Struggling with Japan's Nuclear Waste, Six Years After Disaster - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html <comment><USER2> I used to be skeptical about organisations like Greenpeace that were strictly against nuclear power, questioning the logic of a priori refusing any major energy sources: coal, dams and atom. Because hippies don't wear t-shirts from China and don't charge their mobile phones, right? But the situation changed and renewables are reaching price parity with traditional sources of electricity. Then when things like Fukushima happen you see the astronomical costs of the negative externalities in the long term and things look suddenly very different. Now I see that nuclear power is not only an ecological hazard but also a fool's business from the economical point of view.

<comment><USER3> > like Fukushima happen you see the astronomical costs of the negative > externalities in the long term and things look suddenly very different

Erm, the cost/damage on the whole region (and not just Fukushima) is much higher than the nuclear power part itself. Let's not forget it's a once-a- millenium kind of tsunami that occurred there.

> Now I see that nuclear power is not only an ecological hazard but also a > fool's business from the economical point of view

That's the best thing we have, right now. Good luck powering up cities and means of productions with solar & wind, from tomorrow onward.

<comment><USER4> The problem is, every single time a "extremely rare and unpredictable" nuclear catastrophic event happens, we say the same thing.

The exact reason why we should avoid nuclear in the medium term is that the events that caused, are causing and will keep cause those accidents are all unpredictable. The cost in consequences for our planet is still too high and will remain that high or increase until we will be capable of "de- radioactivize" things

<comment><USER5> It makes things tricky from a risk and commercial point of view. I used to work on wind farm design and it was as simple as "will the turbine hit something if it falls over?". And turbine topples are extremely rare events.

I can't even imagine the complexities of estimating risk for a reactor design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is an answer to this: Australia.

Australia is probably the best country in the world to safely store nuclear waste. Sparse population, and almost no tectonic movement. It already has areas which are radioactive too (from historical nuclear testing)

Australia is also currently in the beginning stages of a major energy crisis, which is partly caused by Japan (Some background, Australia signed a major LPG export agreement that intended to fulfill using coal stem gas reserves. When these reserves didn't deliver the quantities required, they instead raided the local domestic supply). You can currently purchase Australian gas in Japan for less than you can in Australia.

So Japan could directly contribute to Australia's immediate and long term energy security, in exchange for nuclear waste storage.

<comment><USER7> As far as I understand, the reactors there are still active. The reactors nuclear waste is not like regular cargo, you cant just pick it up on a crane and move it a 100 meter away let alone another continent. They are having difficulties making a robot that can study the reactor because it's so radioactive. A person would die in less than a minute near that reactor.

Maybe they should dig deep into the earth and then let it merge with the earth's nuclear core :)

In order to keep the reactors cool, they pump 400 tonnes of water through the reactors everyday. This water has to be stored in tanks after that. The radiation seems to be never ending and they will run out of the space to store this water in a couple of years. There is also the radioactive debris around the place that they have to take care of.

We have the science to create energy from nuclear fission, but the science to deal with the aftermaths of a nuclear accident is still a work in progress.

<comment><USER8> Why can't they run the same water through the reactor again after the water cools?

<comment><USER9> Because it's highly radioactive.

<comment><USER10> So? It's not like it's any worse at cooling because of it. After all, nearly all nuclear reactors use highly irradiated water for cooling in the first cooling loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since ctrl-f "conserve" shows no matches, I'll suggest that conserving energy be some part of the discussion.

Using less energy doesn't solve everything, nor does suggesting conservation mean anyone wants to return to the stone age or to lower anyone's standard of living, nor any of the usual straw men misinterpretations.

Nearly everyone can use less power than they do with no loss of quality of life. Doing so will reduce the waste we create in creating the power.

<comment><USER12> The only way to convince majority of people to conserve energy (or even expend the effort on thinking about it) is to... raise energy prices. Since we want to cut down on fossil sources, the best way to do that would be... taxing CO₂ emissions. Which is yet another reason I like the idea of an emission tax.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. I'm pretty wary of jumping straight on the latest environmental trends as sometimes we're just trading one bad situation for another and calling it progress. But I was willing to switch out all my incandescent bulbs for CFLs because it had a pretty major impact on my electric bill. Even though CFLs are an environmental disaster in and of themselves, being filled with mercury. CFLs are fragile and I don't like having to worry about cleaning up mercury spills in my house. For that reason, when LEDs became cost effective and popular, I was all too happy to start the process of replacing burned-out CFLs with new LEDs.

There are three ways to motivate people IMO: cost, convenience, and social pressure. All of my neighbors have recycling bins sitting out front so I have one too. I switched to CFLs because they're cheaper to run, and then I switched to LEDs because they're far more convenient. I'd have an electric car, but in my northern climate they're not cost effective, they're really, really not convenient, and none of my friends or neighbors have one. But I have an electric snowblower because it's cheaper and more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of the statistics seem to be so hyperbolic and I wonder whether it is due to Americas preference for the imperial units rather than metric units. It is much better to use terms that people can readily visualize.

Does the writer prefer gallons because it makes it look so many? Why not barrels instead?

400 tons of contaminated water a day - lets say matric. = a 7.3 meter cube

962,000 ~ 1,000,000 tonnes of water accumulated so far - a 100 meter cube

64,700 cubic meters, 17 million gallons of radio active clothing - 40 meter cube.

200,400 cu m3 of contaminated rubble - a 60 meter cube.

Why doesn't the writer use stats or pictures people can visualize? Like compare it to the size of the Empire State Building, former World Trade Centres etc? Is he hiding the extent of the damage or expressing it in meaningful terms?

At least we can extrapolate the extend of the problem into the future.

3.5 billion gallons of contaminated soil ~ 13 million cubic meters of soil, a 235 meter cube.

So after analyzing these figures - is using millions and billions truly expressing the extent of the problem or just obfuscating it, with incomprehensible figures, no matter or large they may be?

I guess it is time now to work out how meters compare with the heights of buildings and street blocks.

E & OE

<comment><USER13> >It is much better to use terms that people can readily visualize.

That's why they use imperial units. It's the New York Times, an American newspaper writing for an American audience. I'm pretty familiar with metric units but even I have a hard time with "one meter" until I remember it's the same as a yard. What's a kilometer? I don't know, but it's a half a mile to the coffee shop from my house. That's pretty easy for me to visualize.

What I absolutely _cannot_ visualize is how big the Empire State Building is. Absolutely terrible comparison, IMO. I have no idea how big the Empire State Building is. But I know how much a gallon is, and my car weighs two tons, so that's pretty easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article mentions collection of top soil and I assume vegetation and a plan to burn this to reduce it's volume. I can understand how burning will make the volume smaller, but I can't imagine how to burn this material and not spread radioactivity everywhere via airborne soot. How does this work?</comment>


A Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://worrydream.com/refs/Shannon%20-%20A%20Mathematical%20Theory%20of%20Communication.pdf <comment><USER2> Meaning no disparagement of Shannon and Information Theory, I would urge you to study Cybernetics as well.

Information Theory can be understood as an attempt to make real world phenomenon act like digital symbols. Cybernetics, in contrast, attempts to make digital symbols act like real world phenomenon.

In logic, "A = not A" is a contradiction that jams the works, but in cybernetics it's just an oscillator. Our systems are more properly modelled by the formalisms of Cybernetics than Information Theory.

(You can get a PDF copy of "Introduction to Cybernetics" from [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html](http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html))

<comment><USER3> Cybernetics was highly influenced by Shannon's IT. Shannon was also an active member in the cybernetics community. I would not consider the theories antithetical but rather synthetical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those interested in the nature of information as such and as it relates to computation, you might find "From Aristotle to John Searle and Back Again: Formal Causes, Teleology, and Computation in Nature" by E. Feser interesting.

<comment><USER5> Feser's blog post about his paper, and some interesting comments:

[http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/05/aristotle-searle- and...](http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/05/aristotle-searle-and- computation-in.html)

<comment><USER6> Don't think it's going to be of much interest to HN readers:

>Yet, a powerful objection has been raised by John Searle, who argues that computational features are observer-relative, rather than intrinsic to natural processes. If Searle is right, then computation is not a natural kind, but rather a kind of human artifact, and is therefore unavailable for purposes of scientific explanation.

>In this paper, I argue that Searle's objection has not been, and cannot be, successfully rebutted by his naturalist critics.

Computation inaccessible to science? Searle being correct about computation? Waterfalls play chess, as viewed by the right observers?

<comment><USER3> Do you refute Searle by just asking? Waterfalls play chess regardless the observer? Do my 4 apples compute their sum just by virtue of being 4?

<comment><USER7> The quote made by a poster referencing another party's paper on Searle about being not natural, an artifact of the observer, raises some cautions to me even if I get the drift.

I think man is part of nature, is nature, and therefore arguments couched from the 'supernatural' perspective are faulty from the get go.

Take the hexagonal pattern of honeycombs. Nobody really knows yet how bees actually pull it off. There are hypotheses about the pheromone or chemical trail fading, and circle-walking they carry out with the hexagaonal shape being an emergent property. The hexagonal shape also happens to be one of the 'Close Packing' methods, HCP, or Hexagonal Close Packing.

