack-u-s-politics- bigger-disclosed-includes-gop-n661866)

<comment><USER9> Do you hold WaPo, NYT, CNN to those same standards? Because that is mainly what American "MSM" does, selectively publish information which bebefits the agenda of American foreign policy interests.

It's fair if you align yourself with American foreign policy interests, I do too, but to single out other publications that don't follow that agenda is just a case of having self interested double standards. All of the criticism of Wiki leaks and non-America MSM has all sounded like that to me. "They are selectively publishing different things than we want to be selectively published. Waaah".

But let me guess what the go to response would be: "whataboutism" (aka you can't call me a hypocrite, because some guy made a term for it).

<comment><USER10> I disagree: I think there is a reasonable case to hold WikiLeaks and the NYT to different standards. I think WikiLeaks holds itself out as a much more anarchic news organisation than traditional outlets like the NYT. WikiLeaks isn't connected or have allegiance to any particular country, and will publish, let the facts speak for themselves and damn the establishment and any particular national interests that are harmed. On the other hand, organisations like the NYT are pretty open about how while they often publish against the wishes of USG they do ask for comment and may defer publication if they are satisfied there are very good reasons to do so. [1]

Therefore, for WikiLeaks to become highly partisan is a radical departure from their original mission; moreover, it has happened without WikiLeaks acknowledging that this is the case. I think you can't same the same for the NYT.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/public-editor/sullivan- les...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/public-editor/sullivan-lessons-in-a- surveillance-drama-redux.html)

<comment><USER11> The problem with holding Wikileaks as "selective" is that you would have to establish that there are true leaks which they have withheld from us. There's this popular misconception that Wikileaks actually hacks to obtain the data, but this is false and no one has ever so much as attempted to prove otherwise.

So given that they can't select the sources, the claims of them being "selective" just sound ignorant to anyone who knows how they operate, especially when those same claims are so often repeated in publications which are openly selective.

<comment><USER12> First of all, if you know how Wikileaks operates, you know that as well as the leaks they generate content and opinions. They are not merely a funnel.

Second, if they were trying to be just a funnel but realised that they were only getting information from limited sources with a known agenda, then they would also know that they are facilitating a political agenda. They could be open about this. But they are not. They are keeping critical details of their own activities secret (ie they choose to be selective), which is directly contrary to their stated philosophy.

In a more empirical sense, an organisation can only be judged by its output, not by its slogans or cheerleaders. In that sense Wikileaks is clearly an organisation promoting a political agenda.

<comment><USER11> > First of all, if you know how Wikileaks operates, you know that as well as > the leaks they generate content and opinions. They are not merely a funnel.

Yes, but that opinion is that powerful, unaccountable organizations shouldn't be able to keep deep secrets from the general public when they do things like manufacturing consent for war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The WARBLE languages are pretty telling of which actors this software is intended to target:

        * Arabic
        * Chinese
        * Russian
        * Korean
        * Farsi

Interesting...

<comment><USER14> Why is that interesting? Seems obvious so I am wondering if I missed something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15>
      You can't. LOLZ. Yet.

[https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_16384857.html](https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_16384857.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think I'll just open an issue and let someone else update the name lists... Wikileaks is publishing these things faster than I can update my code.

[https://github.com/rbanffy/nsaname](https://github.com/rbanffy/nsaname)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if Sony really was "hacked by the North Koreans" then.

<comment><USER18> You think the CIA did it instead? Other than it maybe being technically possible, what evidence or motivation would they have for doing that?

<comment><USER17> Before I answer, I'd like to state that I am an American citizen living abroad and I have no particular allignment to or against any country :)

I don't know if the CIA did or would want to do this specific attack.

But, I could grasp at straws to fit the Sony attack in line with the narrative of what I would call "1950s American Imperialism".

In my view, the Americans took covert or overt actions for many decades now to undermine economically competitive countries. We've bombed Germany, Italy, Japan, Serbia, Korea, China, Vietnam... we've invaded Iraq... we've taken actions against many Latin American governments and Iran...

Over the years, the powers at be have been pretty good at framing other nations for attacks or dangers, in order to drum up public support to attack them. Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, USS Vincennes...

So, in short, if you had definitive proof that Russian and NK hacking were in fact orchestrated by the CIA...

... then the economic imperialism narrative would hold as pretty plausible motives!

The most blatant endgame here for the US is "NK hacked us. They have nukes! It's time to invade!". And then NK becomes a new market for the West to take over for cheap as they did in Communist Yugoslavia and so on

<comment><USER19> > The most blatant endgame here for the US is "NK hacked us. They have nukes! > It's time to invade!". And then NK becomes a new market for the West to take > over for cheap as they did in Communist Yugoslavia and so on

But "They have nukes!" would be reasonable enough reason to invade. Why not work with that narrative as opposed to "They're hacking us!"?

Some might say the US has a moral obligation to pursue regime change in N Korea, but US foreign policy has focused on isolating as opposed to invasion

<comment><USER17> I do think nukes are the primary reason, much like with Iran. But you see a trend with Iran, Russia, China, NK- when the country is too legitimate to invade (compared to little Serbia or Somalia), isolation and sanctions are pursued.

Perhaps it is convenient fear-mongering and deepening of arguments. America seems to be pretty good at spreading multi-faceted arguments about why you shouldn't even _think_ about the legitimacy of a multi-polar world.

I guess my point is, the American government and official state media seem pretty content to have these multi-bullet playbooks against nations that are quite deeply fulfill the criteria of "non-western", "non-democratic", "non- capitalist", but still quite serious "economic and militaristic threats"

<comment><USER20> > I do think nukes are the primary reason, much like with Iran. But you see a > trend with Iran, Russia, China, NK- when the country is too legitimate to > invade (compared to little Serbia or Somalia), isolation and sanctions are > pursued.

Stuxnet was (in a sense) a much more interesting topic than this leak. It showed that the retaliation is pursued not only by isolation and sanctioning, but with (subtle & undercover) direct attacks too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> wonder when wikileaks will publish fsb hacking tools

LOL

<comment><USER22> Seems FSB has better security than CIA.

90% of intelligence community cyber security spending is on offensive projects, so this revelation should not be too surprising. ([http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-defense- idUSKBN1...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-defense- idUSKBN17013U))

<comment><USER23> And FSB's attack surface is less than 1% of CIA's. Much fsb work is farmed out to contractors, the offensive stuff that CIA keeps in house. CIA people chat via email, messaging and by voice. FSB people chat in person. That's why russian hackers are always traveling while CIA hackers keep having thier stuff leaked.

<comment><USER22> Great points. I don't know many details of how they operate. Someone told me they still rely on paper-based methods in order to avoid some types of electronic surveillance.

In theory, 50% offense and 50% defense should be the only budget for a sane operation.

<comment><USER24> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007213)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> (Perhaps not so) Interesting that the demonstration languages are: Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Farsi and Korean.

Could be a fun one for game DRM? Or apps where an API key is hidden in the binary?

</comment><comment><USER26> (noob question)

Do you need THE best software-development talent to be able to build comprehensive surveillance like the big agencies? Like THE Christiano Ronaldo or THE Michael Jordan of programming.

Or is this more about funds and the power to set such a system in motion?

<comment><USER24> That's an interesting question.

My thought is that much of the problem is tactical, logistical, organisational, and capabilities-oriented.

Consider the problem domain:

1\. There's a vast amount of information flowing around the world. Much of it remains at best _poorly_ protected, and until recently, that was even more the case.

2\. Much of surveillance revolves around _access to the channels_ themselves. Which means places such as satellite uplink/downlink centres, transoceanic cable landfalls, major switching hubs, telecoms hubs (AT&T's notorious San Francisco closet), etc.

3\. Then you've got the problem of _simply ingesting the information_. For that, you need fat pipe of your own, and massive storage.

4\. Then the problem of _classifying and prioritising the information_ , or _identifying and tracing specific targets_. Again, in both cases, _scale_ matters more than _capability_ , where scale is both a matter of data (transmission, storage, processing) and above all _access_.

If you want to tap a specific landline, or cellphone, or cloud / online storage provider, _do you have the tactical assets in place to be able to do so?_ E.g., official or unofficial liasons with the organisation in question. If official, how do you maintain that relationship (what balance of carrots and sticks). If unofficial, do you risk burning through such assets by utilising them. Google, to take an example, apparently looks poorly on employees directly accessing user data, and could well discipline or terminate any staff or contractors who do so. This doesn't mean that the NSA doesn't have and cannot use such assets, _but they can likely only use each one a small number of times, possibly only once._ That raises the costs for any such access, though again, scale offers a potential counterweight. (Rinse, wash, and repeat for all non-Google organisations, I'm actually raising them as an example here _on account_ of their apparently stringent internal controls.)

