EU-Commissioned Study Proposes European Firewall [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf <comment><USER2> Just pointing out that this is not the EU opinion, all the authors work for [https://www.futurecandy.com/](https://www.futurecandy.com/)

> AUTHORS

> Nick SOHNEMANN, Future Candy

> Lasse Michael UFFRECHT, Future Candy

> Marie Constanze HARTKOPF, Future Candy

> Jette Paulina KRUSE, Future Candy

> Lena Marie de NOELLEN, Future Candy

Also WTF the EU is thinking to task what looks like a "house of lies" consulting agency for a Study Digital services

look at this presentation they did for EU .. I was expecting a Better of Ted jaberwooky at any moment in the slide deck .. -> [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/196436/IMCO%20KEYNOTE...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/196436/IMCO%20KEYNOTE%20FUTURE%20CANDY%20-%20Future%20of%20Digital%20Service%20-%20EU%20Parliament%20Feb%202020%20-%20Nick%20Sohnemann.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Innovation management, an ISO standard is in the work[1], this will help smooth out any irregularities in the consulting industry, by standardising how to innovate, leading to improved ideation of the future.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_TC_279](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_TC_279)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Relevant section:

> 5.1. European Cloud / European Internet

The EU should include an action plan for a digital cloud – a European Internet – in the DSA. This European Cloud would foster a European digital ecosystem based on data and innovation. It would drive competition and set standards. Foreign web services could become part of such a digital ecosystem but must adhere to the rules and standards of the EU – such as democratic values, data protection, data accessibility, transparency and user friendliness.

> Technologically, it would require a top-level infrastructure, high-speed 5G > or a 6G data network and a firewall. Setting up such a network would promote > many European companies and therefore boost business and drive innovation.

> Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services > that condone or support unlawful conduct from third party countries.

<comment><USER5> It's a cloud _and_ an internet? Uh, I think a better title for this should be "European Parliament fleeced by 'innovation agency'" or "European Parliament wastes money on private consultants" (depending on your basic stance on government)

I think the guys and gals at FUTURE CANDY, the agency that made the study, should be really proud of the combination "standards of the EU – such as democratic values, data protection, data accessibility, transparency and user friendliness" and "Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services". Hard to see that as anything but just outright trolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This study was mainly written by this Hamburg-based company: [https://www.futurecandy.com/en/company/](https://www.futurecandy.com/en/company/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Controversial take:

Freedom is not the same thing as anarchy. Freedom comes from Constitution and some form of state that enforces laws, and protects it's citizens. (Paraphrasing Lessig's CODE 2.0 [http://www.codev2.cc/](http://www.codev2.cc/) from 1999!)

Is it possible, that in order to gain freedom the internet has to become _more_ regulated not less?

If this is the case, how can we do this?

There are no international bodies that have been successful at regulating the internet as a whole. So far regulation of the internet has effectively come from large governments like the US/EU which are limited in scope and had great trouble being effectively enforced.

Given that there are no global institutions, that can effectively enforce internet regulation: Is there any way around some form of segregation of the internet along national borders (EU/US/CN/..), that allows the states to enforce their rules within their part of the internet, and keep out bad actors from elsewhere?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wondering what's more disappointing here 1. the quality of discourse in that study 2. the way the EU allocates money on "innovation studies" or 3. their actual recommendations...

</comment><comment><USER8> They are not even shy to compare their plans to China's great firewall. Goes to show that free speech and democracy has never been and continues not to be a European strong point.

<comment><USER4> It's not a proposition from the EU. The EU requested a study, the study group suggested that proposition.

Now the question is: what does the EU do with that proposal?

If they say "fuck yeah, let's act on that fine suggestion of a European Great Firewall" then I would agree with you, but that's not the situation.

<comment><USER8> Such studies are usually intended to give external legitimacy to pre-decided internal plans. So someone had them draw up the study, telling them what the conclusion should be.

<comment> vertex-four There's also the opposite effect - that organisations pretending to be legitimate create "studies" to shift the Overton window a bit. In practice, most of these things go into the circular file anyway. If you go searching on pretty much any topic, there's pretty much all the possible opinions in the form of "studies" for the EC.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind this study was commissioned by a work group of the European Parliament, not the EC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The way pores are scattered around the face does not change over time (from > adolescence) and cannot actively be changed. Even if the face is partially > covered, theseadvanced technologies are still able to recognise the pores in > the part of the face that is not covered.

This is news to me. Does anyone here know how well that works? It seems to be referring to a product by Identix, but I can't open their website because their HTTPS certificate isn't valid.

</comment><comment><USER10> China's firewall works because it's a single country with an authoritarian government. The EU is more likely a big dysfunctional family. They might want the same thing in the EU, but good luck getting anyone to agree on what it does, much less implement it without leakage.

</comment><comment><USER11> AUTHORS

Nick SOHNEMANN, Future Candy

Lasse Michael UFFRECHT, Future Candy

Marie Constanze HARTKOPF, Future Candy

Jette Paulina KRUSE, Future Candy

Lena Marie de NOELLEN, Future Candy

Sweet gig for Future Candy

<comment><USER9> Their addresses explain why it spoke of buying "gas" when I'd have expected "petrol". (When talking about fuels in en-gb, "gas" means methane, not gasoline as it does in en-us).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ursula von der Layen's nickname is "Zensursula" (Zensur == censorship) for a reason.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any apps/services for keeping track of medical bills and EOBs? - <AUTHOR> I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and went through both the general ABVD treatment and an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant roughly a year later. I'm still receiving and attempting to navigate the dozens of bills I've received, and have had changes in my insurance multiple times throughout the process, complicating things further.
I've tried to do research on my own, but many of the companies I've found have either folded (Better, CakeHealth, Remedy Labs) or they provide software to medical providers as opposed to patients (Simplee, Waystar, TotalMD). Some others I've found have too broad of a scope and lose the focus on medical billing and figuring out if bills are duplicates or contain errors (Quicken, Mint, YNAB).
I did throw together a Python script that uses OCR to dig through my PDF bills to find those with a remaining balance, and found multiple bills containing errors. For example, one bill with a remaining balance of ~$1,500 had no payout from my secondary insurance, as the date that the bill was submitted is different than the date that the services were performed. I also have a bunch of questions regarding out of pocket maxes and deductibles, and how procedures are grouped together.
Does anyone know of any apps or services to help keep track of these sort of bills and their associated EOBs to make the process of going through billing easier to navigate? I constantly see posts on HN about how messed up the healthcare system is, and don't want to drown in medical debt simply because the billing process is so complicated. <comment><USER2> I think there are services with people who specialize in medical billing and find mistakes and so on, but I don't know of software. You might look at those as they can save you a lot of money as they know all the tricks and can fight back against the hospitals.

Sorry, that might not be the specific question but I thought it might be more useful and less stressful.

My thoughts are with you on this one!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much. I figure I'll keep slowly pushing along this python script I have and add features when and where I can. Maybe one day it'll be at a point that it can be released as some sort of OS project to help others in a similar situation.</comment></comment>


HP to lay off as many as 525 at webOS GBU - <AUTHOR> http://www.precentral.net/hp-lays-100-webos-gbu

<comment><USER2> As a Touchpad and Pre3 user, I can honestly say that these guys done a great job in delivering these devices (I love them both, yes I am a long-suffering webOS fanboy), and this is a terrible reward for all of their hard work. Wish them all well in their post-HP lives.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, "hard work" is not something that inherently deserves a reward (or is it its own reward?) in the business world. You can work _really hard_ on the wrong thing. I hope the developers were compensated well for putting out a good product, but I wouldn't associate their getting laid off with how hard they worked, but that the company miscalculated.

<comment><USER2> I agree that you can work really hard on the wrong thing, but in my opinion the Pre3 and the Touchpad are the _right thing_ (and I'm not alone in this). The reasons why they didn't sell (in my opinion) are that they were priced wrong on the initial release, the marketing was poor to non-existent (in the case of Europe for example, where there was no marketing), and finally they were just not given enough of a chance (who cancels a new device about a month after it is released? And in the case of the Pre3 it was _never_ released outside of Europe...).

