US Links North Korea to Sony Hacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/asia/us-links-north-korea-to-sony-hacking.html <comment><USER2> > The attacks at Sony were routed from command and control centers across the > world, including a convention center in Singapore and a computer at > Thammasat University in Thailand. But one of those command and control > servers, a computer in Bolivia, had been used before, in a limited set of > cyberattacks on South Korean targets two years ago.

The evidence has to be better than this to make an accusation against a state. Botnets overlap a lot because the way they are built is with automated scanners that take advantage of common vulnerabilities. It isn't uncommon to find a botnet client that has been hacked a half-dozen other times and has had rootkits installed each time. A large part of sophisticated botnet droppers is _removing all the previously installed botnets_ on a server where a vulnerability has been found.

Having _one_ client in common with another attack network is a low or insignificant figure.

Similar applies to common modules found in other malware. Authors reverse engineer and re-appropriate techniques or libraries from other successful malware all the time. That is also not evidence of a link to North Korea.

<comment><USER3> Attribution in cyberwarfare is infamously difficult.

However, there is an age old equation that works fairly well for attribution: opportunity + motive + evidence. Opportunity in cyberwarfare is a complex item to tease out and has more to do with opportunity costs than anything else (the strategy of cyberwarfare demands owning everything immediately rather than later and the exercise becomes one of triage).

In this instance we _do_ have both a motive and some evidence that point to North Korea, and it is in line with the sort of theatrical politics NK is known for. IMHO more evidence and an analysis of opportunity cost are a must to pin NK down further, but you can be assured that (unless officials have ulterior geopolitical motives) they have a pretty good idea about the cyber capabilities and actions of other nation states - more than they are apt to release to media outlets.

<comment><USER2> This is my concern - they are starting with a motive and the DPRK and then working backwards to fit the evidence in.

Everybody seems to have forgotten that this started as a financial ransom demand and the attackers made no mention of the movie or the DPRK until Sony and the media did.

I'm not suggesting the DPRK _are not_ involved, but that it is a very big leap to go from media speculating about motives to the US government formally accusing them. The details leaked to the NyTimes do not substantiate this leap.

<comment><USER4> Plus, would terrorists offer an opt out(for personal information) for rank and file Sony personnel?

<comment><USER3> Whoa. Terrorists? Which terrorists? What terrorism are you talking about?

<comment><USER5> Any action that results in rich assholes losing a bit of money or potentially losing a bit of money falls under the umbrella of terrorism now, or 'economic terrorism' if you will. So copyright infringement and of course any form of organized protest fit the bill, along with hacking a Japanese company with offices in the US.

You can try to fight the total annihilation of meaning in our language, but as you see here it is a losing battle.

<comment><USER3> Oh my. This is a derailment of the thread but here are some (political) words off the top of my head having been annihilated recently:

terrorism

socialism

marxism

hero

capitalism

free market

invisible hand

imminent

torture

collect

to brief

espionage

surveillance

privacy

freedom

search

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TMZ is reporting [1] that studio executives are convinced this was an inside job based on layoffs at Sony that included IT employees. Before you write them off, they've broken several big stories this year, and their sources at movie studios are probably spot on.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The continuous release of leaked data means the attacker probably had access for a considerable amount of time to completely download the large number of files. My guess is that they had escalated their own access during employment and routinely monitored the communications of executives.

This was most likely the work of someone that had or maintained a blackhat past. This is someone that most likely had access to a botnet, knew where to go to buy/download malware (underground forums), and knew how to obscure their connections (and where to directly connect). And if you think about it, posting to Pastebin? Definitely a US-thing, and not so much a Chinese thing.

I'm willing to bet this person/people will be caught through old-fashioned profiling. Cross-checking the terminated IT employees with previous convictions for computer crimes, their personal emails with known hacker aliases, and other investigative techniques.

[1] [http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/17/sony-hack-inside-job-north- kor...](http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/17/sony-hack-inside-job-north-korea- investigation/)

<comment><USER3> Why would #GOP demand that 'The Interview' not be shown? To throw off the scent? Also I'd be interested in your thoughts as to why an ex-employee bent on revenge demand a ransom not to engage in the sabotage?

<comment><USER6> Why would North Korea demand a ransom and then demand the movie not be shown?

I think its more to embarrass Sony than anything.

<comment><USER3> I do think that the ransom makes the North Korea explanation less likely, unless NK reached out to #GOP after they were not given a ransom and offered to pay?

The other explanation seems to be that #GOP would demand the movie not be shown to confuse the scent of their real motive (revenge? lulz?) (but this is also questionable IMO). It also seems unlikely that an ex-employee would use the same IPs from previous Korean state sponsored attacks, although maybe they could have bought access to these servers on underground forums? Others are suggesting that this is entirely invented evidence - I see no good reason to believe that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And they say North Korean hacking is often done from China. And the US tries actively to infiltrate North Korean computers... Sorry, I don't trust any source, it's just finger pointing. Wired offers a different perspective of the same story [http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack- sony-p...](http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs/)

<comment><USER8> Silver lining is it's incredible press for The Interview, excellent crisis management by Sony's PR people. Apart from this Wired article all I've read is PR and political finger pointing.

<comment><USER9> Incredible press for a movie whose release they just canceled? The movie's getting a hell of a lot of attention; I'll grant you that. But I don't see how this helps the movie.

I know a lot of people are speculating that Sony has something up its sleeve, like a limited-time-only release right after Xmas, or early next year, or a digital release, etc. I'd consider that an extraordinarily slim to nil outside possibility. The material leaked in the Sony hack does not exactly give the impression that these guys are marketing geniuses. Just sayin'. :)

For what it's worth -- not saying you're suggesting this, just that I've now heard the theory a couple dozen times -- some people are speculating that Sony engineered this entire fiasco as a publicity stunt for the movie. That sort of thinking is beyond-the-pale naive. Sony doesn't want to be civilly or criminally liable for having doxxed thousands of its own employees. Believe me.

<comment><USER10> The movie was unlikely to make much money and was risking the other, more major releases.

I bet they will release it later in the new year with excellent financial results.

<comment><USER9> They may well attempt to rerelease it, and its notoriety may attract a decent opening weekend. But notoriety alone won't save a turkey. If it's actually bad, this incident won't be able to turn around its long-term prospects. If it's good, that's a different story -- but if it were good, you'd think Sony wouldn't have pulled support so quickly in the first place.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't matter if it's a good film. That's why you see marketing campaigns saying 'just try it' \- even if the product is crap they still make 1 sale.

The film is getting such incredible hype a huge amount the profits will be in the opening night. Check out the Rotten Tomatoes score: critics are divided on whether it's a good film, but 96% of people want to see it.

If Sony don't release the film __eventually __internationally, they 'll lose money - but withholding it makes it a scarce commodity, drives hype etc.

What you are now reading about The Interview isn't politics, it's PR crisis management.

