Murder in the Alps - <AUTHOR> http://www.gq.com/story/alps-murder-chevaline <comment><USER2> _" Uniformed officers closed off the road, the Route de la Combe d'Ire, and forensic technicians gathered shell casings and marked where they fell and photographed the blood and studied Saad's BMW without disturbing any of the bodies. They did this with such delicacy that they did not notice for almost eight hours that Saad's younger daughter, 4-year-old Zeena, was alive and physically unharmed, hiding beneath the folds of her dead mother's skirt."_

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.

<comment><USER3> When I was around 6 years old, I was playing hide and seek with my sister. I fell asleep underneath a folded-up roll-away bed in a spare bedroom of our small house (~1000 sqft).

When my sister and my parents couldn't find me, they feared the worst and called the police who came and searched the house and couldn't find me. I woke up, walked out into the living room and everyone stared at me in disbelief.

All that to say that I can very easily see a small child hiding under a skirt remaining unnoticed for several hours. How the child stayed _quiet_ for that long would be surprising to me, but stranger things have happened.

<comment><USER4> The fear in that child any time someone spoke or moved near her... unimaginable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating piece of long form journalism. There's no gotcha, big reveal at the end. And because it was so thorough and balanced throughout, that didn't take away from the effect.

Often I've said "You typically hear about criminals who get caught, not the ones who got away" because there doesn't seem to be a good case for glamorizing successful crime...but wow. Terrible loss of life. Looking for answers is in our nature - as this story shows, we can go to great lengths. There's no guarantee we'll ever find out though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Did Zeena die or is she still alive? In all of this article, I kept wondering if she saw anything or anyone and could serve as a witness or if there's a law against kids serving as witnesses in France/Britain. Wouldn't she have seen/heard _something_ that could have been used as a lead?

<comment><USER7> They're both alive and live in with their family (something like their father uncle) in England.

The investigators questioned her for about 30 minutes I recall. Even before her interview they explained that she would probably be of not much help and they didn't want to add to the trauma.

The only thing that got out in the press was that she saw one bad guy (at the time it was thought there was more than one shooter due to the number of shell casings found at the scene).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting and tangentially related... I can't recommend Serial podcast enough.

[http://serialpodcast.org/](http://serialpodcast.org/)

<comment><USER9> likewise The Staircase [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388644/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388644/) \- it's 6 hours in full, but fascinating.

<comment><USER10> While we're at it, Criminal podcast is a little less obsessive about one case and takes an look at a number of interesting\quirky\old cases [http://thisiscriminal.com/](http://thisiscriminal.com/)

<comment><USER8> Ah, go on then - The Jinx is also incredible :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You see what happens when you find a stranger in the alps?!

</comment><comment><USER12> Fantastic writing (Full Disclosure: using uBlock origin I had none of the ad distractions that some mentioned).

Why this case is so puzzling is that it mixes the seemingly pro level like hit with the unpredictability of the location(it took a few coincidences for the car to get up that hill) and seemingly unneeded extra kills.

I was thinking that one explanation would be that someone(individual or state) outsources the killing of the engineer or the cyclist (or both).

This hired gun is a pro but also a loose cannon who enjoys killing just because. So he is no Golgo13.

The other explanation is that it is a completely nonsensical crime, ie someone with military training camped up in those hills with the intention of killing whoever came up there and then left the area. This seems so unbelievable yet it is possible.

</comment><comment><USER13> A lot of murders get solved not because of great forensic work, but because someone comes forward with information; here, nobody has, or at least not with good enough information.

Also, it's not just sex or money that lead to murder. Anger and stupidity are huge factors. Every day, people get into fights over the stupidest stuff and, given the right circumstances, kill other people just because they can.

</comment><comment><USER14> Zaid appears to be guilty not only because of the money but because of the physical altercation in 2011 a year before the murders. I suspect Saad seriously threatened Zaid during the altercation to the point revenge never left his mind. And since there was so much built up rage/hate in Zaid, he hired a hit-man to take out all of the heirs to provide a clean sweep to the mula. The heirs had to go because I suspect Zaid had to pay or payoff big for an undiscoverable hit! The cyclist was in the wrong place at the wrong time and aggressively targeted to throw off the investigation. But it is very clear who the mastermind is. I'm just wondering why he is being treated so kindly? And who does he know that may be protecting him? Hopefully Zaid doesn't have access to Saad's children.

</comment><comment><USER15> Excellent writing, I read the article in its entirety. This reminds me of the film Memories of Murder - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353969/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353969/).

</comment><comment><USER16> If nothing else, an interesting murder mystery.

</comment><comment><USER17> @longform recommended this to me as well!

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow that's a ridiculous amount of advertising on page load, can't actually see a word of content! [http://s10.postimg.org/mwea5sruh/Screen_Shot_2015_10_15_at_1...](http://s10.postimg.org/mwea5sruh/Screen_Shot_2015_10_15_at_10_54_13.png)

Can't really blame people for using ad blockers on pages like that. That said, I'm quite interested in the story so I'll give it a read regardless...

<comment><USER19> Apologies tommyd. We try to prevent ads from intruding on the content like this, but some times things slip through in the QA.

\--Mike @GQ

<comment><USER20> It is not considered good form to use signatures on hn and I'd recommend against it.

Rather just make a top level comment : Mike @GQ here,...

<comment><USER19> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> tldr: We really have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Saad screamed at Zainab to get in the car. He quickstepped to the driver's > door, twisted into the seat. But Zainab hadn't moved, just stood there, > frozen. Saad probably didn't realize that. What man leaves his daughter to > get shot? He slapped the gearshift into reverse, cranked the wheel hard to > the left, stomped on the gas. The BMW skittered backward in an arc, a > jittery half circle.

No ordinary 50 year old engineer does that. That guy had training. And not in STEM.

<comment><USER7> I'm French and I've almost read all the articles related to this murder and a lot of the comments associated with these articles (it was quite surprising to find this on HN btw).

They all think that something don't add-up, they all have their favorite theory and they always know better than the investigators.

Take the shooter for instance : sometimes he's a pro (2 to the head, mosts of the shots were hits) sometimes an amateur (didn't pick-up the brass, used an antique gun) and on and on.

I think the only thing safe to say is that we don't know sh.. (pardon my French ;-).

<comment><USER23> Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro.

Once you go to the level of "this was state sponsored in some way" all normal investigation and inference goes out the window. State sponsored folks would know how normal police investigations are conducted and have plenty of ways to counter them.

Why a particular state would want these people dead is another matter entirely though.

<comment><USER7> Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists ;-) And I think that the older girl (the one that was shot and beaten) talked about a "bad guy" in her statement btw.

I think not picking-up the brass doesn't mean anything : you can find the imprint of the barrel's grooves on the fired bullets (unless they are too deformed by the impact, but would you bet it on all 21 bullets ?) so the gun will be identifiable even if they don't have the brass.

<comment><USER23> > Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can > say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists

Not really. And that's not because I'm some PC-police kind of person, either. Women are being allowed into more and more places in the military (in the US, other countries are far ahead of us on this) and I suspect that there are tons of them in the intelligence community.

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

Finally given that it's "always" "bad guys" that do this kind of thing if you're playing a strategic game at some point you have to realize that women have a huge advantage; since it "can't" be a woman who does that, women can absolutely get away easier and more cleanly than men can. And if you really are doing stuff at a national security level where it never becomes public anyhow then there's no reason not to use women to their full potential aside from squeamishness on the part of the people giving the orders. I suspect that isn't a huge roadblock; either you're a sociopath who's fine with sending people to their death because "who cares?" or you're a true believer in which case everyone can fight for the cause.

Now I'm not suggesting that women commit violent crimes at the same rate that men do by any means. The statistics bear out that they don't. But at a state- sponsored level I would imagine that a lot of bets are off.

<comment><USER7> These kind of women are very rare (much more than men which are more prone to be sociopaths and as sociopaths are more prone to use direct violence), why would you risk this "rare asset" on a "simple shooting" that can be done by a man ?

If a woman had been seen the investigator would have still tried to find her even if they thought she was just a witness.

I'm not even aware of one known instance of a pro killer that was a woman in the last 10 years. I don't say they don't exist but they're in "black swan" category.

BTW the investigators know exactly the sex and probably even the ethnicity of the killer. It's not clear in this article, but it was said in several others that they have his ( ;-) ) DNA, I think from the piece of the gun that was left on the crime scene. I think there's even some tech that allows you to make a mug shot of someone from her DNA, I doubt it's really accurate though.

<comment><USER23> They're rare that we know of. If the various intelligence/security institutions know how to find/train them, surely they wouldn't tell everyone as it then destroys their tactical advantage.