All of these things are the fault of strategic management at HP, not the hardware engineers who are losing their jobs.

<comment><USER4> The Pre3 and the Touchpad _are_ the right thing? They may have _been_ the right thing in HP/Palm's eyes at the time, but they're dead now. Flatlined. Time to let go.

I hope the hardware engineers land on their feet at other companies, but I have a hard time believing for a moment that 525 folks comprised the Hardware division alone and nobody else was caught up in this. Developer Relations and webOS Development seems to have escaped the axe this time, but if I were working there I'd be looking over my shoulder more than a couple times a day.

Unless webOS gets a new lease on life through either a coherent strategy or new hardware licensees (preferably both) VERY soon, it's dead. They had one massive dry spell during the transition to HP that killed what market share and most of the developer mindshare they had; they're not going to make it through another one and have both consumers and developers give it yet another chance. All but the most dedicated webOS developers have already left as it is.

My prediction: Once the CM7 (Android Gingerbread) port hits, most of the people who bought the Touchpad at firesale will evaporate away from webOS along with whatever developer revenue was left to be had, dual-boot or not. webOS will end up an embedded OS for menu-driven appliances and other applications of their ilk, but never see another non-enterprise consumer mobile device again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can really feel for the fans of webOS. I was a user and big fan of BeOS when it was dying and it totally sucked.

<comment><USER6> And then Palm acquired BeOS IP in 2001 for $11 million.

<comment><USER5> And did nothing with it! They eventually sold the IP to an asian company that, as far as I know, also did nothing with it.

That's why I fear for WebOS and its future. It seems like once an operating system is sold to another company, it often just dies. The one success story that comes to my mind is Nextstep, which became Mac OS X, but I think that its success has more to do with Steve Jobs than anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> webOS software devs are still there. <https://twitter.com/#!/SirKneeland/status/115994758777815041>

<comment><USER7> Yes, but for how long? If I was there and saw one side of the team cut, I'd start polishing my CV. Maybe HP moves the software people around so that they never get "cut", but honestly I don't think there's much hope for anyone still working on that platform.

HP's stock is at its lowest point in the last 5 years. I'm not sure if it can afford to keep those Palm people around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a contractor at HP in Roseville. While we are not associated with the WebOS team, there have been talks here about layoffs. I work on the HP Networking/Procurve team. We have been told that our team is being integrated with HPIT, but the problem with that is the HPIT team is on the east coast, so that means the chances of even the employees keeping their jobs is slim. All of us contractors have been warned that our contract will most likely end at the end of October. While I don't know for sure, I would guess that the WebOS team will be folded into some other HPIT team if they are willing to relocate.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't that like half of Palm? This sucks. The Apothekerlypse continues.

</comment><comment><USER10> must be true, their stock is rising [http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:HPQ](http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:HPQ)

<comment><USER11> Look at HPQ two years from now, when it has no product to sell.

I don't buy their software strategy. Neither does the market.

[http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1...](http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1316548800000&chddm=25024&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NASDAQ:DELL&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:HPQ&ntsp=0)

See when Dell and HP start to diverge? Guess what happened on August 18th.

<comment><USER10> great graph

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What do /did these 525 people do exactly, if they weren't developers or developer relations? Middle managers?

<comment><USER13> Hardware.

<comment><USER4> Which leads you to wonder...525 people were assigned to hardware development? Really?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Buy and destroy, just like yahoo.</comment>


Hacker News Rankings - interactive graphs of an item's fate - <AUTHOR> http://hnrankings.info <comment><USER2> Creator here, I would love to hear any feedback you all have.

I also have around 3 months worth of historical data if anyone is interested or has a cool idea.

<comment><USER3> I tried doing something like this a while ago. But HN kept blocking my IP after a few days of screen scraping. How did you get past that rate limit?

<comment><USER2> I am using the bigrss feed as described in the latest post: <http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html>

<comment><USER4> I wish it gave out the points the article had... does your data track that or just the position?

<comment><USER2> Just the position unfortunately, I would need to scrape the site itself in order to get comments and points info. It would be awesome if that data was added to the RSS feed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell The movies.io one is quite interesting: <http://hnrankings.info/4054568/>

I'm assuming it dropped suddenly because of flagging, but how did it get back up? Manual intervention?

</comment><comment><USER5> Very good service. Gives inside to Hacker News. Lately, I have the feeling many submissions get gamed by YC-affiliated parties.

</comment><comment><USER2> Updated:

\- Changed the graph to a log scale

\- Added the ability to compare multiple stories from the list, you can also query them directly in the url like: <http://hnrankings.info/4055256,4056649/>

\- Added timestamp to the tooltip

A search feature and some long term stats are next on my list

<comment><AUTHOR> Love your responsiveness - thank you.

Some feedback: the graph no longer fits on my screen vertically - the bottom gets lost. Granted, I don't have a huge screen here, but the previous version fitted nicely.

 _Added in edit: I see you've fixed that now - thanks._

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice site. Not that it matters but I'm always curious, what's it built with?

<comment><USER2> Python, Django, jQuery and Highcharts

<comment><USER7> FYI, we run an app that used to use Highcharts too, but we discovered flot and never looked back: <http://code.google.com/p/flot/> Wanted to share in case that's useful to you, too! (In particular, it will come in handy if you ever need to develop a web app for commercial purposes, as Highcharts has a tricky licensing scheme for web apps.)

<comment><USER8> Frankly, having used flot for [http://burntbrunch.github.com/Silk-Rabbit- Hole/html/index.ht...](http://burntbrunch.github.com/Silk-Rabbit- Hole/html/index.html), I wouldn't recommend it. It was a complete pain to do tooltips, since flot insists on drawing them with divs.

gRaphael looks a lot more customizable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How about being able to pick multiple items to view on the same graph.

<comment><USER2> Good idea, I will definitely put that in

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Curious, when I look at the graph for this very item, the updates stop a couple of hours ago:

<http://hnrankings.info/4058277/>

Any reason?

<comment><USER2> Thanks, good catch. Something weird happened with memcached when I resized the server. Restarting the service fixed it

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like this. It would be interesting to be able to focus in on a region of the y-axis to see the spread more clearly, or a log scale option.

<comment><USER2> You should be able to click and drag on the graph to select a rectangular zoom region

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> always testing things... so this is what happens when you pick most of the highest parameters (kinda slowed down the browser on my side, but it was manageable) : <http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5519/hnalltheratings.png>

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool idea - would be nice to be able to look for a specific item vs. rankings.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can. This item, for example:

<http://hnrankings.info/4058277/>

<comment><USER12> oh i meant to search for them somehow - it was apparent in the UI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oops, it's gone down under the load.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I had resized the instance. It should be good now

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really like. May help explain how some submissions trend better than others. Think that similar submissions should be aggregated rather than duplicated.

One interesting use for the data may be trending user stats - showing karma points from submissions and comments by day or week.</comment>


Kevin Briggs – stopping people from jumping off of Golden Gate Bridge - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
Sergeant Kevin Briggs is a California Highway Patrol officer who has stopped upwards of two hundred people from jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay.
I interviewed this remarkable man known as the Guardian of Golden Gate. It's quite a long read (15 mins or so) and this is my personal site but here's the interview:
http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/the-guardian-of-golden-gate
If you'd prefer to just watch his TED talk it is here - https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_briggs_the_bridge_between_suicide_and_life
Thanks! <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2006_documentary_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_\(2006_documentary_film\))

"The Bridge is a 2006 British-American documentary film by Eric Steel spanning exactly one year (365 days) of filming at the famed Golden Gate Bridge which crosses the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay, connecting the city of San Francisco, California to the Marin Headlands of Marin County, in 2004. The film captured a number of suicides, and featured interviews with family and friends of some of the identified people who had thrown themselves from the bridge that year."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this, looks awesome

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: My interview - [http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/the- guardian-of-golde...](http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/the-guardian-of- golden-gate)

TED Talk - [https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_briggs_the_bridge_between_su...](https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_briggs_the_bridge_between_suicide_and_life)

<comment><USER3> You may also be interested in Don Richie: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Ritchie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Ritchie)

Also Yukio Shige: [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and- families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and- families/features/this-man-has-dedicated-his-life-to-patrolling-japans-lonely- cliff-tops-to-prevent-suicides-10357597.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, will check both out.</comment></comment></comment>


Girl Develop It - <AUTHOR> http://girldevelopit.com/ <comment><USER2> While there's certainly no harm in this, there's not really a need, either. The site claims that girls are afraid to ask stupid questions... Yeah, so are boys. Join the club.

