Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy - <AUTHOR> https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/private-firefighters-california-wealthy-wildfire <comment><USER2> I've seen similar variants of this headline floating around, so I don't want to over-blame this Fox outlet for something that's just in the water by this point (I don't recall if they were all on Fox-family outlets, but probably not). That said, the headline seems pretty manipulative...

> However, private firefighters are more likely to contract with insurance > companies like USAA to offer mitigation services to customers. Sometimes > neighborhood associations hire private firefighters, according to The Post.

+

> Homeowners hiring private firefighters make up about 5% of the industry, > David Torgerson of Wildfire Defense Systems told The Los Angeles Times last > year.

+

> Firefighting crews working for insurance companies do not just wait around > for the fire to spread to the areas they're protecting. They often install > sprinkler systems and spray retardant, according to The Post.

+

> When trying to fireproof a particular home, crews will take the time to rake > away vegetation surrounding the home and close windows and vents, The Times > reported.

=

> title: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

<comment><USER3> Another suggestion for a non-clickbaity title:

      Insurance Companies do Preventative Maintenance on High-Value Assets

But yes, this feels like ... class-baiting or something. This headline is everywhere, made to rile up folk for.... what?

<comment><USER4> Some people consider that, when the rich are hiring a duplicate of a public service, it proves the public service is not fit for purpose.

<comment><USER5> If the purpose is "protect homes built in wildfire prone natural areas", the public service shouldn't exist, so there you go.

<comment><USER6> You're being downvoted, presumably by the people who think that the onus of providing firefighting services to, say, a five-million-dollar residence in east San Diego county situated on ten acres of combustable chapparal should be bourne equally by urban apartment dwellers.

The reality is that for a lot of SoCal, firefighting is a gigantic subsidy to people who can afford very expensive houses in a biome that has been periodically catching fire and burning for millions of years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see nothing wrong with this. If I'm wealthy and I can pay money for a service for risk management and the benefits outweigh the costs it makes sense. Private security vs police? Sure. Private jet vs common carrier? Sure. Private firefighter vs public? You guys lose your minds over that? I don't see what is wrong paying for extra protection. It's like owning a very expensive car and paying for extra insurance in case the person who hits you has no insurance.

<comment><USER8> I pose this question to people when articles like this come up.

If you were wealthy, would you do something like this? In this case, if you were wealthy, would you pay to have extra protection for your home by hiring private firefighters? Almost willing to bet their answer would always be yes.

<comment><USER9> I'm wealthy and I spend my money on charitable giving instead of building and defending an ostentatious mansion. When the revolution comes I hope that means my back won't be up against the wall, and my house won't be torched by revolutionary warriors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A: "You have selected Amazon's Prime Fire service"

A: "A fire-engine will be dispatched within 20 minutes"

\--- In another part of the country ---

A: "We're sorry we don't provide Prime fire service for your location, please direct your query to the local authorities"

Local fire department: "We will try and answer your call as soon as possible, but due to budget cuts from a reduced corporate tax income we have had to reduce our services in the area."

<comment><USER11> Corporate tax is a red herring. Across the OECD, it makes up just 9% of tax revenue (just 6% in Sweden and Denmark). The US is about the same (8%).

If you want to complain about tax revenue, point to the fact that Americans don't pay VAT (like everyone in Europe does) on all the cheap crap they buy on Amazon. Or in the case of California, complain about Prop 13 limiting the property taxes people pay on McMansions. (Which, after all, are what pay for your local government functions like fire service.)

<comment><USER12> We pay sales tax. What's so special about VAT vs. sales tax?

Unless you are arguing for a _federal_ sales tax, which OK sure federal tax is great, except it doesn't pay for local services. Also, now you also have to argue about the regressive nature of sales tax in general.

<comment><USER13> I think the relevant difference is that VAT is paid even if you are in a different EU country.

I'm in Denmark, where the rate is 25%.

I pay 25% on something I order from a Danish online shop.

I pay 25% on something I order from a large German online shop, even though the VAT rate in Germany is lower.

I pay 19% (the German rate) on something I order from a small German shop, to reduce the administrative burden on that shop.

(In every case the advertised price includes VAT, although the middle case may use 19% until I input a delivery address, depending on how they guess my location.)

My understanding is that, in reality, people pay 0% in the USA if they order from a different state.

<comment><USER14> You're supposed to report your online shopping when you do your taxes here every year.

<comment><USER15> Which no one does, so it's irrelevant.

<comment><USER16> I do it (because I buy so little online). Also, Illinois (and maybe other states) published tables saying "if you don't want to calculate it, pay this amount instead."

Most states are now imposing sales tax on online retailers, so the point is pretty much moot now.

<comment><USER15> Okay, I stand corrected. _Almost_ no one does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

<comment><USER18> Is there literally no solution that exists between burying power lines and keeping the lines completely exposed that would be cost effective and improve fire safety by some factor? I imagine insulators in high risk areas might do the trick but I am no high voltage expert.

<comment><USER19> Yes, these kind of insulators are called "the ground" ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting- I always thought the cyberpunk future of self-policed corporate- states would be here eventually, but I didn't think firefighters would be privatized in that manner before police.

<comment><USER21> Wealthy neighborhoods with private security (aka private police) are definitely a thing.

<comment><USER20> There is a difference. These private security firms don't have all the power the police do. They don't have the power to arrest, don't have their own jails, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Different headline... Insurance companies implement fire mitigation tactics to protect policyholders

<comment><USER23> I guess it's cheaper than paying out the insurance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Unrelated, but annoying: How does FOX get around the autoplay protection of Firefox on Desktop? I have blocked all AutoPlay and yet the annoying video starts playing.

<comment><USER25> It doesn't autoplay for me (using Firefox 70.0)

In fact, in my console there's a message that says this:

"Autoplay is only allowed when approved by the user, the site is activated by the user, or media is muted."

<comment><USER26> I get the same message about 6 times in the console as well, but in the end it seems to start playing anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Marcus Crassus used to run private firefighters in Rome. When there was a fire his units had been assembling at selected properties and waited why Marcus had been negotiating with the property owner. Only when the deal was made and Crassus purchased the property firemen started extinguishing fire. Hence the fire sale...

> The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. He took advantage > of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own > brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of > alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the fire fighters did nothing > while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed > property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the > property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they > would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many > properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to > their original owners or new tenants. [1]

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

</comment><comment><USER28> Where are they getting the water and what roads do they use to service these people?

Seems unfortunate in times of lack of supply of fireman that this is tolerated.

I'm fairly certain that fire retarding private lawns is not the most efficient use of resources considering the circumstances at the moment.

<comment><USER29> These are private firemen. If they weren't hired they would be off doing something else for money. It's like complaining about people hiring private security guards when there is a police shortage.

Read the article, they aren't fire retarding private lawns. They are doing preventative work that keeps the fire far away. If it hits the lawn, it's too late.

More firefighters are better, regardless of which areas are being contained with higher priority. If they were taking away fire fighters from the publicly funded groups or volunteers, then there would be something to bitch about.

<comment><USER30> This is mostly a zero sum game in the immediate term, and mostly zero sum in the longer term since there is a fairly limited pool of people available to fight fires. If you have the skills to be a fireman but a private individual pays you above market rate to fight their own personal fires then you will remove yourself from the pool of people fighting fires for the public and into a private pool.

Will 20 such private firemen be a problem? No, but 2,000? That would absolutely have an impact on available firefighters for the public.

<comment><USER23> Is there really a shortage of firefighters? Or is there a shortage of firefighters willing to work for the rates public service offers? How high are those rates anyway? Because given how much public servants are typically paid worldwide, I can easily imagine that the private firefighting company isn't competing with public firefighting jobs, but with all the other jobs a would- be firefighter can get that pay better than fighting fires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I see a lot of people talking about the privatization of firefighting and the future. In this case there is a big difference between the two types of firefighting that is being talked about.

1\. The first type of firefighting is your traditional city structure firefighting departments. These are the ones we see most of the time in the movies(Backdraft, Ladder 49). These are government funded by local and municipal taxes. They traditionally provided structure and medical services to a city. While the firefighting portion of these departments has stayed public the medical(ambulance) services have been heavily privatized for years. Due to the large migration we have seen of people wanting to live closer to nature, wildland Urban Interface firefighting has become a service that these traditional structure departments have stepped up to provide as they have expanded their boundaries to provide services to the ever increasing number of homes that have been built outside of the traditional city landscape.