5\. Technical capabilities. For any given channel, there are the fundamental information-theoretical problems of establishing a link, transferring, and comprehending data. Depending on the complexities involved, this may be easy or hard, but there's almost certainly a fixed setup cost for any given service. This also means that the surveillance entity will likely target technical sources by some balance of total size (likelihood that _any_ given target will be on it) and specific interest (that a _particular_ target is there).

Such resources are again finite, and suggest yet another possible defeat: by embracing rapid change, workfactor for achieving technical penetration increases.

I'm arguing my own way through this, but in general, I'd think that _size_ matters more than _skill_ , though the two complement, and there are almost certainly instances in which brute intelligence and capability in conceiving of exploits is an essential factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What would be the advantage to making your exploits appear to come from other countries? What do we gain from this? It feels like an instigation.

<comment><USER28> There is a huge advantage to do that. False flag attacks are one of the tried and true methods of intelligence agencies since ancient times.

For example the official pretext for WWII was started as a false flag: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident) US did it at the start of Vietnam War: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident)

We gain a lot from this. We can for example manufacture "Russian hysteria" \- "Look we found a Russian rootkit on a DNC server". We can attack our allies and then make it look like the Chinese did it, and so on. It is immensely useful.

<comment><USER29> >"Look we found a Russian rootkit on a DNC server"

Implying a 'Russian rootkit' was planted in a false flag operation?

So the CIA pretended to be Russia helping to get Trump elected -- why?

<comment><USER28> Did they pretend to be Russia? I didn't see any evidence. They seemed to have heavily invested in this capability though. Why waste time and money if they don't plan on using it?

Why do you think they might want to pretend to be someone else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's unethical for anyone who calls themselves an engineer to do this kind of work.

<comment><USER31> It's unethical to write a script that will xor strings?

<comment><USER32> > _" It's unethical to shoot somebody"_

It's unethical to pull on a little piece of metal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow C is back. Figured they were using php and Wordpress. :-)

</comment><comment><USER34> >Alternatively you can email User #72806

</comment><comment><USER35> Why would they release their own tools?

<comment><USER28> Oh I get it, because Assange is a Russian FSB agent. Yap, makes total sense.

<comment><USER36> More like Assange knows that the FSB will just straight up poison him with Polonium instead of slapping him around a bit and shipping him to GITMO.

<comment><USER37> He could also be Seth Rich'd [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich)

<comment><USER38> That interview was the final straw in causing my total loss of respect for Wikileaks. Trying to profit politically off the death of an innocent man is vile. Forcing his parents and family to endure the weight of the conspiracy community in an attempt to attack your political opponents is an awful thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> You're either a really good troll, or you need more practice with your articles to pass as a native English speaker :)

<comment><USER40> You can't conduct personal attacks like this on Hacker News. The odds that you're right in any particular case are low and not worth the considerable damage it does to the community. Please don't do this again.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14008045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14008045) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Wikileaks is an organization built to destabilize the US government. Romantic and idealist stuff aside, they are playing the role of "useful idiot" for other intelligence agencies. And that is very dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER42> Look at all the people complaining that wikileaks is anti-western and/or foriegn supported/agents with no proof of this whatsoever.

If anything wikileaks has shown a superior journalistic record in publishing whatever comes across their desk, so I don't see people criticising wikileaks on this the weakest of points as anything but intellectually dishonest _at best._

<comment> angry-hacker As a foreigner this witchunt for Assange is pathetic, suddenly when you support bad boys he's no good.

Who said advertising doesn't work? Especially political.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's funny to see how many educated people on HN expect to see something like "Russia / FSB / etc" hacking tools or documents leaks or whatever. Probably it's due to looking at how three letter agencies operate in first world countries someone would expect that you actually need that many people to steal some emails or get hands over company database.

It's obviously that no matter how big NSA conspiracy is every dollar spent, every meeting occur, every decision made all have to be controlled and documented. And any 3rd party company working for agency must have official contract, must report taxes and sometimes can even sell all the same tools for other governments. So it's thousand people participate at every single step.

In world of paranoid and corrupt ex-KGB mafia nothing like that required. All you need is just few experts and enough of money. Russia have plenty of online criminals: carders, illegal pharmacy and drug dealers, owners of credit card processings used for fraud, money laundering payment systems, botnet owners, spyware developers and most of them are controlled by state or somewhat under special agency protection racket.

Need 0-day exploit? Rootkit? Spyware? Any unique tools? Anything can is there for money! DDoS attack or a lot of proxy servers at any location needed? Plenty of services there and agencies obviously know owners. No documentation or reporting needed since corrupt government agencies are closely tied to those criminals for years.

So the same attacks that would involve at least few hundred of people in usual US three letter agency would likely require to just few dozens in Russia. What's more important no one would ever tell the difference between this activity and usual agency behaviour that related to usual corruption schemes.

So if you seriously think there is Russian government behind some attacks then shouldn't expect any leaks about that. If there is something important for Kremlin they wouldn't mind to dump money on it, but there will be very few people aware of it and of course there will never be any documents or other traces since they would be done as any other attack against commercial company or opposition politician.

<comment><USER44> This is the perfect example of "whataboutism".

<comment><USER45> Could you explain the difference between whataboutism and context, particularly if a comment tries specifically to say that "two wrongs don't make a right"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The more I look at Wikileaks the more I can see them being funded by US/Chinese interests. They are turning from a leaks organization to vehemently anti-Western.</comment>


The beach-house lawyer calling big auditors to account - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7b678714-6881-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f.html#axzz4IT3J4E1v <comment><USER2> That's behind a soft paywall, but this other link works:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=The+beach- house+lawyer+calli...](https://www.google.com/search?q=The+beach- house+lawyer+calling+big+auditors+to+account)</comment>


Google Open Source Peer Bonus award 2020: 250 USD to curl - <AUTHOR> https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/04/03/google-open-source-peer-bonus-award-2020/ <comment><USER2> I feel like this is one of those "Thinking Fast and Slow Things" where paying someone 10 cents to do something makes them more annoyed then asking them to do it for free. Like this immediately makes me go "they're a billion dollar company, they could give him thousands!!!" Even if it's irrational

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a really cool program that it allows nominating someone from outside the company. Very nice!

Congratulations to Daniel Stenberg and good show for Gaspar Chilingarov to nominating him.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know if Google is supporting curl / Stenberg in any other way?

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope this post is written in an ironic tone. If I was this guy I would reject that money out of pride.

<comment><USER4> That's why I was asking. A billion dollar company using CURL in a commercial environment [1], and that's how they say "Thank you"?

[1] [https://curl.haxx.se/docs/companies.html](https://curl.haxx.se/docs/companies.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you, Google!</comment>


Do doctors understand test results? - dj-wonk http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28166019

<comment> dj-wonk According to the article: Doctors, generally, are pretty bad with statistics, though better than most patients.

The bottom line? "A physician is someone who can help you but also someone you need to challenge in order to get the best treatment."

My take is this: Especially if you are savvy with statistics, you should ask tough questions about possible treatment outcomes.</comment>


Legacy of Agent Orange - <AUTHOR> http://widerimage.reuters.com/story/legacy-of-agent-orange <comment><USER2> A component of Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T was produced by Philips-Duphar (A chemical subsdiary of the industry giant) in the Netherlands. At the end of the Vietnam war the remaining stock was dumped in a polder just North of Amsterdam. When the scandal broke it was too late and the chemicals had reacted to form various dioxins which had leached in a gigantic plume into the ground water around the town of Broek In Waterland.

To this day the area where this all happened is off-limits, even though the soil has been excavated to many meters depth. This will likely be a permanent feature in what used to be one of the Netherlands nicest areas to recreate.

Photo of the site during the cleanup:

[http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4](http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4)

This is the entrance to the site as it approximately looks today:

[https://email@example.com,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82h,85.26t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s9BTzdD4dnGQjxXtQ2QAL5w!2e0)

It's one of the most expensive toxic waste operations ever in Europe and the most expensive one to date in NL.

People were living within 100 meters of this dump!

And that dump is a small fraction of what was dropped over Vietnam.

<comment><USER3> Bloody hell, thanks so much for this, I had no idea. What would be the word for this, "collateral war crime"?

FWIW, even though far larger quantities were sprayed over Vietnam, the spraying made the contamination less permanent than in the Netherlands. Hopefully most of what was sprayed in the war has been run off into the ocean, with no pluming and relatively little groundwater contamination.