[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/?search=t...](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/?search=the%20interview)

<comment><USER9> Sure. But hence my point about opening weekend (trial) vs. what happens after opening weekend (ongoing business, lifetime earnings). You can drive trial of a bad product, but it's extremely hard to get people to keep coming back, or to tell others it's worth seeing. So your bad product + ultra-hype is basically a recipe for a big opening with extreme decay every day thereafter. This usually isn't enough to recoup the production, print & advertising costs of a major movie, especially when you factor in profit-sharing and other cuts to top-line revenue (Rogen and Goldberg are almost assuredly getting points on the movie's gross, and it's possible that Franco is, too.)

A general rule of thumb is that a movie studio spends at least as much on prints and advertising ("P&A") as it does on production costs for the movie itself. That is to say, if the movie cost $35M to make, Sony sunk another $35M or more into P&A. So it would need to earn more than $70M to break even (more than that, because everyone's taking points off the top-line gross, plus profit-sharing with theaters and distributors, etc.). Is it possible that Sony could earn that much on this sort of movie, given its notoriety? Maybe, maybe not. Notoriety alone can rarely get you to $70M. (It's possible, but unlikely.) To stand a better chance, your movie also needs to be halfway decent.

Once again, I have no idea if this movie is good or bad. Just saying this for the sake of explanation.

<comment><USER8> Surely if the movie is bad this ([http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment- arts-30589472](http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30589472)) is still an incredibly good launch by world class pr people. If the movie is good then it's still a good launch and will make money afterwards. The thing about bad movies is you can _only_ make money on the opening weekend - this marketing was free (+the original marketing costs already spent and ignoring the lasting costs of being hacked) so the ROI will be incredibly good. Any film that caused the president to give a speech about it pre-release is going to do well on the opening weekend - I still don't think it matters if it turns out its a bad film or not, but I can't wait for the data. I guess it will be here? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interview_(2014_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interview_\(2014_film\)) And total costs around <$100m (again discounting hack).

This also isn't taking into account the ROI from turning Sony into the victim in this scenario - not a massive company with a tiny, unsophisticated infosec team who messed up big time by not investing more in security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As mentioned by others, there isn't any solid evidence here. I consider NYT one of the more reputable news sources out there (the bar is pretty low...), but this situation reminds me all too well of the following which I half- jokingly shared with a friend recently:

      How to be a media outlet in 5 easy steps:
      - do not provide any sources, at all, unless of course you're dogfooding
      - make bold claims based on hearsay, comments from random strangers and uneducated/irrelevant celebrities
      - judge and slander people before any researched verdict has been reached
      - spread lies and make them truths through mob behavior, then support your original lies by pointing to the "public consensus"
      - do not take responsibility for any of your actions, ever, unless it generates money and/or attention

The repercussions of these half-assed "investigations" worry me to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not to put too fine a point on it, Sony's security practices were so negligent, _anyone_ could have done it. The tools used were very unimpressive and easily available.

The evidence linking this to any nation-state at all at the moment is incredibly weak, bordering on non-existent.

<comment><USER13> Not just "anyone", but there could've been _multiple_ unrelated groups hacking them at once. Didn't they say there's some evidence of hacking from 2 years ago? Some of them could've just hacked them and Sony never found out about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was certain that the story of NK being the actor here was just publicity, paid for by Sony to promote the film and capitalize on their hacking disaster. The release cancellation nixed the idea that Sony was behind the threats, but it still didn't point to NK's culpability. Any lunatic could have bombed any theater in the country next week and Sony would have been liable.

With these administration comments, is it more likely that NK was actually responsible? It's still possible that this will turn out to be the overblown suspicions of somebody unfamiliar with how digital attacks work, published too quickly because they fit the narrative. We've seen the state of journalistic fact checking lately, and even if this is the NYT, 'senior administration officials' isn't a bulletproof source. But it's also possible that we now live in an era where nations wage proxy digital war against corporations not just for theft but for ideology.

This would be a strange new state of affairs. I wonder how long before corporations are fighting back? If, say, Samsung's expected value for government reconstruction contracts following NK's fall was in the tens of billions, how difficult would it be for them to cause a couple military installations, power plants, or leaders' flights to explode and make regime change more likely?

<comment><USER15> > Any lunatic could have bombed any theater in the country next week and Sony > would have been liable.

Source? The bomber would be liable but why would Sony be? (Provided that they informed at least law enforcement and certainly if they made the details of the threats public).

<comment><USER14> I meant that the probability of losing a civil suit, in the event that the threatened disaster occurred, was high enough to impose heavy cost on showing the film. Criminal liability would of course fall to the perpetrator.

In retrospect, I was wrong - it was the theater chains who would be exposing to themselves to that risk, so they (very logically) cancelled their showings. As a result Sony was forced to pull the film's theater release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is the new normal. The US government does this, the French do this, the Chinese do this, Syria does this, North Korea does this... etc.

As with other new frontiers of geopolitical leverage there will be a painful learning and a growing period for the internet. There's so many ways it could turn out and I fluctuate between being hopeful and pessimistic and what I will temporarily think is 'realistic'.

<comment><USER16> I must have missed alot, what are other instances of attacks like this? We are not talking about espionage or theft, the Sony attack was plain malice. The only prior examples I can think of are private activists (eg Anonomous) or major tactical targets (eg nuclear centrifuges).

<comment><USER3> We differ in that I would group this action together with espionage and sabotage, but if you are looking for other examples of nation state sponsored 'malice' attacks the Syrian Electronic Army's ("state-supported") attack of Ebay, Paypal, Ferrari, Walmart, media organizations, security companies, government twitter accounts, and Microsoft (and others) are examples of attacks that are meant to hurt reputation and cause chaos more than they were about data or finance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem with assuming...

[http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack- sony-p...](http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs/)

I find it funny how fast pop-media news jumps on top of a bandwagon without actual investigation.

Earlier we were being told "North Korea is definitely behind this". Right now everyone is saying "North Korea is probably not behind this".

Why bother with networks that just regurgitate information from other people? Don't push a point of view, just lay out actual facts and let the readers come to their conclusions as more information is made available.

<comment><USER13> It's sad that most of mainstream media considers "getting semi-official government leaks" as "investigating" now, as if the government could never lie or anything. When your sources come from Joe Biden's right hand (just an example), you should be very suspicious.

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't even limit it to semi-official government leaks.

For instance, New Gingrich said:

> No one should kid themselves. With the Sony collapse America has lost its > first cyberwar. This is a very very dangerous precedent.[1]

> @RobLowe it wasn't the hackers who won, it was the terrorists and almost > certainly the North Korean dictatorship, this was an act of war [2]

So now we have uninformed rhetoric coming out from people who—unfortunately—may have their opinions viewed as credible due to their past as an elected official. This was a candidate for presidency in 2012.

[1] [https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122](https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122)

[2] [https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339504803196928](https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339504803196928)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are interesting "free speech" implications to this too. E.g. North Korea seems to have succeeded in scaring off all the major theater chains from showing "The Interview" in theaters.

</comment><comment><USER19> _" Much of North Korea's hacking is done from China."_

If the hack was indeed state sponsored as this article claims (based on comments from unnamed intelligence officials), then it seems much more likely that the hack was done by Chinese hackers than North Korean.

