College Startups: The 'New Master's Degree' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-26/college-startups-the-new-masters-degree <comment><USER2> "...New MBA Degree" may be a better title.

There are still plenty of subjects where getting a Masters degree or even a PhD is the gateway to learning more thoroughly about that particular field/subject.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a BBA undergrad that started a limited liability corporation. We were given the extraordinary opportunity to present our budget to the Executive Committee of University's Board of Trustees. But trying to find a quarter of a million dollars from my own alma matter isn't easy.

<http://www.universitycollaboration.com> :)

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this is relevant to my parent comment.

Also, some unsolicited feedback:

* The product page keeps jumping between campusbubble.com and universitycollaboration.com

* The "Try Demo" asks the user to click on the contact us link that takes you to the contact page. The "Beta Test" page also links to the contact page. Essentially there is no way of "trying out" what the product does for something that has been in development since 2011.

* The left column on the "Try Demo" page has two deadlinks instead of previews.

* And as a (recent) former student, I am not sure the value the product provides to students over much simpler solutions (such as: facebook groups, r/mycollege, group texting apps for study groups, pizzza.com, etc). Good luck regardless.

<comment><AUTHOR> I fixed things thanks to you! :) Would you use www.emorybubble.com/preview if you were an alum?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very hard to argue with real experience. Having to make payroll goes a lot further than a strategy class or term paper.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article doesn't address whether working in a fast-changing unstructured environment is _right for you_. Some people are genuinely in their element in a startup. Others are happier in a more predictable environment. Some were meant to be in academia, or whatever.

Finding the right match _for you_ is more important than making a billion dollars, getting a Master's degree, or whatever other analogies they make.

</comment><comment> D-Train Nice! Shout out for my current school, Emory University! Too bad my startup wasn't mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah this sounds much better than, actually learning to create something with your two hands. Whether that's a building, vehicle or software.

</comment><comment><USER6> > A desire to make a difference in the world

Yea, coat checks and and t-shirts ... I can feel the impact.

<comment><USER7> I know the guys that did the iPad work for the coatchex system. I questioned then along similar lines. I realized I wasn't thinking wide enough. I don't want to speak about something that might have been off the record... But let me pose this. You can get information from anything. That information may be more valuable (to others) than you may think.

<comment><USER6> I didn't question their viability as a business.

<comment><USER7> That'a true, you didn't. And I do agree that they aren't doing anything more important than marketing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Reporter and The Serial Killer - <AUTHOR> https://crimereads.com/sandy-fawkes-the-reporter-and-the-serial-killer/ <comment><USER2> For those also having difficulty loading:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20190426160002/https://crimereads...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190426160002/https://crimereads.com/sandy- fawkes-the-reporter-and-the-serial-killer/)</comment>


Discogs Turns Record Collectors' Obsessions into Big Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/media/discogs-turns-record-collectors-obsessions-into-big-business.html <comment><USER2> The site has gotten so much better over the years, adding the ability to have shipping at checkout was a major hurdle. It has seemed like they've really been investing in development over the past 2-3 years. Everything was a bit stale and then really started to show signs of life. A lot of it's is like Wiki since it's user submitted and curated but man if it isn't slicker than other options. It also destroyed early sites like GEMM.

I've always been a big fan of their transparency and support as well, you can get downloads of the entire database, freely available, on a regular basis with no hassle. They know it's not about the data, but the community and experience.

Weird seeing them on HN, seems like 10 year old, moderately profitable companies aren't as common around here.

<comment><USER3> Agreed! As an aspiring DJ this site is essential part of anyones work flow. A lot of the older music from the early days of the rave seen is not available in digital format and no longer being pressed into new records. So its the only place you can really find and buy it now.

<comment><USER4> Not the rave scene for me, but over the last few years I've really gotten into obscure soul, funk, disco and early electronica rarities and Discogs has always been an absolutely essential tool to track things. It led me so deep into the rabbit hole that I need to get a decent turntable to digitalize a lot of releases - I maintain a fairly large lossless digital collection, but these days I find more and more new releases that aren't available digitally, even including last resorts like what.cd. And then there's the old, out of print stuff - however I'm glad that a bunch of very good re-issue labels like Numero Group, Light In The Attic or Music From Memory made it their mission to bring those forgotten gems back to life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Discogs provides dumps of the database[1] which you can load up and do some interesting queries on yourself. For example, for some genres (especially electronic/dance stuff) you can do some interesting related artist suggestion by examining links through niche record labels (which tend to host similar artists). No ML required :)

[1] [http://data.discogs.com/](http://data.discogs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been a heavy user of discogs since 2004. I've always been obsessed with producers and songwriters, ie the people who actually write the music I love. It's allowed me to discover alias of my favorite producers and to me that is invaluable.

</comment><comment><USER7> I never looked at this side of the website, but for the curious 'musician' (who player where) it's a goldmine of information.

The CD booklet Google.

</comment><comment><USER8> Neat writeup. Discogs is great. I've bought a ton of records there and plan to continue to.</comment>


How to Fight the Deadly Dengue Virus? Make Your Own Mosquitoes - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-fight-the-deadly-dengue-virus-make-your-own-mosquitoes-11599384610 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/KRFMz](https://archive.vn/KRFMz)</comment>


Congressional leaders fight against posting bills online - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Congressional-leaders-fight-against-posting-bills-online-8340658-63557217.html

<comment><USER2> The only shocking thing: _Nearly every Republican has signed on, but the Democratic leadership is unwilling to cede control over when bills are brought to the floor for votes and are discouraging their rank and file from signing the petition._

The more I follow politics, the more I realize how similar the republicans and democrats are. Their behavior flips with power. If GWB was in office, it would be have been the democrats supporting the bill. I wonder really, why _didn't_ the democrats support this? Would the republicans have supported such a measure for the Patriot Act? Why not require this for every bill? Why do the Republicans only want it on _this_ bill?

<comment><USER3> While true that disclosure aids the minority party, and both sides pay some degree of lip service to the issue of transparency, it is still important for American democracy that our political leaders make bills available to the full Congress and to the public for at least 72 hours before a vote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like a misleading headline. This isn't about posting bills online; online bills is a canard being used to promote a 72-hour waiting period on bills.

There are arguments for or against the 72-hour waiting period (the GOP proposal, like similar arguments made during the Bush presidency by Dems, is crafted to increase the ability of the minority to delay action by the majority; it isn't simply a "good-governance" measure). But they have little directly to do with whether bills can be posted online.

</comment><comment><USER5> 72 hours even sounds like too little time.

<comment><USER6> I agree. How about six months? All the major issues have been festering for years, what's an extra six months of delay?

Remember, the government can't build a new road without three years of planning, community consultation, environmental impact statements, mandatory waiting periods, careful negotiation with all stakeholders, and whatever other bureaucracy might crop up along the way. But when the government wants to pass a bill to spend a trillion bucks or fundamentally change the nature of the economy, they seem to think that about twelve hours is the ideal length of time to spend debating it.

<comment><USER4> 72 hours? Six months? How about a year?

What we need is a better process for informing people about the issues involved in legislation. But we don't run congress by referenda, and whether or not legislators "read" bills is irrelevant: they're voting based on political calculation and personal principles, and nothing is going to change that.

<comment><USER7> > ...and whether or not legislators "read" bills is irrelevant: they're voting > based on political calculation and personal principles, and nothing is going > to change that.

I think we should try change it. It's a horrible state of affairs.

<comment><USER6> The best thing about posting bills online for six months is that it doesn't matter that legislators don't read them. Instead you'd have an army of partisan bloggers etc trying to point out the flaws, ensuring that all the bill's flaws would get brought to the surface eventually, and at least some of those should get amended away.

<comment><USER4> The average SnR on bills on OpenCongress is terrible. Most bills require expertise to really analyze; the people with expertise and the will to apply it are already chiming in on bills. I don't want to sound apathetic, but I'm not convinced about the wonderful powers of public peer review on legislation.

Roger Ebert's blog is amazing, and one of the reasons is that he generates amazingly thoughtful comments. He even managed to do a debate on creationism, in the context of Ben Stein's movie! Here's what happens when he does something overtly political. Note the comments.

[http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_anger_of_the_fes...](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_anger_of_the_festering_fri.html)

(Something to notice: _1200_ \+ comments later, and he is _still responding to comments_. The guy is a machine.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I support a 72-hour public review period, I think there are ways to exploit public interest that would render it less effective. However, a 72-hour review period coupled with rules against omnibus laws would be very efficient (IMO). The laws that reach the floor would be very specific. Congressional records could not be obfuscated with "well I wanted this, so I compromised and voted for that as well".

Although...I think congress would still find a way around such rules.

</comment><comment><USER9> "For the majority party, legislative timing plays a big role in whether a bill will pass because support can be fleeting."

