CSS vendor prefixes - Can we all get along - <AUTHOR> http://www.vcarrer.com/2010/05/css-vendor-prefixes-can-we-all-get.html

<comment><USER2> Vendor prefixes are important because _different browsers implement work-in- progress specs differently_. Theoretically (or practically, such as with border-radius), given the same value, browser X will implement it vastly different from browser Y.

Edit: rebuttal posted [http://kilianvalkhof.com/2010/css-xhtml/css-vendor- prefixes-...](http://kilianvalkhof.com/2010/css-xhtml/css-vendor-prefixes- considered-important/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that there's no consensus on how certain features work and their syntaxes/properties.

What -css3- property would we have for gradients if we have -moz-linear- gradient[1] and -webkit-gradient(linear, [...])[2]

Of course, I think the syntax issues are trivial, compared to implementation issues. If we go by the mantra that CSS should be _simple_ , I side with Mozilla and their gradients syntax.

The bigger issue is _how_ certain properties operate. For example, how border- radius and the box model play together, which is also different in my experience in webkit and mozilla (specially as far as padding is involved)

[1] <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/-moz-linear-gradient>

[2] <http://webkit.org/blog/175/introducing-css-gradients/>

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems very similar to the opengl extension mechanism. Where people try wild, crazy innovative stuff in an extension (similar to css prefixes). If the experimental stuff takes off then it can be moved over to opengl core in a future release.</comment>


Trap Streets - <AUTHOR> http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/47/bridle.php <comment><USER2> Fun fact: at ITA Software we put "trap flights" into the data so we could tell when people were using our data without our knowledge. These were flights between totally obscure city pairs, that departed a single day of the year at 3am. (No scheduled flights depart between 0300 and 0359 local time anywhere in the world.)

<comment><USER3> You might wish to delete this comment, as it could be used by a competitor to easily filter out such flights…

<comment><USER4> It's probably a trap comment. I'd wager the actual trap data is not as described there.

<comment><USER5> Above is probably a meta-trap comment. I'd wager the whole discussion exists only to create an impression that this is a crowded space and dissuade potential competitors from entering the market.

<comment><USER2> Got me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the past I've used a trap unicode character in a name in a public wiki- style CC-BY licensed database of politicians to confirm that a site was (not maliciously) failing to credit us.

This resulted in the person who was using our data reverting the unicode character edit in our database, probably because it was breaking their import scripts.

</comment><comment><USER7> I strongly suspect that the place where I live was used as a trap street by Google Maps for years.

It is a newly constructed apartment building in the outskirts of a small town. A small alley at the corner of the street where I live, which doesn't have any apartment numbers, was shown heavily distorted in the map (actually stepping over my building).

Beyond a desire of accuracy, I complained to the Google Maps because the distortion was extending to the part of my street where my apartment's doorstep is located, and delivery men were having problems to find my address. After several months sending bug reports, they finally fixed the corner layout.

I think this is an actual example of trap street because the accumulation of symptoms (supposedly no one living at that particular point, low traffic street, remote area, recent construction). If I'm right, this example shows that placing such traps can have an impact on the people living there.

<comment><USER8> You can edit data in Google Maps directly. It still has to be approved, but it often goes faster than trying to do it with bug reports.

[https://www.google.com/mapmaker](https://www.google.com/mapmaker)

<comment><USER9> I've done this - works pretty well and is easy. I added my address since it was new construction and friends were getting routed about a mile away to a different street.

Satisfying to say "remember how google maps couldn't find my address? I fixed it". A bit of the IKEA effect going on there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Governments should not own copyrights. A copyright is the ownership to a published work. However, taxpayers paid for the creation of the work, so they are the actual owners. Since everyone owns the work, there is no enforceable right.

<comment><USER6> While I agree with the conclusion that mapping data should be free, since it's useful infrastructure and will _probably_ help the entire economy more than it costs to make it free, I don't see how your argument necessarily follows.

Governments can own things in a way that doesn't mean that everyone has property rights over it -- just a democratic right to influence how it is used. The government owns the pavement, that doesn't mean I can dig it up and take it away (copyright is different from this, but just to illustrate "government propety" != "everyone's property")

In the case of mapping data, a government can choose the invest money in a product, which it then sells to a subset of the population. Charging means that taxpayers pay less. It also means there are direct customers that can drive the development of the product along the economically highest impact lines.

<comment><USER11> You have to have some context in order for the argument against government owning copyrights to make sense.

1\. Copyright was created in order to encourage the creation of things that might not otherwise be created were copyright not to exist; books, magazines, etc that without copyright nobody would have incentive to produce as anyone could just COPY it without investing the time to create it first

2\. Copyright is thus a legal construct for ensuring that the people who did some creative or laborious act had SOME way of getting paid, namely rationing it economically

3\. The government has already paid for the work to be done through taxes and this power is basically absolute; if you disagree try and not pay taxes and see how long you stay out of prison

4\. Charging people for things the government does may or may not be more economically efficient, it really depends on the cost associated with the infrastructure to accept payments and ration out the goods versus the cost of simply publishing for free, in recent times it's gotten cheaper to publish and cheaper to accept money

5\. The idea that the government has any right to ration _information_ as opposed to _physical goods_ is a tough sell because once the information is created and the marginal cost of replicating it is zero or very close to, what is the charging mechanism for?

I totally get why it might be better to ration roads or schools or whatever; they're tangible things and there's not an infinite amount of them. But everyone in the US can have a copy of the map for effectively free once it's been created so there's not a lot of good argument (at least in my opinion) why it shouldn't be free.

<comment><USER12> >Copyright was created in order to encourage the creation of things that might not otherwise be created were copyright not to exist; //

I'm really not so sure about this: initially, like in the Statute of Anne it was to protect publishers so they could profit from the work. This has a side- effect of encouraging creation in that content creators know they have the chance to make money rather than just having their work duplicated freely.

But in current renditions of copyright law the public domain is (or was) an important element - works that would otherwise have been held privately can be duplicated when the work is older, enriching the public domain just as patents enrich[ed] the public domain with information about inventions.

I think your assertion goes a step too far. WRT the US Constitution'd "copyright" clause [which I'm imagining you had in mind] isn't a million miles away but "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" could as easily be about making knowledge public as it is about rewarding authors of "Writings".

<comment><USER13> >initially, like in the Statute of Anne it was to protect publishers so they could profit from the work

How do you reconcile that claim with the opening of the Statute of Anne:

>Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families...

The problem was that publishers would just keep printing and selling, without compensating, or even informing the author. Copyright is a restriction on those who produce the physical artifact. It's probably one reason why those who produce the physical artifacts have been gobbling up copyrights for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> HN's obsession for trap locations is starting to become uncanny.

I'm not going to complain about it, though - no matter how obscure and niche it is, I gotta agree that it remains an interesting topic. How far can we push the obsession? Surprise me!

<comment><USER15> It's a common topic posted by people looking for a big boost of karma.

1\. Find the most popular topics (by points) in HN 2\. Manually filter out 'event' topics (e.g. product releases, time specific news items, etc) that won't work when reposted 3\. Wait until a topic hasn't been raised for a while and post a unique URL (either a related URL that hasn't been posted as a topic but maybe appeared in the discussion, or an existing URL that is made unique) 4\. Hope for big boost of karma

Which is why we often see many of the same old subjects being brought up again and again. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm sure that some are being posted by people trying to get their karma scores up.

Reminds me, where's that list of pg's essays...

<comment><USER16> [http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html) ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The relevant Wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right)

The question of how to enforce "Database Rights" boils down to proving that the data is both yours (through the use of fake data like trap streets), and that the act of compiling the data is non-trivial.

</comment><comment><USER18> Another interesting story about the same topic

[http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/03/18/290236647/an...](http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/03/18/290236647/an- imaginary-town-becomes-real-then-not-true-story)

</comment><comment><USER19> relevant links:

* [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs)

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

* [http://gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-that-only-exist-to-catch-...](http://gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-that-only-exist-to-catch-copycat-cartog-1695414770)

</comment><comment><USER20> My new favorite trap is the MOUNTWEAZEL, a lexicographical trap street embedded in dictionaries to catch infringers.

