China's Selfie Obession - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/chinas-selfie-obsession <comment><USER3> Disclaimer - I'm an Asian American living in Hong Kong.

As someone who is American born and raised, I notice a LOT of cultural differences in SEA (South East Asia) and China.

One thing in particular I notice is a desire for "the ubiquitous Asian pretty girl face". Korean pop stars are the most famous for having their facial features so alike that they start to look extremely similar, but having having a selfie photoshopped internet face is actually a strong need felt by the majority of the girl population here.

The question I have: is it a short faze or does it have some longevity? How long will it last? I'll just give out some tentative thoughts:

1\. The US has a relatively static class structure compared to Asia. With class signaling items like fashion, luxury, and outward appearance - the US in general derives little value from this because you don't have much social mobility anyways so it doesn't mean much. But in China, 90% of the population was poor 30 years ago. Over 300 million people are now middle class, and another 200 million people will be added by 2022. Class signalling items catch on very fast, and the market size keeps increasing.

2\. The value system here is just different. The absence of American values - independence and freedom of speech - is very noticeable. Here there's a strong sense of group think, as if society as a whole agreed to some universal social norms or rules. "You should do this, you shouldn't do that" are normal things that you'll hear in conversations with friends. Sticking out or being different creates a strong reaction of fear and insecurity.

3\. There's a strange position for "taste". The appreciation of things - culture, music, art, beauty - seems to be dwarfed by the value those things represent. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but taste seems to follow signalling, not the other way around. For example - the pretty Asian face - <USER2> seems to be much more about signalling than taste.

To summarize my thoughts, a combination of class mobility, growing audiences, and cultural values leads me to think services like this will continue to see success and it may take a generation (10-12 years) before cultural values shift in a different direction.</comment>


Star Simpson speaks out about how MIT treated her in LED case at Logan - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@starsandrobots/understandably-cause-for-alarm-1f0929be0615 <comment><USER2> > So, I went directly to the best place I could think of: the very first place > I walked to after I was let free, was the Office of the President at MIT. > (In loco parentis, right?) But I was stopped at the door. She wouldn't see > me or talk to me. Liability, and all. The potential cost of giving me any > legal advice or talking to her directly about anything, would simply be too > great. So MIT found the protection it sought, while I did not.

Bummer, it seems college sometimes prepares you for the real world by turning its back on you just like the real world does.

> Star Simpson's actions were reckless and understandably created alarm at the > airport. — MIT News Office, Sep 21 20

Ouch, fuck MIT

<comment><USER3> Yeah, MIT kind of has a rep[1] for being particularly unfriendly to students in legal trouble. Really, it doesn't seem like a very good place for people who want to push the envelope.

It seems like something a student ought to consider, I mean, that MIT seems to be more concerned about it's reputation with the legal community than with it's reputation with students.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this ( [http://i2.wp.com/boingboing.net/images/cfa4827569_20070921de...](http://i2.wp.com/boingboing.net/images/cfa4827569_20070921device3.jpg?w=315) ) the hoodie that Star Simpson was wearing? I could understand the police being a little suspicious. If you are going to do any electronic project, you need to hide anything other than your display/LEDs.

I could understand MIT distancing itself from what would have been a PR s __tshow because of how obviously threatening that device looks.

If anyone is wondering where I found this image, it can be located here ( [http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student- arrested.html](http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html) ). It seems hard to find a photo of this with any article on the subject. It took a bit of digging to find that few year old BoingBoing story. This link also contains more details on the incident that were not covered in the story.

<comment><USER3> I guess I fail to see how that is any more obviously threatening than, say, gluing a bunch of legos to my shirt. I mean, it's weird, and if the point of security is to make us all try not to be weird, that's one thing... but I'm not sure how "weird" has anything to do with "threatening"

<comment><USER4> To us a bread bored is just a piece of plastic, to the common person it is something scary.

Would you take a suit case with a bread bored, exposed wires, and a 9V battery through security at an air port? How about higher security areas than that?

There is a very, very big difference between what was worn and something that one would associate with being a light up sweeter.

When I heard the story I assumed this ( [http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/8002/products/g513a-ch...](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/8002/products/g513a-christmas- sweaters-with-lights_grande.jpeg) ) was what was being worn.

There is a big difference between exposed wires, batteries, with blinking LEDs stuck together on a breadboards and Legos. When going to an area with elevated tension, security, and crazed guards the gap between "weird" and "threatening" is quickly closed.

<comment><USER3> >When going to an area with elevated tension, security, and crazed guards the gap between "weird" and "threatening" is quickly closed.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. Incidents like this aren't about safety, they are about conformity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at pics of what she was wearing, I think it's sad that she still doesn't realize she was reckless.

I'm not saying she deserved everything that happened to her, but wearing a breadboard with a cluster of lights and a 9v hanging off your chest, at an airport, might be the very definition of reckless.

Ok, I get it, you're a maker. That doesn't give you the right to scare the shit out of people. Would it be ok for air-soft fans to start a shooting war at an airport and expect people to understand?

<comment><USER6> It's not super easy to figure out what things other people might be scared of if it never occurred to you to be scared of them yourself. If I saw someone walking around with a bunch of electronics draped over themselves it wouldn't cross my mind to be afraid of them; as a result, I wouldn't have thought twice about doing it (until this and the other more recently publicized case of freakouts.)

It's not as if there's a high school civics lecture on the topic of Strange American Fears, and parents don't tell their kids not to have something that looks like a bunch of messy electronics, so I'm not sure where she is supposed to go and figure this out. As a result, it's hard for me to say she did something wrong.

<comment><USER7> _> It's not super easy to figure out what things other people might be scared of if it never occurred to you to be scared of them yourself._

I don't agree with this claim. In fact, I think it's extremely easy to identify what might scare other people. So much so that it can be reduced to a single question:

"Is this outside the norm?"

Doesn't matter if it's full body tattoos, 30 body piercings, electronics plastered all over you, you're lit up like an X-mas tree, wearing a full-body suit, wearing a balaclava, what have you. Do you see other people doing it? No? Chances are you're going to raise suspicion and suspicion not only _can_ cause fear but I argue it _will_ cause fear.

Normality is a social comfort zone. Nobody bats an eye at anyone who isn't standing out from the crowd.

Now before anyone tries to wage some sort of moral war against _me_ for stating _how things are_. I don't pass any judgement on if this is "good" or "bad" behavior. However, there is an evolutionary explanation for this: "People who don't fit with your community are outsiders. Outsiders can be friend or foe. Be suspicious of them."

Nobody would be scared of what they were wearing if they were at a Hackathon or some place where "this is normal". But they were at an airport. That isn't normal for an airport.

<comment><USER8> > Doesn't matter if it's full body tattoos, 30 body piercings, electronics > plastered all over you

So not only do you agree she deserved to be arrested, you also claim that anyone with tattoos and/or piercings who goes to an airport should also be arrested?

Unbelievable.

Civil liberties should not hinge on looking just like everyone else, following the herd, never daring to be creative, etc.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure how you read my post and got that message out of it without purposefully being dishonest.

 _> Civil liberties should not hinge on looking just like everyone else, following the herd, never daring to be creative, etc._

You even explicitly went out of your way to ignore what I said.

 _> Now before anyone tries to wage some sort of moral war against me for stating how things are. I don't pass any judgement on if this is "good" or "bad" behavior. _

Take your moral war elsewhere, because I'm not interested in this discussion. I'm stating how things are. _Not how they "should" be_. Not how _you want_ them to be. Not how _I want_ them to be. How they _currently are_. "What they are" and "what they should be" are not the same thing. Am I being patronizing enough to make my point crystal clear?

 _> never daring to be creative_

This is a strawman. Dare to be creative at hackathons and art conventions - not an airport. Ever heard the phrase "time and place"?

<comment><USER8> > Dare to be creative at hackathons and art conventions - not an airport. Ever > heard the phrase "time and place"?

Remove tattoos and piercings at the airport, really?

> stating how things are

Like hell. Your view of things 100% implies that Star was in fact culpable for her own arrest, which isn't true, so I don't believe your disclaimers that you are just neutrally commenting.

> without purposefully being dishonest...

> ...Am I being patronizing enough to make my point crystal clear?

That you're being an ass? Sure.

<comment><USER7> _> Remove tattoos and piercings at the airport, really?_

Why are you so stuck on one of several examples? Open carrying is legal in many states. Go for a workout outside a police station while open carrying, let me know how that works out. Just do some jumping jacks across the street. Nothing _illegal_ but it will certainly draw some unwanted attention from the police!

 _> Like hell._

It's what happened and why it happened. She wore something outside of the ordinary, grabbed unwanted attention, and was arrested. Which part of that is a false statement?

<comment><USER8> > She wore something outside of the ordinary, grabbed unwanted attention, and > was arrested. Which part of that is a false statement?

If that's all you had said, then sure, that's just the facts.

My interpretation of your _tone_ was that you were unsympathetic to Star, while I felt and feel great sympathy to her, and outrage towards the people who mistreated her.

Somehow a lot of idiots in the world have gotten the idea that digital electronics resemble a bomb, which is deeply retarded considering that it only resembles a timer, with no sign of an explosive.

