Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year - <AUTHOR> http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/member-megaupload-conspiracy-pleads-guilty-copyright-infringement-charges-and-sentenced-one <comment><USER3> I really dislike the extra-territorial aspect of it.

From what I understand the Netherlands copyright law is more lenient than the US law. For instance downloading copyrighted material was legal until very recently. So downloading something from Megaupload was hardly a crime there... [http://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material- fin...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-finally- becomes-illegal-in-the-netherlands/)

So you could do something which is legal, or illegal but not criminal offense (civil) in the country where you live, but if it displeases the US, then suddenly they can throw you in jail in a foreign country (the US) where you have no ties.

I break Chinese laws on a daily basis (Tank Man!). Why should I care about US law, since I do not live there, nor am I a citizen? It's not like I can vote for these laws...

<comment><USER4> Also imprisoning people who are not a danger to society in any way shape or form is very modern American. And socially destructive.

<comment><USER5> [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-imprisoners- dilemma/](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-imprisoners-dilemma/) has this creepy chart [https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/roed...](https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/roeder- feature-incarceration-1.png)

<comment><USER6> I think this is because of "war on drugs." Officials decides that drug sellers and drug users are danger to the society, and therefore locked away (i will not argue about dangers, just stating what Nixon and most of officials did)

<comment><USER7> Three strike laws, zero tolerance, the War on Drugs and prison profiteering have resulted in a generations of poor or black males who will spend the majority of their adult lives in prison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This just seems ridiculous to me. I may well get downvoted, but it needs saying. Why do 99% of the world's governments seem completely retarded when it comes to copyright laws?

How many tens of millions in legal resources were expended in bringing 'justice' here? And what does the outcome even matter? Good job, tens of millions down the drain for _one_ year of an Estonian's time? The system would surely be better served if they just handed those millions to the actual copyright holders?

The only real victory (if that's what they'd like to call it) is having taken the site down in the first place, not that that did a single thing to kerb 'illegal' filesharing...

The industry has moved on and adapted just fine.

<comment><USER9> I work in Law Enforcement, so feel to disregard my opinion as biased , however, 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. I used to find computers with lists and lists of megaupload urls. When that method died out a little beacon of happy shone for me. Now I understand that free movies trumps removing abusive material, and as rapidshare and others took a more reasoned approach the child abuse material slipped into TOR and then i2p (after we brought the house down repeatedly on lolitacity and similar places in TOR). So it was more of a temporary reprieve. But those still at it have to work a bit harder and I'm happy about that. It's all about the free movies right? Well if that's your world, you're lucky.

<comment><USER10> Your gross simplification of the issue to "free movies vs raping children" is a straw-man. That kind of patronizing condescension may work on morons, but there are those who have given careful consideration to the issue and decided that despite the negative aspects of free speech and the rule of law, that free speech is in fact more important than catching file-sharers of any kind, and that your ends-justifies-the-means philosophy is absolutely the wrong way for police to operate in a "free country". I'm glad you realize that you're playing wack-a-mole, while perverts film themselves raping children and then sell that. Hopefully one day you'll graduate to actually stopping child abuse at the source, but hey, feeling good about yourself in this moment is more important than actually doing good, right?

<comment><USER9> The depressing reality is that I'm confronting the reality of the hands on abuse on a day to day basis. That's my world. If your's doesn't have that, lucky you. I don't feel good about it in the slightest. But thanks for letting me vent that :) I'm not sure why free speech IS file sharing in your argument. Maybe freedom of intellectual property? You're also making assumptions about the law I operate under. I'm not in the US or NZ. So I couldn't have any impact on the mega situation. I too am amazed by the extra-territorial nature of the proceedings. I think it's bad law. I mean, WETA is in NZ, some of their movies would have been on mega, it could have been done by New Zealand police and courts. Why not?

I am occasionally regaled by tales from investigators I have assisted with descriptions of jail sentences handed down to abusers- you would think that would be satisfying. It's not. It's just confirmation by jury and society that they were in fact evil human beings and in a couple of years they'll be back. And that's grim.

<comment><USER10> >The depressing reality is that I'm confronting the reality of the hands on abuse on a day to day basis. That's my world. If your's doesn't have that, lucky you.

Yeah, I get it, you're a dedicated do-gooder and people don't stroke your ego often enough. You're a legend in your own mind.

>I'm not sure why free speech IS file sharing in your argument.

"file sharing" or 'freeloaders watching movies without paying' is a minor consequence of free speech on the internet.

>You're also making assumptions about the law I operate under.

Your rhetoric falls within what I would classify as typical American scaremongering. TBH, if you're going to make these kinds of posts in a thread about the US DOJ's crowing about their success defending private industry's profit goals; I don't think it matters much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Uh, oh. Lets hope that programmers at Google and Dropbox don't find themselves in prison for knowingly developing web applications that people are using for infringing content. This is ridiculous. Lets jail the developers of uTorrent while we are at it, thanks to them, I am able to easily queue up a torrent of Game of Thrones.

We are living in a world where people are being jailed or acts that cause no actual harm to anyone all the while people committing actual crimes go unnoticed or repeatedly go in and out of the system. People slinging drugs in the streets probably get lesser sentences than Andrus got for helping develop Megaupload.

"In court papers, Nomm agreed that the harm caused to copyright holders by the Mega Conspiracy's criminal conduct exceeded $400 million. He further acknowledged that the group obtained at least $175 million in proceeds through their conduct."

Classic entertainment industry mathematics. How can a figure as large as $400 million be accurately proven? Seems like they just spun a massive wheel down at the law firm and chose whatever number sounded large, but not over the top. More specifically, how can a computer programmer who doesn't sound like had any involvement in the business side of things know how much Megaupload supposedly cost the industry?

There are so many things about this story that don't sit right with me. They went after the low hanging fruit. They couldn't touch Kim Dotcom, so they're going for the vulnerable and lesser high profile people involved in hopes of building up a case for bringing down Dotcom. This is what it is all about: sending a message to Dotcom and trying to slowly try anyone even remotely involved in the Megaupload site. They know Kim won't go down without a fight, they'll basically say: Well one of the sites developers admitted there was copyrighted material on the site and he knew about it, he was sent to jail.

As a developer this worries me. If my employer is committing illegal acts I don't know about like copyright infringement or fraud, does that mean I'll be sent to jail even if I legitimately didn't know? We should all be concerned with this judgement.

<comment><USER12> > Uh, oh. Lets hope that programmers at Google and Dropbox don't find > themselves in prison for knowingly developing web applications that people > are using for infringing content. This is ridiculous.

Neither Google nor Dropbox was set up with the intent of aiding copyright infringement. Neither Google nor Dropbox based their business model on aiding copyright infringement. The comparison is invalid.

> As a developer this worries me. If my employer is committing illegal acts I > don't know about like copyright infringement or fraud, does that mean I'll > be sent to jail even if I legitimately didn't know? We should all be > concerned with this judgement.

He was the head of software development for Megaupload. It is hard to imagine that he did not have full knowledge of what they were doing and was not involved in planning it.

<comment><USER13> To be fair, Megaupload didn't explicitly condone copyright infringement, and if I recall correctly infringing files were removed.

Are my memories flawed and Megaupload ignored the copyright infringement notices, or is Megaupload the fall guy to scare everyone else?

<comment><USER12> When Megaupload received notification of an illegal file, their action depended on the type of file. If it was child porn or terrorism propaganda, they deleted the file. If it was copyright infringement, they made the specific URL that was reported stop working, but retained the file, and all other links that referred to that file continued to work.

Even making the specific URLs stop working was a sore spot with Dotcom. He sent emails to employees telling them to not even do that when they got a mass report of infringement from an "insignificant source". An "insignificant source" meant anyone other than a major organization in the US (e.g., major Hollywood studios).

As far as explicitly condoning copyright infringement goes, sometimes users would see movie trailers, and ask Mega where they can see the full movie online, and Mega employees would answer by pointing them to third party sites that linked to the full movies on Mega. One Mega email to such a user included the explanation that you cannot find the links by directly searching Mega because "that would cause us a lot of trouble".

<comment><USER14> Megaupload also ran a monetary incentive scheme that ranked rewards for users based on the value of the content; discovery during the prosecution turned up emails from Megaupload employees overtly acknowledging copyrighted content and rewarding it with enhanced payouts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> By that logic, authors of filesystems, ssh, TCP/IP should go to jail. Quick, let's sue the Oxford dictionary! Military style raid on DARPA for inventing the internet! Oh, wait ... that's the military. Can't we have our cake and eat it too? Talk about political sham oldboy network rent-a-justice. Legal systems need to be decentralized, their interpretation and processes transparent. Perhaps a forward thinking country like Ecuador might be up for the challenge? I exclude Estonia as they are embroiled too much in EU legalese to have much of a chance of a running escape.

</comment><comment><USER16> Yet every single one of the bankers who brought the world economy to the brink of collapse walks free, enjoying the fruits of his labour. The system works.

<comment><USER4> Please, give it a rest on this "banker" polemic nonsense.

<comment><USER17> why ?

<comment><USER18> Because it makes the issue seem like it's only a concern of angry and ignorant teenagers. While I for one would love for the current corporate capitalist model of society to be fundamentally restructured, it's not going to happen by making snide remarks on Hacker News.