<comment><USER20> Right. I can certainly buy a joint China/NK venture with China providing the talent and resources, but I can't imagine NK has the ability to pull of any decent hacks.

<comment><USER21> Why not? They are a military first nation.

You don't think that they would have a cyberwar unit?

<comment><USER20> Sure, I bet they do have one. But it's probably not nearly as good as they think it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The implications of a US response to this hack are limited by how much evidence the intelligence agencies are willing to provide - it's unlikely that they would want to divulge the details around their own penetration to North Korean networks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Amnesty International is fairly well known for encouraging private citizens like you and like me to write letters to government officials of governments that hold "prisoners of conscience." I have done this before, and I should do this more often. When I lived in Taiwan in the early 1980s, under the former dictatorship there, I actually spoke in public at a speech contest for foreign students on the occasion of Sun Yat-sen's birthday on how much Taiwan then didn't live up to the ideals of the 1911 revolution in China as proclaimed by Sun.

I have got to look up how to join more direct communication to the reclusive government of north Korea, in my own name, recording my own return address, and making clear that I will not be pushed around by a regime of thugs. I have recently been following the suggestion of another Hacker News participant and have read the three-volume history of the Nazi regime by Richard Evans, the _Third Reich_ trilogy. Evans notes in various places in his books that even the Nazis were responsive to international opinion on some issues. In the early period of the Nazi regime, Hitler used to receive personal letters from American eugenicists and segregationists who praised the policies of his regime. I don't want my not saying anything at all to be construed as consent or as fear of indicating disagreement with a dictator. I will have to openly and frequently express my disagreement with the world's remaining dictators until they all fall.

The North Korea Now website

[http://www.northkoreanow.org/take-action-now/get-your- voice-...](http://www.northkoreanow.org/take-action-now/get-your-voice-heard/)

provides advice on how to write letters that may have influence on the regime there. Sure enough, one part of the advice is to write to China, the country that does the most to prop up Kim Jung-un's regime. A letter to be broadcast by Free North Korea Radio

[http://www.northkoreanow.org/now-accepting-letters-from- amer...](http://www.northkoreanow.org/now-accepting-letters-from-america-a- special-program-for-u-s-americans/)

might also help. A Washington Post editorial from October 2014

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-koreas- leaders-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-koreas-leaders-must- be-held-to-account-for-human-rights- abuses/2014/10/30/7e6026d4-603f-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html)

lists other steps to take to express disagreement with the regime in north Korea.

<comment><USER24> I found your comment to be very thought-provoking. There's a lot to make fun of with regards to North Korea (as "The Interview" obviously does) but the regime's human rights abuses are well-documented and horrifying. I hadn't considered that there might be something I could do personally, and I appreciated your historical example of how even the smallest individual expressions is not necessarily completely insignificant. It's certainly something I hope my ancestors would have done. Brings to mind Tolkein's letter to a publishing house in Germany: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Politics_and_r...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Politics_and_race)

So I'll write a letter--now seems like an excellent time, honestly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been getting a kick out of North Korea's response: "Nah, we didn't do it, but who ever did, righton! <thumbsup>"

<comment><USER26> That's a lot of people's response. Sony Pictures does bad things, so while I have to say "this kinda thing shouldn't be done", at least it happened to a deserving company.

<comment><USER25> Remember, Sony Pictures is a different entity than Sony Music Entertainment.

<comment><USER27> Sorry, not a valid point. Both entities use the name "Sony" for a reason: the goodwill associated with it. They have to accept the bad press along with the good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sony should use this opportunity to capitalize on a digital distribution model since they aren't going to release the film to theaters.

</comment><comment><USER29> Contrary to many posters, I think it's indeed very likely N. Korea was the origin of the attack.

Disclaimer: I'm not pro war and generally not pro- US foreign policy. The events in Iraq were shameful. Our involvement in Libya and the so called Arab spring was shameful. Our involvement in Ukraine and general treatment of Russia has been deplorable and painful to watch. I think we should stop saber rattling at Iran who I believe would join the modern world much more quickly if they weren't being constantly threatened and undermined by a power that has done them some serious wrong in the past. The US's seemingly unconditional support of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is unconscionable in my estimation.

That being said, I feel differently about North Korea. I believe this country truly is dangerous and steps should be taken sooner vs. later to dis-empower it. I am genuinely worried worried about what might come from there in the next decade or two if things continue as they are.

Just my opinions.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really don't buy this. Attribution of anyone is incredibly difficult. It's easy for the US to officially point fingers and turn it into a geopolitical play. There is every incentive to do so: it's plausible, the media buys it, and it buys major points in the Us vs. Them narrative.

<comment><USER13> Get ready for the "we need to pass new cyber-laws to protect you" speeches. They're coming.

<comment><USER31> This sends shivers down my spine. We already have net neutrality to worry about, no doubt the far right will be using this event to fear monger that kind of legislation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A long article with no evidence. Literally, there is no evidence in this article.

I truly hope people still aren't this naive after an entire decade of this kind of "journalism".

</comment><comment><USER33> The counterpoint to this is presented in [http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north- korea-did-not-hack-sony-p...](http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did- not-hack-sony-probs/)

Namely that the attackers don't even mention the movie, but instead seem to be on an ant-Sony crusade. Mentions of the movie by the "attackers" only seem to start happening when people started saying it could be NK.

</comment><comment><USER34> The last time a communist country did a hack like this was during the Cold War. The hackers were coke addicted West Berliners paid off by the KGB to infiltrate high value and key .mil servers. My guess is that this time it is no different. Read Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg and you'll see how very little for geopolitics of these attacks have changed.

</comment><comment><USER35> If it was possible, I'd place a bet that the NSA know's who's responsible but likes to sit back and watch chaos unfold between the media and politicians.

</comment><comment><USER36> and North Korea likely has the means to reach out and get the actors too

</comment><comment><USER37> When can we expect legislation mandating that the NSA secure all corporate networks?

</comment><comment><USER38> And there I was, thinking it was all for the lolz.

</comment><comment><USER39> This article is glorious. A real goldmine for satire.

 _The sudden urgency inside the administration over the Sony issue came after a new threat was delivered this week to desktop computers at Sony's offices that if "The Interview" was released on Dec. 25, "the world will be full of fear." It continued: "Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time."_

Won't anyone think of .. national security?</comment>


Navigation Apps Are Turning Quiet Neighborhoods into Traffic Nightmares - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/nyregion/traffic-apps-gps-neighborhoods.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur <comment><USER2> I have a hard time believing this will hold up in court. Surely they take some measure of federal money to keep up those roads - blocking access to other taxpayers just because they reside outside your city is clearly unequal treatment.

The problem here seems more like the infrastructure that is being diverted around, rather than the alternate routes themselves...

<comment><USER3> Los Gatos has closed a highway onramp now for two consecutive summers and it is perfectly legal

In California, you only need approval of Caltrans. In other states it is likely similar.

Many people think there is a "taxpayer" angle...there isn't. The governing body of the roads typically has blanket authority to close roads without public consent

In the end, Towns will reconfigure themselves to be giant cul de sacs.

