CTF writeup: First published SerenityOS kernel exploit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Fire30/CTF-WRITEUPS/tree/master/36c3_ctf/wisdom <comment><USER2> I'm sure this was done for fun here, but as with all hobbyist C or C++ based OSes, such exploitation methods are well 'typical' and unsurprisingly straightforward.

Come back with a zero-click kernel exploit when the OS is iOS, Windows, Linux or Android (Surely the exploit-writer is experienced with PS4-level ones) and then we'll talk.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm just stoked that someone took the time to find a bug and write an exploit for the system. :)</comment></comment>


Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44981013 <comment><USER2> I have about 500 physical books right now ranging from learning Chinese to advanced c++ to quantitative finance to Seeet Chi.

My wife hates it. I buy books because I want to. I hope to read them. Someday I will, I know this. I read a lot already but the implementing what I have read and practicing takes time away from reading new subject matter. Example learning Chinese..it's been 3 years and I still practice daily. Quant stuff.. I've been implementing and refining my code but this all takes time away from th piles of books I have accumulated.

<comment><USER3> Is your rate of accumulating books higher than your rate of reading them?

<comment><USER4> I thought that was the normal way of life for anyone who buys books. It is for me....

<comment><USER5> And very reasonably so. What you want, right, is a two-tier system: a kind of limbo state for the partially-read, a liberal scattering of them about the house, where they will healthily compete for your time - some will prove themselves under these conditions, others will recede into a shameful cupboard or the basement or wherever - and then a glamorous on-display shelf where your approved, appreciated selection sits, guilt-free and proud, having floated upwards due to their superior quality.

If the book churn is too low, any old rubbish makes it to the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How about having too many tabs that you never get around to closing?

Articles on Instapaper and the like that you never get around to reading?

Side projects that you never finish?

<comment><USER7> I would definitely add Steam games that are never played.

<comment><USER8> I went into Steam and just decided to hide a bunch of those games. Most of them I got through Humble Bundle. A lot of chaff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are > encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal > library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two > categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what > a library you have! How many of these books have you read?" and the others — > a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an > ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable > than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know > as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate > market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more > books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the > shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger > the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an > antilibrary.

Nassim Taleb in "The Black Swan" on the value of unread books.

<comment><USER10> The questions remains, probably, what it means for a book to be 'read'. I'd posit that that books are only valuable in your possession if you know it - this specific book - exists, maybe even where exactly in your house if you have a lot, and you have a basic idea of the contents. So you have to open them at least once and get a general overview of the index, maybe the illustrations, maybe even a bit more. Is this book still unread? I'd say truly unread books are worthless without a search function, which is not yet well implemented in the physical world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any suggestions for solving or improving on this?

I used to have a humble bundle subscription and every month I got like 5 games on Steam, and played around 2 per year. My solution for this one was to unsubscribe. Yes, I still see it every now and then and think "Oh would be cool to play this" but then I remind myself that I would have no time for it.

Another case is started projects or just ideas that never get realized. But no solution for this. I know I should "just start" and finish small increments etc, but it doesn't seem to be enough to motivate me, even though I think my ideas would make for some great useful apps/scripts.

What suggestions does HN have?

<comment><USER11> For games I just stopped buying anything that I didn't intend to play instantly.

And I do mean instantly. As soon as I get it, I start playing.

If I don't plan to do that, I don't buy the game until I do.

I now ignore sales completely, and only buy games when I want to play them.

This, surprisingly, actually lowered my game expenditure. But I was getting into the low 200s in my steam library, and I think I have only run around 30 of those at least once, so it was all really wasteful.

I roughly adapted the same thing to books, I don't buy a new book until I'm done reading my current book, or decided to drop the book I'm reading.

EDIT: Let me be clear: While I say instantly there's some flexibility. I may order a game on Amazon Wednesday, get it on Thursday, and start playing on the weekend. I think instantly may have been the wrong word. More like immediate/nearest in time.

<comment><USER12> This is my exact policy as well, for steam games and also now board games which are wildly harder to play (logistically)

After the recent steam summer sale where I bought nothing I felt like I had been handed the one ring and passed the test

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Toudoku (盗読): the habit of reading free scans of expensive books you never intend to buy.

Caution: just made that word up; don't spring it cold turkey on your Japanese friends.

<comment><USER14> I like this. It's something I enagage in occasionally.

I buy lots of books, sometimes expensive books, but every now and then I find some $300+ industry handbook that covers my hobby interests and that I would really love to skim through... LibGen comes to the rescue then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sadly, I also engage in bookmarkdoku and browsertabdoku

<comment><USER16> I think you meant tsunbookmark and tsunbrowsertab :-)

(tsun = piling up, doku = reading, according to the article)

<comment><USER17> doku means POISON. in this case, "addiciton"

sudoku = addicted to numbers (the game)

so bookmarkdoku and etc would be correct ... addicted to bookmarking...

<comment><USER18> While you are right that 毒 (doku) means 'poison', the Japanese word for 'sudoku' is 数独[1].

数 (su) = number, numeral, digit

独 (doku) = alone, solitary, single

This conveys the idea that the digits may only appear once per {row, column, box}.

[1]: [https://jisho.org/search/sudoku](https://jisho.org/search/sudoku)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of dullness, I shall fear no boredom, for my books are with me. My piles of books, they comfort me. I prepared a bookshelf in the presence of tedium. I anointed my PS4 with purchases on sale, my backlogs runneth over.

<comment><USER20> > My piles of books, they comfort me.

Maybe you're just joking, but it often happens to me (at least once a month) to just sit on my couch and look at the books on my bookshelves, it gives me peace of mind for a couple of precious moments.

