Billionaire, Board Game God and Tech's Hidden Disruptor (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/29/meet-matt-calkins-billionaire-board-game-god-and-techs-hidden-disruptor/ <comment><USER2> The company I worked for before ~ 8 years (a bank) was using Appian for a bunch of its non-core workflows and actually was in the process of using it even more.

Appian is a strange beast: It's a BPMS written as a Java web application that has an in-memory kdb (the db of the K programming language which is well-known in HN) for storing all process data.

The greatest advantage of Appian as compared to other workflow systems I've used (Activiti, jBPM etc) is that it offers a really complete environment for creating a more or less complete workflow without the need to write code. So you can actually teach non-technical people to do it. I remember we had a couple of Business Analysts that were creating very complex workflows back then. The didn't have any technical knowledge; their background was mostly on economics. Of course, for integration with legacy systems or relational databases or doing some tricky UI you'd still need a developer. But most of the work could be done by a not so tehnical guy which is the holy grail of such systems. Also, it was a really complete system where you could rather easily implement all your workflow needs (workflow design, user tasks, notifications, exceptions, integrations, reporting, authorizations, business rules, subprocessing, parallel execution etc). After some initial configuration you'd rarely need to touch code unless you needed some custom bpm nodes.

Appian was also claiming that because it was using the kdb as a database backend it was very fast. I don't have an opinion on this; it wasn't slow but wasn't blazing fast. And also when the kdb size grew too much (we're talking some tens of GBs) it was taking a really long time to start (half an hour or something) and needed the same amount of memory from the server (IIRC we had 64GB back then) because it needed to load the kdbs into memory. Also I remember that we had a constant fear that the kdbs will be compromised somehow (for example if the server rebooted unnormally) and we'll lose data. Or maybe I had that fear; I was never able to "trust" it as I could trust the good-old IBM DB2 database the bank had. Concerning data-loss, we had a bunch of incidents that were related to having configured appian as a cluster; after we switched to a single server it was better. The good thing (or maybe bad because I was never able to learn K) is that it had a complete API in Java so we didn't actually need to touch the kdbs; I remember with awe however when we had a support request where an Appian engineer was using K to actually query the kdb and see the status of our server.

In any case, the main drawback of Appian is how expensive it was. I don't remember how much but I remember that the bank had a special agreement to have a low price for Appian (don't exaclty now the details); buying it fully was too expensive even for the bank (!) (especially if it was to be used by all employees since it had a per user fee).

Beyond all these, I belive that Appian is a solid product and deserves its success in the enterprise world.

<comment><USER3> We are providing similar services to several financial institutions using a first-party solution we have developed over the course of the last 5 years. Our approach for enabling non-technical people to impact the business is on a radically-different side of the spectrum though. Instead of "no/low" code with fancy UIs and modules, we went in the other direction. We asked the following question:

"Can we reorganize the codebase in order to expose common business concerns in such a way that non-technical people can reason with them simply by viewing the source code?"

The answer so far has been a resounding "Yes". We proved that there was extreme amounts of value in non-technical people being able to read the current state of the business implementation. Using functional business rules instead of imperative ones makes all the difference in the world. E.g. "if(CustomerIsAMinor) {...}" vs "if(customer.Age<MinorLimit && someothercondition) {...}". Using C#8 and having the ability to use functional paradigms as well as things like pattern matching also enable us to write highly expressive code that non-technical people enjoy reading. Also, really basic stuff like splitting important points of focus into class partials can make it 10x easier for non-developers to get into that 1 focused file and understand what is going on (e.g. MyBankWorkflow.CustomerValidations.cs).

But we didn't stop there. We then asked this question:

"Could non-developers make changes to certain areas of the codebase?"

We have done a few trials with our project managers and are finding that they are more than capable of: turning a new branch in GitHub, checking it out locally, opening Visual Studio, updating a parameter listing or resource file, making a commit, and then submitting a PR for review (typically by an actual developer). As confidence with this practice grows, we will further expand the "safe" areas of the codebase (i.e. what non-developers are allowed to edit).

Ultimately, we are trying to move into a direction where the development team is more of an internal consulting group rather than the means by which every line of code must be authored. The other view of this is that highly- intelligible source code is also useful for quickly ramping new employees and growing the team. We are beginning to view our codebase as not just a tool for the developers, but something that anyone in the organization should be able to work with in some useful way.

If you think more broadly about this cyberpunk reality we are sliding into, this is the only reasonable path. You have to enable everyone in your organization relative to the technology. You cant afford to slap a Fisher Price UI around every scary technical thing you run into. Tear down your silos and do not be afraid to show code to your project managers or even customers. Start writing your new business apps with these ideas in mind and you may reap some very unexpected benefits down the road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The segue from winning at board games -> winning at business is great, but then it goes into slightly too much detail about Appian.

I've accepted that native advertising & PR are everywhere, but still... I wish it could just be a cool story about a billionaire board game champ (awesome!) without the embedded enterprise software ad (lame!).

[edit: typo]

<comment><USER5> That was my takeaway too. What games?

I assume the author of the article wouldn't have recognized the names of any good board games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sekigahara, as a board game duel, is an experience approaching the divine. It is a very, very, very fine game.

Pictured behind him is a fine collection. A lot of great and interesting games, though I would have expected more war games...stuff like Fire In The Lake, Sword of Rome, etc.

<comment><USER7> Sekigahara is excellent, and yeah, I am surprised there is not more of a GMT collection behind him. After having designed Sekigahara, it seems like most everything they publish would be up his alley.

Which reminds me, I need to go look at what GMT has in P500 now. It's been a few months...

<comment><USER6> Heh, this article also prompted me to order some new things, like the new edition of Labyrinth and the P500 for Sword of Rome, which I've wanted for a while.

That Risk is present in the photo but not Diplomacy is a tragedy. :D

<comment><USER8> I gave away my Diplomacy box after playing it once. It is so much easier to get a round started online.

On the other hand, a wall of board games is for signaling as well and thus your lament is valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The fact he has Gloomhaven to the right of him made me chuckle. I've only had one chance to play it, and it took hours of fumbling around with the instructions with my friends (who also hadn't played it) but once we got the hang of the instructions it was very, very fun.

<comment><USER10> I liked that, to his left, he had Fortress America, Shogun, and what I think is Conquest of the Empire, the three other games in the same series as Axis and Allies.

<comment><USER11> Personally I was pretty happy to see Risk. Not many people seem interested in playing large strategy board games.

<comment><USER12> There are a lot of large strategy board games that are much nicer than Risk these days. The world has come a long way since Risk was created. Risk 2210 A.D. is much greater, and there are other games even greater than that. I think large co-op board games can be especially fun.

<comment><USER13> Risk seems to get a lot of hate these days.

BoardGameGeeks rankings push it way down, which seems to be a common theme for popular mainstream games. Though the ones at the bottom like Monopoly and Game of Life are truly horrible and give board games a bad rap: fulling deserving of their ranking.

To the right of Risk looks to be Stratego which was a fun game when I was a kid.

<comment><USER14> I appreciate there are more sophisticated games out there but what's the issue with Monopoly?

<comment><USER15> Pure dice roll & has a trivial strategy for perfect play

<comment><USER14> Being simple and linear doesn't make it bad: I can equally enjoy playing super mario and Fallout,even though they are quite different in terms of gameplay.

<comment><USER16> The linearity and randomness aren't the main problems. Play length and run- away winner are far worse issues. It's possible to lose the game in the first couple of trips round the board and still have a couple of hours of slowly being ground down. One person might have fun no one else does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I thought this article would be about Demis Hassabis, but I guess he's not a billionaire.

<comment><USER18> Wasn't he thrown out of a Go tournament for running a bot? Seems like I read something to that effect.

<comment><USER17> Well there was his company DeepMind developing a Go AI (AlphaGo / AlphaZero) that can beat pros, at least 10 years before anyone though it would be possible.