I am re-reading Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe by Andrew Ilachinski published in 2001. I am on the chapter about possibly defining a new physics, "Information Physics", section 12.4 to be exact. Paraphrasing a bit, the term 'primordial information', or the notion that information exists independently of the semantics used to ascribe meaning to it. That "all observables found in nature are essentially 'data structures' that the universe uses to encode information with."

It goes on to remark that all computations are inherently physical processes (slide rule, electrons in computers) and that information is possibly more than just a concept, but one of the fundamental units woven into the very fabric of the universe.

I have become less of a reductionist as I get older, and I have been following Complexity Science since the 1980s/90s. I am starting to lean towards 'information' as not being just a concept, but something real and physical no matter how it is encoded or contained. I guess from a superficial point this puts me at odds with Searle, or the indirect quote of his works.

I'll have to read Searle; I've only learned of him via second-hand quotes, and his counters with Daniel Dennett.

<comment><USER3> I deeply appreciate your detailed response. Back to bees, they are natural and honeymaking is natural too, but only bees make honey. Something being natural does not imply some sort of universality in the form of natural law. Computation has a universal interpretation appeal to us, but it might also do so in the context of our observational reference frame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Three years prior, Shannon worked out many of the issues for his theory of information in his work on cryptography:

Shannon, Claude. "A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography." Murray Hill, NJ: Bell Labs, September 1, 1945. [http://www.cs.bell- labs.com/who/dmr/pdfs/shannoncryptshrt.pd...](http://www.cs.bell- labs.com/who/dmr/pdfs/shannoncryptshrt.pdf).

<comment><USER9> Not found. Did you mispaste the url?

<comment><USER10> Working alternative link with PDF here: [https://www.iacr.org/museum/shannon45.html](https://www.iacr.org/museum/shannon45.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great to see this classic. But when I saw it was on worrydream.com I got my hopes up that it would be a link to a Bret Victor explanatory web experiment...

<comment><USER12> Looks like he's not quite ready to kill math?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a great Computerphile video on YT about this topic i can recommend:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sskbSvha9M&index=4&list=PLz...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sskbSvha9M&index=4&list=PLzH6n4zXuckpKAj1_88VS-8Z6yn9zX_P6)

(Link to playlist, as all of those are great.)

</comment><comment><USER14> If this really interests you, you might also like Christopher Olah's blog post on Visual Information Theory [1]

[1]: [https://colah.github.io/posts/2015-09-Visual- Information/](https://colah.github.io/posts/2015-09-Visual-Information/)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's somewhat depressing how much _smarter_ people seem to have been in the past than they seem to be now.

<comment><USER16> People of today are just as smart. It was only simpler then. Math has grown in complexity and has caused mathematicians to become more specialized. So, in order to see the good stuff and the smart people of today, it requires going deep in to those specialized fields. It's a matter of accessibility.

<comment><USER17> Could you give some examples in the field of Computer Science then perhaps?

<comment><USER18> [http://tomasp.net/coeffects/](http://tomasp.net/coeffects/)

[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2741](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2741)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A must read! Don't despair if it takes you a while to read it, my guess is at least one month for someone with undergrad math understanding. It will be gratifying in the end.

<comment><USER20> It really is a great paper. I had an entire semester-long course on just this paper in undergrad. So many hours of lessons and instruction and studying and tutorials. And it wasn't clicking. I flunked the exam 3 times.

Then I tossed out my professor's material and sat down with Shannon's original paper for a weekend. Got an A.

Maybe that says more about my professor than about this paper, but it's a great paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This paper and lots of others are mentioned in the book The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal.

I'm reading it now, and it's wonderful. Thanks HN.

Edit: It's like a very entertaining index.

</comment><comment><USER22> Also, the OpenCourseWare course 6.450 by Prof. Gallagher on YouTube can be helpful to digest the main ideas.

</comment><comment><USER23> Shameless self-promotion: by chance, I happened to write a blog post today that's all about information theory:

"Measuring Information in Millibytes" [https://engineering.vena.io/2016/07/12/measuring- information...](https://engineering.vena.io/2016/07/12/measuring-information- in-millibytes/)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a pretty clever way to generate random bigrams without a computer:

 _To construct (3) for example, one opens a book at random and selects a letter at random on the page. This letter is recorded. The book is then opened to another page and one reads until this letter is encountered. The succeeding letter is then recorded. Turning to another page this second letter is searched for and the succeeding letter recorded, etc. A similar process was used for (4), (5) and (6). It would be interesting if further approximations could be constructed, but the labor involved becomes enormous at the next stage._

<comment><USER24> More neat stuff -- the redundancy of English text happens to be just right for making crossword puzzles!

 _The redundancy of a language is related to the existence of crossword puzzles. If the redundancy is zero any sequence of letters is a reasonable text in the language and any two-dimensional array of letters forms a crossword puzzle. If the redundancy is too high the language imposes too many constraints for large crossword puzzles to be possible. A more detailed analysis shows that if we assume the constraints imposed by the language are of a rather chaotic and random nature, large crossword puzzles are just possible when the redundancy is 50%. If the redundancy is 33%, three- dimensional crossword puzzles should be possible, etc._

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Completely random, I just had googled this before coming on Hacker News so that I could cite the original article. Great read if you haven't done so yet.

</comment><comment><USER26> Trivia: this paper was renamed _The Mathematical Theory of Communication_ the following year, after people realized just how significant it was.

<comment><USER27> And the year after that, simply _The Theory_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set > of possible messages.

this is an amazing opener

does anyone know of the history of simultaneous possibility theory?

</comment><comment><USER29> Is there a pedestrian explanation of this? My math is, shall we say, lacking.

<comment><USER30> Read James Gleick's _The Information_.

One of the best nonfiction books I've ever read and an accessible explanation of Shannon's work is a major part of the book.</comment></comment>


Renaming files with mv without typing the name two times - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/premek/6e70446cfc913d3c929d7cdbfe896fef <comment><USER2> Something like this isn't really necessary. I do something like this (bash) all the time when I want to change a part of a filename (renames "foo-bar- baz.txt" to "foo-bar-quux.txt"):

        mv foo-bar-{baz,quux}.txt

You can have an 'empty' bit to add or remove something from the name (renames "foo-bar.txt" to "foo-bar-baz.txt"):

        mv foo-bar{,-baz}.txt

That will work with pathname parts as well (as in the linked demo video) if you include them in the command.

I guess the linked script is useful if you need to do some complex edits to the filename, since you can't usefully have more than one curly-brace-group for this use case. But in that case honestly I'm fine just double-clicking the first argument to select, and then middle-clicking to paste, and then using the arrow keys to edit.

<comment><USER3> I love/hate comments like yours.

You have technical knowledge applicable to the problem, and you share it. I love that.

You miss an important feature of the solution shown in (I presume) your rush to demonstrate your bash knowledge: the ability to edit a filename shown, in place. Brace expansion doesn't do that, doesn't show you the new filename _before you commit the name change_ and isn't even close to interactive. This part is less great.

> Something like this isn't really necessary.

It may very well be necessary for someone else.

<comment><USER4> Not at all, you're just not thinking the solution all the way through. If you want to see the results, an echo gets you there.

The important point though, is that one of the solutions moves you closer to a common language with other posix users, and one moves you farther away. If you use the tools the way they're intended to be used (brace expansion, for example), you'll recognize it when other people use it. You'll understand similar brace expansions in other commands you see others craft. You won't need to remember if that shell you sudo'd into uses your override or not. The reasons go on forever.

It really isn't necessary. That's not to say someone can't think of a reason for it, but rather that there are better ways to do what it does.

<comment><USER5> For the OP's sake, I hope they completely ignore your advice.

Customize your environment to what makes you the most efficient. Yeah, sure. Learn to use all the things that are there and understand what others do. But _customize your environment to what makes you the most efficient_. This is an interactive command. It's not like they are going to foist it onto everyone else (which is the true sin, IMHO).

<comment><USER6> Changing the default behavior of a standard posix command is a footgun. It would have been better to rename it.

<comment><USER7> That's a valid constructive critique.

The people who are saying it's not necessary because they prefer alternative ways of interacting with their machine are not arguing that though. The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way (with a minor bash script) because there are other ways (slightly mysterious curly braces hacks) that do something similar in some cases... which is just, bizarre?

<comment><USER8> 'Godel_unicode > That's not to say someone can't think of a reason for it, but rather that there are better ways to do what it does.

'Certhas > The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way … because there are other ways … that do something similar

It appears to me that you're reading more into 'Godel_unicode's comment than was written. Something not being necessary does not preclude it being useful, and I haven't seen anyone imply otherwise except for you¹. Working through the double-negative, 'Godel_unicode even explicitly acknowledges that some people may have a reason to do things this way, despite their opinion that it's inferior to their method.

¹ I haven't studied the entire thread, so it's likely I've missed someone's comments.

<comment><USER7> I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid.

I'm pretty sure what the comment doesn't say, also in tone, is something like: Here are two options, X and Y, sometimes you might prefer one, sometimes the other. Specifically look at the comment that Godel_unicode is disagreeing with. That comment points out that some people might prefer the other solution X for their own reason.