<comment><USER19> Same here! I'll do the same thing with audiobooks, and put together a giant playlist just to see how many hours I could listen to non-stop. For physical books you get the benefit of the smell and feel of them too. Books are just the best, for so many reasons. When you have a bunch you haven't read, you can look at them and anticipiate the first time you'll read them, and get that "Christmas Eve" feel for a minute. Having a lot in my book backlog is soothing, and conversely I'd get anxious if I felt I was running out of that backlog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> pro-library The value of a library is mostly in the books you haven't read... yet. Umberto Eco famously had a lot to say on this topic.

Nasim Taleb coined the wholly unnecessary word "antilibrary" to describe this, when really, it is the library containing only fully-digested books that is the degenerate case.

</comment><comment><USER21> I do that on my Kindle account. It makes it even easier because the pile is invisible.

</comment><comment><USER22> My solution is to download sample books from Amazon. I don't buy them unless I get to the end of the sample.

<comment><USER23> Having a kindle makes this quite convenient and I've taken to doing this as well. I find the sample size to be quite big enough to figure out if I'll end up liking it or not :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Libraries are pretty great. Costs very little and you have some time pressure to get it done before having to return it. Most books don't get read more than once anyway, so it's a pretty nice money saver too.

"What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?" – Jerry Seinfeld

Although I totally get that different books are worth and important to different people to be had around as your own.

</comment><comment><USER25> I now know that I suffer from electronic components tsundoku.

I buy various elements on AliExpress (RF emitters or detectors, nodemcu, wifi dongles,...) with the hope of using them ond day.

So far I used maybe 10% of what I accumulated and decided to stop buyi... oh look, a new wifi switch I could reflash!

</comment><comment><USER26> Why would you buy a book you don't intend to read? Is it kind of like buying home decorations? I mean I know how my habits work, I go to a bookstore, browse books, start reading wait to see if the story catches or doesn't, buy it or keep looking. Once I've got the hook on that story I can't shelve it without finishing it. I don't understand how you could not. Maybe people buy the books with a different intention?

<comment><USER27> I think this is more common with non-fiction books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have a stack of chess books that's ever growing.

My one in one out strategy fell apart because the British Chess Championship is in town with the attendant giant book sale.

No more this week though.

</comment><comment><USER29> I got a safari books online subscription and it cut down on the tech books I've bought but never read. Highly recommend.

<comment><USER27> I've been a Safari subscriber for a couple of years now, and subscribed to Packt's before that. It both cut down on the books I bought and dramatically increased how much I read. I would highly recommend anyone sign up for the free trial, then for a month if you liked it. The cost for a month is less than the cost of most of the books available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I added this thread to favorites but I prob will never read the referenced article.

</comment><comment><USER31> For those looking for the actual characters:

積読 [[http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C0%D1%C6%C9](http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C0%D1%C6%C9)]

</comment><comment><USER32> I am collecting domain names. Each new idea must came along with domain bought. But each of them become expired in a year and my collection is not very big.</comment>


Show HN: ObjGen - Live Code Generation for the Web - <AUTHOR> http://objgen.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been an ongoing side project of mine as a utility for quickly generating prototype code using just raw formatted text as input. I've had the live JSON generator up and running for a bit and just recently added support for generating HTML elements with support for Bootstrap that uses a HAML like syntax. Would like to share with the community and get some feedback and hopefully people find it useful.</comment>


Ask HN: What simple items have you found to be amazingly handy or practical? - <AUTHOR>

Sometimes you discover something that is just so practical you wonder how people get along without it.    For example, sitting with the laptop actually on my lap was a problem because of the heat over time.  I tried a few different things as heat guards, but one of the best was a  $2.00 wooden back-scratcher. Depending on how I placed it I could rest the laptop in such a way to get it away from the body and get good airflow around it.  Plus, with the back-scratcher now always at hand, I could more easily fetch remote items, like my wireless headphones from the charger.  And, of course, scratch my back when needed.<p>What common or readily assembled things do you use for assorted purposes to ease your life? <comment><USER2> Zipties have been awesome for me. When I'm working on a car, when I'm setting anything up, zip ties are strong and reliable, as well as disposable and cheap. You can get the long ones that just work for everything, and if you need longer, just chain them together.

<comment><USER3> They're useful in many non-car situations too - tidying up cabling is another favourite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to use an old laptop that got very hot. I took a wire "inbox" basket, turned it over, and used that as a stand. Great airflow, and I was able to use twist-ties to tie cables, USB ports, etc. to the underside of the wire basket, to keep the desk more organized.

</comment><comment><USER5> An ordinary mechanical pencil or pen and the smallest pad of paper I can manage - just as long as they fit well in a pants pocket. It happens all the time that you might want to sketch a thought, take notes, give a signature, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> For a while I was carrying around a Hipster PDA, complete with Space Pen.

I've now taken to using a small, thin bound notebook thing, roughly the size of an index card, and a gel pen. I find the pen better for the kinds of drawings I do.

I need some no-brainer way to carry this around with me in the house. I sometimes think I need to Velco stuff to my forearms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A Chinese cleaver replaces a set of knives, garlic choppers, tenderizer...

\- use the blade to cut (obv!)

\- use the flat to crush garlic/ginger (either by its weight, or safely using your other hand to press)

\- use the back edge to tenderize

\- or use the butt to tenderize

\- use the flat to carry ingredients

\- and because it's heavy, you use less strength and have more control

\- chop through meat and bones (the weight of the cleaver helps)

\- look like a badass

Use a cleaver and you'll never go back to a standard knife.

</comment><comment><USER7> (Zebra) Telescopic pen, amazed these haven't caught on more, people often surprised when I get it out. Fits easily in my pocket without stabbing my leg, take it everywhere.