<comment><USER16> It's the first thought that popped into my head...

I don't exactly see how your comment helps any more than mine but that's fine.

<comment><USER19> Bread and circus... Bread and circus...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sidenote: it's so weird the English language uses the same word "justice" for the legal system and the moral concept. In German for example the two are different, making it easy to explain to people how the legal system is about equal application of the law, not personal closure. The domain "justice.gov" just sounds like propaganda (imagine "freedom.gov") to me as a non-native speaker who mostly hears the term used in that second (moral) meaning.

<comment><USER21> I'm an American, when I think "justice system" I think of justice not on a personal level, but on a punishment level. Justice is having a punishment that fits the crime. If someone wanted personal justice, I think they usually qualify it with "personal" before "justice".

<comment><USER20> Interesting. I don't think of the justice system as concerning punishment at all. The primary functions to me are rehabilitation and prevention (via incapacitation).

Even though my view certainly isn't representative, it seems to me that American culture is far more concerned with punishment or retribution than rehabilitation than we are in Germany. Sure, we have tabloids calling for "severe punishments" as well, but in general the system seems to be far more concerned with protecting the public (and maybe converting the criminal to a law-abiding citizen in the process).

<comment><USER21> The prison system in the US is designed to create repeat offenders. This is because we have a lot of for-profit prisons that benefit from repeat offenders. There is no rehabilitation going on, I assure you. Quite the opposite is true.

<comment><USER20> Unsurprising, especially with how prison rape seems to be considered par for the course in the public conscience. The only thing that confuses me is how the public doesn't seem to mind, especially when it comes to young black men (who seem to be considered criminals a priori these days).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If the EU is willing to do this to a programmer, it makes it easy to understand why Julian Assange is refusing to leave the Embassy of Ecuador.

</comment><comment><USER23> > _Nomm agreed that the harm caused ... exceeded $400 million... group > obtained at least $175 million ... Megaupload.com ... it accounted for four > percent of total Internet traffic, having more than one billion total > visits, 150 million registered users and 50 million daily visitors._

> _Nomm admitted that he was a computer programmer ... from 2007 until his > arrest in January 2012. ... he was aware that copyright-infringing content > was stored on the websites ... which contained the "FBI Anti-Piracy" > warning._

> _Nomm also admitted that he personally downloaded copyright-infringing files > from the Mega websites._

Replace megaupload with any website or service provider (Youtube, Dropbox, Gmail, Facebook) and it gets scary very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER24> The programmers of the largest copyright infringing company on the planet (Google) are hopefully exempt from idiocy like this. Youtube contains massive amounts of copyright infringing videos, Google books brought it to a whole new level and the Google cache infringes on a very significant portion of the web.

<comment><USER25> Youtube honors the DMCA (the spirit as well as the word of the law - <USER2> Mega was shown not to do). Google books did get sued, but were found exempt under fair use (and having used Google Books, I'd tend to agree with that decision, though IANAL.) And last I checked, caches are explicitly exempt from copyright considerations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Article quote: _In court papers, Nomm agreed that the harm caused to copyright holders by the Mega Conspiracy's criminal conduct exceeded $400 million._

Poppycock. How is a computer programmer qualified to estimate the pecuniary value of "harm caused" by the shop they're working at? What about the harm caused to Justice by farces and show trials like this?

<comment><USER20> "Agreed" is also such a weasely claim.

And of course the "harm caused to copyright holders" is a farcical concept to begin with. You can't just take, say, the total number of downloads and multiply that with some fictitious amount of lost revenue and then claim that as damage, yet that's exactly what the rights utilization industry has been doing for decades.

This concept is based on the idea of physical _theft_. If I steal a truckload of soap and then sell it myself, the damage I'm doing to the legitimate owner is equivalent to the volume I stole multiplied by the original selling price minus regular shrinkage (e.g. lost sales because of faulty products, damage during regular handling or natural expiry).

Digital goods don't work that way. The "theft" of digital goods does not result in you having less products to sell. Instead it's more similar to the damage done via the "theft" of trade secrets. If I steal the Coca Cola recipe and begin giving away knock-off cola for free, I arguably cause damages due to lost sales, but it'd be ridiculous to assume that every "sale" of my product is equivalent to one lost sale of the Coca Cola company.

In fact, MegaUpload didn't even "steal" anything. If we want to use physical crimes as metaphors, it's simply dealing with stolen goods -- or more precisely: giving stolen goods away for free. And if one million users downloaded the same illegal content, they didn't give one million stolen goods away, they merely gave the same stolen goods away a million times.

It's not that copyright violations can't cause damages, but the current system for valuation of those damages -- especially in the US -- is entirely ridiculous and only continues to exist because the courts are either too apathetic or too ignorant (or sometimes both) to dismiss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's a lot of lip service but I still don't get why a programmer need to go to jail for this crap.

Are they prosecuting everyone that ever worked for or did business with megaupload now?

Because that seems a bit shady.

<comment><USER28> Might as well jail every tobacco or arms producer as well.

<comment><USER21> Pretty sure if an arms dealer promoted, even indirectly, the use of their firearms for illegal purposes, they'd also get some people going through the justice system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra That's Iran-grade justice.

"Let's persecute a random programmer that touched thing we really dislike".

<comment><USER12> He was Megaupload's head of software development, which is a bit more than just "a random programmer that touched thing".

<comment> guard-of-terra This is another way of saying "he was a naughty boy". Yes he was, and no, you can't imprison someone for that.

He downloaded some illegal files, he was a head of development and not just a developer, he saw some scare banners on content - all that facts help you sell a story to newspaper reader but for court it's all tangential.

<comment><USER25> Have you read the full charges against Mega? They actively uploaded, and encouraged others to upload, copyright infringing material to jack up their traffic. They very knowingly violated the law. That's quite a bit different from the garden variety "download a few files" piracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wells Fargo smuggled half a Trillion(with a T) dollars worth of drug cartel money.

Zero Punishment.

<comment><USER30> None at all huh? Please discuss, HN (see my other comments in this thread). This seems relevant to the idea of "Justice".

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tbh he kinda fucked up. He waived his right to an extradition hearing in the Netherlands.

I am fairly certain the Dutch court would not have let him be extradited over this bullshit. Case and point, he is the only one to be extradited successfully and only because he went of his own free will.

<comment><USER20> I'm fairly certain he talked to a lawyer before waiving his right. I know that that's what I would have done in his situation -- it's not a decision you take lightly.

I'm also fairly certain his lawyer told him that his hearing would be unlikely to result in a rejection and that complying with the US prosecution would be his best chance for the least bad outcome.

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen ... what the hell?

And they're trying to extradite Kim Dotcom to the US as well!

At the time of launch, I thought how cool it'd have been to work on the project, ouch.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's a real shame that millions of our tax dollars go to putting a single guy in prison for a year, when they could be much more effectively put towards prevention and prosecution of violent criminal activity.

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice job DoJ. Now to raise the bar and serve the people some _real_ justice, go get Jamie Dimon ( [http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion- witn...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion- witness-20141106) ).

</comment><comment><USER34> What if you are a programmer working for any major corporation that happens do be doing some illegal stuff (Banks, Oil, gambling, etc). Should you be afraid to go to jail?

<comment><USER35> Of course not, Banks, Oil, and basically all big corps are immune from law.

The sad thing is, that is hardly an exaggeration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wait, I can't tell if this is about the old Megaupload site or the new Megaupload site.

</comment><comment><USER37> Can someone with more details on his involvement provide more information? I'm confused as to what exactly this guy did for Mega.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why than the owners of Google are still free?

</comment><comment><USER39> Well, programmer is not a banker...

</comment><comment><USER40> This is such bullshit.</comment>


The Free Software movement is Barking up the wrong tree - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologicallyadvancedhuman.uk/the_free_software_movement_is_barking_up_the_wrong_tree.html <comment><USER2> I think people should have the right to fork...

probably why I bought the domains: copyforkable.org and pay2fork.com</comment>


RIAA Blames Journalists For Its Piracy Troubles - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373273,00.asp

<comment><USER2> PCmag is just as disingenuous here as the RIAA, which is not saying much good about them.

Their stance should be: we report what our readers want to read and what sells ads, that you, the RIAA are inconvenienced by this is tough but so be it. Reporting this is not illegal.

And while we're at it screwing artists out of the royalties legally due to them _is_ illegal and the RIAA does it every chance they get and good luck fighting them in court to get a win before your estate takes over.

Bits can - and will - be copied, as the price of transporting and storing bits approaches zero the ease with which this will happen will rapidly approach a point at which any kind of value directly associated with copying bits is going to be seen as ridiculous. The business-models will change, and I'm thinking convenience is going to be a much bigger driver than scarcity ever was. The music industry may end up on top of this after all, if they start making up for lost time.

<comment><USER3> That made me think...

The upper end of estimates about the number of albums released per year by "the recording industry" seems to be around 35,000:

[http://www.mahalo.com/answers/how-many-albums-are- released-p...](http://www.mahalo.com/answers/how-many-albums-are-released-per- year-were-released-last-year-in-the-united-states) (and god I feel dirty linking to mahalo!)