<comment><USER4> Palo alto residential areas have tons of roadblocks. Honestly smart choice by the residents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What happens when each of our individual devices has enough compute to be our personalized AI based navigation system? Will it compete with the other AIs also on the road? Will it learn offensive techniques to expedite it's routes? Will your economic status allow your AI to access more data and be better? Will you be able to optimize your AI for family driving vs. competitive commuting?

<comment><USER6> Premium subscribers will get the better routes. Companies will pay Google etc to divert people past their businesses and hit them with an advert at the right time. We are the product and we will be delivered to the customer.</comment></comment>


Damien Katz' interview on abandoning Apache CouchDB - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/01/Katz-CouchDB-Couchbase-Server <comment><USER2> CouchDB has always been the least competitive alternative in comparison with other (better designed?) NoSQL systems like HBase, Cassandra, Riak, Redis, and MongoDB. The progress of those other systems has been steady -- during the last few years, CouchDB has lost its position as the major nosql document store to MongoDB -- while CouchDB's community trudged on uncertainty and bad design decisions. It was a matter of time until CouchDB just vanished.

Damien Katz is just assuming the above reality and restarting from scratch . He's always stated that he was investing a lot of time, and sacrificing many things, so that he could support his family AND work on something relevant. Nevertheless, I dislike this strategy of abandoning a project by "donating" it to the open source community. Just call it quits, for God's sake!</comment>


I'm Old, Part XLI: Trolling Creative People - <AUTHOR> http://plinth.org/techtalk/?p=300 <comment><USER2> How to cheat at 20 questions: instead of picking a single thing to be the answer, keep a set of things in mind. As you answer the yes-or-no questions, prune the set so everything in it still satisfies all the questions. If your set has more than one element at the end, pick an answer nobody guessed.

I thought of this when my kids were little but don't think I ever pulled it on them.

<comment><USER3> If you want to go to the quantum physics end of things, play the classic game, with a twist. The "it" person leaves the room while everyone else decides on the object. Instead however, they agree that no one will have any idea of what the object actually is, and they are free to answer the questions however they want, but with the following rule: each answer must remain consistent with all previous answers.

<comment><USER4> So everyone has their own object ?

I like the idea of everyone having the set of all objects and then as each person is asked, not being allowed to contradict any other answer, until everyone has the same object.

<comment><USER3> It's even more bizarre... no one has an object at all. You essentially build up the object from a set of properties defined by asking yes or no questions, the answers to which must be consistent. It's actually possible that the object will only be known when the last question is asked and answered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a bastardized version of a game called Danetki (in Russian) whereby one person tells the end of the story and other players must guess what the whole story was by asking Yes/No questions.

E.g. - In the middle of an undisturbed snowfield lies a man. Next to him lies a piece of cloth. What happened?

E.g. - A man wakes up in the morning, gets up from bed, looks in the mirror and then throws himself out of the window, killing himself. Again, what happened?

This sort of thing. An excellent way to pass some time on long train rides. But after a while everyone runs out of stories, so someone inevitably turns to this trolling variation and that's how the evening ends.

<comment><USER3> We call them "Minute Mysteries" where I grew up in the US... I'd guess it was brought over from Russian immigrants. I remember the ones you mentioned, along with one about someone hanging themselves on an ice brick, another about someone drawing a short straw on a hot air balloon, and I think one about a runner in baseball coming in to home.

<comment><USER6> > someone hanging themselves on an ice brick

Spoilers! The riddle is that someone is found hung on top of a water puddle and no chair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We used to do a mind-reading trick like this: the magician takes somebody out of the room and "attunes" them - ie tells them the rules, which are .. if the magician asks if the object is something that has a specific attribute, such as being a certain colour, then its not that thing but is the _next_ thing that the magician will ask about. then the magician comes back to the room, and the people there decide on an object. Beckon the mind reader back in and the magician points to a series of objects and the mind reader gets the correct one, every time

<comment><USER8> I know this as "black magic", and the item prior to the correct item would be black.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Next time, begin with this question: "Are we playing \"Decadence\"?"

<comment><USER10> I admire your dedication to escaping your strings.

<comment><USER11> But aren't we all always looking to escape our strings? For such is the fate of puppets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've played a similar game called "Psychiatrist". Everyone sits in a circle, and the "it" person in the centre and asks yes/no questions of each person in turn. Their goal is to figure out the rule everyone's following, which is : "Answer as if you are the person on your left."

Any kind of personal question becomes hilarious. What makes it hard and extra fun is that every time someone answers wrongly, the person they're answering for (or anyone else) yells out "psychiatrist!" and everyone switches places - answers to the same questions change.

</comment><comment><USER13> This game reminds me of so many "brain teaser" questions... here are some things that, trust me, form a pattern. Guess what I'm thinking. WRONG.

Makes me think about puzzles & video games and how it's really easy and cheap to make something that's hard or unsolvable. It takes a lot of skill and iteration to get something to just hard enough but achievable that it's really fun and satisfying.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of Mao, where the rules of the game are unspoken and you have to learn the rules by playing.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_\(card_game\))

<comment><USER15> Taking the name of Our Great Leader in vain.

Discussing the rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The version of this that works for a group:

Put everyone who is playing in an order. The first three players start out in a room and have the rules explained to them. Everyone else is forbidden to come in this room. After the rules are explained, you call in the fourth player, play the game, and then explain the rules and they get to participate on the next round as the fifth player (and so on) is called in. Everybody but the last person gets to play both sides, which makes it more fun. You can change the rules, to mess with people who already know the game.</comment>


An
 application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK [pdf]
 - <AUTHOR> http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/girlfriend/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf

<comment><USER2> that was posted today already (and killed):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1030950></comment>


The Survival of Iggy Pop - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-survival-of-iggy-pop <comment><USER2> Guess you could call Muskegon 'outside Detroit' but it's quite a ways outside! But to be truthful no one ever heard of him until he moved to Ann Arbor, I think when he was in middle school. But my friends in Muskegon are still quite proud, only rock star to come from their town.

If you haven't seen it Anthony Bourdain did a great interview with him.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHnNlIjPe7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHnNlIjPe7M)

</comment><comment><USER3> Henry Rollins has a great Iggy Pop story.

Part 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBIIoI6c93c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBIIoI6c93c) Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFls7s_djY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFls7s_djY0)

<comment><USER4> That 1996 gig [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GsGuzbnkw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GsGuzbnkw0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this story catches your eye, be sure to listen to The Ongoing History Of New Music, especially this one:

[https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/why- punk-...](https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/why-punk- happened)

But he's talked about Iggy in a few other episodes as well.

If you have any interest at all in music, this is the best podcast you'll ever find.

</comment><comment><USER6> That picture of him in between Bowie and Reed.

Last man standing.....

<comment><USER7> Pop must be minute, Bowie was only around 5'5"

<comment><USER8> He' 5'7" according to Google. Posture tends to suffer with the amount of drugs they must have been taking, so who knows?

<comment><USER9> I attended his concerts twice, both times he was well past fifty and his posture was probably better than most of the audience (as was his fitness).

And it's really strange to see a thread discussing someone's height on this forum.