The one I have is from Ryman (UK stationers) and looks a bit like this: [http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Zebra_Telescopic_Pen.html#a...](http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Zebra_Telescopic_Pen.html#a7291) .I believe you can also get them in the US.

</comment><comment><USER8> weekly planner. Any will do, really — seeing events/responsibilities on paper laid out for the whole week helps me clear my thoughts and organize my time.

</comment><comment><USER9> Metal "office" binder clips.

\- Replace twist ties in the kitchen. They hold more tightly and last indefinitely.

\- Pinch and detach a metal handle to make a gripping keyring or similar, looping the handle through the key's or other object's hole and then reattaching to the binder clip.

\- Pinch a length of speaker wire to a boom box aerial to get extended, adjustable radio reception for the boom box when painting outside.

\- All the usual and unusual office applications.

\- Hold folded tubes of stuff -- toothpaste, caulk, etc. -- folded. Increasingly useful these days as most tubes are now plastic and so don't stay crimped on their own.

\- All sorts of small scale mechanical repairs where I need to hold a couple of items together. You can wrap some tape around the edges to increase grip or provide a bit of protection against marring the gripped surface.

\- Clamp items being glued or whatnot.

\- Several applications I'm not thinking of, now.

I notice some variation in gripping strength between binder clips fresh out of the box, so I try a few until I find the optimal strength for the application at hand. Also, opening one very wide tends to exceed its limit for full recovery; it will not close as tightly in the future.

<comment><USER10> I've been using binder clips for cable organizers after I saw this:

[http://lifehacking.nl/kantoor-tips/nooit-meer-je-usb- kabel-a...](http://lifehacking.nl/kantoor-tips/nooit-meer-je-usb-kabel-achter- het-bureau-verliezen-voor-e1/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A 50¢ padded envelope makes a great iPad case.

</comment><comment><USER12> plasticsurgeon.com. It's a tool to open bubble wrap packaging as well as cut other hard to cut things. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER13> I think you mean <http://plasticsurgeonopener.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The moleskine notebook</comment>


Ask HN: How would you implement something like twitter/facebook? - <AUTHOR>

Note: I'm just curious, I'm not attempting to make another social network. There's already too many.
I'm a System Administrator who was just made redundant and given my 2 weeks notice. I have a very wide range of Linux/Windows administration experience, but I'm a weak programmer (dabbled in python/php/objective C) who hasn't really coded since I graduated (Computer Science) in 2004.
I'm using twitter as an example because it's the most basic site I can think of. People register accounts, they post an update. Friends can see these updates. How would someone with my level of experience create something like this? Where would you start? Brushing up on coding is obvious, but when I read about twitter and facebook having APIs and things people can use to interact with them it goes so over my head I wouldn't know where to begin.
I know I could make the basics of the site in php without too much effort, but anything to do with security / providing an API / distributed programming (if required?) is all foreign to me.
Any comments really appreciated, it's more of a curiosity than a "I'm so going to make something better than twitter/facebook" idea someone might be attempting to execute. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Think very basically. Just program with the tools you have and do research as you need to implement something you aren't familiar with. If it is your first time writing a site, you may end up having to scrap it and go to the beginning (with experience you may be able to come up with a rough plan beforehand).

Facebook started out as a crude website and Zuckerberg even wrote a blog post admitting that. If you go to archive.org and look it up then obviously the creator had a limited skillset.

Don't get overwhelmed. Come up with an idea. If your mind wanders about all of the future possibilities, write them all down and then say, "At the core, what is this site?" Program what that core is. In your example, it is just what you said: start with creating user accounts, then allow users to have profile pages, then maybe comments, and finally be able to add friends. Just start coding and you will learn a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply, gives me some things to think about :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You may want to look into some PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter or Zend (if that's your language of choice). For your API, you could start with a simpler REST API that allows users to make requests through URLs and get back their data as XML. Finally, you could do some distributing by using a service like mosso.com. Mosso offers both cloud hosting and cloud servers that would allow your site to scale pretty easily when you start getting a ton of traffic :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! frameworks would certainly make things easier now that you've mentioned it. I've dabbled with django and web.py but never thought of a php framework (which i'm probably more comfortable with than python).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't try to make a Facebook or twitter for your first app. Make a toy that fits on a platform you like. If it is fun/useful, other people might like it. Learn as you go.</comment>


The Problem With Unit Testing - <AUTHOR> http://andreyf.tumblr.com/post/224053080/the-problem-with-unit-testing

<comment><USER2> i like unit tests only after my design has solidified.

they are a big slow-down when i'm doing exploratory programming and getting a feel for the problem. but after i've figured out how it all works together, i'm cool with writing them to ferret out errors and stop regressions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another article which claims that development is faster without Unit Tests. I used to be a cowboy-coder in the past for years, and now I always do Unit Tests. My experience is that it's always faster unless I'm just doing small API exploring which I throw away. Without tests I always end up debugging longer than I would have spent if I'd written the tests.

And the future maintainer has much better chance of determining whether whether certain behavior in my legacy code is a bug or feature - desired or accidental.

I don't think these guys have done any serious TDD or Unit Testing projects. They have just tried to write some tests and then they have given up because they just thought it's too hard and their tests were probably huge, testing too much and not really maintainable.</comment>


Emulating Empathy - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/02/08/emulating-empathy/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of one my favorite passages from _The Periodic Table_ :

"I must also mention another peculiar and beneficent consequence of Customer Service: by pretending to esteem and like your fellow men, after a few years in this trade you wind up really doing so, just as someone who feigns madness for a long time actually becomes crazy."

<comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It troubles me slightly that he suggests "emulating" empathy. That sounds mildly like using people. I think it'd be better to "develop" empathy. The same techniques are applicable, except that the end result is to care about people, not appear to care.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Customer metrics are not the same as customer interaction."