That seems high at ~100 albums per day, but its perhaps plausible worldwide. (note too that this means it'd take you 3 or 4 years to listen to a years worth of new music)

A quick poke at my iTunes library reveals "an album" to require on average between 50 and 100 meg - call it 75 meg.

That means the entire music industries output is somewhere around 2.5TB/year - that's, what, ~$150 worth of disk space? Call it $300 if you want to back it all up.

I guess when you business model is based on a product which people can steal every single thing you sell, and store it for under a buck a day, random speculative lawsuits might be a sensible "pivot"...

(another interesting random observation - 2.5TB/year probably means the entire worlds published recorded music output is less that 100TB compressed, perhaps only 500TB @ raw CD bitrates. Even uncompressed that _barely_ gets you out of the second lowest Amazon S3 pricing tier.)

<comment><USER4> Makes you think then how small then would the worlds entire book output in history, can't find anything on it from a quick Google search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The story isn't encouraging or discouraging anything. That's not our role. > PCMag's job is to cover all aspects of technology, which includes the > products, services and activities that some groups and individuals might > deem objectionable. We covered these Limewire alternatives because we knew > they would be of interest to our readers.

Let me be clear: I support "PCMag's" right to write an article about alternatives to Limewire. It should not be a crime to link to software just because that software can be used to break laws.

That said, my guess is that the vast majority of content available through Limewire is copyrighted and being distributed without permission. Alternatives to Limewire are "of interest to your readers" because they're looking for new places to download this copyrighted content. In my experience the average person running Limewire almost certainly needs the help of more experienced people--like technical journalists--to find good alternatives to Limewire. So it seems to me that PCMag is providing a valuable service to many people who would like to download copyrighted content.

Sure, if PCMag didn't write an article about "alternatives to Limewire," someone else would (albeit maybe someone with different interests in mind, or someone with worse SEO skills). Sure, when presented with a letter like this I can see why they choose to try and get out in front of this issue. Sure, there may be legal implications to reacting in any other way than the way they did. Nonetheless I think their statement offends my sense of frankness and honesty.

<comment><USER6> _Alternatives to Limewire are "of interest to your readers" because they're looking for new places to download this copyrighted content._

Limewire and alternatives are of interest to me yet I have no interest in downloading any content via those services. Why am I interested in Limewire and friends? Partly because I like to know what's going on in the tech world and partly because I'm interested in what other people are up to. But mostly because I find the ongoing fight between the RIAA and co and the pirates massively interesting. In what other industry does a leading industry body actively harass potential customers in what appears from the outside to be a losing battle?

I'm pretty sure that the people looking for alternatives don't need to read PC Mag to find them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think they have a point. When I was unexperienced in the ways of technology and new to things, about 6 years ago probably (my time may be off), I tried Limewire because I saw it in a reputable print publication. (note: I was young at the time as I am currently a high school student)

I had tried to download some music with Walmart's new MP3 site, which was a mess. I could never get the 10 songs or so I downloaded and paid for to play on my Windows 98 PC, despite downloading what they recommended (I don't think the version of Windows Media Player they suggested worked on my PC). I still wanted music to play on my Sony CLIE (which couldn't play it either)... and my friend showed me a computer magazine talking about Limewire. It said something about it being safe and legal, as long as you didn't use it illegally. I didn't consider the implications so I downloaded it and tried it.. and quickly found a bunch of music. I actually owned a lot of it, but not all of it. The point is, I was underinformed and since there wasn't much of a warning in the magazine I considered reputable, I didn't think I was doing anything illegal.

When you look at the target audience of a simple magazine like PC Magazine, I see why the RIAA would be alarmed. I'm not saying this should be illegal to publish or that PC Magazine is necessarily at fault, but I don't think the RIAA is too far off-base either.

</comment><comment><USER4> One area where they really need to better embrace digital technology is with TV shows. There are many people around the world that would happily pay for or watch shows through services like hulu. TV networks though would rather sell traditional rights to overseas networks to show whenever they see fit.

The problem is though in a connected world if your not watching the TV show the same day it is aired in America you won't be able to follow online conversation and the chances are before it's finally aired someone would have let slip the premise or twist so your no longer surprised.

This just means they lose the chance to make anything off big overseas fans when a show is first aired because they will all be downloading it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Where does it end?

Linking to copyrighted content is "bad" according to the RIAA, discussing and linking to tools like Limewire is now a problem for them. When will linking to articles about software piracy and the tools become an issue?

<comment><USER9> _When will linking to articles about software piracy and the tools become an issue?_

Right before _talking_ about linking to articles about software and tools that enable piracy becomes an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> one dying industry gets angry at another dying industry, film at 11 (on youtube)

</comment><comment><USER11> > It's time for these music execs to pull their collective heads out of the > sand and fully acknowledge and accept all the ways their industry has > changed.

Don't see this happening any time soon. As long as piracy is easier than purchasing (and viewing) content it will happen at a massive scale.

<comment><USER12> Tis only a matter of time before laws start getting passed, ISPs are forced to monitor and people start getting cut-off/fined.

I'm not arguing for that position, but that's the way it's going. So any time soon could be sooner than you think.

As for the article, what a load of nonsense, 'hey use these instead' article is quite obviously advocating piracy, whichever way they try and spin it, disclaimer or not. The disclaimer:

 _All of these services should be used for legal downloads, of course_

There is no sane person in the world that believes that a torrent site's primary purpose is for legal downloads.

<comment><USER13> > There is no sane person in the world that believes that a torrent site's > primary purpose is for legal downloads.

You cannot say that. That's absurd. There are _tons_ of torrent sites with legal content, and whose primary purpose is the sharing of legal content. For example <http://www.clearbits.net>.

> Tis only a matter of time before laws start getting passed, ISPs are forced > to monitor and people start getting cut-off/fined.

Bypassing whatever ISPs put in place will likely still be easier than purchasing, especially given that pirated content typically has a higher quality than paid content. It's a double-whammy: paying for DVDs or CDs forces you to see ads (occasionally telling you not to pirate!), in some cases download DRMed, locked content, and usually at a lower bitrate than the pirated options.

Not only is it easier to pirate, but you usually end up with a higher-quality and less annoying product.

Edit: The solution to all of this is for the content distributors to realize and understand the situation. If they put all the high-quality content online and provide direct, fast downloads (without treating me like a criminal!) then the world will change and most people will buy content...I think.

<comment><USER12> I can say that, the majority of torrents used in the world are films and songs. Any other claim is truly preposterous.

I have no idea why you think otherwise, who do you think torrents?

It's a totally strange position to take. I do not understand it.

On the other hand I totally agree with you and the poster above me about the ease, quality (in terms of advert and stupid menu-less content) and speed on getting new content, it's absurd we're in a situation where getting illegal content is quicker and easier than getting legal content. But that's another matter.

<comment><USER14> I'd imagine that World of Warcraft (and StarCraft II) updates account for just as much bandwidth via BitTorrent as do 'illegal downloads'...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I certainly have no love for the RIAA, or the horrible DRM methods they peddle. They are wrong on so many levels, and is fighting something they should instead be embracing.

But PC Mag wrote (like many others) a very thorough guide to LimeWire alternatives. Everyone, and most certainly PC Mag, knows what people use these tools for. Writing the comparison post is not illegal, they are in their full right to it. But to write this very indignant piece, claiming complete neutrality and "we cover it because we must" / free speech kind of argument, is over the top. The comparison post was not any kind of insightful coverage, or debating post. It was a cheap grab for eyeballs.

</comment><comment><USER16> There is one thing that I can't wrap my mind around in the whole demise of the recording industry. I would expect labels' execs to be smart and clear minded people, just by virtue of obtaining their positions and taking their companies to international sizes. I would understand if they don't accept that the game is changing for a while and than have to catch up with the market, but to deny it for a decade to the point that their bottom lines are hurting to become so desperate as to lash out on any every passing thing. That does not add up.

<comment><USER17> The execs do know. They just don't have options that will make as much money for their shareholders. So instead they fight a slow rearguard action.

Their time is passing. But for how long? Times X billion dollars per year.

<comment><USER18> If they were smart this all would have been moot a long time ago. They would start a subscription-based private tracker, add a URL handler so that things opened in the torrent program automatically, and everything would have been fine and nice and great and they'd be making much more money.

Instead of doing this and making pirate methods obscure, they insist on wasting everyone's time and money by implementing DRM schemes that cause incompatibilities, only to be broken a short while later, and suing people, which ultimately just gives the pirate sources more time to grow and more media exposure, especially when they sue and/or force prosecution of these pirate sources directly instead of just pursuing average filesharers, a la The Pirate Bay.</comment></comment></comment>


VASIMR VX-200 reaches 200 kW power milestone (with videos) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29356 <comment><USER2> One could combine this with the HASTOL concept to get very cheap launches to earth orbit.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_propulsion#HASTOL_.E2.80...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_propulsion#HASTOL_.E2.80.94_Earth_launch_assist_rotovator)

Basically, a rotating tether substitues for the upper stage(s) of a launch system. But for each assisted cargo, the rotating tether needs to accelerate again. Ion engines can do this, but their low thrust and short lifespan make them less than idea. VASIMR has a longer lifespan and higher thrust.</comment>


The Expert: how hard it's for an engineer to fit into corporate world [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

<comment><USER2> awesome!</comment>


Apple Face-Recognition Blamed by New York Teen for False Arrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple-face-recognition-blamed-by-new-york-teen-for-false-arrest <comment><USER4> Some people here are saying that this is bad because the victim is asking 1bn, that it's a publicity stunt.