2\. Wildland firefighting has traditionally been paid for and managed by the Federal Government. Last I saw around 40% of wildland firefighting resources are privately owned. This includes fire engines, water tankers, showers, food caterers, hand crews(20 man crews that dig fire line in an attempt to contain the fire), tree fallers(loggers who are brought in to fall dangerous trees), air tankers, and helicopters. This particular part of firefighting has been privatized for 20+ years and the Federal government shows no signs of changing this trend anytime soon.

There is also a lot of talk of people leaving the structural "public" fire departments to go private. In my experience the trend is actually the opposite. Private firefighters are generally significantly underpaid compared to their government counterparts. When I was working for the Federal government 15 years ago, I was making a base wage of $15-$20 an hour, if I went out on a fire I got $2 an hour hazard pay for the entire day. If I went over 40 hours in a week I then was paid time and a half and anything over 80 was double time and a half. If I got sent out on a fire for a 14-21 day tour I would work 16 hour days for 14-21 days straight and just be raking in the money. My private crew counterparts were making somewhere between $7-$12 dollars an hour and were only getting time and a half over 40 hours.

Source: Spent 10 years as a volunteer structure and wildland firefighter.

</comment><comment><USER32> Relevant Planet Money episode (from June):

[https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736715592/the-private- firefig...](https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736715592/the-private-firefighter- industry)

</comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of this quote:

 _The Guild of Firefighters had been outlawed by the Patrician the previous year after many complaints. The point was that, if you bought a contract from the Guild, your house would be protected against fire. Unfortunately, the general Ankh-Morpork ethos quickly came to the fore and fire fighters would tend to go to prospective clients' houses in groups, making loud comments like 'Very inflammable looking place, this' and 'Probably go up like a firework with just one carelessly-dropped match, know what I mean? '_

</comment><comment><USER34> While I don't begrudge people spending their money on whatever they want, these are likely the same people that benefited from the recent tax cut for the wealthy. The government cuts taxes for the rich, reducing funding available for the public good and the rich then use those funds for themselves. I completely understand the argument that those funds are then trickling down to the firefighters and their families; however, the fire prevention benefits are now limited to the rich neighborhoods instead of the wider area a public application of those same funds to hire firefighters would have benefited. It is a net loss.

Another thing I struggle with is that we arrest the poor and send them into harms way to protect the wealthy for $1 an hour.

We are rapidly approaching a time of the rich living in protected enclaves and the poor in polluted unsafe neighborhoods policed by forces only intent on keeping the rabble pacified. In New York City, the richest city in the world, 1/10 of public school kids are homeless...

</comment><comment><USER35> The FOX TV Network would never run something like this. I find FOX properties online to be far less restrictive in what they can publish — even class struggles are fair game to post. This would never fly on FOX opinion shows on TV.

For the record, firefighters per neighborhood could work, but not multiple competing companies. We used to have that here in NYC. Here is a scene from Gangs of New York which is historically accurate and correctly mentions the Bowery Boys and the Municipal Police Riot (two diff sets of police)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsB5bcygB4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsB5bcygB4)

This, friends, is one of the potential pitfalls of anarcho-capitalist utopia

</comment><comment><USER36> PG&E should get some goat herds working their most dangerous fire hazards. It might be a way to cut down on fires.

Apparently a thing already in some parts of the world.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/europe/portugal- wil...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/europe/portugal-wildfires- goats-climate-change.html)

</comment><comment><USER37> And the public has prison slave labor fighting its fires:

[https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are- get...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-getting- paid-145-day-fight-california-wildfires)

</comment><comment><USER38> >When trying to fireproof a particular home, crews will take the time to rake away vegetation surrounding the home and close windows and vents, The Times reported.

Funny how it was just a year ago when the media was having a meltdown over the suggesting of raking away brush.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is what dystopia looks like.

<comment><USER40> Precisely, reminds me of Octavia Butlers' books. (Parable series)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> EVERY single post which associates Trump's tax cuts have been downvoted significantly.

Tell me again that YCombinator isn't basically a right-wing troll site?

<comment><USER42> Maybe people don't believe there should be an association between federal tax rates and state/municipality liabilities? Just a thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sometimes I wonder if firefighting is privatized, insurance companies would require more fire-resistant building materials and design (instead of the typical match-box American single-family home or low rise apartment). At least this the libertarian argument argued here (pg 241): [https://mises- media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty...](https://mises- media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf)

<comment><USER44> >if firefighting is privatized, insurance companies would require more fire- resistant building materials and design (instead of the typical match-box American single-family home or low rise apartment)

This is what happens when firefighting and house maintenance are in the same interest. The libertarian argument argues for a private interest, but it could very well be turned on its head in favor of a public interest.

<comment><USER45> I think the point is that there are externalities of me building a tinder-box house; namely, the costs of the fire-fighting and potentially burning down the homes of my neighbors. One of the keys to privatization is each would be responsible for the damage his house burning down could cause to others. Thus, if I want insurance, my company may give me a huge discount for building a house of concrete. It would also likely provide my fire-fighting, as it's cheaper than paying for a whole new house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Should the public pay for the fire protection of extravagant villas built in the forest? Of should those be mandatorily left to burn to satisfy some perverse feeling of class revenge?</comment>


The Startup Store - stickers from startups - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupstore.tictail.com/

<comment><USER2> I assume those prices denote the money the startups will pay me if I spread their stickers?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would I pay to advertise their product?

<comment><USER4> Because you like it, and want it to be successful so you can keep using it?

Makes more sense than paying to advertise a political party or a sports team...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of a small new version the old Web 2.0 logo cloud:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/>

(My failed startup was one logo to the right of Pandora - anyone else's in there?)

</comment><comment><USER6> Not hating on the project but seems like a problem over-engineered.

Most startups will happily send you a pile of stickers for free if you email them, or at the very least send a stamped addressed envelope.

<comment><USER7> It's an e-commerce startup that's dogfooding by selling stickers, if that makes more sense.

<comment><USER6> Actually, that does, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those who were as confused as I was, the prices are in Swedish Krona. Currently 1 Swedish krona == 0.1503 US dollars.

</comment><comment><USER9> Please update how many stickers you sell =)

<comment><USER10> Looks like it's only Swedish startups at the moment.

<comment><USER11> Readmill founders are swedish, but they are based in Berlin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> International stickers are coming anytime now! We're taking submissions at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Tony Hseih wanted to stay independent, Sequoia wanted liquidity event - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/45388/zappos-ceo-wanted-to-stay-independent-sequoia-wanted-liquidity-sources/

<comment><USER2> Now that we know this is true it really puts Mike Moritz in a different light. He's always been considered one of the top VCs. This takes him way down the list as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well...I mean...to be fair..you can't really blame him. His fiduciary responsibility is to maximize returns for his shareholders.

So, to be quite honest, he is actually doing a great job at that. The issue is that it seems that the VC game is numbered. Entrepreneurs are being more and more turned off of VC - and this definitely won't help the VC's case.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's even more interesting....Sequoia had a 3X - 3.5X liquidation preference. That's INSANE!!!

That means, that if they put in $5M, and the company is sold for $100M, they get $15M - $17.5M before their stock gets converted to common shares. Then, on top of that, they get X% of the rest. X% representing their portion of common stock out of the outstanding.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure that's not just 3x on their last round? If they had done a lot of prior rounds with cash in that may be covering old money for their LPs. i.e. if they had done 5m in their last round, but 10m in two prior rounds--3x is just getting the money they put in back.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen the term sheets, but according to the article (and the one in Inc.) it seems that they jumped in fresh in the Series E, because Tony's investment firm basically did all the other rounds.

If I am not mistaken, Series E was the first round that outsiders joined. I could be mistaken on that though. However, I am reading his book now so if I find out I will be sure to let you know :)</comment></comment></comment>


Thomas Kuhn changed the way the world looked at science (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientific-revolutions <comment><USER3> I did a course recently on the Sociology of Science, and it covered a study of Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Karl Popper's theory of falsification, and Mertonian norms (aka Ethos of Science).

I found that to be a really good foundation for scientists, and highly recommend these three to anyone in academia or science.

</comment><comment><USER4> One less obvious area in which Kuhn has exerted tremendous influence, and one not mentioned in this story, is on philosophy, and especially the history of ethics. Alasdair MacIntyre's framing of moral thinking as "history-constituted tradition" was sparked by Kuhn's similar framing of scientific thinking. Except MacIntyre uses this approach to discredit the entirety of academic moral philosophy, from Hume to Rawls. And, while doing so, exposes popular ethical maxims as the arbitrary parodies of such work. He now advocates a return to "Thomistic realism," initiated by Aristotle and developed by Aquinas.