And if a girl comes up to me and starts asking me questions about coding, she's got my full attention. That's a pretty big bias in her favor over any guys that do the same.

And finally, if you're trying to learn to do something, eliminating 91% of the people who already do it from your list of mentors doesn't seem like a good idea.</comment>


Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/paulellenbogen/ancestry-com-can-use-your-dna-to-target-ads/ <comment><USER2> "Research has shown that users are already desensitized to privacy and security warnings."

This along with the quote below are my biggest takeaways from this article:

"it can be difficult to avoid information leakage through URLs or cookies or more sophisticated attacks."

People may not even realize they are giving the keys away until it's too late. It's unlikely that a dialog box for confirmation would be explicit anyway, especially if Ancestry and others stand to monetarily gain from your DNA.

Moreover, if you're a malicious actor you can simply display an ad from Ancestry and when you have a logged in user you could potentially identify a whole host of other information that can be associated with their email and other aspects of their identity. The malicious actor could resell this to even worse offenders.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%.

\+ admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier.

% ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father couldn't have told me.

<comment><USER4> > If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat

You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", [https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating- yo...](https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-your-genetic- privacy/).

<comment><USER5>
      Once  I checked  out, I  went to  my real,  personal inbox  to
      complete the 23andMe registration by clicking the confirmation
      email, which was forwarded to me from the alias email address.

LOL. Thanks for posting this bit of comedy.

<comment><USER4> How was that problematic? I don't see the issue, especially given that the author was on a VPN and using Firefox in Private Browsing mode while running DoNotTrackMe.

<comment><USER6> Most email is sent unencrypted, so the NSA likely has a record of that email and can cross-reference it with the 23 account if needed.

Even the header would probably be enough in this case, just to identify the particular masked email with the real email behind it.

<comment><USER4> > Even the header would probably be enough in this case, just to identify the > particular masked email with the real email behind it.

Are you implying that an HTTP header sent in the request to 23andme upon clicking the confirmation link would contain the forwarded email address of the user?

Unless the user were on a web page that included their email account name in the URL (and thus visible in the REFERER header), I don't see how that would happen. And I don't think I've ever seen an email system that puts the account name in the URL.

<comment><USER6> No, the email header sent by abine when they forward the email from 23andme. That contains their real email address in plaintext, and might also contain the masked address; if not, a timing attack given the time of 23's emails and the time of the forwarded email might work.

If the actual email is unencrypted, then the NSA gets everything for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here we go again, reading privacy policies like the devil reads the bible.

A more honest headline would have have been:

"There is no exception in place in the privacy policy stopping Ancestry.com from theoretically being able to target ads using your DNA."

</comment><comment><USER8> That's not even close to the most offensive thing ancestry.com does to you.

<comment><USER3> What else do they do?

<comment><USER8> The mormons use ancestry.com data to proxy-baptize your ancestors into their ridiculous death cult.

<comment><USER3> I was going to reply with, "I don't care what mumbo-jumbo people say with my name embedded", but that actually is pretty offensive to someone with strong religious beliefs.

<comment><USER9> You have to be a descendant of the deceased to submit their name to be done. Also, there's a lot of sensitivity toward religions who have general qualms about the practice (for example, it's against the rules to submit Jewish holocaust victims). Also, many religious leaders of other faiths have gone on record[1] saying how they're glad the Mormons have brought back the biblical practice of baptisms for the dead.

The practice isn't as cultist as some (gp) may want to imply without understanding what it implies and really means.

[1] [https://youtu.be/4mMDYt0Twpo](https://youtu.be/4mMDYt0Twpo)

<comment><USER10> >The practice isn't as cultist as some (gp) may want to imply without understanding what it implies and really means.

You are having some group of people you don't know say something about a dead relative followed by a ritual not based in any science to change which imaginary place they will be in.

<comment><USER11> Well yes, but that's not really a criticism specific to Mormon rituals; it applies to most religious rituals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Everything to do with DNA sequences ought to be done by personal agents who are certified, licensed and bonded. And subject to strict oversight and liability. Or it could be done client-side, by those with requisite skills and resources. Only specific information, suitably redacted and abstracted, should be submitted to untrusted third parties.

Sending swabs to untrusted firms is just batshit insane, in my humble opinion. And being "anonymous" is rather pointless. It's ones DNA! That's an ultimate biometric.

<comment><USER3> > _And being "anonymous" is rather pointless. It's ones DNA! That's an > ultimate biometric._

But unless it's tied to my identity, I don't care! It may be the ultimate biometric, but _that_ only matters if they can compare it to my DNA by taking it from me directly - and at that point, they have my DNA, so it doesn't matter whether I previously provided it anonymously or not!

<comment><USER12> I suppose. But once there's a bunch of stuff online that's linked to your DNA data, anyone who has your DNA data can correlate it all. And tie it to your true name.

Bottom line, I see no compelling upside to putting ones DNA data on the Internet.

<comment><USER3> That's why I would like to send my DNA in anonymously; I _don 't_ want to link anything to my DNA data.

<comment><USER13> Even if you send it in anonymously, your DNA is so unique to you that by comparing it to other data you can infer at least the last name.

See for example [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23329047](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23329047)

<comment><USER3> That's a valid concern, actually, my last name is fairly rare, especially in the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The link is clickbait, but ancestry.com is both a ripoff and full of incorrect data. They infer relationships based on totally faulty or very circumstantial inputs, and then dangle those relationships in front of people with more money than sense.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ancestry.com is run by trolls on par with the current owners of Sourceforge. Absolutely nothing surprises me when it comes to that site.</comment>


What Would You Answer If Jobs Asked "What Have You Done That's So Great …"? - <AUTHOR> http://alexiatsotsis.com/2010/05/15/donkey_ditch/

<comment><USER2> Two great quotes along this line:

T. Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Anton Ego from Ratatouille:

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new; an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking, is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook". But I realize - only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

<comment><USER3> I never liked how this monologue mischaractarizes the value of critics. The actual criticism itself may not be terribly valuable unto itself (though I argue that a great critic's ability to compare what's new to what's already come is very valuable), but when you combine the criticism with an audience, it becomes very valuable indeed. Ebert didn't just create a body of work, he also created a massive audience for that work that can't be ignored in assessing the value of a critic.

<comment><USER2> I think your point has some merit, but what has Ebert really done? Has his criticism shaped film making in any tangible way? Has any critic in any field, maybe since John Ruskin? I know Ebert has had a rebirth in the tech community with his speech synthesizer and Twitter account, but really the guy opined on a syndicated basic cable and newspaper column for 25 years. His only significant innovation is the "Thumbs Up/Down" rating. Certainly famous, but influential or valuable? At least as it relates to a comparison with film makers of the day?

As a thought experiment, think of all the movies you can for the last 25 years, good, bad, weird. Probably a fairly large list. Now think of all the insights, or "Thumbs" ratings you can remember from Ebert? Or any other critic? How do they match up?

<comment><USER4> The work of a modern critic is not in their individual opinions on individual works: rather, a single "Thumbs Up" is more like a single dance step in a ballet, an atomic element that works with others to create the actual art.