I fault the idiots, not Star, and I am surely going to be upset with anyone who seems unsympathetic to what happened to her.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a Failed Kickstarter Campaign Told the World Half the Story - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-campaign-told-the-world-half-the-story-and-painted-us-as-crowdfunding-b0582fd11f93 <comment><USER2> Why does this get nowhere the attention than the initial piece? Is it that the mob has made up it's mind and cannot be tamed anymore at this point?

</comment><comment> the-dude The other side of the story : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15970763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15970763)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was going to be spam for a Kickstarter campaign, but it's not. Harrowing story from a PR firm that appears to have been screwed by a campaign.

</comment><comment><USER4> TLDR: We didnt steal $35K, it was only $16K, and we are keeping it safe just in case.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you backup your pictures and videos? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Pictures: Dropbox.

However, one of the problems I run into is sharing with my family members. I often go on trip, and all family take pictures we want to share with one another. However through Dropbox, the shared folders quota is not "shared", which makes the limit reached way too fast. I'd love for someone to solve that scenario (or anyone here know of a way to achieve that?).

</comment><comment><USER3> All stored on a 1TB external hard drive and backed up every couple of months on a second 1TB hard drive. The oldest of the two hard drives is replaced every 12 months. One is kept in a safe in our home, the other is kept in a safe at a family members home.

Overkill? Maybe but the costs are low and there are some exceptionally precious memories on those drives that I couldn't bear to lose.

</comment><comment><USER4> Crashplan. I got a unlimited amount of storage for up to 10 computers for 100 dollars/ 2 years. Everything is dropbox like, meaning you have to do just about nothing. For backup, nothing can beat that (IMHO.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Tresorit! safer than dropbox and has a handy UI. I am currently testing their Android app which has a new UI and I even more like that one. (and I also got 50Gb as an early bird user)

</comment><comment><USER6> On one of those free 50GB storage space that Box.net gave out.

Currently exploring if I should create a script that will backup the files to Amazon Glacier.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dropbox via Camera Upload, plus Time Machine, and a 2nd external hard drive I use to create bootable backups of my MBP.

</comment><comment><USER8> Backblaze. $5/month/computer unlimited backup including all external HDs.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use Jungle Disk to backup my photography to S3.

</comment><comment><USER10> Pictures: Dropbox

Videos: External Hard Drive

<comment><USER11> Pictures : Picasa

No backup for videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dropbox + Time Machine (OS X) + Crashplan

</comment><comment><USER13> burn them to dvd</comment>


Site built on pure JavaScript (React) shows why it's a bad idea - <AUTHOR> https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WRll6h8NQc8J:https://react.rocks/example/react-chrome-redux+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk <comment><USER2> I find it both sad and funny that the apparent reaction to "web developers aren't real developers" idea was for (particularly front end) web developers to create ever more complex tool chains and runtime environments, that _always_ end up being more fragile and pedantic than whatever they replaced.

<comment><AUTHOR> I echo the same sentiment. Call me old school, but I'm always a true believe of putting content first and accessorizing everything else.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. This stuff is progressive enhancement/graceful degradation 101.</comment></comment></comment>


Remote Code Execution in CouchDB (and Privilege Escalation in the Npm Registry) - <AUTHOR> https://justi.cz/security/2017/11/14/couchdb-rce-npm.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here's CouchDB's official announcement of the vulnerabilities:

[https://blog.couchdb.org/2017/11/14/apache-couchdb- cve-2017-...](https://blog.couchdb.org/2017/11/14/apache-couchdb- cve-2017-12635-and-cve-2017-12636/)

I really appreciated the quick response of the CouchDB team and how they handled rolling out the patch.

</comment><comment><USER3> jsx (the pure Erlang JSON library) behaves the same way. In jsx at least, passing the return_maps option will return

        > jsx:decode(<<"{\"foo\":\"bar\", \"foo\":\"baz\"}">>, [return_maps]).

        #{<<"foo">> => <<"baz">>}

The actual problem seems to me the difference in the model (list of items, which "works" for duplicate keys, vs. maps).

</comment><comment><USER4> Given the ubiquity of JSON on the web, can anyone here think of any other common JSON parsers for modern web languages that behave in these unexpected ways?

<comment><USER5> They are all in disagreement over various edge cases. JSON is just a very weakly specified thing:

[http://seriot.ch/parsing_json.php](http://seriot.ch/parsing_json.php)

It's not just JSON by the way. URL parsers also differ in how they handle malformed inputs, with potentially catastrophic results:

[https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai-A- Ne...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai-A-New-Era-Of- SSRF-Exploiting-URL-Parser-In-Trending-Programming-Languages.pdf)

Basically the entire web stack is made up of protocols that are weakly specified, open to interpretation, lacking reference implementations and are therefore very hack prone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't seem like disclosure was coordinated with NPM itself - <USER2> usually wouldn't be a problem as it's the software user's responsibility to follow patches and stay up to date. But in this case it seems funny that NPM wasn't considered a principal party for responsible disclosure given the entire context of the investigation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mention it in the post, but npm was patched up before the update was publicly released. The CouchDB team coordinated with some of the bigger customers in advance (I also specifically requested that they do this in my original bug report).

<comment><USER7> We are using many CouchDB servers and I can confirm that we got a heads-up plus a patch several days before the 1.7.0 release. The CouchDB team and the Hoodie team did a great job handling this issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This would be solved by configuring jiffy to use maps instead of proplists.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would like to comment that "there is a discrepancy between the Javascript JSON parser (used in validation scripts) and the one used internally by CouchDB [...] For a given key, the Erlang parser will store both values, but the Javascript parser will only store the last one" should probably read "the Erland parser is wrong".

I'm not saying what javascript does is smart, or the right way, or anything like that, but JSON is defined specifically as "a subset of Javascript", as such I find it normal to expect that javascript rules applies.

Of course, one could argue that a key being defined twice is undefined behavior (is it ? I admit to not reading the javascript specs) and thus "what the js implementations actually do" isn't a reference.

<comment><USER10> He links to a stack overflow question and I think this answer is pretty good [https://stackoverflow.com/a/23195243/497116](https://stackoverflow.com/a/23195243/497116).

[https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4627.txt](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4627.txt) says "The names within an object SHOULD be unique". [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159) is more lax and instead says "An object whose names are all unique is interoperable in the sense that all software implementations receiving that object will agree on the name-value mappings". It's unfortunate that the correct behavior is not agreed on and today we saw the consequences of that.

<comment><USER11> From [https://www.ecma- international.org/ecma-262/5.1/#sec-15.12](https://www.ecma- international.org/ecma-262/5.1/#sec-15.12) \-- "NOTE: In the case where there are duplicate name Strings within an object, lexically preceding values for the same key shall be overwritten."

<comment><USER10> Yes, a good point! For interoperability it would be best if everyone followed the ECMA standard for JSON from 2011. It seems like they forgot to even mention duplicate keys in ECMA-404 from 2013 which seems very strange. RFC7159 uses the word SHOULD but I don't think the JSON parser Jiffy has actually understood the full implications and carefully weighed before choosing to allow duplicate elements.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Takes Stake In Amazon S3 Competitor Nirvanix - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/19/intel-takes-stake-in-amazon-s3-competitor-nirvanix/ <comment><USER2> <http://www.nirvanix.com/careers.aspx#sdd>

They're a Microsoft shop. Boo.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are they cheaper than S3?

<comment><AUTHOR> $0.18 for storage and up/down bandwidth

<comment><USER4> IOW s3 is cheaper, unless you have millions of tiny requests.

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261#price>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone tried Nirvanix?</comment>


Ask HN: Why has nobody fixed the car buying experience? - <AUTHOR> used or new <comment><USER2> Perhaps you could be more specific as to how you consider the experience "broken".

Having bought both new and used cars over the years, I wouldn't buy a car without checking it over and taking it for a test drive. Due to that physical aspect, I'm not sure what you wish to "fix".

Assuming that you dislike car dealers and pushy salespeople, you can buy used cars privately through any one of several websites and use brokers who have access to considerable discounts if you want to buy new.</comment>


Heat and drought turned Australia into a tinderbox - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-19/australia-bushfires-how-heat-and-drought-created-a-tinderbox/11976134 <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this! Our team produced the story, and I also developed the story format and scroll-based visuals.

This required more code for gathering/processing than for the presentational aspects, but I enjoyed learning heaps about satellite imaging and fire front/burn scar visualisation in the process of pulling everything together.

I'm happy to answer any questions about it, or point you in the direction of sources/people know far more than I do.</comment>


DMARC Secured Email Identities but Broke Mailing Lists - <AUTHOR> https://learntemail.sam.today/blog/dmarc-secured-your-email-identity-but-see-how-it-ruined-mailing-lists/ <comment><USER2> This is a terrible article that's almost completely wrong as it doesn't even mention the distinction between envelope (SMTP) from and header (RFC822) from.

The envelope from is what is transmitted in SMTP commands and specifies where bounces due to delivery delays or failures are supposed to be sent, the header from is what is displayed to the recipient as the sender, but is completely ignored by SMTP.

SPF only deals with the envelope from, DKIM only deals with the header from (and other parts of the email headers/content).