Well, it better be a publicity stunt! You can't change those stupid behaviors of facial recognition without such bad publicity. I hope they make as much publicity as possible, and maybe some money (but he won't get 1bn, that's not the point).

<comment><USER5> > he won't get 1bn, that's not the point

That was _my_ point, though. He's abusing the legal system by asking for compensation he knows he will not receive to gain publicity. The issue involved is fine but I'm not a fan of exploiting and clogging up the legal system in this way. If this is "what it takes" I think we have a bigger problem we need to solve.

<comment><USER6> How big does the penalty need for it to actually make avoiding it in the future a priority for Apple?

Putative damages need to scale with the size of the defendant or they're meaningless.

<comment><USER5> As far as I can tell, this is strictly supposed to be compensation for hardship. The size of the entity that is causing the hardship doesn't affect the amount of suffering. So why should the payout be different? (Otherwise I'd just seek to be wronged by the organization with the biggest pockets?)

<comment><USER7> If we keep letting a corporate entity get away with undesirable practices by merely slapping them on the wrist, we are actively signalling to them that they should continue to engage in those practices.

The only way to stop a corporation from doing something undesirable is to make the punishment great enough that the undesirable act is a net financial loss to the corporation.

I would personally fully support massive % of yearly revenue fines for anything to do with privacy.

<comment><USER5> Work on making it illegal, then, so that corporations can be properly fined instead of random citizens having to justify billions in damages.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand this. Work on making what illegal? Facial recognition? Or breach of duty? Or making mistakes?

It seems to me that we already have the proper way of dealing with this situation. Have the company pay punitive/exemplary damages.

<comment><USER5> Actually, that brings up a good point: what exactly should the remedy in this case be? I don't think it's clear that Apple is even at fault here. It's a pretty shaky case and I'd place more blame on the officers who arrested him without double-checking than an in-store camera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know this view is not going to go down well with the HN crowd, but consider this: The name used by the actual thief was used to track down Bah and arrest him. The normal course from there would be a long haul process to prove he was innocent. But he was _exonerated_ by the presence of facial recognition which showed that the person in the store was not Bah. The facial recognition here seems to have done neither more nor less than a regular CCTV camera in a store. If anything the presence of the cameras helped free him!

<comment><USER10> This article was posted below: [https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/52...](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/524414.htm)

The facial recognition prevented Bah from recovering his account. He was accused, and I believe arrested, multiple times. Despite being proven innocent time and time again.

If I understood this article correctly, the thief did not always sign in/show an ID. Sometimes the facial recognition just tied the man to the stolen ID. The CCTV did help prove his innocence, when it wasnt misteriously missing, but the facial recognition, was in fact a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> He should ask for a billion dollars - the article says that Apple's mistake resulted in his arrest, and even though it was a mistake and he was not convicted, I don't think that arrest is ever going to be removed. He will forever be someone who was arrested and it will show up if someone does a background check. The police might pull him over for a minor traffic violation, the computer will pull up that the occupant has been arrested for theft in the past, suddenly its a whole different conversation because the cop is looking for an easy arrest.

<comment><USER12> If Apple had circulated a photocopy of the possible perpetrator to its stores, to be shown to staff and taped beside the POS, and a member of the staff recognized him and called the police, would that be a billion-dollar mistake too?

I think the facial recognition is a red herring. What matters here is that the perpetrator stole someone's ID and used it during the crime. When the owner of the ID entered the store, he became a suspect and was arrested. Shitty for him but perfectly understandable.

<comment><USER13> He never entered an apple store. He was arrested at home due to Apple giving his name to the police.

I know it's a nitpick but you come off as not having read/understood the linked article.

<comment><USER12> The linked article says nothing about where he was arrested.

(The NY Post article that is linked to in the linked article mentions that he received a summons in the mail and was later arrested, but it doesn't say where he was arrested. I concede that it wasn't in the Apple store, but there is no indication of that in the original article))

<comment><USER14> The linked article clearly says:

> Ousmane Bah, 18, said he was arrested at his home in New York in November > and charged with stealing from an Apple store

Don't know how you missed that, unless something got edited.

<comment><USER12> I'm confused. Has the linked article been changed from this Engadget article to the current Bloomberg article, or am I suffering from some sort of brain fart?

[https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/23/apple-facial- recognition...](https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/23/apple-facial-recognition- false-arrest-lawsuit/)

EDIT: According to this comment, they have switched the link. It's a bit misleading to change the link once a substantial conversation has already happened based on the original link.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726631)

<comment><USER14> Yes, mods can edit posts after the fact. Unfortunately there's no edit history on HN so it's difficult to tell what happened unless someone says something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's bothering me the most is that he claim facial recognition is involved while no evidence at all is provided in the body of the article.

Look like a plain old identity theft with the ID card he lost... As long as they recon his innocence after "humanely comparing" his face in a police station with video footage what would actually worth 1 Bn$ ???

A few year ago a coworker of mine was often contacted by police because his car plate was used by a matching stolen car... It was embarrassing but he didn't sue the car-maker as far as I know...

</comment><comment><USER16> It's disappointing to see that the 1 billion figure is what really grinds people's gears in here. That's the thing you should be the least concerned about.

edit: typo

<comment><USER17> It's probably because it's the most objectionable part of this, so it's the main target for nitpicking. The "Apple's responsible for a fuckup of their own product" isn't controversial, and I don't think "fuckups of ML used for law enforcement are a serious thing" is controversial either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Let me echo onion2k's point:

That kid can no longer truthfully answer "no" to "Have you ever been arrested?". This alone can change his life completely.

<comment><USER19> Is that bad in the US? Nobody cares if it was because of a mistake?

<comment><USER20> Yes, it changes a lot of dynamics including his future employment.

<comment><USER21> If you're arrested, but not charged, and have no criminal record?

<comment><USER22> It's complicated in the United states, federal law (FCRA and employment law) and state law are both involved.

Since this teenager is in New York, this arrest record (which will not be publicly available forever, and could be sealed immediately by court order) should not be a factor in their future interviewing in that state.

[https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/new-york-law- employe...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/new-york-law-employer-use- arrest-conviction-records.html)

 _Employers may not ask about or consider arrests or charges that did not result in conviction, unless they are currently pending, when making hiring decisions. They also may not ask about or consider records that have been sealed or youthful offender adjudications._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I get some strange kill decision[1] vibes here.

So they fed a machine with flawed data, got a result and the police acted on that without reviewing the "evidence" before hand?

[1] [http://daniel-suarez.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html](http://daniel- suarez.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html)

<comment><USER24> Well I blame Apple for this. Why? Because they obviously had video of the real thief and there is no excuse that they could not have compared the results of the two before notifying the police let alone have the system immediately of facial recognition know they aren't the same people visually.

If anything I want to know, does the store record anything outside its physical interior? What is the retention of this data. What is the process and safeguards before a situation like what just happened? Who makes the final decision? Are your images tagged each time you use your ID for any engagement within the store? Heck, do they even post notices they do this?

For a company that touts privacy they really blew it and in a spectacular way

<comment><USER23> > Well I blame Apple for this.

Sure, they made mistakes there. But I also blame the police here. They shouldn't blindly act on accusations just because they came from big corporation.

> For a company that touts privacy they really blew it and in a spectacular > way

Exactly! It's a little sad to see that they blew it like this. With their focus on privacy they really have something that separates them from google. I'm curious how they will react to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Possibly a better article, including a reference to the actual filing: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple- fac...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple-face- recognition-blamed-by-new-york-teen-for-false-arrest)

<comment><USER26> From this account, it's hard to see how Apple is at fault. Someone apparently may have used his lost (non-photo) ID to identify themselves in an Apple store, with the result that Apple associated his name with theft. They reported this to the police. Is that so unreasonable? Seems like it's a valid case for further investigation.

When the police showed up at his home with an "arrest warrant [that] included a photo that didn't resemble Bah" they should have immediately figured out something was wrong; that perhaps they've got the wrong guy? As such, they probably shouldn't have followed through with the arrest at all, pending further investigation, unless they had reason to believe the individual - despite not matching the warrant - presented an immediate threat. Which sounds unlikely.

So ISTM that the parties at fault here are (a) whoever fraudulently used his lost ID, thereby falsely associating his identity with criminal activity; and (b) the arresting police who did not pay attention to whether the subject being arrested matched the warrant they had in hand.

But while I am still deeply uncomfortable with the widespread deployment of facial recognition, etc., and would like to see it restrained, I don't see that it's really the problem in this case as reported.

<comment><USER27> > they should have immediately figured out something was wrong

Even if the warrant had looked sufficiently like him to confuse people, it should have been a quick conversation about if he'd lost any ID, what kind, where, and then where he was on certain dates to clarify that he wasn't the thief.