The way I read it, Godel_unicode replies that the person who is not using Y is "not thinking things through", and is ignoring infinitely many reasons ("The reasons go on forever.") to do Y. Even though you can come up with "a reason" for X the infinitely many reasons for Y clearly beat it, and thus Y is just objectively better.

Maybe the comment was intended more charitably than I read it.

<comment><USER2> > _I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly > better, so your reason is invalid._

I think that's a much more strongly-negative interpretation than the text as written calls for. My original post was nothing of the sort, and the reply I think you're referring to was -- to me -- a nudge toward just simply realizing that the standard tools that already exist are often much more powerful than we think, and we can usually get 90+% of the way there without doing something custom. And the 10% remaining isn't usually worth doing something non-standard unless you have a very niche use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To make two copies of the last argument, so you can edit one of them in place, in Bash (or anything that uses GNU Readlne), simply do this:

       $ mv oldname _   # _ is your cursor

Now type Ctrl-W to erase the last word:

       $ mv _

Then type Ctrl-Y twice to yank it:

       $ mv oldname oldname _

Now edit in place as needed.

No utility needed, and just a regular mv command is issued whose inputs are completely recorded in the history.

Now,let's automate that. Add this line to ~/.inputrc:

       # ~/.inputrc entry
       \C-T: " \C-W\C-Y\C-Y\b"

Reload with

       $ bind -f ~/.inputrc

Now Ctrl-T does it:

       $ mv oldname_

Hit Ctrl-T

       $ mv oldname oldname_

How about having Ctrl-T end up on the first character of the name?

       # ~/.inputrc entry
       \C-T: " \C-W\C-Y\C-Y\b\eb"

<comment><USER10> Doesn't work if the filename contains spaces:

        # mv "Foo bar" _

<comment><USER11> Ctrl-A, Alt-F, Ctrl-F, Ctrl-K, Ctrl-Y, Ctrl-Y

:D

<comment><USER9> Ctrl-W Ctrl-W Ctrl-Y Ctrl-Y will work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All the "something like this isn't really necessary, just memorize all the esoteric bash globbing rules" posts are so far off, given the solutions in all those posts aren't really necessary either. It is nice not to need to "pre- think" how you are going to type your `mv` command. You just start typing it, and when you realize it will be a bit complex you just hit enter and you have an editor.

<comment><USER13> A good compromise to me seems to be using `imv` from the renameutils package which is pretty much exactly the same as the OP. That way you don't get confused by different `mv` behaviour on different systems.

Hitting `<Ctrl-a>i` seems to me a small price to pay :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any time renaming gets more complicated than (a) bash curly braces or (b) rename command (Perl script that applies sed expression to each file name), I break out Emacs wdired.

Then you can use all the Emacs tools to perform a mass edit across multiple file names, and get them right before committing to the rename. Multiple cursors makes a great addition, as does iedit-mode.

<comment><USER15> Multiple cursors plus C-x C-q on a dired buffer is amazingly powerful: you literally just make changes to the lines in the buffer and run C-c C-c to commit them, or C-c C-k to cancel. I've used this for very powerful mass- renames before. (I imagine it also works for deleting files by removing that line but never needed to try it before.)

<comment><USER16> I use Emacs inside iTerm2. (i.e. `emacs -nw`) Do you know if the multiple cursors package (which I just found today thanks to your comment) works with that? Or is it only in the native windowed version?

<comment><USER15> It works with terminal-based emacs too. It just inverses the background color of cells to fake the extra cursors.

<comment><USER16> That is a glorious hack. Thanks! I'll try it out for a spin!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can also hit Ctrl-x Ctrl-e to edit the command line in your preferred text editor, and run it when saved and closed in the editor. So you can type the mv, tab-complete the current filename, and use the editor for the new filename.

<comment><USER18> > You can also hit Ctrl-x Ctrl-e to edit the command line in your preferred > text editor, and run it when saved and closed in the editor. So you can type > the mv, tab-complete the current filename, and use the editor for the new > filename.

This doesn't seem to work in readline's vi mode. Do you know the equivalent there? EDIT: Ah, kesor points out elsewhere ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22861894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22861894)) that it's just 'v' in normal mode.

<comment><USER17> You can also bind "edit-and-execute-command" to another key in your ~/.inputrc .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Graybeard here (never thought I'd say that). 25 years of unix/linux in production systems.

Changing the default behavior of a posix command is a footgun.

If I wanted to get help from mv:

        $ mv --help
        Usage: file [OPTION...] [FILE...]
        Determine type of FILEs.

I get the help for the file command.

<comment><USER19> And this is _exactly_ why, although this is cool, it would have been cooler had it been renamed to, for example, `imv` (aka the name from the rename tools project ;-) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't remember where it was I read (saw this years ago), but the way to actually get help online isn't to ask a question 'cos nobody responds ... you have to propose an incorrect solution where suddenly everyone jumps up to correct you with the answer you're looking for.

<comment><USER21> Cunningham's Law

<comment><USER19> This is the correct answer, however the question was obviously misstated. They _should_ have stated that the answer was something else. :-)

<comment><USER20> I can't believe I missed that opportunity!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My trick has always been to rely on tab auto-completion.

        mv foo-<tab>
        mv foo-bar-baz foo-<tab>
        mv foo-bar-baz foo-bar-baz

Now I can edit the second part pretty quickly.

Downside: you have to at least type `foo-` twice.

Upside: command line history still has the full command.

<comment><USER23> Tab-completion is somewhat obnoxious in directories with lots of files sharing a common prefix, for example.

Also, if you accidentally tab-complete the same file for output and input, depending on how clever the program is, you may end up deleting the source file.

<comment><USER24> I've done

      gcc foo.c -o foo.c

far too many times :(

<comment><USER23> Seems like gcc should be smart enough to reject that mistake nowadays, right?!

<comment><USER24> I should write a shell frontend to gcc to warn if I do this…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> `qmv`, `imv`, `qcp`, `icp`, and friends from the `renameutils` package come in handy. I use `qmv -f do ...` with `EDITOR=vim` quite a bit.

<comment><USER26> Link: [https://www.nongnu.org/renameutils/](https://www.nongnu.org/renameutils/)

On macOS with Homebrew, install with `brew install renameutils`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Zsh users can instead add this to their .zshrc:

      autoload copy-earlier-word
      zle -N copy-earlier-word
      bindkey '^[,' copy-earlier-word

Then it's the default Alt-dot to copy the final argument of the previous command, and Alt-comma to copy the final argument of the current command. The move command is then "mv filename <Alt-Comma>".

Also, given this:

      echo 1 2 3
      echo 4 5 6
      echo 7 8 9

Then on the next command, Alt-dot will copy/replace 9→6→3. Pressing Alt-comma after Alt-dot will replace that with 8→7→echo.

<comment><USER28> Alternatively you can use ZMV

[http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/User- Contributions.ht...](http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/User- Contributions.html#index-zmv) [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/19291/73256](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/19291/73256)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is one of those times when I just love coming to hacker news. Seemingly trivial quality of life improvement makes it to the top and the comments section is lit up with several other cool alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think it's very nice, and should be the default behavior. Ergonomics of GNU tooling is lacking to say the least. That's why we love fdfind and ripgrep and love find/grep way less.

I would use it if it were the default behavior, but the problem is already solved by the "moreutils" package, which I install on all my machines. This lets you do:

        vidir filename

or

        vidir directory # default to .

And it will open your $EDITOR with one file name per line. You edit it in the comfort of your favorite editor, and it batch renames for you, or rename the single file for the first case.

Note that if you use vscode, $EDITOR should be "code -w", not just "code".

</comment><comment><USER31> For things like this, I don't understand why we don't have more interactive CLIs, instead of CLIs that expect one line of a bunch of arguments.

<comment><USER32> Because it's the shell itself that gets the focus for the interactivity. You use generic suggestions (as listed elsewhere in this thread) to do things like tab-completion, substituting in previously used arguments, copying the last thing you typed, etc. but they work across commands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you rename the 'mv' command, won't this break a lot of things relying on it?

<comment><USER34> Several distros unfortunately include 'mv' and 'cp' aliases by default. To get predictable behavior on the command line, always use '\mv' and '\cp'. (for bash)

<comment><USER18> I didn't know that! Why does it work?

<comment><USER34> The backslash basically means "ignore any aliases or functions by the same name, and run the first matching command in my $PATH instead".

One reason for providing this is so that you can have an alias like

        alias mv '\mv -=myfavoritearg '

but it's also good for ensuring that you didn't pick up some distro nonsense.

<comment><USER18> Thanks! So '\' is special cased here—it's not some specific manifestation of a more general phenomenon of specialised escape-handling in the shell?

<comment><USER35> > So '\' is special cased here

No; quoting any part of the command name prevents alias expansion. Eg 'mv', "mv", 'm'v, m\v, etc all work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> type file then ctrl-a mv then ctrl-k ctrl-y space ctrl-y change file name enter.

<comment><AUTHOR> nice, I didn't know about this

<comment><USER37> Those keybindings belong to GNU readline [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I posted about some 'God-like' bash shortcuts here:

[https://zwischenzugs.com/2019/08/25/seven-god-like-bash- hist...](https://zwischenzugs.com/2019/08/25/seven-god-like-bash-history- shortcuts-you-will-actually-use/)

Number 6 was a 'refer to current line' one.