He doesn't strike me as the kind to cheat at tournaments, being one of the best general game players of all time as I recall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It seems a fair few tech entrepreneurs and folks in the software industry are also into designing games. I have several in the works, and one that's very slowly building a following: [https://www.drtomallen.com/half-the- battle.html](https://www.drtomallen.com/half-the-battle.html)

<comment><USER20> I'm in the software industry and I design board games. Of course I used to develop video games before that, so it wasn't a huge leap, although I didn't really have the urge to start doing it until I had gone down the board game rabbit hole for a few years and played hundreds of modern board games.

I have one game signed, but not yet released, by a publisher, and another game was selected as a finalist in the Cardboard Edison design contest this year.

It's basically a lot more fun way to do system design. You can take a lot of the same processes and apply it to board game design.

<comment><USER21> Can you give an example of how you can apply software system design principles to boardgame design? Genuinely curious.

<comment><USER22> I second that, extremely interested myself. Also if insights into board game design can be adapted in a software engineering setting.

<comment><USER20> I replied and gave a few examples to the parent comment, if you're interested.

<comment><USER22> Thanks a lot! Am eager to read that short Kindle book you mentioned ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I followed links to find out more about the games referenced and I'm astonished to see a two player game that advertises 180 minute duration. Anything that long would have to be multiplayer to justify its existence in my schedule. Terra mystica is hitting the multiplayer sweet spot at 90ish minutes, and I'm a beginner.

<comment><USER20> It's a war game. War games are allowed to be that long.

I've played games of Terra Mystica that have taken 3+ hours, just depends on the group. Although they were at least 4 player games.

Twilight Struggle can easily take that long, and it's only a 2 player game. If it doesn't take that long, someone probably lost early on, or both players know the game really well and can play it quickly.

Longest multiplayer game I've ever played was Diplomacy. We played for 12 hours, and had to call it early at that point. Even with it being that long, I felt the game was going at a breakneck pace and I didn't feel like I had hardly any time to grab food or go to the bathroom, because I had to talk to everyone and figure out what the hell to do for my next turn (and make sure I heard as much as I could from other people talking). It was an awesome experience I'm not in a hurry to do again anytime soon.

<comment><USER6> In college we would have marathon weekends where we'd stay up for three days and play multiple games of Diplomacy, Big Two and Mahjong.

We generally ended up with a 2 or 3 player victory in Dip after about 7 or 8 hours. Very rarely did we push those solo victory games, but we would play a few times a week besides those weekends.

I must have played 50 in-person Diplomacy games in one year and another 100 or so online. It became an addiction. Lost thousands playing mj too.

Fun times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I see Concordia right behind his head. A man of good taste.

But I also see light party games like Dixit, so he doesn't just play cerebral euro games.

</comment><comment><USER25> Unrelated to the article itself but that fossil behind him in his home is gorgeous and super cool.</comment>


How to get your Professors' Attention -- along with Coaching or Mentoring - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%e2%80%99-attention-or-how-to-get-the-coaching-and-mentorship-you-need/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note that this complements the "How Universities Work," which HN discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729501> .</comment>


Digitized Books from 1923 Now Available at the Internet Archive - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2019/01/11000-digitized-books-from-1923-are-now-available-online-at-the-internet-archive.html <comment><USER2> The Internet Archive is amazing!

They accept donations: [https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's an odd thing: browsing the fiction books with date:1923 I saw a familiar title, "Seven Days in May" by Knebel and Bailey[1] -- a story definitely written well after that year, since it opens at the Pentagon, a building only opened in 1943.

In fact, per Wikipedia[2] it was published in 1964.

Yet if you open the IA copy[1] at the linked page you will see "First published 1923".

WTF?

Heck, here's another: The Doomsday Men by J.B. Priestly[3], "First published 1923" but in fact[4] in 1937.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.124792/page/n1...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.124792/page/n11)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May_\(novel\))

[3] [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148207/page/n5](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148207/page/n5)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Priestley#Novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Priestley#Novels)

<comment><USER4> Since this is a sliding window it might be worth looking at the entire middle and late 20's. Cribbed from a top 50 list, I see works by F Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein, Frank Kafka, PG Wodehouse, Aldous Huxley, ee cummings, Pablo Neruda, AA Milne, Sinclair Lewis, Faulkner, Hesse...

Man the Roaring 20's had a shitload of authors...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are still many, many 18th century American cookbooks that haven't been digitized yet. Some have probably been lost given their proximity to kitchens, which were separate from the house, more prone to weather and, perhaps, fire. I can only find references in old catalogues that they _existed_ , but nothing much else.

<comment><USER6> I don't know how to ask this question, but how useful is a cookbook from the 18th century (or even the early 20th century)? The ingredients are likely called something else, or may be unavailable.

<comment><USER7> You're correct that there's often a lot of interpretation and historical research that has to be done when looking through such cookbooks. However, they can offer quite an interesting glimpse into another era. Specifically, I'd recommend watching some of the Townsends "18th Century Cooking" YouTube videos [0] which show how some unusual (or familiar!) recipes from colonial America may have been made.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson](https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson)

<comment><USER5> That is one of the best channels on YouTube, and I know a few teachers who used some of his videos in their lesson plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I love the Internet Archive, their search can be a bit of a mess. They often have several copies of the same work in varying qualities, with no easy way to find the best one, they have somewhat inconsistent standards in tagging, and they frequently have copyright-encumbered works inadvertently available. As people mentioned below Project Gutenberg is excellent for finding public domain books, but there seems to be no way to search for and watch most public domain films in a reasonable quality – or even high definition. Is anyone trying to fix that?

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure I've downloaded (non-fiction) books newer than 1923 from the IA before --- in fact I just checked one and it's from 1953. Is it just because those are not actually public domain, and no one has bothered to issue a takedown notice for them (yet)?

<comment><USER10> What's the book?

There's lots of reasons why a work after 1923 might be in the public domain, but as of this year, _everything_ before 1923 is in the public domain. I would guess FOSS/FLOSS software is probably the most likely thing people might recognize as "public domain-like" (due to the issue of taking something public domain, then copyrighting your original work on it e.g. Disney's erstwhile business model).

Copyright could have been abandoned, creator hasn't pursued their claim, it could have been specifically released by the creator, "copyleft", ...

<comment><USER9> This one, for example:

[https://archive.org/details/Engineering_Electronics_George_H...](https://archive.org/details/Engineering_Electronics_George_Happell_Wilfred_Hesselberth_1953)

It's probably the first two of your guesses, or the pre-1964 reason mentioned in a sibling comment. (There's stuff newer than that on the IA too, which are likely to be there because of the reasons originally mentioned.)

<comment><USER10> Looks like there's a lot of McGraw-Hill Book Company (now McGraw-Hill Education, not sure if that has something to do with it) books on archive.org, particularly from the "Public Library of India." I'm wondering if these came through some digitization effort that slipped through copyright, or maybe the original digitizer had obtained specific permission for these volumes? Definitely not obvious to me.

[https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22McGraw- Hil...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22McGraw- Hill+Book+Company%22&page=2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the Prophet by Kahil Gibran is considered one of the classics just entering the public domain. I also found the Prospects of Industrial Civilization by Dora and Bertrand Russel to be interesting. In looking at the plain text though I was annoyed at how error ridden the OCR job was. I think it will be interesting to see how much of the 1923 work is added to a site like Project Gutenburg as AABBY FineReader 11.0 leaves a bit to be desired based upon the published results on archive.org

<comment><USER12> If interested, you can contribute to the process: [https://www.pgdp.net/c/](https://www.pgdp.net/c/)

<comment><USER13> The bottleneck at PGDP these days is not actually proofreading texts or even marking them up, but "post-processing" them - going from a bunch of proofread and marked-up page texts (and the original page images) to a complete HTML edition, ready for posting at Project Gutenberg. Many projects run aground at this stage, because they have relatively few contributors for that sort of work. So, if you really want to help (and have relevant skills), you should ask about taking over some old projects that are stuck in that state.

<comment><USER3> All of PGDP is fun and satisfying volunteer work if you like reading, but the Post-Processing stage was for me, the most fun of all. However, in order to qualify as a PPer you must first put in a rather lengthy apprenticeship working in the different levels of proofing.