Really, there is nothing there that necessarily prevents mailing lists from working just fine:

A mailing list can (and should) replace the envelope from with its own address, so that bounces from subscribers aren't sent to the author of the message, but to the mailing list software, which then can do bounce management, such as automatically unsubscribing addresses that consistently bounce because they don't exist anymore. As the mailing list software should use its own domain for the bounce addresses, the mailing list operator can set up SPF to authorize the mailing list server as an outbound server for that domain just fine, and that has no effect whatsoever on the header from that's shown to the recipient, and that replies would go to by default.

As for DKIM, you simply should not modify the message, and it will deliver just fine, whether through a mailing list or directly. Modifying the message mostly really shouldn't be necessary. Reply-to mangling is a bad idea anyhow, and the mailing list should be recognized by the client software either because it's in the destination headers, or by using mailing-list headers added by the mailing list software, instead of mangling the body or the subject.

<comment><USER3> _> As the mailing list software should use its own domain for the bounce addresses, the mailing list operator can set up SPF to authorize the mailing list server as an outbound server for that domain just fine_

This will make SPF pass but it has no effect on the DMARC result. For DMARC to use the SPF result, the envelope FROM needs to be aligned with the header From. Pretty much every mailing list already does what you've described but it doesn't help with DMARC.

 _> As for DKIM, you simply should not modify the message_

Many mailing lists modify every message to add a footer with unsubscribe information. Others only modify some messages when necessary such as to convert HTML messages to plain-text, to strip attachments, to wrap lines to 72 characters etc.

<comment><USER4> Yes, modify the message and submit to the SMTP server, which calculates the DKIM signature.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand what you mean.

If you're saying the mailing list SMTP server could sign the message with their own DKIM key, that doesn't work because the DKIM result only gets used if the signing domain is aligned with the domain in the From header.

<comment><USER4> Ooops, I probably should have quoted you

> Many mailing lists modify every message to add a footer with unsubscribe > information.

That will not affect DKIM. The DKIM signing occurs after the listserv creates the email message and hands it off to the SMTP server.

<comment><USER3> _> That will not affect DKIM._

It will affect DKIM and it does.

 _> The DKIM signing occurs after the listserv creates the email message and hands it off to the SMTP server._

The DKIM signing occurs before the listserv even receives the message. It's done by the sender's SMTP server before it gets relayed. The listserv receives the signed message and adds a footer which breaks the signature.

<comment><USER4> The listserv has to copy any incoming email message and send one copy of the inbound message to each recipient on the listserv list. To assure deliverability, it has to send it from it's own address @ it's own domain, to avoid SPF failure. Each individual copy is passed by the listserv to the SMTP server to go to each recipient on the listserv list. The SMTP server calculates the DKIM on each message as it is sent.

Again, mail servers adding links is completely irrelevant to the DKIM signing process.

<comment><USER3> _> it has to send it from it's own address @ it's own domain, to avoid SPF failure._

To avoid SPF failure it uses its own domain in the MAIL FROM envelope address. There are very few lists that change the From header, I can't name a single one although they probably do exist.

 _> The SMTP server calculates the DKIM on each message as it is sent._

Like I said, even if they did, that only works if they were also changing the From header to their own domain. Otherwise, even though there is a valid DKIM signature there is no alignment with the From header so it is ignored when evaluating DMARC. DKIM does not use the MAIL FROM address.

 _> Again, mail servers adding links is completely irrelevant to the DKIM signing process._

I send a mail to a mailing list, LKML is a good example. My SMTP server signs the message with my DKIM private key and relays it to the LKML SMTP server. LKML receives it, appends a footer and relays it to all subscribers, with my name and email address in the From header but using its own address in the MAIL FROM address. The footer breaks the DKIM signature because when my message was signed that footer wasn't there. LKML does not re-sign the outgoing messages, it relays the DKIM signature provided in the original message. This is standard of many, possibly even most, mailing lists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forwarding email with outlook.com/Office365/Microsoft Exchange also breaks DMARC. Exchange Server sometimes modifies the headers of emails when forwarding them, invalidating the DKIM signature, so then a DMARC policy rejects the forwarded email. Apparently Microsoft have a fix in the pipeline for this, but it's been taking ages.

More info at: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/tzink/2016/05/19/why- does-m...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/tzink/2016/05/19/why-does-my- email-from-facebook-that-i-forward-from-my-outlook-com-account-get-rejected/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I stopped reading when it referred to SPF as "Sender Protection Framework." As usual, the discussion on HN is far better than R'ing TFA.

We recently had a collision between the practices of one of our vendors, the silly way that .edu's tend to forward mail, and Gmail's DMARC policy. The vendor is doing everything "right" in terms of their own (completely transactional) mailings on our behalf but some still want to blame them for poorly forwarded messages sent to .edu addresses that subsequently get swallowed up by Gmail and are never seen by the authors or referees.

<comment><USER7> I've seen the same issue with an edu address using office 365. The user set his mail for our org to forward to his .edu address. The .edu address was set to forward to his personal Gmail. The Gmail at the end of the chain was rejecting the mail because the edu didn't rewrite the from address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Authenticated Received Chain (ARC) is being developed to work simultaneously with DMARC and help provide relief to mail agents that break DKIM by allowing ARC aware receivers to sign authentication results that allow downstream processors to review what the initial results were and make their decisions.

Details at [http://arc-spec.org/](http://arc-spec.org/)

</comment><comment><USER9> So what did LKML end up doing?

Edit: given the Ts'o response above I guess they enforce the sender to not have DMARC.

"There are people with google.com addresses that need to use non-Google addresses in order to participate on the Linux Kernel Mailing List."

See also: [https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/dmarc/current/msg03236...](https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/dmarc/current/msg03236.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> > For many years, there was no real way to verify that you really got the > email the person that the From header states.

DMARC doesn't really assert your identity---it asserts the identity of the server.

Remember that you can also use PGP to assert _yourself_, and this works well with mailing lists (your mail client will hopefully distinguish between the signed message and the mailing list footer, which is unsigned). It also persists---if a mailing list is stripping DMARC headers, then that doesn't help you any.

<comment><USER11> PGP signatures can't be used to prevent delivery of scam/spam email.

<comment><USER10> Yes, you're right.

I modified my message to make clear what I was commenting on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I work on Gaggle Mail which is a group mailing list provider that avoids all this by only using a From address that we control. I do think stricter addressing policies will become the norm in years to come which is why we took this approach.

More details here: [https://gaggle.email/how-emails-are-addressed-and- sent](https://gaggle.email/how-emails-are-addressed-and-sent)

</comment><comment><USER13> As someone who thought it'd be a good idea to run their own mail server, I found that without SPF/DKIM/DMARC your mail gets identified as spam a lot. Having DMARC just means you get told about it.

<comment><USER14> That is nonsense. I run a mail server. I have SPF, but no DKIM/DMARC. I have no problems with mail deliverability.

In my experience there are a lot of urban legends around this topic.

<comment><USER13> I have had (and continue to have) perfectly innocuous emails land in the spam folders of others with gmail.

<comment><USER15> So have I - including when sending from another Gmail account. Their spam filters can be fickle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> SPF has another problem. I sent an email to someone recently @theirdomain.com. I subsequently saw by chance that the email was rejected because they were hosting @theirdomain.com with a random ISP but they had configured the mail to be forwarded to a mailbox in @gmail.com.

Gmail sees the email coming from @theirdomain.com's servers, rather than my server. Gmail checks the SPF record which doesn't match, and it rejects it.

I understand that this style of forwarding is anyway bad because gmail see's all email the user receives @theirdomain.com as coming from those servers, not their true origin. If @theirdomain.com receives (and forwards) any spam, it looks like a spammer to gmail.

<comment><USER17> The solution to this is SRS[0], but yes, not every mail-forwarder implements this (correctly), and it seems to break DKIM. The good news is that an SPF soft-fail and a DKIM pass usually means a DMARC pass. More information here[1].

0\. [http://www.openspf.org/SRS](http://www.openspf.org/SRS)

1\. [https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/24/spf-dkim- dmarc/](https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/24/spf-dkim-dmarc/)

<comment><USER18> Even with SRS, the "reputation" of the "middleman" (from Google's perspective) still suffers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If the mailing list changes the From address, then the message won't show the correct author in the message list in my email client. Replying may work (because of Reply-To:), but not having the correct "From" in the client is really a deal breaker.

Besides, DKIM already solved this problem by not caring _where_ the mail comes from, just that the message was signed. It seems the solution to me is to stop using SPF if you want to use mailing lists.

<comment><USER20> DMARC policy rejects messages only when they failed both SPF and DKIM checks. It seems problem is that mailing lists like to mangle message content.

<comment><USER21> Not exactly, the DMARC policy is very flexible. Each server, after a period of monitoring when he receives a detailed report of what would happen if a policy is enforced, can define his own policies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ran into this problem setting up a new mailing list system. I'd always wondered by mailing list mail sent from yahoo went directly to spam, while mail from gmail worked just fine.

Mailing list mail will always fail DMARC if you keep the original sender's address, but when setting up DMARC for a domain, you specify what should happen to mail from your domain if it fails the DMARC check.

For gmail and other sane providers, their DMARC failure is set to ignore, which means DMARC failing for those addresses gets calculated into spam probability, but isn't an auto-fail. For yahoo and AOL, they have it set to reject, which means mailing list mail from those domains automatically goes to spam for gmail.