Here's one of his papers that outlines the application of Kuhn to philosophy: [http://www.ifac.univ- nantes.fr/IMG/pdf/Texte_de_Macintyre_19...](http://www.ifac.univ- nantes.fr/IMG/pdf/Texte_de_Macintyre_1977_-_Intervention_de_Vincent_Boyer.pdf)

On a slightly different note:

>Kuhn, like Popper, thought that science was mainly about theory, but an increasing amount of cutting-edge scientific research is data- rather than theory-driven.

Science always proclaims to be "data driven." Galileo and the Ptolemaics were working with the same "data." When Aristotle examined the bones of animals, he was working with the same "data" as Darwin. What changes is how they interpret it: what standards of truth and observation they observe in its collection and synthesis. There is no such thing as "raw data."

<comment><USER5> Re: "There is no such thing as 'raw data'" \-- and of interest to Kuhnians everywhere -- this is a terrific book about climate data, climate models, & computation => [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vast- machine](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vast-machine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kuhn's really great book is _The Copernican Revolution_. He was a uniquely insightful historian of science. It's amusing that he took some lessons from the history of science, well known to scholars in that field, simplified and distilled them to the point where even academic philosophers of science could understand them, wrote a short book consisting largely of multiple repetitions of these ideas, and it is _this_ book that made him a superstar among undergraduates and philosophers. Well, good for him.

</comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one who read the article and thought the Whig interpretation was more accurate? The "revolution" of quantum mechanics didn't overthrow Newtonian mechanics, Relativity didn't either. They added to Newton's view and corrected it in a few places but to this day the first thing you learn in physics is Newton.

There was no revolution. Newton was right with the caveat that if things are very large, very small, or very fast things may look different. To this day if something disagrees with the core of what Newton said it's almost certainly wrong. The fact that the "paradigm shift" from deterministic to probabilistic left most of science untouched should show how paradigms aren't all that important. Quantum mechanics has multiple "paradigms" describing the exact same things and they're doing close to nothing in terms of pushing science forward, some think they're holding it back because so much time is spent arguing about them.

<comment><USER8> Re-interpretation of Newton in light of quantum mechanics and relativity are part and parcel of scientific revolution according to Kuhn. Science weaves a narrative of progress. The extreme example, and the subject of Kuhn's earlier work was the Copernican revolution: we still get the heliocentric model presented as an astronomical refinement not a form of heresy. The standard science narrative doesn't see Newton through his own eyes, as principally a theologian, either: he spent a lot of effort trying to prove the existence of god [so did Descartes despite _Discourse on Method_ ].

None of this is to downplay their intellectual contributions. It is only to illustrate Kuhn's assertion that science constantly redefines past literature as continuous with incompatible contemporary beliefs: any interpretation of Newton's work orthogonally to the existence of god does not accurately depict his views.

<comment><USER7> Newton's scientific ideas, which are what matter here, remain largely untouched since they were published in the late 1600's. The fact that you'd resort to bringing up how little science focuses on his beliefs in things like numerology and alchemy doesn't bode well for the strength of Kuhn's work.

There's his scientific work which is widely available, and then there's his personal beliefs. I could really care less if we don't talk about his theology, but if you're accusing science of being dishonest about his mathematical and scientific contributions that's a claim which requires better evidence than you've provided.

<comment><USER8> I am not anthropmorphizing science, let alone accusing it of anything. Instead, I am explaining Kuhn's work [or at least my reading of it]. However useful it may be to partition Newton's work into mechanics and cosmology, its our partitioning, not Newton's. The "General Scholium" [1] was one of the improvements Newton made to the first edition of _Principia_ in the two decades between first and second editions. There are sociological reasons why students of science are not encouraged to read Newton for themselves.

[1]: [http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm](http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm)

<comment><USER7> The General Sholium[0] was an _addendum_ , not a set of corrections to The Principia. And what book doesn't have some corrections between the first and second edition?

> There are sociological reasons why students of science are not encouraged to > read Newton for themselves.

Like what? Do you think physics teachers are afraid their students will find out Newton believed in God and then they won't be atheists? Do you think they're pushing materialism or "scientism" and rewriting history to that end? This is close to a conspiracy theory. I think you're ascribing malice or ill intent to what are almost purely pragmatic choices.

Here's the text of The Principia[1], read a few pages and imagine a physics student trying to make sense of it. When I finally opened it I found exactly what I had always been told I would find: something interesting but hard to read and not the best place to learn physics. I don't think there are any physics books today that prove the fundamentals of calculus in the middle of their discussion of physics. That's a pedagogical nightmare. Today you learn calculus and then you do physics with it, but Newton developed calculus to do physics so there were no calculus books he could assume his audience was already familiar with.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Scholium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Scholium) [1] - [http://www.archive.org/stream/newtonspmathema00newtrich/newt...](http://www.archive.org/stream/newtonspmathema00newtrich/newtonspmathema00newtrich_djvu.txt)

<comment><USER8> Newton wrote _Principia_ in Latin, not English. Latin being, at the time, the language of what Newton practised, natural philosophy and continuous with theology. There was no such thing as science. Thus, it was perfectly normal for Newton's thought to mature, and the _Scholium_ reflected the _progress_ of his thinking over two decades.

Aside from having to add Latin to the scientific cannon alongside German and English and Russian, the direction in which Newton's thinking evolved is disruptive in the context of contemporary science's self image...none of which is surprising given Kuhn's work.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you should _learn_ something from Kuhn and consider that attachment to your pet paradigm is holding you back.

When a scientist wants to build up the self-image of science they do the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. They use Newton as an example to prove that science is superior to the other disciplines he also practiced but bore no fruit.

<comment><USER8> The propensity of a not small portion of the professionally practising population of scientists to postulate the most high profundity to their belief system is a legacy of the discipline's origin among theologians and in the traditionally sectarian institutions that are universities. The proof of science's superiority is on as firm footing as proofs of god when it comes to logical validity, e.g. the Newton that is pointed it to is not the Newton who held the beliefs of _Principia_ 's author, as the _Schollium_ demonstrates.

Be fair to theology, for it admits when it's proofs resort to revelation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kuhn's book can be argued to be one of the most important books of the last 100 years, because it shows the difference between how we _think_ we learn things and how we actually learn them.

<comment><USER10> Kuhn's book is mostly crap. He cherry picks his revolutions to argue his point better. But the overall idea is solid, if not useful--in some ways it's just Marxism applied to academics.

<comment><USER11> Compared to Feyerabend Kuhn is 24K solid gold

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found a copy of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" sticking out of a dumpster when I was in college, grabbed it, and read it.

It was surprisingly enjoyable, and surprisingly personally influential. I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about what it was in the human brain that caused this pattern of 'normal science' versus 'revolutionary science' to be stable—and it was time well spent, I think.

</comment><comment><USER13> Derrida and the other postmodern semioticists, theologians, and literary critics can't hold a candle to Kuhn in the way they banished modernity. Each of our personal "social locations" has a huge effect on how we think.

</comment><comment><USER14> He might have changed the way a few scientists and a few more philosophers think about science but most people including most practising scientists don't think about such things at all. The general public, I suspect, isn't even aware that there is a 'way the world looked at science' much less that there is a different way of looking at it.

I wouldn't have bothered writing this rant except that the sloppy use of words like 'world' when all that can really be meant is something like 'the world of science' or possibly 'the views of some academic observers of science' is one of the defining characteristics of journalism (both high brow and mass market). When one claims far more than is plausible one does a disservice to the truth and misleads the interested lay person and when that person discovers that the claim is untrue the reputations not only of the journalist but also of the original work suffer.

<comment><USER15> > He might have changed the way a few scientists and a few more philosophers > think about science but most people including most practising scientists > don't think about such things at all. The general public, I suspect, isn't > even aware that there is a 'way the world looked at science' much less that > there is a different way of looking at it.

There's a word for the state of these scientists and laypeople: ignorance.

Edit to add some substance to the name-calling:

There's a certain perspective held by many scientists that the scientific method can and will describe the purposes and meaning behind every phenomena both natural and man-made that have any relevance or importance to our lives as humans. If those holding this perspective grant that valuable knowledge lies outside the ability of science to observe and explain, they tend to view it as irrelevant and frivolous. Those who hold this perspective tend to view philosophy as mere wordplay, and the idea of studying science from the perspective of philosophy (as Kuhn did) as pointless or an usurpation of their position at the top of the intellectual ladder.

Feynman embodied this attitude when he said, "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."

It's a belligerent and proud ignorance that puts a black stain on the practice of science today, and an attitude that threatens some of the most valuable academic disciplines in the humanities, to the detriment of our culture.

My brief statement above was meant to call attention to this belligerent ignorance and poke fun at it a little bit.