<comment><USER10> I've seen him several times over the years - firs time was '87, his "original" come back tour. I lived in Boston at the time, and the afternoon before the show I happened to be at the bar the show was being held. Iggy was sitting at the bar drinking water and talking to the bartender. I got a chat very briefly with him, but being in my early 20's at the time and a huge fan, I was too intimidated to really speak to him. About 2 years later, I met him for real at a wealthy person's BBQ in Los Angeles. I got a chance to sit and speak with him, and Bowie, for hours. One of my highlights of my life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a way to read this article without the popups and other dark patterns that make it impossible to finish reading?

<comment><USER12> Firefox reader mode. It makes the web readable again by stripping everything except the main content out and removes js. And has dark mode :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "You pursue something with passion and dedication and they call you a punk".

I remember seeing a video clip with Iggy saying something to this effect, probably on MTV, but have been able to find it online. If anyone can verify this quote by Iggy, please reply.

<comment><USER14> Not the exact same quote, but there's a Mogwai used a recording of an interview with Iggy for the opening track to "Come on die young" and it's great. It reads great, and it's even better when heard.

I'm sorry the link I've found is full of ads but I think it's worth it: [https://genius.com/Mogwai-punk-rock-lyrics](https://genius.com/Mogwai-punk- rock-lyrics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> His collaboration with Underworld was fantastic.

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

</comment><comment><USER16> Another great Iggy Pop story is the hilarious way in which his rider was written: [http://www.iggypop.org/stoogesrider.html](http://www.iggypop.org/stoogesrider.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Too bad he sold out to do car insurance ads: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlRjYlsC3bc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlRjYlsC3bc)

<comment><USER10> This "selling out" nonsense... attempting a career in art/music is by definition "selling out". Only rock n roll snobby gatekeepers have this attitude; in the rest of the world it's called "getting paid". Hip hop celebrates Getting Paid to the point of mocking the "selling out attitude" of rock n roll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Beyond his DS9 episode where he played an unconvincing Vorta, I've never heard of him. Cool name though.

<comment><USER19> Maybe you have heard The Passenger by him before: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLhN__oEHaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLhN__oEHaw) ?</comment></comment>


Top computer games of all time - <AUTHOR> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2259867/top-computer-games

<comment><AUTHOR> Spacewar! made #9, Tetris #2.

One-page format: <http://www.v3.co.uk/articles/print/2259867></comment>


Why do synthetic chemicals seem more toxic than natural ones? - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90391949/why-do-synthetic-chemicals-seem-more-toxic-than-natural-ones <comment><USER2> this article is disingenuous, esp for the hn crowd. it explains the difference between causality and causation (ok kids), and talks about how we need to understand probability, without actually talking about probability. utlimately though the problem with the article is that its vacuous: the question it purports to address, 'why do synthetic chemicals seem more toxic'? is not actually addressed, other than to say that "toxicity depends on dose" (a comprehensive comparison is impossible). so a casual reading of it implies the assumption is wrong (ie, natural chemicals are equally or more toxic. it does remind us that the top toxic substances are natural). sure, but is that useful? on a supercial level, yes even the word "chemical" sounds "toxic" to a layperson. add another "sciency" word like "synthetic" on top (vs the beautiful imagery a word like "nature-al" evokes) and of course the synthetic "seems more toxic". i summed it up in two sentences. yes, the layperson would be wrong. but why an article? the significant reality to those with some education on the subject, which was alluded to, but not addressed, has to do with doses. where are most humans actually exposed to toxins? via agriculture? so is there a difference between organic and non organic practises? this is left to the reader. there is, but its not what you think. i cant help but think there is an ulterior motive for publishing this scientific-sounding article in a business magazine, or perhaps the student who wrote it is just.. well.. procrastinating on a paper.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because, by and far, they quite often are.

Dronabinol, synthetic marijuana, has been proven so far to have killed 6 people, on its own without other drugs present. How many has natural marijuana directly killed, under the same erquirements, provably?</comment>


Show HN: Honey as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.honeywithastory.com/

<comment><USER2> Maybe consider adding an even smaller micro(?) plan. 0.25kg of honey is still too much for a lot of people, to receive on a monthly basis. Maybe a plan that has honey sent once per quarter?

Digging the design, so good job on that!

<comment><AUTHOR> A great suggestion, thank you so much. A couple of people told me that already, so I think I will add such a plan very soon.

By the way, if you were to subscribe for such a 'micro' plan, would you prefer to be charged for the delivery once a quarter or to get it distributed among the quarter's months?

Thanks for the kind words about the design :) Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added a Micro plan, will add a nice cover page for it soon. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't tell if the price is per delivery or per year, I assume per delivery based on the quantity.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right, the price is per delivery.</comment></comment>


How Start-ups Are Bypassing Recruiters - <AUTHOR> http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2407/how-start-ups-are-bypassing-recruiters/

<comment><USER2> And yet recruiters still exist and employers keep paying them.....</comment>


Universal PostgreSQL Exports - <AUTHOR> http://sorentwo.com/2015/06/22/universal-postgres-exports.html

<comment><USER2> `\copy` is better than scp-ing to the other server

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I wasn't aware the `\copy` command was scoped to the current working directory.

[https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/COPY](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/COPY)</comment></comment>


Apple co-founder says Microsoft's Bing is 'astounding' - <AUTHOR> http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/169769.asp?source=rss <comment><USER2> It's not a bad idea to look at new products without any kind of bias. For example some month ago I started looking for the first times to Microsoft Live image search features, and I found many things about this service that are better than Google images search.

<comment><USER3> Agree. I've only recently taken a look at live maps but I'm very impressed by the bird's eye feature.

I still use google maps as my default but I sometimes find myself switching.

That being said it's one thing liking a feature when you've had a chance to play with it yourself and quite another when all you've seen is a demo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really strange interview. Granted, Woz is a sucker for shiny objects, but praising "the algorithms" after seeing just a presentation? Also, the interviewer's favorite features were website preview popups and customer service numbers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, and ends by saying "I'm a fan until I find out it is no good."

</comment><comment><USER6> Was Wozniak so talkative? I'm surprised. Looks as if he was trying to have a good time. He has interested me more than the Bingooo!

</comment><comment><USER7> Every time I hear Bing I for some reason recall Carmella Bing. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmella_Bing>

<comment><USER8> I'm afraid I think of Chandler from Friends.

And now you will too. It's a virus ...

<comment><USER8> As an additional point, these sorts of comments go to show how much "baggage" names carry, and just how hard it can be to find a good name for a company, product or service.

It has been suggested that the Vauxhall/GM "Nova" didn't sell well in Latin America because "Nova" can be interpreted as "won't/doesn't go" in Spanish, and when Rolls Royce brought out the "Silver Mist" to go with the "Silver Ghost" and other models, they didn't take into account that "Mist" in German means something entirely different (look it up).

Possibly it's somewhere between hard and impossible to find a name that nowhere has inappropriate connotations, but that shouldn't stop you from trying. Even so, someone will catch you by surprise.