Groupserver mailing list software resolves this by checking the DMARC settings for the sender. If DMARC is set to ignore, the sender address is kept, because it won't actually affect delivery. If it's set to reject, it mangles the sender address so that the mail at least gets delivered.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've had some contact with a big client e-mail filter, (30k+ users) and we chose to expose a soft SPF in the external DNS and a hard SPF in an internal DNS used as a cache by the mailfilter.

This was a workaround because the big org had countless 3rd party suppliers of services who many times wanted to mail as @big.corp. And this was fine when mailing to big corp as we could whitelist their senders in the SPF service config, but when mailing to the rest of the internet like gmail, yahoo and hotmail we needed a soft SPF fail instead of having to add those countless servers in our DNS record.

</comment><comment><USER11> Unfortunately, having the list software create a new message breaks threading. It is common practice to Cc people (subscribed to the list or not) that may need to interact with the thread, but they get the message directly from the sender while list recipients get a different message (different From, different Message-ID). Similarly, if the original sender replies to their own outgoing message, it will not thread for list recipients.

<comment><USER12> Threading can be preserved when creating a new message as long as the mailing software re-uses the same: 'message-id', 'references', 'in-reply-to' and 'thread-index' headers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The primary problem is that DMARC is fundamentally flawed, and was not enacted using a standards process that respected all of the stakeholders. As a result, it fundamentally becomes a matter of power politics.

If there are a bunch of people who need to participate in a particular mailing list --- say, IETF mailing list or the Linux Kernel development lists --- more than they need to stick with a particular mail provider, it becomes possible to say to them, "you want to participate in our community"? Change mail providers.

In the cases where a mailing list community badly needs the Yahoo users, Yahoo can dictate to the mailing list --- change your mailing list software and inflict pain all on your mailing list users, or you don't get access to our e-mail user community. (And rewriting the from field has all sorts of bad effects, including corrupting contact databases that auto populate based on names and addresses in the from field, making the mail summary index useless, breaking reply-to sender, etc. So there is real pain involved here.)

Part of the issue was that DMARC was originally intended for domains that only sent official announcements (e.g. for credit card companies or banks) and where employee e-mails came from a different domain. For that original use case, DMARC worked perfectly well. Apparently Yahoo then decided it had a terrible SPAM problem, and decided DMARC was a blunt instrument to use, and inflicted on consumer e-mails. Other companies didn't think ahead, and used the same domain for official e-mails as their employee e-mails, and decided that protecting their users was more important than inconveniencing their employees.

This is why it's ultimately all about power politics. If you want to participate in Linux Kernel development, you need an e-mail address that won't arbitrarily cause your e-mails to be dropped (for example, so Linus Torvalds doesn't get your pull requests). Despite this, growth in Linux Kernel Development continues to be growing, which means that when choosing between the inconvenience of changing or using an alternate e-mail provider, versus participating in Linux development, developers choose the former. But that only work because Linux has the economic power and clout to get away with it.

Heck, over ten years ago, refusing to buckle in to crap e-mail systems forced IBM to allow its Linux Technology Center folks install a standards-complaint IMAP server instead of using that abomination caused Lotus Notes which the rest of the company was forced to use. (And this was probably a better demonstration of the power of Linux, given how much IBM was stubbornly attached to Blotus Goats.) But make no mistake. This is Trump style, power politics. It doesn't hurt those with a lot of economic power, but if you're some tiny, podunk church mailing list, or some other group lacking in economic power, you're screwed.

DMARC: making email "great" again.

</comment><comment><USER25> Once, I needed to email something to djb. I tried, and his email system sent back a challenge which was dumped into my spam box. I never did manage to get an email to him.

</comment><comment><USER26> DMARC sucks.

Source: I run two big mailman installations.

<comment><USER27> Mailman sucks, too.

Source: I administered a variety of Mailman-driven lists for years. Never again.</comment></comment>


Install All Google Fonts on Mac / Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/qrpike/Web-Font-Load

<comment><USER2> I'm thinking that this can be generalised into one script by detecting the font path or even checking /etc/debian_release

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another script that asks you to pipe curl to sh. At least they used https.

<comment><USER4> Therefor you should always check out the script before running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now you can block Google Fonts (yet another way Google can track you).

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome, so useful! Thanks :)</comment>


Airline safety: 2017 was safest year in history for passengers around world - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/air-safety-2017-best-year-safest-airline-passengers-worldwide-to70-civil-aviation-review-a8130796.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the original report: [http://to70.com/to70s-civil-aviation-safety- review-2017/](http://to70.com/to70s-civil-aviation-safety-review-2017/)

Note in particular: Zero deaths worldwide among commercial jet passengers. (There were deaths among people on the ground, in small turboprops, and in other situations.)</comment>


The Lost Tribes of RadioShack: Tinkerers Search for New Spiritual Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_radioshack <comment><USER3> <http://www.sparkfun.com/> \- Best place on the web IMO. Great resources and support. They are incredible. The founder started the company right out of college (CU Boulder). He gave a talk in a kick-ass embedded design course I was taking in CU. I think they've been around for 6-8 years and had been growing at 100% every 6 months for a while. Don't know how it they are doing right now (pretty well I'm sure). The web site is always chock full of nicely organized articles and videos.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Their CEO Nathan Seidle gave a talk in one of my classes at CU and seems like a great guy. We also took a tour of Sparkfun and their facility is really amazing. They have a great selection of parts/gadgets available for "hardware hackers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The internet and Digi-Key replaced RadioShack for me a long time ago.

Digi-Key sells _everything_ , and will let you buy in onesies and twosies without screwing you on the price. Maybe Monoprice for cables, but that's rare.

The one time I needed a DB-9 gender changer in a hurry and paid freaking $20 for it was the day I decided I was done with RadioShack. You served a great purpose, dear friend, but times have changed. I still have my Pocket PC-1 for the memories.

<comment><USER6> It's not the same as walking into a physical store. You get an awful lot of ideas by looking at what's available, kind of improvisation engineering.

I am very happy to live within walking distance from São Paulo's "electronics district" (it's called Santa Efigênia, for the name of one of the streets around which lots of electronics (some of very uncertain origin), component and junkyards abound. Many items carry heavy import taxes and counterfeit items are sold on the street. I tend to go to the adjacent streets where the least mainstream stores are located. Those are far more interesting.

Walking there is always an expedition to a strange land. I usually get the stuff I planned to get, but often with lots of stuff I didn't knew I needed when I left home.

I know physical stores cannot compete with the internet and its zero-friction- commerce, but those places will be missed when they go.

<comment><USER7> I think emerging economies in the world would take much stronger to the original concept of Radio Shack. Since we've grown a "throw away instead of fix" economy, the U.S. doesn't create nearly as much demand anymore... But there are plenty of places that would.

<comment><USER6> Sadly, "trow away instead of fix" is becoming the norm for any electronic device. Working with SMDs by hand is doeable, but whoever can do it should go to med school and become a brain surgeon.

<comment><USER6> "throw" "doeable"... Sorry, folks. That's what I get from typing on an iPod before I wake up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"You walk into a regular RadioShack and it's become like a neurosis," Cohen says. "'Sir, can I sell you a cell phone today? How old is your cell phone? What about your family, do they have cell phones?'"_

Depressingly true. Of course they have to worry about the bottom line, but I really doubt the long-term future viability of becoming a mini Best Buy - <USER2> all they sell is mid-priced consumer goods, I have no incentive to buy there rather than on eBay for.

Where they are really useful to me are for speedy supply of things like batteries, media, and accessories (eg specialist cables) which I might need at short notice and in unusual quantities or configurations (compared to consumers). I have a feeling that that won't last, though.

<comment><USER9> I was reminded of why I don't go into Radio Shack when I had to go get a watch battery there the other day. They keep trying to foist a cell phone off on me. If I had wanted a cell phone I would have said "Hi, I would like to buy a cell phone." not, "Hi, I need a replacement for this battery." Do people actually buy phones because of this tactic? It's just plain rude to try to sell me a phone multiple times when I've already made it clear that all I want to do is buy a battery.

Edit: After rereading this, I think I've turned into a crotchety old man at 23. I'm half surprised I didn't wave a cane at the whippersnappers and tell them to get off my lawn.

<comment><USER10> I quit going to Radio Shack for batteries when I discovered they didn't have anything any more exotic than what was at Wal-mart for a fraction of the cost. And Wal-mart has better hours.

<comment><USER9> Wal-mart is bad for my blood pressure. 15 checkout stands, only one of which is ever open, with a mile and a half long line, employees that are no where to be found, and when you can find one he/she doesn't know anything. I can't go in there anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "But his shop is a lone outpost; in a single generation, the American who built, repaired, and tinkered with technology has evolved into an entirely new species: the American who prefers to slip that technology out of his pocket and show off its killer apps. Once, we were makers. Now most of us are users."

So humbling and true. Most people will throw out any given piece of technology rather than try and repair it. And speak of building something yourself, that's practically unheard of. Maybe it's only people around me who think and act this way, but I'm 22 and all these people aren't going anywhere.

<comment><USER12> I really don't agree with this. Maybe we were able to fix simple electronics. Now, you really have to know what you are doing to mess with an iPhone (and willing to void the warranty). I don't see anything bad with the trend. Most people wouldn't have "made" anything before, and they won't now. There are just more users in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe the trick is to think outside the mass consumer box.