Although "relatively" is rather less comforting when the contamination involves dioxins.

<comment><USER2> > Although "relatively" is rather less comforting when the contamination > involves dioxins.

Yes. It's incredible how toxic that stuff is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just absolutely disgusting. I wasn't quite sure what Agent Orange was, so I looked it up in Wikipedia... as a Y gen, I knew that the Vietnam War was bad, but not this bad... It is absolutely disgusting and atrocious what humans can do each other.

From the article ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam_War)):

1\. 20,000,000 U.S. gallons were sprayed

2\. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas.

3\. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population.

4\. In Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone, leaving many to die from the famine.

I remember reading a book, Crimes Against Humanity, which said how Nazi leaders, especially those participated in the Holocaust were tried for their crimes. I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court.

And that's the thing. It annoys how easily the Americans are willing to criticize everyone else, and yet shift the blame away from themselves. If they weren't such a superpower, they wouldn't even be able to get away with all this.

This stuff sickens me

<comment><USER5> > I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions > in an international court.

War crimes are a final insult of the victor over the vanquished. While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR.

Don't think that war crime trials are about any sort of justice.

<comment><USER6> > While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by > the Vietnamese/USSR.

Wait, what? At the very end US Troops were evacuated from Saigon, and the city was taken over by the Viet Cong. That was the end of the Vietnam war. South Vietnam was reunified with North Vietnam. It's still a communist country.

I'm very sorry, but exactly how is that not complete and total defeat, except under ridiculous exceptions like, "it wasn't really a war because: Congress"? What a disservice to everyone that fought.

The war escalated to the point where LBJ could neither stop, nor continue without basically destroying his legacy (as well as humanitarian and social goals), so he just kept fighting.

<comment><USER7> You completely missed his point, which is that nobody was in a position to try the U.S. for war crimes after Vietnam. There are many kinds of defeat. To be charged with war crimes requires utter defeat, not merely an unfavorable end to the conflict.

<comment><USER8> > To be charged with war crimes requires utter defeat

Officials from _all_ factions in (for one example) the Bosnian civil war have been tried by the ICTY. So unless all sides suffered "utter defeat", that is demonstrably untrue.

One could argue that prior to the establishment of modern tribunals starting with the ICTY (but also including the ICTR and ICC), that was the case. And there might be other reasons that the US, in particular, is difficult to hold accountable. But its pretty clear that it is no longer the case that "to be charged with war crimes requires utter defeat", or even _mere_ defeat.

<comment><USER7> You should read "utter defeat" to mean "subject to the decisions of others." Nothing more, really. You can charge anybody with anything. I'm talking about enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9>
        I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say
        that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at
        which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly
        decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in
        Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on
        a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all
        levels of command....

        They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut
        off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones
        to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs,
        blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages
        in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs
        for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the
        countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage
        of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is
        done by the applied bombing power of this country.

\-- John Kerry, 1971

[[https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerr...](https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerrytestimony.html)]

</comment><comment><USER10> Does any one know...

Was this considered 'war crime', or was it a too modern way of conducting war so that it was not covered by the international laws at the time?

If against international law or not, has it ever been a case in an international court for the tactics used in Vietnam during this war? If not, is there a documented reason as to why not?

<comment><USER11> It is uncontroversially a war crime. Chemical warfare is explicity banned by the Geneva convention, to which the US is of course a signatory.

However, great powers are exempt from being challenged by international law, because they simply don't permit it.

<comment><USER12> At least the Germans didn't pretend they were getting rid of foliage when they gassed the Jews.

<comment><USER13> It wasn't foliage, but hair lice and other pests... the jews were shaven their heads and told to shower. Only when the doors locked, they realized what was going on.

<comment><USER14> Why did they shave their heads?

<comment><USER13> Most definitely for lice protection (and to maintain the illusion), and according to Wikipedia ( [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanada_(KZ_Auschwitz)](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanada_\(KZ_Auschwitz\)) ) the hairs were used for commercial purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From wikipedia: "Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".[4] The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer.

<comment><USER16> First of all, weren't Monsanto a) just manufacturing this stuff on the request of DoD and b) the ones who discovered it's contaminated and warned the Government about it? It's like the very next occurrence of the word "Monsanto" in the Wiki article.

Secondly, and I apologize for Godwining the thread, you probably know that IBM built and sold machines to Nazi Germany, having full knowledge that they will be used for oppression and murder. They even found a way to avoid the business ban during wartime. Hell, ever seen the serial numbers tattooed on the arms of concentration camps' prisoners? You can thank IBM punch-card systems for that.

And yet I'm willing to bet that you don't avoid IBM computers, servers and software for that reason. Because what they did during WWII has little to do with the quality of hardware they manufacture now. And so is with Monsanto. The fact that they did work on herbicides-turned-chemical-weapons for USGOV doesn't mean anything about their ability to put healthy food on your table.

If you want someone to blame for Agent Orange, blame the DoD.

<comment><USER17> > The fact that they did work on herbicides-turned-chemical-weapons for USGOV > doesn't mean anything about their ability to put healthy food on your table.

Monsanto & healthy food is an oxymoron. Try drinking some Roundup. I hear it's "safe" ;-)

<comment><USER16> If you're referring to that interview then keep in mind that it was just a crappy "journalist" trying to make a show out of what was supposed to be an interview on a topic completely not related to Monsanto.

Apparently he succeeded. I guess it's a lesson in designing propaganda - be an asshole, people will believe you.

Also, I'm not particularly convinced that the insane amount of stuff farmers dump on their crops is really better than replacing all of it with just one pesticide.

<comment><USER17> > If you're referring to that interview then keep in mind that it was just a > crappy "journalist" trying to make a show out of what was supposed to be an > interview on a topic completely not related to Monsanto.

Well, it's supposed to be "safe". Why didn't he drink it?

And the interview was originally about Golden Rice.

> Also, I'm not particularly convinced that the insane amount of stuff farmers > dump on their crops is really better than replacing all of it with just one > pesticide.

Actually, in a functioning ecosystem, no pesticides are needed. Insects & other microorganisms are natural parts of the food web.

[http://www.permaculture.com/node/140](http://www.permaculture.com/node/140)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk&feature=youtu.be)

<comment><USER16> > _Well, it 's supposed to be "safe". Why didn't he drink it?_

Urine is also safe. Would you drink your own in front of a camera if I asked you to during an interview on water purification systems?

Most people react negatively to such weird requests, especially if they're out of the blue, in front of a camera, and asked by person who evidently tries to prove some point at your expense.

> _And the interview was originally about Golden Rice._

Yes, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Roundup. Golden rice is a cool piece of biotech created to save more than half a million lives of children annually (and save many more from blindness) and is given away for free to grow (and replant) by people that need it. Bringing up Monsanto's pesticide in that interview was disingenuous, not to mention off-topic.

> _Actually, in a functioning ecosystem, no pesticides are needed. Insects & > other microorganisms are natural parts of the food web._

First of all, not really. That is, sure if you don't mind half your crops being rotten. I've never seen the evidence that you can successfully run a high-yield zero-pesticide farm. But I'm not _that_ into farming and I'll be more than happy to learn I'm wrong.

But more importantly, even if possible, apparently almost no one does that. Especially not organic farmers, who dump even more chemicals on food than usual, with only difference is that those chemicals have "organic-certified" label. So between "a lot of pesticides", "even more pesticides applied by industry that tries to cheat you into thinking they're not using pesticides" the "one pesticide" solution suddenly doesn't sound that bad.

<comment><USER17> > Urine is also safe. Would you drink your own in front of a camera if I asked > you to during an interview on water purification systems?

The differences are I'm not trying to peddle my urine as the "only" way to grow food and urine actually is safe. Roundup is not safe.

Btw, urine is a wonderful fertilizer. It's more effective & more environmentally friendly than the petrol biz solutions.

It's funny that the people spraying pesticides need to wear haz mat suits. If it were so safe, why wear the suits?

Here's some of the effects that these "safe" pesticides have on people.

[http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/argentina-the- country...](http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/argentina-the-country-that- monsanto-poisoned/)

IMO, this whole notion that we accept poisons on our food is ridiculous. But ymmv. Many people are content getting fat & diabetic eating McDonalds.

> That is, sure if you don't mind half your crops being rotten.

Sorry, but that's a load of BS. Local farms don't really have this issue. Also note there is a huge problem of waste with conventional farming & animal meat production.