Good episode of the The Allusionist podcast: [http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/mountweazel](http://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/mountweazel)</comment>


If your primary bank allowed you to "link" your other banks, would you do it? - <AUTHOR> Similar to how mint.com and other financial aggregators allow you to see all of your financials in one place, would it be valuable if your primary bank allowed this as well? <comment><USER2> I think all of my banks offer this feature today, but I've never used it.

I already have a general idea of my situation, and the few times I've needed accurate total figures, it's always taken longer to identify and adjust for unposted items than to gather the current ledger balances. A meaningful financial statement requires still more work, to confirm the status and value of other assets and liabilities.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope, don't trust their security practices.</comment>


Dilma Rousseff's Impeachment Trial Nears an End, Endangering Brazilian Democracy - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/08/29/interview-dilma-rousseffs-impeachment-trial-nears-an-end-endangering-brazilian-democracy/ <comment><USER2> Bullshit, this journalist is totally biased. Most of the corrupters are related to the PT party (same party in which Dilma and Lula are affiliated to). It's very sad to see all this happening in Brazil! :/ I hope the corruption installed into the government institutions are diminished or stopped completely. At the moment the honest politicians are the exception. WE HAVE TO CHANGE THAT!</comment>


News Genius Picks Up Again Where Failures Left Off - <AUTHOR> http://glog.glennf.com/blog/2016/3/25/citation-appropriation-and-fair-use <comment><USER2> Original article here:

[https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news- geniu...](https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-genius- silences-writers/)

Interesting snippet:

> After some back and forth, Ella blocked this person, who then took to News > Genius to annotate the article, noting it may be "punching down a little bit > here." The editor of News Genius joined in with snarky and hostile comments. > Despite having blocked both individuals on Twitter, they linked to Ella's > tweets, which is potentially a violation of Twitter's terms of service, but > certainly indicates a violation of agency when, say, a political figure > isn't involved or some other newsworthy person.

My take:

If Genius wants to succeed in the newspace, its moderators and annotators will need to collaborate and communicate more effectively with the authors of articles.

This debacle reminds me of Yelp Reviews: my colleague who worked there said that Yelp positioned itself early on as neutral and as hands-off as possible, trusting that the community[1] would average out any shadiness or extreme reviews. What actually happened is the small business owners who didn't understand Yelp or who found certain reviews to be very unfair were not engaged by Yelp. Feeling left out, these business owners thought themselves without recourse on the Yelp platform, so they turned to other avenues, like lawsuits and the public space, e.g. the theory that Yelp promotes negative reviews if you don't pay them[2].

Building software that can create value automatically, without constant human intervention, is the lynchpin for a software startup.

Most if not all software problems, however, require a delicate, and perhaps dedicated, human touch. A startup can't simply fall back on the claim that it's just a "facilitator" for a transaction. Users aren't dumb: "facilitator" conveys being a platform minus responsibility, and they will take that negative message to heart.

[1] Sometimes, I feel like you can regex replace "Community" with "mass of users who will do our QA for us and/or fill in the customer support/social problems of our software."

[2] I don't fully know yet if the more extreme claims are true; I have no doubt that at least some Yelp employees felt that corners should be cut in pursuit of growth.

<comment><USER3> That's an interesting point, though I do wonder whether it's really reasonable to care about whether the author wants their images to be discussed or annotated. Is there a huge difference between doing this and doing the same thing on a site like Reddit or Hacker News? I'm sure quite a few people on these aggregators aren't on good terms with the authors of the articles, or are even banned from those source sites.

I guess you could say Reddit comments don't appear on other sites when you browse to them, but you can get extensions that show them instead of a site's original comments:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/reddit-on- you...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/reddit-on-youtube/)

And linking to Twitter posts you're blocked from seeing being against the rules? That seems excessive, given how many news sites and articles will link to tweet by people with a hair trigger temper and a very low tolerance for criticism. Should all these sites now have their accounts banned from Twitter?

I see your points, but I'm not sure how something like this is particularly different from commenting about a site on an aggregator or third party blog or discussion forum. The site staff at News Genius getting involved might cross the line (I'd hope the people behind a 'service' like this would stay out of any drama), but you can't stop people discussing your work or actions on third party sites.

<comment><USER2> The difference here is that Genius overlays its annotations on top of the main article. From a design, and even a business POV, this means the content of Genius and the news website are "merged", i.e. not clearly separated. Disqus Comment Threads can easily be hidden or shown and segmented from the text of an article. Reddit plugins like the one you mentioned are installed by the user's choice.

News Genius however, has aspirations of being your go to site for reading the news. So this adds an additional bar for Genius to clear (i.e. make it work well without pissing people off) than your normal aggregator.

Compare this: www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/jennifer-garner-minivan- majority

Versus this: [http://genius.com/8863764/www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen...](http://genius.com/8863764/www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/jennifer- garner-minivan-majority#.kpxXnRPGD)

Never-minding the substance of the original article, observe how News Genius says "We're annotating this not just to discuss Garner's career and apparent acquiescence to the "minivan majority" but to analyze the way movie stars in general appeal to particular demographics and what that says about society." and then see the annotaters descend into snarkiness and children's fare.

If I was interested in the subject matter, I know which version I would read, and which version I would warn others against reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK, thought experiment: What if you hold two browser windows open, one window to a blog article and another window to an HN / Reddit / forum thread discussing the article. Would the author of this article give you the same level of ire they apply to Genius in this article?

What if you have a program that helps you do the two-window trick, positioning and sizing the windows automatically?

What if you modify the program to hide the URL bar on one of the windows, making it a minimal frame?

What if instead of doing the same UI function at the OS level, you write it at the browser level in a plugin or some custom browser logic?

What if instead of doing it in a browser plugin, you make a website that does the same function so the user doesn't have to go through the hassle of installing a plugin?

At what point do you cross the line from "that's clearly OK" to "you're mis- appropriating the site publisher's content"?

I see this as simply an alternative UI that gives the user more control over how articles, and discussion about those articles, utilize their screen real estate.

Site owners can't moderate commentary on their articles? They can't moderate Reddit or HN threads about their articles today, and nobody seems to be up in arms over that.

Completely unmoderated commentary becoming a haven for the worst sorts of people trolling in all sorts of ways, illegal activities, etc.? If you run this UI, you're opting into a community that has whatever level of moderation it has -- if it's moderated lightly or not at all, users will likely soon be accosted by something they offensive, and make an appropriate decision about whether this community is right for them.

This isn't the sort of thing I would use, but it seems mildly innovative and relatively benign (or at least not any more offensive than any other social networking startup that underestimates the moderation burdens of running a large online community).

<comment><USER5> I take it there is a business idea in there for Genius to pursue this. Extensions that stick ads on other people's web sites are one of the most common form of malware. That's a line they can not (but will be tempted to) cross.

What makes business sense for them narrows what they can do more than what is legal. This idea sounds conspicuously like something that's been tried over and over again and they will need the support of authors to make their outcome any different from those before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fallacy is the idea that everyone who reads a news article should discuss it in the same forum. That just results in a big cesspool. It makes far more sense for each community to discuss a news article in its own forum (as we do on Hacker News).

</comment><comment><USER7> The tool actually comes in three different forms: a Disqus-like Javascript library, a Chrome Extension, and the proxy server the article mentions. In that context, the proxy server sounds much less like "We're sticking your content in our site" than a clever way to imitate the Chrome Extension with a service.

<comment><USER8> They seem to be running the service on Digital Ocean. At least one of their proxies are located at 18.104.22.168 and uses a most-useless user agent of "Go 1.1 package http"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rap Genius was originally called RapExegesis.com. Then they made a public post asking for better company name ideas- [http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-pl-nl/ot- he...](http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-pl-nl/ot-help-me-pick- name-my-rap-website-614162/)

I always thought this was fascinating and makes me think of the implications of happenstance. A company called Genius whose first domain had the word rape in it, which was promoted by a poker player who once created his own personal TV commercial and ran it via Google TV ads- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocekqhrmPNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocekqhrmPNo)

But give them $20 million and say they are pioneers in a general space that's decades old, and suddenly Genius is pioneering annotations and redefining fair use.

<comment><USER10> > I always thought this was fascinating and makes me think of the implications > of happenstance. A company called Genius whose first domain had the word > rape in it, which was promoted by a poker player who once created his own > personal TV commercial and ran it via Google TV ads- > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocekqhrmPNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocekqhrmPNo)

So what?