There are so many ways to do these things that it's hard to get them all under your fingers though. Most of the time I tab my way through the 'problem' anyway.

</comment><comment> Sierra-Sam Here is my take on part of the problem.

        https://github.com/Guy-Shaw/libmmv

        https://github.com/Guy-Shaw/pmmv

The original perl-rename has the expressive power, but not the safety features. mmv has been around since 1990 and, in my opinion, has always been under-appreciated, but it could use some modernization.

</comment><comment><USER39> As has already been said, bash brace expansion is quite powerful. It has many usecases, such as,

      diff file{.original,}
      mkdir -p path/{a,b,c}/folder
      for i in image{001..060}; do echo $i; done

Parameter Expansion is also equally useful, like changing a few characters in long names,

      mv ${i}.png ${i/imaeg/image}.png

</comment><comment><USER40> Nice, feels like Windows File Explorer ;D

<comment><USER41> And nemo, caja, nautilus, finder, thunar, simple file manager, dolphin, konqueror...?

There are more graphical environments than just Windows' built-in :|

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I use zsh's function _copy-prev-shell-word_. You can bind it to some key, e.g. alt-m with `bindkey "^[m" copy-prev-shell-word`. Use _ctrl-v shortcut_ for another key.

For instance, adding a suffix to a file name: mv myfile _alt-m_.suffix

<comment><USER43> mv myfile{,.suffix} seems easier and more general, and doesn't need zsh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> You can accomplish the same with basic editing commands, e.g.

        mv <filename> C-M-b C-k C-y C-y

It may seem overly complicated but notice that you don't have to release the control key, so it's actually very few key strokes.

<comment><USER45> You can also do control+x control+e to send the command line to your editor(whatever $EDITOR points to).

<comment><USER37> On short commands, it tends to be slow in comparison of using GNU Readline directly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Links for mass moving mentioned in the page:

\- 2018: [https://github.com/lgommans/vinamer](https://github.com/lgommans/vinamer) \- 2017: [https://github.com/thameera/vimv](https://github.com/thameera/vimv) \- 2017: [https://github.com/abaldwin88/roamer](https://github.com/abaldwin88/roamer) \- 2006: [https://joeyh.name/code/moreutils/](https://joeyh.name/code/moreutils/) , `vidir`

</comment><comment><USER47> The latest addition to my renaming-toolbelt has been `perl-rename'. This thing is just wonderful: I can unleash all the power of perl-based regexes to rename things in bulk.

Case in point: I had a directory containing thousands of .jpg images imported from a foreign filesystem, and all of those files had tildes in them, something like:

      $ ls -1
      EL+�CTRICO_0001.jpg
      EL+�CTRICO_0002.jpg
      EL+�CTRICO_0003.jpg
      ...

You get the idea; note those ugly unrepresentable characters over there. On the original filesystem they read as "ELÉCTRICO", but that tilde was saved using who knows what encoding, and I simply wanted to get rid of them and have nice ascii "ELECTRICO_xxxx.jpg" files. After finding out that the strange unrepresentable character was the byte 0xEB (so, in order to form an "É" you needed those two characters together: a literal '+' and 0xEB), I could do the bulk renaming with just:

      $ perl-rename 's/\+\xeb/E/' *.jpg

Felt so good!

</comment><comment><USER48> For faas-cli-darwin -> faas-cli, I just do `mv faas-cli{-darwin,}` or `faas- cli.tgz` -> `faas-cli.tar.gz` -> `mv faas-cli faas-cli.{tgz,tar.gz}`

This rarely saves me any time, but it's a nice hack to know about.

</comment><comment> globular-toast I discovered the `rename` command surprisingly late in my career. You could write something like this: `rename .htm .html index.htm`. The nice thing is it works for any number of files at once (you could put a glob on the right, for example).

Oddly I just checked my Ubuntu machine and it had the man page for rename but not the command. After being prompted to install it it installed a completely different perl command and upon removing that the original manpage was gone. Very strange.

</comment><comment><USER49> Here's my contribution to this useful class of scripts:

[http://dnr.im/tech/articles/mvdir/](http://dnr.im/tech/articles/mvdir/)

[https://bitbucket.org/davidn/mvdir/src/default/mvdir](https://bitbucket.org/davidn/mvdir/src/default/mvdir)

Similar to vidir, but predates it by a few years. I still use it regularly!

</comment><comment><USER50> I just use vidir(1) an ed(1), I'm lazy :).

<comment><USER41> For those like me who don't know it, in Debian vidir is in the "moreutils" package. As the name hints, its purpose is to "edit a directory in your text editor".

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is a nice alternative to using curly braces, especially when the changes aren't simple substitutions :D

<comment><USER52> Most people are bragging about braces while OP commented about that. It's especially useful for multiple alterations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Renaming a single file is not very interesting. Renaming a whole bunch of files is much more interesting, and when I need to do that, I use vimv[0].

[0]: [https://github.com/thameera/vimv](https://github.com/thameera/vimv)

<comment><AUTHOR> I rename a single file much more often

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> That's why I love HN comments. Always learning a lot of stuff and regularly the comments are more interesting than the original post itself. This is the case for this one I think. Or at least a nice complement.

</comment><comment><USER55> For an interactive edit I just use <ESC>-. to repeat the last parameter:

        ls foo.txt
        mv <ESC>-. <ESC>-. # and edit

<comment><USER56> Yup, readline's yank-last-arg command Alt-. or Alt-_ (see [https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Commands-...](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Commands- For-History.html#Commands-For-History)) is the best off-the-shelf solution that still gives the ability to interactively edit the filename. To minimize the total number of key strokes I would suggest:

      mv foo.txt
      ↑
      Alt-.

That is: intentionally run mv with only one argument (the command fails but is recorded in the history), Up arrow to recall the last command, and Alt-dot (pastes the last argument).

This is literally replacing an entire shell script with two key strokes (Up, Alt-.)

<comment><USER57> What version of bash do you use? I can't seem to get this to work with mine. For me, Alt-. gets the last argument of the penultimate command.

      $ echo $BASH_VERSION
      5.0.11(1)-release

      $ mv foo.txt
      mv: missing destination file operand after 'foo.txt'
      Try 'mv --help' for more information.

      $ mv foo.txt $BASH_VERSION # Alt-. pasted $BASH_VERSION instead of foo.txt

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Always surprising to hear of people not knowing the basic readline key assignments.

Ctrl-w Ctrl-y Ctrl-y is still easiest for single files, rename for multiple.

</comment><comment><USER59> `prename` is a thing; much more ergonomic than the solution in the article:

        $ prename '$_=lc; s/jpeg/jpg/' IMG0001.jpeg
        ### IMG0001.jpeg → img0001.jpg

This is probably the most reimplemented program I use, seven times last time I counted.

<comment><USER60> This doesn't seem more ergonomic to me, and also it is not the same solution (OP also inserted a dash in the filename)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> "without typing the name two times"

Is that pun intentional? It's hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER62> or... you can do this

mmv '<asterisk>foo<asterisk>' '#1bar#2'

where <asterisk> is the common symbol (Will not appear in HN)

</comment><comment><USER63> I think this is really neat! Well done OP! :)

</comment><comment><USER64> Shout out to visit(1) for lots of renames

</comment><comment><USER65> This post and the comments here show what a poor UI the command line is (by default).

<comment><USER66> It's trivial to enable vim mode in most modern shells, which solves most of these issues

<comment><USER67> And in `vi` mode it is as simple as hitting `v` to edit any command to your liking before executing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Why is this at the top of HN?

<comment><USER69> I've been asking myself that question more and more. It seems HN has been slowly becoming a Reddit-lite. There are significantly more low-quality "thanks! this is great!" comments and "witty" one-liners everywhere.

Not to mention posts like these.

<comment><USER70> People have been saying this since before Startup News was renamed to Hacker News in 2007: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=turning%20%22into%20reddit%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

More here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721)</comment></comment></comment>


Looking for mobile app developer - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>I'm part of team working out of Vancouver and Toronto. We are looking for someone to work with us to develop mock prototype for an app concept for humanitarian disaster relief. We have already had meetings with Plan International and other major relief orgs. Would be open to offering partnership stake in future business. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><AUTHOR> UX/UI wireframes are already complete.</comment>


Prodigy Email Vulnerability Puts Millions of Accounts at Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/vulnerability-management/prodigy-email-vulnerability-puts-millions-of-accounts-at-risk/

<comment><USER2> Wow. You know you screwed up when private info is indexed by Google.

Incidentally, this reminds me of one of my past employers who worked with government agencies. Turns out he forgot to set a default index on server when he took down his website. Thus, "secret" filenames became public and google indexed data dumps from government clients with a few thousand social security numbers, and basically all the information needed to very effectively steal someone's identity. (address, drivers license photocopy, family info).

I'm just glad that I wasn't responsible for such a glaring security hole (I was long gone before this happened and I reported it and it's been fixed now though)

</comment><comment><USER3> I knew people were still using AOL mail, but Prodigy? Then I read the article.

</comment><comment><USER4> ..... prodigy is still a thing?

<comment><USER5> Yes, kind of like how in Japan, Tower Records, Lawson's convenience stores, and InfoSeek are still things.