PGDP FAQ: [https://www.pgdp.net/wiki/DP_Official_Documentation:General/...](https://www.pgdp.net/wiki/DP_Official_Documentation:General/FAQ_Central)

PGDP Post-Processing FAQ: [https://www.pgdp.net/wiki/DP_Official_Documentation:PP_and_P...](https://www.pgdp.net/wiki/DP_Official_Documentation:PP_and_PPV/Post- Processing_FAQ)

> On its journey through multiple proofreading and formatting rounds, the text > may have been worked on by hundreds of volunteers. Post-processors must > standardize the formatting of the book and adjust it to comply with Project > Gutenberg's requirements. They must also deal with any detectable mistakes > or inconsistencies that have survived all proofreading and formatting > rounds.

> The ultimate goal of post-processing is to create a consistently formatted > etext, that contains as few errors as possible and that accurately reflects > the intentions of the author.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know how I should feel about this but I don't recognize many books published in 1923. I was looking to see what classics I could easily add to my Kindle but the list doesn't seem as recognizable as 1922 or 1924. Some of the things I recognize from 1923 are parts of series (Poirot, Jeeves & Wooster) rather than stand-alone books.

Can anyone recommend something from 1923?

<comment><USER4> This is the argument I've heard from Fine Arts people on the subject of the written word:

You won't have heard of any of those books from '23\. Your English teacher picked books that they could get for next to nothing for a roomful of students (eg, public domain "classics"), or suck it up and fight for their absolute favorite book of all time.

So you're mostly going to hear of really old books in class, and really modern books from media and friends, and between that maybe the best 50 books from the last 50 years from proper literary mavens.

By moving the public domain forward in time you start opening up the opportunity for kids to hear about books from the 20's and 30's, things that might tie into History class (the Depression, the leadup to WWII) and thus into other aspects of life (civics, poli-sci, etc).

So your kids will know of books from the 20's, their kids books from the 40's (Tolkien), and so on. And your great great grandchild will encounter Harry Potter for the first time in the 7th grade.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure. I admittedly didn't go to a public school but we definitely had in-copyright books from John Hersey, Pearl Buck, James Hilton, Evelyn Waugh, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. Maybe that qualifies as "maybe the best 50 books from the last 50 years from proper literary mavens" but, in general, I'm not sure that out-of-copyright was overrepresented for any reason but that they were Western canon. (And, in many cases, not very readable by high- schoolers.)

I'm all for shorter copyright terms of course.

<comment><USER4> There were certainly classes where we had paperbacks, but you don't spend an entire semester going over one book. I think other than electives and higher education, I rarely saw more than one paperback per semester, and a few of those were mandated by the state board of education (eg, Animal Farm).

In the earliest book-heavy class I can recall, probably senior year of high school, we read a bunch of Edgar Allen Poe out of the textbook (Poe is out of copyright). There were book reports, but that was one copy per student and I think more than a few of us checked books out of the library for this.

I think Gatsby was the only book we had to buy that year. _That_ book is from 1925, and should have been out of copyright decades ago. So that everyone could suffer^W enjoy it for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Re: copyright, "We have shortchanged a generation," - Brewster Kahle Internet Archive founder

A powerful statement! I love the Internet Archive. It gives me hope for humanity.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like a non-GDPR-friendly site?

 _Forbidden_

 _You don 't have permission to access /2019/01/11000-digitized-books- from-1923-are-now-available-online-at-the-internet-archive.html on this server._

Same with the site's root.

 _Forbidden_

 _You don 't have permission to access / on this server._

Anyone have a mirror of it handy?

<comment><USER18> Coincidentally, it looks to be available via the Wayback Machine: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190107210010/http://www.opencu...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190107210010/http://www.openculture.com/2019/01/11000-digitized- books-from-1923-are-now-available-online-at-the-internet-archive.html)</comment></comment>


Set Up Multiple SSL Certificates on One IP with Apache on Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-multiple-ssl-certificates-on-one-ip-with-apache-on-ubuntu-12-04 <comment><USER2> Worth noting Virtualmin and CPanel do support SNI. Also worth noting old versions of software (wget, curl, IE, android etc) do not support it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#No_suppo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#No_support)</comment>


Becoming A Pop Star With Zero Experience - <AUTHOR> http://hackthesystem.com/blog/becoming-a-pop-star-with-zero-experience-how-to-hack-the-music-industry-in-under-8-weeks/

<comment><USER2> A more down-to-earth guide, and an absolutely fantastic read at that, is The KLF's "The Manual - How To Have A Number One The Easy Way" by the KLF:

<http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/>

It's a bit dated, given that they wrote it in the 80s, but it contains some absolute gems:

 _Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7" single buying girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick into the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional meaning of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As soon as Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut single it was all over - the Number One position was guaranteed:

"I'm never going to give you up"

It says it all. It's what every girl in the land whatever her age wants to hear her dream man tell her. Then to follow that line with:

"I'm never gonna let you down I'm never going to fool around or upset you"

GENIUS.

As soon as they had those lyrics written they must have known they could have taken out a block booking on the Number One slot. Then within the next twelve months to have written the chorus:

"I should be so lucky Luck, lucky, lucky I should be so lucky in love"_

<comment><USER3> This is quite a long read so I'm going to bookmark it for now. But as I'm quite a fan of KLF, I'm looking forward to having to time to read :)

<comment><USER2> _This is quite a long read so I'm going to bookmark it for now. But as I'm quite a fan of KLF, I'm looking forward to having to time to read :)_

If you like listening to music, it's well worth the read. You'll start noticing quite how many popular songs stick to the rules they outline in the Manual.

It's also a really interesting historical document of how the industry operated at the time, with a few nice tape-reels-and-fun-old-tech thrown in.

<comment><USER3> Oh I'm a huge music fan. In fact I used to compose and produce music back in the 90s and 00s (and obviously listened to it long before that) and spent much of the last decade DJing in house and techno clubs (though not as a headliner, sadly). So I've been an observer of formulas used within music for quite some time :)

In fact I used to deliberately play off contrasting formulas just to challenge peoples perceptions of what music they like or should expect from a specific genre. I'll be honest, sometimes with little success. But enough times I'd create something unique and engaging enough to make the failed attempts worthwhile.

I wish I still had the time for all this, but it's really an all or nothing passion; you really need to dedicate your life to it otherwise you're never going to be happy with your output (particularly if you're hypercritical of your own work, like I am). Sadly my wife doesn't share the same passion, so it's hard to justify spending weeks locked in my modest home studio. So these days I just produce the odd novelty record for NYE house parties, friends weddings and such like.

<comment><USER2> _particularly if you're hypercritical of your own work, like I am_

Heh, I think there are few people out there who think differently :)

For me, I'd love to have a couple of hours every day that I could dedicate to getting my piano playing back to the level I was 15 years ago. C'mon passive income!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well that's all very good, well done etc, but now what?

This guy, through a combination of youthful good looks, utter lack of shame, and sheer hustle has managed to get himself onto the british top 10. But he can't sustain it and the song itself is utter crap; he never set out to make good music, after all.

So what's the point?

The author mentions Tim Ferriss and I see the parallels. Ferriss also "hacked" his way into the Chinese Kung Fu champion's position, by unconventional use of the rules, in a paper achievement lacking any real accomplishment or respect. To his credit, Tim followed up by writing several books of actual value, and never confused hacking a competition with actually being a kung-fu master.

Like Ferriss's win, this is a stunt, a conversation starter, a prelude. It's AirBNB's Cheeri-O's, or whatever they were called. A cool anecdote to talk about - and kudos to him, genuinely, and AirBNB, and Ferriss. But it's not a real achievement in and of itself, not one that I particularly care about, anyway. At the end of the day, you still have to make AirBNB.

So now what?

<comment><USER3> _So what's the point?_

Notoriety and because he can? Same reasons many hackers do what they do.