> But give them $20 million and say they are pioneers in a general space > that's decades old, and suddenly Genius is pioneering annotations and > redefining fair use.

$20million came after they got traction. Sure, maybe some of the founders are annoying characters, but that has nothing to do with their business. They built a popular website, people came, they promoted well. More people came. Investors got interested because of their traction. So they invested. Now they're doing better. I don't see anything wrong with this story. You just sound jealous man.

<comment><USER11> Well, it's a commonplace that complaining about what happens on the Internet is useless, and typically counterproductive. So hey, "fair use". But as Glenn Fleishman notes, fair use tends to get tested in court.

But whatever. For me, it's mostly about pigs and mud ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Oculus Rift production halted due to materials shortage - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerandvideogames.com/450619/oculus-rift-to-cease-production-due-to-material-shortage/

<comment><USER2> This website is hideous, two modal popups over each other and a broken link to the source of this article - [http://reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1yee6i/official_oculus_s...](http://reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1yee6i/official_oculus_shipping_status_update_feb_19th/)

Also, "There is a materials shortage" vs "components used are EOL" \- big difference!

I hate tech journalism sometimes.</comment>


The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-brilliant-life-and-tragic-death-of-aaron-swartz-20130215 <comment><USER2> It's frustrating to see these articles continue to leave out some of the most relevant parts of his work.

According to Ars Technica's interview with Swartz asking why he downloaded the JSTOR documents, he referenced his bio in the Demand Progress statement, which notes that "in conjunction with Shireen Barday, he downloaded and analyzed 441,170 law review articles to determine the source of their funding; the results were published in the Stanford Law Review. From 2010-11, he researched these topics as a Fellow at the Harvard Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption."

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/reddit-founder- ar...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/reddit-founder-arrested-for- excessive-jstor-downloads/)

Here is the result of his research:

[http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/punitive- dama...](http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/punitive-damages- remunerated-research-and-legal-profession)

It found that there was extensive corruption in law journal publications which were often commissioned for specific upcoming cases.

That research work led to his position as Harvard Fellow continuing that specific work of analyzing large journal datasets to find corruption. That is why he downloaded the journals - to continue his research into analyzing large datasets to find connections that indicate corruption.

There can be no doubt that many people were unhappy about the corruption in the legal industry which he uncovered using his analysis methods. He was continuing that research on a broader scale, which he plainly indicates in his response to Ars Technica and is substantiated by his biographical, research and publication history.

As a Harvard Fellow, and as a MIT visitor, and as the son of a MIT employee visiting, he has the right to access those articles, and MIT paid for that access to JSTOR, which JSTOR had no legitimate right to withhold from a credentialed researcher with valid access. He only had to circumvent anything because JSTOR implemented access countermeasures which were contrary to their access agreement with MIT. His circumvention was only for the purpose of obtaining the access he was legally entitled to, and thus was valid.

The arguments that he was planing to redistribute articles are completely without merit and are nothing more than propaganda spread by the criminals at the Justice Department who targeted him for destruction because they are corrupt and he was someone who had already revealed systematic corruption in their legal system and published about their corruption in Stanford Law Journal.

<comment><USER3> As a matter of common sense, imagine there's someone else, let's call him Bob. Bob has said he agrees with the 'Guerrila Open Access Manifesto'. Bob's written that he believes anyone with access to academic journal articles has the right and the ethical duty to upload them where they can be shared freely. Bob says, if he had such access, he would do his ethical duty.

If we were to then hand Bob some hard drives with the full JSTOR archive, what do you think Bob would do?

It's possible Aaron's interest was his own research, or that of some collaborators. The DoJ may not have been able to prove, to court standards, that he had any intent to distribute. They may not have even been able to prove he authored the 'manifesto'.

Bur we aren't in a court and spin can't help Aaron now. Putting the whole JSTOR archive in torrents would have been consistent with his stated goals, values, and the 'manifesto' call-to-action. (Also, consistent with his earlier writing at <http://bits.are.notabug.com.>)

The idea he planned to redistribute widely has plenty of merit. The criminal case is over; there's no need to water down Aaron's ideals, just to try to make the prosecutors look worse. The ideals still deserve accurate reporting.

<comment><USER2> Ah yes, his one page letter where he says "We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive." In notabug he says child porn should be legalized and he supports the overthrow of the US Government - are you also saying then that he is a child porn user and terrorist since he advocates for both?

I myself share many of his views and more. What does that mean for me though? Here are some examples. I believe US patent law is very dysfunctional, and that copyright privilege has been extended far past the length that they best serve the public good. I agree with Aaron's statement that child porn laws are used to torment people who don't actually harm children. I also find that drug laws are used as a tool of persecution against minority communities, the US engages in terrorist actions against innocent people using drone strikes and targeted assassinations, that there is extensive corruption in the judicial system. I agree that everyone does have the right to republish both papers out of copyright, and those explicitly in the public domain. I agree that it is absurd that the academic journal system is dysfunctional and often takes publicly funded work, for which it has paid the author and researcher nothing, and seizes copyright and places it behind a paywall, which is an abomination.

I am not the only one with these beliefs either, each of them is common enough among the public as to be a normal and reasonable position held by many.

Despite all these beliefs, I have never uploaded copyrighted material to bittorrent other than works I personally own the copyright to. I have never engaged in terrorist action against the government. I have never done illegal drugs. I have never looked at, possessed or transmitted child porn. My positions that certain things that have been criminalized which should not be, and that the law is not working well in some areas, is not evidence whatsoever that I have engaged in any of these acts. You however make the claim that because Swartz advocated "to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive." and because he actually did take public domain legal documents and legally place them in public archives, that this means his analysis of the JSTOR archive was not analysis at all but was to steal the copyrighted material there.

That is an absurd accusation. You might as well accuse him of distributing child porn and being a terrorist, because decriminalizing child porn and overthrowing the government were also things he advocated in his writings. Making the claim that people who see the injustice in US drug laws and call for drug law reform are obviously drug users themselves is a non sequitor argument.

<comment><USER3> You are adopting a simplistic with-us-or-against-us view, and disrepesecting Aaron's free-speech absolutism in the process. You are also assigning me positions I haven't taken. (I made an "absurd accusation"? Where?)

Your should read more carefully. The 'manifesto' does not limit itself to out- of-copyright works. It mentions civil disobedience, which usually means breaking unjust laws with carefully-considered intent. He writes, "We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks."

At bits.are.notabug.com, Aaron suggests laws against crypto export, patent infringement, copyright infringement, and even child porn sharing (but not production) are wrong in the age of bits. He slyly uses the imperative verb form in each header, which vaguely suggests without being explicit that he his advocates each of these actions. The footer has a similarly sly joke of wordplay. If you think he was saying "he supports the overthrow of the US government", read what he actually wrote again until you get it.

These writings aren't hedged, mealy-mouthed expressions of support for a little more open access, of only out-of-copyright or academic-oriented or public-funded bits, within the lines of the law. They are brave and consistent arguments for total free speech in the digital domain, without any patent/copyright/export/obscenity restrictions. A person who wrote and believed them _would_ redistribute in-copyright JSTOR articles; he might even believe it was his moral duty to do so if presented the opportunity. You're not doing Aaron's memory any favors by watering-down what he expressly advocated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to seem callous but does the article really say anything that has not been said before?

<comment><USER5> Many in the Rolling Stone audience are reading the details for the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here we go again.

</comment><comment><USER7> > FEBRUARY 28, 2013

This article is from the future.

<comment><USER8> glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. that really threw me off I had to double check to make sure I hadn't missed some days.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my site - Ollawalla - <AUTHOR>

I'm just now starting to put my site in front of people and a colleague recommended posting it here.
http://ollawalla.com
I'm looking for feedback on: - the idea - branding - user experience
Thx!
Ollawalla is an online trading post where you can find the things you want by trading the stuff you no longer need.  You might find free furniture in your city or trade your used computer for a new kayak.   Ollawalla brings us back to our cultural roots, before the days of mega malls and when people simply exchanged goods and services with the people in their community.  By using technology and social media, we make it fun and easy to trade online with your friends and neighbors. <comment><USER2> Along with the two options that pop up when "Choose your nearest city" is clicked, how about a third like:

Don't see a city close to you?

This option could then take the user to a page where they can submit their city & email. I think this would help you make the most of your traffic and also provide some guidance when you're trying to decide where to expand to next.