Do US police have to arrest someone to question them?

<comment><USER28> No, they don't. They could have questioned him at his house. He ignored a summons though, so it probably didn't work it his favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So thief walks in the store with the stolen ID. If facial recognition is working correctly, then this identity theft should have been recognized immediately, unless the actual guy has never been in an Apple store.

Thief steals a bunch of things, and the software ties the thiefs face to the stolen ID. Without facial recognition, they still would have tied the ID to the theft.

Apple sends the police the name and address on the ID, as well as maybe an image of the thief. The police arrest the man matching the ID without reviewing the footage.

This seems like the polices fault for not following through with a proper investigation. If anything, the footage from Apple saved this teenager. He still has an arrest on record, and as others mentioned that could ruin his life. But he needs to take that up with the police, not Apple.

The only way I see this involving facial recognition is if the thief came in to case the place, used the stolen ID, then came back later without showing the ID and stole a bunch of things. Or if they have software that flags thiefs, even when employees dont see it.

Now all that being said, there are questions to be raised about the surveilence brought by Apple. Do they notify their customers that they are being recorded? How long do they store this data? Are they analyzing your behavior (frequency of visits, suspicious activity, where you walk in the store, etc)? Is their facial recognition biased/inaccurate?

Apple prides themselves on being privacy focused, but they are clearly infringing on their customers.

</comment><comment><USER29> Better article:

[https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/52...](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/524414.htm)

My conclusion: The face-recognition functioned completely correctly - <USER3> associated multiple acts by the same individual - but Apple incorrectly used a non-photo ID as identification of that individual, and thus incorrectly identified that individual as Bah.

Sequence of events summary:

Thief used Bah's stolen, non-photo ID.

This led to Bah being arraigned for theft.

Apple then identified video of the thief in multiple thefts at other stores (a detective asserted the matching was done by face-recognition).

This led to Bah being arrested.

Police then realized that Bah did not resemble thief, he was released, and various charges have been dropped.

</comment><comment><USER30> The most chilling thing about this is that any stores even have facial- recognition systems in place.

If I'm going to walk into any physical store with that technology inside, I want to know that BEFORE walking in.

<comment><USER31> Apple says they don't have facial recognition in their stores.

I don't know how true that is, but I think it is worth mentioning.

<comment><USER28> I think there is a lot of assumption there is because the article says it. I do not believe they have facial recognition in their stores.

<comment><USER31> Anything is possible, but I also sort of would be surprised if Apple would have deployed facial recognition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> ... but where does the $1 billion damage come from?

<comment><USER27> One assumes "to make sure it makes it into the news to try and force/shame Apple into a quick settlement rather than taking it to court where it'll probably get tossed."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> >Boston theft, where $1,200 worth of goods were stolen,

So like 1 Apple phone.

</comment><comment><USER34> Cameras can be used ethically in public and semi-public areas. While I don't know if we have official/specific guidelines in the US, I'm sure with a little effort we could create some that would allow for their very effective use, and not overreach, violating personal rights or leading to a police state.

In this case, it seems a mix up occurred and a little police work easily led to clearing the person's name of the charge. Looks like the system worked (but it was very inconvenient for the accused). The camera is just a single piece of evidence, and not the entire case. So long as courts realize this, it should actually help deter crime AND make prosecution more correct in catching the correct perpetrator. There is a long history of just finding someone to blame. I hope cameras make catching the correct person easier, to avoid this type of policing failures.

<comment><USER35> > _...it seems a mix up occurred..._

The "mix-up" occurred because there was an ID with no picture on it. So, Apple _assumed_ it was him - with no corroborating evidence to that. They then flagged their AI to look for him, not comparing it to pictures/video of the actual perpetrator, and called the police when he came in.

> _...and a little police work easily led to clearing the person 's name of > the charge_

True but there's a couple of problems with this:

1) He can never answer "no" on a questionairre of whether or not he's been arrested before. Depending on how strict employers are, this could prevent him from even being considered for employment.

2) There's an actual potential he lost his car, job, place to live, etc. while waiting to be cleared. We don't have a time-frame for this, so it's anyone's guess, but it's a safe bet that his employment, alone, wouldn't have been safe (e.g.: no call, no show).

> _I hope cameras make catching the correct person easier, to avoid this type > of policing failures._

The policing failure,as you refer to it, was actually a failure on Apple's part and not the part of the police.

<comment><USER13> > They then flagged their AI to look for him, not comparing it to > pictures/video of the actual perpetrator, and called the police when he came > in.

Nope, that's not what happened. The article is poorly written, but read it and it might make sense.

" However, since the ID didn't have a photo, the lawsuit states Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details"

In other words, the only thing Apple used facial ID for was to link the thief's face to thefts where the thief didn't show ID. That allowed them to report the wrong person for multiple thefts (presumably instead of just one). (Yes it's terribly unclear from the article.) But it's fairly clear the wrongly accused was not arrested at the store, because the face recognition was primed for the real perp's face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >the lawsuit claims Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details. In a statement to Engadget, an Apple spokesperson said the company does not use facial recognition in its stores.

So anyone know how likely it is if that thing happened or not?

</comment><comment><USER36> Facial recognition systems are everywhere, even in Poland small shops(FreshMarket, etc.) have it built into cash registers.

Is this something that concerns me? Absolutely not and I can even say I don't give a fuck. Most of the government institutions already have your photo, signature, and many more from ID/Passport or any other government documents you made. So why you should be afraid of companies who does it too? I know, I know, privacy, ads, tracking and stuff. :)

But is this still fight for privacy? I see many startups us this rhetoric to acquire clients. But it turns into a terrible joke like it was with usability 15 years ago. Where companies offered services that were not needed to collect even more money.

</comment><comment><USER37> >the lawsuit states Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details.

What moron thought that was a good idea?

<comment><USER27> What else could it do? The thief presented Bah's details. What details should it have associated with his face?

<comment><USER38> Maybe they could've looked at the face on the ID?

<comment><USER27> The articles specifically point out that it was non-photo ID presented by the thief.

<comment><USER38> What on earth is a non-photo ID? Like... a credit card?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Apple has no power to arrest anybody. The local police should be sued. It was the local police who chose to use Apple's bad evidence.

</comment><comment><USER40> > ...where $1,200 worth of goods were stolen, took place.

Did they only steal ONE iPhone X?

<comment><USER41> Or 12 USB adapters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Shouldn't Apple put up warning signs at their store to say that you are under surveillance cameras?

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't understand what role the facial recognition played in his arrest. The article says the actual thief used his name and other identifying info - <USER3> makes no claim about how the facial recognition software was utilized to make the arrest...

</comment><comment><USER44> Apple is pulling the swatting prank now? Don't they know that people can get killed by trigger happy cops?

</comment><comment><USER45> And I'll sue the grocery store bagger for breaking my eggs. Does $2B sound about right?

</comment><comment><USER5> > the lawsuit argues that Apple's "use of facial recognition software in its > stores to track individuals suspected of theft is the type of Orwellian > surveillance that consumers fear, particularly as it can be assumed that the > majority of consumers are not aware that their faces are secretly being > analyzed."

This, coupled with the $1 billion being asked, makes this seem like a publicity stunt :/

<comment><USER46> Calling this suit a publicity stunt trivializes it and makes it sounds like there's no value beyond getting some publicity. I don't think that's true. This is using the legal system for privacy activism in a positive way. Making corporations understand that there's potentially a _very_ real cost to acting on false positives could be a good thing that actually moves the needle on our right to privacy.

Just imagine if stores knew a false accusation based on nothing more than facial recognition could cost them millions. They'd have to put in more effort than "The computer said you're a criminal". That would be great.

<comment><USER47> True. The apple's false accusation resulted wrong arrest. Apple is responsible for it.

<comment><USER27> > The apple's false accusation resulted wrong arrest.

But it was only false in hindsight - someone came in, used his ID, and their face was associated with it - that's perfectly sensible and normal behaviour from their systems.

> The arrest warrant included a photo that didn't resemble Bah

That part is definitely on the police, not Apple.

<comment><USER48> It is not perfectly sensible and normal behavior to demand ID from customers and then set up a secret tracking profile, based on facial recognition and linked to that ID, that is apparently linked across all the stores for your company.

The buried lede is that everyone who has ever walked into any Apple store is being tracked by Apple in _all_ Apple stores, and possibly also anywhere else in public. The false arrest allowed that info to leak to the public.

<comment><USER27> > everyone who has ever walked into any Apple store is being tracked by Apple > in all Apple stores

That hasn't been confirmed yet, has it? I might have missed some extra info but the original story only mentioned they were tracking that ID because of the thefts.

> based on facial recognition

Has that been confirmed yet? I may also have missed that but again the original articles only had that as a claim from the man suing them, nothing concrete (and I believe Apple also denied it?)

<comment><USER48> Apple can keep all the surveillance footage from all their stores.

Apple can run FaceID on any image they have.

In this instance, Apple must have run FaceID from images from the recordings that show the thefts. It is not necessary that they did this on-site or in real time.

A statement by Apple claims that they do not run facial recognition software in their stores. But the wording was very specific; they did not deny uploading the in-store video to an offsite server to detect faces and identify them. They certainly did it for one person. They could do it for more, limited only by their computing power. And they are a computing hardware company.