I'm not suggesting that I _know_ they're common by any stretch of the imagination. But to say that you _know_ they aren't is intellectually dishonest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This case bums me out so much, so much mystery! From my perspective only one who has dehumanized the family could have done this. I am not sure how effective training is for dehumanizing little girls. But what certainly is effective is hate (racism, religious judgement). A semi-pro murder of a wealthy Iranian family with a WW2 era german pistol (it might be Swiss issued, but I bet it looks just like the one the Nazis used) just reeks of hate crime.

I really love all the intriguing stories around it, but they just stem from the fact that beautiful/successful/rich people have interesting things happen to them. It's like red herrings in a British detective show.

If I had to be a rational serious detective on this case I'd certainly be looking for a Nazi gun nut with a good shot and social issues either locally or one that could've met the family somewhere along their trip.

<comment><USER7> A Swiss gun used near (40 minutes drive) Switzerland but yeah let's look for a Nazi ...

And how do you justify the cyclist murder : judging by his photos he was white (yeah I know, embarrassing witness whatever).

Like I told in another comment, everybody and his dog has its own theory and knows better than the investigators.

You can say a lot of bad things on the French police (Gendarmerie in this instance) but on big cases like this one their track record is pretty good. So if they didn't find the killer there are only 2 options imho : they were ordered from above to not find anyone (possible in the case of a state sponsored murder) or the killer simply didn't leave enough clues to be found.

If the guy is not local, not in European fingerprints / DNA databases and was not seen, explain me how can they find him ?

<comment><USER24> I never claim I know better than any investigators. I poked a bit at the media that hype the intrigue stories, but I am sure the investigators are doing their work proper.

My theory is just what I thought of in 5 minutes for fun. Is it really so bad it deserves to be downvoted?

I totally agree with your options, I even think it's rather unlikely they were ordered not to find him. Shooting someone in the woods is just a very difficult to solve crime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What Iraqi engineer has a million dollars in a Swiss account? Even if it were legitimate, it certainly isn't the norm. Also to get that many head shots at a distance, obviously professional. Then one must ask, why did this man warrant the expenditure of a professional hit? Certainly not just some local random violence -- French hunters can barely hit the side of a barn let alone multiple head shots and common thugs are very rare in Annecy. Motive is the key here. If this were in Marseille, then I'd suggest drugs or smuggling, but this kind of hit on a person with that sort of background? The killers had to have intelligence, funding and logistical help. Perculiar.

<comment><USER10> This is explained in the story - the sort of Iraqi engineer whose father was a deceased and successful businessman. It sounds like you're familiar with the case but haven't actually read the story as you're asking exact same questions which are (attempted to be) addressed by this very article.</comment></comment>


Amazon faces new headache as Nashville deal enrages locals left and right - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/15/nashville-amazon-deal-sparks-backlash-from-both-left-and-right <comment><USER2> All Amazon needs to do to make this go away is to attach a sports stadium to the office space.

<comment><USER3> Hahaha, great point.

We are dealing with this in Portland, Oregon right now. Massive handout to a billionaire baseball team owner, zero consideration for public transit or how the stadium will affect local traffic, very close to densely populated high- value neighborhoods who do not want a bunch of drunks wandering around.

The data seems to add up to sports stadiums actually having from no effect to negative effects on the surrounding area's commerce, but they have already tried to trot that pony out.

Amazing how much of our money politicians are willing to spend to buy a new toy because they like baseball.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would be funny if Amazon pulls out here too.</comment>


Ask YC: How to start becoming an entrepreneur while still being an employee - <AUTHOR>

This short piece from the NYTimes (below) piqued my interest. It offers some advice on how to act like an entrepreneur as an employee.
If you are not a burn-your-boat-on-the-shore type of person, how do you go about making the transition to full-time entrepreneur. Is it abrupt or gradual. I'm guessing gradual. As I make the transition, I'm working on building some web applications that I would find of use (language learning, memorization)
How many of you look at creating your own startup as a hobby, rather than a business, or as both?
What steps (most notably - to expand your comfort zone) do you recommend.? I've heard some crazy advice like lie down in a Starbucks for 10 seconds to desensitize yourself to what you think other people think. I'm thinking seriously of taking a break from my career to learn Spanish in a Latin American country.
[http://tinyurl.com/2k2jdf] "First, act more like an entrepreneur at your current job. Be a maverick. Put in longer hours, give yourself a crash course on your company's operations and strategic goals and, most important, locate a problem outside your realm of expertise and solve it. "Your boss will notice," Mr. Corbell said. If you lack sales experience, ask for a transfer to the marketing department." <comment><USER2> I realized my comment was too damn long, so I wrote a blog post.

[http://www.tonywright.com/2008/half-assed-startup-how-to- sta...](http://www.tonywright.com/2008/half-assed-startup-how-to-start-your- company-and-keep-your-day-job/)

<comment><USER3> Nice blog post, but I object to the "half-assed" phrase in the title, which implies a lack of passion for the startup. Sometimes, I think that one _must_ keep a source of income out of necessity (and consulting is not always feasible).

<comment><USER4> I worked on my startup part-time for 9 months before taking the plunge and quitting my day job 5 months ago, and "half-assed" is pretty accurate, even if it is a little unpleasant. In terms of the scope of what you can accomplish, you're _severely_ handicapped by moonlighting, much moreso than the difference in available time would suggest. Being able to think nearly continuously about your project lets you try much more ambitious projects, which you wouldn't be able to hold in your head otherwise.

One thing that helped me was to think of my salary as "buying time". If you make $60K but live on $20K, then each hour you work buys you two hours of startup time. If you make $100K but live on $40K, each hour you work buys you an hour and a half. Shows you how important it is to get your living expenses down.

Another thing that helps is to live like your least-successful classmates while working like your most-successful classmates. I have English-major friends who graduated, couldn't get a job, took a string of temp jobs and secretarial positions, spent as much time on unemployment as off, rarely had money to spend, and went back home to live with their parents. So, I went back home to live with my parents, rarely spent any money, and worked at a financial software startup. I pocket the difference between a Starbucks salary and a financial software salary. That's given me about 4 years living expenses to work with, even assuming I were to move out of my parents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've tried the "just do it" approach in the past and now believe its nonsense. Be calculating and methodical, not impetuous.

Do's/Dont's: Don't work on your stuff on employer time. Make sure you have energy left after work for your project (sometimes that means not being the star performer at the day job). I work my day job from 8-5, and my startup from 6-11 EVERY WEEKDAY. Weekends its ALL DAY developement. Have a product roadmap, release dates, and work your tail off to meet them. Do your architecture design work during the week at lunchtime (off site). Cut anything from your time that isnt helping you meet your goal (ie I dont even drink beer anymore because it hinders coding).

Read this for inspiration (its short): <http://loiclemeur.com/english/2007/12/the-idea-does-n.html>

Finally, only quit your day job when your startup is making your salary.

<comment><USER6> _"... I've tried the "just do it" approach in the past and now believe its nonsense. Be calculating and methodical, not impetuous. ..."_

Nice description of _"project management"_ which seps boys from the men [0] and makes a difference in completing a project. Does it allow you to be flexible enough to adapt to experiment & change?

[0] Max Levichin talked more about this in StartupSchool '07 - (I think).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Err yeah sure that will work. My advice: read the four hour work week. Not for the four hours but for putting you in a position to work for yourself and work as an employee.

Focus obsessively on your productivity on your current job and take on no new tasks. Hopefully get your tasks done in 10 hours per week (very easy if you get rid of all possible meetings and phone calls). Use the extra time to work on your own startup.

<comment><USER8> If the extra time belongs to your employer, then so does the copyright on any work you do during that extra time. Don't write any programs, documentation or marketing literature on employer time. Do focus on productivity, though. You need to be in the habit of being productive.

<comment><USER9> It's probably wise to consult a lawyer about this, but for my part, I say go ahead and work on your employer's time. Understand that you are taking a calculated risk. If the risk (e.g. getting fired, losing ownership of your work) isn't worth it, don't do it. But if it is, then stay as productive as you were before at work while trying to be as efficient as possible (e.g. by using methods in the Four Hour Work Week) to squeeze out extra time for your project. On your own time, work as hard as you can without skimping on your other obligations (e.g. family, bills, etc.).

<comment><USER10> I believe California has a specific law that whatever you do for yourself is your own property, in regards to IP. I assume other states have similar laws on the books, but it isn't universal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> <disclaimer>I'm still in the process of starting my first business and still working for 'the man.' Take what I say with that in mind.</disclaimer>

I've mulled over this question a lot. After reading all kinds of articles and books about founding a business, it seems to me that the key to becoming an entrepreneur is "just do it." Nothing will teach you more about being one than actually doing it. There is tons of GREAT advice out there but none of it will actually become applicable until you're put in a situation where you need to apply it.