This is a good insight. Sometimes startups assume customer development means gathering a lot of metrics. There is something about a face-to-face interaction which trumps metrics.

</comment><comment><USER6> Empathy is an important trait no doubt.

If you find yourself, however, to be one of those people who seem to lack this trait, I urge you to look at the positive.

Someone who is in inclined to empathize, I find, is always more prone to try to guess what another person is thinking. "Oh will he/she like this?" "So and so said this, I bet they were thinking that". Over empathizing some times leads to this behavior and clouds your judgment. While you should take other people's feelings into account, you should try to act on what you know as fact and not on what you think a person is feeling or thinking.

<comment><USER7> The two dimensions are orthogonal - one is emphathy/sociopathy axis and the other one is epistemological hygiene/lack thereof axis.

One could be a sociopath and not aware of it, or one could be empathic and yet aware of limitations of their knowledge. The latter would recognize situations where more emotional participation could be required and probe to find out if that's indeed that case before pouring out emotions. The former would think little before "stepping on someone toes" and be completely unaware of his lack of tact despite the facial expression of the victim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel cheated - iwas expecting more detailed advice than "keep trying it will come to you"

<comment><USER8> "Make eye contact", "shake hands" and so forth are that advice. However, since this is what you read, the piece you should pay attention to is "get a mentor." Until you do that, it appears you won't recognize the other bits of advice, which is one major reason to do so.

<comment><USER9> And that stuff actually works. I started out in life as someone on the borders of what would now be called an "autism spectrum disorder" -- I didn't "get" people, had trouble recognising them and distinguishing faces, and certainly couldn't make anything like a strong connection. When I was young, learning everything there was to learn about stuff was a decent substitute for life. Luckily (and here I use a meaning of that word that may be unfamiliar to most) I went through a grossly self-destructive phase involving poorly-planned and unreproducible chemistry experiments (even if you make the world suit your needs, you _can_ make it go away for a while). The upshot of that phase was that I had to learn to be human as an adult after a period of being something completely other (the details of that period are beyond the scope of this discussion).

It took longer than I wanted, but I was able to learn to read faces, to associate body language and vocal modulations with various degrees and states of distress and "happiness" in others, making finer distinctions as time progressed, and after years of practice I found that I was no longer approaching the exercise from the viewpoint of clinical (but interested) anthropology -- the process had been internalised to the point where it was indistinguishable from empathy. What's more, I seemed to actually care, and my own emotional spectrum seemed to have more colours than "this sux" and "this rulez". It may be nothing more than an elaborate simulation running just below the horizon of observability, but it'll do nicely.

These days I'm not so good at technical matters -- a couple of strokes and the effects of Lewy Body Dementia have effectively removed me from that realm, though I still come to places like this to slow the rot -- but I've become the go-to guy for emotional support for a surprisingly large number of people who are emulating liking me in a very convincing fashion. And I'm emulating being happy with that, and can't tell it from the real thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think one of the main advantages of building a start up that solves a problem you _already have_ is that the empathy is automatic and built-in. There's no reason to emulate.

<comment><USER8> Alas, for Sales there still is. Not everybody has your specific flavor of that problem, or your way of looking at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Many of Steve Blank's posts are extremely illuminating. Others are very... _here's-a-teaser-now-buy-my-book_. I see this one as the latter.

<comment><USER12> Hmmm... seems to me that his blog posts are more a response to the realization that many people won't/can't read his book.

But as it is, this blog post would of been very very helpful to me a few years ago. Now it's a pleasant reminder of how far I've come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You could also title the article the "Art of Listening".

</comment><comment><USER14> That's hilarious.

Dear Steve Blank! The problem you've been stuck at for whatever years is solved easily: everyone should do what he is good at, tech geeks develop, sociable people sell.

Or let's then take G. W. Bush and try to turn him into a Nobel wining physicist. How do you emulate that?

<comment><USER7> Steve has earlier advocated, at length and with good arguments, that a founder should be in touch with customers for a startup to survive. You can certainly dispute that premise but in that case we expect more from you than a snarky dismissal.

<comment><USER14> Read again the article. He never was a founder. In all the firms he worked at he was a hired employee. No startup whatsoever.

<comment><USER7> I suggest you look for what's right and can be used to improve your lot, rather than looking for what's wrong and can be used to dismiss an article or a person with righteous indignation. The latter never serves any useful purpose.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Two Cardinal Sins of REST API Design: Lessons you can Learn from the NewsGator REST API - <AUTHOR> http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/06/10/TwoCardinalSinsOfRESTAPIDesignLessonsYouCanLearnFromTheNewsGatorRESTAPI.aspx <comment><USER2> Maybe the trouble here is that REST has quite a blurry definition, at least as far as I'm aware. Whenever I try to understand what people really mean by "REST" by researching the topic, the articles I find are either so general and hand-waving that I can't tell what makes a REST interface (except that it uses the HTTP methods correctly) or my brain shuts down from buzzword overload.

That said, if anyone can point me at a description that gives some real-world examples of what actually makes a "RESTful" interface, I'd much appreciate being proven wrong.

<comment><USER3> It has a very solid definition (as given in the original thesis <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm> ). It's blurred because a lot of people latch onto the wrong things or get it wrong and spread those misconceptions.

This introduction isn't bad: <http://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-introduction>

In short: you have nouns and representations of nouns. You have a set of verbs that can be applied to those nouns. You discover nouns through links from other nouns. The client and the server exchange state by exchanging representations. The server doesn't need to know what the client is doing at a particular moment.

<comment><USER4> It's also blurred because people try to apply it to problems for which isn't not appropriate. The central theme of REST is that a single URI corresponds uniquely to a single "thing", which is then operated on using a small set of operations (basically set/get/delete).