My small town (pop 30,000) has a electronics parts store (part of a regional chain of 5 in Tennessee) that seems to do well catering to contracters in electronic-related fields (security, A/V, electricians, medical, etc). So, when I shop there, there's a different feel and more paperwork than a consumer-level store like Rat Shack. (Also free popcorn.) But they still have shelves and shelves, and bins and bins of board-level parts. Just look at these pics. <http://shieldselectronics.com/bpics.htm>

</comment><comment><USER14> Really? There isn't a link to <http://www.octopart.com> here?

Goddammit folks! Go find your parts on Octopart and help a YC company out.

<comment><USER5> Why isn't Digi-Key in the vendor list? That would help. Otherwise, very very nice site. Will use more often!

<comment><USER15> We'd love to get Digi-Key on the vendor list but they've chosen not to list with us yet. Please let them know you want to see them on Octopart: webmaster -at- digikey.us

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> oddly enough, there is a market for do-it-yourself still. I don't know how big, but interest in sparkfun, make magazine, makerbot, and arduino signifies it's anything but dead to me.

<comment><USER17> That's precisely where Radio Shack should be focusing its effort. They should outfit their stores with high-end 3d printers and fabrication machines and retool themselves as a sort of Hardware Kinko's. _Some_ one's going to fill that niche Real Soon Now, regardless.

<comment><USER18> It's still too soon.

That said, when it is time, Radio Shack can always move into that space too. However, what's more likely is that fab machines will come down in price quickly enough that people can have their own.

<comment><USER17> Sooner than you may think [1]. And we all have printers in our home, but even now go to specialty shops for our more exotic or higher volume jobs. Why would it be any different with 3D printing? And since, in this vision, they'll also be stocking all the electronics prototyping hardware, they'll be a one-stop shop for the emergent DIY robotics scene. Radio Shack should absolutely be planning for this _now_ if they have aspirations in this direction.

[1] [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=3d+printer+cost+dro...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=3d+printer+cost+dropping&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's a link to the non-paginated version: <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_radioshack/all/1>

</comment><comment><USER20> When I was in high school in the late '90s, I found an old discarded TRS-80 Model 4 that apparently still worked. I wanted to tinker with it, but it had no hard drive, and I had no software, so I walked into the local Radio Shack store, and asked the manager if they still supported the TRS-80.

The manager _special ordered a copy of TRS-DOS on 5.25" floppies from the Tandy warehouse at no charge_ , gave me a catalog of the software and peripherals still available, and told me to come back whenever I needed support or information about the system.

It's a pity they're no longer like this. They can't really compete against Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, and all of the online consumer electronics stores, and now they no longer really serve the niche that was the basis of their original success. I'll miss Radio Shack.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a classic story of management by managers. You just can't hire any generic executive and expect it to work. If all the manager knows is management, all the manager will see are numbers. Some things are the soul of the company.

We don't expect a psychiatrist to be able to run a restaurant.

</comment><comment><USER21> Fry's.

Period.

It's a west coast thing, but it should be a clue that the first one was in the heart of Silicon Valley. Aisle after aisle of computer components, electrical components, and truly random stuff (Mace next to hard drives, LED glowsticks next to cases, etc).

An electrophile's dream.

<comment><USER22> Fry's are not all the same. The only one that has a decent components section is in Palo Alto. Other stores, in San Jose, Mountain View etc do not have anything.

<comment><USER23> There is no Fry's in Mountain View. You probably mean the one in Sunnyvale. Which has a freaking original Varian Magnetron.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's some nostalgia for all. Its all the Radio Shack catalogs from the wayback in a beautifully done from.

<http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone remember Heathkit? The real DIY shop?

</comment><comment><USER26> There has to be room to fill this gap. Radioshack still has some cables I've needed, but it's missed some as well: ie- mini sata cables for slim optical drives.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'll second the recommendation of SparkFun as heir apparent, and add Make magazine.

<comment><USER28> SparkFun is awesome, but sometimes I need to have that electronic piece right away so I can finish my project this weekend. It would be awesome if there was enough of a market to have electronics parts stores in most cities.

<comment><USER29> I highly recommend You-Do-It Electronics Center in Needham, MA for those in the Greater Boston metro area. It's better even than the golden years of Radio Shack. If you need parts, this is your store.

<http://www.youdoitelectronics.com/>

Edit: added link

Edit: moved comment from top-level to this thread; seemed more apropos

<comment><USER30> Until I went in, I had imagined You-Do-It as like a make-your-own pottery type of place, except with instructors and kits showing you how to make radios and toasters instead of pottery. This idea was very exciting to me...

<comment><USER31> I am currently employed at a retail startup in Seattle that could be described this way!

<http://www.metrixcreatespace.com/>

<comment><USER30> Wow, this looks amazing. I wish there was a Boston branch!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DC Court Rules Tracking Phones Without a Warrant Is Unconstitutional - <AUTHOR> http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotYourRightsOnline/~3/1hN84Ehei-0/dc-court-rules-tracking-phones-without-a-warrant-is-unconstitutional <comment><USER2> OP, please don't link to "summaries" or link aggregator sites. Just link to the real article [0] that they link to, like _gscott_ did [1].

[0]: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/d-c-court-rules-warrant-is- requ...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/d-c-court-rules-warrant-is-required-for- stingray-cell-phone-tracking/)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307939](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307939)</comment>


Ask HN: Programming books to read while on vacation? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
I am leaving for a weeklong vacation tomorrow and I am looking for a book to read while I am there. I asking for any recommendations of programming books that I can find.
I just recently started learning python, so something related to that would be convenient, also I will not have access to a computer, so having to work along with the book would be out of the question. I'm trying to find a nice book to assist me in my digital travels into the programming world!
I would appreciate any response. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Try some fiction, instead. It's a vacation. I just finished _The Road_ by Cormac McCarthy a couple of weeks ago. It's really good.

That said, if you're going to read programming books, you might want narrative texts rather than "practical" books, since the practical ones require you to also have a computer, and work through the examples and such. Books like _Programming Pearls_ , _Beautiful Code_ , etc. tell stories about code, rather than just show you code (though there are probably moments in either book where the best course of action is to try applying what you've read about).

<comment><USER3> Cormac McCarthy is a depressing motherfucker. I'm halfway through Blood Meridian and ready to slit my wrists. Good programmer read: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace.

<comment><USER4> Blood Meridian made me a McCarthy fan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Grab _The Little Schemer_ and a notebook. Do all exercises in the notebook with a pencil, without a computer.

It'll make you a better Python programmer for sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Forgive me for asking, but how could that book help me down the road? Scheme seems so obscure to me. I was at the bookstore and checked it out, and was mildly intimidated by it, although the illustrations were cute.

I ended up purchasing Practical Programming. Thank you all for your recommendations, some I have saved into my reading list.

PDF Sample: <http://media.pragprog.com/titles/gwpy/toc.pdf>

Amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Programming-Introduction- Pra...](http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Programming-Introduction-Pragmatic- Programmers/dp/1934356271/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250464190&sr=8-1)

<comment><USER6> It's not really meant to just teach you scheme. Scheme by itself is incredibly minimalist and simple. The exercises are more logic/math-based puzzles. Here's a list of the exercises themselves:

<http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/BTLS/exercises.ps>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Hackers and Painters" or "Founders at Work" are both good books if you haven't picked them up yet. Not language learning or directly programming but interesting none the less.

A book more directly related to programing would be "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" or "The Little Schemer." bring a notebook and do problems out of them like defunkt said and it will help in all your programming.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you _sure_ you want to read a programming book on your vacation? Esp. if your day job involves computers it doesn't sound like a vacation at all.

That said I find the best instructional material for Python is the tutorial included in the Python manual itself.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nobody's mentioned it here, yet: Godel Escher Bach

<comment><USER10> Also consider Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas", a collection of his Scientific American essays. A broad range of topics, lots of stuff to think about, and something on my shelf that I return to just for the pleasure. Good stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll suggest The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas. Basic stuff, but lives up to the title of being "pragmatic".

If you're going to write commercial software for a living, it's useful stuff to know (or be reminded of).

</comment><comment><USER12> I would recommend a classic that you haven't read that isn't directly about a specific programming language, since it would seem to me that the virtue of reading a book about a specific language when you aren't in front of a computer is dubious. (Note I didn't say it had no virtue, I just find it dubious. YMWV.)

Already mentioned is Code Complete and The Pragmatic Programmer. I'd add The Mythical Man Month, still a classic, but note that's a relatively short book and may not last long enough. (A depressing read in some ways; decades have passed and what's in the book is arguably common wisdom, yet I _still_ encounter the errors outlined in that book every year.)

Godel, Escher, Bach (mentioned by caffeine) is a love it or hate it book; check out a couple of summaries and see what you think.

Personally, I don't recommend the SICP unless you're actually working through the exercises to some extent, and without a computer it's too easy to think you understand it when you don't.