Finish your app, start the business on the side, and see where that takes you. Nothing like market forces to expand your comfort zone for you. If your business starts taking so much effort and time to iterate that you need to decide between your job and your business, take it as a good sign. If it fails, so what? Almost all the big name founders had at least 1 failed businesses before hitting gold-some of them had multiple failed businesses.

</comment><comment><USER12> Personally I've never been able to really combine work with startups. You are single-threaded, so to speak, so doing things sequentially (work -> quit -> start company) works better than multi-tasking. Plus, staying on the job gives you too much comfort. Here are four things that I have done or considered doing:

1) Try to sell your startup idea to management. Chances are it won't work, but it's worth a try - the company might invest money or people in it. This one actually never worked for me.

2) Try to steer your work at the job so it overlaps with your startup. E.g., if you think your startup should use Python, but you don't know it, persuade your boss to use Python for your next work project, so you can get the hang of it. Persuade your company to open source some code that could help you for your startup.

3) If you work in a place with good bonuses (50%+ of annual salary), work hard, wait for the bonus and quit. That's what I planned to do, but my hedge fund went bankrupt three months before bonus time. Still, I got a decent settlement, so it worked even better.

4) Decide you are quitting, but don't announce it. Become a bad employee. Note that this is immoral, dangerous and potentially illegal, plus faith has its way to play jokes on you, so after you burn the bridges with your boss you might meet her again in a different scenario (e.g., she becomes a VC). Leave the office earlier, start working from home more often (while actually working on your startup), try to take a 1-2 month vacation/sabbatical, etc. Unless you work at a 7-11, you would usually have 2-3 months before management starts coming down on you. This way you can work on a prototype and if two months in you realize it's not worth it, you can still recover things at the job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Already working on #1 and #2. In alignment with some others, trying to sell a project that would be perfect with Ruby on Rails to the powers-that-matter. I think #3 and #4 aren't in my nature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "act more like an entrepreneur at your current job. Be a maverick. Put in longer hours, give yourself a crash course on your company's operations and strategic goals and, most important, locate a problem outside your realm of expertise and solve it."

I think this is more reflective of someone looking for growth, than an entrepreneur, and I say that to say this: standing out from the crowd and working like you're worth they money they're paying you will most certainly bring you the kind of attention outstanding entrepreneurs get and you may just get a promotion out of it

However showing the spirit of someone who is supposed to start things should mirror actions that look like you're wanting to start something. Make suggestions, present solutions like the second half of the quote says to, but in addition to this build momentum behind your ideas and show why they matter and how they'll make improvements.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just start working on your startup when you're not at work. The extended work hours and work load will get you ready for when you make the full transition.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure they recall that I'm the same guy, but I sent an email to YC 16 months ago that I'm almost embarrassed by. I asked how to take action on good ideas while staying at a job I loved at a company likely uninterested in the ideas.

If I could go back to myself 16 months ago, I'd say: "Grow a pair and do what you want, and only that -- ohh, and short the home mortgage industry"

It's all about the focus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like drunk dialing, sometimes sending embarassing emails help remind you that you've improved.

When did you reach the tipping point (was it a group or individual decision) with Tipjoy?

The best quote about focus that I've ever heard: A 100 watt lightbulb can light up a room but that same energy focused in a laser apparatus can cut through steel.

<comment><USER15> Talking about Tipjoy is what made my cofounder (also my wife) and I decide to go for it. She was at iRobot. I was at Nokia. Both of us had excellent jobs.

The clincher that made us quit was when it became perfectly clear that those jobs, or their equivalent, are readily available should we fail. If the worst, worst case scenario is the status quo, why not go for it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"... how do you go about making the transition to full-time entrepreneur ..."_

Make stuff [0], release early, get some feedback and sell it.

It doesn't have to be software but it helps. If you make things nobody wants you quickly find you can't sell it. You have to listen & adapt. It's much like a multi-levered machine that only stays afloat if you are constantly adjusting the levers finely adjusting the final product according to users. Input product, make sure people know about it, adjust the 'want' lever. Listen to what the machine is telling you. Adapt.

This process can be observed from renovating houses, art ... from sausages to software. It is no substitute for the real thing. So burn your boats now.

[0] Stuff could be sausages, software etc, but make sure that it's product not service or skills for hire ~ <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorlds.html>

</comment><comment><USER16> Assuming it is a web startup.

Build a content website on something you consider yourself good at. Try to get users, make money through adsense, put up analytics and test it out. You would learn a ton about how(and what) works on the internet - and possibly be making enough by the time you are ready to quit to bootstrap your startup .

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, I've started a stationery shop in my cube...

Seriously, though, I think one way would be to become more entrepenurial at work, and try and apply some of the kind of fairly ruthless behavior that I'd imagine you'd need to survive in a startup.

In no particular order: Focus. Get Things Done. No Fluff. Delight Customers. Play Necessary Politics.

Another way to think of this, might be to look at all the employees that, in a start-up environment, would sink like lead bricks, and do exactly the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER18> Your first lesson as an entrepreneur:

Your last paragraph is exactly what NOT to do. You will need every single ounce of resources (time, energy, attention) for your start-up. The only reason to ever do anything above the call of duty as someone else's employee is to learn it for yourself.

Start your planning on how you will extract yourself from your current employment, going part time or as a contractor. You will need every spare nanosecond for your startup.

And don't sign anything. (If you already did, get a risk assessment from a lawyer.)</comment>


Short on Money, Cities Around the World Try Making Their Own - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-07/a-depression-era-idea-gets-a-new-look-local-money <comment><USER2> Many interesting contrasts to the crypto alternatives.

The question "what is money for" isn't asked as much or as loudly as after the economic meltdown of 2007 but is still valid. (I think there is a decent answer, but the way money fits into the answer could be solved in other ways too.) I'm glad to see these experiments being run, if they live long enough they're not an experiment anymore.

The liquidity benefits of these are very local, problems that arise in the systems will be relatively local too.</comment>


In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/europe/in-denmark-pedaling-to-work-on-a-superhighway.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city of cold, icy winters, is arguably the number- one bicycle city in the United States,

[http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike- city-m...](http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city- minneapolis)

and one feature of bicycling in Minneapolis and its suburbs is an ongoing effort to make regional bicycle trails, some by converting old railroad railbeds into bicycle trails, including bicycle superhighways.

[http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_gree...](http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_greenway_community_bike_festival_celebrates_cycling.php)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Lake_Trail>

My wife regularly bicycle commutes (she is doing so as I type this) and our whole family takes recreational trips into neighboring towns along dedicated bicycle trails. We reduce our car driving by hundreds of miles per year by using the city trail system (combining mostly walkers, and in winter skiers, with quite a few year-round bicyclists) and the regional trail system (combining mostly recreational bicyclists with some year-round bicycle commuters and some walkers).

The regional trail system is becoming more and more extensive

[http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/inde...](http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/index.html)

and is projected to ring the entire metropolitan area with dedicated bicycle trails in the next decade.

<comment><USER3> DC/MD/VA have a lot of verrry long bike trails, and it makes a good deal of sense to use them instead of fighting the beltway traffic, if you live a certain distance away and have showers at work. But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there? Spray on deodorant and feel gross for the rest of the day?

<comment><USER4> "But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there?"

I don't live there, but my solution in a similar situation revolved around the exercise club two blocks from work. On bike days you only use the club for its shower, on non-bike days (winter, etc) you exercise at the club (lift weights, mostly).

Also, hard as it might be to believe, bicycling more energy efficient than walking at the same speed, so once you're in shape, going slow and enjoying the ride is not sweaty, its possible to go slightly faster than walking while generating less heat than a normal walk. Depending on your local weather, a leisurely walk outdoors often results in no sweating at all.

<comment><USER5> Summer weather in the DC area is such that many days you can soak through your clothing sitting on a park bench in the shade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, has done remarkable things for that city.

Among them, a dedicated bike lane/walking system that loops around most of the city.

<http://www.streetfilms.org/lessons-from-bogota/>

[http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the- bicycle-a-...](http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-bicycle-a- city-that-prioritises-cyclists/)

"Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income people? That is really the true issue that exist?"

"God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy."

He is quite a character, featured in the maker of Helvetica's "Urbanized"

<http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/>

</comment><comment><USER7> I used to bike to work in my suit in Copenhagen. Kids are driven to nursery and kindergarten on bikes like this: <http://www.christianiabikes.com/>

In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues.

But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America. Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77 degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.

<comment><USER8> In LA temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees in the winter and are rarely above 85 in the summer. Yet LA is jam packed with cars and features traffic jams at any time of day.

I think LA is a perfect city for bike streets. There are underground gangs of byciclist in LA that periodically take over large streets by swarming them with thousands of bikes and completely shutting down car traffic. I am sure they do this to give city planners a clue, but the clues are slow to come.