That's great, if your problem works like that. It's not great if it doesn't. Some protocols really are more appropriately modelled using "methods" on the objects, because the behavior is what matters, not so much the data itself.

<comment><USER3> Can you give an example?

<comment><USER4> Of protocols that don't work well with REST? Sure: anything that, in the database world, would require transactions.

Think of the classic double-entry accounting transaction: you have two accounts, and need to atomically subtract an amount from one and add it to the other. Clearly the accounts are two (or more) REST URIs. But the operation needs to be atomic on both; it's not enough just to do two PUT/POST operations. You _can_ do it with REST, but it requires some fancy footwork with extra objects for "locks" or whatnot. It's just a mess.

With a protocol that exposes behavior instead of state? It's just a "DEBIT" command that takes two accounts and an amount and returns success or failure.

Basically: pick the tool for the job. A lot of the "problems" with REST are an attempt to make the hype more powerful than the technique.

<comment><USER3> The RESTful way to do that would be something like:

        POST /transactions

        from: /accounts/savings
        to:   /accounts/chequing
        amount: 123.45

Generally the proper way to do something atomically is to do it in a single request.

REST isn't the best choice for every application - the whole point is that it has certain strengths - but it's very flexible.

<comment><USER4> No, no, no. That's not RESTful at all. What "thing" does /transactions represent? It's the same URI for every single account in the world?

What you've done is break out of the paradigm in order to solve a particular problem, which is great. But don't call it "REST", because the whole point of this discussion is that doing so confuses people about what REST is supposed to mean.

<comment><USER3> It's a collection of transactions. What's unRESTful about that? Collections of things are a very common REST pattern.

Naturally you would also want a URI for each account, and it might make sense to have many different collections of transactions. I don't see how that breaks out of the paradigm.

Edit: I'm using "transactions" as in "financial transactions" (as opposed to "database transactions")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Server Error in '/weblog' Application. Could not load file or assembly 'WelcomeMacro' or one of its dependencies. Access is denied.</comment>


The OpenBSD IPsec-Stuxnet connection - <AUTHOR> http://extendedsubset.com/?p=43 <comment><USER2> Come on, Marsh. How many people at INL have worked on SCADA security research? There's a lot of them.

Furthermore, your premise is incoherent. There hasn't _been_ a backdoor identified in OpenBSD IPSEC. The "bugs" that have been found (scare-quotes because all of them had been fixed already) weren't usable as backdoors.

Were commits to IPSEC laundered via Canada? Yes. The reason? Because Theo believed that a US commit tainting the IPSEC source code could subject IPSEC to US export controls.

What's the "coincidence" you think you've found?

<comment><USER3> SCADA isn't exactly mainstream technology. It's used primarily in factories. Having worked in industrial automation areas for quite a while I'd estimate that the number of people doing security testing on Siemens PLCs is a very small community.

<comment><USER4> _I'd estimate that the number of people doing security testing on Siemens PLCs is a very small community_

Right, and how big was it in 2008? And how many of them do you suppose were also committing to OpenBSD's network stack in 2000-2001?

<comment><USER2> It was big in 2008, Marsh. We're not a SCADA specialty firm, and we ended up doing SCADA-related work in 2008, and in 2007, and in 2006. One of my BigCo enterprise clients hired a network security guy --- network security, not software --- from a pure-play SCADA software security consultancy.

<comment><USER4> That's interesting. I'm not sure exactly how critical the absolute size of SCADA security in 2006 is in the question of evaluating the magnitude of the coincidence. It almost seems like something @alexhutton's could plug into one of his Bayesian models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      This guy sure seems to have a talent for coincidences

With a limited number of people and places involved in a scene, such 'coincidences' are inevitable. It'd be more surprising if no such connection could be found. Any evidence is lacking.

<comment><USER6> _"... meanwhile in calgary... wasting no time netsec was secretly funnelling "security fixes" through mr.t that he was committing "stealth" into openbsd tree. (this i only knew years later when i was telling mr.t over a beer about the funny people i met on a west-coast trip (see later)). "stealth" means that purpose of the diffs was not disclosed in the commit messages or the private openbsd development forums except with a few "trusted" developers. ..."_ ~ <http://mickey.lucifier.net/b4ckd00r.html>

what you say is understandable, but there appeared to be a lot of subterfuge going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope the author of this post thought pretty carefully about posting that.

There have already been a number of people associated with Stuxnet and/or the Iranian nuclear program who have gone missing/died from strange accidents/been assassinated. [1][2]

In simple terms, claiming someone possibly wrote Stuxnet puts their life in danger.

[1] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/06/iran_claims_stuxnet_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/06/iran_claims_stuxnet_expert_hit_squad_arrests/)

[2] [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nucl...](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear)

<comment><USER2> "Associated with Stuxnet" and "associated with the Iranian nuclear program" are two _extremely_ different things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love how he uses recent example of US citizens being hassled at the border to imply that it happened well into the past (a time when the borders were a lot more open).

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's not a perfect comparison since he (along with many other OpenBSD devs from the time) wasn't a US citizen, but read the document from Mickey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This blog entry was just an unnecessarily inflammatory excuse for "journalism". Why?!

<comment><USER2> Content, please?

<comment><USER9> Elaborate.

<comment><USER2> Sure: you didn't say anything in your comment. You intimated that Marsh Ray was perpetrating a false and puffed-up attempt at (your scare-quotes) "journalism". You ought to have supported that argument with evidence.

For what it's worth: if you're following the story closely enough to have an educated opinion about it, the name "Marsh Ray" means something to you.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry, I didn't know that I had to :) But, alright, for one, I think it serves no use other than bringing false attention to the topic when introducing the Stuxnet/SCADA angle in the discussion. There's no juicy coincidence of any kind to take note of. "Coincidence? I think not!".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


April fools prank by MongoDB developers: Create short field names - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mongodb.org/post/44144228891/mongodb-tip-create-short-field-names

<comment><USER2> Really, are trolling posts front-page worthy now? This is from February 2013.