What you get from a man like Ebert is a _partial ordering of an infinite set_ ; a way to overcome choice paralysis, by culling all but a finite number of the choices. Criticism is how we deal with the Information age, and critics are valuable because they willingly go out and spend their days drinking from the firehose, so we can get a rather more purified liquid from the other end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think there's an answer you could give that'd satisfy him, unless you're also a CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company. That's what his value system is, so if you really want to go toe-to-toe with him, it has to be by that measuring stick, which may not be a productive use of your time (unless you agree with it, and think you have a good way to get yourself into such a position).

You can play that game on all sorts of fronts. For example, an elitist-feeling Nobel Prize in Physics winner might pick out some reasonably successful YC company and ask them, "well, you have a website, but what have you _really_ done lately?" And regardless of how useful they think their startup is, they can't compete with the Nobel-prize winner on the prize-winner's terms (unless, perhaps, they actually do invent something field-changing).

<comment><USER2> I would broaden the criteria a bit. I think Jobs would accept the criticism of a Nobel Laureate, a Bob Dylan-esqe artistic figure, or any of the folks in the "Think Different" commercials. His point is fair enough. SJ has spent his life bringing new tech to the world and reshaping it in kind. He is a bad ass and knows it. The Gawker guy was making a 1/32 assed point, hasn't contributed anything of meaning to the culture (or even cultural debate) and was lucky to get a response from SJ considering. While he is milking the minor pageview spike this story generates, SJ is inventing the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found this message by Joe Clark when researching for another reply (guess on which topic):

[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai- ig/2004JulSep/02...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai- ig/2004JulSep/0237.html)

"Actually, no, it is not the responsibility of the critic to solve the problem. Pauline Kael was not expected to rewrite and redirect the films she disliked."

"[N]ot everybody who can spot a mistake can fix it (I know there's a leak in the ceiling; do you expect me to get up there with a ladder and a bucket o' tar?)"

This doesn't excuse people who rip on everything they see. However, good, balanced criticism _is_ very valuable, regardless of the critic's Maker™ credentials. Don't let others tell you otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well if it made sense I'd say something about the difference between critics and creators. Ebert is respected in his field even though he hasn't made any movies.

In this case, however, I think Steve was just lashing out against this guy's sense of entitlement. Tate also had a narrative fallacy problem.

</comment><comment><USER8> I really wonder what would have become of Steve Jobs if he didn't have that opportunity to stand on the shoulders of Steve Wozniak.

<comment><USER9> Or vice versa. Every ying needs its yang.

<comment><USER10> True, but Woz doesn't go around writing snippy e-mails that ask "What have _you_ done lately?"

<comment><USER11> True, but Woz, after his initial contribution - Apple][, called it quits on the industry and dedicated his life to hobbies and personal projects. Jobs stayed in the industry and eventually returned to Apple to turn a dying company into one of the titans of technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd say "Well I got you to respond to my bloody e-mail"

<comment><USER13> Brought to you by another episode of snide answers to snide questions. This kind of question doesn't merit serious response, it is not meant to engage in a serious discussion. It is meant to humiliate and deserves only a response in kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This "argument" was unfair and proves that Jobs was short of more pertinent arguments in this case.

The recurrent successful experiences of Steve Jobs can and should be used as a heuristic that he has no "vision problems" ;).

But the argument is unfair because the lack of successful experience proves nothing more that you didn't have YET a successful experience and certainly not that you might be wrong on the debated matter. As successful experiences won't prove that you will always be right, it's just a heuristic.

</comment><comment><USER15> Most of this Apple nonsense would make a lot more sense if you imagined Apple had 1m dollars in annual revenue. Then, whatever Apple is doing would not seem so bad because they would be a struggling company. People feel entitled because Apple is successful and makes a lot of money. It's pretty disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER16> That reminds me of this Fake Steve Jobs Crunchies Acceptance video. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmfP6aXNSis>

</comment><comment><USER17> I predict that I would answer 'nothing' and then feel ashamed.

It makes me wonder why the two go together and whether I can break that link so I could answer 'nothing' and be OK with that.

<comment><USER11> "Nothing" and shame will always go hand in hand. But you can always reevaluate what "nothing" means to you. "I created a great family and brought up great kids." "I helped the people in my community." "I managed to stay a decent person." These are all "somethings" one can be proud of, even if they are not things that have changed the world at large.

<comment><USER17> > "Nothing" and shame will always go hand in hand.

I dispute that. You wouldn't expect a monk, a hunter-gatherer tribesman, or a lion to be ashamed of doing "nothing great", would you?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: We made 1 app this year - <AUTHOR> http://lentor.io/saved/ <comment><USER2> I love this. The whole "I made 30 apps this year..." posts are rediculous. Anyone can make lots of crapy apps. Creating a well designed app with valuable functionality and propper marketing/support web pages takes time and skill.

Kudos.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. But I will be curious to see who is making more money in a year.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Thirty multiplied by zero is still zero.

<comment><USER3> Haha, yes. Most apps on the app store don't make any money at all, but if making 30 helps you identify a profitable niche you can target then you'll come out ahead of the polished but perhaps poorly targeted app.

Hopefully people continue to release their stats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a certain variety of budgeting I've yet to see, but that I think would be very valuable. It's something I'd pay a decent amount for, actually.

The majority of my expenses and income are very predictable, such that I get paid every N days, I get billed X every Y days, etc. I would like to see an application that tracks my balance for every day, from now and into the future, such that I can see my predicted balance on, say, February 21st.

It could also tie into my bank account and track current and past spending, both to recognize recurring events and to update the current balance, which also cascades into all the future predictions.

<comment><USER6> There's an app for this. Dollarbird - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dollarbird-personal- finance/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dollarbird-personal- finance/id665003358) it does exactly that for me. It does not tie to my bank account though it's all manual input (but you can schedule in recurring payments/income), which is actually good for me because I dislike miscategorizations

<comment><USER5> Nice! That calendar interface in the first screenshot is almost exactly what I imagined. It's a shame I'm on Android so I can't try it out, but it's good to see there are good apps for that sort of budgeting.

<comment><USER7> Hey Zikes,

The Android version of Dollarbird is actually already in the pipeline, most probably coming out sometime in February. So if you'd like to be updated about this you can sign up to our newsletter here: [http://dollarbirdapp.com/contact/](http://dollarbirdapp.com/contact/) Cheers!

<comment><USER5> I'll do that, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How do I enter expenses? I was hoping the app description would tell me that. It doesn't seem to be on the web page or app store page.

The pain of budgeting is in tracking outflows, at least for me. I make a combination of debit, credit, and cash purchases, and even just through those three channels it's easy to lose track of what went where.

As you note in your app description, people typically give up "tracking expenses... because it was too much effort." So how does your app solve this pain? Would be nice if it were explained.

<comment><USER9> Agree wholeheartedly. There are any number of apps out there than can provide me with beautiful graphs and visualizations once they have the data they need, but I don't use any of them. Why? Because:

1) The ones that collect the data automatically require me to violate my bank's online TOS to gather the data (e.g. Mint), which potentially leaves me with no recourse should my bank account be compromised.

2) The ones that require me to input the data are just too much work.

<comment><USER10> > The ones that require me to input the data are just too much work.

I've been using YNAB (You Need A Budget) for a few months, and it makes you input everything. I initially resisted and thought the same thing as you. However I forced myself to try it because so many people recommended it so highly.

It is at it's core a glorified spreadsheet, but it's a very well designed spreadsheet with great support and a solid budgeting methodology behind it. Entering transactions manually has not been that painful, and the big benefit of doing this is that you are actively participating with your budget. WIth mint you spend money and then see how it fits into your budget. With YNAB you give that dollar a job as soon as you get it, and you manually input it when you spend it. It really keeps you aware of your budget and where you are in it and in my experience makes it much easier to stick to it.

I found every time I tried to use Mint to budget (privacy issues aside) it never worked out because it was a very passive thing. Set up some categories. Spend money. Wait for email to tell me I'm over budget, oops.