<comment><AUTHOR> tylerwl, great idea. The select box on the homepage only shows cities that have posts. Since the site doesn't have many postings I thought this would be a better experience. This way users don't end up on blank city pages. Thx!

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell If I go to <http://www.ollawalla.com/feed?city=foobar> and look at the source code of the page I see a MySQL error. That's never a good sign.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell You only offer Facebook and Twitter logins. _tab closed_

<comment><AUTHOR> Mike, a big part of the idea is trading within your social networks. This removes the layer of anonymity.

<comment> mike-cardwell The site doesn't look like it's limited to trading within social networks, so why limit logins in that way? If you expect this to stamp out abuse, it's not going to. People can just register for a new facebook/twitter account and then use that...

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point Mike. I'll likely add the ability to login without facebook/twitter in the future. Thanks again for your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Basic XSS flaw:

      http://www.ollawalla.com/browse?city=

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://ollawalla.com>

<comment><USER3> Is the site down right now?

<comment><USER4> yes it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback guys!</comment>


Exact mapping between Variational Renormalization Group and Deep Learning (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3831 <comment><USER2> Can anyone on here can elaborate whether this a) makes sense at all and b) what its implications are for physics and deep learning.

<comment><USER3> See my blog: [https://charlesmartin14.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/why-deep- le...](https://charlesmartin14.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/why-deep-learning- works-ii-the-renormalization-group/)

I try to highlight the paper and some of the history and relevance, in a general way, but also hitting the math hard.

the more general idea, which I am still formulating, is that DL systems are very different from traditional ML (ala VC theory)

In traditional ML systems, we tune the regularizer to optimize the capacity of the learner

In deep learning, we would optimize both the capacity (entropy) of the learner, and the optimization problem (energy function)

This is also what happens in the stat mech of protein folding, where the energy is optimized, even when we are at minimum capacity. This gives rise to a funneled energy landscape

[https://charlesmartin14.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/why-does- de...](https://charlesmartin14.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/why-does-deep- learning-work/)

Similar behavior is seen generally in stat mech near a critical point, and this is why the RG analogy is relevant for me.

We should be able to see this behavior if we simply plot the entropy vs energy of say an RBM. Im not entirely sure yet how general this is, but it works for MNIST.

I discuss (some of) this in more detail in a video from a talk I gave this summer at MMDS [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbKHIPbxiU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbKHIPbxiU)

<comment><USER4> Is it related to the predatory/prey population problems we did in Linear Algebra?

Something like this: [http://www.math.umd.edu/~jmr/246/predprey.html](http://www.math.umd.edu/~jmr/246/predprey.html)

<comment><USER5> Interesting. I'm curious as to why you make that connection? What reminded you of predator prey systems?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the decimation operator?

Authors claim an exact mapping, but fail to define a few of the essential elements of any renormalization group approach.</comment>


Qantas offers a seven-hour flight to nowhere - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/flights-to-nowhere-qantas/index.html <comment><USER2> _" Your seven-hour scenic flight will include low level flybys of unique Australian destinations across Queensland, the Northern Territory and New South Wales including the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Byron Bay and iconic Sydney Harbour. "_

The offer did include some perks, not just a random flight over a bunch of random ocean.

Similarly, wood cabin rentals are very hot in the US now. An opportunity to do something different that breaks up the monotony without notably raising the COVID risk.

Fairly smart move from Qantas, from my POV. People are desperate for a safe(-ish) diversion. I found the _" virtual safe room escapes"_ business model to be pretty similar.

<comment><USER3> You can drive to, and stay in, a cabin with at most incidental interaction with other people. A seven hour sightseeing flight on an airliner is... not like that.

I suppose it makes more sense in Australia where the coronavirus prevalence is fairly low at the moment, but from my point of view in the US the idea of taking the risk of getting on a plane right now seems especially crazy if I don't even get to land somewhere interesting.

<comment><USER4> Planes are low risk for coronavirus spread because of the filtered air that is replaced every 2-3 minutes.

CNN: The odds of catching Covid-19 on an airplane are slimmer than you think, scientists say

[https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/odds-catching- covid-19-fl...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/odds-catching- covid-19-flight-wellness-scn/index.html)

<comment><USER5> Maybe not that slim, as CNN just reported:

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/health/coronavirus-airline- tr...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/health/coronavirus-airline-transmission- studies/index.html)

<comment><USER2> _" When the woman left London on March 1, she had a sore throat and cough as she boarded a flight home to Vietnam, but no one noticed. By the time she got off the flight in Hanoi 10 hours later, 15 other people who had been on the plane with her were infected."_

Wow. 15. It does say March, so perhaps masks weren't in broad use? Still, though, 15 is a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't they already offer flights to Antarctica that don't land for sightseeing? And those are 12 hour flights too.

It's interesting that other airlines are adapting by introducing these 'excursion' flights for the pent up tourist market.

<comment><USER7> Yeah they did and it looked great. All the destinations here are probably more suited to getting out and exploring at ground level.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately for anyone in NSW, that's pretty much an impossibility at the moment. So if you did want to do sightseeing, you're out of luck.

<comment><USER9> Why?

<comment><USER10> Australia is on lock-down due to covid-19. Melbourne's stage 4 lockdown only allows for a 3 mile travel limit from the home, for instance.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world- australia-54045102](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54045102)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I agree this is a pretty pointless activity, I'll point out that modern commercial jets get ~89mpg/passenger [1]. A Ford F150 gets about 21mpg.

Likewise commercial aviation yields about 0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger miles [2] compared to 1.13 deaths per 100 million miles driving in the US [3], over 500 times higher.

[1]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#:~:te...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#:~:text=Lufthansa%2C%20when%20it%20ordered%20both,seat%20layout%20for%20WOW%20Air).

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#:~:text=The%20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20deaths%20per,flying%20in%20a%20commercial%20airplane).

[3]: [https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality- statistics/detail/state...](https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality- statistics/detail/state-by- state#:~:text=There%20were%2033%2C654%20fatal%20motor,Columbia%20to%2022.2%20in%20Mississippi).

<comment><USER12> Contradicting reference that was posted elesewhere in the thread: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng- interactive/2019/...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng- interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much- as-many-people-do-in-a-year)

<comment><USER13> Not a contradiction. Driving a car on a long road trip _also_ produces more CO2 than many people do in a year in some countries. You're not considering how low the standard of living we're talking about here is. These are people who don't have electrical service at home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, as if there is no climate change... stupid mankind.

<comment><USER15> How's it different from flying somewhere for vacation?

<comment><USER16> One is transportation, the other is an amusement park ride.

<comment><USER17> Why is it so significant whether the ride is for amusement or to amusement?

<comment><USER18> The J/h ratio?

<comment><USER17> That all depends what j and h stand for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For me, the best part of a 7 hour flight is getting off the plane (even when I fly business class), I can't imagine doing it for no reason.

</comment><comment><USER20> I hope flying low over pretty places doesn't become popular. Planes are really noisy.

<comment> aero-glide Me (and many others I'm sure) love plane noises! I once interned at HAL (Indian defense manufacturer), and rented a place nearby. We had fighters constantly taking off and landing, defense transport aircraft flying very low (it was so bulky as if it shouldn't be able to fly), helicopters hovering nearby. All day long. Was easily one of the best months of my life. Whenever I hear a plane I go out and look at it. Its an absolute marvel of engineering. Will never stop being amused by planes. Can't wait for urban electric VTOLs to take off.

<comment><USER21> Telling half the people you're on the phone with to STFU for 20 seconds while a plane takes off (sometimes multiple times in a single call) can be annoying af. Also, having to miss out on news or dialogue when watching tv.

I had to live with that for two years. All very annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Imagine doing this and not getting a window seat.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems bad for the environment

<comment><USER24> Most activities are bad for the environment, recreational activities are 'unproductive' and bad for the environment.

<comment><USER25> This wastes more fuel per capita than most.

<comment><USER26> Planes are quite fuel efficient per passenger. Somewhere around 90mpg. Furthermore, I imagine this particular flight will free of baggage, lightening the load and improving efficiency even more.

At any rate, most entertainment and recreational activities are bad for the environment, but as far as most of them go, this one is relatively clean.

<comment><USER19> But still, in 7 hours, a 500mph plane can go 3500 miles, so that's 38 gallons of fuel per passenger. A month's worth of gas for many people.