Re: "pests". Pests have predators. If you encourage the predators to thrive, you don't have a pest problem. Conventional monoculture chemical agricultural practices are prone to disease & pests because the natural food web & community is disrupted. It's an unsound architecture that requires expensive & destructive inputs to maintain. It's the industrial model fighting nature.

Why not work with nature instead?

> I've never seen the evidence that you can successfully run a high-yield > zero-pesticide farm.

See the links I posted above. Both high-yield farms use zero-pesticides.

> But I'm not that into farming and I'll be more than happy to learn I'm > wrong.

Maybe you should look more into it before stating such a strong opinion...It sounds like you are heavily influenced by propaganda from large chemical & petrol companies. I don't blame you, they have huge marketing budgets & are owned by the same interests that run the major media outlets. Too bad nature doesn't have a marketing department, huh?

> But more importantly, even if possible, apparently almost no one does that.

That's untrue. Natural methods are still dominant in most of the world. America is an outlier.

America subsidizes petrol chemical centralized agriculture. We don't subsidize natural methods. Lobbying & corporate interests drive this behavior.

> Especially not organic farmers, who dump even more chemicals on food than > usual, with only difference is that those chemicals have "organic-certified" > label.

The USDA Organic label is pretty asinine. Many think it's a way of sabotaging natural chemical free methods.

Note that natural food webs don't need chemicals. It has been done successfully but does not receive much attention on a large scale because it does not suit large scale corporate interests. If you take an interest in chemical free gardening, you can try it out yourself.

Natural methods emphasizes small, autonomous farms. It's also better for the environment since natural ecosystems are built (serving a variety of functions), instead of the monoculture pesticide drenched, petrol subsidized, environmentally destructive system that we have today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When I heard a vet recount how he was ordered to load AO straight instead of diluted, I realized it was as much a program of chemical warfare as defoliation.

[http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html](http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> And let's also not forget more recent developments.

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files- prov...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove- america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/)

[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq)

[http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigati...](http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigation_in_colombia)

</comment><comment><USER20> Disgusting. When I visited HCMC a couple of years ago a photo exhibition was held showing the damage of Agent Orange. If you ever visit, check if it's still on.

<comment><USER21> It is still on, in the War Remnants Museum. It is shocking, very shocking. I had to leave after watching only half of it. Not an easy view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Has any epidemiological studies been published on Agent Orange in Vietnam?

Birth defects happen even when no one is exposed to Agent Orange. Without a study, you wouldn't be able to determine how many _more_ birth defects happened.

<comment><USER23> The VA has an overview of the research:

[http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/researc...](http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/research- studies.asp)

<comment><USER22> Interesting! Of course, the VA would have followed up. A quick perusal of the papers seems to indicate that the connection between AO and cancer are "non- significant" at least in the studies done so far.

 _Little difference in risk, however, was noted according to dates of service, type of unit, military region, or any other characteristics that may have been associated with the use of Agent Orange._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When trying to read this on iOS, the video traps me in the page. Once it starts playing and goes fullscreen, if you try to stop/pause/rewind/exit it, it just starts playing again and goes fullscreen again.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does US pay some compensation for these mistakes ? The consequences are horrible..

<comment><USER26> Few dolalrs per life lost, to the 'lucky' ones. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomatic_proceedings)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Heads up if you're in work, the imagery in this article, while appropriate, probably NSFW, wait until you get home.

<comment><USER28> These mickey-mouse rules of what is and is not considered "safe" for work is one of the many, many reasons I don't work in an office anymore. The corporatist hivemind treats the individual worker like a child, incapable of discerning for themselves the difference between nudity and sexual imagery.

<comment><USER29> while the corporate hiveminds may well do what you think, it might still be the case that your coworkers are upset by nudity, gore, violence etc.

The conclusion of not working in an office might be the same, but it's not just because of The Man.

<comment><USER28> I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between offensive material and journalism--and clamor for rules to be applied to the rest of us--in the "corporate hivemind".

<comment><USER30> > I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between > offensive material and journalism

What about people who just don't want to spend the mental energy on it? You can think that this is an important story, one that every American has an obligation to see, etc. and still want to save that for a time when you don't need to focus on your job.

I'd also remind you that not everyone is completely detached from these things. I've worked with Vietnamese immigrants, American veterans, and many people have family members who have birth defects which are similar to some of those pictures even if they weren't caused by Agent Orange. I certainly would hesitate to show any of them something like this without advanced warning.

<comment><USER28> I fail to see what any of this has to do with my usage, or why rules should be made out of it. The most rule you need is "get your work done or you're fired."

<comment><USER31> The point of "not safe for work" is for what other people will see on your screen.

And it's not their failing if such important depressing things distract them from getting their work done. It doesn't have to be offensive to be a bad idea to share with people that are trying to be productive.

<comment><USER28> I always thought it was for what the network content filters would catch and report against you to your boss.

The way you describe it, you must work in one of those interminable open floor plan offices.

<comment><USER31> Same sort of thing. If it's reported, then the boss sees it.

Impressions are often more important than content here.

<comment><USER28> My point is that we should be rational people and not abide the impression "zomg, pubic hair means porn!"

<comment><USER31> Oh, I think I see your point better now, and I agree with that. But I was focusing on the horrifying deformities as something that can legitimately be a problem in a workplace, not incidental nudity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Germany paid big contributions to war sacrifices. I guess 'murica haven't paid any reasonable amount of compensations. I think it would be good for the country to pay compensations to 'murican war crimes sacrifices around the globe, hopefully it will prevent 'murican taxpayers from supporting new crimes(happening every day, in fact, e.g. innocent people killing in Pakistan with drones, [http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent- of-...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-drone- strike-victims-in-pakistan-are-senior-al-qaeda-leaders/) )

<comment><USER33> First off, look up the Marshall Plan before you say America hasn't paid to cover damages from a war. Secondly, what the fuck is a 'murican?

<comment><USER32> It's hard to see similarities between marshall plan and war crimes compensations. 'murica is the widely recognized meme for the country of war crimes

<comment><USER34> If one cannot win an argument without calling names or using slurs, perhaps one should revisit the premise of the argument.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An experiment in A/B Testing my Résumé - <AUTHOR> http://paulbutler.org/archives/experiment-in-testing-my-resume/ <comment><USER2> Having screened many, many resumes from co-ops and interns, I buy the shorter resume arguments. A lot of people put crap that some job counsellor told you will make you look more rounded, but the sad truth is that I care about your ability to not mess up the code base so much more than the fact that you volunteered on 'campus day'.

It also makes you stand out in a very basic way. In the stack of 30 resumes, you'll be the one person who could articulate in 1 page where everyone else took 2.

<comment><USER3> How many two page resumes do you get? I'm in college, and I've never seen one of my peers take a two page resume to the career fairs.

<comment><USER4> Really hard to fit years of relevant experience on a single page; you'll see a lot of two page resumes from people with more than a few years of experience. Of course college students don't have two page resumes, they don't yet have enough material that actually needs to be on a resume: they typically have a skills section, an education section, one or two short-term relevant jobs, and maybe enough fluff to fill the rest of the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I could, I'd hire the guy based that blog post alone.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, Facebook already did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could the fact that his "conversion rate" went down when people were given outbound links be explained by the fact that _they would rather visit those links than keep reading_? I know that if I saw a resume with both a link to a GitHub profile, and to a blog, I'd ignore the blog, stop reading the resume (though perhaps downloading it first in case I needed to contact them) and start reading their code.

<comment><USER8> also, if the reader is a recruiter, accessing the linkedin profile may be more useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised at the comment about wanting to drive clicks to his blog rather than other sites (namely Github).

When I'm interviewing someone, I am far more interested in a github link thank a blog. Everyone has a blog and most aren't very interesting. But their github account.... if I am hiring a developer, I'll be very interested in what code they've written, projects they're working with, etc.

<comment><USER4> Looking quickly at both, his blog is more interesting than his GitHub page, I think. Also he can track traffic to the blog and every page of the blog has a link to his GitHub page anyways.

<comment><USER10> Precisely. I use GitHub as a tool and my behavior would change if I started using it as a portfolio.

I've heard from dozens of recruiters through my blog, but I can't remember ever being contacted for work from my GitHub.

I also have pretty specific interests (data and data science). I'm pretty picky about the type of work I'll do, so I'd rather be hired for the stuff I talk about on my blog than my GitHub.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does he mention how many hits he actually got in total? I can't seem to find it in the post

<comment><USER10> I didn't, because I vaguely remembered reading that discussing CPC could get your account terminated. Now that I look at it, it seems like that applies to AdSense, not AdWords.