Simple fact, storing less data takes up less space! Sadly, this means that in MongoDB the field names for each document count towards that disk and memory usage.

Additionally, there are a few tickets discussing this issue:

<https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-863>

<https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-164>

</comment><comment><USER3> I love how I can't take any post from any tech company serious today. Not like I'd want to actually do any real work today.

</comment><comment><USER4> An April Fools prank posted on 2/27?

<comment><AUTHOR> MongoDB, ahead of the curve since 2007.</comment></comment>


Lightning Network as a Solution for Bitcoin's Scaling Problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.coppolacomment.com/2018/01/probability-for-geeks.html <comment><USER2> Regardless of whether it drives widespread Bitcoin adoption as a medium of payment, Lightning is a very fascinating technical solution to the scaling problem.</comment>


MongoDB climbs to rank 6 in the DB-Engines Ranking of 189 DBMS's - <AUTHOR> http://db-engines.com/en/blog_post/19

<comment><USER2> Says the company specialized in MongoDB training.</comment>


23andMe licenses its own drug compound to Spanish firm Almirall - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/23andme-licenses-drug-compound-to-spanish-drugmaker-almirall <comment><USER2> This is great. I had a 23andMe test done years ago and one of the reasons why I chose to do it was because my genetic data might be helpful for others.

I personally don't feel like I 'own' my genetic code and I'm quite happy to let scientists analyze it. However I understand while many people do not feel the same way.

<comment><USER3> I'm relatively paranoid when it comes to privacy and also did 23andMe for similar reasons.

I stopped thinking of my DNA as a secret when I realized how impossible it is to keep other people from having access to it. Once someone knows it, you cannot change it like a password.

DNA is an anti-secret. You share it everywhere you go and cannot stop. It's no more secret or personal than your shoe size or height.

<comment><USER4> My concern in these services is, at what point in the future does your DNA get weaponized against you? When do you get declined for health insurance, or have jacked up premiums, because the insurance company bought a report from 23andMe that says you have a predisposition to _expensive disease_?

My DNA isn't a secret, but I don't yet feel comfortable voluntarily handing it over to be indexed by a for profit company that has little to no regulation over what they can do with it.

<comment><USER5> > When do you get declined for health insurance, or have jacked up premiums, > because the insurance company bought a report from 23andMe that says you > have a predisposition to expensive disease?

US federal law prohibits this [1].

[1] [https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/testing/discrimination](https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/testing/discrimination)

<comment><USER6> Now it does, but it might not be this way in the future. Health insurance companies fought tooth and nail about covering pre-existing conditions. This is just going 1-step prior.

They could easily frame this as "hey 80% of the population who are pretty healthy -- do you like paying extra high rates for this small population of people with a predisposition for really rare, complicated diseases? if we drop this unfair law we could lower your rates by X%".

Not saying it's right or ethical, but that I wouldn't be shocked if healthcare started lobbying hard to get this tweaked.

<comment><USER7> Laws against murder can change, too. So what?

The interesting thing about modern genetics is that it turns out _everybody_ has some elevated risk for some disease or condition, which means the vast majority of people have an interest in prohibiting genetic discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somewhat off topic: Has anyone yet made a device that is entirely self contained and can do a basic analysis of DNA without sending or fetching data from anywhere? In other words, 100% air-gapped and my DNA and data stay on the portable device. If not, approx. how many years until such a device might exist?

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, there still is no such thing as "basic" analysis of DNA. :)Ewan Birney has a great quote about this:

Sequencing, analysing and interpreting genomes is 'routine' in the same way the US Navy 'routinely' lands planes on aircraft carriers. It might happen regularly by well trained crew with the right equipment but it is _not_ an easy thing to do. [https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1040144488948281344](https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1040144488948281344)

That said, an Oxford Nanopore sequencer + a laptop is probably the closest thing to what you want.

<comment><USER8> This is actually promising. Obviously my mental comparison is not appropriate, but I recall diagnostic equipment for vehicles that cost $500k+ and took up a half of a bay in the shop. Now I can do the same diagnostics with a hand-held device that is $95. That was a 20 year gap. If the same evolution occurs with genetic equipment, it will meet my needs. In 15 to 20 years, I want to acquire a copy of Dr. Sinclairs work on the yamanaka factors and reversing cell age. I will need equipment to see DNA, epigenetic methylation and more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a excellent, albeit strange, model. People pay you to analyze their valuable info, which you then aggregate and use to develop a drug and sell to others. It's almost exactly like trash -- people give you their valuable commodity (pay you to take it, in some cases!), you put it in a pile and then sell the mining rights down the line.

If my data is going to be used to develop drug royalties, I want a % cut. Not a free test, certainly not a test that costs $100. I realize I will never get it, but I can hope.

Drugs, when you analyze the successes, are unfathomably profitable. The R&D is horrifically expensive, but the end product is immensely valuable. 23andMe is in a bit of a race to pick all the easy fruit from the genetic tree to develop into drugs. All the upside, a much easier R&D path compared to the conventional "throw shit at the wall until it sticks" style.

<comment><USER11> That makes zero sense, the effort is in deriving insights in producing something tangible - drugs. That's like saying you want a cut from all of Google's revenue because you use their search engine, or you want a cut from any service because they use the analytics from your use to improve their product.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly what I'm saying. I recognize it's not practical, but that doesn't mean I'm going to change the criterion -- it's also why I chose not to upload data to 23andMe.

In Google and everyone else's case, I would argue it's a bit different. Google remunerates me with the best search engine in the world, excellent free email, etc. Other services improve the product, which I (generally) reap the benefits of.