<comment><USER27> Nowadays, that amount lasts me two or three months!

<comment><USER19> Back when the COVID isolation started in March, I put fuel stabilizer in our second car and filled up the tank (and hooked up a battery tender). I've driven it a few times, but the gas gauge still says "full" on that same tank of fuel.

Even with the stabilizer I'm thinking that I need to take it out for a long drive to use up the fuel. At the rate things are going, I'm not sure I'll need the car for commuting until next summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> yup, that's going to help with pollution so much.

Why not just invest into cruise airships?

<comment><USER29> Airships pollute, too. Look up avgas, it contains lead.

Besides that, it's not profitable. Helium has become super expensive, and cargo airship companies barely break even while heavily subsidised. These airships are drones. A tourist airship which needs to accommodate real people and pesky safety requirements that come with them would go broke before the first lift-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sounds terrible.

</comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich)

I would however say there is a market for explaining what you see when you fly.</comment>


Seer: Symbolic Execution Engine for Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dwrensha/seer <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really impressed with the base64 example here. It's able to descend down through quite a bit of logic to work out what inputs would produce the specified base64 string.</comment>


Fix Your Inaccurate Google Analytics Bounce Rate and Time on Site - <AUTHOR> http://mindtheproduct.com/2011/08/data-driven-your-bounce-rate-and-time-on-site-are-wrong/

<comment><USER2> In my experience, time on site isn't going to be a useful metric however you go about it. At least with the news sites my company runs, checking if a page is still open would be hopeless because it's very common for users to just open the 2, 5, 20 pages they want to read in different tabs, then work through them slowly. And for clicking outbound links, well nearly all exits for us are window/tab closing, not links elsewhere.

Maybe this isn't so much the case for other industries, or even for the same type of site targeting a less techy audience? (e.g. My mother wouldn't ever open multiple tabs as a queue of pages - but then, she might well open a page and then go do some cooking, or whatever, before reading it.)

</comment><comment><USER3> If google is using bounce rate as a signal for page ranking, this advice is very useful for people who have a low bounce rate simply because all the information is on a single page, or because the page uses dynamic html to refresh the content as the user digs deeper into the app.

</comment><comment><USER4> neat. I wish I had a bit more time to play with your TOS gist. Unfortunately, I just skipped my morning workout to get what I got in the comment there, and now have to run off to work. (boo)

Oh well... that's why they call it a gist right? :) I think focus and blur events on the document or window are key to getting "perfect" TOS. Just have to think about how to make it most efficient ... I prefer doing away with the timer and just sending the data once in the UNLOAD event.

There's peril to that (browser crashes?) and maybe the 10 second 'tick' is better.

Dunno. I really have to go now. Breakfast! Starving.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the timer is a bit crude, working on a better script which considers an interaction as a click, scroll, or keydown and sends minimal events to GA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always supposed that G was doing that anyway. Why would they measure time- on-site only per page load?

Has anybody implemented this and seen a jump in their time-on-site and bounce rate values?

</comment><comment><USER6> Another way to do this is to trigger the tracking with the window.onbeforeunload event paired with logic that makes sure the user has actually been on page for longer than X seconds/minutes.</comment>


How to obtain and install an SSL/TSL certificate, for free - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/12/how-to-get-set-with-a-secure-sertificate-for-free.ars

<comment><USER2> How long until Google becomes an authority and just starts handing out SSL certificates for free?

Doesn't this sound like something they would already be doing?

<comment><USER3> Would Microsoft accept a Google-signed certificate? Would Microsoft pre- install such certificates by default?

<comment><USER4> Is there some reason Microsoft would not want to accept a Google signed certificate?

<comment><USER5> Is there some reason Microsoft _would_ want to accept a Google root certificate?

<comment><USER6> Regulatory or consumer pressure. The desire to not have the appearance of anti-competitive actions.

<comment><USER5> ... are fuzzy arguments that will be torpedoed by any weal security argument Microsoft deploys against them.

Turn this over on its head. What about Mozilla accepting a Microsoft-run CA?

<comment><USER7> I really hope they would -- it'd be extremely nice for vanilla Windows Server installs to be able to provision themselves a default certificate.

Of course, Mozilla are the asshats that _innovated_ the draconian dialog maze for self-signed certificates, and as such have made it impossible to ship appliances with HTTPS web interfaces. I hope their heads fall off.

Don't you _really_ want WiFi access point config pages to be HTTPS-only?

<comment><USER3> I think it's great that Mozilla made it difficult to use self-signed certs. Most people don't use them correctly, and making self-signed essentially off limits to people is a great increase in security.

You should try using ettercap. It's surprisingly easy to intercept all traffic going to and from a self-signed site.

<comment><USER6> It's easy to use ettercap to mount a man-in-the-middle attack?

Self-signed certs are only vulnerable to mitm attacks, but don't most network topologies make doing that pretty hard?

<comment><USER5> No. Anyone who can see a DNS query can hijack traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In case you are looking for alternative free certificate authority then there is also <http://CAcert.org>

PS. I'm a happy CAcert certificate user ;)

<comment><USER5> Does any mainstream browser include the CACert root? Without it, you might as well just use no certificate; self-signed certs add no additional security to TLS in the HTTPS case.

<comment><USER9> At the moment, no, but CACert is working on it. Certificates issued by CACert are still more valuable than self-signed because the owner's identity has been verified and, if the user installs the CACert root once, they can all be checked against it.

<comment><USER5> Without the root cert installed, they add zero additional security, because the browser can't verify them. They might as well be self-signed.

CACert has been working on this for a long time, and the outlook does not seem positive. If they can't even get past Mozilla's audit requirements, how well do you think they'll fare with Microsoft?

<comment><USER9> I checked in with someone from CACert at 26C3. As far as he knows, the audit is moving forward and they expect to make it into both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Off topic:

Is there any problem with buying a certificate and using the same certificate for your postfix TLS email authentication that you use for your web server authentication?

I would like to have authenticated email, to minimize the chance of my emails bouncing, and I was hoping to only purchase one certificate. I can't find anybody talking about mail server TLS email authentication on the certification websites. They only talk about web authentication and a bit about email client authentication.

<comment><USER11> Yep, you can use the same certificate for email (IMAP, POP, TLS). Only works without warnings if your clients connect to the same hostname as the certificate is for (so I usually register something other than www.domain.com for the SSL site)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I Am Confused Between Job, MS, MBA and Own Startup. What Should I Do? - <AUTHOR> I received my undergraduate degree in computer science last year. Now I am totally confused. I don't know what should I do in my life? How should I build my career? <comment><USER2> Get a job and learn. MS/MBA is fine if that is what you want personally, but they are not necessary IMO.

If you like the idea of startups, go join one, but don't try to start one first thing out. There are exceptions of course, but in general I think you'll be more successful if you have at least a few years of work experience to learn patterns that work, that don't work etc. Plus unless you have an amazing idea, come from a solid school and/or have connections already getting up and going will be that much harder. If you go work at a startup, gain some experience, contacts etc you'll be more successful when you do your own startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Get a job. You'll find that on the job experience can do more for you than an MS or MBA. After a few years of job experience and you still feel you want those degrees then do it.

2\. Take a break. Go travel somewhere and get your mind right. Don't be in such a hurry to jump to the next major thing. You seem fairly young so you do have time.

Consider higher level degrees only if you done one or two.</comment>


The Problem with Using HackerRank as a Programmer Screening Tool - <AUTHOR> http://dreynaud.fail/the-problem-with-hackerrank-as-a-programmer-screening-tool/ <comment><USER2> This does a nice job of explaining why it's not a good solution. For the company, it does not measure any kind of communication or collaboration ability (which is so important for programming). For the candidate, it does not give her/him any more information about people at the company or provide a positive, interesting experience.

As an engineer, you work with other humans first and machines second. Platforms like HackerRank seem to miss that, while better ones like interviewing.io put it front and center.

<comment><USER3> A code screening doesn't need to measure communication. It only needs to measure basic coding ability. You can either write fizzbuzz in a reasonable amount of time or you can't.

There will be plenty of opportunities to evaluate communication during the other stages of the interview.

<comment><USER4> Fuck it, don't bother with any job that uses these things.

It's lazy on behalf on the employers.