<comment><USER7> Yes, LA - and especially SF - has nice climate for biking.

<comment><USER9> But those hills in SF! my poor knees hurt just thinking about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> After one year of living abroad in Tel Aviv people here in Germany constantly ask me what I miss the most.

They never expect 'riding the bike to work' as answer.

I had the privilege of being able to reach work by a very, very nice ride through a park, along a river. No cars. Showers provided in the office. In Germany I used to drive 1.6km to work with a car and I usually got up around 10. In Israel I drove 6.5-7km on a bike and usually just fell out of bed around 7:30-8:00. The quality of life that this tiny change added is mind blowing.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, up to the end of your comment I was sure you were saying how you were driving a car in Israel and biking in Germany :)

I'm an Israeli currently living in Vienna, I don't bike myself but it's very common here & there are many bike paths. Also - everybody I know in Israel owns a car, and almost nobody I know in Vienna does.

<comment><USER10> See the other reply I did: I didn't want to own/use a car in the Tel Aviv traffic (both because of jams, lack of parking and the general madness on the streets). Riding a bike was very common among my friends and coworkers there and while I was living there a couple of big bicycle projects were completed (for example the whole promenade from the north of Tel Aviv to Yafo is now having a nice special bike lane).

Yep, there are lots of issues still, but I think that Tel Aviv is actually a decent place to bike (try not to get killed on the roads..) and constantly improving.

Cologne is - worse (bike lanes suck, underground that actually runs overground in places, on the street -> dangerous for bikes because you can easily end up in the tracks, usually rainy and some time of the year brings ice and potentially snow, work places aren't used to offer a shower because .. no one needs one).

<comment><USER11> BTW does Cologne just suck in terms of mass transit, or is there another reason why you didn't use it? I can't imagine anyone driving 1.6km in a car in Vienna, Berlin or Zurich.

<comment><USER10> The magic word is..

lazyness

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand this part: "(the region) has provided $1.6 million for the superhighway project. "

How is it possible to build 14 miles of this bike highway for this little money? (I'm an American). Here, you'd spend this amount just on "feasibility study" and buying off the inevitable opposition.

<comment><USER13> Maybe the region only provided part of the total project budget?

As another data point, a somewhat similar but larger project -- about 100km bike highway in an urbanised region -- in Germany is probably not going to happen due to costs of >110 million EUR. That's approximately 10x as expensive per km as the project in Copenhagen, if the $1.4 million is the total project budget after all.

<comment><USER14> $100k/mile seems more reasonable given typical suburban rd pricing (~$200k/mile). Hugely dependent on how much the right of way has to be refrigged first I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you click through to the Danish news article, it is rather critical. The title says "Is the new super cycle-path really super?" and there is a video of riding through it. Turns out it is just normal cycle paths that have been there for years it seems. They just made a route and painted an orange line to mark it.

That said, Danish cycle paths are first class to begin with.

<comment> excuse-me Could still be worth it if lots of people who didn't cycle suddenly see this and give it a try.

It's still better value than most government adverts telling you to do something!

<comment><USER15> Hmm, cycling in Copenhagen is the default mode of transportation. You can't live there for more than three days and not be aware that there are cycle paths everywhere.

<comment> excuse-me You wouldn't think there were many people that didn't know smoking is bad for you - but it doesn't stop the govt spending millions telling you!

It's still worth advertising that there is a fast/safe/easy cycle route between A-B.

The city here (N. America) does a good (well cheap) job of marking certain streets as preferred cycle routes. These are normally one block off the main traffic street and mean that all the cyclists are concentrated together into a sufficent mass that they dominate the road and drivers know to be more carefull.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just came home from work on my bicycle in Copenhagen. Didn't know we had superhighway's. I understand the effort of trying to make the long distance routes more pleasant, though.

We have another problem however, which is that the inner city is very crowded in rush hour. I hope the expand the high traffic lanes to become even wider at some point. Currently all lanes are double-lanes, but triple lanes would be really nice in choke-points. This might sound stupid to someone which doesn't even have bike lanes in their city, but this is an actual problem in Copenhagen. It's not so much about being able to go fast, but also about safety.

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the women in that photo is using her mobile phone while she cycles along right next to a bunch of other people. That is so dangerous. It's behaviour like this (and the inability to cycle in a straight-ish line) that makes me hate biking in groups of commuters, like those riding down Market St in SF.

<comment><USER18> How dangerous? I think it all depends on how well the average drive can ride in a straight line. Having a bike with a larger slant in the front fork (Wikipedia calls them roadster <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle)>, but does not realize that 'keeps a straight line easier' is one of its most important assets) helps tremendously there.

For examples of 'safe' use of a mobile phone while cycling, see <http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/>

<comment><USER17> It does relate to your ability to bike in a straight line, but the other danger is that you're not looking at what other people are doing.

Relative to their width people on bikes move a lot more side-to-side than a car does - it's not uncommon to see a person on a bike weaving a couple of feet in either direction as they pedal. If cars did this the lanes would have to be 2-3 times the width of the car on either side to accomodate the movement.

Further, having one hand off the handlebars massively diminishes your ability to react safely and accurately.

Granted, the worst that might happen in a bike-on-bike crash is a broken bone or concussion, but for people who aren't at peak health (or who just get really unlucky) this could be a significant, even life-changing event.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, it definitely is not for everybody, everywhere, every time :-)

I just wanted to point out that danger depends on lots of things.

Many people on the photos I referenced probably are well on their way to or over the magical 10.000 hours of practice riding a bicycle. Most car drivers, similarly, will have lots of experience driving in traffic with cyclists. Also, if you look closely, you will notice those not on bike paths often are in the middle of a road that is not wide enough for a car to pass them. Cars, in that location, do not go faster than bikes. It also does not look particularly busy there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've thought about how many more places I would be willing to bike to if I could just hop on the freeway with my bike. We have an event every year where they allow you to, and it's a tease.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm a regular commuter cyclist (Halifax, NS; now Ottawa, ON) and how I wish I could ride on such a highway! Even the best cycling lanes I have experienced are punctuated by stops, intersections and red lights. When you're cruising at 35km/h, there is nothing worse than having to come to a complete stop.

More of this please.

<comment> excuse-me See the famous [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the- mo...](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the- month/book.htm) for the UK's worst cycle paths

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I used to bike about 20 miles a week, and I really miss it, since I moved to a more suburb area where it is no longer practical. Projects like these sound awesome, and make me wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.

<comment><USER22> > wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.

I've been reading these discussions on the internet for a while and I've been seeing a willingness and perhaps even a desire to excuse the status quo as a large factor. Bring up the stereotypical Copenhagen and Amsterdam and immediately people post reasons why North America can't be like that: the hills and the climate and the distances and so on.

It strikes me as very un-American in a way - challenging land and climate and large distances haven't stopped Americans from expanding into the desert southwest or paving interstate freeways through the Rockies or building air force bases in Alaska tundra but they do apparently stop people from getting around on a bicycle. For every hilly Seattle and San Francisco there's a flat Midwest town (or a flatter route through a hilly city that could benefit from infrastructure even if other routes are not feasible) and for every location with a hot summer and cold winter there's mild northeast and northwest. By some of the criteria advanced, small towns in New England should be bike infrastructure havens, which they are decidedly not.

It's one thing if you consciously don't want bike infrastructure, it's another to throw up your arms and declare it'll never work there without trying.

<comment><USER23> Well first of all if you try biking through the desert southwest on a hot day you are likely to die. Imagine crossing hundreds of miles of desert in 115 degree heat. Where do you get your water?

Secondly, climbing the Rockies on a bike is beyond most people's level of fitness. I would say only experienced road riders would be able to accomplish that.

Thirdly...crossing the Alaskan tundra on bike would be nearly impossible without specialized gear. Standard bike tires would not be able to cross the snow/ice without sinking. Also the consistent freezing temperatures necessitate specialized clothing which is not conducive to riding.

I can easily see why those three landscapes might "stop people from getting around on a bicycle".

<comment><USER22> These were examples of what people can do when they set their minds to it.

Of course people won't be commuting to work across hundreds of miles of desert or mountains or tundra. They don't do that in cars either.

There are, however, fairly basic ways of making normal people commutes more bearable on a bicycle: dedicated paths shaded by a tree row, evenly-spaced water fountains, hedge rows for wind-blown snow blocking, reliable snow clearing, perhaps escalator-like systems for climbing up hills along highly popular routes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've always wondered if we couldn't do an elevated bike trail in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the challenges of doing an elevated freeway or road are the costs associated with supporting vehicles, but a huge number of bikes/pedestrians would not be quite as burdensome. On/off ramps would be a challenge as that is where they would most likely interfere with existing traffic patterns.