<comment><USER27> > In this instance, Apple must have run FaceID from images from the recordings > that show the thefts.

But again - we have zero proof of that.

> They certainly did it for one person.

They might well have done but nothing in the reporting of this story has any kind of evidence that this happened!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Source article: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple- fac...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple-face- recognition-blamed-by-new-york-teen-for-false-arrest)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd be more likely to look at this article if it wasn't hidden behind the byzantine and user-hostile Oath "GDPR" gateway.

<comment><USER50> Then maybe you should check a source that's not owned by Verizon (that also owns Oath)?

I'm pretty sure that there are other sources posted in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> The $billion figure is clearly designed to draw attention to this case. Would it have made it onto HN if he'd been suing for $1000?

And, rightly so, in my opinion. This is the tip of a totalitarian iceberg - would any of us be content with being declared criminal by a computer?</comment>


Ask HN: meeting in London with tymr? - <AUTHOR>

I'm the founder of tymr and I will be in London on the 20th September. Would love to meet with some startups and investors. Who's available? <comment><USER2> Sure. Give me a shout and I'll buy you coffee.

I am one of the co-founders of <http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk> and I am also one of the co-organisers of HN London. My email is in my profile.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> lazy link -> <http://tymr.com></comment>


Show HN: Implementation of a robust no-fit polygon generation in a C++ library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kallaballa/libnfp.git <comment><AUTHOR> A good friend of mine (kallaballa - * ) just finished the first version of his No-Fit Polygon implementation, as a single-header library which aims to solve the Irregular Stock Cutting problem, common to manufacturing (and in this particular case of interest to laser-cutter users everywhere)...

Seminal paper which inspired the implementation:

[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e698/0dd78306ba7d5bb349d20c...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e698/0dd78306ba7d5bb349d20c6d8f2e0aa61062.pdf)

I'm posting it to HN for kallaballa on his behalf, and hope that it is of interest to some of you who might be able to build bigger things with libnfp... would love to hear some feedback and discuss the future of libnfp with interested parties!

( * - See his repo at [https://github.com/kallaballa/libnfp](https://github.com/kallaballa/libnfp))</comment>


Ask HN: Disadvantages of event-driven web architecture? - <AUTHOR>

There's been a lot of talk about even-driven web servers lately - nodejs and Tornado come to mind - but I've not seen much discussion about _why_ we should or shouldn't be using event-driven architectures for our sites.<p>What's the downside? Why shouldn't I be using an event-driven architecture for all of my sites? <comment><USER2> Lots has been written about threads vs. events, although most of the debate concerns low-level software like Web servers, not Web apps. The supposed benefit of event-driven architecture is performance, but this may be reduced in the future by massive multi-core and Web apps already have such low performance that it's not clear that the benefit is worth it. Events can also reduce stack memory wastage (e.g. in Comet situations), although Go shows that memory-efficient threads are possible. Event-driven code is generally more verbose (due to "manual stack ripping"; closures reduce this problem) and requires extra discipline because you can't ever call anything that blocks (like reading from a file). The recent trend in Web apps seems to be productivity over performance, which would seem to favor threads (note: not processes).

</comment><comment><USER3> The most basic area where the evented model performs poorly is the most obvious one given its architecture - slow transactions. Depending on the set up, the event loop could be completely blocked by a slow transaction, thus nullifying many of the benefits.</comment>


Aperture tiles - <AUTHOR> http://aperturetiles.com/

<comment><USER2> Made me think about [http://tulip.labri.fr/TulipDrupal/](http://tulip.labri.fr/TulipDrupal/)

It's more a graph (ie relational) visualization tool.

JS port in progresse AFAIK.</comment>


Somebody wrote an email bot to waste scammers' time - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/somebody-wrote-an-email-bot-to.html <comment><USER2> Sounds like a good idea. I'd use this if I knew who rescam.org was and if I had certainty that the forward wouldn't bring me a new batch of spam.</comment>


Furball: The Linux Equivalent of DOS's 'debug.com' - <AUTHOR> http://modest-proposals.com/Furball.htm

<comment><USER2> Funny you should mention that. Timur, Chris, and I have been puttering around with a better Unix debugger interface for awhile now; Timur just wrote some of it up:

[http://www.matasano.com/log/1799/ruby-for-pentesters-the- dar...](http://www.matasano.com/log/1799/ruby-for-pentesters-the-dark-side-i- ragweed/)

Debuggers want to be programming environments. Or, trivial 20k command line programs. GDB is stuck uncomfortably in the middle, I agree.

<comment><USER3> I have seen "symdeb for linux" as early as 1999; there was an entire symbdeb clone somewhere in simtel, written in NASM (or an early precursor, don't remember) and the author was bugging alt.asm.x86 for quite sometime, reporting his progress. Boldyshev might have an idea, if he is still at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some stupid debug tricks:

      a 0100
      cli
      jmp 0101

      r

Clears interrupts and puts the CPU into an infinite loop. Takes down Win95/98 cold. Thankfully NT+ don't actually give DOS programs control over interrupts.

      ? 0100 (I forget which cmd lets you directly edit the memory in hex)
      ea 00 00 ff ff

      r

Quick reboot. The malicious will think of fun places to put this. Hint: rhymes with "soot vector"

Sometimes I wonder if the greatest loss when technology shifts are all the stupid tricks we learned on the way.

<comment><USER5> A few years ago, I was in a tech support call with a Dell tech. He was putting me through some kind of reinstallation process, I don't recall exactly. Anyway, he actually had me boot from a Dell diagnostic CD, run debug.com, and type in the necessary commands to hard-format the drive. At the time, I thought the whole process was pretty novel. I wonder if they would do the same today.</comment></comment>


Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs  - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/15/10-useful-techniques-to-improve-your-user-interface-designs/ <comment><USER2> Nice little writeup that skims the surface of "User Interface Designs".

Problem is that when you decouple interface design from system design, that's all you can do: skim the surface.

#10 provides the perfect example: how to label your dialog boxes.

Once you take a larger, more organic view, you reach a much simpler conclusion: don't have dialog boxes. Just do it and provide an Undo, and leave the user alone. Millions will thank you.

An outcome you can only reach by looking at the _whole_ system, not just the way it looks.

<comment><USER3> But almost no one really follows this advice to its core. Imagine an operating system designed this way: you could quit Photoshop, then "undo" the quit, and all your windows would reopen without anything have to re-load from disk (because it wasn't really unloaded yet to begin with.) You could "rm -rf /" and then press Ctrl-Z in your shell. You could send an email, and then pull it back from the server (or all the way from the other person's inbox), as long as they both had the same system installed.

If the entire world worked this way, you could even wire $5000 to a Nigerian scammer, then pull it back out, _undoing the purchase of anything they spent it on in the process_. Of course, cash would have to be replaced with a reversible commodity (credit chips that really just referenced a row in a central, though distributed, table) so money could flow back into your pocket without anyone having to hand you anything.

Taken even further, to the point where you can take out a hit on someone and then press undo _after the person is dead_ , this begins to sound like the start of a good Science Fiction. "The Reversible Society", perhaps.

<comment><USER4> I often wish I had an undo button in the terminal. Obviously not everything can have an undo. But most things (anything you can undo in Windows) you should be able to undo on the Web.

This is what people will expect from web applications or they won't use them.

<comment><USER5> chroot jail

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found the single most effective thing to do in UI is this: iterate. The average number of iterations I take for a single view is about 10 before I'm really happy.

You see #1, and it doesn't feel too bad. Then you do #2, and it makes #1 look bad. You get an idea, so you experiment and try to tweak it a little. Before you know it, you've created something that just feels good at heart. It looks good, it's appealing, it's usable, and attractive.

Some companies go extreme on this, I know Apple can go through hundreds of designs for a single product.

I have a few rules of thumb with this:

1) Never delete an iteration, including #1 which probably will look the absolute worst.

2) Just do #1, yes it will probably suck. Do it and get it over with. Then make #2 and subsequent iterations incremental improvements.

3) Don't stop until you're absolutely proud of the iteration. Be honest, don't let fatigue be your reason for stopping or moving on. True UI design is difficult and requires endurance, just like anything else that's difficult (sports, programming, writing a novel, etc).

<comment><USER7> How do you mitigate the risk of local maxima? Is there good way to try (or justify trying) radically different approaches without undermining past work?

<comment><USER8> Assuming you're the type of person who analyzes past mistakes, it just comes from experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> i hate number 7. as a user that navigates web pages by keyboard (and most of the time by vi keys), i hate it when sites focus a text box on a page that has enough other content to require scrolling.

it's one thing if it's on a solitary login page or google.com where the primary content on the page is the text input field, but when you focus a search box or some other field when i'm trying to scroll with the 'j' key, it's very frustrating.

i was actually using a site the other day that not only focused some search box way off to the corner, but actually re-focused the text box every time i hit a key. it took me a short while to figure out why i couldn't scroll down (the search box was by then filled with "jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj").

</comment><comment><USER10> Tip #2 is nice in theory, but styling button spacing in a cross-browser manner is nearly impossible.