Perhaps your bill doesn't deserve to pass if you can't even keep your supporters on your side for more than 12 hours or so...</comment>


How and Why for My 100 Days of Rejection Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://www.entresting.com/blog/2012/11/28/182/

<comment><USER2> Is this the guy that thinks asking for 100 dollars from a stranger and being rejected is the same as someone rejecting an idea he has?

Asking a person to make him a crazy doughnut at Krispy Kreme just makes him a dick.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comment is why this video is so uplifting for me (and millions of other people apparently). Instead of responding with bile and negativity, this girl Jackie responded in kindness and created an epic moment.

Those who look for fault and blame will always find it. Those who look for the goodness in people will find that too. She is more of a Zen Master than anyone I've ever seen.

EDIT: I thought Jia's request was fun. He just wanted a rejection but instead gave Jackie the opportunity to shine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw the Krispy Kreme video. That lady takes great pride in her donuts! A valuable lesson of how asking someone who does the same thing, day in and day out to try something different can sometimes be met with great appreciation.</comment>


Be a pioneer – delete Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/pioneer-delete-facebook-addiction-social-life <comment><USER2> Delete the Facebook app. It drains your battery and drains your attention.

I use the Mobile Basic interface to check FB once a week or so for messages or events:

[https://mbasic.facebook.com/](https://mbasic.facebook.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Or try the [http://friendly.io](http://friendly.io) app - lets you use Facebook, but does not ask for permissions.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that, great alternative!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What if we refused to join Facebook all along because we saw this coming the whole time?

<comment><USER5> Ditto. I guess that makes us prophets?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Each Facebook deleter must invent new ways to live without Facebook; the > deleters are the pioneers, the vanguard of a new kind of literate, informed, > proud digital citizenry. They are inventing on behalf of all of us.

This argument alone has convinced me to delete my facebook account. I was a bit skeptical about missing on updates but then it's on us to develop, find and use the better alternatives to boost adoption.

</comment><comment><USER7> More important than deleting Facebook: working on and supporting open platforms and helping society to reimagine socialization on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER8> I left Facebook about six years ago and have never missed it. The drolly named Discord has been far more rewarding to me, and has proved even more valuable in non-gaming contexts. An open-source Discord with excellent privacy respect is about all I want.

<comment><USER9> Matrix.org is likely the closest thing to an open source "Discord". Very decentralized, like IRC.

Being open-source alone isn't enough, as many (but not all) open-source projects suffer from the same problems of centralized governance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm grateful for Jaron's Who Owns The Future for really laying out the scale of what's going on, and the stakes.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeh did that in 2014 the day they filled my friends status feed with ads then news, where's my trophy?

</comment><comment><USER11> There is literally no real benefit to having and using Facebook.</comment>


GUID's are not strings - <AUTHOR> http://www.depthinfinity.com/2016/02/treating-guids-as-strings/ <comment><USER2> I see the same with dates. A lot of people seem to think they're stored as strings, not numbers.

<comment><USER3> I understood the article's point as saying that in strongly typed languages, GUIDs / UUIDs should be handled as an instance of the standard lib's built-in UUID datatype, rather than anything else (string, number, char[], etc). In strongly typed languages, this is good practice for type safety, with the pleasant side-effect of allowing for denser storage vs. some toString() or other exploded form.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. This is actually part of a larger problem with the way strongly typed languages are used in practice, where usually whatever "primitive" numeric types are available are used everywhere, rather than any thoughtful attempt at creating a coherent meaning for each input value. My favorite abuse of language is when we pass around two integers to represent a fixed-point number, rather than passing around a data type like struct { int32_t exponent; int32_t mantissa; } fixedPoint.

This becomes an issue because now everywhere you operate on these data types you have to implement the math to add, subtract, multiply, and divide these values, and the syntax becomes much dirtier. You wind up repeating the same rounding rules everywhere except in one place, and then it happens that there's a bug caught during system-level testing that's specific to that rounding error. This is an issue I have seen repeatedly with the project I'm currently working on, and it's a huge pain in the ass.

Meanwhile with some reasonably clever use of syntax and the creation of a fixed point arithmetic library at the start of the project, you're always applying the same rounding rule, and you don't have to do wonky stuff just to round your numbers.</comment></comment></comment>


Gnome 2.x, I'll miss you - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepowerbase.com/2011/11/gnome-2-x-ill-miss-you/

<comment><USER2> _Note: This article was originally published August 24th, 2011 at Muktware.com.

Some of the content here no longer represents the way that I feel about Unity at present, and much of this can be taken with a grain of salt. Even still, I do miss Gnome 2.x even though it hasn't fully disappeared yet._

tl;dr dude got a new computer so unity isn't slow anymore.</comment>


The greatest mass extinction on Earth was caused by fossil fuel burning - <AUTHOR> http://www.monbiot.com/2015/05/27/a-prehistory-of-violence/

<comment><AUTHOR> Note: This was written by George Monbiot. The original title of the article is "A Prehistory of Violence", which doesn't say much about the content. The related Guardian article [1] is titled "How fossil fuel burning nearly wiped out life on Earth – 250m years ago".

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/27/threat-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/27/threat- islamic-state-fossil-fuel-burning)</comment>


Zuckerberg's Not So Subtle Dig At Google Circles - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zuckerberg-dig-at-google-circles/

<comment><USER2> "The definition of groups is... everyone inside the group knows who else is in the group"

This is a slightly narrow definition, the visibility of a group should be an attribute.

Dan Gillmor cites a good use-case:

"I'm considering a circle called "insufferable" for people I find personally annoying but whose work I feel obliged to keep track of, in any case."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/29/google- facebook-skype)

</comment><comment><USER3> Facebook has the same sharing relationship in the form of lists. Aren't facebook lists more similar to google circles than facebook groups are?

<comment><USER4> It's not the same sharing relationship. You have to be friends with someone before you add them to a Facebook List. Google+ has no concept of "friends". How you see someone is not necessarily how they see you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Big words especially considering you can't search through the people who "like" the same interests as you in Facebook. What's the point of social networking if I can't actually connect with anyone who is interested in the same things as me?

Social networking is about connecting with new people, not a virtual front end for people you already know...

<comment><USER6> > not a virtual front end for people you already know

For most people I know, it actually does exactly that.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The definition of groups is... everyone inside the group knows who else is in the group"

Pretty good point in my opinion. Maybe groups are a better solution for people who want to share with a limited number of friends. It also is much less work since only one person has to set up the group.

<comment><USER7> I would definitely like to see Google add groups as pseudo-people... And then you can put that group in a Circle and share to it.

People in the group can see who else is in the group. Groups could be curated (need approval to join) or just open to anyone, and moderated (need approval to post) or not depending on the choices made by the group owner.</comment></comment>


What will people do if they don't have to work for a living? - <AUTHOR> http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/business/216655-life-after-work <comment><USER2> I've been disabled since 2003 and out of work. I got too sick to work and ended up on disability. Been trying to get better so I can return to work one day.

Almost everything I know is out of date, new stuff keeps being invented. I can't afford college anymore and try to learn online but MOOCs aren't the same as having a professor you can ask questions when you get stuck, because of the honor code. Even worse a lot of the AI/ML MOOCs need MATLAB or Octave and MATLAB has a 120 day trial and then you can't do anything with it, and Octave doesn't seem to work with Windows 10 and runs slow in a VM with Linux at least on the computer that I can afford to own that isn't as fast as I'd like it to be.

So I have problems trying to keep up with the latest stuff, no one to work with me and help me. My friends and family left me when I became disabled.

I've gotten so depressed over it I sleep most of the day, and my medicine makes me drowsy so sleeping is how I deal with it. There are no groups that can help me, my mental illness I developed with stress schizoaffective disorder is rare and misunderstood.

I can still write code in older programming languages and I've been able to pass a MOOC on Ruby on Rails. I can still write HTML code by hand. I'm trying to write some books and self-publish them, but most of the day have to get around writer's block.

I'd much rather be working and I'd still be working if I never got sick.</comment>


My Common Git Workflow - <AUTHOR> http://yehudakatz.com/2010/05/13/common-git-workflows/

<comment><USER3> This is incredibly timely and I for one appreciate the post. I'm just moving myself and a team from past-experience of SVN into the world of git.

None of us know git, but we're all vaguely aware of it. Unfortunately the place we are at requires us to integrate with ClearCase and SVN, and to make matters worse we're all on Macs and Linux for which ClearCase tools don't appear to exist.

Our proposed solution to bring sanity to this is to use git with git-cc and git-svn to act as bridges to the legacy systems, whilst putting all new work natively into git.

Now... I'll be the first to admit that we're not full of confidence about this as it's the fear of the unknown, so if anyone else has solid advice on how to work with git and workflows and integrating into existing legacy systems I would be keen to hear it.

<comment><USER4> Are you trying to integrate ClearCase _with_ svn (with git as the go-between bridge)?

Thats a bit more than I've had to deal with (though I've heard of perforce->(git)->svn being done).