The Stevens Creek trail (an old rail bed in parts) is a good example of an urban trail. And of course highway 85 before they officially opened it, it was like four lane bike trail and exceptionally awesome.

<comment><USER25> do you have any photos of what the 85 bike trail used to look like? i only found some constructions shots at <http://www.interstate80.info/85_uc_california_2.html> but i'm sure it must've been beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating pictures show cyclists without helmets or any other form of protective gears.

In Belgium there is a small movement promoting bikes and there are all kind of hipsters, bobo and 50 years old grey hair vegan on fake vintage bikes riding without helmets and without any sense of road conduct. Good bikers wearing yellow jackets and helmets are really rare ; I am beginning to think the formers are ruining the latters's image.

<comment><USER27> Sorry, in Denmark there are plenty of good bikers that are not wearing yellow jackets and helmets. Why should they? The cycle superhighways are about safe- for-biking infrastructure, so you can dress as you like when biking. In central Copenhagen quite a lot of people bike in suits which is awesome.

<comment><USER28> Having survived a cycling accident that probably would have killed me if I hadn't been wearing a helmet that occurred on a perfectly "safe" traffic free track I would urge everyone to _always_ wear a cycling helmet.

<comment><USER29> You use the word "track" which implies you were cycling at a high speed, so you are quite likely correct.

Studies show quite a clear benefit for wearing helmets if you are travelling above 20km/hr.

The benefits of a helmet are much less significant if you are biking less than 20km/hr.

<comment><USER28> By track I meant a rural unsurfaced road - the accident was completely my own fault, but I fell off and my head hit a post at the side of the road. My helmet broke into fragments and although I was unconscious for a while (I had no idea how long) it was my helmet rather than my skull that broke into pieces.

<comment><USER22> You probably realize this but I just want to note that helmets and skulls have very different failure modes (by design in helmet's case) and just because your helmet split into pieces doesn't necessarily mean your skull would have as well.

<comment><USER30> Indeed, I can't find the link to the video where they show many different brands of cycle helmet splitting into pieces when heading a football (soccer) dropped from a certain height (which causes no injury for someone heading it without wearing a helmet).

(Pro-choice and anti-compulsion on the helmet issue. I choose not to wear one. I cycle 5,000 miles a year - 10,000 miles in a good year - cycle commuting in London, UK and leisure riding or touring.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Good job Denmark. No negatives that I can see.

OT: The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) starts this Saturday. Anyone who's ever participated in this event can appreciate the morning commute with 10,000+ of your closest friends to get pancakes and breakfast burritos in the first town.

<http://www.ragbrai.com>

<comment><USER32> I did a couple (12 and 16, I think). What a blast. I just love riding early in the morning, when it's cool and misty when you just knew that the heat would hit in full force in the afternoon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just curious, can you ride e-bikes on the bike highways in Denmark?

<comment><USER27> Yes. E-bikes are legal and regulated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> As much as I love to support biking it's important to keep in mind how geography dependent it can be. Denmark and The Netherlands are extremely flat, which makes them unusually suitable locations for biking. If you add in any significant amount of elevation change then you immediately raise the bar in terms of the fitness requirements necessary to get to typical destinations.

<comment><USER35> That's a pretty lame excuse, IMO.

I don't think most cities have so much elevation gain that biking to work isn't practical for most people. There are _definitely_ exceptions, but I'm pretty sure a person of average fitness could bike to work without too much trouble in the vast majority of cases.

The majority of bikes sold have multiple gears, so hills should be even less of an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> As a dane who has traveled a lot in the us i must say that i wouldn't dare to bike in most american cities.

</comment><comment><USER37> As a Dane and living in Copenhagen, this is what I miss everytime I'm in another city (except Amsterdam perhaps). I love how there are bike lanes all over the place. We also have traffic lights for bikes that let's you get ahead of the cars.

</comment><comment><USER38> Funny how stories about bicycle commuting seem to peak in summer...

<comment><USER39> I'm an intern in the Seattle area for the summer and was faced with a choice upon arriving - buy a bike and get $350 of it covered or pay ~$1000 to get a rental car for all three months. Due to the obvious financial benefit of the former I wanted a bike, but after it raining for a week straight upon my arrival I chose to get a car. This, along with the tremendous social benefits of being able to come and go as you please, convinced me that owning and riding a bike is a healthy alternate transportation method for the nice days, but not really a feasible replacement.

<comment><USER40> I have spent the last two years at university cycling to lecture and am now cycling to work. It saves a large amount of money (~£1800 insurance+£1500 running costs). If it rains you just wear waterproof clothing. You can easily get good quality waterproofs (e.g. Gore-Tex) for £200 which will last for years.

You have to be willing to live fairly near to work of course. For me it would probably take about the same amount of time to drive to work. It takes me about 13 minutes to cycle and rush hour traffic will slow a car down.

If I want to go longer distances I can catch a train (and take the bike for the other end) or take a bus. Occasionally hiring a car is also possible for rare occasions.

So for me using a bike is completely feasible for living in a city.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> excuse-me $1.6M of taxpayers money for a 40km bike route? You could build almost 35metres of freeway for that!

<comment><USER41> Sad how close to true this is. I used to work in transportation, and at least the USA* the figure is about $10-40M per mile, with rural highway being cheaper and urban highway being more expensive. So $1.6M really could buy you as little as 64 meters of freeway. (Or as much as 1/4 km!)

* Which, I should mention, has a bit of a tradition of cheaping out on the construction. Why worry about the higher maintenance costs when that's going to be your successor's problem? Better to kick that can down the road and brag about how much taxpayer money you're "saving". Ahh, the beauty of the spoils system.

<comment> excuse-me Have you considered adopting the British system?

You bid out the construction to the cheapest contractor with strict penalties for late completion. But the same company then gets the contract for repair and maintenance for the next 20years!

Politicians were shocked when their brand new freeway closed for resurfacing within a month of opening.

<comment><USER42> Wow, that's super interesting. Do you know of any data on whether this has been an effective strategy for keeping costs down?

<comment><USER43> Jesse, I think you missed the point. It's like the old Consulting axiom: If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made prolonging the problem.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, I'm an idiot. Somehow the last line when in one ear and out the other. Thanks for checking me on that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Man robs bank of $1, sits and waits for cops for medical treatment  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nwcn.com/news/220890011.html <comment><USER2> This keeps happening and it's driven by a horrible myth that is not true.

The medical care you get in jail/prison is terrible or non-existent.

They will indeed let you suffer and die regardless of what you think is guaranteed or "by law".

But I do hope this story ends up on the President's desk so he can see what happens when we don't go for single-payer.</comment>


The Battle Over U.S. Military History - <AUTHOR> https://warisboring.com/the-battle-over-u-s-military-history-94dc2c82c3d6#.w6aa6lv3j <comment><USER2> It would seem to me that this is just a consequence of specialization and the fracturing of large fields into smaller fields. "War" is a vague term that encompasses a lot of specific contemporary subfields that didn't exist / didn't have institutional academic recognition 100 years ago.

You can sort of observe the same phenomenon in philosophy (less interest by non-experts). As science, economics, and other fields "grew up," branched off from philosophy, and became their own fields, the old "broad" field grew less popular.

(and I say this as someone with a philosophy degree, still extremely interested in philosophy, and still a firm believer in its importance)

</comment><comment><USER3> As a layman, I love history. I love hearing the stories of people in extraordinary circumstances. I get the same feeling from fiction, but with history? I know these things really happened. It's not all just in some author's mind.

Having said that, I get tired of military history, and I understand how many people view it as a gun-nut, testosterone-fueled endeavor. It's a bad rap, but it can look that way from the outside.

I think the problem here is drama. So much of human drama revolves around one bunch of people being violent to another. That sucks, but if you want incredible stories that make you question your values and wonder what you would do, most of the time you're listening to some kind of story involving battles.

Assuming no danger, I'd love to have been with Edison at times, or Teller. I would love to have listened to Jefferson giving the first State of the Union speech, in person. Anne Frank still makes me shiver.

But in terms of over-the-top, how-the-hell-would-you-handle-those-emotions, can you imagine being on the first boats ashore on D-Day, as we saw in "Saving Private Ryan"? Watching a fully-equipped Roman legion go into battle, as was in "Gladiator"? Being in Constantinople and seeing the First Crusade approach? Seeing the Mongols raise the flag outside your city? Being part of Pickett's Charge?

In a lot of ways I like the other stories much better. They make for great long-form novels. But the military and battle stories can punch you in the gut without any prep. If you love history, it's extremely difficult to stay away from them.

</comment><comment><USER4> > The so-called "drums and trumpet school" of examining battles and generals > isn't the only game in town.