When John H Conway found a new sporadic finite simple group he wanted to name it after himself, but wanted to get _others_ to name it after him. He called it "Point Zero", reasoning that others would get tired of calling it "Point Zero" and simply refer to it as "Conway's Group".

Then someone called it "Dotto".

<comment><USER9> Please stop repeating the Nova thing. It's an urban legend.

Just like us English-speaking peoples, people from Latin America understand the difference between separate and compound words.

Do you confuse a carpet and a car pet?

And according to Just As Reliable Sources As Yours, Rolls Royce changed the name _before_ introducing to Germany. If you try to find any records of a Rolls Royce Silver Mist, you will find that there are almost no results - because the name didn't ship. The only results are erroneous, or retellings of this stupid tale, or people debunking said stupid tale.

<http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp> <http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html> <http://www.rrocwa.com/Resources/FAQ.htm>

This is HN. For the love of god, check your facts. Especially if it's something that's so bad it's on Snopes.

<comment><USER8> My apologies for mis-speaking myself over the "Mist" aspect - I did know that the name was originally used, but changed before production.

Concerning the "Nova", I did say that it was suggested - I didn't say it was true. I know it's not true. No doubt I should've made that clearer. As a non- native speaker of English that happens on occasion.

I appreciate the corrections - thank you. I resent your tone, and suggest that this being HN does not exempt anyone from being at least marginally polite.

The point about the difficulty of name choice still stands, and there are numerous other examples of ill-advised names being chosen through ignorance of other languages. Perhaps you would care to find the positive and suggest other examples, rather than being purely negative.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why we removed our "dislike" button, and probably you should too - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/voten/we-just-removed-the-down-vote-button-7b0be47ae42b <comment><USER2> I've given a lot of thought to a system where you could only downvote by comment explaining your objection. The comment would be visibly a downvote comment and moderators could handle abuse of the system.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped reading their reasoning after a few sentences. Let people have their opinion, good and bad and stop whining around trying to be "all is cool".

<comment><USER4> Didn't read the dislike button, however the reason why I dislike dislike buttons/options is is squashed conversation, connection/engagement, and deepening understanding for all parties.</comment></comment>


A System Failure of German Journalism – Jens Soering's Guilt - <AUTHOR> https://hammeltranslations.com/2019/07/13/jens-soerings-guilt-and-a-system-failure-of-german-journalism/ <comment><USER2> While it's true that many German reports presuppose his innocence, and I've also wondered whether those reports overstate their case, the submitted article (rant) is extremely low-quality.</comment>


The Cortex: a 3D exoskeletal cast for broken bones - <AUTHOR> http://jakevilldesign.dunked.com/cortex

<comment><USER2> But, if it's a snug fit, how would you put it on? Presumably, if it is snug to the size of the wrist, it won't fit over the user's hand, same way a handcuff fit to the wrist won't fit over the hand.</comment>


SEO: Simplified Keyword Research (2020) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ_XUiUMIzE <comment><USER2> I cat recommend Ahrefs and Plerdy SEO-checker.</comment>


Show HN: Compare Covid Growth Rates Between Countries - <AUTHOR> https://cream.io/ <comment><USER2> The numbers seem out of date - you are showing the USA at 1678, while the Johns Hopkins dashboard is showing 4110. Maybe a timestamp of when the last update was?

Aside from that, I like it. Simple, effective visuals to compare growth rates. Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER3> Per capita / adjusted by population numbers would be great, thanks. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion! We'll keep track of all suggestions here :)</comment></comment>


History theft with CSS Boolean algebra - <AUTHOR> http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/css_algebra/

<comment><USER2> Impressive logic there! The example at the end (click the white square) was correct for this browser. Well done.</comment>


UniOS the first OS which runs Windows/MacOSX/Linux Programs natively - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/bs.uni.os?sk=info

<comment><AUTHOR> For all those who don't understand German and/or don't have Facebook (from Google Translate...):

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

UNIOS is the first operating system that allows easy starting of Windows, Mac and Linux programs with just one system.

It runs either Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X in the background - <USER2> virtualization takes place of the above operating systems.

Regardless of whether Microsoft Office 2010, Apple iLife, FaceTime or Dolphin program runs under any known UNIOS without driver issues!

The hardware control is handled by a specially written NT kernel - so users must only have the normal Windows drivers to install eg a DVB-T Stick. Plug and Play is also supported.

Antivirus programs are unnecessary thanks to the security procedures "sandbox" of each individual process is encapsulated in a sandbox - if someone wants to attacke the system can thus bring UNIOS not completely crash.

For gaming UNIOS is also ideal for UNIOS also supports requirements such as Microsoft DirectX 11 and OpenGL - so make games like Crysis 2 or Portal 2 is not a problem for UNIOS there.

UNIOS is modern and therefore meet the current demands - as well as technologies such as USB 3.0 or Bluetooth 3.0 compatible!

The user can customize the behavior and appearance of the windows - a Windows user can have the Close, Minimize and Maximize buttons on the right side and a Mac user on the Left! Thus, the user must not get used to the keyboard UNIOS combinations of the respective operating systems are possible!

A nice gimmick is the iPhone mode - the user can start iPhone apps in UNIOS. Then the user can only test an app under UNIOS before it synchronizes with his iPhone!

The hardware requirements are needed UNIOS the following:

Processor: 1.6 Giga Heartz (single core processor)

Memory: 512 MB RAM recommended 1GB of RAM, but

Hard disk space: 4.4 Giga bytes of free memory minimum

Graphics card: min capable with 64 MB of graphics memory and DirectX 9.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

All done by a team of students around Maik Mixdorf (18)...

I don't think it is real.. Maybe a bad Social Media Campaign?</comment>


OOCSS + Sass = The best way to CSS - <AUTHOR> http://ianstormtaylor.com/oocss-plus-sass-is-the-best-way-to-css/

<comment><USER4> I used to be in this school. It has some downsides. I'm now back to the twitter-bootstrap-many-classes-are-fine camp.

* your css can still get large in large sites. Even though you're not duplicating rules, you're still filling your rules up with lots of comma'd selectors.

* IE8 and lower have selector limits of 4095, we hit this because we used @extend on a fairly large site and had to split our css up more

* It creates more dissonance for developers that are comfortable applying ready made classes. Now they have to make up (sometimes it really is just making it up, there's no real semantic name) a class name for something, go to the sass file and add it. This is more steps than they need.

* Many of these things can be cleaned up by good usage of partials or their equivalent on the DOM side. You should be DRYing that up too, so I can't say I relate to the author's concerns about changing DOM.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wrote a very very similar article many months ago (but no upvotes * sob *) - perhaps people interested in this article would also be interested in my take on it, where I rely much more on mixins than extends:

<http://carrotblog.com/css-patterns-evolved/>

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, nice article! As long as you always group your selectors, mixins would do exactly the same thing as I'm describing. What's awesome about Sass @extend though is that you can ungroup your `.post, .comment, .friend ` selectors and Sass will regroup them for you! If you did that with mixins you'd end up with code duplication. Cheers!