<comment><USER5> I'd agree with you, but you have to interview probably 400/500 people, all with passable resumes, just to find basic competence (let alone the skills you might really need).

What if you're talking about interviewing thousands of people, a number of which are passable on paper?

It's a search problem, not laziness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't recall that HackerRank allowed to read and write to the filesystem. I've never seen any stock test doing that.

The default test settings generate code for parsing the stdin input and create the body of the program.

That company really went out of their way to make a terrible test. That's not representative of HackerRank.

I used to write tests for one company. The tool is great and totally flexible. A test should be taken as a representation of the company writing it, not as an example of the platform.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, the test was definitely in HackerRank's library, not something custom. I went through the exercise as we were evaluating HackerRank internally, not as a candidate (important context I should probably have mentioned in the post)

<comment><USER3> That changes everything. It's not a real test at all.

There is a broad range of exercises, a lot of which are for coding competition, way too long and too difficult for a short screening test.

I'd advise you to keep the majority of the exercises dead simple. An exercise to print numbers from 1 to 100 will tell you a lot about the candidate. An 1h dynamic programming exercise will stay unanswered most of the time, that doesn't tell you anything useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A hacker-rank screening test is exactly that, an initial screening test. It tests basic aptitude and ability to implement a simple program to spec. It's not a substitute for face-to-face pairing interviews and projects.

> 1\. they expect input and output in a necessarily contrived form

> 2\. there is no communication or creativity involved

1\. aka a spec 2\. not the job of a screening test

This whole post assumes the premise that a screening test needs to fulfill all the requirements of a full interview process.

<comment><USER2> As a hiring manager, that's just not a useful "initial screening test" for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nailed it.

Let's not forget companies that send algo-heavy tests for front end roles (my personal favorite). Can't they come up with a front end version? Is it better that they don't?

I'd find it, and similar sites, less objectionable if they were used as interview "extra credit," rather than as gatekeeper screening tools.

<comment><USER8> I had a math teacher in middle school that put it pretty well: if you have two candidates that are equally qualified, but one knows calculus and the other doesn't, you may as well go with the one that knows calculus.

From a hiring perspective, it cuts down the size of your candidate pool. Interviewing is expensive, so it's better to choose from 5 people instead of 30.

From a personal perspective, I don't want to work with you if you don't know how to use a hashmap. There's a difference between filtering duplicates efficiently and validating a binary tree, so it does it some injustice to lump it all together as irrelevant algorithms testing.

<comment><USER9> I'm very careful inferring information I didn't actually test for. If the output of my process ranks two people the same, I can't do anything but flip a coin for one and recommend hiring both. I can't go back to their resumes and see "ahh yes, this person knows calculus, might as well go with them." Because the other person might know calculus too but didn't think it relevant to put on the resume.

If the process is giving equal outputs to multiple candidates, then you might need to fix it to be more granular. There's plenty of room for subjective criteria, e.g. it shouldn't be hard to have a few ranks on "seems nice to work with" metric and so it shouldn't be hard to have a process where equal outputs are unlikely.

On the other hand there's the concept of a journeyman in the craft world, anyone with that level of skill is basically interchangeable for the usual jobs. So you might by design have a test that just outputs "at least journeyman level" or not, and you can just hire the first one you find.

<comment><USER10> Some people are different and will differentiate candidates by sometimes seemingly unrelated things. I remember hearing a story in my Engineering Communications class that someone was selected for a job over an equally qualified candidate for putting down that they liked to play chess as a hobby. Apparently the person hiring liked chess and thought it stimulated the mind, and I believe they also thought it gave a more human feeling to the candidate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some help for the OP next time: [https://thehftguy.com/2016/07/13/cracking- the-hackerrank-tes...](https://thehftguy.com/2016/07/13/cracking-the- hackerrank-test-google-to-the-rescue/)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Special kudos to the guys who are able to solve a problem -with a perfectly > optimized solution- in less time than it would take to actually read it =D

oh my

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem is that it is completely unrelated to the job in most cases. That may put off some decent candidates.

<comment><USER2> Right, as I said above, doesn't give you any sense of what other engineers are the company are like. Nothing wrong with algorithmic coding interviews, but it should be coupled with human interaction.

<comment><USER12> Wrong - it does. Such process in company indicates that the engineers employed there didn't mind to go through such process and don't see a problem in imposing such process on others i.e. people with volatile visa/legal situation (e.g H1B in US, American in EU, Russian/Ukrainian in EU), and probably awfully underpaid (I mean the salary range 40-50k USD in a developed EU country). Basically company is cherry picking engineers willing to engage in race to the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Got this HackerRank link from the company I applied to. Five questions from completely different domains (database query, graph algorithm, construct a regular expression, etc), 120 mins. Submitted blank solutions. You need cheap compliant robots, not humans - stop looking for them.

<comment><USER13> I would contend that HackerRank has done a good job of screening and filtering on this occasion. Given clear instruction, the only skill demonstrated was insubordination.

<comment><USER3> I would add that the topics given are paramount to development. Refusing to do anything demonstrated that he doesn't want to do any work -or can't- for the position he applied to.

<comment><USER12> The topics yes, but on-demand, sprint-like solving quizzes in these topics, and context switching between all of them in short timespan, are these the requirements for the position? Then the compensation must be respectively outstanding? In most cases - no, it isn't.

Seriously, submit your current workforce to this smartass test under condition that they need to pass it to come over to the office tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> Don't be so quick to judge. Answering any question might have been enough to pass the screen, but you will never know that because you didn't try.

My current workforce had to pass tests much deeper than that. Using database queries, graphs and regex is part of the day job.

<comment><USER12> > Answering any question might have been enough to pass the screen

Not in this area/location, not in case of this kind of company. I know of cases where the score 67% was too low (2 tasks on 100%, 1 task 0% but missing couple lines of code for 100% solution). It's basically partially automated filter with non-technical people sending rejection emails based on score in the list without digging into solution. I gave up on it not from arrogance, but based on experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like you took the specifics around how _your_ evaluation was done and _your_ choices regarding how you solved the problem and conflated those with the entire HackerRank platform, which seems at best disingenuous and at worst intellectually irresponsible.

Regarding the idea that "they expect input and output in a necessarily contrived form", they are giving you a problem to solve. You could say any expectation around input and output is contrived. As a professional, you will not always be able to control this, and need to be able to work against the constraints that are imposed on you.

Regarding the idea that "there is no communication or creativity involved", this is just flat out wrong. You might have had a bad experience due to the way the exercises were set up by the interviewers, but that's not because of HackerRank. What I did is limit the allowed languages and progress people from initial code puzzle screenings to pair programming sessions, where the communication and collaboration evaluation comes in. In every case (puzzles included), there is plenty of room for creativity. In fact, in my own hiring, I have seen a very wide range of different solutions—some very interesting and creative!

I found your choice of Bash to be pretty odd. I'm not sure I'd allow people to write their solutions in Bash, because I realize that a lot of it comes down to fiddling with things like the sed expression you described, which I don't care about. If, as an employer, I want to evaluate your problem solving skills, I'd prefer languages that abstract as much as possible away and force you to focus on the problem as a whole. If, as an applicant, I wanted to highlight my ability to solve problems with code, I would never in a million years choose Bash.

It seems like the way the company you applied to set up the HackerRank platform, mismanaged their communication with you, and selected and configured the questions combined with your choice of Bash, as well as your own personality idiosyncrasies (like getting stressed about the countdown instead of focusing on the problem & remaining calm) came together to create a perfect storm for you, but in my own experience, I've really enjoyed doing their puzzles. I've also had great success using their platform for my own hires and have found that the platform does a great job of highlighting exceptionally skillful engineers and reducing bias in the hiring process. Our team avoided several very bad hires who looked great on paper with the help of the HackerRank platform. So, I think that while it's easy to blame HackerRank, that's not where the real problem is IMO.