YNAB is very active so it keeps you honest. And unlike mint, YNAB is designed to be a fluid budget. You can and are encouraged to adjust budget amounts and categories on the fly as life happens, which is something painful to do in mint or other apps.

It is a bit of a pain to have to manually handle transactions (though you can import CSV) but I find the benefits of doing that outweighs the hassle.

<comment><USER11> I was about to try this too, but it wants to know my location, phone call information, storage access and whatnot :(

<comment><USER10> Download the desktop version. The mobile one is not a full fledged app, it's mostly a convenience to record transactions and check budget amounts on the go. 99% of the time I use the desktop app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a way to export data? Also, thoughts on putting a PIN or password?

</comment><comment><USER13> my nexus s with cm 10.2 is not eligible for this app (i'm in italy). so i can't save up money for the nexus 5 and download the app. it's a never-ending problem.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Requires Android

> 4.0 and up

This cuts out pretty big portion of the userbase, doesn't it? Around 25% according to developers' dashboards[1].

I'm also interested in how this makes money? Or how it could make money. I'm not sure ads are viable alternative for apps you don't need to engage a lot with (i.e. games, readers, ..).

1\. [http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)

<comment><USER15> The 25% (or so) of Android users who are cut out by this likely aren't going to be terribly concerned with budgeting for themselves, and probably can't afford to pay for anything anyway.

I begin all of my new Android projects with compatibility for 4.0 and later only, because my target market doesn't include people with small budgets buying budget smartphones with years-old OS versions, because they're less likely to do what I want them to: pay me money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does it work? Do I have to type in my expenses manually?

</comment><comment><USER17> Can it work without cloud? Saving data only to my SD card and export them to CSV files? I dont want to share my expense habits with you..

</comment><comment><USER18> The website's font looks bad for me on the latest Chrome, Windows x64: [http://i.imgur.com/cN6tXNl.png](http://i.imgur.com/cN6tXNl.png)

Gets better with zooming though, at 120 % it looks nicer: [http://i.imgur.com/d0GkKcq.png](http://i.imgur.com/d0GkKcq.png)

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Beautifully designed, it looks great on both Android and iOS. Nice work. I'm usually not a very good user of these apps as my income/expenses are very irregular (so any automation features are useless to me) and I'm terrible at remembering to enter the data. I'm going to give it a try though.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'll definitely give this a try! And thank you so much for making an app that only requires network access on Android! All those apps that want your location and access to your contacts and whatnot are so annoying -_-"

</comment><comment><USER19> Gorgeous design. One thing I don't like are the gradient colours in the calendar view. Better to use a threshold value range, so the view doesn't display sixteen different colours.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's really hard to read the thin grey text on the bright orange background: [http://i.imgur.com/dCMcnmv.png](http://i.imgur.com/dCMcnmv.png)

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there the possibility to create a budget for the family? So that both me and my wife will spend from the same budget?

Do you know of any android/web app that can do that?

<comment><USER22> You essentially just want the app on each device tied into the same account?

<comment><USER21> i want a common budget (family budget) which to be accessed by me and my wife, so that we're also able to see which one spends more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Add more than 100 entries per month for $3" is brilliant. People won't know they're locked into the app until halfway into the month.

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks nice. Is there a plan to implement the option to password protect and export the data? Also, multiple currencies would be highly appreciated!

<comment><USER25> Data export is definitely on the horizon. Password protection is on the list, but not yet definite. We actually do support multiple currencies (we hope our users agree it is done in an elegant fashion, feedback welcome) - let us know if we are missing yours and we will get it in the next release.

<comment><USER26> The app is missing Moldavan leu (MDL)[1], which I wanted to use. The password protection is a must have for me too. Or maybe a simple pattern lock.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_leu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_leu)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks neat, but my device is incompatible and I can't figure out why. I have a 2012 Nexus 7 and Android 4.4. What gives?

</comment><comment><USER28> nitpick: the image on your page doesn't look right. It takes too long to load for such a small image and it isn't clear. Perhaps you have a large image which is being re-sized by the browser?

I'm on firefox, windows 7.

<comment><USER27> You guessed correctly, the image is an extraordinarily large png (1050x1364, 250kB).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great to see such a nice looking app coming from Malaysia :)

<comment><USER25> Thanks Gigablah! We appreciate it. Stay tuned for more ^^

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So who are all the ppl on the about page?

<comment><USER31> I believe the author meant that the app (or company, maybe) is one year old, not that there's only one person involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> rgb(218, 218, 218) on rgb(237, 173, 45) makes my eyes hurt.

</comment><comment><USER33> Could someone comment on this vs YNAB? With YNAB I have it hooked up on my desktop as well. How does this compare? I like the neat visuals, wish YNAB had those.

<comment><USER34> I think this would be good for planning your savings for future (forecasting), YNAB is about current and past budgeting (though there are ways around it ([http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/forecast-in- yn...](http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/forecast-in-ynab)).

<comment><USER35> That isn't my impression of YNAB. I only tried it out briefly about a year ago, but what I understand is that you plan you future savings by adding it to your budget today. If I wanted to save $80,000 for a down payment on a condo over four years, I would budget $1667 monthly for it in YNAB, and then allocate incoming money to it each month. That isn't a workaround, that is simply how the system is supposed to work.

When you think about planning for the future, I don't think a mobile app is really a good way to go about it. When I was setting up YNAB, I used the desktop app. It took me a while to enter all my budget information and set it up the way I liked it. This wasn't because of YNAB's UI, which is pretty good, but because monthly finances can be complicated. I couldn't imagine doing all of this on a mobile device. It would be incredibly frustrating.

YNAB has mobile and desktop applications. This is nice. You use the desktop application for setting things up and the mobile application for recording purchases (and checking your budget status when considering a purchase) while you are out.

All that said, I was never hooked. The system forces you to think about and record every purchase you make. This is probably great for people living paycheck to paycheck trying to get ahead, or people unable to meet their savings goal. If this isn't you, then you'll probably just find the system to be an unnecessary annoyance.

<comment><USER22> I've thought about this a lot. What I really don't want to do is invest time in dealing with the data I don't care about. Because of the nature of spending, it tends to be pretty noisy data. When my budget isn't tight, I really don't care to track and think about every transaction. I'm just not interested in a detailed accounting of my coffee habit if at a high level my finances are on the right track.

I've taken an approach of manual entry for a few "important" categories of discretionary spending. It's been good to leave everything else for the less frequent review of my bank statements.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FCC Republican claims municipal broadband is threat to First Amendment - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/fcc-republican-claims-municipal-broadband-is-threat-to-first-amendment/ <comment><USER2> > As previously noted, O'Rielly's speech objected to municipal broadband > networks enforcing Acceptable Use Policies that target "amorphous categories > like 'hateful' or 'threatening.'" Yet O'Rielly didn't object to Comcast and > AT&T enforcing Acceptable Use Policies with those same terms.

It's right to point out this nonsense, but in his defense, there is a _huge_ difference between a private company "censoring" speech, which it can do, and the government doing so.

This is of course muddied by the monopoly terms that comcast and the rest typically extract from municipalities. So if we are to take O'Rielly's comments seriously, he should be emphatic that such terms need to be removed from TOS when users have no other choice for an ISP.</comment>


Away CEO Is Back, Just Weeks After Stepping Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/business/steph-korey-away.html <comment><USER2> Even if the accusations were completely false (which seems unlikely) you've got to feel for the new CEO. Hired in to wright the ship, taking the big step up to CEO. Now the woman accused of being a terrible boss is going to be his boss, he's basically been demoted and now he's going to be thrown into the middle of this situation where there's clearly going to be animosity between the founder and the employees who clearly want her gone.</comment>


How Disney built a big data platform on a startup budget - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/09/16/how-disney-built-a-big-data-platform-on-a-startup-budget/

<comment><USER2> "Disney's platform is growing at 5TB a day" - 5TB of what each day?