<comment><USER16> > _Feynman embodied this attitude when he said, "Philosophy of science is > about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."_

Your comment still does not explain how philosophy of science should be useful to scientists. It would be much more convincing if it did.

<comment><USER17> Self-awareness is always a good thing, no?

Kuhn's key point is that scientists (like many humans) tend to be herd animals. When you get results that are inconsistent with the public record, not to mention current dogma, there's a tendency to dig seriously for systematic errors. And when you start getting results that are consistent with the public record, you tend to get on with the writeup. Being aware of that stereotypic behavior is the first step in being free of it. No?

<comment><USER18> I agree, but doesn't this mean that scientists should read about the history of science, or sociology of science, not philosophy of science?

<comment><USER17> All of them!

And anyway, those are all artificial categories, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Kuhn's theory corresponds neither to the facts and nor to the history of science. Galileo and Newton are ample counter-factuals.

</comment><comment><USER20> I heard about Kuhn at school when I was doing my physics degree. His famous work 'The structure of Scientific Revolutions' is worth the read:

[http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific- Revolutions-50th-...](http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific- Revolutions-50th-Anniversary/dp/0226458121/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone who enjoys Kuhn's Structure should go on to read Paul Feyerabend's Against Method, and Farewell to Reason. To summarise: there is only one rule in science, and that is "anything goes!". There are interesting parallels between scientific method and software methods...

<comment><USER6> I found _Against Method_ to be intellectually dishonest. Feyerabend cherry picks anecdotes from history, and distorts history, to support his pet idea that there is no such thing as the scientific method or falsifiability.

<comment><USER22> Could you mention some specifics? In which respects was it intellectually dishonest?

<comment><USER6> I read this book in college (1970s), but the bit that sticks in my memory was his discussion of observations through Galileo's telescope. His observation, and others' confirmation, of Jupiter's moons, the phases of the planets, and other phenomena helped end the Ptolemaic era, and had a profound effect on the development of science. Feyerabend starts with the idea that "anything goes" and tries to support it by describing some anecdotes of people who looked through Galileo's telescope and said they couldn't see anything. He thinks these anecdotes should be weighted equally with the body of detailed astronomical observation, and thinks it was arbitrary to base scientific models on observations of what, after all, were real things. He starts with his conclusion and finds anecdotes to support it. I suspected at the time that he wasn't even taking himself seriously, but plenty of other people seem to have been.

<comment><USER22> You're missing the point of the discussion. The point is that observation is a far less straightforward thing than it's sometimes made out to be. It is clear _with hindsight_ that Galileo was indeed observing the moons of Jupiter, but it was far from clear at the time. The reports of people who didn't see anything are no more "anecdotal" than Galileo's reports that he did see something, and there is little reason to doubt the veracity of either set of reports. It is well known that there's a certain knack to seeing things through telescopes and microscopes, and if you look through one for the first time you may simply fail to see what a trained observer sees. Neither the telescope nor human visual perception were well understood at the time, and it must have been difficult to know what to make of the conflicting reports. Feyerabend's entire argument depends on the assumption that Galileo was - <USER2> least in retrospect - doing the right thing. However, the right thing in this instance turned out to require the violation of pretty much every prescription of the "scientific method".

<comment><USER6> If that were the point, it's unlikely that I missed it, because it was a commonplace before Feyerabend wrote his book, and I was and am steeped in the idea.

Feyerabend's position was far more radical. He (and, again, I'm trying not to misrepresent him, but I haven't read any of his stuff in decades) was trying to show that science is no more rational than anything else that people do, that scientists accept or ignore evidence arbitrarily, and that the existence of a scientific method is a myth. He was wrong, and the Galileo stuff is a good example. On the one hand, you have, not just Galileo himself, but a bunch of other people, observing very specific things, and the same things, repeatably; things that have natural physical explanations. On the other hand, you have some people who didn't see anything, or just a blur. You're right that there was little experience of looking through telescopes. But the failure to make an observation is not an observation. That scientists were influenced, in their model building, by observations, even in the face of the inability of some people to make them, does not mean that science is irrational. That the course of science is complex and mired in politics doesn't mean that there is no such thing as a scientific method.

<comment><USER22> Again, you're analyzing what Galileo did with the benefit of hindsight. With hindsight, we know who was using the telescope correctly and who wasn't. At the time, you had a complex set of rather fuzzy observations made using a poorly understood instrument, and some of these observations were in conflict with arguably more reliable observations. Feyerabend is pointing out that Galileo wasn't right because he was more scientific and more rational than his critics. In that sense, his decisions to accept certain bits of evidence and ignore others (e.g. the apparently obvious fact that the Earth is not in motion) were arbitrary. That is, these decisions did not follow from (and in fact sometimes went against) the scientific method as it is typically enunciated. With hindsight, we can offer a post-hoc rational reconstruction of each decision, but that can't be taken seriously as an account of what Galileo was actually doing. So yes, the scientific method is a myth if understood as a set of guidelines the following of which has been a major cause of scientific progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I loved reading SoSR in the Philosophy of Science course I took as an undergrad. I wrote a term paper about how the discovery of quasicrystals didn't fit his model. I'd probably be embarrassed to go back and read it, but I had fun writing it.</comment>


The 40-day Bitcoin fortune plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/202210373/The-40-DAY-Bitcoin-fortune-plan

<comment><USER2> Loan kiting is a type of bank fraud. It's "an intent to deceive" for the purpose of obtaining unauthorized use of bank funds.</comment>


Most of your ideas will never take shape, and that's ok - <AUTHOR> http://www.nilkanth.com/2009/07/09/selling-fake-wishbones/ <comment><USER2> >>>>when he overheard one of them say "well even I could do this". <<<<

I guess I'm not the only one to make the "shitz easy" blunder (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501> which really kicked up a shitstorm on the net =P ) and this disease doesn't seem to be limited to just programmers.

<comment><USER3> How did your weekend project go anyway? Didn't hear anything? (honestly inquiring here)

<comment><USER2> As I've mentioned here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=684343>

Since many think I'm being disrespectful towards the hardwork of others, i've abandoned cloning SO and decided to write something else for fun.

As for what I did over the weekend. I didn't get as much done as i expected but the project itself is coming along, as I have a working first prototype, i will put it up somewhere and then post about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "well even I could do this"

I just said that to a software vendor yesterday.

He responded, "I'm sure you could. It took us 5 years. How long will it take you?"

<comment><USER5> what was your response?

<comment><USER4> Let's schedule a demo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem I have with the author's thesis is I think he puts too much faith into knee-jerk impulses. For example, he says this...

"I have realized that ideas which remain unexecuted for long periods of time, will most definetly never be executed.... The execution of an important idea is almost immidiately initiated. "

The truth is there are a lot of things that can stand in the way of the immedicate execution of an impoortant idea. That doesn't mean they should be given up on.

Every good idea I've had required work to execute and there have been times in my life where my job, personal life, or other circumstances didn't allow me the time to put that work in. But I didn't give up on the idea because of that and when the time came when I could execute on them I did.

Ideas should be judged on their merit not on the time frame they occured to a person.</comment>


6 hours since launch and 125+ signups :) - <AUTHOR>

Chartburst.com launched today in beta. We've had an amazing response, with over 125 signups just 6 hours after beta launch.<p>Check us out and let us know your feedback and thoughts! <comment><AUTHOR> www.chartburst.com</comment>


The Importance of Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/frank-rich-in-praise-of-donald-trump.html <comment><USER2> There seems to be a sizable number of people who do not feel represented by the narrow range of options that the political establishment has deigned to offer them, and who are tired of having to accept what the powers that be have declared inevitable.

Because of the way the American political system works, this dissatisfaction seldom finds expression ("what, are you going to waste your vote?"), but when an outsider with deep pockets appears, suddenly it can coalesce around him.

Therefore, I suspect that the question of Trump's competence is moot for many voters. If you just want to break the way the system works, four years with an ineffective president may not seem like a high price to pay.

OTOH, I find it curious that the article found no room for a very obvious real-world parallel amidst all the fictional characters Trump was likened to. Twenty years ago, another first-world country saw a political void filled by a boisterous tycoon who paid for his own campaign. It didn't turn out well, nor was it over quickly.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything. And Trump caught on to that and just throws vague remarks here and there in that direction. And desperate voters say "fuck it, he might just be crazy enough to not go back to the same line all the other presidents come back to after they are elected".

Same with Sanders. Just on the opposite side. He found a niche where he can cater to extremely politically correct liberals and minorities, who also feel misrepresented and feel that america is actually not liberal enough. He has to actually make an impression that he is listening to the voters if he wants to get any attention at all, since he is not getting that much media attention.