I did this a while ago so I don't remember the exact number, but it was on the order of 300 clicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm glad to see the longer/shorter resume results are consistent with the first piece of advise given by Manager Tools on resumes: "one page". <http://www.manager-tools.com/2005/10/your-resume-stinks>

I've followed this advice and found that most recruiters and employers love a one-page resume. A few hate it, but that's fine by me: I'd take love/hate over indifference any day.

</comment><comment><USER13> He seems to miss calculating the _total_ visits to his blog based on links included. Seeings as it looks like 5x the number of downloads with a LinkedIn link, but only 1/4 the blog view rate, he actually gets a higher absolute blog view rate (5/4 the number of people) as without a LinkedIn link. The effect is even more pronounced with GitHub (2x absolute number of views), although I agree he should leave Twitter off (1/3 the number of views).

<comment><USER10> The denominator for the "blog view rate" is the number of times the landing page was shown, not the number of downloads (the landing page showed the entire resume and had the same outgoing links.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting idea - Thanks for sharing your findings. I'm not sure how useful the data is though. You drive a lot of traffic to your site with ads. That's not necessarily very representative for the people that you would normally have read your resumés.

</comment><comment><USER15> "versus", not "verses"</comment>


Euler's Constancy - <AUTHOR> http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=231266 <comment><USER2> I have a conjecture: people don't particularly like the number 4. Archimedes, Newton, Gauss: that's 3. Euler makes 4. Who makes 5?

There's the rub: there's no clear #5 (Poincaré? Riemann? Fourier? Hilbert?). The rub-within-a-rub: why should it matter? What's wrong with capping the "greatest mathematician" list at 4?

It seems that people like 3 (possibly hard-wired); they like 5 (fingers); they don't like 4. Alas, Euler's reputation suffers for it.</comment>


Carl Icahn Says Apple Is Massively Undervalued - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/10/carl-icahn-apple/ <comment><USER2> Michael Dell after his experience with Carl Icahn [1] and the bitter battle to take his company private.

"It's a big poker game to him [Carl Icahn]," says Dell. "It's not about the customers. It's not about the people. It's not about changing the world. He doesn't give a crap about any of that. He didn't know whether we made nuclear power plants or French fries. He didn't care."

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-w...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you- wont-have-michael-dell-to-kick-around-anymore/)

</comment><comment><USER3> You should read this as "Carl Icahn wants to pump and dump Apple Stock."

<comment><USER4> FWIW, he does claim that he won't do that.

Depends on how trustworthy he is, though.

<comment><USER5> He's going to pump now and will dump later at his leisure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You should read how Icahn destroyed TWA [1] before believing a word he says.

[1] [http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/18/when-carl-icahn-ran-a- comp...](http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/18/when-carl-icahn-ran-a-company-the- story-of-twa/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Carl: Hmm... I think I should sell my apple shares... but who would buy them all...?

Carl: I know, I'll get apple to buy my shares!

</comment><comment><USER8> he's so full of it. he wants a stock buyback program to boost his own shares valuation. that's all. this guy is a scam artist.

</comment><comment><USER9> He's expressed this sentiment before, and has been pressing Apple to expand its stock buyback program since he first invested in the company. See this 2013 article from Bloomberg: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-13/carl- icahn-disclose...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-13/carl-icahn- discloses-large-stake-in-apple-in-tweet.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> _promising that if Apple heeds his advice, he won't sell off any of his approximately 53 million shares._

If he really thinks the stock is undervalued, why would he sell in the absence of a share buyback anyway? If he is right then surely he should be buying those shares himself and waiting as the buyback would only be bringing forward a rise, not creating it.

<comment><USER11> It's a good point, but investing more than a certain % of your assets (roughly proportional to your perceived edge) in any one thing, is a bad idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is a much better url as it has the actual letter that the article is based on.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/carl-icahn-apple- letter-2014-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/carl-icahn-apple- letter-2014-10)

To be fair to him, he's not the only person who thinks apple should be doing more with their cash:

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/21/hedge-fund- manager...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/21/hedge-fund-manager- david-einhorn-still-thinks-apple-should-do-more-with-its-cash)

I'm sure most people have heard about Icahn. But if not check out his Wikipedia page to see a list of investments he's gone activist on: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn)

The guy is an interesting man. His most recent endeavor was to prop up the company herbalife. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-22/icahn- makes-234-mil...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-22/icahn- makes-234-million-as-ackman-fails-with-herbalife.html)

He sure isn't the kind of hedge fund manager that sits behind a desk and stares at his Bloomberg terminal all day:)

The man is 78, and worth 23 billion and he's still picking fights, I hope I have that kind of energy when I get that old, maybe not the fight picking part:)

 __EDIT __to be clear, I 'm not making a judgement on his character or if he's a net positive to the market. You may see him as good or bad.

<comment><USER13> From what I read from him, I can only feel that he's one of the example of what's wrong with capitalism. He only serves himself (Pump & dump, Herbalife, etc.)

He's been a cancer to any company that he's invested in. Check the Family Dollar history. Force owner to sell, then when a serious offer shows up, he sells his share before the deal is closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if Tim Cook really reads that lengthy letter or some legal expert will just summarize the content. TL;DR version might be helpful.

<comment><USER15> I would be surprised if Cook did not read it. Its not that lengthy, and Icahn does own just a bit under 1% of the company, if I did my math right(53M shares * 100.98 / 596B market cap).

<comment><USER16> Cook should read it and then do the opposite of whatever Icahn wants given Icahn's track record of wrecking companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Maybe he can schedule a takeover then start selling off their assets. Then move to take the company private again.

</comment><comment><USER18> I might be in the minority here, but I want to see Icahn pump-and-dump Apple. Now that Jobs is gone, there is nobody running the ship that is competent enough to stop Icahn. He'll devalue the company, and bleed it dry if allowed, just like he's trying to do with eBay right now. And this makes me happy as a clam; Now that Microsoft is steadily marching toward irrelevance, it'd be peachy keen if we could take down the usurper to that throne (Apple), and give the GNU/Linux and BSD families the attention they rightfully deserve.

Could you imagine? if Icahn bled Apple to death, Ubuntu would be the 800lb Gorilla.</comment>


Show HN: Apagraph – create and share quotes with themes - <AUTHOR> https://apagraph.com <comment><AUTHOR> With Apagraph you can have a special place for your quotes, like this one [https://apagraph.com/quote/6307](https://apagraph.com/quote/6307) We have 30+ attractive themes to offer our users.

Sharing feature makes Apagraph special. One can send his quote to friends like it is a postcard. It is done by automatically transforming a quote into well readable image, which can be sent to fb/twitter right from web site. Or copy the link and paste into messenger and it will grab the image!

In recent half a year we have significantly improved UI and added more features.

</comment><comment><USER2> Nicely done, I was googling for exactly this last week when I wanted to post a quote to Instagram.

Suggestion: add examples to the landing page (don't hide them behind an "explore" link).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! You are right, we are working on updates to landing page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty large twitter permissions, are they really required?

<comment><AUTHOR> Need to fix that. We only need email for signup and Publishing permission.</comment></comment>


Things Your Business Can Learn from My Rookie Year in the NFL - <AUTHOR> http://cobyfleener.com

<comment><USER2> Not that relevant, but I was rather impressed by Jamie Roberts qualifying as a medic while playing rugby professionally and at an international level:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22154392>

<comment><USER3> People tend to assume that you have to be a big, dumb meathead to be good at things like rugby and American football. The aptitude test given by the NFL is called the Wonderlic Test, but it is used in other fields. The average test results by profession are as follows:

      Systems Analyst – 32
      Chemist – 31
      Electrical Engineer – 30
      Engineer – 29
      Programmer – 29
      Accountant – 28
      Executive – 28
      Reporter – 28
      Teacher – 28
      Copywriter – 27
      Investment Analyst – 27
      Librarian – 27
      Electronics technician – 26
      Salesperson – 25
      Secretary – 24
      Dispatcher – 23
      Drafter – 23
      Electrician – 23
      Nurse – 23
      Bank teller – 22
      Cashier – 21

The average score per NFL position is as follows:

      Offensive tackle – 26
      Center – 25
      Quarterback – 24 (Most teams want at least 21 for a quarterback.)
      Guard – 23
      Tight end – 22
      Safety – 19
      Linebacker – 19
      Cornerback – 18
      Wide receiver – 17
      Fullback – 17
      Halfback – 16

So the big, beefy guys taking all the hits right in front of the quarterback, on average, score better then the quarterbacks, and on average, score better then electricians, draftsmen, salespeople, and nurses.

<comment><USER2> I was impressed that he could qualify as a doctor _at the same time_ as playing top level rugby.