If you have already read all those, well, I'd suggest replying and saying so. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think (Theory in Practice) is not an instructional programming book per se, but more along the lines of what I would consider "vacation reading". Each of the chapters is a self-contained entity, authored by a different luminary, so you can read them in whatever order suits your fancy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I find that reading fiction on vacation really stimulates my programming brain. There's a lot to be said for letting your mind roam free for a bit. I believe PG talks about the value of letting your mind roam in one of his essays (or possibly Hackers and Painters). In particular, I've found Neal Stephenson's books to be great for this purpose. If you haven't read Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, or Diamond Age, I would suggest reading one of them. It will satisfy your need for some "geek" content on vacation, without being all business.

<comment><USER15> I was going to suggest "Snow Crash" as well, so I'll just second it. Very cool book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Code Complete 2nd edition is a good and interesting book about programming in general. I also recommend these two because they are much lighter reads, and maybe better for a vacation: "The Passionate Programmer" and also "Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages".

Another thing you could do is find some great piece of software by a well know Python hacker and read his code lol. You could put that code in some readable format on your Kindle, PDA, or Smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really enjoyed reading this book a fair few years ago on holiday "Stealing the network: how to own a continent" ([http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Network- How-Own-Continent/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Network-How-Own- Continent/dp/1931836051)). Theres a few books in the series, they blend fiction with real security related attacks, its not strictly a programming book, they do delve into coding a few things if I remember correctly.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since it's a vacation, here's a novel with lots of interesting ideas about ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, etc.: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End>

Fun with Python: [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence- Bu...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Building- Applications/dp/0596529325)

</comment><comment><USER19> Here are some similar threads on recommended books for hackers:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135185>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348019>

If you would rather relax with some fiction, try Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

</comment><comment><USER20> For a programmer on vacation, I wouldn't recommend a technical book. Go for something that will exercise the right side of your brain, the parts that don't get as much work day-to-day. Your left-brain is what you're trying to rest and refresh; that's why you're on vacation after all.

I'd go for something on the far end of the spectrum; some forgotten modern classic that won't let your left-brain to kick in, like Return of the Native.

If you absolutely must have something technical, the aforementioned Neal Stephenson books are great, as are William Gibson books. The Little Schemer is a good book to go through while you're NOT on vacation.

</comment><comment><USER21> C# in Depth: What you need to master C# 2 and 3 by Jon Skeet

[http://www.amazon.com/Depth-What-you-need- master/dp/19339883...](http://www.amazon.com/Depth-What-you-need- master/dp/1933988363)

<comment><USER22> I can't champion this book enough, if you're doing C# stuff then this book is a must have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I suggest Beautiful Architecture from O'Reilly.

<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517984/>

[http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Architecture-Leading- Thinker...](http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Architecture-Leading-Thinkers- Software/dp/059651798X)

It's similar to Beautiful Code (also mentioned here) with various chapters on different, independent topics: e.g. Facebook's data-centric architecture, Xen hypervisor, etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Men_in_a_Boat>

:)

</comment><comment><USER25> You could read Sarah Lacy's "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good" (which was called "The Stories of Facebook, Youtube and Myspace" when I bought it in the U.K.)

It's a light read (suitable for a holiday) and it will inspire you to build your startup when you get back.

</comment><comment><USER26> Programming Pearls is nice to read while traveling. Doesn't really require a computer, essays are short.</comment>


Ask HN: What's wrong with HN's Sorting Algo on p2? - <AUTHOR>

News stories are randomly dis-similar in age/upvotes on page 2 (31-60)
46.	 	From Poverty to Prosperity: A conversation with Bill Gates [pdf] [scribd] (aei.org) 	98 points by mikeevans 20 hours ago | flag | 165 comments
47.	 	Ask HN: What server setups should I test my new self-hosted app on? 	4 points by thenomad 1 day ago | flag | 2 comments
48.	 	Broaden the way people interact with handheld devices (fuffr.com) 	9 points by klintcho 2 days ago | flag | 2 comments
49.	 	Ask HN: Would you sign up for a sales bootcamp? 	3 points by fapi1974 12 days ago | flag | 5 comments
50.	 	Ask HN: Any companies looking for developers for expat positions? 	3 points by mello151 28 days ago | flag | 4 comments
51.	 * 	Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity (2013) [pdf] [scribd] (hbs.edu) 	62 points by 001sky 18 hours ago | 33 comments
52.	 	Ask HN: Save my dying company. Android dev team for hire. 	3 points by threethirty 47 minutes ago | flag | discuss <comment><USER2> Most guessing: When the server restarts, it loads more "ask hn" than "normal" submissions (perhaps when someone go to the "ask" page). So if you dig too deep, most of the entries are old "ask" mixed with a few new "normal" submissions. This normally happens at the #240 or #300, so it's not easy to spot. (Now it stars at #120, p4.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 53\. We Can Do Better – Visualisation of gender disparity in engineering teams (do-better.herokuapp.com) 7 points by Peroni 9 hours ago | flag | 2 comments

54\. Reflectionless data binding for Go's net/http (mholt.github.io) 4 points by mholt 1 day ago | flag | discuss

55\. Ask HN: What server setups should I test my new self-hosted app on? 4 points by thenomad 2 days ago | flag | 2 comments

56\. Broaden the way people interact with handheld devices (fuffr.com) 9 points by klintcho 2 days ago | flag | 2 comments

57\. Google Wallet scrapes transaction memos for "Bitcoin", states violation of ToS 10 points by synaesthesisx 13 days ago | flag | 3 comments

58\. Social. Local. Mobile. solomo lomoso moloso somolo losomo mosolo 4 points by justinzollars 9 days ago | flag | 8 comments

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 52\. Broaden the way people interact with handheld devices (fuffr.com) 9 points by klintcho 2 days ago | 2 comments

53\. Google Wallet scrapes transaction memos for "Bitcoin", states violation of ToS 10 points by synaesthesisx 13 days ago | 3 comments

54\. Do below average developers ever turn into average developers? 4 points by asbestoshft 15 days ago | 13 comments

55\. Ask HN: Would you sign up for a sales bootcamp? 3 points by fapi1974 12 days ago | 5 comments

56\. Ask HN: Any companies looking for developers for expat positions? 3 points by mello151 28 days ago | comments

57\. Ask HN: Can we consider the web safe now? 5 points by mikemoka 48 days ago | 1 comment</comment>


White House to Reverse Policy Forcing Schools to Favor Students Based on Race - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-to-rescind-obama-era-guidelines-on-race-in-college-admissions-1530619273 <comment><USER2> One of the issues with polarizing politics these days is that, although I am against affirmative action (with moderate confidence), I will, as a direct result of the Trump administration taking the same side, not ever again voice this opinion in my very liberal work environment.

Did anyone else who has the same beliefs read this article and think "wait, am I the baddie?" (I know it's conflating the person with the opinion.)</comment>


Amazon Mobile Ads API - <AUTHOR> https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/mobileads.html?ref_=pe_132830_28453530

<comment><USER2> There are a few things keeping this from prime time. Hence the "Beta".

2 important points from the FAQ [1]:

Q: Are apps that use the Amazon Mobile Ads API required to be distributed through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program?

A: Yes. Apps that use the Amazon Mobile Ads API must be distributed through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program before they can be distributed through other Android platforms.

Q: Which regions are supported?

A: The Amazon Mobile Ad Network serves ads to U.S. users.

Also it apparently doesn't play well with AdMob mediation. You have to use custom code to mediate between Amazon and other ad SDKs [2]. No info about which mediator SDKs are currently supported.

[1]: <https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/mobileads/faq.html> [2]: [https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/mobileads/with-other- sdks.h...](https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/mobileads/with-other-sdks.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anybody have any idea on what eCPM Amazon can offer on it's mobile ads?

<comment><USER4> eCPM is a metric I look at, but fill rate is also important. When I use second tier mobile ad services, the eCPM is often competitive, but my fill rate can drop from 99% on a big service to <10%. So over 90% of my ad requests go unfilled...if I was solely using a low (<40%) fill rate service on an app, even if eCPM was double I'd be losing money.

Even if you can get good, independent mediation with per-service, per-country settings and good backfill - which itself can be difficult - it can take a couple of seconds for that second ad backfill to come in, which usually means a dropoff in clicks.

Whenever I see second tier ad services boasting good eCPM, I always wonder what their fill rate is, especially if you're app isn't something you'd expect lots of ads for, like information on cars for people in the USA.</comment></comment>


The Fog of Cyberwar – Why the Threat Doesn't Live Up to the Hype - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138443/brandon-valeriano-and-ryan-maness/the-fog-of-cyberwar?page=show

<comment><USER2> I like the way this article seems to think that the only attacks that exist are those that are reported. I'd figure the most effective attacks are ones that no-one notices or reports.

<comment><USER3> The kind of attack Panetta was talking about would be very obvious. Obviously espionage is most effective when secret, and will probably be ongoing, but those attacks don't affect civilians, and rogue individuals can't accomplish anything useful with them (if a lone hacker grabbed a copy of the F-35 schematics, so what? It's only when combined with the traditional machinery of a nation state that they become useful)

<comment><USER4> I used to work in Aerospace. Since we could barely understand our own analyses and documentation, I figured that the best thing to do would be to ship a complete copy to the Bulgarians (really, that was what the security weenies said they were scared of in 1986, Bulgarians) and let them waste their time trying to figure out all the inane assumptions, bad engineering, and dumb luck implicit in the designs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be two kinds of articles floating around in regards to "cyberwar" this one, which I feel underplays the potential dangers and those that stick to Panetta's Pearl Harbor-style prediction. I think both fail to capture the reality of the situation.