<comment><USER5> Thanks! And definitely agreed - I never used @extends too much previously, but I'm starting to see some use cases for it. The placeholder class is an especially nice new feature outlined here, also props to Chris Eppstein for his awesome work on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't had the experience that HTML is harder to maintain if you use classes more liberally. What this approaches forces you to do is: write or edit CSS every time you want a new combination of existing traits...which isn't ideal either.

The post also suggests that certain class names are "unsemantic", when they obviously aren't. They just have different meaning to the sorts of class names the author is advocating.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I addressed that in the post. They are "non-semantic" as far as people normally apply the word "semantic" to HTML. You might say that they are still semantic, fine. But you'd be hard pressed to argue that they are different than classes like `.dropdown` or `.menu`, and that difference makes them _much_ more susceptible to change. Which means if you're littering your markup with those classes, you will have to sync those changes all over the place.

Yes there are still changes to make (there always will be), but with the OOSass approach you're doing it in a single place. Want all of your statuses to be `.media` modules? One place. Not n places. Moving the work from the n-side to the 1-side is the mark of a good abstraction.

<comment><USER7> I've been working on my own framework for the last several months and I've been back and forth a bit on this issue. On the one hand I strongly believe that 1.) writing and editing markup is easier than writing CSS (browser inconstancies, context switching), and 2.) your coworkers are probably a lot more proficient with HTML than CSS. On the other, when you start getting class attributes like "col-12 secondary-panel rounded-top inner-shadow pam" you may have gone off the rails a bit. I guess it depends on where you want the mess to be. One argument that keeps me coming back to the multiple class names camp is that keeping your classes semantic and extending your patterns requires writing more Sass every time you add new content, where going nuts with class names doesn't. I love being able to add a new component to the app without having to open up a single stylesheet. We also have trouble running into the 4095 selector limit in IE8 when we package everything, so every extra class we can shave off helps (although in this specific case the problem is more with having a Sass codebase that has been rode over roughshod by five+ developers for the last year).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Chris Eppstein recently wrote a comprehensive article about the changes in Sass 3.2: [http://chriseppstein.github.com/blog/2012/08/23/sass-3-2-is-...](http://chriseppstein.github.com/blog/2012/08/23/sass-3-2-is- released/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this possible in LESS?

I know LESS mixins "is kind of the same thing", but the way i understand the %placholder is that it doesn't paste code into the class where you call it. It actually builds a dynamic class containing the code and then add the selectors/classes/ids (thats using the placeholder) to that class. Right? Right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup you're right. And nope, it's not possible it LESS. Mixins actually aren't the same thing, they are just a way to duplicate code, which is exactly what you're trying to avoid. I'd seriously recommend you try Sass. It's got much more going for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the creator (of Sass) "it's Sass not SASS"

<https://twitter.com/hcatlin/status/256142344431214592>

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call, fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can either repeat yourself by using "@extend %mypattern" in Sass using this methodology, or repeat yourself in the DOM with ".mypattern" in the OOCSS approach.

Both are elegant ways of handling the same task, but I don't think one is much more DRY than the other.

I'd argue that it's more correct to describe a class once and apply it to many elements (OOCSS) than it is to describe it many times over and apply it to each element individually (Sass @extend).

<comment><USER5> If you are looking for more power, you can use mixins rather than extends. This way, you do get an additional and very signficant power boost - <USER2> previously were utility classes are now functions, which take parameters and have the ability to adapt and flex if you write them correctly.

<comment><USER12> Yup, I've been using mixins for a while now to reduce code bloat. It seems like placeholders are degenerate forms of mixins.

 _edit_ After more reading, they are most definitely not degenerate forms of mixins. Placeholders FTW!

<comment><USER5> The one advantage that extends provides is less code bloat (if you use them right) in the compiled product - rather than inserting the same code, extends will add the select to the list with the previous selector. So if you were to write something like this:

.hello { color: red; }

.world { @extends .hello; background: blue }

...it would compile to something like this:

.hello, .world { color: red; }

.world { background: blue; }

na'mean?

<comment><USER12> I'm picking up what you're putting down, but I was thinking more placeholders vs. mixins. Although I guess placeholders would avoid this code bloat too, and they can be used as selectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr Somebody discovered the power of mixins

I don't see how SASS is doing something unique here that other preprocessors can't do as well.

<comment><USER14> Placeholder classes are new in SASS 3.2, so the blog post is explaining how to do them and what problem they solve.

It's not unique, but it has been an awfully long time coming. See: <https://github.com/nex3/sass/pull/236>

<comment><USER13> Based on the blog post I'm not seeing how I can't do that in Less for example. I'm using lessphp and I can build patterns like

.media() { // won't compile directly width: 100%; // other cool styling }

img { .media; }

which would output just

img { width: 100%; }

Gives me similar results I think or am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> The entire point of @extend is so that you don't get the extreme code duplication of mixins. I can't speak authoritatively on LESS since I stopped using it a long time ago, but what happens when you apply that `.media` pattern to another selector? It duplicates all the styles, instead of grouping common selectors into one style definition like @extend does.

And the point is even @extend can get bloaty when nested, but placeholder tags avoid that problem, and remove the extra pattern classes from the output.

So the article is actually advocating that you stop using mixins. Mixins aren't OOCSS, they're just copy and paste made easier.

<comment><USER13> It's quite easy to create duplicate styles in the output with mixins - <USER3> compiler isn't that smart yet, do placeholders avoid all of that? I haven't seen a lot of comparisons or examples that really drive it home so far.

I'm actually working on a css post-processor script that optimizes css output. Grouping styles in the most efficient way possible is quite tricky.

<comment><AUTHOR> @extend avoids duplication, but by itself it has some other bloat problems. @extend + %placeholders completely avoid duplication. Thing is @mixins aren't supposed to avoid duplication, they just inject, and should keep the declaration in the same position in the stylesheet.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for expanding on the differences

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's so DRY... I absolutely love the approach. Way to take the original idea and run with it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Love the way that works. The only problem with it is that a another, non- related, CSS class still needs to be used. If the element doesn't call for another class you could select the elements directly, but that kinda defeats the point of OOCSS.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. I'm just advocating for removing the pattern-level classes. The component-level and context-level classes should still remain. Component-level would be `.dropdown` and context-level would be `.user-dropdown` or `.explore- page .dropdown`. Those should be selected and javascript'ed.

But that way all of the purely presentational classes are kept completely in the CSS where they belong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In an ideal world, I'd like to be able to use the CSS framework of my choice e.g. bootstrap, semantic markup for the reasons the author described in the article, and, the ability to extend my semantic classes with the .span2, .container, etc. classes from the framework.

I actually thought about doing it this way by just importing the bootstrap CSS and extending from the various parts, but I realised elements inside the element I'm going to extend from container won't have the container parent class and thus won't get the correct CSS applied.

Does anyone know of something that solves this?

<comment><USER5> I thought this exact same thing a few months and have been building a framework that works exactly this way. I've spoken about it at a number of small meetups and events.

I haven't released it to the public yet, and it's currently getting a rewrite and bump to v2, but if you'd like to check it out i can send it over.