As for git-svn itself, I'll say what I said on the other thread - what finally got me to switch is that with git-svn, my local copy is a real live Git repo. Which means the code I write, my actual work, is all still there and accesible via standard Git commands that I can look up. The fix for the worst-case scenario? I do a fresh svn checkout to a new directory, and I do git checkout, I copy the files out, I do an svn commit of that version of files.

Far from ideal, but knowing that I could recover from worst the system could throw at me, put me quite at ease. (Yeah, yeah git svn dcommit, but we're talking about a fearsome worst-case scenario.)

<comment><USER3> We all have experience with SVN, and that's been our preferred setup in our prior roles.

Here, ClearCase is used by the back end services team and they use that to push things through the different environments too. So at some level we need to access their code, and to contribute code to their repository.

SVN is used by other rogue developers to try and avoid ClearCase... very understandable really. So we also need to get some of their code and contribute to them.

So neither holds all knowledge, and IBM doesn't provide ClearCase software for Mac OS X.

So what we're looking at is a git-cc bridge to go in that direction, installed on a Windows box and then allowing us internally to use git to work and then just to periodically push upstream from the Win box.

And as we'll be using git, it seems desirable (though not required) to use the git-svn bridge if that works well as then we only need to use the one tool daily.

I've read a lot about how to setup the CC2Git bridge, and no solution seems great but all appear to be adequate enough for it to work at some level. I haven't checked out git-svn too much but what I had read was mostly good.

The concerns we have are once we're in the git world, how do you use the thing? I've seen a lot mentioning the importance of understanding git and workflows, but not a great deal describing git for SVN users and then showing simple to follow guides that not just communicate the commands, but also a nice and solid workflow.

<comment><USER4> I assume you've seen the git svn crash course (<http://git.or.cz/course/svn.html>) which is good overview, but falls short on the subtleties of merging (particularly using git pull --rebase). The side- by-side commands in the two VCS it has is great. The ParrotVM wiki also has a git-svn guide (<http://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/git-svn-tutorial>) that I've found quite helpful and has an introductory workflow.

(Alternately, it looks like svnimporter (<http://www.subversionary.org/projects/svnimporter>) can import ClearCase which gets at a tiny subset of your problem.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a git user, i do really think it's critical that people think about their workflows and talk over what strategy they're going to use w/ their fellow committers.

There's (definitely) more than one way to do it with Git, so it's best to read up on how other people use it.

</comment><comment><USER5> OK now I know about:

"git pull --rebase"

If only somebody would explain what this really does! The man pages are not helpful!

git-pull(1) Manual Page says: "--rebase: Instead of a merge, perform a rebase after fetching. If there is a remote ref for the upstream branch, and this branch was rebased since last fetched, the rebase uses that information to avoid rebasing non-local changes. To make this the default for branch <name>, set configuration branch.<name>.rebase to true."

Oh how clear. So let's try git-rebase:

"If <branch> is specified, git rebase will perform an automatic git checkout <branch> before doing anything else. Otherwise it remains on the current branch.

All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not in <upstream> are saved to a temporary area. This is the same set of commits that would be shown by git log <upstream>..HEAD (or git log HEAD, if --root is specified).

The current branch is reset to <upstream>, or <newbase> if the --onto option was supplied. This has the exact same effect as git reset --hard <upstream> (or <newbase>). ORIG_HEAD is set to point at the tip of the branch before the reset.

The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order. Note that any commits in HEAD which introduce the same textual changes as a commit in HEAD..<upstream> are omitted (i.e., a patch already accepted upstream with a different commit message or timestamp will be skipped)."

I'm lost!

Now can anybody explain so nice like Yehuda did about the workflow, what and why that

git pull

did "wrong", and what the hell is that that "--rebase" does "right." Especially as here and there "--rebase" is described as something that "doesn't keep history" and therefore "bad."

Note that I put "bad" "wrong" and "right" in quotes. I know that's all relative, I just want to get some simple explanation what's going on without reading "recursion see recursion" man pages!

Thanks in advance!

<comment><USER6>
      "git pull" -> git fetch + git merge

      "git pull --rebase" -> git fetch + git rebase

git fetch is what syncs the remote changes to your local repo. . If you want to see these changes, they are referenced by so-called remote-tracking branches. To view them use:

      git branch -r

Now, if your local branch (let's say its master) has not diverged from the remote branch to which it corresponds (typically origin/master), then it doesn't matter whether you use rebase or merge. In the case where your local master is a superset of the remote master, there are no new remote changes to incorporate. In the case where where your local master is a strict subset of the remote master, then either rebase or merge will perform a so-called "fast- forward" operation which basically just updates your local master to the same commit as the remote master.

However, if your local master has diverged from the remote master, then there is work to do:

Rebase will take all your new local commits, set them aside, reset your local master to the same commit as the remote master, then replay your commits one at a time. If there are conflicts, you will of course have to resolve them as you go.

Merge, on the other hand, will attempt to create a merge commit. A merge commit is one that has two parents. In this case, the parents are the tip of the remote master and the tip of the local master. Of course, here too there may be conflicts for you to resolve.

Regardless of whether you performed rebase or merge, when done, your local master is now a superset of the remote master and you can push out the change. (Unless of course, while you were rebasing/merging, someone else pushed their changes. In this case, wash, rinse, repeat…).

Now, as to whether to use merge or rebase… there is no right answer. It very much depends on the workflow.

Rebase will give you a "cleaner" history in the sense that the history remains linear which some folks prefer. A linear history is easier to understand and if you ever need to use "git bisect" to find where something broke, a linear history is much easier to deal with.

However, some folks prefer to see the true history of development in the sense of "when so-and-so started this work, on which commit was it originally based?". In that case, merge preserves that information (as long as it wasn't a fast-forward -- but you can always force a merge commit with "git merge --no-ff").

In some cases, it makes sense to use both rebase and merge -- rebase for simpler changes and merge to incorporate long-lived topic-branches.

It pains me that the git man pages are so awful. Patches welcome (it is unfortunate that newbies provide the best perspective on how awful the docs are, while simultaneously are the least likely to be able to contribute improvements to them). Ultimately, git is actually based on some fairly simple concepts and I happen to think that once you have a conceptual understanding of it, all the commands (more or less…) start to make sense. So I strongly advocate trying to understand what the heck is going on under the hood.

That said, the Pro Git book is a much better place to start learning git than the git man pages.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER5> "Merge, on the other hand, will attempt to create a merge commit. A merge commit is one that has two parents. In this case, the parents are the tip of the remote master and the tip of the local master."

Now what I understand from that is that "merge" (that is pull without rebase) should not be worse in any way!

In both scenarios git doesn't have less information to begin with, it doesn't start with any false assumption, it's just that without --rebase the resulting local repo is supposed to contain a bit more information.

Then why in the world is "pull --rebase" again "easy" to make the result and why is plain "pull" something that's "hard" to do for a beginner?

Now I think it must be some side effect of one or another that makes the whole story relevant?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "is that there are a set of high-level version control operations that you'd expect git to be able to handle in simple cases without a lot of fuss." True.

git is a "particular kind of" swiss knife of Version Control - tonnes of options, not all of them intuitive but extremely powerful and useful if you like to work in the git way.

I, for one am a bit surprised about all this noise on workflows of Version Control , you use what you think is best suited to you and your team.

Its as useful as a language war , not all languages are equal but you use what suits your use-case and what you are most comfortable with. End of.

<comment><USER8> The reason language and version control wars exist is because these are the mechanisms by which developers interoperate. It is worthwhile for me to convince you to use Git instead of Subversion, or Python instead of C++, because I might one day work with you and have to use your tools. If there's consensus about what the best tools are, then I am less likely to experience pain when moving.

If we were talking about which editor to use, I am rarely bound to use a certain editor based on the team I'm on, so that's why editor wars are, indeed, largely noise.

<comment><USER7> "I might one day work with you and have to use your tools. If there's consensus about what the best tools are, then I am less likely to experience pain when moving."

Your point though correct in the abstract misses one crucial piece of information . Is it the best tool for the job i.e. it is not simply enough to say Use git or Python or <foo> etc. The context around it is very important.

For e.g. in my current team everyone is comfortable using git as we have a largely de-centralised development model. On the other hand in my previous role it was a very centralised - one true copy of source code model - <USER2> SVN.

The comparisons and wars that come out are devoid of this context and just say , i use this and therefore you should do. My point is that there is no one true way and attempting to posit that even though interesting is largely futile.

<comment><USER8> When we get to the point where two tools have legitimate, reasonable tradeoffs, then I agree with you.

However, your example isn't a good one because Subversion has serious deficiencies and Git works perfectly well in a centralized model. (Just "bless" one repo on a server and have everyone push to it.) I can't think of a single use-case where Subversion is a preferred way to solve the version control problem.

<comment><USER7> "I can't think of a single use-case where Subversion is a preferred way to solve the version control problem".

Developer expertise.