As with most things I believe the threat falls somewhere in the middle. While cyberwar (which is a dumb term) hasn't yet resulted in 'real' causalities I think using that as a metric is outdated. Cyberwar will never have the same strategy as traditional war. Economic havoc and infrastructure disruption will be the name of the game and with the right set of environmental circumstances a small group of people can have a huge impact on the world stage.

I believe non-state actors will be a powerful force in this arena. The infrastructure required for these actions isn't nearly as huge as this article tries to make it out. That said, I also don't believe all of the end-of-days fear mongering that's grown up around the idea either. Just as with all new threats, we will adapt.</comment>


Debunked: The Strange Tale of Pope Gregory and the Rabbits - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/science/rabbits-pope-domestication.html <comment><USER2> It's interesting both that this myth is so relatively new (they traced its origin back to 1936) and that it apparently spread entirely inside the scientific community, not the Catholic community where it seems entirely unknown.

</comment><comment><USER3> Christopher Columbus was trying to prove the world was round. Martin Luther wrote Away in a Manger. Constantine invented the doctrine of the Trinity. Mithras was born of a virgin. Paul Revere single-handedly warned the colonies that the British were coming. And now, Pope Gregory inadvertently domesticated rabbits.

It's amazing how many widely-believed modern myths can trace their origin to the assertions of (often) a single author that nobody bothered to fact check. It seems to be more common when there is a religious element, but that's just my anecdotal observation.

<comment><USER4> I get what you mean -- but I think the defining characteristic for what causes these incorrect histories to propagate is not so much a religious element but a myth/storytelling element, in which there is a narrative that is being promoted. This is of course present in religious traditions, but also in politics.

For example, there's the cultural image of Rosa Parks being a quiet, mild- mannered woman who one day decided not to put up with oppression. It makes for a smoother media story. But rather, Parks had been involved in activism and her actions were part of a calculated campaign: [ [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/01/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/01/how- history-got-the-rosa-parks-story-wrong/) ]

Modern science-lovers have a simple progress-oriented narrative about people like Galileo and Hypatia, but the historical details are nowhere near as straightforward as the tales would have us believe: [ [http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic- smac...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic- smackdown.html) , [http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean- stre...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean-streets-of- old.html) ] The triumph of Science over Superstition is one of the founding myths of the modern era, and so of course the rough edges or complicated bits get filtered out in the retelling.

Same with the Paul Revere bit you mention. If there was no interest in the Revolutionary War to the average person, the few stories about Paul Revere would have kept their details. But because it's part of the founding myth, part of the civil religion of the US and something we tell to children, it becomes simplified and polished into digestible pieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have a mirror for this? I have hit my limit due to other uni people taking my free articles.

<comment><USER6> If you see this, and don't mind, could you please email me at email@example.com? I have a random question for you.</comment></comment>


Klondike: Solitaire for Mac, continually updated for 32 years by same man - <AUTHOR> http://www.casteel.org/ <comment><USER2> The actual history of the program (1984 to present) can be found on this page:

[http://www.casteel.org/Pages/Narrative.html](http://www.casteel.org/Pages/Narrative.html)

A co-worker of mine liked playing this game when we were working on Mac software in the early 90's.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's something very zen about Solitaire games. I've been building them for over a decade, spanning the gamut from [http://kylecards.com](http://kylecards.com) (no updates in over a decade!) to my latest game, [https://solitaire.gg](https://solitaire.gg) \- I really admire this person's dedication, maintaining an app like this is hard work - particularly when it takes place over decades.

</comment><comment><USER4> Similar story about pcalc

[http://www.pcalc.com/english/twenty.html](http://www.pcalc.com/english/twenty.html)

<comment><USER5> Not quite there yet, but this game has some yearly updates "X years of development". 13 years at the moment. [http://www.zincland.com/powder/](http://www.zincland.com/powder/)

<comment><USER6> Not only has he been maintaining POWDER for that long, but Jeff Lait has also been putting out 7-day roguelikes annually for most of those years as well, including Fatherhood: [http://www.zincland.com/7drl/fatherhood/](http://www.zincland.com/7drl/fatherhood/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel I like this sort of thing considering how much of my own code gets replaced even me over just six months on a project. I doubt I'll ever make anything that'll stick around longer than a couple years. So, it's nice to see someone actually creates something that stays around longer than just a year.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the clever separation of free and paid versions

Free has 4 pre shuffled decks

So anyone looking for replay value would want to pay, and the casual disinterested person would still have some fun with the free version.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh, that is so cool! I remember playing Klondike as a kid on our old black- and-white Mac (Plus? Classic? something like that). Great to know that he's still around and still in business.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love that you can still download a 68K version!

<comment><USER10> Which is also a magnitude smaller!</comment></comment>


Nearly 50% of Twitter Accounts Talking about Coronavirus Might Be Bots - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dygnwz/if-youre-talking-about-coronavirus-on-twitter-youre-probably-a-bot <comment><AUTHOR> >A spokesperson for Twitter told VICE News that they're "prioritizing the removal of COVID-19 content when it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm," a policy that they adopted on March 18. Since then, they've removed more than 2,200 tweets.

LOL. Imagine thinking 2,200 is some large or notable amount.

As has been discussed lots and lots in regards to Twitter's feckless and pathetic attempts to curb this problem, they're heavily incentivized _not_ to: as a public company, they live and die by vanity metrics. And if turns out a very, very large percentage of their activity is fraudulent, well..</comment>


Consumer Startups without Revenue are Products, not Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://expletiveinserted.com/2012/05/17/consumer-startups-without-revenue-are-products-not-businesses/

<comment><USER2> I found this article incredibly insightful, and was surprised to find no discussion (disagreement?) from the community here.

It's based on a potentially (?) flawed analysis of the impact of advertising early (or later) in a product's life, but it reminds me of a very real debate as to whether a product requires a business model to be worthwhile (in the long term) or if an acquisition exit is sufficient.</comment>


Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'? - <AUTHOR> Years ago, I had a local mediawiki installed, but didn't seem to use it. Now, I store all my knowledge, ideas, etc. in markdown text files, manipulated with Emacs.
But, I'd like to have a more visually organized, full-text searchable system that's (a) local/private, and (b) accessible when away from home office.
How do you organize your knowledge/notes/learnings? <comment><USER2> I used to use Evernote to organize what I learn, but I was never satisfied. The reason was that:

1\. Once I wrote something down, I forgot about it and never looked back. (No spaced repetition)

2\. I had to launch an external application and switch to it to take notes. (constant context switching)

So I made an open source solution called dnote [0] that addresses both problems by (a) automating spaced repetition via email digest, and (b) minimizing environment switch by working as a CLI and a browser extension. Been using it for the past two years.

\- [0] [https://github.com/dnote/dnote](https://github.com/dnote/dnote)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, I use my own topics map-based solution, Contextualise: [https://brettkromkamp.com/projects/contextualise/](https://brettkromkamp.com/projects/contextualise/). In simple terms, you create topics, attach resources (e.g., PDFs, markdown text and notes, images, etc.) to those topics and establish semantically meaningful relationships between the topics. The resulting map of topics can be navigated by means of a visual network graph. Contextualise is a MIT- licensed open source project.

<comment><USER4> THIS. OMG, if my lifelong quest would end here... Thank you!!! This idea of central topic + attached resources in various formats is what I've been looking for, for ages.

I might test it asap, and later see how to adapt my ecosystem (Android + macOS) for quick/best access. Offline would be great.

<comment><USER3> At some point I will make the application publicly available. Let me know if you need help installing it in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm building [https://histre.com/](https://histre.com/) and I use it everyday. Most apps like Evernote and Notion end up being dumping grounds for notes and bookmarks. You put something there so you can relax that it is there if you need it later, but you never look at that again. Histre on the other hand helps you directly with the "collect -> filter -> decide" loop that we do all the time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have started using a personal mediawiki instance with Cargo for semantic data. I realized that I wanted to have full control of my data, so I didn't like the idea of going all-in with Notion or something similar. I'm a heavy user of wikipedia so mediawiki just "feels" natural. Installing it is a huge pain.

I am finding that the system works well enough, once you get VisualEditor working. However the main problem is the habit of capturing my thoughts and work products. It's a tough habit to get in to.

Ultimately I want the wiki to be just one piece of a larger system that automatically organizes all my articles, files, mail, posts, etc. The idea being that I can work with whatever tool is easiest for any particular situation, and still be able to cross-reference all the information in a way that is useful and easy to search. We'll see if I ever get there.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a question that comes up semi-regularly and a search of HN might yield threads that are interesting to you.

On thing that I haven't seen mentioned so far is an idea of mine which might be useless but I want to share it anyway: Maybe you should think in bigger terms and not consider a single application (or a set of applications) your knowledge base, but an entire computer set aside for this purpose. The advantage would be superior flexibility when dealing with a large number of different files and file types; plus you can use operating system features such as tagging on Mac OS X.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use Bear, which is a note app for iOS/macOS. It uses Markdown, it has all the features I need, and it is fast with sync. Because it has a really clean, minimalistic UI, I don't get distracted. This is my main tool know, but as most of the people who are even thinking about this, I'm not fully satisified. Separation of personal/work stuff is questionable, sometimes I feel I need better visualization (like mindmaps), and I regularly use it for todos too which is not the best if you also use a standalone todos app (TickTick).