On the other hand, your genetics are what they are -- I don't believe 23andMe is sending every participant a coupon for this new drug, although I might be wrong. Instead, all you get is a small sample of the 600k SNPs available, some shaky genetic inferences, and tabloid level ethnic data. You give up valuable data with huge upside for analysis of questionable integrity and limited actionability.

<comment><USER12> 23andme provides a service that improves as a result of our research program. Many 23andMe reports are now based entirely on 23andMe research. There's room to argue about the value of the services we provide, but I think the science is pretty solid. And 23andMe research is generally very well regarded in the scientific community; we've contributed to >100 peer reviewed publications and have dozens of active academic collaborations. There's no other genetic testing company with anything remotely comparable to our research program. Actionability is a really hard problem but I'd absolutely stand behind the integrity of what we do. In any case, no one is obligated to participate in our research program.

<comment><USER10> From the privacy policy, effective jan 2020.

From the Privacy Highlight:

"We will not share your data with any public databases "

From the full policy:

"We may share some or all of your Personal Information with other companies under common ownership or control of 23andMe, which may include our subsidiaries, our corporate parent, or any other subsidiaries owned by our corporate parent in order to provide you better service and improve user experience"

I'm no lawyer, but it seems like the key word is public. Considering 23andMe reserves the right to share this data with its family of companies, and I'm unable to opt-out, it seems like all research is not totally avoidable. I won't comment any more about the validity of the science, it's not my field. However, I couldn't find any data about the error rate of the tests, which is surely non-zero. I'd love to know what SNPs they choose to evaluate, how they collect the phenotype data (the most valuable part of all!), etc.

In short, consumers give up huge troves of info, and pay for the privilege of doing so. What's more, the actual business model is turning this into drugs, of which they receive nothing in return. Most people expect a fun way to see they're 4% $ethnicity, not realizing the value in the data they freely give up to a private company.

I am no fan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not understanding how snp datasets created this drug?

</comment><comment><USER14> [http://archive.md/5Ypmm](http://archive.md/5Ypmm)</comment>


Git Local – A lightweight Git command line wrapper in Ruby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GalvanizeOpenSource/git_local <comment><USER2> The README is very minimal. Bundle install and then... how to use it, what to use it for?

I read the examples in specs and I didn't understand what's the purpose of the gem. It could be wonderful but with no explanations it is too easy to move on to the next link.</comment>


Fears over sensitive US military data in commercial cloud - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46489689 <comment><USER2> There are Russian and Chinese companies checking their 'rolodexes' for hackers contact info just at the announcement. Its a good day to work in security I guess is the upside.</comment>


Trump's Coronavirus Press Event Was Even Worse Than It Looked - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-coronavirus-press-event-was-even-worse-than-it-looked/ <comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12370273563148697...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761)

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12370245512943820...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237024551294382081)

I'm amazed not only at these affirmations, but at the likes they get. Incredible.

</comment><comment><USER3> They couldn't impeach Trump.

So they released corona virus on the world.

China concealed and ignored it for 30 to 60 days to give the virus the head start it needed to become a global pandemic.

All so socialists, communists and the left would have an excuse to push impeachment 2.0</comment>


How Quora Onboards New Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.useronboard.com/how-quora-onboards-new-users/ <comment><USER2> Onboarded is a euphemism. Quora belongs at #1 on the dark patterns sites, and I wish google would allow me to ban it from search results.

<comment><USER3> I remembered Google had an option to block certain domains from your search results, but that feature was removed last year:

[http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/03/google-discontinues-site- bl...](http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/03/google-discontinues-site-blocking- service/)

<comment><USER2> And if google uses pagerank, and there is no content to link to, how do they rise so highly?

<comment><USER4> they certainly open up to googlebots. Human generated content opened to bots but not to humans. bad SciFi...

<comment><USER2> The claim they don't open up to googlebots, otherwise they'd be on the wrongs side of the TOS and get banned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Despite all the really negative comments (and yes, I agree that Quora shouldn't hide its great content from guests), Quora is fairly valuable for me. I spend more time on Quora than I do on Facebook or Twitter; the only site I spend more time on is HN.

The reason is that Quora has a lot of really reputable, valuable, and domain- specific contributors, and it's easy to identify answers from people who have credibility on a subject. On HN there's a lot of noise, and there's a really common phenomenon of people bullshitting about subjects where they really have no credibility (usually the most controversial topics on HN like politics, economics, venture capital). The same is true for Quora, but on Quora you can identify people's domain-expertise better (it's posted next to each answer), and the best contributions percolate to the top much better than on HN. It's interesting to note that one thing people have always wanted on HN is the ability to follow certain users and certain topics, which is something Quora does.

For just the startup/tech world, there are tons of contributions from experienced VCs, angel investors, experienced entrepreneurs, etc. Outside of tech, you get pleasant surprises like former police officers answering questions about policing, movie directors answering questions about movies they've directed, etc.

Quora is still young, so there are a lot of quality early adopters. Going forward, it remains to be seen whether the quality will degrade as Quora gets more popular.

The biggest problem with the onboarding is that most of my value is through following "famous" (credible) people, I get very little value from following topics or questions, because when you start doing that you get lot's of noise (random or semi-credible people answering). This doesn't seem to be something emphasized in the current flow.

EDIT (reply to below): There's a lot of noise. There are a lot of gems, too, but it's easier to identify the gems. I don't think of things in terms of inside vs. outside the so-called SV bubble, so I don't really share that sentiment. An experienced entrepreneur is still credible to me, even if they are in SV.