Might be nice if someone propagated this information to Wikipedia. Seemingly on every military-related article there is an attempt to shoehorn the conflict into a neat table listing "belligerents" and "casualties and losses", complete with little flags as if it's an 1800s-style cavalry battle [0]. As far as I can tell, the purpose of these tables is not really about providing an accurate summary of the conflict; it's about providing material so that war nuts can get their rocks off thinking about the violence.

[0] See, for example, the attempt to condense the Troubles into such a table: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles)

</comment><comment><USER5> This article points out that military history used to dominate the field, but now is almost entirely absent from the top universities. But the article really doesn't make any progress explaining why. What's the conventional wisdom on this? (Politically neutral description preferred.)

<comment><USER6> As a degree carrying "historian" I'd offer to you that there are 2 factors.

1) The way wars are fought has dramatically changed since WW2. Study of late-20th century warfare cannot be contained to "bullets, battles and biographies." Rather warfare has become intelligence and technology based, with the 3 B's only coming to play in breif flare-ups. The actors managing the new tech and intel tools are part of the intelligence community, who's main tenant is secrecy, meaning figuring out the who, what and why is that much harder to uncover. Then once you do, you need to be computer and infosys literate to understand what happened and how. This turns off a lot of people who can't manage reconciling the skills needed for pre-1950 history with post-1950 history.

2) Social and geopolitical climate has changes since 1950. 3Bs warfare is no longer accepted in the international community. Russia's annexation of Crimea is so shocking because territory has rarely been taken by force since the end of WW2. So while the United States has invaded many nations recently, the territory was not annexed like it would have been in the past. On a national scale, academia --and the officer corps of modern military -- are no longer the exclusive playgrounds of the first and second sons, respectively, of the wealthy/aristocratic families of a nation.

TL;Dr New military history is dichotomous with old and academia is no longer dominated by people who have a vested interest in military history.

<comment><USER7> Supporting your 1), it's a lot easier to read about stuff where your side had a clear victory. "Bob moved his units into position, they defeated Bill's units, Bob claimed the flag" is a clear victory story for Bobians, and set- piece battles are something they can visualise. "Bob's units moved off into the jungle, and they never really found the enemy, and never really won, and we didn't really understand why we were there in the first place" is a hard story to feel reflected glory from.

I was told once that on the European continent, they're a bit puzzled over the Anglo obsession with WWII history. For the Anglos, it was almost a complete success story - a defensive war against a difficult (and demonic in hindsight) foe where we united unquestionably on the side of right and prevailed, and were never occupied. On the continent, the story was more about occupation, resistance, informants, people disappearing in the streets, secret police with frightening powers, so on and so forth. It was a much more painful experience, where people often couldn't even trust their neighbours they grew up alongside. And even after it ended, the continent was split in twain between two foreign superpowers bristling at each other. That kind of story is also hard to feel reflected glory from...

<comment><USER8> I think a lot of good stuff has been written about conflicts that were not so clearly victorious, such as the Vietnam war, "Black Hawk Down", the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the botched air-raid at dawn after the 1983 Beirut bombings, etc. (See "Supercarrier" by George C. Wilson)

On top of that background the story of how the U.S. rebuilt the force in the 1970s-1990s time period is all the more interesting. (See "Mud Soldiers" by Wilson.) Serious military accounts of Gulf War I also reveal a lot you did not see on CNN at the time.

And as you say, accounts of WWII from the perspective of the losing sides ("Japan's Imperial Conspiracy", "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland, etc.) are deeply interesting too. I am a yankee and no fan of the Confederacy, but the Civil War too takes on a lot more life when you understand the impact it had on the South.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crypto Law Recap for October - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocurrentsblog.com/cryptocurrents/crypto-law-recap-october-2018 <comment><USER2> Should be named "Crypto Currency Law Recap".

</comment><comment><USER3> I didn't realize the CFTC has effectively banned prediction markets. Does anyone know the background to this?

<comment><USER4> Prediction markets are not complicated to conceptualize or create. The reason there is interest in the crypto space is because you cannot shut off a smart contract. If a truly decentralized prediction market is invented and works well, there will be no one to prosecute except its users. The government has outlawed prediction markets because it might incentivize criminal activity, like insider trading or assassination, but I believe these fears are incorrect. A robust prediction market could be a very useful indicator.</comment></comment>


Apple starting to alert users that it will end 32-bit app support on the Mac - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/apple-starting-to-alert-users-that-it-will-end-32-bit-app-support/ <comment><USER2> Could somebody point me to a technical explanation of why it's sometimes non trivial to just compile your app against x86-64 and call it a day?

For example, something I encounter every day is Visual Studio and it's helper processes being 32 bit. Because Visual Studio regularly, even on the latest 15.7 preview shits the bed with OutOfMemoryExceptions on our large solution, I'm inclined to rage "why don't they just make it 64 bit? If it could just load more into memory it could get past this indexing hurdle and give me back the UI". But I also understand that if it was that simple they would have done it by now.

Something else, that I understand more, is the LabVIEW RT and FPGA modules only working on 32 bit LabVIEW. I would assume it's related to the compiling and deploying to the 32 bit ARM/x86 RT target.

<comment><USER3> The main issue would be that 64-bit may _cause_ an app to use more memory. Every pointer doubles in size, the alignment of a structure containing a pointer may grow, etc. Basically, if you needed a lot of structures allocated and they all grew, your memory use becomes noticeably bigger.

Sometimes legacy code can make assumptions about pointer size. These hacks were more common in the days of porting older systems to 32-bit but it could still happen moving to 64-bit.

If there's code that tries to manually populate the bytes of data structures, sometimes bugs appear when the target field size changes (e.g. somebody ends up not initializing 4 of the 8 bytes in a now-wider field).

In the case of Apple, the huge pain will be their decision to not port all of Carbon to 32-bit (despite Forstall getting on stage years ago and stating that Carbon was going to be 64-bit "top to bottom", it never happened). This can mean addressing a whole pile of nothing-to-do-with-64-bit-whatsoever problems before even _starting_ to solve 64-bit problems.

<comment><USER4> > despite Forstall getting on stage years ago and stating that Carbon was > going to be 64-bit "top to bottom"

This is the second time I've seen you make that claim. Can you, by any chance, recall on which occasion he said this (or dig up the exact quote)? AFAIK the plan was always to use the 64 bit transition as an opportunity to shed deprecated APIs, so to imply otherwise in public would have been rather irresponsible.

<comment><USER5> I don't know about that particular quote, but this has a photo of the WWDC side claiming 64-bit Carbon and Cocoa, so that was definitely the original plan

[https://www.wired.com/2007/06/leopard-won-t- support-64-bit-c...](https://www.wired.com/2007/06/leopard-won-t- support-64-bit-carbon-apps/)

<comment><USER4> Hmm, that is plausible. I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is particularly heinous for those of us that do music production. A lot of plugins are orphaned at some point (meaning the developers no longer update them), and if you created a piece of music with those plugins (instruments, effects), if you can't load those plugins, you can't open old files.

I often open up sketches from several years prior and consider working more on them. I keep a full 32-bit stack of music stuff left installed exactly for that reason. Usually, if I open them up, then I'll go ahead and move them over to 64-bit semi-equivalents, but that's difficult if you can't even hear what you were doing with the old one.

<comment><USER7> Yep. I'm not excited about the prospect of moving back to the PC for making music, but it looks like that's what Apple want me to do.

<comment><USER8> This, or go with idea that for some years ahead you can work with El Capitan on a old hardware. Windows for me is dead end also, until someone in pro industry realizes that its time to move to Linux. Apple is mobile and entertainment company now. Microsoft wants AI/Cloud. The logical answer is Linux.

<comment><USER9> _> until someone in pro industry realizes that its time to move to Linux_

Some already are. When I bought my copy of Pianoteq 6 [1], I was surprised to see they also offer a Linux version (and even a Raspberry Pi version). The DAW I use called Renoise [2] has a Linux version, and the JUCE [3] development framework common to many VST plugins also has Linux support.

Listening to podcasts like Sonic Talk [4], I'm mostly hearing about studios switching from Mac back to Windows, but they have been talking a lot more about Linux too.

[1] [https://www.pianoteq.com/](https://www.pianoteq.com/)

[2] [https://www.renoise.com](https://www.renoise.com)

[3] [https://juce.com/](https://juce.com/)

[4] [https://sonicstate.com/sonictalk](https://sonicstate.com/sonictalk)

<comment><USER10> Other notable big(ish) name DAWs with Linux versions include Bitwig (quite similar to Ableton Live) and Tracktion

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of apps never made the switch on ios. I have some useful ones that were orphaned. I feel like only the mac original intel chips were core2 32bit one, and those long lost os support.

Its weird that dos (box) and old windows programs are often still runable, but somehow mac applications just don't age nearly as well.