What business problem are they solving? There's no context here which makes this story less than useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.slideshare.net/cloudera/hadoop- world-2011-advanci...](http://www.slideshare.net/cloudera/hadoop- world-2011-advancing-disneys-data-infrastructure-with-hadoop-matt-estes- disney)

</comment><comment><USER4> And this has allowed Disney to do what exactly?

<comment><USER5> Probably related: <http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/disney_is_spying_on_you/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What kind of data is it?

<comment><USER7> It's a DMP, so basically they pixel and retarget you, I believe.</comment></comment>


The many faces of git rebase - <AUTHOR> http://epx.com.br/artigos/gitfaces.php

<comment><USER2> I prefer to think of rebase as accomplishing one simply-described task:

Taking a series of commits from anywhere in the repo and replaying it starting from any point in the repo, possibly with modifications.

All the use cases described in the article and crazy CLI options fall out of this simple description. I realize there's quite a bit you need to grok before this becomes obvious, but nevertheless I think it's a good mantra to have as you are learning git and run into problems.

Eventually your mental model shifts from "what does this command option do?" to "what final state of the repository do I want?", and from there it's just a matter of practice.

<comment><USER3> You're description is correct, but it's also worth mentioning that the commit dates don't change when "replaying" them.

In other words, the dates of commits won't be chronological after a rebase.

<comment><USER4> Every commit has both an author/author-date and a committer/committer-date. The former are retained during a rebase, the latter are reset. However, you can use --ignore-date to reset the author-date, or --committer-date-is-author- date to retain the original committer-date.

In any case, when using git log, you can override its default of listing commits in reverse chronological order with --topo-order or --date-order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> About that git "eating" commits - they're always recoverable from reflog: see `git log -g`. (where always == until you gc, or delete old clone, or ...)

Otherwise git's interface sucks and is inconsistent, but we're probably past the point of no return. There's always Easy Git and similar projects which aim to make it a bit better if someone wants to use them.

<comment><USER6> Up-voted for the salient observation that we're past the point of no return.

This occured to me as well recently, when there was a lot of web traffic about the git devs polling their audience about a minor behavioral change to git push[1]. What I realized then: git's interface is now more or less frozen, too much depends on it never changing significantly, that big 2.0 that'll fix everything will never come. At this point, we're stuck with all of git's quirks, until something new comes along that's significantly better in enough fundamental ways to displace it.

Frustrating in a way, but that's how it goes in the real world. Good thing the core is beautiful.

1 = <http://lwn.net/Articles/487131/>

<comment><USER7> "At this point, we're stuck with all of git's quirks, until something new comes along that's significantly better in enough fundamental ways to displace it."

A better git than git?

git done right?

<comment><USER6> No, that won't be enough. You need something that's better than git in the same way git is better than SVN: A paradigm shift. Merely being nicer or easier at doing the same thing is rarely enough, you need to do something broadly useful the entrenched tool just cannot do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "CAUTION: several people I know, including guys very proficient in Git, have complained about "git ate two days worth of my work!". It is easy to make errors in rebasing and reset --hard, and you may end up losing commits."

Like everything else in git, the solution to this problem is just to make more branches.

If you're about to do something like a rebase, just fork off a new branch first. It makes it trivially easy to get back where you started if something goes wrong. That's the whole point of version control, after all.

<comment><USER9> _several people I know, including guys very proficient in Git, have complained about "git ate two days worth of my work!" It is easy to make errors in rebasing and reset --hard, and you may end up losing commits._

Something seems wrong there. How do you lose commits? They're all in the reflog. The only way I can see git "eating" work is if the work hadn't been committed in the first place and they overwrote it - in which case it's not so much "git ate my work" as "I deleted it".

It's true that it's easy to make errors with rebase and reset, but it's just as easy to correct them. That's the beauty of it: commits are so malleable that they become part of interactive hacking. One gains a new axis along which to store information and move it around and rework it (comparable to a bunch of new registers magically appearing in a machine). For me the most interesting consequences don't have to do with version control so much as with how I craft programs in general. Biggest win since the REPL.</comment></comment>


Jquery CDN is down - <AUTHOR> https://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.1.min.js <comment><USER2> Github yesterday, jQuery CDN today - is someone trying to make a point of "for all your talk of SPOFs, all you've done is to move them all into the cloud, where you have no control over them"?</comment>


Declare Gifts from Pharma Companies or Face Jail - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecommissioningreview.com/article/hunt-declare-gifts-pharma-companies-or-risk-jail

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about the baity title. I never know what to do when the original title is baity.

This article is about England's health secretary making the rules about pharma gifts even stricter:

> Jeremy Hunt has made it mandatory for healthcare workers to declare all > gifts from pharmaceuticals companies, or they could face being disciplined, > dismissed or sent to jail.

[...]

> This comes after an investigation by The Telegraph that suggested some > senior NHS directors were "getting thousands of pounds and taken on > expensive trips by firms lobbying to get their drugs used".

That Telegraph article is here: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11755884/Lavish-trips- la...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11755884/Lavish-trips-laid-on-by- drugs-firms-to-sway-NHS-staff.html)</comment>


Does pressing the pedestrian crossing button actually do anything? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23869955 <comment><USER2> I think there's a good reason to have buttons that do nothing: it improves usability. Imagine teaching a child how to cross the road. The instructions are:

1) press the button

2) wait for green man

3) cross

Now imagine we took away the buttons that do nothing. Now you need two cases, or branching: look for button; if button is present, press it; otherwise just wait - then cross. Obviously this is still trivial but raises the bar a little and introduces greater possibility for confusion. Especially when talking about children, this makes roads easier and safer to cross, which in turn saves lives.

<comment><USER3> That's definitely an interesting take, and it triggered a thought I had a long time ago.

One thing I've noticed since moving to North America is that children get off the school bus and will essentially just run across the street, including straight in front of the bus, because they know the traffic around them has stopped.

I can only imagine that that leads to some sort of subconscious thinking that can only be dangerous once they are not on a school bus...

<comment><USER4> It is. Two summers ago, a kid from my school got off a city bus, walked in front of the bus and into the street and was hit by a car and killed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Often in Australia, pressing the button makes the pedestrian light go green. But it has no effect on signal order (it goes green when cars traveling in the same direction get a green light).

What's the point of making us press a button in this case? Why not give pedestrians a green light automatically?

Even more obnoxious are intersections where the pedestrian light times out from green to red, but cars still have a green light. You can press the pedestrian crossing button and get a second walk cycle.

Again, why not just make the first walk sequence longer?

It seems traffic planners don't care about pedestrians.

<comment><USER6> _It seems traffic planners don 't care about pedestrians._

You got that right. I walk 4+ miles/day on city streets and I've noticed a steady erosion of rules designed to make pedestrian life safer and easier. What you mentioned above and this:

In addition to lights which are timed to not give a "go" signal to pedestrians unless they push the button, I've run across one that will make you wait until the next cycle unless you press it before the current cycle begins. That is, I push it a second after I would have gotten the "go" signal and I have to wait an entire cycle before it actually tells me to walk. The effect of this? I go anyway, but because the cycle without pedestrians is shorted this is quite dangerous.

Here's another trending in my city: buildings which sit directly on streets with parking lots that empty onto streets having their own lights, have separate lights for pedestrians to regulate them _while on the sidewalk_. So, you're walking down the sidewalk, no where near an intersection and a car comes out of a "driveway" at 20+ miles/hour. Freaked me out the first time this happened. I could have easily been killed as the car was just a few feet from me.

My guess: some city planner was paid off to allow this completely unsafe situation.

<comment><USER7> At least you have sidewalks!

It amazes me how many communities (here in the USA, at least) just completely omit them altogether. They're so car-oriented that they actually _deny the possibility of walking altogether._ You get the feeling that they'd ban shoes if they could. Depressing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In York (UK) it is a mixed bag. There are a couple of simple pedestrian crossings near my home where the lights never change without a press and change very quickly once requested. At junctions it is more complex and seems to vary: some definitely have their sequence altered by specific pedestrian requests, some definitely seem not to. I've not noted if any vary by time of day, as some people report.