My point is not that Subversion is a better VCS than git , it is not. I am a big fan of git and will use it everywhere i can but i don;t get to make the decision to choose the "right" VCS every time , sometimes you end up in places where there are factors other than technical merit at play.

However, i think we are discussing a point orthogonal to the main topic at hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like Yehuda's advice to use --rebase. I'll have to try that.

I used to really like svn, but after using git for about a year I am now feeling some cognitive dissonance using svn on a customer project. Great tools are better than good tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand why --rebase isn't the default, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, you want to --rebase when pulling. I always tell newbies that they should default to --rebasing.

<comment><USER5> Why isn't --rebase default? Can anybody explain what it actually does and why it's not default, man pages are not clear to me? Every thing is explained by referring to a bunch of other things and there's not a trace of a simple explanation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, so you have to think about repository state in order to understand rebasing.

You share some common history with your remote repository (for the sake of argument lets assume you've got a single remote repo that you and your friends push to).

When you make changes and commit them locally, what you're doing is adding new commit nodes to the history tree of your local repository.

When you push to the remote repo, the chain/branch of commit nodes from your local repository gets added on to the remote repository's history.

BUT, if, while you were working and committing, someone else adds commits to the remote repository... There is now new history in the remote repository that you do not share.

What rebasing does, is say "take all the commit nodes from my local branch (remember them), and rewind the history back to the point where my repository was in synch with the remote repository. THEN update my repository with the remote changes, and try and apply all my local commits on top of my newly synched tree."

TL;DR:

if your commit tree looks like this (where 'H' are commits which you share with the remote repository. 'L' are local commits and 'R' are new commits to the remote repo, which you don't have):

H-H-H-H-H-L-L-L-L

Your friend pushes his changes so the remote repository now looks like

H-H-H-H-H-R-R-R-R

Rebasing does this:

1) H-H-H-H-H [snip] L-L-L-L

2) H-H-H-H-H << R-R-R-R

3) H-H-H-H-H-R-R-R-R << L-L-L-L

If there are conflicts, Git steps through each of your commits and lets you fix the problems and merge. If there are no conflicts, it just seamlessly merges.

<comment><USER5> Thanks knowtheory, that's exactly what I wanted to read, that git pull --rebase is "take all the commit nodes from my local branch (remember them), and rewind the history back to the point where my repository was in synch with the remote repository. THEN update my repository with the remote changes, and try and apply all my local commits on top of my newly synched tree."" Now what's "git pull" explained in the same terms?

Is it "produce errors as if remote were in sync with local even if it's obvious it isn't"? Who needs that?

If it's not, then what is a proper description?

And is there any scenario in which remote was changed, you want to push there your changes and you wouldn't want "git pull --rebase"?

Thanks!

<comment><USER8> "Normal" git development (without rebasing) naturally creates a branching history when two people make changes based off a common root. As was explained above, rebasing causes this branching history to be rewritten into a linear one. The alternative is merging, where you cause Git to record what actually happened -- which is that two changes occurred simultaneously and you explicitly brought them in sync again.

Sometimes (often) this is what you want -- it's especially useful for longer- lived branches of work, where having the history of the branch can be valuable in itself.

Also, if you share a commit with someone, you can no longer safely rebase it! The reason is that part of the definition of a commit is its set of parents -- the commits it depends on (usually 1, but can be 2 or more for a merge commit). When you rebase, you are rewriting all the parents, so you end up creating a whole stream of new commits and discarding the old ones. If you then attempt to share history with someone who has the old ones, presumably Git will become confused. (I've never actually run into this problem, but I don't use rebasing much.)

<comment><USER5> Those are good arguments why "pull --rebase" is not a default action, thank you. Now I don't understand why either "pull" or "pull --rebase" is supposed to have any different behaviour when somebody does it! As far as I undestand git has enough information not to complain more in one case and less in another, and as far as I understood, the main argument of the main article was that "--rebase" somehow "eases some pain"!? How come?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I moved all my projects and code over to git from svn about a year ago. My workflow has improved tremendously as a result - especially working in larger teams.

That being said, resolving conflicts in git has almost always been more difficult and counter-intuitive than resolving conflicts in SVN. With git, you have to learn the "right way" to do it, which typically involves several steps or a "git reset --hard origin". I can understand the frustration coming from the guy in the linked post that this post is a response to.

</comment><comment><USER11> There's a free book about git available at

<http://progit.org/book/>

Both the basics and advanced topics are clearly discussed.

<comment><USER12> yes I agree. this was clear and easy to understand. Now I keep <http://cheat.errtheblog.com/s/git> this open all the time for easy reference

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My two favorite resources for getting started with git:

1) Using Git with a central repository: <http://toroid.org/ams/git-central- repo-howto>

2) A succesful Git branching model: <http://nvie.com/git-model>

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm using git on AWS running Ubuntu Hardy. Is there a GUI tool I can use to look at my repository from a remote Windows box (where I use SecureCRT to access the instance)?

<comment><USER12> smartGIT

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Comparing git with svn doesn't make sense. It's two different tools with different use-cases and a transition from svn to git only make sense for some (motivated) teams.

<comment><USER16> While there are quite a few different workflows, there are a number of similar operations (get a repository, get updates from a remote, push changes to the remote). My point was not to compare git (as a whole) to subversion, it was to demonstrate how the tools handle those operations.

I think it's reasonable for people who are moving from subversion to git to expect that commands for these operations will exist (and they, of course do).

Finally, even in my limited description, I managed to demonstrate a benefit of git (namely, that the slightly different default workflow handles the common problem of rollback much more elegantly)</comment></comment>


Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/mobile/publication.aspx?id=167719 <comment><USER2> This scam is very old. My father described a version of it to me when I was 12.

In the early 1960s he knew a widow in Germany and she got a letter explaining about her husband's account in Nigeria. Her husband was a former oil exec and she obviously found it convincing.

The key to their scheme then was to get her to come to Nigeria where they would arrange a little drama to get her past customs so she wouldn't have to declare coming back out.

Once she was in illegally they just extorted her by threatening her with jail.

So in this case there are clear reasons

1\. They'd ultimately like to get the mark on site as it were

2\. Everybody thinks Nigeria is corrupt so they believe dirty money will exist there in large quantities

3\. Colonial contempt for Africans traditionally makes older people of a certain attitude susceptible to the idea that they are dealing with less savvy people than themselves.

<comment><USER3> It's much older than that - it dates from the 16th century [1]. I have an original example from the late 19th C. that was sent to one of my ancestors, so I did some investigating when it came to light.

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

<comment><USER4> > I have an original example from the late 19th C. that was sent to one of my > ancestors, so I did some investigating when it came to light.

Wow, I'd be fascinated to see that.

<comment><USER3> I scanned it and transcribed it and shared it online a few years ago, but not sure if that is still around, and I'd have to dig through boxes in the loft to find the original, however, the letter this article [1] describes sounds almost identical in content to the one I have.

It reminded me that I also have a "letter from the prison chaplain", and a short follow-up letter from "Antonia Garcia" in shaky writing that trails off mid-sentence, and another letter from the "chaplain" saying he had passed, enclosing a supposed prison death certificate.

[1] [http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/10/proto-spam-spanish- pri...](http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/10/proto-spam-spanish-prisoners- and-confidence-games)

EDIT: I found the transcript and have put a copy online here:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dsb_Ss9dIRa8NvoAZ0W2FLi0...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dsb_Ss9dIRa8NvoAZ0W2FLi0cxcH_2bL127DNcYOmOM/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER3> Apparently another scammer, using the same pen-name told his 1905 victim he'd been scammed, and that he'd be laughed at if he went to the press or authoritiees:

[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?res=9D07E5D811...](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?res=9D07E5D8113BE631A25754C2A9609C946497D6CF)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For this same reason, ads that advertise miracle cures, tricks and dates tend to have spelling errors and terrible graphics. They do NOT want to attract any attention from people who see right through it.

<comment><USER6> That is more likely just a result of the people available to them for drawing/writing those ads, i.e. in non-English communities, rather than a willfully intended effect.

Haven't you seen all the legit Chinese/Japanese/Indian/etc. ads in their home countries with spelling errors and "terrible graphics?" It's even somewhat of a meme [1] especially some of the stuff written on their t-shirts.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/engrish](https://www.reddit.com/r/engrish)

<comment><USER7> Anecdata: once upon a time, I got into a conversation with the chap writing the sign outside a restaurant in Morocco, with the dishes of the day. With a smile on his face, he pointed out a spelling mistake on the sign: it was one he made deliberately, because he found (or believed) that more customers came in with the mistake than without. Less professional, more informal vibe?

My whole trip to Morocco was very enlightening. The locals were extremely sharp WRT tourists and word got around surprisingly quickly. It's foolish to leap from an economy's development level to the intelligence or education of individuals within it. Economies usually suffer for more structural reasons.

<comment><USER8> I used to work for a price comparison website in the UK. After a big redesign which took them from being a horrendous mess to "glitzy web-2.0 style" (this was 2006) their conversion rates went down.