The thing with HackerRank is that a LOT comes down to the hiring manager. If s/he doesn't do a good job managing the candidate pipeline, communicating, setting up the puzzles, doing the pair programming sessions, running interviews, etc., then people are going to have experiences like yours. There's no magical platform that will solve for a bad hiring process.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed feedback! Here is what I mean by "necessarily contrived IO": in a more realistic setting, we might have to answer a question like "what host returns the most 500s?" coming in an email or on a support channel. Or one I actually had to answer a couple weeks ago: "what are our most frequently firing alerts?" That is all of the problem statement right there, not a detailed description of the formatting of the input and the output. Just a user with a question, so you have some work to do to understand what is being asked and how you can find the most time-effective way to answer it. I might have follow up questions like "over what time period? For a particular service or all services of team X? Just in prod or in all environments?", etc. The user also didn't ask for a specific format, I just need to get an intelligible answer with reasonable effort. So based on the context, maybe bash makes sense to answer a one-off question rapidly. In the context of a customer facing app, maybe introducing some abstraction makes sense (again, context). This is whst I would consider a more realistic "on the job" setting, you have to understand users and make trade offs and understand constraints and it's all a little bit fuzzy. In contrast, an online judge necessarily imposes more rigid constraints because of the automated verification -- I don't really see a way around it.

<comment><USER15> (I work at Hackerrank)

> an online judge necessarily imposes more rigid constraints because of the > automated verification

The platform is evolving to not be as rigid anymore as well. For example, we have a product (in a closed beta) which assess candidates on complete projects (eg: build a nodejs app that defines this api and behavior), and testing and scoring is based on unit test cases.

This way, you are testing for more real-world usecases, and also allowing the flexibility beyond straight IO.

<comment><USER16> That's still just as rigid, it's just increasing scope of the deliverable so a smaller portion overall has to be dedicated to complying with your rigidity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Read Slowly to Benefit Your Brain and Cut Stress - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/read-slowly-to-benefit-your-brain-and-cut-stress-1410823086? <comment><USER2> Slowly here should mean not the speed of reading, a-la words oper second, but the checking/matching of every meaningful piece of information against your internal (trained) 'map of the universe'.

BTW, one could speed-read only texts on a familiar subjects, the way most of us read 90% of narcissistic nonsense here. On the contrary, those wery rare pieces of meaningful thought from self-made professionals (nothing in common with so-called and usually self-proclaimed 'experts') requires this slow reading of 'the deep structure' \- reconstruction of author's model of the universe.

<comment><USER3> This slow reading idea also jives with Alan Kay's observation of "Slow Deep Thinking" which allowed us to have massive & non-incremental leaps into the future.

[http://www.clarkaldrichdesigns.com/2009/05/alan-kay-and- huma...](http://www.clarkaldrichdesigns.com/2009/05/alan-kay-and-human- universals-vs-non.html)

Video by Kay which goes into more depth: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I'm having trouble paying attention to a book, particularly a non-fiction that I have to drudge through, I'll slow down and start reading the book in the voice of a famous comedian. Suddenly everything is 10x more interesting. Try Robin Williams. Graph Theory taught by Robin Williams is really charming. He laughs jovially at every theorem.

<comment><USER5> That one has legs. Nice idea.

John Cleese teaching Unix/Linux Administration (funny walks).

Alexi Sayle teaching database reduction to normal form (those Mersey vowels).

One of the centres I teach in runs a book club to encourage literacy and reading. Seems popular. Mix of participants. It is a traditional book club where they all read the same text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I usually read so fast that by the time I get to the end of the text, I skip the last few words for the sake of finishing quickly. This turns out to be a waste of time and not very relieving. However, when I focus on reading slowly I'm thinking too much about it and can't concentrate on what I'm reading. I think more than reading slower or faster, it's about finding a pace where you feel comfortable and let your brain go a bit.

</comment><comment><USER7> Admittedly there are only two of us — but we have reading on our company calendar. Thirty minutes every day 3:30-4pm. Because learning new stuff and getting alternate perspectives is bloody important.

<comment><USER8> At my first job, there were periods where I didn't have much to do. So I thought, instead of mindlessly surfing the Internet, I'll read to improve my knowledge. It was a large company and they had hundreds of computer books. So I got one from the library and started reading it during a down time.

My manager comes over and says "There's no reading during work." (I was reading The Mythical Man-Month so it wasn't like I was reading a novel or anything).

I'm not there anymore but I still do take 30 minutes to read daily. I just do it more discreetly by using Safari Books Online and don't ask for permission.

It's good to hear there are forward looking companies out there. Everyone should make a little time to do things that won't benefit you today, but will benefit you in 6 months.

<comment><USER9> I can't remember if it's the MyMaMo which has the "why aren't you working, what are you doing?" "thinking" "can't you do that at home?" anecdote but that's brilliant managerial madness in a nutshell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think pushes to get people to read more have been continuously going on since I was a child in the 80's. Some people enjoy it more than others and I think more people find reading books more difficult than quick reads - I'm not sure if this is time, access, or ability.

I also question their stress relief. It seems it might be tied to people enjoying themselves for a little bit of time many times a week. I don't know if the research exists, but I will guess if everyone engaged in something selfish or something they actually thoroughly enjoy for 30 minutes many days a week, the person's stress levels would go down.

<comment><USER11> I think its increasingly difficult for people to concentrate for longer than ten minutes these days (I certainly notice this in myself). We are not encouraged to concentrate for long periods either, instead 'multitasking' is considered a good thing. Pop up notifications every time an email comes in. A vibration in my pocket for a message / whatsapp / whatever.

The popularity of Buzzfeed seems to fit with this.

I agree that people should do something they enjoy (doesn't need to be selfish). I find that outdoor physical exercise works for me. My girlfriend says the same, when I take the off-road detour home from work on my bike, she says I am less grumpy.

<comment><USER12> > I agree that people should do something they enjoy (doesn't need to be > selfish).

To some people, doing something you enjoy is selfish by definition. In what way it affects others (if at all) is a totally different matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Despite many occurrences of the word "slow", this article seems to have nothing at all to do with the speed at which you read.

<comment><USER14> They appear to be using the term "slow reading" to distinguish it from online reading:

"One 2006 study of the eye movements of 232 people looking at Web pages found they read in an "F" pattern... None of this is good for our ability to comprehend deeply, scientists say."

I personally have 3 styles of reading:

\- Fiction, I read incredibly slowly, and always have done.

\- Technical books, I absorb very quickly, often scanning through parts covering topics I already know well, and spending longer on anything that is new. In any case, there is no "narrative" to follow, but the structure still tends to be linear (one topic builds on the last).

\- Online, I read in a "spiral" pattern, skipping between headlines, then reading the first and last parts to narrow in on what I think is most relevant.

Reading every word from start to finish is an inefficient way to extract information online. If I am interested in a particular topic, I don't have to read just one article on that subject. 90% of online content is badly written or factually incorrect in some way, so over-committing to one source typically results in a lot of wasted effort. The better strategy is to speed read 5 or 6 different sources and then return to whichever one gets its point across concisely. This also tends to reinforce a bias towards content that is presented in small chunks with diagrams.

Over the last 18 months I've been spending a lot more time than usual reading technical books and I have noticed that the amount of time I spend reading online has affected my ability to speed read technical books the way I normally do. I have to concentrate harder to avoid scanning in an F or spiral shaped pattern.

That strategy works online because the aim is to discard bad content as quickly as possible. It does not work when your aim is to follow the narrative of a book that is almost always linear and is often more information-dense than online content.

This linearity is amplified further in fiction because it is an intrinsic property of the narrative structure (except perhaps, in "choose your own adventure" books).

It therefore makes sense that reading fiction helps people avoid the habit of scanning content, skipping over the middle parts. Online, the middle parts often don't matter because the signal to noise ratio is low. In other formats, that is often not the case.

<comment><USER15> What about non-fiction books that could be considered technical in anothers field?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's not really 'slow' reading the article is talking about, but uninterrupted reading.

From personal experience, I agree that reading long-form textual works, particularly fiction, is fundamentally different than perusing typical hypertext information. I love the web, certainly, but it's just a different thing, even though using the web does involve the act of reading words.

I also intuitively agree that uninterrupted reading is beneficial to human development, and it is interesting to see studies that support that. (This article, somewhat ironically, would have been better had it linked to the studies that it mentioned.)

<comment><USER10> I intuitively disagree that uninterrupted reading is beneficial to human development. I don't see this behavior from the few people I secretly wonder if they wouldn't be considered genius, if they would only take the test. What they do, however, is read a wide variety of topics often. One very rarely leaves the house without a book, has files on his phone as a backup, and downloads enough non-fiction that I wonder when he can read it. Does he read in long chunks? Sure, if the internet is down or he has to wait. Does he do this often? Not if he can help it.