I'll concede that I wish he was doing it for the love of the music, but I don't think anyone who seriously loves music takes the charts seriously these days anyway (it's largely just recycled, generic and heavily watered down crap).

<comment><USER4> > Notoriety and because he can?

Yeah, I'm not trying to downplay what he did. More effort than he implies but still, mission accomplished.

It's just that he says his aim was:

 _to be a successful musician in the UK with a Top Five single in the charts_

And he's talking like he achieved that, the easy way, with a "hack" no less. And it just doesn't seem to me like he's actually a successful musician yet.

<comment><USER5> The easy way?

If it were easy, everyone would have hundreds of thousands of Youtube subscribers and more video views than One Direction.

edit: OK, so his one direction stat is nonsense. It's still not easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What utter BS of a guide. As a musician for many years, I can tell you that he would not have a number 1 hit if he didn't have hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers. If this guy didn't have the YouTube subscribers, he would of sold to his family and friends and that's probably it.

The music industry is a popularity contest. Believe it or not, there are hundreds of thousands of artists who produce high quality songs but don't have a huge fan base preexisting on a social network.

Getting a big hit is the same as getting a big hit in the startup world. Unless you have a prexisting connection/PR marketing presence, the success is mostly driven by luck and brutal hard work.

What grinds my gears in the music world (and startup world) is when people who have success think it has something to do with their product/song being more unique or better than the next guys. 9 out of 10 times it is due to some competitive advantage the artist/founder had over others.

<comment><USER7> That was what seemed like the crux of the article to me: get 650,000 Youtube subscribers. Taking that as a premise makes anything after seem like cake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Vague mumbo jumbo including the sentence "I had recorded songs before with other producers (...)" as a not-so-zero experience indicator. The guys has a well frequented Youtube channel for 5 years. And he does not even get into that pre-benefit.

Skip, you are not missing anything in this "let's drop the word 'hack'" fluff piece.

<comment><USER3> I think you're underselling the piece. There are a few interesting insights in there (not least of all his _3\. Find and Exploit Loopholes_ piece).

I'm not really sure what you expected though, as if it was that easy to get into the charts as an independent artist then everyone would be doing it.

<comment><USER2> _if it was that easy to get into the charts as an independent artist then everyone would be doing it._

This is why I like The Manual by the KLF so much (I've mentioned it elsewhere in this thread).

They really spell out the effort involved:

 _So how do you go about achieving a U.K. Number One? Follow this simple step by step guide:

Firstly, you must be skint_ [having no money] _and on the dole_ [state benefits] _. Anybody with a proper job or tied up with full time education will not have the time to devote to see it through_

 _Having no money sharpens the wits. Forces you never to make the wrong decision. There is no safety net to catch you when you fall._

And a word from one of the authors:

 _If you wanna have a number one, if that's... it's a pathetic thing to wanna have, but if you want to, you can have it. It won't make you rich, it won't make you happy, but you can have it._

<http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=521>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> STOP using "HACK" !

I'm putting this word in the list of vomit-inducing words and phrases like "synergize", "leverage", "circle back", "win-win", etc.

<comment><USER10> Probably shouldn't read my site 'hackthesystem.com' then :p

<comment><USER11> There's another name for that - it's called scene whoring.

<comment><USER10> what? OP posted a link to my site, hackthesystem.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The One Direction Youtube channel the article links to has ~95,000,000 views, that channel is the one that _only_ contains interviews and tour diaries, their actual music channel has almost 1.5 BILLION video views (<http://www.youtube.com/user/onedirectionvevo>). He doesn't even come close to the exposure of One Direction, their channel is ~18 months old and his >5 years, and 1D's real channel is 15x the size in 1/3rd of the time.

</comment><comment><USER13> I posted this link out on Facebook and somebody asked "Have you listened to his music?"

I hadn't.

The horror, the horror... if this is "the future of music", then we're in for a rough ride.

Still, if even _half–decent_ musicians can take something away from the publicity stunt and hustle a bit, then we might make some progress... maybe.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Something not mentioned in the article which I think is important to note is that the song "dropped to number 112 the following week, setting a record for the biggest drop in UK Singles Chart history, falling 108 places". It seems like he used his online fan base to push the single that one week and it gained zero traction with the general public once it got there.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Yours_(Alex_Day_song)>

<comment><USER14> I was working as a radio presenter at the time this song was around, and I remember it getting on our playlist - I played it a few times. I remember it being trailed as a "YouTube sensation" on the little cheat sheet of artist notes that accompanies the new music playlist.

Next time the playlist was issued by our Head of Music, it had disappeared. Usually, we kept a current song on the playlist for 3-4 weeks at least. It was highly unusual for a track to disappear after a week! The only other songs I can remember with such a short shelf life were novelty / charity / Christmas type records which lasted a fortnight or so before dropping off as public attention drifted elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think one of the best points here is that you should exploit loopholes for your own advantage. Alex did this by allowing multiple song versions to be purchased so he could compound the sales that meant he didnt need as many people to buy his song. Tim Ferriss did it when he became a kickboxing champion by shoving his opponents outside the ring and essentially winning on a technicality.

Sure, these kind of things may be considered unethical and if a new guy came into my industry and rose to the top very quickly by exploiting a loophole after i've devoted years of my life to do it the right way, i'd be properly pissed off. But this option can act as a springboard into turning your ambition into real success.

I once heard a story, no idea if its true or not, of a guy that bought a chain of retail sports stores. He didnt have any real money, but managed to structure the deal to pay a small deposit and pay the remainder over time. What he did to raise the initial deposit was get a series of personal loans, house, friends and family, etc. He then bought the business by paying the deposit, then immediately sold off all existing stock as quickly as he could in sales and wholesale lots, giving the business a massive cash injection and revenue spike. That allowed him to pay off all his personal loans and pay the remainder of the money to the seller. He then got long term lines of credit from suppliers based on the long term good history the business already had, restocked and resumed normal operation, over time paying down the lines of credit and keeping the business on the good track it was already on.

My point being, is that you should always look for your competitive advantage.

<comment><USER16> The behaviour of the guy you talk about was incredibly irresponsible. Stretched that thin, the slightest hiccup could have brought the whole operation crashing down. Worse still, he wasn't gambling with his own money. His failure would have cost his friends and family, the suppliers who gave him credit, and, in his struggles to stay afloat, he likely would have ruined the finances and reputation of the business he took over. Lastly, in the event that he had failed, the original sellers of the business would end up with nothing but the initial deposit (and the pain of watching their hard built business run into the ground by an idiot).

It's also worth pointing out that the guy's plan of action was pretty stupid. If the suppliers had paid the slightest bit of attention, maybe even talked to each other a bit, they would have found out what he was doing, and refused his request. The long term good history of the business wouldn't count for anything if it became known that the owner was up to his eyeballs in high interest debt and had just sold off all his stock. I mean seriously, his plan hinged on the suppliers not noticing that all his stores were empty.

The story probably isn't true, but if it is, then it isn't something to aspire to. It's a story about a guy doing something very unethical (if not fraudulent). It's a story about a guy taking massive risks with other people's money in order to benefit only himself.

If your idea of competitive advantage is doing something that only helps you and harms others, then you shouldn't evangelise about it. For one thing, it can only hurt you in the long run if other people pick up your ideas and act this way.

<comment><USER15> I agree with you, and perhaps i used a poor example, i was just saying that there is sometimes an alternative route, i'm not saying that you should take it though, but i think being aware of it would be valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm sure he wouldn't have 'hacked' the system if he hadn't already had 650K youtube followers that took him 5 years to grow.

</comment><comment><USER18> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual>

</comment><comment><USER19> So strange that what was once a tactic of cynical industry players is now the modus operandi of young artists themselves. Where is there room for compensated self-expression in this brave new world of content creation I wonder?

</comment><comment><USER20> "Be strong on YouTube." Great Advice. Also, advice for pediatricians: "Be good with kids." Love it when advice is so general that it's insulting.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just what the world needed: More talentless hacks teaching the world how to more efficiently spread bad art.