Both cases I think shows people are tired of lack of options. Main party candidates seem to be utterly incompetent, like Hilary, others seem to just continue what has been done before, so there's dissatisfaction and search for something to shake up the system. Trump fits it well.

<comment><USER4> >Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything.

If you are an average straight white man, yeah, it sure looks like things aren't getting better. Your wages haven't increased much at all (adjusted for inflation) since the '70s.

And yeah, women and the gays and men who aren't white (though, I think it's mostly women; there are just so many more of them) are making gains every day... if trends continue, it won't be much longer before _those people_ make as much as _we_ do! and now they want to be treated with respect, too? Christ, when will it end!

I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) - At least where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble" than anything really threatening to the status quo.

But there are a lot of people who feel genuine rage. And I don't know... My own opinion is informed by the fact that I make really good money and work in an industry where I get a really obvious (and fairly large) bonus for being a white male. Would I feel that rage if I had to struggle to make ends meet? If I had to seriously compete with women in the workplace? I like to think I wouldn't, but who knows?

<comment><USER5> "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble"

No one is arguing against this in particular. Conservatives believe women are human. They're also not all white males. I really hope I do not have to cite sources on this.

<comment><USER6> Maybe not explicitly, but conservative policies are often biased against women and/or minorities.

<comment><USER7> I hate to be this guy, but: citation needed.

You just can't make such a sweeping claim without at least giving examples.

<comment><USER8> Even deeper is a discussion of what counts as being biased against a gender/race. Is supporting child support policies biased against men because men are more often to end up in jail for not paying? Is supporting abortion bans bias against women because women are more often to end up in jail for seeking an abortion anyways? Is supporting university affirmative action being anti-minority because they hurt Asians? Is opposing university affirmative action being anti-minority because they help African Americans?

Asking for citations has, from what I've seen in the past, ended with people giving citations of what they think constitute a bias that the other side doesn't consider a bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This post got flagged and killed. Daniel kindly unkilled it at my request. I'm not a Trump fan (and neither is the article) but I agree with its counter- intuitive observation.

 _> In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as "dangerous to democracy."_

It's no surprise that Michael Gerson labels Trump "dangerous to democracy." Trump is actually dangerous to the GOP establishment and Gerson stands for that establishment.

What does it say about American democracy that it takes a self-aggrandizimg billionaire to speak openly about buying politicians and offers to be bought in a presidential election debate? It's the job of the moderators to force such an issue into the open, but they don't dare anger the party for fear of never hosting again. If you watched the first debate, you can see that Fox News was tough on Trump (as they should be), but nowhere near as tough on the rest (as they should have been). Even CNN seemed to be a proxy for the Republican establishment in the second debate.

EDIT: Ross Perot was was the last candidate to truly upset the political establishment, and he also was a billionaire. Hmmmm....

<comment><USER10> It's a good call. I thought about posting it yesterday but was uncertain about the political content. I think it's interesting to hackers insofar as it identifies some meta-trends in politics that are characteristic of systems disruption. Other organs such as the Economist have also observed that Something is Amiss when the three leading candidates are all non-politicians and easily outpoll candidates with experience in governance (even if you dislike their policies).

[http://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21665014-party-f...](http://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21665014-party-faithful-are-keen-decapitate-politicians-experience- politics-regicidal?zid=311&ah=308cac674cccf554ce65cf926868bbc2)

I've said for some time that the world is drifting back towards a place of deep political instability, and this election has the unpleasant air of looming disaster about it. Whoever is elected president is almost certainly going to be regarded as illegitimate or intolerable by a large segment of the population, due to a mix of the internet and demographic sorting _a la_ [http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php](http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php)

I feel we underestimate the influence of the internet on social dynamics. It's much easier to get near-immediate social validation for any given identity group, and something about the combination of anonymity and depersonalization in discussion forums provides psychosocial rewards for antagonistic/oppositional behavior when viewpoints collide.

<comment><USER11> Well, the last two presidents have been regarded as illegitimate and intolerable by large segments of the population. I'm not saying that's _good_ , but we've survived it so far.

However, I share your unease, your feeling that Something Is Amiss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This story was killed by user flags, whereupon another user emailed to plead the case for the article as more thoughtful and substantive than it sounds.

The median Donald Trump article is obviously off topic for this site, but arguably his rise is also "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon" [1]. So let's try turning flags off on this post as an experiment and see if everyone can keep the discussion thoughtful.

Edit: I read the article. Trump is a natural subject for Rich, a political journalist with a (much longer) background as an entertainment critic. What makes the article good is that he takes Trump seriously and uses him to make 'serious' politics look buffoonish, reversing the usual trope. If anyone knows a better analysis of Trump, please post the link in this thread—I'm sure many readers would like to see it.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER13> You could argue that the rise of Trump is not really anything new; Italy has had Berlusconi in politics since the early 90ies, and there are a lot of similarities:

[https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/watch-a- conversa...](https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/watch-a-conversation- with-luigi-zingales-c5ed3601a8f0)

<comment><USER12> I think it's fair to see each of those two as new in his context.

The article makes a case for Trump as new: a pop culture character coming to life in real politics. The fictional antecedents he brings up are fascinating. It's a good article—so good it's too bad he didn't go the whole hog and resist any usual partisan swipes, but that's probably too much to ask of Frank Rich. I'd say it easily passes the HN bar for on-topicness in a political story, though we'll still penalize the thread if it goes flamewar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _"Now, there 's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens.

This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F#ck Hope."_

\-- George Carlin

<comment> sid- Wow. Really loved that. Pretty insightful...maybe we should elect this guy

<comment><USER15> I agree. We should have. But it's too late now. He's dead.

<comment><USER16> He cannot do less than current congress if elected. So votes away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dan Carlin proposed the theory that Trump understood that only trying to win the GOP primary is a winning strategy for the primary.[0] Basically the primary caucus is a lot more radical than the general electorate and normal candidates have to run on a just a little bit more conservative platform than the next leading candidate, while preparing to turn around as soon as they have secured the nomination. A candidate like Trump can run on a platform that is much better suited for the primary election, because he is not planning to win the presidential election.

As an outside observer ( I am German), I think that the theory sounds interesting. However, it is possible that he tries a different maneuver to win the general election. His refusal to found a PAC may mean, that he plans to run on an anti-corruption, Washington outsider platform and basically form a analogous coalition as Syriza did in Greece. Syriza's coalition partner is a right wing populist party, they basically formed a anybody but the old boys club coalition. And my guess is, that assuming Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, there are quite a few moderates who find such a candidate attractive, even if he is a reality TV star.

[0] [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common- sense-295-trumping-t...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common- sense-295-trumping-the-playbook/)

<comment><USER18> Interesting theory. It's overtaking my currently conspiratorial feeling that he is a Jeb stooge who is hogging to spotlight from anyone who can't afford to fight a billionaire... only to putter out over the winter as everybody embraces the newly "pro-hispanic" Republican establishment.

<comment><USER19> It's funny how everyone has a conspiracy theory on Trump. The right wants to believe he's employed by Clinton to split the Republican vote, and the left want to believe he's employed by the RNC to safely pander to the racist element of the Republican Party.

Jeb definitely looks "pro-Hispanic" compared with Trump. He even learned Spanish!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> On a similar note: [http://imgur.com/gallery/qpNZ7](http://imgur.com/gallery/qpNZ7) While NYMag seems to be more about Trump revealing the ridiculousness of our political system in general, the imgur guy focuses on how he's attracting republicans by showing off specifically how useless their own leadership has been for the last several years.

Both seem like valid points, which need to be understood by everyone who hates the idea of Trump as president and hopes to find a way to defeat him (myself included).

</comment><comment><USER21> > he's exposing all its phoniness and corruption in ways as serious as he is > not

Trump will definitely make a full run at the Presidency if he believes he has a chance - and it appears he does. This guy wants to be the President. This is not a publicity stunt, if it ever was.

Continuing to pretend he's a cartoon character will just make the hangover worse.

Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter.

<comment><USER22> Reminds me of the disparagement of the Reagan as a "B-movie actor".

He was playing _quite_ a "role" when he was the first president to try to end, rather than contain, the Soviet Union, and then achieved that.

<comment><USER23> > He was playing quite a "role" when he was the first president to try to end, > rather than contain, the Soviet Union, and then achieved that.

There is no concrete way in which his policies were more substantially more aimed at ending the USSR than containing it compared to prior administrations (in many ways, it was perfectly within the range of approaches taken by prior regimes; the most substantial differentiating element that people tend to point to was the big ramp up in defense spending -- which was a policy initiated by Carter at the end of his term.)

And his administration did not achieve ending the USSR, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't want to believe this. Had to be a 4chan raid on the polls, right?