I know a few people who've gone on to succesful careers after playing rugby at a high level - but they did one then the other.

<comment><USER4> In fairness, his medical school helped him to study part time while he played rugby - but hey, there's no need to dilute a great achievement.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox Encryption with Vivvo - <AUTHOR> http://viivo.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Not affiliated with them, just looking for some HN feedback. To be honest I was surprised this didn't come up on hnews before - or at least my googling wasn't turning up anything. There's also secretsync which I believe is the precursor to this.

<comment><USER2> There's also Boxcryptor which looks similar though I haven't tried it yet. I've been wanting to use one of these encryption services but I'm also wondering what people think of them.</comment></comment>


This bitcoin graph has become so accurate again at the moment, it's scary - <AUTHOR> https://www.tradingview.com/v/sSmoerF3/ <comment><USER2> There are max 21 million bitcoins.

There are 7 billion people.

So there is 0.003 bitcoin per person.

So if bitcoin will one day become "THE" currency, isn't it more than logical that 1BTC will become worth more than a million dollars or something like that (not that dollars would still exist at that time, but, 1BTC would be worth as much as an average group of 333 people owns)?

Or am I misunderstanding something about currency?

<comment><USER3> Could this comment be more Hacker News?

There are _not_ 7 billion people that this will impact. How many of those have no access to a computer of any sort, including a mobile phone? How many are under the age of ten? That cuts out a huge chunk from that figure.

Then subtract all those too old to care about Bitcoin or internet anything.

Then remove from that those that have little faith in anything they can't touch and hold, physical currency, precious metals, or simply commodity items. Considering how reluctant some groups are to even use credit cards for online purchases, regardless of the enormous level of consumer protection provided by that service, this is an insurmountable hurdle for some.

There's _at most_ a billion people in this market and for it to get that pervasive it will take an enormous upswing in popularity. At this point Bitcoin isn't even as popular as Cuban Pesos.

<comment><USER4> > At this point Bitcoin isn't even as popular as Cuban Pesos.

Bitcoin replacing the US dollar is unrealistic.

But if it's this valuable at the Cuban-peso level, how valuable will it be when it's as popular as, say, Canadian dollars or South African rand?

<comment><USER3> It's not even at the Cuban Peso level and it's highly unlikely to eclipse the valuation of all currency for any developed country.

Canada is the 11th largest economy in the world, slightly behind Russia and India. South Africa is less than a quarter of that, but still _way_ bigger than Bitcoin.

Cuba has a GDP of $68B. Is there that much Bitcoin being exchanged for goods yet?

I'd be impressed if Bitcoin transactions have eclipsed the economy of EVE Online.

<comment><USER4> > I'd be impressed if Bitcoin transactions have eclipsed the economy of EVE > Online

You say that like it's a bad thing. Looks like upside to me.

I don't pretend to know the future of Bitcoin. If nothing else it's demonstrated the possibility of transmitting real value across borders without banks or governments.

That capability is worth a lot more than the GDP of Cuba.

I don't know if Bitcoin or something else will solve this problem, but now that everyone knows what's possible, it's as inevitable as any other obvious invention.

And whatever solves this problem will be worth a hell of a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It says: "It will end - rapidly - in an epic sell-off as people realise that there are no more greater fools above them"

I was impressed with his prediction of the first top and drop. But if this will play out like the chart says it will. Well... impressive.

What do you think?

<comment><USER5> It's incorrect since Bitcoin usage is still high.

[https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique- addresses](https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses) does not look bearish to me

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a short term prediction though. If you press play on the right side of the graph, it will update up to present.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't call this "scary." It's not tough to apply basic technical analysis to charts. It may or may not go down, but TA isn't set in stone and only works in the long run in retrospect.

See, e.g., the double top: [http://www.forexhit.com/learn-forex/price- patterns.html](http://www.forexhit.com/learn-forex/price-patterns.html)

<comment><USER7> IMO, market cannot be predicted by just drawing lines. So, there's some kind of outstanding luck or magic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We have experienced all the bullish news that there is and, for now, will > be.

I think he is being rather short sighted here. Especially with news coming out that the Swiss parliament is investigating its potential to act as a legal currency.

</comment><comment><USER9> Leaving aside the bitcoin angle, this is actually a pretty good primer explanation of the market mechanics and psychology behind technical analysis.

</comment><comment><USER10> The accuracy of predicted levels is amazing...</comment>


How News Corp got lost in Myspace - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/07/us-myspace-idUSTRE7364G420110407?sp=true <comment><USER2> If you've ever read The Facebook Effect;

"That's the difference between a Los Angeles company and a Silicon Valley company," he said. "We built this to last, and these guys [at MySpace] don't have a clue." - Mark Zuckerberg

<comment><USER3> News Corp didn't have a clue what to do with Myspace, either. Social media isn't terribly useful for what Murdoch does with News Corp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The tl;dr version:

        * Facebook
        * Infighting
        * Facebook
        * Scaling problems
        * Some more infighting
        * Facebook

and

        * Facebook</comment>


What Microsoft thought the future would look like in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90287811/heres-what-2009-era-microsoft-thought-life-would-be-like-in-2019 <comment><USER2> The big problem is that the products that are closest to realizing this vision aren't Microsoft products. Ten years ago the iPhone had already introduces touch interfaces to the the public consciousness two years earlier.

In context, this is Microsoft saying 'we can do that too but better', the trouble is they failed to do so. MS are master of the awesome magical tech demo they are never able to ship.</comment>


Ask HN: How to think of big ideas for your software architecture? - <AUTHOR> As a leader, if you are asked to develop 2-5 year plan for the software, how would you go about it. I feel like my imagination has become quite bounded lately, dealing with day to day and have lost the bigger vision. <comment><USER2> 1\. Determine the business goals

2\. Draw a path between from the entry point to each business goal (end point). This needs to be in writing.

3\. Identify intersections and overlaps.

4\. Forget everything about code style, popularity, and technical capabilities. Those are barriers to the business goals from the developers. As the _leader_ set the standard for execution. At this point the nature of the work should be clear from your prior planning. Directness and simplicity* should be your only primary guiding principles.

5\. Refactor as necessary during execution to eliminate complexity and any deviation from the minimal achievable access (direct path) to the business goal.

* simplicity - That word means fewer not _easier_. If you want easy then don't be an architect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most IT leaders aren't imaginative. They take ideas from other sources and weigh the pros and cons to pick something that fits the company's strategy and budget.

I think it depends a lot on what the software is and what the industry is. You could leverage reports from consulting groups (I can't remember the name of the big one, maybe McKinsey). As someone else mentioned, gathering input from employees can be a good data point to have too.

I think by looking at software and industry trends you can come up with some ideas about what you want to do. Then I would bounce those ideas off of people you trust who are knowledgeable in your industry or company.

Many companies are moving to, or already in, the cloud to some extent. DevOps and DevSecOps are pretty popular. Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) and the associated concepts/tech are also on the rise, such as automated testing. Machine learning is starting to take off, but I'm not sure it's right for all companies (smaller companies might be better suited to buy rather than build).

</comment><comment><USER4> Is your role is to develop the plan directly or to develop the engine that builds and adjusts the plan and sustains its clarity?

If the latter means finding people who have talents that work well together, and ensuring they have focused-time and access-to-people they need.

Note that there is a difference between saying "we should do this!" a bunch and actually allocating resources to do it. America didn't land on the moon because of Kennedy's speech at Rice University. America landed on the moon because of bills that got passed in appropriations.

> lost the bigger vision

Your leadership team might not be repeating themselves enough. Good leadership often means repeating the things that matter.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am always thinking about what the product could be 2-5 years from now, and I'm not even a "leader." Maybe ask your underlings what their opinions are of where the product could be 5 years from now...

</comment><comment><USER6> You can make it a team effort to come up with the ideas, or even start with the problems you are trying to solve.

I'm not clear on if you are purely looking at architecture or also product features, etc. Your strategy would need to fit into all of that too.

The plan is long term so it's ok to take some time over it. Ask lots of questions to different stake holders to get a good picture of the problem you are trying to solve.</comment>


Minecraft released for android. - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mojang.minecraftpe

<comment><USER2> For prosperity:

Right now its Xperia Play only, Mojang have said it'll be available on other devices in a month or two.

Some people have already thrown the .apk on other devices, and gotten in game, however it's unplayable without the physical inputs on the Xperia Play. (<http://imgur.com/a/bknX7>)

They've committed to further updates following a similar model to the desktop version. The current version is actually 0.1.