<comment><USER9> Well this is a rare treat, a fellow York dweller, greetings!

<comment><USER10> What? 3 of us? Heavens!

<comment><USER11> 4 actually!

<comment><USER8> We might need a few more than that before practical world domination plans can be conceived...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's some next-level traffic light voodoo I often see people attempting in the UK, which is repeatedly pressing the button. I like the idea that it's a democratic process: only when pedestrians outnumber cars will the lights change.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen people do this with the Clear button on calculators. They press it repeatedly, presumably in the belief that extra presses make it "really cancel". Something to do with their mental model of the calculator's internal state?

<comment><USER13> I used to do this. It's because of the confusing presence of the AC button. The UI has made clear to you that there are multiple levels of cancellation, one can in fact "really cancel." We know full well that there is some overcomplex internal state to the device, and rather than reading the _manual_ for a _calculator_ (honestly) we hammer the cancel button a few times, just to make sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense.

A quick search reveals that some calculators have an AC button (clear everything) and a C button (clear last entry), while others have C (clear everything) and CE (clear last entry). Definitely confusing.

<comment><USER13> I'd forgotten about CE. Even worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I pay way too much attention to these things. I have found on my walk to work, some buttons which do nothing, some which you must press and some you must press if it is after 10pm.

At least where I live, it depends on the intersection. So don't assume anything.

</comment><comment><USER15> "The short answer is - it depends. At a standalone pedestrian crossing, unconnected to a junction, the button will turn a traffic light red

At a junction it is more complicated."

That's all you need to know.

I've been to places where the 1st case applies. Press the button, the car signal turns yellow immediately (light traffic and light pedestrian traffic)

At a crossing, let's see, you got there and you pressed the button, then another person came and pressed the button to cross the other street (meaning, traffic where you want to cross)

No system can make sense of these requests, and the traffic has to flow. Makes sense to just go through the movements and ignore the buttons.

<comment><USER16> > _No system can make sense of these requests, and the traffic has to flow. > Makes sense to just go through the movements and ignore the buttons._ //

One _may_ not be able to mathematically ensure optimal operation but you can certainly "make sense" of the requests.

Surely you read the inputs and only include the pedestrian crossings in the lighting sequence if the buttons are activated. Unless you're halting the traffic for some ulterior flow management need.

As for non-interrupt raising buttons - the "WAIT" light should show to indicate the button isn't required to be pressed.

Lastly, some crossings in the UK have what appear to be cameras (I assumed some form of wide angle IR sensor) facing the pedestrians. I assumed these could provide input as to density of pedestrians waiting in order to balance flow of pedestrians vs. road traffic. Anyone know certainly what they're for?

<comment><USER15> "and only include the pedestrian crossings in the lighting sequence if the buttons are activated"

That works for a pedestrian crossing, but not where we have two lanes of cars crossing.

Or if you think in more complicated crossings like O'Connell Bridge in Dublin, there's probably no way the buttons could have any input in the lights there without messing the traffic.

Not sure what the cameras you mentioned do, maybe it's the usual "Big Brother" cameras

<comment><USER16> Some crossings here, UK, have turn filters; some have full pedestrian access (ie diagonal crossing of a crossroads is enabled). Whilst it's possible to have a sequence in which some roads necessarily have halted traffic usually on single carriageway roads [one lane per direction] it's still an optimisation to ignore the pedestrian phase of the sequence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yes actually, here in Sweden you have a lot of buttons with a light under it. I just love seeing people who don't understand these crosswalks, when the light is on, that's when your timer is actually counting. When the light is off, there is no timer counting down to let you cross.

So some people get to the light, and wait, thinking it's one of the many automatic crosswalks. But it's not! The light must be pushed! So they just stand there forever until they finally think "screw law, I'm crossing".

That is funny to me. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> The linked "secret button" article discussion is at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5792039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5792039)

<comment><USER19> A piece of (old) satire on the pedestrian button hacks: [http://www.bbspot.com/news/2005/06/crosswalk_button_hacks.ht...](http://www.bbspot.com/news/2005/06/crosswalk_button_hacks.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The most fascinating part of this for me is that people _actually_ pay attention to the green and red men at crossings, and even to crossings at all. I mean, sure, where I live children or older people who can't walk very fast wait for the green man but most regular folks just go and cross where and when they please.

I believe in Paris all of these are entirely automatic ; though there are buttons that are here to help the visually impaired by telling them where they are and if they can cross safely.

<comment><USER21> This is fine on quiet roads, but doesn't work in busy cities. If you tried to cross the road on my walk to and from work without waiting for the traffic to be stopped you'd get hit very quickly!

edit: perhaps you live in Paris? In which case I don't envy you having to cross the roads there!

<comment><USER22> > This is fine on quiet roads, but doesn't work in busy cities.

I guess I can claim to have lived in Shanghai for a span of (not many) years, and I have to dispute this. People will just walk out into the middle of a busy street, making lane-by-lane progress much like Frogger if they have to. They do it because the only real alternative is not crossing the street at all. When I was working at an international school here, it was common (and, in my view, completely justified) for new arrivals to want help crossing the street. But the fatality rate is quite low. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In my hometown they replaced old buttons that emitted a sound and a visual cue (green light silhouette on the device) with touch-sensitive devices that doesn't blink, sound or anything. For months we kept on 'pushing' on it and then once or twice I saw some of them being lit for a few days and now they still seem to be 'dead'. Something's wrong with the interface and the local authorities badly managing urban infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER24> Over the past few years in my neighborhood in Los Angeles they have been replacing the older yellow buttons (that people tend to hit 10 million times thinking it will make the light change faster) with newer ones, which are really great. When the button is pressed, makes a loud click, a red light comes on, and it stays depressed until the signal changes. They've also added in that rat-a-tat-tat clicking that I assume is for blind people. Some people still pounce the button but I've noticed most tap it a single time. I'm a big fan and I'm sure the city is too as it probably cuts down on wear and tear.

In terms of actual crossing, it is worth hitting the button at some lights, so that they know there are pedestrians (otherwise it could be a green light and you still have a red hand) and other times there's always a way for a pedestrian to cross, usually with a countdown timer after a certain amount of seconds. Every ped crossing in LA seems to have a countdown timer, which is great, for peds and even drivers (it gives you an idea when the light is about to change).

And remember, this is Los Angeles, not really a city known for pedestrians so I think the city has done a good job for the most part.

</comment><comment><USER25> Pretty sure it alerts the system that there are pedestrians waiting to cross, otherwise why stop traffic if no-one is there?

<comment><USER26> So, do you think the quotes from people running the system who say that is not the case are lying for some reason? Or do you think you know more about how their system works than they do?

<comment><USER16> The question still stands. Why interrupt the road traffic if there are no pedestrians waiting? It's possible to answer that "for flow control" but I'd warrant that's not an effective proposition for the majority of junctions.

I didn't see this specific question addressed in the OP so it's quite possible it was simply glossed over to provide a simplified answer or the reporter worked around it to make it easier to express the sequence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For me the most interesting piece in that article was the image of a crossing where pedestrians can actually walk _across_ the crossing (like, diagonally) instead of just a single street.

Haven't seen those anywhere here and I assume those are actually kind of nasty for car traffic (since .. all directions need to stop). Fascinating :)

<comment><USER28> They are called scrambles, there are a few in the UK but they are much more common in Japan. As you surmised they only really make sense when there are a large number of pedestrians and vehicular traffic has a low priority.

When I took traffic engineering at university we were taught that crossing layouts like this where pedestrians can move more freely are statistically much safer as drivers drive much more carefully. Another example is Exhibition Road, where the entire road is shared between pedestrians and cars.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_Road](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_Road)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm fairly convinced, with the exception of a handful, pretty much all the crossing buttons in Brooklyn NY are placebos.

I've seen people roundhouse kick the thing (not an exaggeration) and it makes sense to have one that doesn't work since if it did previously, this treatment would kill it in no time.