> It took a village of birthers to get Republicans to the point where only 29 > percent of them now believe that Obama was born in America (and 54 percent > identify him as a Muslim), according to an August survey by Public Policy > Polling. Far from being a fake Republican, Trump speaks for the party's > overwhelming majority.

Edit: [http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump- suppor...](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump-supporters- think-obama-is-a-muslim-born-in-another-country.html)

someone please tell me that is a joke.

<comment><USER25> There are a lot of people who believe surprising things. For example, from a 2013 Harris poll:

      58% believe in The Devil (26% don't)
      47% believe in evolution (29% don't)
      42% believe in ghosts    (37% don't)
      36% believe in UFOs      (35% don't)
      26% believe in witches   (54% don't)

\-- [http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/...](http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1353/Default.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is the core paragraph of this article:

        The best news about Trump is that he is wreaking
        this havoc on the status quo while having no chance
        of ascending to the presidency.
        You can't win the Electoral College in 2016 by driving away women,
        Hispanics, blacks, and Asian-Americans, no matter how
        large the margins you pile up in deep-red states.

This whole clown show lets people express their dissatisfaction with the status quo, yet the risk of the US going full retard politically is pretty slim.

<comment><USER27> [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/28/donald- trump...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/28/donald-trump-has- huge-lead-among-republican-women-/)

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/donald- trum...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/donald-trump-has- black-supporters-really.html)

The idea that all minorities hate him probably sits well with your wishes and that of the author of the article but it's not necessarily true.

<comment><USER26> I don't believe he's hated by women/minority voters, but he doesn't have the support needed to win the presidency, and he certainly appears to do everything he can to reduce that support.

<comment><USER28> Hispanics and Asians are generally in non competitive states CA and TX come to mind. Who says this? Nate Cohn:

"This idea may seem jarring, given that Mitt Romney took just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2012 loss to Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls, while George W. Bush won about 40 percent in his 2004 victory. But in 2016 Hispanics will represent just 12 percent of eligible voters, and between 9 and 10 percent of actual voters. That's a lot, but it's not large enough to grant or deny Republicans the presidency."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/upshot/hispanic-voters- are...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/upshot/hispanic-voters-are- important-for-republicans-but-not-indispensable.html)

Not an an endorsement of candidate or party but simply pointing out mis- information by special interest groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm standing by my prediction that Donald Trump will withdraw himself from the nomination prior to the Iowa primaries (and it will take these poll numbers continuing past Christmas for me to think otherwise) [1].

If anyone has a chance at derailing my beliefs so far, it's been Scott Adams (of Dilbert) and his ongoing series of blogs posts about the 'Master Wizard Hypothesis' [2]. He's essentially arguing that linguistic wizardry can trump (sorry) policy and credibility, and that the Donald is a master. Likely for entertainment purposes only, but he's been right on this matter more than Nate Silver so far! Every time you see 'low energy' Bush, 'nice guy' Carson, or 'that face' Fiorina in the press, Adams makes more sense.

[1] [https://twitter.com/jacobaldridge/status/632163459388432384](https://twitter.com/jacobaldridge/status/632163459388432384) [2] [http://blog.dilbert.com/](http://blog.dilbert.com/)

<comment><USER30> I kind of believe this as well, but why would you pull out with such large polling numbers?

What if he parlays this into a VP position? Every other candidate would fall over themselves to grab his market share.

<comment><USER29> John Garner, 32nd Vice President of the United States, wonderfully stated that the office of VP "is not worth a bucket of warm piss."

I suspect Trump would view it the same way. Whereas Rubio is well-placed to parlay a VP run in 2016 into a title fight in 2024, I can't see Trump wanting to be someone's second in command.

It's part of why I think he'll drop out - when the poll numbers crater, he's got nothing to fight for, and for his brand he's better off throwing some mud (whatever Master Wizard is for _" the Establishment is working behind the scenes to ensure I'll never get the nomination"_) and walking away than he is waiting to record 2% of the votes in Iowa.

<comment><USER30> I'm not so sure.

You're pretty much Washington royalty without having to do very much (except run the Senate, which he'd get a blast out of).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Auto Summarized Content (Algorithm: Tuatara GS1)

And thanks to another unintended consequence of the GOP 's Citizens United victory, the PACs it enables will keep hopeless presidential candidates financially afloat no matter how poorly they are faring in polls and primaries, thereby crippling the party 's ability to unite early behind a single anti-Trump alternative...When Trump 's presidential rivals attended a David and Charles Koch retreat, he tweeted: I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc...

Auto Extracted Ranked Tags (Algorithm: Tuatara GS1)

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</comment><comment><USER32> In one word, the OP plays with the accusation that what Trump says isn't _real_. Okay, let's consider what in the OP is/is not _real_. Here I am not talking for/against _abortion_ but about eighth grade civics on the SCOTUS and US Constitution:

"But the party's real stand on the sanctity of female biology had been encapsulated in the debate by Walker's and Marco Rubio's endorsement of a ban on abortions for women who have been raped or risk dying in childbirth."

 _Real_? That's about where I want to stop reading the OP.

Why? I know that for me eighth grade civics was a long time ago, but as I recall (1) the SCOTUS case of Roe v Wade that made abortion legal is now 40+ years old; (2) to change that decision need (A) a _lot_ of what would be, say, _unlikely_ new SCOTUS nominations or (B) a Constitutional amendment that would take 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the states. So, first-cut, intuitively, IMHO, for either (A) or (B), any way to have "a ban on abortions" is decades away. Considering how often we have Constitutional amendments, maybe centuries.

Real? Talking about "a ban on abortions" is _real_? I don't think so.

<comment><USER22> Uh, no, although I'll admit it wasn't taught in my 1085 9th grade civics class. The Founders profoundly distrusted the Supreme Court, and in Article III, Section 2, there is a provision that's been used more than a few times, including in the last few decades, to remove something from the Federal Court's remit:

 _In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make._

ADDED: See this for extensive discussion of the practice of "jurisdiction_stripping": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping)

That national level Republicans have never tried in the abortion domain suggests to me how much they really care about the issue.

<comment><USER32> Interesting quote.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that, really, there is nothing Congress can do about a SCOTUS decision such as Roe v Wade just by passing a law and getting the POTUS to sign it. And should a US state pass a law against abortion, the legal system would instantly use Roe v Wade to strike down that state law.

If all that is so, then the only way to make abortion illegal is to reverse Roe v Wade, and there are only two ways to do that, (A) have another case brought to the SCOTUS and accepted for review by the SCOTUS and with enough new justices to reverse Roe v Wade and (B) have a Constitutional amendment with, as I mentioned, 2/3rds of the House, .... IMHO, the chances of either (A) or (B) within 100 years look slim to none.

If all that is correct, then talking about laws against abortion is some form of self-abuse or manipulation of others and less useful than a spit to windward.

Again, I'm just talking about process, not the pros/cons of abortion.

<comment><USER22> I apologize for not including this in my original posting: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping) It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s and '00s.

<comment><USER32> Interesting. That's much more detailed than covered in my eighth grade civics class! My brother did a lot in constitutional law, but I didn't, and I'm not a lawyer.

So, maybe with some interpretations of _jurisdiction stripping_ , Congress and the POTUS might pass a law saying that the SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over cases involving abortion and then pass a law making abortion illegal. Maybe. I am getting a suspicion that maybe _jurisdiction stripping_ could not be used for that little two step dance.

And, if that two step dance could be used, then, sure, it's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps. For me, I don't know. And the OP didn't talk about such a dance step either! Mike Huckabee seems highly interested in making abortion illegal, and the OP mentioned two more candidates trying to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and danger to the mother, but, still, I've heard them say nothing about jurisdiction stripping.

Out'a my depth!

<comment><USER22> _And, if that two step dance could be used_

It can; as noted in the article, it's been used in the '90s and '00s, as well as long ago, and for things much more fundamental than a right conjured by the Supremes from the "penumbras" and "emanations" ofother parts of the Constitution ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut)).

Note that ultimately the Supremes are just a group of 9 men and women (who e.g. all went to the Harvard or Yale Law Schools...). The President, Executive and the Congress can simply ignore them, impeach them, etc., they just can't cut their salaries (" _The Judges ... shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office._ ").

 _then, sure, it 's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps. For me, I don't know._

Curious indeed; I assume at 0th approximation that the majority of them, if not the vast majority, don't give a damn about what they were ostensibly elected to do.

Or perhaps prefer not being called bad names by the rest of the establishment for doing that, in which case we're a lot closer to understanding Trump's appeal.