They did some user research, and a lot of users said they trusted the site less after the redesign, because it now looked more like a typical advertising business.

<comment><USER9> I worked for a sketchy MMO site back in the day (MMOEdge), and my friend who ran the site paid $20k for a very professional and slick-looking pre-built site from a team in Australia. It looked really good, much better than the old amateur-looking site that was currently running. But when he switched to it, he found conversion rates went down, by quite a bit actually. We couldn't figure it out and eventually switched back to the old "cheap" looking site, and traffic was restored.

There's something about looking TOO professional that turns people away, I guess.

<comment><USER10> I find most "Web-2.0" websites childish and amateurish-looking. It's really a matter of taste. The Bloomberg site looks cheap to me -- just like a tabloid in the supermarket.

It looked much more trustworthy a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER11> I felt the same way 10-15 years ago when the WSJ print edition started using color on the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had a friend who had a side-gig designing all the packaging for the products for a giant (billion dollar) dollar store. He did it because it paid extremely well, but it frustrated him so much as a designer because every time he'd do something that looked good it would get rejected - he had to intentionally make stuff look cheap and crappy!

<comment><USER13> Ha! Yes, I knew someone whose mom had very good taste (e.g., owned a small art gallery), and often traveled internationally with her husband who had many overseas posts. A large department store hired her on a freelance basis to do buying in Japan and Korea, where she'd scout products and diligently send in reports.

Some years later, she somehow found out that they were using her as a reverse buyer -- since she had upper-crust taste, her reports were used as a guide about what NOT do buy for their stores.

Kinda sad to see how vendors that should be selecting and creating good stuff are instead actually deliberately selecting & creating crap to market to us.

<comment><USER14> > _Some years later, she somehow found out that they were using her as a > reverse buyer -- since she had upper-crust taste, her reports were used as a > guide about what NOT do buy for their stores._

That's genius.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For anyone else getting "Site maintenance in progress" here is Google's cached version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:toQgd2k...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:toQgd2kX89oJ:research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/%3Fid%3D167719+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER16> So the best thing we can do to prevent scammers is to respond to their scams, engage them for long periods and use up their attention and time?

It will only require a little time from each of us, but it will add up to a lot of time for the scammers.

<comment><USER17> This is a perfect use case for the current state of "AI" messengers. Auto- reply to spam emails and drag out conversations.

Free app idea for those wanting to start a small machine-learning project.

<comment><USER18> This is actually a call for research from YC-funded OpenAI:

> Spam the Spammers

> Investigate the use of language models to remove the profit from spamming.

> Spammers generate a huge amount of undesirable traffic and attention. Their > emails are merely annoying for most people, but a small fraction of users > fall into their trap. Spammers receive responses from users extremely > infrequently. Therefore, they manually reply to each email.

> The task is to build a bot that automatically replies to spam emails. Such a > bot shouldn't be easy to detect, which could be achieved by use of a > powerful language model.

[https://openai.com/requests-for-research/#spam- spammers](https://openai.com/requests-for-research/#spam-spammers)

Could be an extension from Graham's A Plan for Spam, which basically called for a DDoS on spam servers:

> As I mentioned in Will Filters Kill Spam?, following all the urls in a spam > would have an amusing side-effect. If popular email clients did this in > order to filter spam, the spammer's servers would take a serious pounding. > The more I think about this, the better an idea it seems. This isn't just > amusing; it would be hard to imagine a more perfectly targeted counterattack > on spammers.

> So I'd like to suggest an additional feature to those working on spam > filters: a "punish" mode which, if turned on, would spider every url in a > suspected spam n times, where n could be set by the user.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html)

<comment><USER19> Considering that a lot of spam is sent via botnets, it would not take much for spammers to either protect themselves by hosting their pages on botnets, or use it to cause others to run a DDOS for them.

<comment><USER20> This is a DDOS of the humans, not their computers.

<comment><USER19> I was responding to the Paul Graham quote:

> So I'd like to suggest an additional feature to those working on spam > filters: a "punish" mode which, if turned on, would spider every url in a > suspected spam n times, where n could be set by the user.

EDIT: But note that the problem is the same if you reply to the e-mails. If this is automated and enough people do it, then sending spam with fake from addresses becomes an effective way of attacking peoples mail accounts. I've seen this happen first hand by a spammer that used incendiary content to trigger manual responses by sending out what claimed to be an ad for child porn sent in the name of an anti-spam activist. It was scarily effective, even though in this case it required getting people to take manual action (in this case bad enough that he needed police protection as a result of a range of credible threats)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Previous HN discussions (I omitted one without comments)

      - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8224059
      - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6673003

Source [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Why%20Do%20Nigerian%20Scammers...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Why%20Do%20Nigerian%20Scammers%20Say%20They%20Are%20from%20Nigeria%3F&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) (`past` link)

 __Update: formatting __

</comment><comment><USER22> If you respond to someone claiming to be from Nigeria then you are probably COMPLETELY unaware of the scam(s) related to Nigeria and therefore you are an ideal target and victim. By mentioning they are from Nigeria, they quickly filter out the informed and skeptical. This reduces them wasting their time since the person responding is likely to be ignorant or naive regardless of the reason for being such (unintelligent, mentally ill, old, isolated, or desperate).

</comment><comment><USER23> There's a element of truth to the idea that really glaringly obvious opening emails act as a filter for the most naive, but I suspect much of it is also because scammers tend to be lazy, prefer to write about places and companies they know about, copy other scammers' "formats" slavishly, aren't necessarily aware that what sounds like a perfectly regular name to them tags them as Nigerian to most readers whether they mention it or not, and are pretty sloppy in their execution even if they start out pretending to actually be Blackberry Lottery, London Mayfair. One big reason not to mention Nigeria, oil money or large inheritances in the opening email is that even really unworldly people have spam filters.

It's amazing how often even the relatively competently- executed scam listings that appear place on classified and auction sites raises red flags up because the reply email for Mrs Smith from Scotland detailing exactly how she'd like to be paid a deposit by trusted payment service PayPal belongs to princeadebayo or mrsolatunde. Still suspect they're more likely to make money doing that than the ones who have to really, really cajole the rare credulous person that replies to them to make that "deposit" for the 713,000,000 dollars of inheritance money.

Worth noting the fact that Nigerians are also associated with more non-obvious forms of online fraud is almost certainly damaging for those of Nigerian heritage who actually are trying to conduct a bit of business or sell off unwanted assets online.

<comment><USER24> I have worked in Nigeria on occasion, seeing as my employer has a presence just about anywhere hydrocarbons can conceivably be coerced from the ground.

Several of the local companies I worked with had front companies in other countries to avoid being dismissed as scammers off-hand - even by fellow Nigerian enterprises...

My local agent once lamented that "The world mistreats us Nigerians; it is such a shame that 99% bad apples give all Nigerians a bad name..." :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cf. The Dark Lord of the Internet [1] and the relevant HN discussion [2], which give an interesting peek into the psychology of internet scams.

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the- dark...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-dark-lord-of- the-internet/355726/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6972139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6972139)

</comment><comment><USER26> In the early 1990s I got a paper letter from a Nigerian scammer. It came in an airmail envelope addressed by hand—almost completely illegibly—to my work address. (Seriously impressed by the Post Office's diligence in parsing that mess and delivering it.)

The letter was an _n_ th generation photocopy, the text the familiar appeal. But they used to send them out on paper.

</comment><comment><USER27> If this is all true, then why would we think that scammers who say they are from Nigeria actually are?

<comment><USER28> Its funny you ask that but I've watched and read a few articles of Nigerian scammers actually operating out of a country called Benin which is next door to Nigeria itself and another country (which I forget the name of). Anyways, from what I've read its basically the idea of trying not to implicate themselves and moving to a country that is known much much lesser to a scale

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I heard there is this weird statistical phenomenon where as the scammer, you actually benefit from the email message being a little bit dumb. If it were actually a plausible message without typos and obvious red flags, you'd catch many more skeptical individuals in your pipeline. You spend time trying to get these people to send money, but eventually they inevitably realize it is a scam, and your time is wasted. Extremely gullible people however, won't be deterred by typos and red flags. Therefore, typos and red flags filter out skeptical individuals, enriching your pipeline.

<comment><USER30> That is exactly what the link/paper says, "By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self- select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Funny thing is I am one of those who actually fell for it when I was silly kid who had just started using the Internet in 8th grade.

Of course, I didn't have a penny to pay but it felt like I am missing out on a great opportunity. :)

</comment><comment><USER32> A scammer from anywhere can (should?) claim to be Nigerian, for the same reasons.

</comment><comment><USER33> Dead link, but this is the exact title of a section in "Think like a Freak" by Levvit and Dubner.

</comment><comment><USER34> > By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets > the most promising marks to self-select

This is why I string scammers along as far as possible. I can't stop them, but I can slow them down.