It really is a shame that time invested into areas having nothing to do with the music is rewarded over the music itself. This seems to select out the good artists who are actually doing something interesting.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how many of the purchases were "revenge" - it seems to be that most years there is an aggressive social media campaign for anyone BUT the latest X-factor star. I know in 2011 there was definitely a big push for anything but the JLS/One-direction single to be #1

<comment><USER23> I remember that good Christmas where Rage Against The Machine became no1 in 2009. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/20/rage-against- mac...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/20/rage-against-machine- christmas-number-1) That was a good Christmas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I didn't believe this guy was for real before reading the Wikipedia article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Day>

I guess even I'm still too much of a perfectionist. Inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm an Alex Day fan and don't really understand the negativity in the comments here. He makes music I like and spread it in an unconventional way. That's about it.

Not a hack, but just a different way to go about it.

<comment> k-mcgrady He definitely hacked the system to get so high in the charts by releasing multiple versions of the same song. As for his music, everyone has their own taste but as soon as I heard the song embedded in the article I understood why, even reaching so high in the charts, I'd never heard of him. I don't pay much attention to the charts but I've heard most of the songs in it either on radio or at clubs/bars. That's the first time I've ever heard of him or the song. It's cool that he was able to hack the system in this way (there are other obvious loop holes in the chart system that can be hacked too) but if his goal was to become a successful musician he hasn't achieved it. Definitely an interesting article though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Get ready for the book: _The 4-Bar Rockstar_

</comment><comment><USER27> >Net result: the sales doubled.

Doubled? How? Vague. I think he's attributing his success to the wrong things.

<comment> k-mcgrady Through selling multiple versions of the same song. I presume that he offered the collection of versions for a low price leading to some people who were just going to buy the single to buy the collection instead (which would contribute multiple sales to his total).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This reads like brick layer decides to build own wall.

Am I wrong?</comment>


Vim setup for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fatih/vim-go <comment><USER2> I've been using vim-go for about one year now. The combination of vim-go, gofmt and YouCompleteMe is all you need for a perfect Go setup. Thanks to Fatih and Val!

<comment><USER3> YouCompleteMe crashes frequently on my mac. I can't find a solution. Does someone here have a solution?

<comment><USER4> I switched from YCM to neocomplete[1] a few months ago and haven't looked back, performance is much better. I'm on Arch and never really had crashes with YCM, but if the crashes are performance related it might help.

[1] [https://github.com/Shougo/neocomplete.vim](https://github.com/Shougo/neocomplete.vim)

<comment><USER3> I need to use YouCompleteMe for C++ autocomplete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not a vim user and I've been using IntelliJ IDEA to code in GoLang for about an year now and I find it extremely powerful. It is powered using the GoLang IntelliJ plugin : [https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea- plugin](https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin)

It provides : 1) Error Highlighting, 2) Auto Completion, 3) Click-to-Navigate, 4) Auto Formatting, 5) Auto Importing, among other features.

</comment><comment><USER6> This. I've seen my teammates try other Go IDE integrations but this just beats the pants off all of them and our whole team wound up standardizing on it.

It combines well with Tim Pope's dispatch plugin for doing an async 'go build' or 'go test' while you code:

[https://github.com/tpope/vim-dispatch](https://github.com/tpope/vim-dispatch)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can someone recommend a set of Emacs libraries that works as well as this? I'm about to embark on a real project in go.

<comment><USER8> [Spacemacs]([https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs))

<comment><USER7> Spacemacs has so much in it that I've been avoiding looking into it. It seems to do everything! I'll try it out, thanks.

<comment><USER9> On the bright side it does have a nice modular configuration in `~/.spacemacs`.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still swear by LiteIDE. If you write go, you should try it, you will not be disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER11> go-plus for atom is also really nice if you are using atom.

[https://github.com/joefitzgerald/go- plus](https://github.com/joefitzgerald/go-plus)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a fan of go sublime but vim-go is also really nice :)

<comment><USER12> yes,

good alternative : (Dockerfile) Sublime Text 3 for Go

[https://github.com/jgautheron/dockerfiles/blob/master/sublim...](https://github.com/jgautheron/dockerfiles/blob/master/sublime- text-go/README.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly offtopic: anyone has a similar setup for Python?

<comment><USER14> [https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi-vim](https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi- vim) perhaps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's really nice, but lack specific feature of auto-importing packages while typing. Like, if you type `fmt.` and package is not imported yet, you'll not see any completions.

So, I've implemented it a while ago in separate coding-helping plugin, see the gif: [https://github.com/reconquest/vim- pythonx#autoimport](https://github.com/reconquest/vim-pythonx#autoimport)

UPD: also, some gifs, showing how coding routine I believe should be done (Golang taken as example): [https://github.com/reconquest/snippets#let-me- show](https://github.com/reconquest/snippets#let-me-show). Type less, get more.

<comment><USER16> It does, just not by default, and only on save – not while typing.

> Enable goimports to automatically insert import paths instead of gofmt:

> let g:go_fmt_command = "goimports"

<comment><USER15> Yeah, only on save.

It's deal breaker for me, I want to see completions immediately, not by entering `fmt.`, saving file, backspacing, re-entering `.`.

<comment><USER17> On the flipside, what implements this functionality you speak of? I ask, because you mention it being a deal breaker for vim-go, so i'm curious what you currently use?

<comment><USER15> I'm using vim-go, I just implemented autoimport functionality on top of it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The libkern C++ Runtime - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/WritingDeviceDriver/CPluPlusRuntime/CPlusPlusRuntime.html <comment><USER2> Compare with the NeXT "Driver Kit" library:

[http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/Op...](http://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/OperatingSystem/Part3_DriverKit/Concepts/1_Overview/Overview.htmld/index.html)

Very similar layout, but it used Objective-C instead of C++.

</comment><comment><USER3>
        #define super    IOService
        #define fBlastIForgot [..]
        OSMetaClassDeclareReservedUnused
        OSMetaClassDeclareReservedUsed

This is so much nicer than just function pointers, base members and container_of!

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder why they deemed templates to be "insufficient or not efficient enough for a high-performance, multithreaded kernel".

<comment><USER5> Probably code size. Any two template instantiations, even if they produce identical machine code or in-memory representation, will generally be output twice due to language requirements like needing distinct memory addresses and linkage for things like functions, static data members, static locals, RTTI, vtables etc.

Eliminating code bloat with templates requires careful judgment about where to put type erasure and how to factor your code

<comment><USER6> C++11 added extern templates which can easily solve the bloat problem. If a template consistently has the same type like, say, std::vector<int>, you can just extern it and tada they all share the same generated implementation ( [https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/cpp11-language- templates#extern-...](https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/cpp11-language- templates#extern-templates) )

So even if the linker fails to de-dupe, you're still able to manually fix it pretty easily without giving up on templates entirely.

But libkern predates C++11, so decisions made by that team at that time are largely obsolete and should be heavily re-evaluated rather than blindly followed.

<comment><USER7> A lot of the xnu c++ dates back almost two decades (maybe more?), and abi compatibility kind of screws in terms of changing decisions like this.

You can't really just say "update to a newer version of the language" when you have both API and ABI compatibility constraints.

For source you can deprecate APIs, etc so future versions would have an early warning the source changes would be necessary.

But that doesn't help shipping kexts, for that you need ABI stability, which really puts the hammer on changing/updating the features that you use. Many of the C++ features cause exciting binary compatibility problems, and make it super easy to accidentally change the ABI :-/

<comment><USER6> My point was just that anybody using C++ _now_ shouldn't treat language- feature advice from 20+ years ago as anything particularly relevant. It's outdated and obsolete and should be treated as such. Sure if you're working on an obsolete codebase in bare-bones maintenance mode then you're kinda stuck, but most of us aren't.