Brands that fail here sometimes become entrenched institutions elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Deprecated base absorbed by SBC/AT&T in the US and 92% market share in Mexico as Telmex according to ever-reliable [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28ISP%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28ISP%29)</comment>


Cleverness of Compilers 2 - <AUTHOR> http://alexey.radul.name/ideas/2013/cleverness-of-compilers-2-how/

<comment><USER2> Regrettably, I have nothing valuable to add, but I wanted to call this out as absolutely beautiful. Specialize generic programs to a very specific execution context, using abstract interpretation to inform the specialization. I can think of at least two super-hot applications of such techniques...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Discussion of part 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6271493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6271493)

</comment><comment><USER3> I find this article very interesting. I'm writing a compiler for my own programming language, so I'm thinking a lot about various interesting compile- time analysis that can be done to produce more efficient code...</comment>


On Understanding Data Abstractions - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3668 <comment><USER2> I've skimmed the paper (<http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~wcook/Drafts/2009/essay.pdf>) and all I'm seeing are semantic games:

"An abstract data type is a structure that implements a new type by hiding the representation of the type and supplying operations to manipulate its values."

"An object is a value exporting a procedural interface to data or behavior."

It then goes on to conclude that it is wrong to say that an object is a kind of abstract data type. Could someone summarize the actual differences between Abstract Data Types and Objects? Or is it just a matter of cocktail party semantics?

<comment><USER3> I've read through most of the paper, and I admit my grasp is tenuous as well. Here's the best I can do:

ADTs define new fundamental types in the algebraic sense. The new type is fundamental in the sense that one can describe the operations performed on it formally. When you look at an operation on an ADT, you can formally describe what the results should be.

Objects do not define new types. Rather, they define operations on existing types. You also don't necessarily know by looking at an operation what will happen; what happens is decided dynamically.</comment></comment>


Why i've quit Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://hintjens.com/blog:114 <comment><USER2> Perhaps the author of that should have quit reddit first, or at least before making this disastrous AMA: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4c27ss/im_pieter_hint...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4c27ss/im_pieter_hintjens_and_im_here_to_discuss/)

And in particular this grossness (tw: rape, abuse, reddit) [https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4c27ss/im_pieter_hintj...](https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4c27ss/im_pieter_hintjens_and_im_here_to_discuss/)

He'll hunt you as long as you run. I guess that's why he's hunting you, and it probably annoys him at some level. You need to learn to conquer your fear and stop running, confront him with patience and a smile, deflect his attacks, regain control, and then wait for him to leave. I've tried to explain this in detail. The book is free so take a look online and see if it resonates.

</comment><comment><USER3> I found the source to be too long for one file. The author should have broken this up into smaller units. A bit of refactoring and maybe reuse of common elements would help.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good title to get traffic, but bad article to explain things</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when your company misses payroll? - <AUTHOR> Starting in May, the hardware startup I work for has been having some money problems. They've deferred payroll a couple times, including the most recent pay period.
A couple days after the last missed payroll, I indicated I would be working from home but not in a full time manner. Since then, everyone else appears to continue going into the office and working full days even though they have not been paid. Am I wrong in my actions?
The most upsetting part for me is that on payday, no one in management mentioned we would not be getting paychecks. It seemed like they figured we wouldn't mind/notice and we would just continue working.
I have updated my resume, but have not sent it out yet. They keep saying money is right around the corner and I'd like for that to be true. So I've basically been waiting that out while keeping my eyes open for opportunities (which are sparse).
Does anyone who has been through this before have any advice? Or how would you have handled it if you could go back and do it again?
EDIT: Thank you all for your insightful comments.
After hearing how often this thing doesn't turn itself around, I am going to start sending my resume out immediately. I guess I just needed a community kick in the ass to get me going! <comment><USER3> You should have started sending out your resume when they missed payroll back in May. Not only does this place have some serious financial problems, but management doesn't even have the decency to let people know ahead of time. That's pretty sleazy in my book. Even if you could rationalize giving the place a free pass on a missed payroll there's no excuse for them not even mentioning it.

Don't fall for the line about the money right around the corner. You'll be hearing that from now until the time you leave the company in debt up to your eyeballs because you've been living off credit cards instead of the paychecks you should be getting.

I know people who have been in this situation before and none of them had any stories about how the company turned the corner. It turned uglier instead. More missed payrolls- sometimes for a month at a time. Stress. Thousands of dollars of debt due to living off credit cards. Showing up to a locked office one day without any notice. Working the last month sitting on a crate in the owner's living room because the money is still right around the corner. Protests on the owner's front lawn. In the end if you'll be damn lucky if you leave with some office furniture or a laptop. Forget about money.

You should be out finding a new job ASAP. Any job. This is worse than being unemployed. You're off working the day at an office and not getting paid for it. At least when you're unemployed you've got some time on your hands to do something more productive than doing free work for some greedy asshole. You could very well show up to work tomorrow only to be laid off. Or even worse- the door could be locked.

<comment><USER4> jm4 makes a good point. Get any personal items out of your office ASAP. Do it slowly and quietly, do it after hours if possible.

Just prepare for the possibility that one morning the doors may be locked when you show up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a lot of good advice here telling the employee how to act. I concur with most of it.

Let me add something from another perspective:

Speaking as a startup owner who has had money problems from time to time:

a) crap happens

b) your hourly people, who have no equity, deserve every single cent. Whether answering phones, stuffing boxes, or whatever, these people work hard, and you MUST pay them every penny, on the day it's due.

c) Folks who have equity, and will see some upside in good times, can be asked (ASKED, not TOLD) if they are willing to make sacrifices for the success of the team. Ask them ahead of time - preferably well ahead of time.

d) When a startup has successes, it's because of your people. When a startup has problems, it's because of leadership. Get out your spoon and start eating shit ^H^H^H humble pie. Tell your people that screw ups happened, and - because the buck stops with you - YOU are the cause. Apologize to your people.

e) LEADERS LEAD FROM THE FRONT.

The last point is the most important. Before an owner asks anyone to take even a temporary pay cut, he should cut his own pay to the bone. Before he misses a payroll for other people, he should have already skipped a paycheck or two.

Startups come and go, but 50 years from now, your reputation, and your sense of self will still be with you. Make sure that you are scrupulously ethical with your people.

Travis J I Corcoran, President SmartFlix

<comment><USER6> "Startups come and go, but 50 years from now, your reputation, and your sense of self will still be with you. Make sure that you are scrupulously ethical with your people."

Goes without saying, but sure is nice to see anyway. Thank you, Travis.

[Aside: Don't compromise the quality of your otherwise excellent posts. Move your signature and company link off of your comment and onto your profile where it belongs. You are obviously a pro. Look like one here.]

<comment><USER5> I intended to have the sig block, so that folks could see that I wasn't just pontificating about what others should do.

I have, however, removed the link.

Good point. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "What to do when your company misses payroll?"

1\. Invent a time machine.

2\. Go back 30 days.

3\. Run, don't walk, the other way as fast as you can. This won't end pretty.

Steps 1 & 2 are desirable, but optional. Step 3 is required.

(I'm not using the time machine to be cute or funny, but to make a point. This problem didn't just happen when you found out about it. They knew long before you and did little or nothing to help you. Shame on them.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been in 2 startups that didn't have cash for payroll.

Startup #1: The CEO took payroll out of his own personal credit cards and paid us all anyway. That startup went public and grew to be very successful.

Startup #2: The CEO was already a millionaire, but wouldn't put in a cent of his own money. That startup failed.

In short, if the CEO cannot find a way to pay you, then he isn't cut out to be the CEO. Don't leave because payroll was missed -- Leave because the leadership isn't there. But by all means, LEAVE.

<comment><USER8> This is very good advice. I worked for a small start-up when I entered the industry. After two years, due in part to factors outside of the company's control, things started to look bleak. One of the founders, my boss (and the only other programmer) pulled me aside and explained everything to me (the other founder talked to the sales and marketing guys). He told me I was free to walk away, and he would gladly recommend my work. Or, I could stay on, work part-time for the company and part-time for his consulting business (this was the primary source of his income while he did the start-up). I really appreciated how upfront the founders were about the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have been doing startup work in Silicon Valley since 1984 and have seen all the variations on this.

It all depends on the facts. When a startup struggles and misses payrolls, it is legitimate for the executive team to ask employees to stay and help the company through the struggle. Each employee then must decide based on his or her individual circumstances. Employees will have varying stakes in this. The employee who, say, owns 1-2% of the company via stock options may have a different motivation from the one who owns little or no equity, particularly if the company may eventually have a huge upside with a turnaround.

If the sacrifice is significant, though, then the employees should at least be offered some additional compensation for the added risk they are taking in potentially working for nothing. A commitment to give them added option grants if the company turns it around does this well.

This hits the founders and investors, but it should hit them - they are the ones asking people to do extraordinary things to help them save their dreams and they are the ones who will most benefit if it can be saved.

If this is done with options, there are no special tax complications. Nor does it cost anything to make a letter commitment that can be documented formally after the turn-around once the company has money again.

The one thing that has shocked me most over the years are the management types who expect employees to take the hit in such situations but who will not lift a finger to reward them for making a special sacrifice.