In other words, the Supremes and lower Federal courts provide an important political function by allowing politicians in the other two branches of government to claim their hands are tied on a whole bunch of issues where they'd otherwise have to take a real stand and maybe afterwards have to spend more time with their families.

Typo correction: my 9th grade civics class was in 1975, not a few years before the death of William the Conqueror ^_^.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There are other examples of intentionally silly candidates abroad, including the UK's famous "Monster Raving Loony Party", Icelands's "Best Party" (several seats in parliament) or Germany's "Die Partei" (1 seat in EU parliament).

But you really need someone who's supposedly in it for real for things to look really, really weird. A case of the Uncanny Valley effect?

</comment><comment><USER34> What I find so fascinating about the Trump candidacy is that it is more a conversation about the current cultural climate of America than any specific policies. It seems that we are more interested in talking about how we become so PC than actual policies.

I, for one, have given up on hoping the government will enact forward thinking policies.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's interesting and confusing to watch. I have long thought we need far less lawyers and professional politicians in government and a lot more (a LOT more) people like us. In this age of technology it is truly sad to see dinosaurs who would be challenged to use a scientific calculator running our country (all parties, all ideologies).

I do believe there's something fundamentally wrong with politics as it exists today. This is heresy in some systems but I am someone who believes texts written hundreds of years ago cannot possibly remain viable, current and applicable. Certainly not in their entirety.

Yes, I am daring to suggest that the US Constitution might need some tweaks here and there. And, of course, the problem is this is just about as impossible as me flying using two feathers.

You have people in Congress who simply will not go away. If we gave them one or two terms and somehow encouraged young/er people to come to the forefront things could look very different.

Then there's the question of how our form of government might very well have devolved into something that conspires against the very progress we need to make. The last few decades have been characterized by not being able to do much of significance other than wage war. We do that very well. And it is sick. Yes, yes, I get it. But, fuck me, when is the world going to figure out how to coexist?

Yes, part of the problem is we still have whole regions operating from the mentality of pre-medieval humans. That's a huge problem. I am not smart enough to know what the solution might be. It could be somewhere between total isolation and total intervention. Don't know. These things ultimately lead to wars. I wish someone would come forward with the one genius idea to bring some stability to this planet. As intelligent as we are we seem want to prove we are a species that is content allowing a very small percentage of our people to just fuck things up beyond recognition. Most people are good. Yet, most people do nothing when the assholes piss all over what's been built for centuries.

Back to Trump. I have long contended that we, the US, need professional accomplished business people running the show. Contrary to what some might want to believe, business people, even those running large corporations, are not evil. Yeah, some are. The vast majority, by far, are not.

What Trump is putting on the table in no uncertain terms is the difference between "normal" people and politicians. And, to go farther, entrepreneurs or business people in general and politicians. When you listen to the two dozen professional politicians in the presidential race it isn't hard to see everyone is playing back the same old recordings. Sometimes I wonder if they have a pull-cord on their back like Woody that plays back the same old shit over and over. They say the same things, with the same neutered-human tone they've been saying for the last 50 years or more.

Trump comes along and their brains short-circuit. They have no clue. There's a general approach to business and entrepreneurship that does not jive with the way politicians work. The idea of attacking problems head on, proposing and testing solutions, quickly discarding what doesn't work, throwing fuel at things that do, being fiscally conservative yet not being shy about making large investments that will pay off with time and, in general, operating from the idea that we don't have to know everything before we get going.

How many of you started your businesses knowing absolutely everything there was to know about that business and having it all planned out before you even launched? Right. The more likely scenario is that you launched without fear, wearing your ignorance as a badge, and figured it out as you went along. Some things you just can't know or plan.

I am not proposing Trump is the solution. For me he still sits somewhere between a clown and a genius. I have no clue where this is going. Right now, it's interesting. I wish he'd spend more time showing the world how things are done outside of politics rather than lobbing insults at people. I sometimes secretly hope this is part of his media plan. One where, once half the herd has been killed off will have him get in front of the camera to spend a solid hour or two explaining his plans and theories as one might expect from someone who came out of Wharton and has as much real-world experience as he does.

Yes, I am disgusted with politics in the US. We are going nowhere. We are certainly not moving forward. With every passing year we fail to change our ways it will become exponentially more difficult for anything to have an effect. One has to be in awe of what a country like China has accomplished during the last, say, 25 years. Without really bold action we are all living through an era that is producing a massive industrial, financial and intellectual shift in the world.

I am convinced that not one of the professional politicians running today, regardless of party, has the ability to do a darn thing about anything. They are in it to win for their own sake. Once in, they'll be gutless and powerless. Not saying Trump is the solution. Yet, "they" are not the solution either.

</comment><comment><USER36> NewsRadio 29 s3e01 - Jimmy (Stephen Root) runs for president.

@18:39 "With all due respect sir, are you running for president just to meet women?"

I was going to provide a youtube link, but this isn't the place for piracy. Feel free to find it yourself.

</comment><comment> bra-ket God forbid America will be ruled by Trump and Russia by Zhirinovsky, this is a recipe for a nuclear extinction event

<comment><USER37> Nah. A good president really only needs just one skill: Knowing how to hire good people.

Other than that the president himself can be just a figurehead for entertainment.

Trump clearly knows how to hire good people, so while I would not vote for him, I'm also not really worried about what will happen if he does win.

If you think about it, the skillset needed to win an election, is not the same skillset you need for making good calculated decisions.

So IMO we really should not be evaluating candidates on their personal qualifications, but rather on how good they are at hiring good people to do the real work.

<comment><USER38> You're assuming that Trump's definition of "good" is the same as yours. Trump may know how to hire people who accomplish what Trump wants accomplished, but that doesn't mean the results will be good for you or anyone.

<comment><USER39> He's also assuming that Trump will hire "good" people.. Is there evidence whatsoever that he possesses that skill? How would he evaluate what's "good" in areas that he literally knows nothing about?

<comment><USER38> That, too. The fact that he's run four companies into bankruptcy in the recent past suggests that, if he does hire "good" people, he doesn't listen to them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AMD Announces Ryzen Update: Enables Memory Clocks Up to DDR4-4000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11447/amd-announces-ryzen-agesa-1006-update <comment><USER2> It looks like their Windows PSP drivers open ports on 0.0.0.0. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6dinzy/why_do_amds_psp...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6dinzy/why_do_amds_psp_drivers_make_my_pc_publicly/).

Note that AMD' claim that it's only local loopback (127.0.0.1) has been refuted by numerous comments, and without further reply from AMD.

Given AMD's refusal to work with libreboot, or document the on-die Arm cores with DMA memory access, these processors should not be considered secure for any layer 3 networking, financial or security related tasks.

<comment><USER3> Note to people who aren't running Windows: this is unrelated to the article, which covers some interesting iommu virtualization and memory controller improvements in the latest firmware updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The eternal question with overclocking is... Which tests and for how long does your system need to pass them for it to be deemed a 100% stable overclock? The different PC enthusiast communities and even individual posters within them all have different answers.

<comment><USER5> If your system will handle 15-30m of Prime95 SmallFFT then you're pretty much good to go. Prime95 is real sensitive to instability and odds are good that if it's gonna crash it'll crash in the first 10 seconds.

Beyond that, just pick your burner application of choice and let it run for an hour while you go watch a movie. The rest are all kinda interchangeable as far as I'm concerned. Aida64 maybe?

(one note: I _would not_ leave Prime95 running for prolonged periods of time. Modern CPUs are not designed for a program that is so small it fits into uop cache and runs AVX nonstop. With a heavy overclock it can pull 300W+ (potentially above 400W) on HEDT processors and OEMs like Asus have warned that it may cause damage[0]. Electromigration seems like a likely culprit meaning time is a key factor. Running Prime95 for like a half hour is fine and a great stability test, but 24H+ runs are extremely unnecessary and potentially damaging.)

[0] [https://rog.asus.com/articles/overclocking/rog- overclocking-...](https://rog.asus.com/articles/overclocking/rog-overclocking- guide-core-for-5960x-5930k-5820k/)

(Note that while this article is regarding Haswell-E, the same logic really applies to Broadwell-E as well as Ryzen 5 and 7. Running a processor at triple its nominal TDP nonstop for a prolonged period with most of that power going though a few specific execution units simply cannot be healthy for it.)

<comment><USER6> _Modern CPUs are not designed for a program that is so small it fits into uop cache and runs AVX nonstop._

This is a slippery slope towards CPUs which are only warranted to run certain approved apps. Overclocking aside, I'd consider a CPU _broken_ if it can't run any sequence of instructions 24/7 without damage at the stock speed and voltage.