That aside yes, you totally can just update to a newer version of the language. If you are trying to maintain C++ ABI stability then your life is harder, yes, but it's no harder than it already is when you just upgrade compilers or deal with people building with other compilers (and most everyone ships C ABIs anyway to avoid this entire category of problems - extern "C" still works great in C++17). But you are still completely free to use newer features in the implementation itself which doesn't impact API or ABI stability in the slightest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was pretty sure it was because getting people to write drivers in Objective C for DriverKit was never going to reach any mass appeal, so better make it C++

[http://unix.superglobalmegacorp.com/cgi- bin/cvsweb.cgi/objc/...](http://unix.superglobalmegacorp.com/cgi- bin/cvsweb.cgi/objc/ChangeLog?rev=220.127.116.11;cvsroot=Darwin0)

<comment><USER9> Yep. Everyone writing drivers for Windows/Classic MacOS/UNIX was doing it in C. And Apple wasn't particularly confident that ObjC would appeal to even application programmers (hence the Cocoa-Java push, and the never-finished ObjC "modern" syntax)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They took out templates, inheritance, exceptions? What's left to make it not just C?

<comment><USER11> Plenty: classes (including constructors/destructors, virtual methods, etc.), operator overloading, patterns like RAII, ...

<comment><USER12> Stronger type safety, fewer implicit conversions.

<comment><USER13> > fewer implicit conversions.

Surely C++ has way more implicit conversions than C, what with having all of C's _and_ ctors defaulting to converting?

<comment><USER12> Only if developers are too lazy to use _explicit_.

I was referring to C implicit conversions that aren't valid in C++ code, like _void_ __* to other pointer types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The good old times when Apple let devs fiddle with their OS.

These APIs are already deemphasized, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were to deprecate/remove them altogether when they release the ARM version of macOS. They'll probably do it with the update that introduces UIKit on macOS (as Craig Federighi said on this year's WWDC) to divert the attention. Sneaky bastards, but their stuff still sucks the least ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment> X-Istence Certain devices are still going to need loadable kernel modules to be supported.

For example USB to Serial devices, or custom media devices, and more. I really don't expect kernel modules to go away.

<comment><USER15> I found Serial[1] a while ago: a decent terminal application that does not require any drivers / kernel modules to support USB-to-serial devices.

[1] [https://www.decisivetactics.com/products/serial/](https://www.decisivetactics.com/products/serial/)

<comment><USER16> I wonder how that works?

<comment><USER17> macOS comes with very good USB support in user-space that works without any drivers.

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/iousbinterfa...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/iousbinterfaceinterface190?language=objc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ideology disguised as logic. Basically NIH. Apple engineers could have made C++ RTTI, and other other native features, suit their requirements. Instead they created a bastardized dialect of C++ which requires new domain knowledge to use effectively.

<comment><USER19> I believe the dialect of C++ that Apple uses for IOKit is based on a dialect called Embedded C++, which was created an industry standard: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_C%2B%2B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_C%2B%2B)

<comment><USER20> Banning the use of namespaces and templates for embedded programming seems arbitrary at best, since they are both completely compile-time features

<comment><USER21> IOKit predates anything resembling wide adoption of those C++ features. Exceptions are a particularly thorny subject when mixed with multithreading and (non-existent) memory model. And not to mention RTTI, which was always just a patch job.

<comment><USER20> I think choosing to exclude exceptions is a totally fine decision, and I actually think it's the right thing to do in embedded systems where you _cant't_ afford to let an uncaught exception bubble up</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


500 Startups shuts down its Canada fund - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/31/500-startups-canada-fund <comment><USER2> Really too bad. Especially with the situation in America right now I know a number of founders that had decided not to do the "move to California" strategy.

<comment><USER3> From the article:

 _Last month, a number of women came forward to the New York Times, alleging misconduct by McClure and others in the venture community._

That to me sounds like not really too bad but instead about f'n time.

<comment><USER4> It's possible to not feel particularly bad for 500 Startups themselves, while still feeling bad for the Canadian entrepreneurs who will have fewer options available to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ohh, the company/startup is called "500 Startups", for a while there i thought canada is falling apart .. and a count of 500 startups were shutting down

<comment><USER6> As if we have 500 startups...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's nice to see that they have a better than industry average score of supporting women co-founders but now you really have to wonder if that's tainted or not. McClure did himself and the companies they invested in no favors.

</comment><comment><USER8> the really bad part, some Canadian minority founders will have to search for seed funding elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> There's plenty of government grants for minority-founded businesses, especially if they're recent immigrants.

<comment><USER9> Why don't they just give this to everyone? Canadian government really loves to favor the new Canadians over the old ones. I don't think it should matter...

<comment><USER10> The government doesn't "favour new Canadians over old ones." That's crap.

The government offers funding to new immigrants because they lack many of the social networks that people who were raised and educated here possess. Also, it's a pretty good investment, as immigrants have a stronger entrepreneurial bone than the average Canadian, due to self-selecting as go-getters (i.e. emigrating).

<comment><USER9> Sorry, immigrants make better entrepreneurs? Is this a fact or just something you pulled out of thin air? Not to mention the fact that allowing only immigrants to benefit from this is discriminatory and directly contradicts your first sentence. What about all the potential native entrepreneurs that might not get their chance to shine due to not being given the same advantages as the foreigners? You should work for government, I think you would fit right in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


macOS Sierra Stores and Syncs SSH Passphrases to iCloud - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/mikeymikey/status/784069872422498304 <comment><USER2> Only if you enable iCloud Keychain, which is locally encrypted and synced in encrypted form. [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303) has links to the details.

It's not useful though as you shouldn't share ssh keys between machines anyway.

<comment><USER3> > you shouldn't share ssh keys between machines anyway.

Are you talking about public or private keys ? I see nothing wrong in using same public key to log in from a particular machine to a number of remote machines.

<comment><USER4> > I see nothing wrong in using same public key to log in from a particular > machine to a number of remote machines.

There is nothing really wrong with it; it's a good way to reduce the burden of managing secrets. The downside though is when multiple remote machines need to be contacted because a private key was revoked. Then again, a common need for revocation is a compromise of the machine on which the private key(s) is stored, which can often mean a number of private keys need to be revoked. I think the ideal is still to have unique key pairs for each client-server combination.

<comment><USER5> It's worth thinking this through one step further IMO. What kind of event would cause a private key to be compromised, so that it needs to be revoked?

The most likely cases are that (1) the client machine was compromised, or (2) an un-encrypted backup was lost. In either case, I have a hard time seeing how one private key needs to be revoked but others on the same client machine don't.

<comment><USER4> Agreed - it's what I meant by that third sentence. There are of course reasons to revoke one of a collection of keys, for example natural end-of-life rotation, weak key generation and accidental disclosure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's also something weird going on with "-o BatchMode=yes", which is used by shells to tab-complete remote files for scp and rsync.

I could ssh into a server without typing the ssh key password, but zsh refused to tab-complete scp and rsync command lines. Turns out it was using "ssh -o BatchMode=yes servername somethingsomething" to retrieve a list of files, but "-o BatchMode=yes" prevented whatever magic is happening from unlocking the ssh key. Figuring this out was tricky because dtruss and lldb refused to attach to /bin/zsh and /usr/bin/ssh because of SIP. (In fact, "dtruss --help" lists "dtruss df -h" as the first example, something that doesn't even work on sierra because /bin/df is protected by SIP)

The fix is to run "ssh-add -A" after booting. Very odd, since there are no password prompts involved anywhere.

<comment><USER7> The next time you'd like to diagnose, you can reboot into Recovery and use "csrutil enable --without dtrace --without debug" and you should be able to avoid those issues.

<comment><USER6> That's true. But too much of a hassle.

One workaround is actually to just cp /bin/whatever to /tmp/whatever and debug that, but in this particular case I needed to follow forks (from zsh to ssh) so that wasn't as easy. Or I guess I could have played games with $PATH. Ah well.

Either way, there is something funny going on with ssh and private keys and their passphrases. Very odd how "-o BatchMode=yes" fails to load encrypted private keys that don't require any user input in normal use. And it's definitively something new because this was never a problem in 10.11 or below.

<comment><USER7> I think Apple stopped loading the passphrases into the agent automatically. I think they're strictly only loaded from the keychain now, per connection, unless you explicitly use -A to add them to the agent.