Tip #7 is awful. By the time the images load, the user could already be typing in another input box. If you must set focus, do it right after the <input>.

Tip #8 is pretty bad too. Users expect input boxes to look like input boxes. See Wufoo, which does this properly by highlighting the background.

Some of the ideas aren't bad, but a few "useful techniques" won't lead to a usable interface.

<comment><USER3> Tip #7 works _if_ you put in a bit of extra effort, and make sure that the text field you're taking the focus away _from_ hasn't been altered from its default value.

<comment><USER10> Yes, exactly. The subtleties are so dangerous that even Google gets it wrong (Google Images did this wrong, at least for a long time)

<comment><USER11> Gmail does this wrong when you add an attachment. After it has been uploaded the textarea cursor is moved to the bottom and you end up typing after your sig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A good deal of these techniques are applicable in an intranet setting, but are there any design tips for non-designers working on internal backend web tools?

The emphasis, of course, is on usability for long-term users. I'm not really concerned about users being able to easily learn the interface or grabbing their attention one way or the other; they are going to be trained to do that. I am more interested in making it convenient and usable for long-term users who are going to be using this software almost 40 hours a week. The vast majority of the app is asking for a few variables of input, showing tables of output, and pages of links to the forms that provide this functionality. Really boring stuff, but there is probably room for improving the usability and readability of the forms/tables.

<comment><USER13> A good interface is intuitive, in the sense of both easily learnable and easily usable. I don't think you can really decouple the two. It sounds like you're mostly just displaying giant blocks of text, so I'd recommend this excellent slideshow on web typography:

[http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web- typography-...](http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web-typography- presentation)

It's a bit long, but very thorough and very helpful for content-heavy design -- and it gives you exactly the CSS you need. To summarize it very briefly: a little bit of white space goes a long way.

It's also worth putting a little bit of thought into styling the forms, especially since unstyled web forms can be really hideous. Here's a quick walk-through of styling a web form: [http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user- friendly-resources/css/css...](http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly- resources/css/css-forms.shtml)

Obviously a contrived example, and you wouldn't want so many fancy colors in a professional setting. But the key point there is to align everything nicely, and go to the trouble of grouping related fields using fieldsets and legends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A great technique is to modify the UI based on context and allowed actions. As I started using Basecamp (37signals) on a daily basis I realized that there are hardly any error messages in the application. If you aren't allowed to do something they hide any UI elements associated with the invalid action. This results in a simpler interface that is more intuitive.

<comment><USER15> I don't know, isn't that confusing sometimes? I know that I hate those menus with greyed out items and no explanation why a certain option is not available at the moment. Not even seeing the option at all might be even more confusing, because then I might start looking everywhere for the option to show up.

<comment><USER16> I don't know why we _still_ don't have interfaces where you can _always_ access a precise, clear, context-sensitive explanation for why a control is grayed out and when it's enabled. The benefits to usability would be huge!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's 2 Useful Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs :

Use your fucking eyes, and do the work.

If something looks out of alignment, fix it.

If something is hard to click on, fix it.

If you find yourself reading useless information, demote it.

If you find it difficult to find useful information, promote it.

Good design is the sum of a million minute decisions.

There is no silver bullet, nor even a list of silver bullets.

Take the time to make good decisions at the ground level, or don't, and settle for poor design.

Mixed with plenty of exposure to both good and bad design, this process will inevitably turn anyone into a good designer.

</comment><comment><USER18> For anyone as fascinated as I am by the orange-box-on-blue-background phenomenon in #4, I really recommend Josef Albers's Interaction of Colour. [http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef- Alber...](http://www.amazon.com/Interaction-Color-Expanded-Josef- Albers/dp/0300115954/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t)

It's educational and illuminating, but compared to most colour theory books it's more poetic than academic in tone, and more emotional than theoretical in its insights.

</comment><comment><USER19> Everything is gravy except for the part of focus on the input. I cannot express how many times that has annoyed the hell outta me whenever I use a web app that employs that technique.

</comment><comment><USER20> Makimaki,

Submitting stuff like this doesn't help your cause:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=394963>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=393490>

None of us are perfect, but a top ten list?

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all, I don't have a 'cause' or agenda. I found some tips in this article useful and hence submitted it. That's all. Content quality is subjective, some hate it and some like it. I have no control over this and neither do I have a problem with negative comments ON the article itself. What I dislike are personal attacks like this.

I don't even know who you are so I'm not sure why you are targeting me. Had a bad day?

Are you suggesting that top ten lists are inherently flawed? Should all list posts NOT ever be submitted to Hacker News? Or are you suggesting that I shouldn't be allowed to participate in this community because everything I share is more or less rubbish?

I joined this community 602 days ago. That's 1 year and eight months ago. I'm not a fly-by-night spammer. Everyone can see the stories I submit to verify this.

Your obvious condescension is quite unnecessary. And frankly, I find it quite insulting. I don't have a devious plan to destroy Hacker News so maybe you should chill out a bit.

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I wasn't trying to be insulting. I just noticed that you've had other run ins submitting digg like stuff. But the other readers have spoken, you win; I lose.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not looking to 'win'. It doesn't give me any satisfaction. Just trying to understand your antagonism towards me, a stranger who just happens to ALSO be a digg user (something you seem to consider as an inherently inferior sub- species of internet people).

Hacker News is not Digg and therein lies its appeal. I love the intelligent comments here and the stories are terrific. So don't think for a second that I'm trying to 'ruin' the community by submitting digg-like content (whatever that is).

In any case, its a SOCIAL news site. Let the community sort it out with editorial votes. Wisdom of the crowds, yes?

There's no way I'm going to make everyone happy with my submissions. It's impossible. As long as its really interesting to me, doesn't violate TOS, isn't spam and falls within the general topical focus/interest of Hacker News readers, I'm going to make use of my right to contribute to the community.

I wish something like this won't happen again. If you want to continue this off-topic discussion and thoroughly exhaust your frustration, feel free to rant at me in private. My email is in my profile. Cheers.

<comment><USER20> Wait, who's ranting?

Anyways...no frustration on my part (what about you?). I was just too trigger happy from the recent spam HN has been getting. That's all. Apologies man.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nightmare On Database Street: 5 Database Security Horror Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.darkreading.com/database-security/167901020/security/news/240009983/nightmare-on-database-street-5-database-security-horror-stories.html <comment><USER2> "...they converted SQL commands into bar codes, printed them out and scanned them.

When placed under the scanner we were able to perform SQL injection against the price check Web application..."

SQL injection via printed barcodes. Epic.

<comment><USER3> I laughed when I read this too! That's true "outside the box" thinking.

<comment><USER4> Funnily enough, someone suggested something similar at work a few days ago and I had to shoot him off the air. He wanted to use URLs encoded in a QR to trigger an action (say, "use coupon"). No authentication, nothing. The idea has _some_ merit, as we wanted this feature to work on any kind of phone and we only have Android and iOS clients, but the whole idea of having a GET request trigger a change on the server made my skin crawl.</comment></comment></comment>


Is the Universe a Giant Computer Simulation? Here's the Evidence - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/is-the-universe-a-giant-computer-simulation-heres-the-evidence <comment><USER2>
      #define CONST_C 3e+8 // don't change this or it breaks the rendering code
                           // TODO: sort out the bug with multiple subatomics sharing state under some conditions

<comment><USER3> I'm working on some stuff and since I wanted to save the podcast for when I could give it more attention I thought I'd briefly check out the comments.

My eyes jumped to the "TODO" and laughing out loud I thought that was the funniest thing I've read on Hacker News; then I noticed your #define ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I could believe the universe was a 3d growth or projection from a 2d origination like a pancaked black hole but hologram in this definition does not mean what people initially think it means and "simulation" running on what? Another universe?

<comment><USER5> It's turtles all the way down!

<comment><USER6> So the universe was written in Logo?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "In this week's podcast, we talk to Nick Bostrom, the Oxford University philosopher who originally came up with the simulation hypothesis. According to Bostrom, it makes at least as much sense for us to be living in a simulation as it does for us to not be."

<comment><USER8> I'm too lazy to listen to a podcast, but didn't Zuse originally come up with that hypothesis?

<comment><USER9> Waiting for the TL;DL. What _is_ this evidence?

<comment><USER9> Made it about 1/3 way through. Didn't hear anything new beyond the original hypothesis.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Free or cheap alternative for low volume log management and searching? - <AUTHOR> Which open source software or SaaS service in spirit of timber.io, logentries, papertrail etc. would you recommend for searching JSON-based logs generated from several processes?<p>In my current setup, each process is running on the same machine, so it could be something very simple. <comment><USER2> Take a look at NXLog Community Edition. It has a great set of features, Open Source and free. [https://nxlog.co](https://nxlog.co)

</comment><comment><USER3> logdna.com is great. Has good pricing, a lot of endpoints and great support. We had created a small Objective C wrapper around their REST endpoint to have remote logging, and they sent us some "Thank you T-shirt's"

Other contender is Google Stackdriver, but I did not check the pricing policy they have now

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the recommendation. I'll give this one a go for sure. The use case is a non-profit hobby project so I'm trying to keep the costs low.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Get Focused – Avoid distracting websites - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-focused-avoid-distrac/fdelooiaamfiiecfhaohipkfbdiemobl? <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, i just published my first chrome extension ever :D

It would be great if you can provide me some feedback, or anything you like/don't like about this kinds of extension

Thank you :D</comment>


Causes of Death - <AUTHOR> http://flowingdata.com/2016/01/05/causes-of-death/ <comment><USER2> Would really prefer the data as an overlapping plot, or a stacked bar chart, I hate stacked area charts even though I admit they're sexier than the other two...