</comment><comment><USER35> I find it quite interesting that nobody has yet mentioned "The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference"

[http://web.archive.org/web/20120127023739/http://j-walk.com/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120127023739/http://j-walk.com/other/conf/index.htm) [http://www.stearns.org/fun/nigerian-email- conference.htm](http://www.stearns.org/fun/nigerian-email-conference.htm)

An oldie but goodie.

</comment><comment><USER36> To qualify their leads

</comment><comment><USER37> Non-mobile link, which is more legible on a wider display: [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=167719](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=167719)

</comment><comment><USER38> I reckon then that the best way to help people avoid these scammers, is to actually answer their emails, therefore making the scammer go through tons of false positives... interesting.

</comment><comment><USER39> Link is broken, Google cache doesn't have it. Mirror?

<comment><USER40> Likely the answer here ...

[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/96121/why-do- phi...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/96121/why-do-phishing- emails-have-spelling-and-grammar-mistakes)

This may well be for the same reason as many scammers rely on the tired old 'Nigerian Prince' strategy: by self-selecting for gullible targets, they can be more efficient.

In phishing, as in scams, sending the initial batch of emails is the easy part. The hard part is coaxing information out of the target (which can require a concerted exchange of emails). That can represent a significant investment of time.

As a result, it's really important to ensure that the people you correspond with may actually give you the information that you're after. It can therefore be advantageous to send a badly-drafted email, on the basis that the people who respond to that are likely to be gullible enough to be phished.

<comment><USER41> It would be interesting to deploy a network of bots that responds to those scams, posing as gullible targets. That would then significantly increase the workload of scammers and reduce their availability to conduct scams on actual people.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER42> There are groups that already do these types of things.

<comment><USER41> Oh nice! Would you happen to have a few names to guide a Google query?

<comment><USER40> [http://www.autobait.com/faq/](http://www.autobait.com/faq/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Exact strategy of Republicans, but differing statistics. Form a polarizing ideology of economic claptrap and a combination of phony religiousty and racism. Hone polarizing features. Find it suckers about 35% of the population. Much higher hit rate than the Nigerian scam but same principle.

The 35% is a big problem. So combine it with a tax structure that favors any non-employee and high wage employees. Hope for a majority,

</comment><comment><USER44> seriously guys! you took research.microsoft down! :(

<comment><USER45> Probably hosted on Azure 2.0

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Ummm... because Westerners' prior beliefs about endemic corruption in Nigeria is a given, which is what the scams are usually asking you to facilitate.

</comment><comment><USER47> Silly Microsoft.

Nigerian Scammers say they are from Nigeria because that's what makes then "Nigerian Scammers".

Scammers who say they are from Cameroon or Botswana are "Cameroonian Scammers" and "Botswanian Scammers", respectively and not, "Nigerian Scammers".

We might ask why Nigeria is a popular choice among scammers, as the country to which to claim a connection or origin. But that is a different question. The article seems to be trying to answer that question, but mostly fails. Yes, the point is well understood that scammers have to pitch their proposal in such a way that only the gullible will bite, who are likely to follow through. However, it doesn't answer, "why specifically Nigeria?" Because to someone of reasonable intellect, a scam letter claiming connections to Cameroon is just as "comical" as one claiming connections to Nigeria.

Let me offer a hypothesis.

The choice of Nigeria may simply be some sort of unquestioned tradition among scammers.

Perhaps it like the proverbial "onion in the varnish" (written about by our dearly beloved Paul Graham himself: [http://paulgraham.com/arcll1.html](http://paulgraham.com/arcll1.html)).

Maybe scammers learn scamming from other scammers via some hand-me-down "Scamming HOWTO" documents, and those documents claim that using Nigeria works (so just use it and don't question it). If the scammer newbies tried Cameroon instead, they might find that it also works just as well, but they don't; they stick with the shibboleth of using the "tried and true" Nigeria.

Perhaps at some time in history, the name Nigeria did actually invoke images of financial corruption and could specifically appeal to some gullible person's sense of greed. (Just like the onion in the varnish did once help to identify temperature by how fast it caramelizes.) Today, Nigeria isn't any sort of "poster country" for corruption in the popular imagination.

Interestingly, Nigeria is even used in scams that don't have to do with financial corruption. Years ago, some woman claiming to be from Nigeria sent me links to her profile: a dating scam! Just for fun, I started to send "her" some conversations, discussing all sorts of Nigerian matters that I could google up: current events in Nigeria and such. Then the story turned that "she" is actually in Portland Oregon, but originally from Nigeria. LOL ...

Basically, scammers seem to be quite stupidly clinging to some formula involving Nigeria, which they possibly pick up from their predecessors, and are even naively applying it in irrelevant ways which have nothing to do with any connection between Nigeria and corruption.

</comment><comment><USER48> Why is a 2012 article published on Hacker News today?

<comment><USER49> People submit all kinds of articles to the 'new' section all the time. Some of them get upvoted to the front page.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any advanced react/redux tips you'd like to share? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Rather generic question, so I'll give you a generic answer: check out my React/Redux links list [0], which points to many categorized articles on various React and Redux topics. You might also be interested in my "Practical Redux" tutorial series [1] and "Idiomatic Redux" best practices and explanations series [2].

[0] [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links)

[1] [https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/practical- redux](https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/practical-redux)

[2] [https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/idiomatic- redux](https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/idiomatic-redux)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the generic question. From the links you've posted, I discovered your Practical Redux course. I just bought it!! [1].

Pretty excited to go through the course!!

[1]: [https://www.educative.io/collection/5687753853370368/5707702...](https://www.educative.io/collection/5687753853370368/5707702298738688)

<comment><USER2> Cool! Hopefully you find it useful and informative. Let me know if you've got questions.</comment></comment></comment>


Here's what Americans don't understand about Nordic countries - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-americans-dont-understand-about-nordic-countries-2016-3 <comment> V-2 Author really oversimplifies things when he chalks distinct Nordic mentality up to "all Nordics sharing a sense of kinship and having fond feelings for each other", and debunks it by pointing out they "dislike many of their fellow citizens" etc.

Of course things aren't as caricaturally trivial as that, which makes it a strawman argument, hard to take seriously.

Here's a more balanced take on Nordic mentality, from a British left-wing newspaper: [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/denmark...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/denmark.norway)

</comment><comment><USER2> Summary of 2 of the linked-to articles:

Ease of doing business rankings:

      7) US
      8) Sweden
      9) Norway
      10) Finland

Interestingly, within the subcategories, the US only does better in ease of getting credit and resolving bankruptcies.

Taxes on goods & services as % of GDP:

      US: ~4%
      Norway: ~ll%
      Sweden: ~12%
      Finland: ~14%</comment>


Ask HN: Privacy focused CDN - <AUTHOR> Hey there, We search a CDN which is focused on the privacy of our visitors and dont keep logs. Have you any idea?<p>-Thank you! <comment><USER2> Have you looked at building your own CDN? I've built several for clients over the years. It's not difficult and it's definitely a good investment in your case.

</comment><comment><USER3> KeyCDN is able to disable the logs or forward them to your syslog server.</comment>


MP3 for Image Compression (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://keyj.emphy.de/mp3-for-image-compression/ <comment><USER3> I just posted the article[1] that I think prompted this script to be brought up.

What I did instead was to run images through an audio editing tool, which lets you apply echoes or do mindboggling things like change the volume of the image. The script can be found on github[2].

[1] [http://memcpy.io/audio-editing-images.html](http://memcpy.io/audio- editing-images.html)

[2] [https://github.com/robertfoss/audio_shop/](https://github.com/robertfoss/audio_shop/)

<comment><USER4> Nice script :) I did a similar thing by hand with graphicsmagick and sox a couple years ago - the most fun result was from wahwah, pretty much a wide bandpass filter with centre frequency varying cyclically over time: [http://lewisinthelandofmachines.tumblr.com/post/59405537096/...](http://lewisinthelandofmachines.tumblr.com/post/59405537096/the- cover-of-ripley-through-a-wah-wah-audio)

<comment><USER3> Thank you!

I haven't even tried the wahwah effect, you've definitely piqued my interest.

I had a look through the SoX effects list[1] for the wahwah, but can't seem to find it. The closest thing I found was the 'flanger' effect[2].

[1] [http://sox.sourceforge.net/sox.html#EFFECTS](http://sox.sourceforge.net/sox.html#EFFECTS)

[2] [https://allg.one/zKMP](https://allg.one/zKMP)

<comment><USER4> Shamefully I can't remember which wahwah I used - I was treating the audio with both Audacity and Pro Tools as well as sox though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The obvious question here is: what does JPEG encoded music sound like?

<comment><USER6> I'm more curious about a different idea. If you hook up electrodes to a tongue and then start activating its sensors according to the amount of light being received, people quickly develop the ability to see via their tongue.

So what happens when you encode visual information into sound in such a way as to have a sound-to-environment signal and you just keep that active and running real time. We already know that this mechanism exists in nature and can even be developed in humans, since echo-location is a thing.