The point is that he reads. Often. Likely more than most people get in their half hours intervals - but if that is the only way for people to read, I fully support it. I do not doubt many of the benefits of reading, but I think uninterrupted reading is more of an exercise in extended concentration and Im sure there are multiple ways to learn this.

<comment><USER16> I don't think it's about concentration, but more about the exercise of putting yourself mentally in other people's shoes.

And I don't think the benefits of uninterrupted reading are necessarily becoming 'smarter'. They are more like being better able to understand people different from you, more easily able to change your mind based on new information, etc.

Here's a somewhat better article on the topic:

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes- way/201401/...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes- way/201401/reading-fiction-improves-brain-connectivity-and-function)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've always been a skimmer. With most writing, a good portion of the words can be skipped without missing much content. The web hasn't changed this for me. I did it before with print books including fiction for entertainment.

Sometime when the subject matter is deep or densely packed I have to make myself slow down. Usually this isn't the case though.

<comment><USER16> I read a lot of fiction... (checks kindle) looks like about 100 books a year. I definitely start skimming when the story isn't engaging enough.

Roughly speaking, I think the better a book is, the less I tend to skim. A truly great novel I will read at probably 10% of the speed of a bad one. (If it's _really_ bad, of course, I stop reading and throw it away.. that's probably the case with 20% of the novels I start).

With most nonfiction, technical books, etc., it is different -- I skim as much as I can while still extracting the info/knowledge I am trying to get out of it.

<comment><USER18> Depends on the book but I've definitely found some dense technical books (mostly textbooks) have to be read much slower than my normal speed for real comprehension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here is a case for even slower reading: research paper reading!

[http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-i-read- research...](http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-i-read-research- paper.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I realized that it was very tough for me to read the whole article from start to beginning, sentence by sentence, without getting distracted or skipping sentences.

<comment><USER21> Well it's not exactly prose for the ages. A fluffy article like this is appropriate for speed reading. If it were an article about your professional specialty or something important like a firm in which you were invested, then you'd naturally be more interested and would read it more closely and carefully.

If you were reading for pleasure you could have a similar dichotomy. I read a contemporary espionage thriller a few weeks ago and flew through it; it was enjoyable but quite predictably plotted and the characters unburdened by doubt, so reading the book was a simple matter of finding out how the hero arrived at the showdown and what he did when he got there (you'll no doubt be relieved to know that the free world was saved, once again).

Then I read a literary novel with another novel embedded within in, and a lead character engaged in teaching literary criticism - quite a challenging book due to the near-constant tension between narrative and narrative purpose, with the latter becoming a key element of the former, via an imagined obscenity trial for the book-within-a-book. This was further complicated by the fact that I found most of the characters deeply unsympathetic...at first. As you can imagine, this one required a considerable degree of thought and reflection, and my reading speed varied considerably with the subject matter - and I anticipate it will influence my perception of other books going forward, so in that sense I'm still reading it despite having got to the end.

Currently I'm reading a science-fiction book examining the psychological construction of identity, Stanislaw Lem's _Solaris_. And although I've read it twice already (having been into his work for some 30 years now), and although it's quite a short book, it's going to take weeks because of Lem's narrative density - he tells simple stories but with a deliberately unfiltered attention to detail which demands total mental attention.

All are enjoyable, but all provide very different reading experiences and demand different things from the reader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've always thought I had a problem with reading. Whenever I read fiction, I read the text as though it is being spoken. So I've never joined a book club because I've always been afraid I'd never be able to finish a book in the same time it takes "normal people" who will typically finish the same book about 2 days earlier than me on average.

<comment><USER23> I don't see that as a problem. I read books and narrate them to myself in my head. Sometimes I even develop voices for the characters. If they're talking fast, I read it faster. If the action is slow, I read it slower. When the author describes something, I take the time to visualize it in my head.

The downside to this (other than sometimes slow reading) is that by the end of the book I am so deeply entrenched in this world that I don't want to leave it. It really feels like I'm leaving something behind forever when I finish the last page. I had withdrawls from Wool and its associated trilogy by Hugh Howey. Such an engrossing series and such relatable characters that with my reading style, I was devastated. And then I moved on to the next book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> That's why I wouldn't use Spritz for reading books. For me, good reading isn't the maximization of throughput from the words into my brain. Most insight comes from stopping now and then, looking out of the window and thinking about what you've just read - relating it with own experiences or current challenges.

<comment><USER25> yes you are right eik_de. We have to grasp whatever we are reading. There is a famous adage that says - its easy to read but hard to understand.

Keep it up :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if this applies to listening to audiobooks.

I know people generally hate long commutes but honestly if it wasn't for my commute, I would never spend 2 hours a day listening to audiobooks or reading. Now I easily finish 2 to 3 books a month due to it and I wouldn't have it any other way!

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm wondering how listening to audio books compares to reading printed texts. I have in the last couple of years switched to listening in almost all cases where the audio version of the book I'm interested in exists.

</comment><comment><USER25> yeah slow reading is important but slowly slowly as the time goes on our reading speed gets enhanced by itself. I have felt this. Earlier when I used to read patents I used to take so much time. Slowly slowly the time started reducing and now I can read the text with a speed that is 3X than before and I understand the text also.

Second point that I loved is - books are best rather than PDFs. Guess what - whenever I use to travel in trains I use to read leadership novels of Robin Sharma. Ebooks are good but they are not as effective as physical books are.

-nitin

</comment><comment><USER18> I took the little test and read at my normal speed which is apparently faster than the speed reading average (FWIW I got the comprehension questions). That doesn't quite sound right to me.

</comment><comment><USER28> For me, reading is about thinking, enjoying what I read and learning. That's why it has never made sense why some people are so obsessed with speed reading.

<comment><USER29> The reason is that not all texts deliver an equal amount of information or enjoyment per word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reading slowly makes me drowsy. I think that's a sign I need to get more sleep!

</comment><comment><USER31> Although I totally agree with the gist of it I have to admit that I skimmed the article.</comment>


Apple bans vaping apps from the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/15/apple-removes-vaping-related-apps-from-app-store-amid-lung-illness-crisis.html <comment><USER2> I have a Pax 3 (cannabis vaporizer).

It has an app that adds functionality to the device to modify temperature controls, such as raising/lowering the temperature, and increasing the temperature as you draw, but lowering it when you're not drawing to conserve battery.

It's a great app that adds a fair amount of value to the product. It sucks to know that this won't be getting updated, or if I buy a new iPhone, I won't be able to install without jailbreaking.

I would love for Plume (creator of the Pax) to open source the app so that some users are able to build and run it, and the community would likely add some improvements. But we'll see what happens I suppose.</comment>


Ralph Nader: Why Bernie Sanders Was Right to Run as a Democrat - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/25/ralph-nader-why-bernie-sanders-was-right-to-run-as-a-democrat/ <comment><USER2> I love that he skips over the elephant in the room:that without his independent run, we would not have had G. W. Bush as president.

<comment><USER3> Why is it relevant?

<comment><USER4> Because one reason why Sanders was right to run as a Democrat rather than as an independent is that running as an independent might have enabled a Republican victory that wouldn't otherwise have happened, in which case Sanders's hypothetical independent campaign might be responsible for making Trump or Cruz president, which Sanders probably doesn't want.

<comment><USER3> Right? I really don't like that point of view, because it gives the incumbent power structures a legitimacy they don't deserve. I think it is folly to criticize dissenters for dissenting too hard instead of falling in line. The lesser of two evils is still evil. It is not right to judge someone negatively for rejecting two choices they find unacceptable.

Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders are not responsible for the flaws of the system they choose to operate inside or outside of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because if you want anyone to listen to you at all you have to run as one of the two approved parties.

We really need a whole article to state that?

<comment><USER3> No. Most of the article was supporting evidence from a primary source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the other hand, here's Karl Popper's cause for two-party system: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/01/ka...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/01/karl- popper-democracy)

</comment><comment><USER7> The irony is that Nader does not even admit his culpability in this equation. Leaving aside the disastrous Bush v Gore thing, Nader destroyed the Green Party's chance at creating a 3rd party movement that could have born fruit about now. He took all of the money that the Greens had socked away for their bottom up strategy, and set back 3rd party aspirations by 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you want a progressive party to exist, someone has to step up to try to lead in that direction. Sanders and his supporters are trying.</comment>