If you're not saddened enough, the rate of death for all causes is 1.8 people per second. SENS loves donations. ([http://www.sens.org](http://www.sens.org))

</comment><comment><USER3> I find this remark strange:

> 3\. I thought about filters for sex and race at the same time, so that you > could compare say, black female versus black male. But I liked the > simplicity of one filter at a time better.

First, I got surprised why setting ethnicity erases sex.

Second, morality varies a lot with sex. So putting in the same basket male and female is, at best, trashing important information.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope investors and entrepreneurs look at this data and use it as a guide for determining the purpose of innovation. Another interesting data we don't see is - The most common cause of SUFFERING, which should also appeal to the industry I hope.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe per-capita rates would be more informative. Using percentages makes it appear some causes decrease in our 20's. When really, 20-year-olds die more than other people (from accidents) and the other stay about the same.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting to see the difference between males and females, especially when young. Looks like we should all be trying to maintain and strong circulatory system for our later years.

</comment><comment><USER7> If we could just find a way to create a better artificial respiratory system.

<comment><USER8> And a promising & affordable cure for cancer too. I don't know where we have reached on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 80% of 20 year old males who die, die from 'External Causes'. That's just mad.

<comment><USER10> Realize that the y-axis represents a percentage, and as such it follows that if you die at such a young age it is much more likely it is from an external cause (gun violence, suicide, car accident, etc) than a health condition such as cancer.</comment></comment>


Android Desktop Phone Designed by iPhone Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://i.gizmodo.com/5126620/nimble-300-android-desktop-phone-designed-by-iphone-engineer

<comment><USER2> Cool! I'd buy that as a media center remote more than a phone.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it seems more a 'home device'... but they have to call it something ;) I like the idea. Roll on Android devices!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Like the product concept, but the presentation is definitely not Apple-esque. Long way to go aesthetically.</comment>


Success Academy's Radical Educational Experiment - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/success-academys-radical-educational-experiment <comment><USER2> I don't care how high the standardized test scores are, I would never consider subjecting my children to this oppressive environment. They would probably get kicked out anyway as I strongly feel that respectfully questioning authority is an integral part of any child's education.

<comment><USER3> I'm sad to live in a society where school is considered a factory producing efficient labor rather than somewhere to help children become autonomous (in the actual sense of the word, not our French bizare conception of autonomy which looks a lot like heteronomy, aka "one who knows how to follow rules").</comment></comment>


Seven Commandments for Event-Driven Architectures - <AUTHOR> https://rjzaworski.com/2019/03/7-commandments-for-event-driven-architecture <comment><USER2> I think this misses the main one - append vector clocks because your events will inevitably turn up out of sequence at some point.

<comment><USER3> I find vector clocks to introduce a lot of complexity. In our case, we just use PostgreSQL to handle ordering. When committing an event into PostgreSQL, you verify that the last committed event for your stream is still what you expect it to be (i.e. CAS), and you have strong ordering.

Vector clocks I typically want to stay away from as far as possible.

<comment><USER2> What do you do in a network partition?

<comment><USER4> They go down. Or go read-only.

What do _you_ do during a network partition? Accept writes that you'll throw away eventually?

<comment><USER2> Yeah, accept those writes and favour availability. Customer was a wealth management company.

Imagine a customer has £100 in their account. System partitions. Customer withdraws £70, hitting one DC. Customer then hits the second DC, this time withdrawing £50. Each DC thinks the transaction is valid, and so serves it.

Later when the partition is restored, events are played back, and divergent history is detected via the vector clocks - the two withdrawals are not causally related. Remediative action can then be taken.

Transactions prevent bad things happening, but require CP semantics. Eventual consistency allows AP, allows bad things to happen, meaning you have to be able to detect them and clean them up later.

<comment><USER4> There's a long history on this debate, but _in practice_ even the GOOG and AMZN have settled on transactional CP systems for handling the important stuff like money (Spanner, Aurora). Expecting app developers to roll their own transactions and conflict resolution at the app layer proved intractable even with all their resources.

> Remediative action can then be taken

Sounds expensive and error-prone; taking a "read only" outage makes more sense in many use cases

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The section on "Minimize state in-flight" [1] has an example of an event with both an amount withdrawn and the new balance, and the author recommends sending only the amount instead.

Wouldn't it be useful to send both, since if the expected balance does not match up when the event gets processed, that must mean something was processed out of order?

[1]: [https://rjzaworski.com/2019/03/7-commandments-for-event- driv...](https://rjzaworski.com/2019/03/7-commandments-for-event-driven- architecture#7-minimize-state-in-flight)

<comment><USER6> Well when you work with distributed messaging systems it can be difficult (if not impossible) to guarantee messages arrive or are processed in the same order in which they were generated. So I think the author is just saying generally speaking it's better to track as little state as possible if you don't need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Excellent list, thank you. I've thought of most of them by experience but it's great to know I'm not full of crap.

</comment><comment><USER8> Related to ordering, I was mildly surprised that the "Minimize state in- flight" section didn't mention timestamp-ing all events with a created (and possibly a separate effective) date.

<comment><USER9> A created date might encourage an assumption that the date is a reliable way to order events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Curious about the minimize state in-flight. If the producer has state on-hand, why not include it and just have a policy around when you trust it. If it's equal cost for producer or consumer to collect state then maybe, but how often is that the case?

<comment><USER11> Consider replacing "event" by "observation". What you really have is a set of observations, and a state that you infer from it. Observations you make may be reliable, but you have no guarantee that you can observe every fact in the problem.

For instance, if you're a payment processor in the EU, and a withdrawal was done in the US, you may not have received it yet, so you have an incorrect balance. If a withdrawal is made in the EU, and you add the balance in the event, you will have mixed a perfectly legit observation with something, which is not an observation but an inference, an artifact processed from your incomplete set of observations.

Trust is something that changes over time. When your EU platform was implemented, maybe your US platform didn't exist. But the difference between observations and inference will remain true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of this famous list from the 90s [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_com...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing)

<comment><USER13> Non-mobile:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The title is to broad imo.. This is clearly only about Event-Driven Architectures for the web. Many of those 7 points are specific to web.

<comment><USER15> The examples are web based but these points can still be adapted down to any scale, really. Things like staleness are still a concern in something like an event driven UI ie user input disrupts the current action.

<comment><USER14> Wrong. I like using an event driven architecture in games as opposed to an update driven one. There is no concept of staleness in a single player game running on one machine. Many of the concepts the author mentions simply do not exist in that context. In games, event driven = some event happens, all the logic that needs to execute in response to that happens _immediately_ , as opposed to, for example being put on a blackboard and dealt with in some other update loop.

The reason a lot of games have frame-perfect bugs / exploits / glitches is because they use an update-driven architecture. So its possible that for one frame after certain things happen the game is in an inconsistent state.

<comment><USER15> You do run into the same issues in something like a game.

Lets say you have a character doing some animation clip and at the end you want to run some callback.

That character could be killed by the player or the player could quit to the main menu or any number of things.

Now your callback is stale. You have to deal with cleaning it up, ensuring it does actually fire if you need it to, and handling any issue with the now deceased character.

<comment><USER14> Wrong again. You are obviously commenting about an area you are not familiar with. That is a very weird scenario. You dont want stuff like animation affecting logic. The game logic should never be affected no matter what the animations are doing. But if for some bizarre reason you did have that scenario, a way of doing it using a typical game engine approach would to put that callback at the end of a coroutine. If the character dies then no matter what is is you _definitely_ dont want that callback to fire, (There shouldnt be logic being affected by an animation, but if that character is dead then it shouldnt be affecting _anything_ at all) part of your game engine would be that coroutines do not run on things which have been destroyed.

<comment><USER15> Man, you're the one who said you were using events for game dev not me. Coroutines or events, the idea that you need to reconsider your state when execution returns is still valid advice. Tying a courtine to a game object's life cycle _is_ managing the event state. Its clearly not a weird scenario when entire game engines are based around this principle.

<comment><USER14> Well as I said having some logic executed by an animation would be doing things backwards...

Most of the points in the article are about using an event driven architecture in the world of distributed systems, where the messages triggering events are delayed by a certain amount, can be lost, malformed, or different to what the receiver expects.

None of that applies to a single program running on one machine. Thats why using an event driven architecture for a game is so great. I _never_ have to worry about most of the stuff in the article. Also (as opposed to the more common Update driven model) if I do a good job its possible for my games logic to be flawless, it can be impossible for it to be in an illegal or weird state. So an event driven architecture in a game is fantastic for that reason, and the article is quite useless when it comes to event driven architecture in games. I'm sure its fine for event driven architecture in distributed systems, but the title is certainly too broad.

Like with many of the articles posted here, CRUD / web devs forget there are other fields of programming.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>