Besides, Prime95 isn't what I'd consider a pathological case anyway --- FFTs are common in scientific computing and signal processing, and having a CPU continuously perform them is not at all an unusual workload.

It somewhat reminds me of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759)

<comment><USER7> I agree with you, but with the caveat that CPUs should be able to run flat- out, indefinitely _at rated voltage_. In this case, people are over-volting the CPU by up to 40% so running the hardest workloads simply pushes an amount of power (heat) through the CPU that it was never intended to handle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Uhoh this kind of removes one of the things holding me back from buying -

"""The last addition should excite those interested in virtualization. AMD has announced "fresh support" for PCI Express Access Control Services (ACS), which enables the ability to manually assign PCIe graphics cards within IOMMU groups. This should be a breath of fresh air to those who have previously tried to dedicate a GPU to a virtual machine on a Ryzen system, since it has thus far been fraught with difficulties."""

People have been fairly successful over the years combining their windows games box into their linux workstation by doing this.

I haven't dipped in but I am pretty tempted.

Can anyone comment on the stability of the linux workstation if the windows vm takes a dump via bad drivers etc? That's my concern is that my linux workstation is highly highly stable and I don't want to borrow problems just to save a box.

<comment><USER9> You might want to hold out until AMD gets the "Nested Page Tables" issue fixed.

It's supposed to speed up virtual memory handling in the guest by avoiding the need for shadow page tables and/or emulation by the host.

Currently the feature is broken, resulting in crippled GPU performance, allegedly due to the IOMMU not keeping up with the DMA transaction rate. You can disable it entirely (kernel command line amd-kvm.npt=0) at the cost of ~5x increased CPU usage and constant stuttering in games, which is what most people choose to do for now.

<comment><USER8> Hah!

Well that will help me push this project off for a few months more :)

Is there a good spot to keep up with this, that is very linux focused?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/) and [https://www.redhat.com/archives/vfio- users/](https://www.redhat.com/archives/vfio-users/)

<comment><USER8> Brilliant, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just to be clear, does this solve the issues with GPU passthrough in virtualization environments (i.e. KVM)?

<comment><USER9> It seems like it will help if your motherboard doesn't already have convenient IOMMU groupings.

There's nothing to indicate that this will help with the NPT issue, so expect poor performance (CPU or GPU, your choice).

<comment><USER11> What is the NPT issue?

<comment><USER9> I posted about it below: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14427098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14427098)

There's also a thread on the vfio-users mailing list and on a few other mailing lists as well as some discussion on /r/vfio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can these AGESA firmware updates (or board specific firmware upgrades incorporating the AGESA update) be installed from Linux? Is there a standard UEFI method for it?

Edit: looks like you can do it inside the firmware GUI, no OS is required. You can update over the net, or load update files from USB stick.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does DDR4-4000 really mean that your RAM is now _very_ close to CPU core speed? That could result in a massive performance boost for a lot of things.

<comment><USER14> Nope, DDR4-4000 is not "running at 4 GHz". SDRAM 133 ran at 133 MHz, but DDR numbers have always multiplied their frequency by "number of simultaneous transfers" or something like that. (The first DDR multiplied by two - "double data rate".)

Wikipedia has a good table for DDR3: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_modu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_modules)

DDR3-2133 has a 266.67 MHz memory clock, and a 1066.67 MHz bus clock (x 4), and a "data rate" of 2133 "mega-transfers per second". And a bunch of other details, it's complicated.

The point is, don't take the "4000" literally. It's complicated. And timings and latency can differ between models of the same "data rate".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any word on ECC support for the Ryzen chips?

<comment><USER16> Ryzen will work with ECC ram but it won't actively correct ECC errors (at least on Linux) the interrupt code flags that as _differed_.

Currently there aren't Ryzen server chips out, just desktop/enthusiast models.

<comment><USER17> Yes, it does. It'll correct 1-bit errors and report 2-bit errors. It just doesn't fault on 2-bit errors, as is expected.

<comment><USER18> Ryzen will send a machine check exception to the OS in the event of a double- bit error. It's up to the OS on how to handle it.

This also isn't a Ryzen-specific behavior. All x86 ECC-capable machines work this way.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Backdoor in the TP-Link routers - <AUTHOR> http://sekurak.pl/tp-link-httptftp-backdoor/

<comment><USER2> TP-Link TL-WDR4300 can run OpenWrt [1], a highly modular Linux distribution meant primarily for routers. If you have one of those routers and you're at all familiar with Linux should really consider upgrading to OpenWrt. Once you've got the web UI set up administering it becomes very similar to configuring "normal" routers.

Unfortunately, stock firmware that comes with a lot routers has just been no good even if it lacked gaping security holes like this. Fortunately, there are community-developed FOSS alternatives that offer a better user experience; I imagine that having more eyes on the source also helps their security. I use TomatoUSB [2] on my main router (Asus RT-N66U) and OpenWrt on the "experimental" one (TP-Link TL-MR3020) and can highly recommend both distributions.

[1] <http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr4300>

[2] <http://tomatousb.org/>

<comment><USER3> I like Gargoyle firmware, which is based on OpenWrt. It has a simpler interface with QoS ready to go. The experimental version 1.5.9 has CoDel built in. So far the router seems to be handling VoIP better than the Asus RT-N16 running Shibby's TomatoUSB firmware.

<https://www.gargoyle-router.com>

<comment><USER4> Been using Gargoyle on my WDR4300 for about a month.

Was turned off by the look at the beginning after coming from DD-WRT, but I'm really happy with it so far - especially after getting QoS setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why I keep a pfSense router between my LAN/DMZ and any consumer or telco boxes. It's just not worth the risk.

TP-Link make money by selling fast cheap boxes. They cut corners on the firmware and testing.

Other manufacturers may be more expensive but I don't trust they aren't also cutting corners.

</comment><comment><USER6> The major vuln aside -- are they seriously running Apache the router? "/usr/bin/httpd" sure looks to me like Apache (but could of course be anything). Heard of Nginx or Lighttpd (or countless other lightweight web servers)?

<comment><USER7> Why care? If it runs, it runs.

<comment><USER6> Yes, until it runs out of memory and you need to reboot it.

<comment><USER8> Why should it run out of memory?

<comment><USER6> It's Apache. It's what it does best.

<comment><USER8> Computers aren't magic. Apache httpd isn't magic. The only reason it can run out of memory is misconfiguration.

<comment><USER6> Who said anything about magic? Apache's default config is crappy and it's a bloated web server. It will bring down any VPS to swap of death unless you lower MaxClient etc with even moderate amount of traffic.

More modern web servers (and more lightweight) don't have that problem. They work for most configuration out-of-the-box ( _and_ perform better).

I don't know how Apache is configured on this particular router, but I can spot ten httptd-processes in on the process listing. So yes, Apache is likely both a bad choice to start with and beyond that, it is also poorly configured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related (root shell with hardcoded credentials): <http://websec.ca/advisories/view/root-shell-tplink-wdr740>

<comment><USER9>
        Firmware Version: 3.12.4 Build 100910 Rel.57694n
        Hardware Version: WR741N v1/v2 00000000

it works :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My RT-N16 died just past warranty - something with the power; it'd only power on maybe 1 out of 25 times of sticking the adapter plug in. :/ Until that happened I'd been quite a fan and it ran custom firmware quite contentedly.

Currently I'm running a Netgear Centria WNDR4700 (it was a freebie for various reasons) and it has the lovely habit of storing user names and passwords in plain text (file share user names and passwords are displayed in plain text, and they're always the same as login names and passwords so far as I can tell). Unfortunately I'm not aware of any custom firmwares for it. :(

I have a TP-LINK TL-WDR3500 buried in my closet. I hadn't realized it might work with custom firmware. The physical ports being 10/100 would still be annoying, but it might be worth looking into flashing it. Glad I saw this post. =)

</comment><comment><USER11> I know it really isn't relevant to the vulnerability, but it bugs the crap out of me to see somebody running commands as root when they don't need to... Does this bother anyone else?

<comment><USER12> It doesn't bother me. Sometimes it's just more convenient not having to type sudo with every command. Especially if it's a throw away VM/host that you're experimenting with. YMMV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also, newer builds of openwrt and cero have CoDel built in which should help address bufferbloat.

</comment><comment><USER14> I just ordered this router knowing about this backdoor. I'm planning to install OpenWrt as soon as it arrives, which I recommend to anyone, as it was pointed in other comments.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this is limited to LAN side or WAN. WAN would be very worrying indeed.

<comment><USER16> You need access to the HTTP server to hit that URL, which means it won't work over LAN unless you enabled remote management. Don't enable remote management on your router :)</comment></comment>