Edit: It occurs to me that actually doing sensory experiments like this might really mess with someones head... maybe not a good idea to play around with it casually.

Edit 2: If we were going to swap out one of our senses for another, which should we get rid of and which should we gain?

<comment><USER7> Actually there are around (and have been for a few years aready) some glasses that scan the image you'd see and translate that into a sound that you need a bit training to understand as an image[0]. Some people have gotten used to them, while others have gone the way of the bat and learned to echolocate[1].

[0] [http://gizmodo.com/these-synthesia-glasses-help-blind- people...](http://gizmodo.com/these-synthesia-glasses-help-blind-people-see- via-son-745027691)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a whole subreddit for things like this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/glitch_art/](https://www.reddit.com/r/glitch_art/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Now I wonder, what happens if you add sound effect, to change pitch, tone, or widen the sound stage. What would do to the decoded image?

I think the 2.00 bits/ pixel result looks quite more "analog" with a film grain effect to me.

<comment><USER10> I did this with Audacity to some bmp images. I got some interesting results. I just read in the bmp files as raw data and manipulated them that way.

<comment><USER11> I did similar a long time ago with zip compressed TIFs and JPGs. Added reverb and the results were really unusual: [https://vimeo.com/105317804](https://vimeo.com/105317804)

<comment><USER12> I really wanted salad fingers to pop out of my screen.

Thanks for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did something similar with Ogg Vorbis back in 2006.

There are also some results of experiments with the Opus codec posted in the comments.

[https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2006/01/lossy_co...](https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2006/01/lossy_compression/)

</comment><comment><USER14> MP3 is inherently a one dimensional codec, whereas JPEG is two dimensional. No wonder it performs much better.

<comment><USER15> JPEG transforms 2D images into 1D arrays using a "zigzag" ordering of 8x8 blocks. See this diagram on wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG#/media/File:JPEG_ZigZag.s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG#/media/File:JPEG_ZigZag.svg)

It's a shame the author didn't do the same transformation, because it would de-correlate a lot of the error noise. You can see in the highest compression settings that the "MP3" image compression is smearing everything horizontally. If it used a zigzag transformation, it would be a more smeared both horizontally and vertically, but probably less visually bad.

<comment><USER16> _JPEG transforms 2D images into 1D arrays using a "zigzag" ordering of 8x8 blocks._

No. The zigzag ordering is applied to the _frequency components_ , not to the _image pixels_.

<comment><USER17> What if you try to compress the frequency components, scanned in zig-zag, using MP3 (without the first FFT like layers if they exists, I guess)? - <USER2> that even makes any sense...

<comment><USER16> That doesn't really make sense. MP3 takes inputs in signal-space, not frequency-space. You _could_ run:

1\. Divide image into blocks (as in JPEG),

2\. Perform two-dimensional FFTs (as in JPEG),

3\. Scan frequency components in zig-zag order (as in JPEG),

4\. Run all of the steps of MP3 compression aside from the initial "split audio into blocks" and "perform FFTs" stages.

That would pretty much just give you a less efficient version of JPEG; both JPEG and MP3 take advantage of knowing how much each frequency component "matters" (i.e., how precisely it's necessary to encode the value to avoid artifacts noticed by humans), so using the MP3 quantization logic on frequency amplitudes from images would result in wasting bits by encoding certain amplitudes more precisely than is useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Our ears are more sensitive to amplitude errors than phase errors (as a function of frequency, in frequency space). Our eyes are the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love this. I am really hoping others come to the comments to share similar "misuse" of technology stories.

<comment><USER20> As long as we're dealing with signals, everything is within the realm of possibility.

<comment><USER14> I'm hoping for someone to drive the timing of a spark-ignition internal- combustion-engine with MP3 data, and report what it sounds like.

<comment><USER19> Not exactly what you were asking for, but made me think of these:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr4zb- HHZs4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr4zb-HHZs4)

and

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee5evlN8Bbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee5evlN8Bbs)

and if you go down the rabbit hole, you end up here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not really related, but a while back I wrote a script to visualize/hear audio generation loss with different file formats:

[https://github.com/skratchdot/audio-generation- loss/tree/mas...](https://github.com/skratchdot/audio-generation- loss/tree/master/files/loop01)

So, mp3s add a bunch of silence to the beginning of the file, and ogg files start to "chirp". I never got around to putting this info in a consumable, easy to understand format though. The videos in these folders just continuously re-encode a source file w/ a given lossy format.

See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_loss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_loss)

<comment><USER22> Kinda sounds like "I'm sitting in a room"

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

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the link! I hadn't heard of this before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It would be interesting to see if the horizontal artifacts could be avoided by feeding the pixels in a different order to the encoder.

<comment><USER24> Ordering the pixel data by their locations along a space-filling curve, maybe.

<comment> jay-anderson Definitely: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_curve). I'd still expect the final result to look worse than jpeg, but it'd be a much more interesting comparison.

<comment><USER25> or split the image in its frequency domains first, and then run the mp3 compression on a spatial curve, but at this point you're already doing a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_cosine_transform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_cosine_transform) a core part of JPEG compression, which was actually adapted for mp3: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_discrete_cosine_trans...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_discrete_cosine_transform)

<comment><USER26> Before I clicked the OP link, I originally thought it was going to be this type of implementation...cool nonetheless, but would really like to see someone try this and share!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> They're both based on the DCT. Mp3 (and AAC and Vorbis and more) use a modified DCT which uses block overlapping to mitigate aberrations on the block boundary.

Its no surprise it works, however you wouldn't necessarily get "as good" compression as you would from an optimized DCT coder (JPEG etc) based on the data duplication (2x for the overlapping blocks).

See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_discrete_cosine_trans...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_discrete_cosine_transform) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_cosine_transform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_cosine_transform)

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if it's possible to create a set of data that produces an actual image when compressed with JPEG and an actual music when compressed with MP3 (for example, a JPEG picture of pianist that also gives a MP3 piano piece).

<comment><USER29> well.. does this count? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowlicker#Hidden_images](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowlicker#Hidden_images)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> While amusing, this is bound to quite bad since the function basis is restricted to a single axis.

</comment><comment><USER31> Curious enough, years ago I've seen a blog post where the author used PNG lossless compression for FLAC audios. Guess there should be a lot of room for improving both image and audio compression, even because we're still ending up using jpeg and mp3.

<comment><USER32> Isn't PNG just DEFLATE? You should get basically the same result by just gzipping it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is there a way to use image compression for MP3s?

I'd like to store music files in my phone's camera roll, and easily upload them to a website where some Javascript could decode and play them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Now for big time shits-and-grins, add a deep learning GAN to generate a more refined signal during the decompression / upsampling stage.

That's something your Turbo Pascal code never attempted.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think the question really is, does it do anything for file size? If there were a radical difference in total size, the quality degradation might be an interesting compromise.

<comment><USER36> The side-by-side assessment compares JPEG and MP3 at the same bitrate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I remember reading an article where file data (a ZIP file I believe) was converted into a bitmap image, and then it was compressed with PNG for another few % of compression.

<comment><USER38> While it might be possible for special cases [1], I have my concerns, you really can't compress (lossless) beyond the (information theoretic) entropy -- in which case one would try to compress deflate (zip) with deflate (png).

[1]: I remember when I was taking an information theory lesson at the university and told the (video/jpeg compression guru) professor that I compressed an AVI file with my dump arithmetic coding implementation, he was shocked, turns out the file had some large crappy header from the editor

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> What about turning the image into a sound, then compressing it with MP3, then turning it back to an image again?

</comment><comment><USER40> The search for an image that encodes the Close Encounters theme is on.

</comment><comment><USER41> Where are the images???

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm amazed this works at all!

<comment><USER43> It kind of has to -- both compression algorithms work by doing a bunch of lossless steps to get to a format that can easily be quantized for lossy compression. The prioritization of how much quantization to apply is picked according to perceptual models of vision/hearing, to devote more bits to quantizing the things we can actually notice.

Needless to say, a perceptual model designed for audio is a pretty bad choice for a long string of grayscale pixels, interpreted as sampled audio. It looks like a lot of high-frequency content was discarded, resulting in horizontal blurring.

<comment><USER42> Has to? Are you saying that the whole thing would not fall apart if, say, someone used color images instead of greyscale?

<comment><USER43> If you ordered each subpixel linearly, that would work too. You'd see pretty much the same effect of horizontal distortion. Because the input data is PCM (just magnitude values), same as audio, it "works" just fine. If the input data were some other representation, like text, you'd get gibberish out.