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't keep a general knowledge repo but recently I realised that I've gone through a bunch of books on math, statistics and machine learning that approach the same topics in different ways. I started a "knowledge repository" just as a way to solidify what I already know. I throw in a bunch of definitions, theorems, formulas, algorithm explanations - from easy and obvious stuff to more advanced concepts. I use Jupyter for this because the markdown is simple but still supports MathJax/LaTeX equations.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have been using Notion and Evernote for this purpose. However, I am not really satisfied. Unfortunately, there is no solution that does exactly what I want and need.

Therefore, I am building my own system.

<comment><USER5> Can you please explain what you find to be missing from Notion and Evernote?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I use Anki at the moment. Anki makes it easy to search, recall and recollect all the details.

I've toyed with GitHub, Evernote and markdown files but the greatest issues with all these topics is lack of active recall and that fact that I never came back to them. With Anki, I've been spending time daily so it's hard to forget these topics. If I do forget something, I can always look it up in my notes or just go to the internet again.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use (Apple) Notes on my iPhone and MacBook. They are always in sync. The notes don't use MarkDown, but they are plenty of styles and features. I highly recommend checking (Apple) Notes out. I've used MS OneNote, which is also very good and available and syncable on/across several platforms. For me, (Apple) Notes has a slightly better UI. If you just want a cross platform syncable to- do list, and the above are too heavy, you might look into MS ToDo 2.0.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have thought about this idea of a personal "knowledge base". There are so many important bits of knowledge that are scattered among things like Evernote (and its like), browser bookmarks, emails, blog posts, articles from newspapers, periodicals, etc. I don't know of any solution to this "knowledge hurricane", as least not yet.

</comment><comment><USER14> I created a Hugo site to keep everything in. It allows me to keep the speed of quick, simple capture in VS Code, but also presents the content nicely and makes it permanently available wherever I am.

</comment><comment><USER15> I run a wiki at home with basically all kinds of specific configurations and settings. Little tutorials you get the idea. I like it although I don't always keep it up-to-date.</comment>


The Fundamental Distinction Between Brains and Turing Machines (2002) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/asf/www/PopularScience/Friedman_BrainsAndTuringMachines_2002.pdf

<comment><USER2> This is a long verbose article that contains some confused ideas, however I think it also contains some very interesting ones which could serve as a basis for further consideration.

The two ideas I find most interesting here are:

A) True random numbers cannot be computed by a Turing machine whereas human minds may have access to them. The author does not address the fact that it is relatively easy to augment a TM with a physical RNG. I'm not aware of any evidence that such an augmented TM can solve problems a simple TM cannot.

B) Human minds seem to be able to always abstract to a higher level meta- language whereas programs/TM's seem to lack this ability. I have a feeling this issue may be key to the difficulty in producing machines that seem "truly intelligent" but I don't currently have a clear grasp of this problem.

The author makes a great deal of use of the term "consciousness" without being very clear about what he means by it. He seems to be using it in the sense of what I would call "true intelligence" or strong AI rather than in the sense of "capable of having subjective experiences".

I have generally tended to hold the following "beliefs":

      1) Algorithms cannot have subjective experiences (strongly held).

      2) A strong AI algorithm could exist (somewhat weakly held).

Issue (B) above leads me to question belief (2). Perhaps it will turn out that "subjective experience" is necessary for strong AI and hence that no strong AI algorithm exists ?

<comment><USER3> It did have some interesting ideas, but too much "proof by handwaving" and not enough actual proof. (It's fine if he's presenting ideas that he can't prove, but he seemed to be trying to use enough words to give an impression of proof, rather than admitting that he couldn't prove his ideas.)</comment></comment>


Learning operating system development using Linux kernel and Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/s-matyukevich/raspberry-pi-os <comment><USER2> I like the introduction

> But my first attempt was a complete failure - I understood almost nothing.

This is how I feel every time I dig into something. Disappointingly, rarely do I have the time or focus to truly learn how something really works. Be it a library I am using, or a physics concept I want to learn more about.

Good for him for getting through it. I am adding this to my long ass list of things I would read if I could freeze time like that girl from the 90's TV show.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently bought a USB serial cable online to play around with this sort of thing, and promptly saw a blue-screen in windows 10 for the first time I can remember.

It turned out I had unknowingly bought a fake Prolific cable and the (non- fake) windows driver was crashing my whole system every five minutes or so when the cable was connected.

I worked around this by tracking down an older driver with no crash issues so I guess the latest one does this deliberately?

In any case, if you are planning on getting a USB serial cable make sure it's not a counterfeit, if you can.

<comment><USER4> Relevant reading: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/31/ftdi_accused_of_bri...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/31/ftdi_accused_of_bricking_counterfeits_again/)

<comment><USER5> TL;DR Avoid anything that even sounds like it might involve FTDI unless you can absolutely prove supply chain from one end to the other (near impossible). There are some good alternatives like SiLabs CP2102 around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anybody have a better way to kick off my low level programming journey?

How much do you recommend "The C Programming Language" for someone who just used Java / Python, and wanna start learning C and low level?

Do you recommend learning "current" Rust as a first low level Lang.

<comment><USER7> I'm not familiar with low-level, so I'm not sure how "low" you mean, but I've begun the NAND2Tetris course on coursera and it's pretty great so far. You basically implement a VM from scratch: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/build- a-computer](https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer)

<comment><USER8> I actually took that early this year and LOVED it, and was looking for a good followup course. I was toying around with CS140e (also uses RPi 3 and Rust)[1] but this one looks more appropriate.

[1] [https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140e/](https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140e/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this deal with the binary blobs that need to start the boot loader? From memory the older models needed to launch the graphics chip first which was a hack-y nightmare with no open source way of doing it.

<comment><USER10> It ignores that and starts at the point where the kernel is loaded by that first-stage bootloader. Which is very reasonable for a beginner's introduction.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you really build things from the ground up: [https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source- ha...](https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/open-source-hardware)

Completely out of time to do anything for it but this company getting more traction would be really good given how completely open they are.

<comment><USER11> > Fair enough, there's a bunch of fully open source computers that let you > really build things from the ground up

Concerning your linked example: if I look at the specs at

> > [https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino-...](https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A10/A10-OLinuXino- > LIME-n4GB/open-source-hardware)

I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source?

<comment><USER12> > I see Mali 400 GPU. Is this GPU now fully open source?

If you are talking about drivers (rather than the GPU itself), there are reverse engineered drivers:

[https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/](https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima/) [https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima](https://github.com/yuq/linux-lima) [https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima)

For the newer Mali GPUs there is the Panfrost driver:

[https://notabug.org/cafe/chai](https://notabug.org/cafe/chai) [https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/panfrost) [https://rosenzweig.io/blog/](https://rosenzweig.io/blog/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Based on the title I was hoping more emphasis on the interesting userland bits, leaving the boring kernel parts to Linux. I feel that osdev generally focuses too much on the well-trodden elementary basic building blocks, and less on actual systems design, which has left the community with endless half- baked (generally more or less posixy style) kernels and few novel userlands.

Android is great example how you can do interesting OS development work by building upon stable foundations, focusing on userland, but also not fearing to poke kernel when needed.

I don't mean to disparage anyone, least of all the repo here that seems pretty nice resource for what it is. Just the title happened to tickle my imagination just right.

</comment><comment><USER14> Alternative: Xinu-Os with BeagleBone.</comment>


Node v5.0.0 (Stable) - <AUTHOR> https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v5.0.0/ <comment><USER2> What about the important question?

Where does v5 stand in terms of ES6/7 support?

[http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/](http://kangax.github.io/compat- table/es6/)

<comment><USER3> According to the changelog [1], the v8 version bump has provided the spread operator and new.target

1\. [https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v5.0.0/CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v5.0.0/CHANGELOG.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now that Node is really moving fast. do you think the IO.js fork is still relevant?

<comment><USER5> They merged back in May.

" _io.js has merged with the Node.js project again._

There won't be any further separate io.js releases (except for critical security fixes). All of the features in io.js are available in Node.js v4 and above."

[https://iojs.org/en/](https://iojs.org/en/)</comment></comment>


What's with this black line ontop of HN? - <AUTHOR> https://img.skitch.com/20110630-pgbu1ui67mda1ws2atbpy97jb6.png

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469></comment>


How to make your original vision and beta product resonate with users - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering how startups in the past have marketed "in store" apps/software.  By "in store" I mean, startups that are creating products that are used/bought by businesses, but also revolve around having the customers of those businesses as users of the app/software.  How or what are some successful marketing plays that get the original vision of the founders across to users in a great way so they immediately see a need to use this product when introduced to it at a business owners establishment? <comment><USER2> Can you give an example of a company that has done this? I'm not sure i"m understanding what sort of business has bought software to be used by their customers.

Do you mean something like opentable?

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have clarified it better, my apologies. But yes, OpenTable is a very good example. Restaurants pay to use the software, but do receive any value from using OpenTable unless they market it to their customers that the restaurant uses OpenTable and allows patrons to make reservations online.</comment></comment>