Edit: Ah, and another comment here provided the answer: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12654917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12654917)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This links to a tweet that links to [https://openradar.appspot.com/28394826](https://openradar.appspot.com/28394826)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Passphrases are stored by default, and if you enable iCloud Keychain, they're also synced.

<comment><USER7> This is different than in prior macOS versions.

In prior versions, it was stored in Login keychain, which was not synchronized.

Additionally, the items were visible in the security command line tool and in Keychain Access, so you could delete them.

The Local Items keychain / iCloud Keychain is a new style keychain that was back ported from iOS. The security and Keychain Access tools have no visibility into it, it's 100% handled by the secd service.

Edit: Ah, sorry, you meant in Sierra specifically. Yes. But I'll leave these clarifying details here for posterity :)

Edit2: Additional detail - in prior OSes, there was a GUI prompt asking if you wanted to store the passphrase in the keychain. This is gone now. It just does it (unless you preemptively edited the ssh config file to disable keychain storage in advance)

Edit3: Can confirm that "ssh-add -K -d" does in fact delete the passphrase from the keychain, even though it may throw an agent error.

<comment><USER9> > The security and Keychain Access tools have no visibility into it, it's 100% > handled by the secd service.

That's not quite true: Keychain Access can write to Local Items keychain, but not everything in Local Items are _visible_ to Keychain Access. Apple changed ssh to store private key passphrases differently than before, in a way that's invisible to Keychain Access. However, you can freely move / copy entries from, say your login keychain, to Local Items with Keychain Access, and vice versa, and they would remain visible.

Fortunately, the Local Items keychain, stored in ~/Library/Keychains/<UUID>/keychain-2.db is just a sqlite3 database, with (presumably) encrypted fields. If you run "ssh -vvv" you can even see the query.

> Edit3: Can confirm that "ssh-add -K -d" does in fact delete the passphrase > from the keychain, even though it may throw an agent error.

Huh, I thought I'd tried that before resorting more drastic measures. Or maybe "-d" works but not "-D", hmm or maybe I'd neglected to also pass "-K".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> FYI: ssh-agent in Sierra needs "AddKeysToAgent yes" in $HOME/.ssh/config to automatically load your keys, see

[http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/253779/macos-10-12-...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/253779/macos-10-12-sierra- will-not-forget-my-ssh-keyfile-passphrase)

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone who has upgraded - Have you had issues with it prompting for your keychain password every time you wake your computer up and occasionally throughout the day?

<comment><USER12> Have you recently changed your iCloud password?</comment></comment>


Bostonian of the Year: Carmen Ortiz  - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/

<comment><USER2> It's been said in the other threads but it bears repeating: while Ortiz is by all accounts an opportunistic US attorney on a mission to attain political office, and as such will always be part of the system rather than strive to change it, it's important to remember that the one pushing Aaron's case out of proportion was really Steve Heymann.

To a certain degree it's appropriate to question the involvement and lack of restraint displayed by powerful people running up the chain of command, but let's not forget that in the end it takes a malevolent executing instrument to make these things happen to victims who can't possibly defend themselves. This instrument is Heymann, not Ortiz.

Of course, judicial and executive malevolence and malfeasance don't exist in a vacuum. There are jobs that disproportionally attract certain kinds of people who are, for want of a better term, somewhat evil. We as a society encourage them (e.g. by measuring their conviction rate instead of how reasonable and just they are in office) and then we are surprised by the appalling nature of the system. We need to stop doing that, but I see no realistic way of accomplishing this with any degree of public support in the current climate.

At the very least though we should recognize that these "public servants" have way too much power and there are clearly not enough checks and balances in the system to prevent this kind of abuse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Link does not work. One of the working link is - [http://www.bostonglobe.com/2011/12/30/carmenortiz/wLwkSgFqDQ...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/2011/12/30/carmenortiz/wLwkSgFqDQgRZY0iEKk4kM/story.html)

Quite aptly, this link is behind a pay wall. Other "free" links include

[http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s- atto...](http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-attorney- carmen-ortiz-is-bostonian-of-the-year/)

[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

<comment><USER4> > _Quite aptly, this link is behind a pay wall._

Not really: Open up a private browser (ctrl-shift N on chrome, eg) then paste the link.

<comment><USER3> Even after using the incognito mode in Chrome the article is still is behind a pay wall for me. Probably, it depends on the location - I am not based out of the US.

<comment><USER5> I am - but it's not working for me, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> FTA: _By targeting corruption and white-collar crime, the US attorney is restoring our faith in the system._

WTF? On what planet is Whitey Bulger either corruption and white-collar crime? He was finally found in Santa Monica with $600K and a cache of guns in the walls of a rent-controlled apartment.

As near as I can tell, she is a straight-up opportunist looking for political attention.

<comment><USER6> Whitey Bulger is just one case handled by the Boston office. Why is it so hard to understand that "the other side" has multiple facets?

In the age of the internet there is no excuse for not doing your own research. The Boston's office press releases here: <http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/index.html>

The GSK settlement this past July (largest health care fraud settlement in US history): [http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement....](http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement.html)

<comment><USER7> Well, you might be interested in the technical guts of that GSK fine. It is related to the idea that no one knows what is legal anymore, and in this case too federal prosecutors drove a man (Peter Gleason) to suicide.

Very briefly, once you spend four billion[1] to get a drug approved by FDA for purpose A, a doctor can choose to prescribe it for purposes B, C, and D -- and can publish papers on said applications -- but you as the manufacturer are prohibited from discussing these "off label" applications with other doctors through your salesforce. Even handing out papers is a gray area. So a pharma rep in an office with a doctor concerned about condition B and a patient who suffers from condition B is prohibited, under this FDA theory, from remarking on the utility of his company's drug for condition B. Since ~40% of prescriptions [2] are for off-label uses of drugs, this is a very big deal.

The reason for this ban on "off-label marketing" is that the FDA wants you to spend another few billion to take the new application through the entire New Drug Application process; relying on distributed doctors rather than centralized FDA for drug evaluation means FDA loses user fees and review authority. Note that the drug has already been proved _safe_ as dosages in off-label applications are very similar; FDA however does not want doctors to judge on their own whether the drug is _efficiacious_ (these are terms of art in the drug industry). Since FDA cannot regulate doctors directly due to the AMA's clout, they go after drug companies who are under their purview and block them from mentioning anything other than purpose A.

With that background, now to the GSK fine: [http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement....](http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement.html)

      Global health care giant GlaxoSmithKline LLC (GSK) agreed
      to plead guilty and to pay $3 billion to resolve its
      criminal and civil liability arising from the company's
      unlawful promotion of certain prescription drugs

      Under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act,
      a company in its application to the FDA must specify each
      intended use of a drug.  After the FDA approves the
      product as safe and effective for a specified use, a
      company's promotional activities must be limited to the
      intended uses that FDA approved.  In fact, promotion by
      the manufacturer for other uses – known as "off-label
      uses" – renders the product "misbranded."

You might think that sounds a bit like restrictions on freedom of speech. A federal court just agreed: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732371700457815...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323717004578157771246020506.html)

      A federal appeals-court panel on Monday overturned the
      conviction of a pharmaceutical salesman for so-called off-
      label drug marketing, saying he was protected by free-
      speech rights.

      The decision could threaten Food and Drug Administration
      rules that prohibit the marketing of drugs for off-label
      uses, or those that aren't specifically approved by the
      FDA.

To make the circle complete, aggressive prosecutions of federal prosecutors for "off-label marketing" resulted in the arrest and subsequent suicide of Dr. Peter Gleason: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/business/22drugdoc.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/business/22drugdoc.html?pagewanted=all)

      Indictment of Doctor Tests Drug Marketing Rules

      At first, Dr. Peter Gleason thought his arrest was a joke.

      In the early afternoon of Monday, March 6, half a dozen
      men in suits surrounded Dr. Gleason, a Maryland
      psychiatrist, at a train station on Long Island and
      handcuffed him.