<comment><USER42> Okay, so it does depend on the representation, but most reasonable representations will work. I guess the big exception would be trying to do this on something that is already compressed, like a gzipped bmp, or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Interesting!</comment>


Show HN: Weekend project - New Year's resolution countdown - <AUTHOR>

Over this past weekend I had the idea to build a sort of todo list but with countdown to New Year. I think this can help motivating yourself to accomplish your goal in this year. For example, I've added English Grammar, Improve JS skills, 100 push-ups and so on. I have 81 days 6 hours and 17 minutes to prove to myself that I can do it!<p>http://100.khakimov.com/ <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://100.khakimov.com></comment>


The "I'm Launching In 2014" Contest - <AUTHOR> http://lp.kickofflabs.com/2014-contest?kid=2PSA2

<comment><USER2> I don't have a Facebook account and I don't have follower on Twitter ... I'm not sure what trying to be viral gains you in this case. I'd be happy to give them my e-mail address if they were going to send encouragement, interesting/useful information and tips, but I get the feeling I'm signing up to be sold something.

<comment><USER3> Agree. For me anything that says, "LIKE X on Facebook." is an instant non- starter. At least give people an alternative, non-social registration mechanism.

In fact, if there is an old-fashioned non-social way to do it, I'm more inclined to actually use facebook or twitter since it doesn't seem so pushy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I am one of the founders of KickoffLabs.

Liking on Facebook is just one of the ways to enter. However, after re-reading the content I can see how that is not very clear.

You can also enter with just an email and you are free to share the link in more traditional methods.

I get where you are coming from on liking. I rarely do this myself, but it is an important option for many of our customers and one of the goals of the contest was to help showcase our product.

Thanks for the feedback. -Scott</comment></comment></comment>


The Hot Dog Report - <AUTHOR> http://www.clearfood.com/food_reports/2015/the_hotdog_report <comment><AUTHOR> "Human DNA found in 2% of samples"</comment>


On Anger, Disgust, and Love: Interview with Martha Nussbaum - <AUTHOR> http://emotionresearcher.com/on-anger-disgust-love/ <comment><USER2> > I argue that political love needs to be particularistic in this way, but > that care must always be taken to harness that particular love to good moral > principles and keep people moving back and forth. Good political rhetoric > does this instinctively, and I study many cases. Think of Martin Luther > King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. If Rawls had written it as an abstract > structure of principle, the civil rights movement would never have > succeeded. It was the soaring particular poetry, the rhythm of the language, > its ability to capture Biblical images of love and justice, that made hearts > leap out of their narrow breasts and soar toward something beautiful. Good > thinkers have to do this each in their own context.

What? Never would have happened? So Malcolm X was totally lying when he described [ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kf7fujM4ag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kf7fujM4ag) ] how it was bubbling at every street corner, while King and others squabbled about money, and that it was for _fear_ of people walking on Washington and shutting it down that suddenly it was channeled into some kumbaya style thing? I'm not a huge fan of his, maybe I find him racist, I don't know, but I can't deny the principledness and energy, and I find his version of events way more realistic than "an impassioned speech making people realize they didn't want to be treated like shit anymore".

But actually, I quoted the above because it reminded me of a thinker who might disagree:

> _What frightened me in your essay was the gospel of love which you begin to > preach at the end. In politics, love is a stranger, and when it intrudes > upon it nothing is being achieved except hypocrisy. All the characteristics > you stress in the Negro people: their beauty, their capacity for joy, their > warmth, and their humanity, are well-known characteristics of all oppressed > people. They grow out of suffering and they are the proudest possession of > all pariahs. Unfortunately, they have never survived the hour of liberation > by even five minutes. Hatred and love belong together, and they are both > destructive; you can afford them only in the private and, as a people, only > so long as you are not free._

\-- Hannah Arendt, Letter to James Baldwin, November 21, 1962

</comment><comment><USER3> "I think that Democrats are sometimes guilty of playing on fear and anger too, for example a resentful desire to smash elites without any realistic constructive analysis. I think that Sanders is admirable in many ways, but by inviting people to feel anger and in a sense fear of elites, and then offering them only hopelessly unworkable programs, he encouraged emotional irresponsibility."

</comment><comment><USER4> I could never understand how anyone can find Nussbaum's writings as remotely interesting. "For those who like that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing they like."

<comment><USER5> > "In terms of writing for newspapers or doing press interviews, the best > in my experience are India, Italy, Germany, and Belgium"

The only reason she has such a media presence in India is because she is white. The stupidity of American academics on all matters Indian is almost too astonishing to believe - that goes for her pal Amartya Sen as well. Anyone who has any understanding of this cult (yes I use that word after due consideration) hates them with passion.

<comment><USER6> Out of curiosity- any English sources of writing about India you would recommend?</comment></comment></comment>


Nokia Microsoft to Launch a Windows Flip Phone  - <AUTHOR> http://www.symbiantweet.com/nokia-microsoft-to-launch-a-windows-flip-phone-exclusive-images

<comment><USER2> The hardware buttons in the concept images look like they are for Android.

<comment><USER3> This was originally released as a possible Android design in late January <http://mobileluv.info/crazy-tri-fold-android-phone-video/></comment></comment>


The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1995) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.4frontierscorp.com/dev/assets/Economic%20Viability%20of%20Mars%20Colonization.pdf

<comment><USER2> I do not understand the obsession for focusing on colonizing only planets. We won't be viably "in" space until we produce mass quantities of raw materials from The Moon and asteroids. Lifting from Earth is always more expensive in energy. Once we build space stations, why would people who grew up in them want to live "dirtside"? Why would people who grew up on Earth want to live on Mars instead of a nice climate controlled habitat? I'm sure some will, but I bet most won't. Beyond mining and tourism, I doubt Mars will be heavily populated.

<comment><USER3> To survive long-term without getting massively irradiated you need, at a minimum, metres of rock between you and the sun (and as you say, lifting them from Earth is going to be expensive). Ideally a magnetosphere too. Gravity is also desirable for health reasons and random practicality things (e.g. in zero-g you have to sleep in a draught, as otherwise there's a risk of a dangerous bubble of CO2 forming around your head). And temperature can be a huge problem for spacecraft that aren't attached to a big heat reservoir - scorching in the sun, freezing in the shade.

Maybe ultimately we'll be able to construct nice habitats for orbiting stations, but with current engineering capabilities rocky bodies are the only safe places to stay long-term. I certainly expect we'll get to asteroids eventually. But for now, Mars is closer than the asteroids, closer in delta-V terms than the Moon, and much more promising in terms of having organic-y raw materials available for farming and fuel. It makes sense to go there (or maybe Venus, but aerostats would be a big chunk of new engineering) first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is also the book length "The Case for Mars" by the same author:

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

[I've had a romantic obsession with the colonization of Mars ever since I read the KSR Mars Trilogy]

<comment><USER5> Also worth mentioning is the Mars Underground documentary, detailing Zubrin's work and mission over the years:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If economic exploitation of Antarctica, which is only a few hours away from "civilization", has water literally everywhere, and where the air is perfectly breathable is currently not viable, I can't imagine what it would take to make Mars, or mining asteroids, viable.

<comment><USER7> It's also kind of vital for the balance of the planet's ecosystems, as we're slowly finding out. If we melt it to get materials under there, there's a sizable chance of long term regret.

Whereas Mars doesn't have an ecosystem at present and no species to endanger.

I want to make other planets livable so we can stop killing this one so much.

<comment><USER8> > I want to make other planets livable so we can stop killing this one so > much.

What (insufficient thought it might be) political support there is for efforts to stop killing this planet is based largely on the idea that "its the only one we have", so I'm not sure that really works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the main issue with Mars not it's atmosphere or landscape but rather the fact that it has no magnetic field to speak of? That poses an issue for electronics as well as any living beings that aren't tardigrades.

Edit: the only solution to this that I can think of would be to have any and all housing underground, since I don't think it will be possible to restore Mars' magnetosphere.

<comment><USER10> Forgive my ignorance but what are the implications of no magnetic field on humans, mammals etc? Does it regulate some crucial biological function(s)?

<comment><USER11> A planetary magnetic field acts as a shield for space-based radiation that may otherwise interfere with biological processes. There's some really nasty stuff out there that the earth's field deflects for us : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#Magnet...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#Magnetosphere)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Regarding food growing, I sort of expect that on either Mars or the Moon you would end up using solar panels to feed grow lights. You lose power via solar cell inefficiency but you make some of that back by shifting the spectrum of the light you emit into the wavelengths plants can absorb most easily. It's a hassle, but potentially less so than all the dangers your plants could be running into above ground.

And I figure the only viable colonization sites on the moon are the north and south poles, where you can get solar power continuously.

<comment><USER13> Why not use an orbital mirror that reflects only the wavelengths desired?

<comment><USER12> The idea is that you want to keep your plants away from the radiation, low pressure, and micrometeorites on the surface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "It is shown, that of all bodies in the solar system other than Earth, Mars is unique in that it has the resources required to support a population of sufficient size to create locally a new branch of human civilization."

<comment><USER15> Except that despite beautiful renderings of cities on the surface of Mars, the radiation would force everyone to live underground. And if we are going to build huge cities under the surface of Mars, we might as well try it here. But no one is doing it,because there is no point.</comment></comment>