Others have mentioned secretiveness as a danger sign for the employees. I would add to this any display of unfairness such as a failure of management to recognize that special sacrifices deserve special rewards.

Of course, some cases are hopeless and then the only remedy is to run for the door, as many have noted.

</comment><comment><USER10> I worked for a small startup and had that problem several times. It was never a long enough amount of time that I really questioned whether or not I would get paid, but it did annoy me and the way the owner handled it made a very 'awkward' work environment. He generally gave an explanation as to why it was our fault, and why we shouldn't question him. Eventually I just left. He was very upset when I quit. He felt that I really owed him something just because he had hired me.

So what did I learn? He was a jerk anyway, and it wasn't worth working for him. Fortunately, the economic climate was more forgiving 4 years ago when that happened, and after working in landscaping for 2 weeks, I got a great job that I loved.

If you're really that concerned, go ahead and look elsewhere. If you get some pretty solid connections, go ahead and present your concern to your manager. Depending on his reaction, I don't think you need to feel like you're letting the company down by leaving. If they can't pay you when they said, they at least owe you a very good explanation.

<comment><USER11> _He felt that I really owed him something just because he had hired me._

Never fall for that trap. I have seen quite a bit of this attitude - <USER2> pulled off on younger employees during salary negotiations.

In fact I have witnessed it so often that I think this must be something they teach in business schools, probably under the "optimizing employee performance"-tab.

You don't owe your boss anything beyond the regular performance that you are paid for. In most companies I'd even go as far as to say that _they_ technically owe _you_ for the various "extra miles" that have become the norm in our industry.

And I guess that's exactly the point they are trying to camouflage when they attempt to push you into the guilt corner.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I negotiated my salary the first three years I was working full time. I did it politely and with respect. Truth is, you've got to look out for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A business exists to make money. If it can't pay you, it isn't making money and either should not exist now or will not exist in the near future. There are rare exceptions, but the odds are so bad that I would not take the chance or extend the trust.

There aren't enough specifics in your write up to know for sure what to do. However, either you hold equity or you do not and that should be a major factor.

If you are an equity holder in this company and it is a funding issue, not a core business issue, I would stay and see it through. Sometimes you can cut way back on the leverage and nurture the core profit with the equity holders you have.

If you are an employee, exit as diplomatically and respectfully as you can. Why? You made an agreement with your company to trade services for pay. They have defaulted. It sounds like they have done so without a heads up. This shows a lack of integrity on the part of management and is even more troubling than the cash.

There are things in the world that can blind side a good management team - abrupt law changes, competitor introduces game changing technology, key team member leaving, etc. However, pay roll is a cash flow issue and one management teams can look ahead and predict.

If a management team can't predict, process and pay payroll, how well can they execute on the things that make your business money?

If they can execute on payroll but have chosen not to, or to not tell you, are they people that you should throw your lot in with?

<comment><AUTHOR> You bring up a very good point. I do not have any equity. I was always promised it, but of course it never materialized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Note added for clarity: this was not a startup, it was a long established company with around 30 employees. It is in an industry where raising funding would be a disaster and guarantee no orders ever again.

I was working for a company some years ago, and pay started to get late. No word from management, no explanations, and when it did turn up, no apologies.

We were all starting to look to jump, and some did. I found out what really was going on and started to make serious plans.

I won't go into full details, but after about 6 months we managed a hostile management buyout. We dealt with some unpleasantness from some people who jumped early, and half of those who had stayed were made redundant. That was a horrible, horrible thing to do, but we had no choice - we had no money. It cost us a bundle, but it was the only way to save the company.

The ones who stuck with us are now secure in their jobs, have equity, have 50% of the six months of missing pay restored (we weren't responsible or liable, but we honored it anyway) and have a fantastic work place.

In the middle of the worst, when negotiations were bad, we asked a few people why they were still working 5 hours a day, four days a week, when they hadn't been paid for three months, and everything was uncertain.

"We don't want to work with anyone else." was the rather humbling reply.

Since then there have been months when cash-flow was tight, and money wasn't on time. Company directors, I have learned, are legally obliged not to destabilise the company, and telling employees the exact situation when money is tight can be regarded as that. It's not always the owners' fault. Employees are quick to say "You should've told us." but legally, the situation is not always that clear.

I have to say that we, the directors, never took more pay than the employees until they were back on full pay. even then we took 1/4 pay for a further few months, then 1/2 pay until the cash-flow stabilised. We never asked employees to forego pay without ourselves first taking nothing.

I'm not making excuses for your bosses, nor suggesting that you stick it out and hope it all works. My employees did, and they're very, very pleased about it. I stuck it out, took steps, and now (part) own the company.

Take control, one way or another. In a smaller company, jumping is not the only option.

<comment><USER15> "telling employees the exact situation when money is tight can be regarded as that"

Not telling the employees there is a non-trivial chance they won't be paid for their work when you have actual knowledge of such could pretty easily be shown to be theft of services/fraud in front of a jury, and almost certainly piercing the corporate veil in the process. It's simply not right to force your employees that have no equity in the company to assume financial risk on behalf of the owners, particularly without the employees' knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Definitely shop your resume ASAP, simply because there's no downside: you don't have to quit unless/until you get a better offer, and if the money does come in you're set.

The company I worked for went through this a few years ago, but pulled out of it and was doing well for a while.

Nonetheless I got a zero-day shitcan from them about a year ago (let go on Wednesday and paid through Friday, with another half month of medical/dental).

Don't be more loyal to the company than they would be to you.

</comment><comment><USER17> Get out of there fast. Also note that very probably the company isn't sending the money it's supposed to be withholding from your paychecks to the government, so you will have tax problems this year, that are the company's fault but you will end up having to resolve.

I.E., your paystubs say the company withheld $5,000 from your paychecks and gave you $10,000. You file your tax return, and the IRS comes back and says, "We don't know what you're talking about, Company X didn't send us any $5,000. You can go ahead and send us the $5K now though."

Missing payroll is a VERY VERY VERY VERY bad sign. Do not continue to waste your time working there for free.

<comment><USER18> The counterpoint to this is a bankrupt company may well not have ever reported your income to the IRS, at all.

Process that however your ethics guide you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing that you should do is network with your soon to be former coworkers. Set up a mailing list, start talking about what is happening and help each other find jobs. I've had to do this once or twice, though never at a place that outright missed payroll. But be prepared for the fact that most of your coworkers are in denial.

Depending on the state you are in it may be that management broke the law. Generally speaking, if you can't make payroll you are supposed to dissolve the business then and there and pay employees by selling the assets of the company.

And yeah, if management didn't even have the cojones to tell you that there wouldn't be paychecks on payday, the place is doomed and there is no helping it.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER20> The problem is that this situation creates a death spiral for the company. If they are missing payroll they are literally out of money. Any investor willing to put money in is going to do their due diligence. This means the investor is going to be aware of just how badly the company needs this investment, which typically leads to the terms being very unfavorable, which typically leads to your equity being very unvaluable.

So, without knowing more about the specifics at this point, I would say that you are working for free, and unlikely to have any stock options you have ever amount to anything of value.

Everyone has their own reasons, but one of the reasons _I_ work for startups is because of the equity. When the future value of the equity is at or near zero, it's no longer an interesting or worthwhile proposition for me.

You should have a good enough feel for the pulse of the company to know if there if you are close enough to sustainability that maybe a little extra cash will get you across the finish line, or just delay the inevitable. My guess though is that it is time to start looking.

</comment><comment><USER14> Some comments about resumes ...

If you apply for a job with me, I want to know why I should employ you. I want to know how you will add value to my company. I want to know that you will bring skills and abilities.

Do you know what I want? You should. You shouldn't just read the ad for the job - you should find out what my company does, _then_ read the ad, and work out how your skills will help me meet my goal of making money. If you can't or won't do those things, I probably don't want you to work for me.

What skills do you have? _How can I tell?_

Can you work on your own? _How can I tell?_

Can you work in a team? _How can I tell?_

Will you get things done? _How can I tell?_

I don't really care about your education, or your recent jobs, unless they show me why you are the right person for me. And I want to read that on the first page, preferably in the first paragraph, and preferably without typos, grammatical errors, or anything else to distract me. I don't at this stage really care what your name is, or how to contact you, or whether you can typeset 16 different fonts on the same page.

Why should I employ you? What do you think I want, and why should I think you have it.

And good luck in whatever you choose. You could choose to put your resume in your profile here on HN.

</comment><comment><USER21> Been there before. Best get out as soon as possible.

<comment><USER22> Likewise here. If the company had any prospects of funding, they would be more open. Get your resume out now. There is no harm in working for a while longer, so long as it doesn't interfere with your job search. Also check with you state employment office, because you probably have wage claims which may go ahead of other creditors. (IANAL)

EDIT: Your coworkers are still working because they dont know what else to do. They are going through the motions on hope.

<comment><USER6> "Your coworkers are still working because they dont know what else to do."

Email every one of them the link to this discussion. Give them a chance to "know what else to do".

<comment><USER22> Bad advice. Dont burn your bridges. You may need recommendations from your boss or he could sue out of spite.

WRT your coworkers, I was thinking of stories of people would get ready for work every day, go sit on a park bench until quitting time, and go back home, because they couldnt face the fact that all the meaning in life was gone. People have a hard time dealing with major setbacks like death, divorce, or loss of their job.