<comment><USER17> Sorry for the delayed reply. Yes, I would very much like to see that. I'd love to try it out, and would happily give feedback on using it in a couple of personal projects. My email's in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Have you seen Compass Recipes? <http://compass-recipes.moox.fr/>

It seems like it does exactly what you want, collect patterns in a very simple way of reusing it. The only bad thing is that they are created as mixins, but it shouldnt be that hard to just create a placeholder class including each mixin that you need.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hi there. Great post.

I completely agree with what you're saying and I've wrote similar things on <http://www.betterfrontend.com> \- perhaps you can help contribute this content there?

Semantics for the win baby.

</comment><comment><USER20> Again isnt this what SASS is for?

<comment><USER14> SASS pre-3.2 didn't have the idea of classes that exist at compile time just to be extended. Without the placeholder directive you'd have unused classes polluting your CSS, which goes against the DRY ideals of OOCSS.

It's a complete no-brainer, and I was a little surprised to see SASS didn't have it last year when I was looking into it. Better late than never though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A small point, but it would be great if your examples came with a render of what it looks like. The description helps, but without the visual to match it the context is slightly harder to grasp.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you want a whole Sass framework that uses OOCSS take a look at inuit.css

<https://github.com/csswizardry/inuit.css>

</comment><comment><USER23> So... basically, author uses a compiles-to-css to DRY up his code.

<comment><USER24> And importantly, to DRY up his compiled CSS as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Love it. Clever and clean.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great!!! Thanks</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when a project is "finished"? - <AUTHOR> I now consider an open source project I did, Umbrella JS [1], is "finished". By this I mean it has everything I wanted it to have, it's tested extensively* and documented heavily* .
My initial idea for the project was to use it myself and now I'm doing it and I love it. However I have a strong feeling that "I should keep improving it", but at the same time I think that this feeling is what makes projects become bloatware and too big/complex for their own good, which happened to me before [2].
The main thing is that if some people happen to find the project, I don't want them to think it's a "dead project". For sure I'll fix small (or big) bug reports and maintain it, but I expect the needed work in this aspect to be minimal.
So, what can I do now that this project is finished? Just leave it as it is or do you recommend other course of action? I can think getting more people using it might reveal bugs quicker (I don't mind if many or few people use it per se, but less bugs for sure is better).
Is this feeling of "I should keep making more things" normal after finishing a big-ish project? What do other people do in this situation?
[1] http://umbrellajs.com/ (when is a project finished?) [2] http://picnicss.com/ (too many "broken features")
*at least for a 1-person project <comment><USER2> If a project is still fixing bugs, maybe "maintenance mode" is a better description than "finished". On the grand scale, there are "well known" projects that have gone more than a decade between releases: e.g. Enlightenment [1].

One of the things I think Clojure has done right is finishing things. Continuously changing a dependency [which is one aspect of all software] makes work for people relying on it downstream.

Good luck.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_\(software\))</comment>


Apple Silicon Macs to Require Signed Code - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11-universal-apps-beta-release-notes <comment><USER2> > This new behavior doesn't change the long-established policy that our users > and developers can run arbitrary code on their Macs, and is designed to > simplify the execution policies on Apple silicon Mac computers and enable > the system to better detect code modifications.

This doesn't seem like a big deal.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Apple's linker will automatically sign code, and it seems third party tool chains will be able to do so, too (at least, that's why I get from the phrase _"which includes signatures which are now generated automatically by the linker"_ )

One problem area could be running old unsigned x86 programs. It seems users will be able to sign those, but I expect most users wouldn't know how to do that.</comment></comment>


The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-best-technology-for-fighting-climate-change-isnt-a-technology/ <comment><USER2> The solution proposed is reforestation. The article mentions at the end that "There is good work being done on this front already", but fails to mention a fact that does not fit their narrative:

"Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world's tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers—an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined—over the past 35 years"

From here: [https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more- trees-...](https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-trees-than- it-did-35-years-ago)

<comment><USER3> Yeah it seems to be pushing reforestation for the wrong reasons. "Just plant more trees" as a carbon solution was long mocked as ignorance and even their boasts are damning with faint praise - a small country for /a year's/ emission? Don't get me wrong - forestation is a worthy cause but more for they are for local climate interactions like preventing soil erosion/building soil quality, and helping to be a buffer against flooding instead global systemic issues.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Event-driven web development - <AUTHOR>

Came across http://nitrogenproject.com/ and thought wow cool. What are other even-driven web development frameworks and what do you think of them? <comment><USER2> I hate the idea of tying front end to backend. Maybe it's prejudice.</comment>


Are there good solutions for age verification? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the projects I am currently involved with features erotic content. For the time being we have eliminated all pictures that could be illegal (at least in our country), but it would be so much nicer to have a reliable age verification system.

Are there any good solutions for that, preferably covering as many countries as possible? For example, I am pretty sure that for Germany the standard "credit card check" is insufficient, as the law will just argue that "the child might borrow the credit card". Would it be sufficient for the USA, and is there a way to check the country of origin that our users are coming from?

</comment><comment><USER2> I noticed on a few commercial sites (I believe it was an Anheuser-Busch site) that asked for your name and city, state (and possibly email for unique identifier?). Then, it magically age verified you. It was pretty nifty.

I believe they must have used a product like ChoicePoint's Age Verification (<http://www.choicepoint.com/business/financial/ageverif_fs.html).> Basically a database of public records.

Hope that helps, Wayne Chang

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect just verifying by name and address would be too easy to hack by the kids? Just enter their neighbour's address and name...

Personally I would consider credit card ownership as sufficient, as I think they are only handed out to adults? If a kid steals the credit card it is probably so spoiled already that some erotica won't do much further harm... But the law doesn't agree everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most companies are using Maxmind GeoIP database for IP-Location lookup.

In general there is almost no practical way to verify age. Credit cards are the best filter, and even that has flaws.

Have a legal disclaimer that must be accepted before any content is available (cookie-based). Ensure your obeying your local laws regarding distribution of pornography.

</comment><comment><USER4> [totally edited]

Sorry, this is more of a legal, rather than technical question. Did you do a google search? <http://www.idology.com> claims to have something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have googled, but it is difficult to judge the services that come up. (Edit: just found that Idology seems to verify based on street address - good enough for a mail order company, I guess, but probably not for access restrictions to a web page?).

It is of course a legal question, but also a technical one. For example it is a technical question if I can determine the country my user is coming from. I suspect not, though (user could use proxy in other country) - or at most, one could determine a probability and then it would again become a legal question.

<comment><USER5> I am fairly certain that it is possible to determine country by IP. I have seen this done before in several cases: some products with encryption are illegal to "export", and thus restrict the IPs that can access them. Also, I have seen the same for content providers who only have a license for a certain market (specifically I have seen a Japanese company restrict their content to "Japanese IPs").

You make a good point about proxying through different countries, but I don't think in you would be liable for that. Often these things work on some sort of a "reasonable effort" type clause, because its impossible to verify with complete certainty someones age programmatically.

Perhaps asking them trivia about music that was in style two decades ago...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> online porn? that's the one YC startup people would actually use! ;)</comment>