<comment><USER3> Unless you are making a point I can't understand, I think you mean "posterity" instead of "prosperity."

<comment><USER2> You're right, thanks. My bad. : P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me hop on my soapbox for a minute and say that Mojang really seems to be squandering the greatness that they have discovered in this game.

Minecraft's level of success is _unheard of_ for an indie game, by a huge margin, and it's well deserved. My favorite critic quote called it something like "an end to the era of shallow games". I think they've created a new genre, or possibly multiple genres, with more potential than any one developer could realize in a lifetime.

And yet:

They hocked exclusivity rights to a marginal platform. Now they have to develop and promote a game that nobody can buy for some mysterious amount of time. I seriously doubt that whatever amount of cash Sony dumped on them was worth it.

And what they released, and attached the Minecraft name to, is a drastically dumbed down version of the game: 36 blocks, no survival, no _mining_ , no infinite worlds, no online multiplayer. You can see the disappointment reflected in the market reviews.

 _I'm aware that a straight port is not technically feasible_ , but I'm confident that they could make something a lot closer to the desktop version if they took advantage of cloud resources and took mobile more seriously.

Notch is a very talented game designer and I think he has great vision, but maybe not enough _confidence_ in his vision. He's still thinking like an indie developer and grasping at opportunities.

<comment><USER5> What marginal platform are you talking about? you know its available on Macs, PC, Xbox, and Android right?

You seem way off point with your analysis. Seems they are actively moving across every major platform.

<comment><USER6> > What marginal platform are you talking about?

The Xperia Play.

> Minecraft Pocket Edition is now up for grabs -- provided you've got $6.99 to > spare, and you're one of the folks who picked up Sony's Xperia Play.

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/238162/minecraft_pocket_editi...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/238162/minecraft_pocket_edition_hits_android_app_store_your_thumbs_cower_in_fear.html) (This is so clunky, I wish we just had Markdown).

Not only has he limited himself to Android (you notice no other mobile platforms in your list there) he's chosen to take an exclusivity deal from Sony so that it's artificially limited to only the Xperia Play for at least a month or two.

<comment><USER5> Android is Java based ... Minecraft is java based ... seems only logical Android is first. I don't really see it going to any other OS myself... maybe the Win7 phone when the xbox version is completed. I bet that payment from Sony was to convert it, I doubt they had plans to ship to xperia otherwise. If it sells as well as the PSP it will hardly be marginal.

And one to two month is hardly exclusive, its just a marketing gamble by Sony.

<comment><USER6> > And one to two month is hardly exclusive

It's still a timed exclusive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "This item is not compatible with your device."

Curious. I'm trying to think of which restriction would exclude my device.

Or...could it be that I'm running CM7, when the Motorola Milestone is only officially on 2.2?

<comment><USER8> It's Xperia Play only for now: [http://mojang.com/2011/08/16/say-hello-to- minecraft-pocket-e...](http://mojang.com/2011/08/16/say-hello-to-minecraft- pocket-edition/)

<comment><USER9> Sadly it does read "Xperia PLAY _optimized_ " on the market. If it's Xperia Play only, thats what it should stay instead :-/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So far, it only works on one phone - Xperia Play, also known as Playstation Phone, although notch said that they are working on bringing it as 'regular' Market release.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would say "How can this work on such a small screen" but when I was younger, Age of Empires for Dell Axium was one of the most exciting games to to play. Felt so futuristic.

<comment><USER12> The default applet version of minecraft doesn't have a much higher resolution than a decent smartphone has and its perfectly playable!

PS: yes, Age of Empires did seem futuristic at the time! Try play it now though - the low resolution may just burn your eyes :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Consider Minecraft is entirely coded in Java, I'm surprised it's not been ported to Android platform sooner... But again, although game's size itself is not big, Minecraft is very resource consuming as the world expands.

<comment><USER14> Yes, Minecraft is very resource intensive and a lot of people with powerful computers (relative to smartphones) can't run it, a straight port would not work. It's been rebuilt from the ground up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this creative mode ("minecraft classic") only? Or is there a survival mode too? Survival and Multiplayer? All the screenshots and video teasers I've seen have been creative only.

<comment><USER14> This is the first release, it's creative only for now but they're expanding into survival eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder why they chose android first over iOS, considering paid apps generally do better on iOS.

<comment><USER17> I'm guessing he was able to reuse some of his java code in the mobile version (as opposed to a complete rewrite). He probably spent most of his time optimizing - PC Minecraft can bring gaming machines to their knees.

<comment><USER18> They actually brought on a developer specifically to work on the Android version. Notch and Jens are the only two developers who work on the PC version of Minecraft.

Everyone else that has been hired at Mojang is working on their next game 'Scrolls'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No multiplayer? Not worth it to me.

<comment><USER2> There is local wireless multiplayer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My main problem with this is i've bought minecraft already, why must i pay again if i already have a legitimate license?

<comment><USER21> When you buy a game for the Wii, do you expect to get the 3DS version free?

<comment><USER22> Yes, just like shifting music or movies from CD/DVD player to mp3/Computer. When I buy "content" or a license to "play" I expect to be able to transfer it amongst all the devices I own.

I know software requires manual translation. But, the above behavior is what I expect.

<comment><USER17> If you bought a house would you expect a smaller replica of your house to be free? No, it requires work to build that house just like the original and therefore costs money.

<comment><USER23> Worst. Analogy. Evar.

If you bought a house, would you expect to be able to use that house on both your desktop AND your laptop, because it's the same damn house? Uh, no, because physical matter doesn't work that way. In case you haven't heard, though, copying data _does_ work that way, and many people DO expect that if they buy music they SHOULD be able to use it on more than one device. And similarly for games (when it's a single chunk of code), which is actually how Minecraft actually works.

Note, I'm not arguing that MPE should be free with purchase of Minecraft, or that it shouldn't. I'm just pointing out the deadly obvious: that physical- goods arguments are basically useless for digital goods.

I just fed a troll, didn't I?

<comment><USER17> I don't know, I think it's pretty good and certainly better than yours. I assume you don't write software because that's not how porting works. Mojang didn't do a copy/paste job to create the mobile version they actually had to hire a _separate developer_ for the sole purpose of developing the Android game. It probably reuses some assets and code but it's not an easy task to optimize a game as heavy as Minecraft for a mobile device.

You can't copy Minecraft from your PC to your Android phone like an MP3 (well you can, but it won't work). My analogy was trying to get to the point that a smaller house would be able to reuse assets (scaled drawings, design, etc.) but it still requires someone (similar to a new developer) to create it and port the existing design to the less complicated design.

<comment><USER12> What about:

If you bought a house, do you expect to get an _identical_ house free in another country? (a country is like a computer platform, right?)

<comment><USER17> No, that's where my analogy fails. The intention was to use an analogy that someone who doesn't understand software development would understand. It only applies to the development aspect and work required - not the ability to make copies (Minecraft Mobile is not a copy, a separate version).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tufte CSS - <AUTHOR> https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ <comment><USER2> Since last time this was discussed a few months back ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012360)), this became an official Edward Tufte project, rather than _just_ being inspired by his work.

<comment><USER3> And, at least for me, it became much better. It used to have a lot of glitches and weirdnesses, mostly in Firefox on Linux, now its very nice. I like it a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552626).

</comment><comment><USER5> I started using Tufte LaTeX for my school papers and I've been met with a lot of praise, but I've only used the CSS for a personal blog-ish site that, while public, is really meant to be just for me. Has anyone used it for anything interesting?

<comment><USER6> I'm on the other side of the fence – I'm using tufte-css for my course on Computer Architecture at the CS department in Aarhus, Denmark. I've found the design very easy to work with and easy to read for the students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> serif fonts (meaning those with curly endings) feel like an attack on my eyes when I read them on an electronic screen

on print they're nice, but on displays they hurt more than they help me.

does anyone else feel the same way?

<comment><USER8> Agreed, subject to caveats. I don't like the typography in this project. Fonts for display on screens are generally simpler than ones in print, which works better with the lower available resolution. I don't dislike serif fonts per se, but I do think the fonts chosen in this project are overly complex for the medium.

<comment><USER9> That was true back in the time of 72dpi and 96dpi screens, no question, but do you think it remains true now?

I don't have figures for deployed laptops, but google collects data, and [https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/) says 80% of android phones have a display resolution above 240dpi. AIUI few printed publications use resolutions as high as 240dpi.

<comment><USER10> Well, 1366 _768 on 15 " dislay is 100 PPI. Lot of consumer class laptop have displays like that. Hell, even Lenovo T450 or T550 have 1600_900 14" (127 PPI) or 1920*1080 15" (140 PPI) displays, and those are expensive, professional machines.