I really think if some linux distros can get it together and get some good application support, now is the time for them on the desktop/laptop.

going to Apple-Menu->about this mac->system report ->software applications

will show a list of applications with the right most column indicating 64 bit support. 95ish % of mine are currently 64 bit

<comment><USER12> Microsoft and Apple have different approaches to backwards compatibility based on the markets they're in. Microsoft makes most of their money on enterprise, whereas Apple makes most on consumers. Enterprise values running old apps, consumers value running today's apps. Each makes sense for their market... and desktop Linux doesn't make sense for either.

<comment><USER13> Backwards-compatibility is an interesting story on the mac. The Objective-C ABI on 32-bit macOS is what is called the "fragile" runtime because it has the fragile base class problem. Originally Objective-C had the same design flaw as C++: the ivars of every class had to be in the header for all to see so the compiler could rely on the binary layout. A subclass' ivars would be offset by the compiler by examining the layout of every superclass, then baked into the binary.

In the modern (all iOS and 64-bit macOS) runtime the ivar offsets are patched up at runtime so the layout of classes (including base classes) can change without breaking compatibility.

Working around the limitations of the 32-bit Objective-C runtime imposes significant costs, it is far from a simple recompile with a different pointer size. It also adds a lot to the size of the installed OS.

<comment><USER12> It's kind of sad we're in this state in 2018 because Apple launched 7 low end machines [1] back in 2006 that didn't have 64-bit support. Even though those are long gone, their software support legacy remains. Apple could have transitioned directly to x64 and saved themselves the headache (afaict, maybe these problems would have persisted?).

[1] [http://lowendmac.com/2006/core-duo-macs/](http://lowendmac.com/2006/core- duo-macs/)

<comment><USER14> Apple couldn't have gone straight to 64-bit apps on Intel--the OS and frameworks just weren't ready yet. The Intel machines shipped starting with 10.4.3, which only supported 64-bit command-line apps/daemons. Only with 10.5 (released in late 2007, 18 months after the first Intel machines) were full graphical 64-bit apps supported (on both ppc64 and x86_64).

<comment><USER15> Firmware was an issue, too. The first generation of Macs with 64-bit processors still used 32-bit EFI and booted a 32-bit kernel that could run 64-bit applications.

<comment><USER14> True, it wasn't until 10.6 that a 64-bit kernel was available, and only newer machines got to use it.

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac- os-x-10-6/5/](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6/5/)

<comment><USER16> I had a blog article about the entire mess that was often confused (there was actually three modes): [http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2009/09/mac-os-xs-64-bit- modes....](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2009/09/mac-os-xs-64-bit-modes.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I suppose dropping x86 support makes for one less architecture for Rosetta II to support.

<comment><USER18> Rosetta II being the x64 -> ARM translation layer for when they start putting the AX chips in Macbooks?

HP already has it's Snapdragon convertable out that has Windows 10 x86 emulation. But surprisingly this is only _32-bit_ not 64. Looks like performance is understandably poor as well.

I'd expect Apple to take their usual strategy and wait a bit until chips are a little faster/they have a more mature emulator before they make the switch.

Interesting times though!

<comment><USER19> I actually expect Apple to implement some "emulator-acceleration instructions" into their own chips and get excellent (almost as good, as good or better) performance once they switch, as always, because otherwise people just won't switch en masse.

<comment><USER20> I dont think Intel will allow that to happen without some patents issues.

<comment><USER21> x86 is now 30-40 years old depending on how you measure it. Even "modern" x86 (post Pentium Pro) is over 20 years old. An awful lot of the patents have expired.

<comment><USER20> X86-64, that is the most important one.

<comment><USER19> It's not even by Intel; it's by AMD and they did nothing to prevent Intel from using it.

<comment><USER18> Intel did license it from AMD IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't imagine why this push is necessary. One of the primary advantages of x86_64 as opposed to other 64-bit architectures is that normal 32-bit applications run natively with no performance hits. As others notice, this is likely going to serve no other purpose than to make abandoned 32-bit applications completely unusable.

Of course, it could also be related to Apple's intention to switch to ARM chips in the near future, and getting everything on consistent 64-bit to aid the porting effort. I can't imagine the developers are going to enjoy low- level mapping of 64-bit x86 instructions to 64-bit ARM though...

<comment><USER23> > I can't imagine the developers are going to enjoy low-level mapping of > 64-bit x86 instructions to 64-bit ARM though...

Why would the average developer even have to care?

<comment><USER22> I meant Apple's developers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I recently lost a bunch of iOS apps, some 8 years old, due to the ABI cutoff.

I don't have the ecosystem tie-in that I used to have. What good is owning a bunch of apps if you can't use them?

<comment><USER25> 8 years is quite a bit of time in the technology space. There's no point holding back the rest of the ecosystem if some developers have abandoned their apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does it mean macOS users won't be able to play 32-bit games in Wine anymore?

<comment><USER27> No, it means MacOS will no longer have a 32-bit runtime but this does not prevent the CPU executing in 32-bit mode - just that all system calls have to happen in 64 bit mode.

Wine will have to be a 64-bit application linked to the 64-bit libraries and do a bunch of thunking and mode switching, but it already does this to support 16-bit applications.

I have no idea how easy this is but the the OS already does it to support 32-bit applications running on the 64-bit kernel.

<comment><USER26> When Wine runs 32-bit application, it links against 32-bit libraries, including OpenGL. So how would that work in pure 64-bit system? 16-bit is really some special case, I don't know how Wine is doing it, but I suppose it does some special translation.

<comment><USER27> The same way those 32-bit libraries call the kernel now - they marshal the call to 64-bit land. A lot of the user space is compiled separately for performance and to maintain ABI compatibility so this would have to be taken up by a third party. I would expect to see a slowdown but it depends on the exact nature of the changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There goes Ambrosia's back catalogue.

</comment><comment><USER29> Well at least this time they alert. Support for Universal binaries was dropped silently.

<comment><USER23> > Support for Universal binaries was dropped silently.

Since when? I have universal binaries that run fine on my computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This will be what finally moves me away from Adobe software.

I use one Adobe app: Illustrator CS5. My needs are fairly specialist and I haven't needed any new features introduced since CS4 (2008; multiple artboards, finally).

Adobe's only upgrade option is £240pa for a single-app subscription. Fortunately, alternative drawing programs have come on a long way since CS5, so I'll almost certainly jump ship to one of those.

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems like only yesterday Macs were 24-bit and we were all busy getting "32-bit clean"

</comment><comment><USER7> For the past few years, Apple have been doing everything they possibly can to get creative professionals to leave their platform.

<comment><USER32> I'm a creative professional and I, along with other people I know, still prefer to remain on Apple platforms.

I guess now you have to argue about and form a consensus on the definition of "professional" huh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So Apple is dropping 32 bit computing? Hmm ....

Gee, I'm building, configuring a server based on an Asus motherboard and the AMD FX-8350 processor, 8 cores, 64 bit addressing.

Surprise! I discovered that Windows XP 32 bit Professional SP2 (service pack 2) will install and run! It sees all 8 cores, and the version of Microsoft's TASKMGR plots the activity separately on each of all 8 cores. It also sees the full 16 GB of main memory and is willing to use 2 GB of it with 5 GB of paging space.

And I discovered that the Western Digital (WD) Data Lifeguard Tools CD, IIRC version 11.1, boots and runs! This is amazing since what boots is old DOS! The DOS part will boot from a CD/DVD USB (universal serial bus) drive, but then the WD software doesn't run. But if boot from a SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) CD/DVD drive, then the WD software does run.

If have the Windows version running and put the WD CD in the SATA drive, then the WD software appears to run as a Windows application!

My most important application is 32 bit editor KEdit, and I've discovered that it runs fine on Windows 10 64 bit Home Edition on an HP laptop with a 64 bit Intel processor with two cores and 4 threads.

So, lesson: With Windows, AMD, Intel, and ASUS, a lot of 32 bit computing still works! Sorry Apple!

My first intention installing Windows XP was just to run some experiments on using the WD Tools to backup and restore a bootable partition, but I've since discovered that apparently my trusty old copy of Nero for CD/DVD reading/writing that I long used on XP appears to install on Windows 10 on the HP laptop but as far as I can tell won't read or write CDs or DVDs. So, for routine reading/writing CDs and DVDs, apparently I should keep a bootable partition with XP.

Sorry, Apple, 32 bit computing won't go away soon: The reason is standard and old in computing -- there is a lot of old software people very much still want to run.

<comment><USER34> Apple is a bit special though, since their hardware and software go together. They don't sell 32 bit Macs and have never emphasized backwards compatibility like Windows (or Linux) has and quite often they have emphasized the opposite. Supporting 32 bit is dead weight for them from a business perspective and has been for a while, this shouldn't be a shock for their users.