<comment><USER6> I disagree that this is bad advice. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough.

You are in a time warp. This game is over. It was over long before OP posted here.

You are on a sinking ship and must jump. Your co-workers are in the same boat. Some may even say you have a moral responsibility to help them. In real world disasters, some risk their lives to help others escape. Sending this link to your co-workers could greatly benefit them while costing you _nothing_.

You have no bridge to burn. Your boss already burnt it. Any recommendation from someone who let this happen to his people is worthless.

I don't blame your boss for having business problems. That can happen to anyone. I do blame him for letting it reach the point where it would affect his employees without fair warning. This is inexcusible and unacceptable.

From a practical point of view, you are much more likely to get a good reference from helping out a co-worker than from a boss who has already screwed you. So do it.

<comment><USER21> I have been unfortunate enough to have been the General Manager of the Company when this happened. I had no equity. I tried my best to keep everyone motivated and paid myself last to the detriment of my own family. I thought the Captain is supposed to be the last to leave.

I believed that the Company could have turned around, but needed the capital. However an under capitalized Company has a very slim chance of being successful. Even if you stay and work, you become an observer as everything you build starts to crumble and your hands are tied.

My recommendation still stands. Get out as fast as possible and remember, when one doors closes another opens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's my experience with this. Maybe it will shed some light on your situation, maybe it won't.

At one particularly insane start-up, I went two months without a paycheck. It was such a bizarre place to work, and so interesting, I didn't care. The company officially went under. The State of California has ruled that they owe me $30,000 (including the penalty for not paying). I'll never see it.

They did, however, call a meeting and tell everyone when they were unable to meet payroll. There was no attempt to deceive the employees about this. There was no psychological pressure put on to continue working.

Bottom line: While they were meeting payroll, I made really good money—better than 99.9% of the human population. I learned lots of cool stuff, did some cool stuff, and lived in luxury despite working in a warehouse with a cement floor (I don't care about that sort of luxury, anyway). Even after two months without pay, I had saved up so much in the bank that I was still in nice financial shape.

I would do it again. The big danger, at least for me, is that the company might have taken a long time to officially terminate. The smart thing to do would be to set a date: if payroll isn't back on track by that date, then I move on. In hindsight, I was lucky that they officially crashed in only two months, since that forced me to leave and start making money again.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have been in your situation. My advice is to get out before the company goes under and forces you to compete with everyone else you work with for jobs.

Even though your company has not been very stand-up with you, don't burn any bridges. You never know when that kind of stuff will come back to bite you in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER25> It depends on where you live. In european countries (I'm pretty sure that it's the case in Switzerland) you will always get your salary for the last 3 months! If the company goes bankrupt, an insurance will pay.

<comment><USER17> Sadly, the U.S. has no equivalent insurance program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Offer to accept hardware in lieu of payment, get as much as you have to sell to get repaid. Find another job right away.

<comment><USER18> I worked at a company that missed payroll. They told us that they "couldn't stop" us from taking our laptop and marking its fair market value against what we're owed.

I asked about the desktop next to my laptop. "Can't stop you." "The Server under the desk?" "Can't stop you."

I drove home with fourteen PCs in the back of my car. It was so heavily loaded I had to peer over the hood. This was early 2003 and I'm _still_ getting rid of them.

It made the eventual "yeah you had some entitlement to money but there wasn't any after the lawyers got done with it" letter all that much more sweet. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you are going to work a few weeks for free, you may as well think of a good small business application and build it. At least you will make money from it or you can add that to your resume.

<comment><USER28> Be careful about intellectual property ownership bullshit here.

<comment><USER29> I'm curious how that works out if you're not getting paid for your time at the company...

I thought part of the employment agreement was that you'll be compensated for your work. If you are not, does the agreement still hold up?

<comment><USER30> The IP assignments I've signed when joining a company (and always gotten modified in my favor to varying degrees) have never said anything about whether or not they have their shit together enough to pay me. In my experience, they tend to boil down to: anything you do on company time, with company equipment, or at the company's request belongs to the company, full stop. You might be able to argue that you weren't on company time if you weren't paid for that time, but the other two clauses should cover that handily.

At my present job, I use my own laptop, and got the agreement winnowed down to just the third of those -- they only own my work if they specifically asked me to do it. (Granted, I'm not writing a lot software here, and what software we do write just exists to facilitate our core business, so I doubt they'd have any qualms about any of the developers modifying their agreements similarly, anyway.)

<comment><USER29> Right, but I seem to remember something in various state laws about a contract not being a contract unless there is "consideration" involved, i.e. both parties are receiving something of value. That's why so many transactions are for $1, eg. wealthy CEOs and Arnold Swarzenegger taking a salary of $1, old school buses or old surplus military equipment being sold for $1, etc. Regardless of what's written down, the transaction isn't a valid contract unless both parties receive something.

IANAL, this is all just idle speculation, consult with a real lawyer before you actually rely on this.

<comment><USER31> That's pretty much what I remember from my business law class, but then again I was often annoyed by the professor's little skits and rarely frequented whole live lectures (search _Robert Emerson University of Florida_ if you haven't had a chance to see what nightmare the students go through).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A friend of mine has been through something like that, not happily; here's another employee of the same startup telling the story: <http://www.sixdemonbag.org/yomu.html>

(Summary: founder trying to keep stringing everyone along gets convicted of securities fraud.)

</comment><comment><USER33> So I was working for a company that stated withholding paychecks. My boss was very charismatic and we had a client or two that owed us a very large amount of money. Due to these facts I and many many others stuck around long after we should have. In the end I was owed several thousand dollars, about 6 paychecks. The company is now being sued by many people, and it turns out hasn't payed the IRS for the last two years. My advice is to get out now. It just isn't worth the risk. Possibly stick around until you find a new job but look desperately for a new job.

</comment><comment><USER34> Aside from payroll, your company is likely facing massive amounts of debt to their creditors.

While you may have an emotional connection to the company, bill collectors acting on behalf those with outstanding invoices with your company will have no such connection. There's likely a backlog of unpaid invoices that will also need to be paid. Employees walk ... creditors sue. Your company will pay creditors first, and is likely to leave you guys hanging.

<comment><USER20> No, legally, the employees get paid first.

<comment><USER34> I've seen first-hand that companies don't always do this.

Perhaps once a company files bankruptcy there's more oversight with this ... but before that happens, I've absolutely seen a company trying to cover its ass and limit its legal expenses by closing out unpaid invoices and stiffing their staff.

<comment><USER35> Norway has (had? I moved to the UK a decade ago) a great protection against this: Be late with payroll and any employee could have the company bankrupted without paying a fee. All it took was filing a form.

Now, of course, at the bankruptcy hearing the company might be able to pay money due to staff and avoid being put under administration and shut down, but it's a very effective way of ensuring companies keep on the good side of their staff when cash gets tight.

Taxes also pay for a fund that covers back payment of salary for up to 6 months in the case of a bankruptcy where staff have been more lenient, and so provides both a safety net and a reason for staff to be more accommodating if there's hope of improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My company came very close to missing payroll several times in the dark days but we always pulled it off. In the same period I saw a close partner company reach the point where they were paying partial paychecks (barely above minimum wage) before they finally folded. I also have a friend who went from almost $5m in the bank to almost $1m in debt trying to keep his company afloat.

Bottom line: if it's a one-time (or once-in-a-while) thing where the cashflow just got held up, that's one thing, but if it's been multiple times now, it's time to get out. If they're just waiting on one big payment from a single customer, run out the door. It'll never happen.

But don't burn your bridges. I work with many people who left our company in the "dark days" and have come back now that we're more financially stable.

</comment><comment><USER37> I recently left a startup that was in a similar situation, though I think they were alot more open about finding more investment (It was however always just around the corner).

I'd advise you to leave now, especially if the founders/management have decided not to take anymore pay themselves, thats usually the sign there is only a few weeks (Not months) of cash left.</comment>


Freeciv 2.4.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/NEWS-2.4.0

<comment><AUTHOR> HTML5 version available on [http://play.freeciv.org](http://play.freeciv.org)

</comment><comment><USER2> C-evo is another open source Civilization clone which I very much enjoy, due to the emphasis on strong AI and completely deterministic combat. This year has brought a a new release after a 5 year hiatus: [http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/C-evo](http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/C-evo)

<comment><USER3> Nice, I didn't know a new version had come out. This game was written in Delphi, and open sourced a few years back. It has an API for writing computer controlled players, and a tournament mode for seeing which one comes out on top. That was where I learned function pointers, good times!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Glad to see new release of this incredible game. Freeciv is to me the perfect example of how a great game can continue to get always better when develpment never stops.

It's too bad to think of what could have become games like syndicate or starcraft if they were not developed on a "release and forget" scheme (even with a few extensions).

</comment><comment><USER5> I remember playing a version of something similar to this (-jar) at school (restricted access).

I'm glad the community is thriving, games like Nethack and Dwarf Fortress will be the new board games of our generation, I imagine.

<comment><USER6> Aren't they single-player niche games? How can you compare that to boardgames?