Generally displays in laptops are terrible, unless you go with ultrabook or Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't really like the fetishizing of Tuft's style.

If you actually read his books, what he actually does is present a mental model for what to take into account when designing. But his style isn't meant to be the end-all of typesetting or data presentation! The books aren't saying "see, I made this design for the following reasons. Now everyone should emulate me!" It's just one solution in the realm of all good design solutions.

One example I would immediately point to would be ggplot2. A wonderful library in a lot of respects, but the defaults are absolutely horrendous!! The default grey background with white lines was just pulled from one of Tufts's books without a second of thought b/c these grey backgrounds are horrible waste of ink when printing and are actually chart-junk b.c most of the time you have a white background - for-instance in a powerpoint (<\- that was a funny b/c Tuft hates powerpoint)

Here too, the cream colored background looks gorgeous on paper and just weird and out of place on a webpage.

<comment><USER12> It's completely not true that ggplot2 defaults were copied without thought from Tufte.

A pale grey background is not chart junk because it does not distract the eye (and indeed it actually enhances colour). You are using Tufte's terms without really understanding them.

<comment><USER11> Sorry I misattributed that. I swore I saw the same style somewhere in his book. I still think it's horrible =) (sorry)

I remember one of the other preset themes was a lot better (though I have a lot of trouble trying to find a list of them)

I absolutely love your libraries and all that you've done with R. You've really transformed data analysis for me. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Something similar (OK, not all that similar) done by a friend [http://vpj.github.io/wallapatta/introduction.html](http://vpj.github.io/wallapatta/introduction.html)</comment>


Magic Card Selling For $38K - <AUTHOR> http://www.ebay.com/itm/GMTG-GEM-MINT-BGS-9-5-ALPHA-BLACK-LOTUS-MTG-MAGIC-THE-GATHERING-/390706387026

<comment><USER2> Here's some context from wikipedia for non MTG fans:

"Former Pro player and Magic writer Zvi Mowshowitz has declared Black Lotus as the best artifact of all time, claiming every deck in the history of the game is better with a Black Lotus in it.[7] As such, it has since been banned from all official tournament styles save for Vintage, but even there, it is limited to 1 copy per deck, compared to the normal allowance of 4.....Black Lotus card is usually considered to be the most valuable non-promotional Magic card ever printed."

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

<comment><USER3> So the guy is selling the card for 38k and the card can't even be used in tournaments?

Seriously, I'm sorry for who really likes this game (I'm not one), but 38k for a card is inhumane and irresponsible.

<comment><USER4> Baseball cards regularly sell for well over $100k and on a few occasions for over $1 million. Even if he gets $38K for it, it isn't that much as far as trading cards go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I work in this industry. We recently listed a set of Magic the Gathering Alpha on eBay, all in excellent condition. No takers, but it was impressive nonetheless.

There is quite a bit of money to be made in "vintage" Magic cards. Also, I can't remember the last time that a new Magic the Gathering product was released and it didn't go up in value well beyond the suggested retail price.

Side Note, for those unfamiliar "GEM MINT BGS 9.5" means that a third party has evaluated this card and assigned it a grade based on it's condition. For BGS (Beckett Grading Services), they use a 10 point scale with half points. 9.5 is almost fresh out of pack the day it was made. There is another reputable company called PSA that does grading as well. CGC is a big one too, for comics.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like there's plenty of value to be extracted here! If only there were some kind of niche market where people could trade just these items, perhaps some kind of Magic: the Gathering Online Exchange.

<comment><USER7> Ever heard of MtGox, the bitcoin exchange? Guess what the name stands for.

<comment><USER8> thatsthejoke

<comment><USER7> Except that it wasn't a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a nit: The _buy it now_ price is $37,888.88 on a "best offer" auction. There have been 10 offers. All declined.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't play Magic/RPG/whatever so excuse my ignorance, but what prevents me and my friends from printing this card outselves (or at an expensive graphic shop) and using it to play? I really don't understand how this works and it seems crazy to me. So I'd appreciate some enlightenment from HN's RPG players. Really honest question. Flames > /dev/null

<comment><USER11> There are two classes of play: sanctioned and unsanctioned (or tournament and casual). Among sanctioned play, there are several "formats", which define which cards can and can't be used in a deck. Black Lotus is only playable in the "Vintage" format, which is the least restricted and therefore most powerful format. Not many people play it compared to other formats, probably primarily because the cards in it are so expensive, and because not many people play the format.

You could attempt to forge a copy for play in a tournament. However, such copies are illegal in tournaments and doing this would get you banned from sanctioned tournaments [1]; pretty much the only place where people play Vintage is those tournaments. Furthermore, it's probably more likely that your cards might be examined on suspicion since there are less people and the stakes tend to be high [2]. It's also somewhat difficult to replicate well a Magic card, so you'd probably not do well at it.

In casual play, people just print out a copy of the card and put it in front of another card in a card sleeve. Oftentimes it's less high-tech: one might scribble its name on a piece of paper or just write over a worthless card. This practice is called "proxying" cards, and such a replacement is called "proxy". You could very well just proxy it and play with your friends like that. People don't use Black Lotus in casual play because it's fairly overpowered and wouldn't make for fun games. (Though if the rest of the deck is of equal card quality, and one is playing with friends with comparable deck strength, it is still done: you would just be playing unsanctioned Vintage.)

[1]: Tournaments are sanctioned by some Wizards of the Coast organization called the DCI. They maintain a banlist of players. Local game stores register their tournaments through WotC, so basically you'd be banned from all places where you could play Vintage.

[2]: I've never been to a Vintage tournament so I don't know if they check this, or if so, how, but I'm pretty sure they'd ban you if they found a forgery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I remember a kid in my Jr. High School had one of these (about 1996). He bought it from the comic shop for about $50.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a 700 cards from early packages up to 1995. Are they worth finding and selling again?

I remember selling dual-lands for 10$ back in the days, probably got robbed by my older friends.

<comment><USER14> [http://www.mtgprice.com/](http://www.mtgprice.com/)

<comment><USER15> I am wondering why the ebay card sells for so much, then: [http://www.mtgprice.com/sets/Unlimited/Black_Lotus](http://www.mtgprice.com/sets/Unlimited/Black_Lotus)

<comment><USER5> A few reasons:

1) It's from the Alpha set, the very first Magic Release. It's much rarer to find, since it wasn't as popular. [http://www.mtgprice.com/sets/Alpha/Black_Lotus](http://www.mtgprice.com/sets/Alpha/Black_Lotus)

2) It's graded a 9.5 out of 10 for it's condition. Practically perfect for an item that wasn't initially sought as a collectors item

3) The card itself is considered to be one of the Power 9, or some of the most powerful cards in the game. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine)

Also, the card you linked is from the Unlimited set, which would be the 3rd printing of this card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An old chess playing friend of mine had one of these. We used to play with card names written on proxy mana cards with sharpies, and our real deck in plastic in a binder next to the game. I gave all mine to my cousin when I went off to college, and he has them in storage some where - I had some decent cards, but I hope my old friend, wherever he is, held on to his lotus.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't it be trivial to forge one of these cards?

<comment><USER5> Actually, it wouldn't be trivial, especially since this is graded and certified by a third party. I've seen quite a few attempts at fake trading cards. All are noticeable to the trained eye.

There's a lot that would be required to accurately recreate any collectible like this. Paper stock, size, printing process, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> But is anyone buying at $38K?

<comment> hendrik-xdest I thought the MTG hype ended when I stopped playing in the 90s. It has taken a kind of revival in recent years due to popularity of online card games. With one coming from Blizzard next year, this buy could be worthwhile if you sell it again by the end of next year.

I don't think you will get any value from it if you keep it locked up in a bank vault for centuries, though. At least, I don't see it - but I was wrong before, apparently.

<comment><USER5> Actually, Magic is one of the only games that never lost popularity. Being part of the industry, I've seen a few dozen games that were billed as the "next game to kill Magic". All of them have faded into obscurity.

Blizzard had a Trading Card Game for quite some time, first produced by Upper Deck and later by Cryptozoic. It was popular for a time, mostly due to in-game redemptions for World of Warcraft. It has been set aside for their online game; Hearthstone.

In the case of this item, it's become more like a baseball collectible; a part of the history of the game. Also, these items pop up from time to time, but the market for such an expensive card is very limited.

My company recently had a full set of Alpha in excellent condition. We listed it for auction and it failed to meet reserve. We are likely to break it up for the individual cards.</comment></comment></comment>