<comment><USER35> > have never emphasized backwards compatibility

This is mildly misleading. Apple emphasizes backwards compatibility, _temporarily_. 68k apps ran on PowerPC systems. Classic MacOS apps ran on OS X systems. PowerPC apps ran on Intel systems.

Apple is a master of architecture shifts - they've had so many of them! But the compatibility is always temporary. Enough for customers to get their apps shifted over.

<comment><USER19> They also learned from their first architecture shifts, which didn't go all that well. Apple II to Apple III flopped early. Apple II to Lisa was nonexistent. Apple II to Mac could've been a 1984 to 1985 thing if executed well, but instead it took until 1993 for Apple II to be killed. Lisa to Mac was just recycling the old hardware for the new OS via MacWorks.

<comment><USER35> Don't forget that for a while you could buy an Apple-IIe-on-a-card that went inside your Mac and let you run Apple II software.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm not installing a version of macOS that can't run QuickTime 7.

<comment><USER35> I work with video, particularly in "legacy" formats, regularly. There's nothing I used to do with QuickTime 7 that I can't now do with ffmpeg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I haven't checked what version Visual Studio (not Code) is on the Mac, but good heavens it might be the only 64-bit Visual Studio nowadays :)

</comment><comment><USER38> What is the point of an OS if not to run the software the user has purchased? I don't care, and more importantly don't want to care at all about the OS beyond it being a launcher for software that allows me to make money. Such a bizzare approach from Apple to reducing the user to an open wallet willing to repurchase software that already works. Also with Apple forcing the user on the rolling release treadmill, its rather annoying that one can't simply stay on a stable version.

<comment><USER39> There's nothing stopping you from keeping your machine running the same version of the OS you're on now. It will continue to run fine indefinitely, and should run all the software you use now.

Surely Apple is allowed to release updates to their OS that eventually break old software at some point. Or do you expect Mac software you bought in 1984 to continue run on the current OS?

<comment><USER40> > do you expect Mac software you bought in 1984 to continue run on the current > OS?

That is to some extend how it works in Windows land. It was not until 64bit was a thing that they removed support for 16bit programs, and there is still many ways to run them.

Everyone that cares about backwards compatibility just needs to read this [http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321440303/samplech...](http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321440303/samplechapter/Chen_bonus_ch01.pdf) to get an idea of the history MS has of backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER41> Microsoft's 64 bit transition was more awkward with more compatibility breaks, compared to Apple.

Microsoft sold separate Windows 32 bit and 64 bit versions, under different SKUs. The 64 bit version broke compatibility with 32 bit drivers, but not all software would work on 32 bit, so it was important to know which version you had. Many computers advertised as 64 bit were sold with 32 bit Windows, so it was possible to download an incompatible app version. It was a confusing time.

Apple had only one SKU. Applications had 32 bit and 64 bit versions in the same binary, so there was only one version to download. The kernel supported 64 bit addressing and 32 bit drivers, so there was no hardware compatibility break. It was invisible to users.

<comment><USER40> I agree completely, but that doesn't change the fact that non-kernel software backwards compatibility is very high priority for Microsoft.

I find it a bit dishonest to claim MacOS did so much better without mentioning that they have a fraction of the hardware to support, compared to Windows. When the different hardware combinations are not greater than something you can setup in a warehouse, it's straightforward to test them all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've got an old core duo (32 bit) iMac which is still working fine despite the old age (I think it's a late 2009). My small brother use it to navigate the web.

The sad thing is that it became useless with OSX. Safari couldn't be updated nor any browser, thus leading to the inability to browse the web because of https certificates compatibility.

I had to install (with a lot of tricks) linux and it works flawlessy.

It's sad to see that a working computer has become obsolete in only 10 years, and while I will probably continue use Apple products I feel like there something _wrong_ with this. That's one of the reason I am worried about buying an apple watch. Obsolescence.

All in all I get it and I know that it'll probably pay off for them, just like it did with the dvd player removed, but it'll take time (for me) to get used to the fact that, at least on the apple ecosystems, things last more than usual, but they also become useless more than usual.

<comment><USER43> On the other hand, it is a bit crazy and impressive that OS X/macOS has had to support 32-bit x86 binaries for >12 years because they sold 32-bit Core Duo machines from January 2006 (introduction of Core Duo iMac) until August 2007 (replacement of Core Duo Mac Mini with Core 2 Duo version). 12 years of binary support because they sold 32-bit x86 CPUs for 20 months.

<comment><USER42> Yes. Indeed, and as I wrote I can't blame their choice</comment></comment></comment>


Tagsie: a tool to exploit the new Facebook profile - <AUTHOR> http://5tephen.com/tagsie Many articles have raved about how the new Facebook profiles let users add a bit of creative flair to their profiles. What I haven't seen reported is the potential for users to post creative content on other users' profiles. Enter Tagsie.
Tagsie lets users quickly tag many of their friends in one photo. Clever users can use Tagsie on five photos to exploit the design of the new Facebook profiles and plaster banners on their friends' profiles.
Facebook should change the way photos are chosen for the new profile. Users should opt-in to what is on their profile; users should not have to opt-out. There should be a way to keep others from posting vulgar things on my profile. Worst, users who haven't chosen to see the new profiles may still have banners hanging on their profile without ever knowing.
After my room mate and I built this I was able to hang "STEVE" across the profiles of all my friends. Friends who shared my name were pleased.
http://i.imgur.com/YeyxG.png
Currently only tested for Chrome. <comment><AUTHOR> This is my first post to HN. I'm not sure where "text" shows up. Here is my commentary for this post:

Many articles have raved about how the new Facebook profiles let users add a bit of creative flair to their profiles. What I haven't seen reported is the potential for users to post creative content on other users' profiles. Enter Tagsie.

Tagsie lets users quickly tag many of their friends in one photo. Clever users can use Tagsie on five photos to exploit the design of the new Facebook profiles and plaster banners on their friends' profiles.

Facebook should change the way photos are chosen for the new profile. Users should opt-in to what is on their profile; users should not have to opt-out. There should be a way to keep others from posting vulgar things on my profile. Worst, users who haven't chosen to see the new profiles may still have banners hanging on their profile without ever knowing.

After my room mate and I built this I was able to hang "STEVE" across the profiles of all my friends. Friends who shared my name were pleased.

<http://i.imgur.com/YeyxG.png>

Currently only tested for Chrome.

<comment><USER2> Untag x 5, remove friend - crisis averted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. Yet it was only averted, not prevented.</comment></comment></comment>


The Map of Science: a directed citation graph showing the interdependence of fields - <AUTHOR> http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/12/map-of-science.html

<comment><USER2> If neuroscience is ever going to truly succeed, that link with mathematics better get more firmly established (even as it's surely underestimated based on the journals sampled). With the number of neurons and possible synapses, there needs to be advanced computational work to tame the complexity. The NIPS conference, for instance, is already decently big. But we need many more folks from that physics and engineering cluster.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, nice catch!

It seems to me (though I am very biased!) that most of the landmark papers in the aggregate behavior of neural networks are mostly in physics (eg: Hopfield networks) and in computer science (eg: Perceptrons, Minsky).

<comment><USER2> You're right, but it quickly moved away from physics. McClelland and Rumelhart also did the seminal work in cognitive science in the 80s.

Here's an upcoming review: [http://www- psych.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/McClellandIPTOPiCS...](http://www- psych.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/McClellandIPTOPiCS.pdf)

Then there are folks like Sejnowski (<http://www.salk.edu/faculty/sejnowski.html>; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Sejnowski>) who pushed the field more into biology.

Still, I'm really surprised by the current chasm, if that map is reflective of the state of the field.

EDIT: For spelling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links.

<comment><USER2> Happy to help. I learn so much around here, it's rare I can return the favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> See also <http://www.mapofscience.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Since there have been several comments about what it should look like or possible errors, I note the original source is from 2004.

<http://www.eigenfactor.org/map/maps.htm>

Have there been major changes in four years? Don't ask me - my Journalism degree didn't even warrant its own dot on the social sciences map.

</comment><comment><USER5> Eigenfactor is very cool (as is Carl) and allows you to do stuff like this

[http://plindenbaum.blogspot.com/2008/06/pubmed-impact- factor...](http://plindenbaum.blogspot.com/2008/06/pubmed-impact-factors- sorting-and.html)

Wish it were more mainstream since there are a lot of interesting possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like no one cites Computer Science papers. Not surprising, but interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Mathematics and chemistry need to be bigger.

Hell, maybe they are and its really the map that is inaccurate...</comment>


Show HN: A Maven plugin that automatically verifies PGP Signatures - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/exabrial/pgp-signature-check-plugin <comment><AUTHOR> Author here: I noticed that pretty much nobody checks PGP signatures. I'm hoping this plugin helps prevent hostile code injection in your environment. Cheers!</comment>