<comment><USER7> DF does have a weird hack for multiple people sharing the same game. (your point still stands)

<comment><USER8> Two issues with the whole discussion:

1) There exist quite a few single player cardboard board games so assuming they're inherently multiplayer doesn't work. Mostly wargamer sims. I have a copy of Steel Wolves and some of the Field Commander series. Also the * Leader series where * is Phantom, Hornet, Apache, probably others. There are some card game "sims" that play pretty well as one person, the new pathfinder card game comes to mind. Pretty much any "multiplayer" game which depends on cooperation works pretty well solitaire. On the other hand, something like Federation and Empire is going to be difficult to "pretend" you don't know the opposition's secret plans.

2) There's two ways to share DF that I know of, one is the PBEM style where a group gets together, and each guy plays one game year and then does a (usually) entertaining and hilarious creative writing history of his year, repeat until final meltdown. Boatmurdered is probably the oldest, genre defining story. The other way is pretty much VNC/screencasting style play where many people fight over control of a mouse and yell at each other on video conferencing hardware. There are pretty good screencasts like the Vanguard of Valor series, his casts are a bit beneath my current level... my current level achieved (in part) from watching his casts, so a master/apprentice interactive screen sharing would probably be very fruitful (watch as I build a well without flooding anything or drowning anyone, now you've watched so you make one the same way, repeated for a zillion other tasks...)

I don't see any inherent contradiction in the game play or UI with having multiple UI windows open on a single DF game; it wouldn't destroy any game play mechanics to have ten guys on ten screens each running one level of the fortress, or having one guy dedicated to each DF-ish task, like one guy doing nothing but .mil, another doing nothing but construction, another one (or several players) doing nothing but workshop babysitting, perhaps another doing nothing but food gathering. I don't know of any technology to implement this, is there some patch you can download or some set of forums I'm not reading? I have just enough DF experience to be dangerous; not an expert or noob.

A fairly obvious startup idea would be some "dual controls" software library that could be applied to most any game for tutoring purposes. Not just DF but any game written to use the library. The social models would be interesting; compete to see who's the "best" instructor and "best" apprentice? How to handle what is griefing vs lack of skill?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if the UI issues on Windows were fixed. I played this a few months ago and it was pretty awkward, with the message dialogue stealing focus and multiple issues in fullscreen/maximized mode.

<comment><USER10> Did you file a bug report?

<comment><USER9> Of course not. I wanted to play a game, not file a bug report. If there was a dead simple way to do so, perhaps I would have. However, the way this usually works, is this:

\- Google "freeciv bug report" \- Find a wiki page with a link telling you where the bug report tool is. \- Go there and create an account or at least fork over your email address. \- Fill out a bug report, asking you several questions for which you do not immediately know the answer, such as the build number of the software in question and your exact model of graphics card. \- Take screenshots (which on Windows is still a pain in the ass for some inexplicable reason). \- Fill out a CAPTCHA, several times. \- A few weeks later, find that your bug has been closed because you didn't use the latest nightly build or some other minor detail. \- A few months later, receive spam on the one-time email address you've entered just this once. \- A few years later, try the game again only to find the bug is still around.

Okay, that's the worst case scenario and Freeciv isn't even guilty of all of the above, but in my experience it is also a very common one. Which is why I did not report this bug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to play lots of multiplayer freeciv about eight years ago ad was pretty good at it. I think I even broke top 10 on their player ladder a few times. ELO ratings is a great way to keep players honest btw. When people have something to lose they wont just disconnect in the middle of a game but make a sincere effort to complete it. Shame it's so hard to find players these days. Most of the time the freeciv metaserver is almost empty.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am playing with an idea to rewrite Alpha Centaury.

<comment> qu4z-2 That game was amazing. If you decide to, please post it on HN once you've made some progress.</comment></comment>


Learning to Rank 101 – Linear Models - <AUTHOR> http://opensourceconnections.com/blog/2017/04/01/learning-to-rank-linear-models/ <comment><AUTHOR> Whoah, front page! My colleague Bertrand Rigaldes wrote about evaluating this model

[https://brigaldies.github.io/learn-to-rank-with-linear- regre...](https://brigaldies.github.io/learn-to-rank-with-linear-regression/)</comment>


Setting Up SSL for an iPhone App - Hiding From Firesheep... - <AUTHOR> http://appgoal.posterous.com/setting-up-ssl-for-use-with-an-iphone-app-pro <comment><USER2> Unfortunately using encryption (like SSL) in your iPhone application _generally_ subjects you to export compliance restrictions. This involves filing government forms and waiting some weeks.

Sample process for filing forms outlined: [http://zetetic.net/blog/2009/08/03/mass-market-encryption- co...](http://zetetic.net/blog/2009/08/03/mass-market-encryption-commodity- classification-for-iphone-applications-in-8-easy-steps/)

There is an exception of "for purposes of authentication" but I'm not sure if it helps if you're _always_ using SSL. Would be interesting to have someone chime in here.

<comment><USER3> SSL is classified "in the public domain" as defined by the Wassenaar Arrangement and as such is not subject to export restrictions. The question remains if Apple honors this in their notoriously arbitrary review process, but as far as I can tell SSL is safe.

<http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ssl/ssl_faq.html>

<comment><USER4> I think it comes down to the question of; if you're passing data over a secure channel (SSL), does that fall within the U.S. governments compliance requirements. mickdj had a link with a comment in it discussing this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my- applicati...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my-application- contain-encryption/2341310#2341310) although, it's from earlier this year...

<comment><USER3> People are allowed to bundle SSL implementations in their apps without being subject to export restrictions. I don't think it matters whether you call Apple's API to issue an HTTPS request on your behalf or whether you ship the library yourself, the latter of which is definitely legal because big-time software such as Firefox or Apache would have been sued out of existence a long time ago if it wasn't. Now, Apple (and possibly the government) might decide to see it differently, but this is the letter and spirit of the international agreement governing crypto export.

<comment><USER5> Sued out of existence? The process of exporting encryption software isn't _that_ difficult. Fill out a form, send a copy of your source code to the NSA and you're done, generally. 10 minutes. That's second hand information but sounds reasonable to me given how much software uses encryption in some way.

<comment><USER3> Because if crypto export regulations actually were applied to SSL in practice, they'd have to prevent Apache and Firefox from getting into countries on the E:1 list, and possibly D:1 as well. And personally, I don't know any https- supporting website owner who ever filled out the mother-may-I crypto form.

(see <http://www.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/740spir.pdf>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You may want to look at:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my- applicati...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135081/does-my-application- contain-encryption)

[http://blog.theanimail.com/iphone-encryption-export- complian...](http://blog.theanimail.com/iphone-encryption-export-compliance- for-apps)

<comment><USER4> Interesting... This may account for the large number of app's not using SSL. I wasent aware that this was considered part of the export compliance.

These articles appear to be from earlier this year, I'm curious if these restrictions still apply...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A great example of taking something relevant in the news and applying it to your project/business.

Great stuff.</comment>


HP to open-source WebOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.precentral.net/hp-open-source-webos-no-hardware-plans-or-partners-announced

<comment><USER2> Interesting solution to their problem with webOS. I am not convinced that open sourcing it without any HP hardware to officially run it or any announcement of partners that will produce compatible hardware will allow webOS to take off. At least this is a potential credible alternative to Android open source model... if some HW folks decide to go with it.

<comment><USER3> I agree with one sentiment of one of the commenters on the article: this seems like a soft shut-down. Even if HP was not making any hardware for it, at least one hardware partner would be nice. _Some_ kind of commitment to at least one more device coming out with WebOS native. If that had happened, I'd say WebOS would be fine. If no one announces any plans in the next 3 months though... I'm not one to cry doom and gloom, but it's not looking terribly bright. HP wouldn't have done this unless it was their only option. They wanted to sell it and no one was buying.

One thing we can look forward to, custom ROMs that hopefully boot faster. My Touchpad takes a minute and a half to start, which is pretty unacceptable for a tablet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a sly move by HP but probably the only move they could make cheaply. Still, managing a platform as opposed to owning it can unlock tremendous value.

HW people have been looking desperate for an alternative to google as it tip- toes ever close to an official "Google phone". The Motorola purchase was such a move and it has the HW partners nervous.</comment>


Johnson and Johnson says its drug shouldn't be used in executions - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/22/johnson-johnson-says-its-drug-shouldnt-be-used-to-kill-prisoners/?utm_term=.cfd9f7e32fb1 <comment><USER2> That's a really silly moral stance to take when you are a producer (and marketer) of opioids which lead to hundreds of over-doses annually.

The difference is one patient wants to end their life willingly to escape pain and suffering, while the other is chasing a high and may/may not have been guided into taking Opioids in the first place.

[http://fortune.com/2017/05/15/purdue-johnsonandjohnson- opiod...](http://fortune.com/2017/05/15/purdue-johnsonandjohnson-opiod- marketing/)

<comment><USER3> The news is about execution, not euthanasia.

Brand value is important for large companies. If I were the CEO of a pharma company, I want my drugs to be associated with health, not death.

I bet bullet companies won't mind at all if prisons buy bullets from them to execute prisoners.</comment></comment>


Using millions of online photos together, we can now watch history unfold - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/406497/using-millions-of-online-photos-cobbled-together-we-can-now-watch-history-unfold/ <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9558976)</comment>