Also, newer ones are popping up that aren't spring based, but are touch sensitive instead. Basically a shiny Aluminum or Zinc knob that beeps to let you know it's pushed. I think these are more effective since with the old ones, you're not even sure if the push got received.

It makes sense to have buttons that work in places where people actually expect functionality and such is desired. Not in a place where the default is impatience followed by vandalism.

<comment><USER30> > Also, newer ones are popping up that aren't spring based, but are touch > sensitive instead

This is the standard type in Sweden. [http://imgb.mp/jie.jpg](http://imgb.mp/jie.jpg) The whole front plate is touch-sensitive, it beeps and the light on the bottom lights up after it's been pressed until you can cross the street. I've never seen one not working, so they must be pretty vandalism-proof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> in the usa, i've definitely seen lights where a larger road crossed a smaller one, and the small road green light stayed green longer if someone had pressed the pedestrian crossing button. which does seem like a sensible use of the button - from a flow-control point of view you want the large road green a lot more of the time than you want the small one green, but if someone is walking across they're going to be potentially a lot slower than the traffic (people with walkers, e.g.)

</comment><comment><USER32> Not nearly as annoying as lift/elevator buttons.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a persistent myth that some elevators (aka 'lifts' in my part fo the world) have an express mode that can take you to a chosen floor by pressing the door close button in conjunction with the appropriate floor button [1]. As far as I know its false. I try to avoid using elevators, but the ones I do use always seem to have a key slot to allow them to be put into 'privileged' mode.

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/17/051017ta_talk_pa...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/17/051017ta_talk_paumgarten)

<comment><USER33> See my other reply for the perils of an express mode, which the lifts in my building do have (of a sort), and everyone knows about.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6326890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6326890)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If a traffic light is dumb (and most are) and the government wants to optimize traffic flow, then a button that disrupts the timing will mess up the traffic flow. An intelligent light controller might be able to include the random changes and still optimize the flow. Sadly very few light controllers are smart enough to do this.

</comment><comment><USER35> I like the UK system and the way its implemented.I doesn't have to respond to a button push all the time plus you can always cross if you believe it's safe to do so.

Makes a lot more sense them forcing people to stand at a red light uselessly.

</comment><comment><USER36> There's also sound for the blind integrated with the buttons in Germany. Removing a placebo button would also mean removing that extra sound. You could probably separate the two functions though.

</comment><comment><USER37> In Amsterdam, it activates the clicking sound for blind people. Very convenient if you're blind, I presume (I've never been blind for long enough to give it a try).</comment>


.Guru, .Bike, .Singles And 4 Other Domains Will Open For Business Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/28/guru-bike-singles-and-4-other-domains-will-open-for-business-tomorrow/

<comment><USER2> The best question now is:

What registrar will allow me to register on day 1 for the cheapest?

I just looked at GoDaddy (yes I know they suck), and they are charging a premium to pre-register.</comment>


My Experience with the Great Firewall of China (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewall-of-china/ <comment><AUTHOR> Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905076)</comment>


Gas prices are suffering at the same fate as the financial crisis: speculation - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/johntharvey/2011/04/26/why-you-are-paying-so-much-for-gas/

<comment><AUTHOR> In summary, we are essentially paying for the middle to upper-class's retirement portfolios.</comment>


Open access: All human knowledge is there–so why can't everybody access it? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/what-is-open-access-free-sharing-of-all-human-knowledge/ <comment><USER2> Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879963)</comment>


Create your own machine-learning-powered RSS reader - <AUTHOR> http://blog.algorithmia.com/post/93293999119/create-your-own-machine-learning-powered-rss-reader-in <comment><USER2> I recently launched a Twitter app designed to filter out the noise by measuring the velocity of all tweets from all people I follow. It only shows me 5 things at any given moment that are most likely "interesting".

Check it out, it's free, and it only wants read-only auth permissions via Twitter: [http://skim.io/](http://skim.io/)

Still tweaking the algorithm.

<comment><USER3> Years ago I did something kind of similar. I created my own Twitter client (never public and now defunct) but one of the features was that it would prevent one user from monopolizing my stream by hiding their posts after the three most recent. So say someone was live tweeting an event I would only see their three most recent, and after that it would display a collapsed bar to let me know it had hidden something.

Made skimming much easier, I still miss this feature.

<comment><USER2> pmarca would hate that feature, it would interfere with his tweet storms. :)

In all seriousness, noise is the biggest problem I have with twitter. When you follow more than 100 accounts, the timeline becomes pretty much useless.

Your comment gives me another idea for my app though - we will make it so each of the Top 5 is from a different unique publisher... and if more than one of their comments are trending, we choose the 'fastest'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really interesting, has my mind spinning around the possibilities. Would love to be able to apply this stuff to filter my Feedly account - how hard would that be using Algorithmia?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not super familiar with the the feedly api (or how it works) but integrating with Algorithmia should be really simple. There is a registration link at the bottom of the blog post and you can check out the docs at [http://algorithmia.com/docs](http://algorithmia.com/docs).

feel free to drop me a note at diego at algorithmia dot com as well.

<comment><USER4> Just checked out the docs, looks like they have an easy call to mark one/multiple articles as read - so could have something running periodically filtering out stuff you're not interested in

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> One sentiment analysis, there seems to be a lot of false negatives - at least when parsing Techcrunch. For example, all these were tagged as 'negative':

\- Timely Turns Your Calendar Into A Time Tracker

\- Audi Tests Self-Driving Cars On Florida's Roads

\- Twitter Acquires Password Security Startup Mitro, Open Sources Its Product

<comment><AUTHOR> We used the Stanford NLP library with their training data set which is considered to be one of the better ones. I did notice false negatives as well but it can definitely be trained to be more accurate.

<comment><USER2> I decided there's no such thing as a good NLP library. In my other apps, I usually use several libraries at once, then make them vote. :) Works out better than Stanford NLP.

I do need to add some intelligence to skim.io though.

<comment><USER5> This is called ensemble classification where you feed the outputs of multiple classifiers as features into an ensemble classifier that produces the final result.

How are you using the Stanford NLP? That's all GPL?

There are alternatives you could look at for sentiment analysis but short "documents" like those referenced will always produce poor results because there's just not enough signal to work with. The training models need to have vocabulary overlap with the documents (at least for word features); try TextBlob which uses a lexicon approach rather than a classifier, or try rolling your own with an off-the-shelf SVM and pull labeled training data from one of the many sources (or generate your own using Crowdflower.) Small documents (tweets/titles etc) pose unique challenges, especially when there's irony or sarcasm involved or implicit sentiment through pragmatic knowledge. For example knowing Sarah Palin and how she's regarded automatically gives a person a head start in determining the sentiment of a short document with her name. This kind of pragmatic knowledge is hard for classifiers to learn.

<comment><USER6> In the example above, could social network analysis (e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeXL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeXL)) be used to profile Sarah Palin, then combined with text classification?

<comment><USER5> It's an option, not sure about NodeXL, wikipedia is already available in structured form in Freebase and DBPedia, but understanding something so complex as a reputation is beyond current machine learning. Bringing the pragmatic background knowledge to sentiment analysis is going to be one of the differentiations. We got 65% easily with a lexicon, we got 75% with SVMs and gobs of training data, we've gone past that with hierarchical aspect models and technologies like word vectors, but the problem of making improvements gets exponentially harder. Before social networks can play a role in sentiment analysis likely we'll see breakthroughs in coreference and similar problems that will help eek out more signal from training data. We can certainly use the "hive mind" to assist in this problem, even something as simple as collaborative filtering can help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are the rate limits on the APIs? Especially since they're very computationally expensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> currently no rate limits while in private beta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great stuff! Super useful!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Please feel free to send any feedback to diego at algorithmia dot com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> the signup link doesn't work

<comment><AUTHOR> should be working again. sorry about that.

<comment><USER10> Still isn't working for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> traffic killed our frontend for a hot sec. Should be good to go now. Thanks for the patience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome!</comment>