      "I said, 'Well, this is a gag,' " Dr. Gleason recalled in
      a recent interview. "They said, 'No, this isn't.' "

      Dr. Gleason, 53, was taken aback because he was arrested,
      and later charged, for doing something that has become
      common among doctors: promoting a drug for purposes other
      than those approved by the federal government.

That was from 2006. Gleason ended up killing himself after his career was destroyed by this prosecution: [http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/07/florida-goes- after-dead-doc...](http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/07/florida-goes-after-dead- doc-for-off-label-marketing/)

      However, the state failed to note one important detail –
      Gleason died this past February. The 57-year-old physician
      recently saw his medical licenses suspended in
      Pennsylvania and California, and the accumulated weight of
      the events apparently led him to commit suicide, according
      to his sister. We left messages with the Florida
      Department of Health about the filing, but not have
      received a reply (read the complaint here).

So, to recap here: a federal court has just ruled that the legal theory that Gleason was prosecuted over, and that GSK was fined $3B over, is actually not valid. And a man is dead because of it. Since this is an area I happen to know something about...I'm starting to believe that if domain experts got into the details of these high-profile federal prosecutions (especially for non-violent crimes) they'd find much more abuses like this.

[1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the- tru...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly- staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/)

[2]: [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID568402_code3...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID568402_code365570.pdf?abstractid=568402&mirid=1)

<comment><USER6> I appreciate the depth of your response but will have to say that that is a vast oversimplification of the debate over off label marketing and prescribing. The overprescribing of powerful narcotics and antipsychotics to those who didn't need them (but from which doctors and the reps they worked with profited from) has been harmful, to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Working link: [http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Did she go after the bankers' "white-crimes" and try to put them in jail for 35 years, too? No? Didn't think so.

There's definitely a 2-tier justice system forming, where they only prosecute the "little-guy", and _hard_ , while they either completely ignore or just settle for a fine with the more powerful people in the country. Judges also are increasingly starting to avoid lawsuits against the Government, as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Could be this one I guess: [http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Carmen Ortiz, Bostonian of the Year.

[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/11/04/ma...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/11/04/mass- motel-owner-fights-move-seize-property/q4XIbqGpqzKZoV2UIZDDaN/story.html)

      Russ Caswell is not charged with any crime, but next week
      he'll be in a federal courtroom fighting to keep a motel
      his father built almost six decades ago. ...

      "They are holding me responsible for the actions of a
      few people who I don't know and I've never met before,
      people who rent a room,'' Caswell said. "Out of thousands
      of people who stay here, a handful do something wrong
      and they're trying to blame me for it." ...

      "The government believed that this was an important
      case ... because of the important deterrent message it
      sends to others who may turn a blind eye to crime
      occurring at their place of business," said Christina
      DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen
      Ortiz.

      Under a provision of the forfeiture law known as
      "equitable sharing," if the government wins, the
      Tewksbury police department could receive up to
      80 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the motel,
      which is assessed at about $1.3 million, Caswell said.

      Criminal forfeiture laws require a person to be convicted
      of a crime before property can be taken, but civil
      forfeiture allows prosecutors to take properties without
      convicting anyone.

</comment><comment><USER10> Quote from the article: "By targeting corruption and white-collar crime, the US attorney is restoring our faith in the system.". Talk about back-fire!

</comment><comment><USER12> 404?</comment>


Fun environment for hobby 3D game? - <AUTHOR>

Can you recommend a game dev environment that is 3D, cross-platform, and (ideally) open-source, while being actually fun to code in?
Defining fun:  I love coding in Ruby and Lua.   Learning new languages is fun - it might be neat to do a game in Erlang or something.  But I hate coding in C++ and am getting pretty tired of Java.
My girlfriend and I started coding a game together as a hobby.   It may never see the light of day - we're primarily just trying to have a good time.  To that end, we'd like to do it in a fun language.
So we started it in Lua, using the Löve framework, which has been awesome.   Unfortunately ... it looks like we're definitely going to need a 3D environment, with proper 3D acceleration.  As soon as I started doing a little vector math for lighting some simple 3D meshes, poor Lua was brought to a crawl.  We have a very simple demo of structures floating in space ... and we only get 15fps out of it.  Ouch.
I've been looking at 3D game environments, but the thought of having to go back to malloc() just makes me sad.  Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> (I'm the other author of this game.)

We've investigated many of the 3D game environments out there, but it's been difficult to tell what "supports Lua scripting" means. We don't just want to control particular game elements; we want to write the game itself in Lua, if possible, calling out to an optimized graphics library where needed, only for the rendering. Any thoughts?

Luxinia (<http://www.luxinia.de/>) looks like it might be what we're looking for. Anyone have experience with it? Or possibly using OpenGL from Lua for 3D graphics?

</comment><comment><USER3> How about Unity? <http://unity3d.com/>

3D, cross-platform... free...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Unity is one I intend to look at. It's not immediately obvious from their page what language(s) we'd be coding in, however.

<comment><USER4> From their Engine programming area: <http://unity3d.com/unity/engine/programming>

Since it's .NET based via Mono i'd assume C# but it also says it supports scripting languages: JavaScript and Boo, a dialect of Python.

<comment><USER5> There are a few options, but C# works well. Many of the template implementations are in C#.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fluxus is a 3D game engine for livecoding in Racket. <http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/>

Example video: <http://vimeo.com/6744140>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In case anyone's curious, the game concept is a sandbox (a bit Dwarf-fortress- like) in space. Instead of excavating Moria, you're constructing Niven rings, Dyson spheres, and other megastructures.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've just recently discovered maratis3d.org .. It's very fun, check it out! Lua-based, open source, cross platform ..

</comment><comment> saiko-chriskun if you like Lua I'd recommend ShiVa ( <http://stonetrip.com> ). It uses Lua as its scripting language.

</comment><comment> kung-fu-master Try Panda3D (www.panda3d.org)</comment>


Ask YC: Stealing an idea - <AUTHOR>

A former coworker had a great idea and had played around with it (just enought to get an idea of what it could do and some logos -- although I didn't like the name or logos).  Since our initial conversation about it (I saw him doodling something one day), I've thought about it a lot and have a lot of ways to expand it/implement it already in my head).
The idea is great, not a huge moneymaker, but enough to get some residual income from it.
The only thing that is special to him is he knows someone that would help with supplying some items for the thing.
So, YC HN, do I steal the idea?  I've talked to him about partnering, but he says he doesn't have time to work on it.  I'd like to force his hand a bit and get an introduction to the contact and then hit the ground running...  Maybe kick back some small % to him?
He's a great designer though and I'd love his help with that aspect... <comment><USER2> I think if you're going to be using his idea, it's bad taste to use him as the designer and only give him a few %. If you're going to copy his idea, which you've said he's already started bringing into reality, then offer nothing and prepare to potentially lose a friend over 'some residual income.'

</comment><comment><USER3> Just do whatever makes sense economically and socially. I don't think you should have any moral hangups about stealing the idea (ideas are worthless, and they aren't property so you can't steal them), but you also don't want to piss off an acquaintance unnecessarily.</comment>


Autonomous Audi TT takes drives Pike's Peak in 27 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/audis-autonomous-audi-tt-conquers-pikes-peak-how-long-before-it-betters-a-human-driver/17001/

<comment><USER2> Why do journalists always feel the need to insert some really bad logic?

"Humans are not very good at driving cars, as is evidenced by our ability to destroy 1.3 million souls on our roads each year."

Here, let's try that again:

"Robots are not very good at driving cars, as is evidenced by how badly the robot I created does at it."

Seriously, just because accidents happen and SOME people are bad at driving doesn't mean humans are bad at driving.</comment>


The Patent Scam - <AUTHOR> https://www.thepatentscam.com <comment><USER2> Austin Meyer (producer of the film and creator of X-Plane) did an Reddit AMA yesterday:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6u648y/austin_meyer_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6u648y/austin_meyer_of_xplane_xavion_and_the_patent_scam/)</comment>