<comment><USER6> "Quora has a lot of really reputable, valuable, and domain-specific contributors, and it's easy to identify answers from people who have credibility on a subject"

I haven't been back to Quora for a couple of years, but there seemed to be a lot of astro-turfing by people who self-appointed themselves as "credible people". I also found that it was difficult to discover interesting content by genuine experts who exist outside of the "valley" VC/entrepreneurial bubble.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I really find this to be the issue with Quora. It's great branding about the wisdom of the crowds, thought leaders and what not. But really when all you have are a bunch of subjective questions/answers that people vote up, what else do you expect to happen except the one with most broad and popular appeal goes to the top. That's not the truth, that's a popularity contest. It's the same thing you have with the news -- reading it feels informative, until you see them horribly screw up something you know very well, and everybody laps it up mindlessly. Once you see that happen, you can't trust anything you read there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure if the author is trolling, but that's probably because I've been extremely livid at Quora for the past couple of days. I had an account from years ago, but now I can't do a single thing unless I follow 5 topics. I can't even read the first answer like an anonymous user can, and I can't access my profile page to delete my account. The only option I have is to go into developer tools and delete the modal from the DOM when I get linked to a question.

You can roll your eyes at me all you want, but I'm bring cantankerous for a reason: I have had an account for years and they locked me out, and I find that really rather offensive. I now have a worse experience than an anonymous user, which is just silly.

<comment><USER9> I'm the author, and I definitely wasn't intending to troll - I'm just documenting the experience and sharing my takeaways, with as little judgement as possible.

Personally speaking, I'm also not a fan of dark UX patterns and such, and have found myself frustrated with their UI decisions at times, as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dislike Quora for a number of reasons, many of which are described in that presentation:

1\. Quora make it hard to begin accessing content when arriving from Google search results for the first time.

2\. Seems to be filled with pointless echo chamber people like Scoble and cliques of so called "thought leaders"....I have a hard time understanding the point of Robert Scoble and self-appointed "thought leaders". I hate to use the term, but there's a lot of "circle jerking" going on in Quora with "famous people".

3\. Even when I did sign up with a throwaway account, everything about their navigation and page layout is hard. Questions and answers are jammed into a narrow sliver of content area. On a 24" 1920x1200, with a browser window occupying just half that width, it looks crap.

4\. When I last used Quora (about two years ago) it was hard to just randomly leap around looking for interesting content. there didn't seem to be a 10000 foot view of what I can look at and randomly dip into.

5\. Dark patterns.

But then I was spoiled by Stack Overflow which allows me instant access to content which is well laid out and easy to comprehend and consume. Yes, SO may have 6.5 million+ questions, but their tagging feature alone (including tag synonyms) makes it a piece of cake to see just the stuff I want to see, but also hop around. I truly hope SE's philosophy of zero friction user onboarding, easy access to content and sensible moderation constraints burn Quora.

I short, I just can't bring myself to use Quora, I really did want to, I truly did, but everything about the way they operate is hostile/icky. As someone who, after suffering years of internet loonies (on usenet, mailing lists, phpBB), and can appreciate the need for well managed and curated content, and constructive and intelligent discourse, I find Quora has failed to engage me on so many levels.

I also don't know a single person in my circle of close and near friends who bother with Quora (both technical and non-technical clever, and internet savvy people). They too are fatigued with the whole "gotta sign up to see our content" thing.

Quora isn't any better than Experts Exchange which I stopped using even before SO came on the scene back in 2008. It's just a high-falutin' incarnation of EE, I truly hope Quora fails.

<comment><USER10> _3\. Even when I did sign up with a throwaway account, everything about their navigation and page layout is hard. Questions and answers are jammed into a narrow sliver of content area. On a 24 " 1920x1200, with a browser window occupying just half that width, it looks crap._

...

 _But then I was spoiled by Stack Overflow which allows me instant access to content which is well laid out and easy to comprehend and consume._

I would point out that Stack Overflow also has a fixed-size content area. It is a bit bigger (660 px vs. 485 px), but at 1920x1200, you're looking at 25% vs. 34% of the screen for the Q&A which will look rather empty. Plus the font size is actually larger on Stack Overflow so the information density is probably about the same.

I rarely go to Quora myself, but it has nothing to do with stylistic choices.

<comment><USER6> Yes agree mostly, but somehow SO's layout hits my visual comprehension sweetspot pretty good. I guess my only complaint would be this which I raised a while back, but was poo-poo'd:

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/93457/419](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/93457/419)

That said, like yourself, I also avoid Quora for reasons other than just stylistic choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> With nearly 5 years under its belt, zero revenue, grossly overvalued at 400m$, new blog features backfiring, silly registration tactics, I see no reason why people should bother to cover this product. Its got nothing going for it at the moment.

<comment><USER12> 400M USD would be 1k USD per monthly US visitor. [1]

[1] [https://www.quantcast.com/quora.com](https://www.quantcast.com/quora.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd rank Quora up there with experts exchange - scumbag website with a very slimy feel to it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Weird that they use this as Quora's 'onboarding'. I bet they get most of their signups/onboarding from the annoying SEO spam they have with the "signup to see more than the first answer (or close this annoying popup box to see that magical first answer)" popup.

Google needs to give the entire Quora site a large negative ranking Rapgenius- style.

For those that haven't seen it: [http://i.imgur.com/vbLTXYz.png](http://i.imgur.com/vbLTXYz.png)

<comment><USER9> I'm the one who put the teardown together, and I actually completely agree with you - I think it's pretty unlikely that the majority of their signups would actually come from their home page. I thought it was an interesting flow nonetheless and thought I'd document/share.

<comment><USER15> That's a really helpful site, thanks for putting it together! It'll help me enormously with optimizing my own site's signup flow.

<comment><USER9> It never gets old to hear that it's helpful - thanks for letting me know!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These teardowns are great -- thanks to the author for doing them.

Onboarding is so important to breaking the ice with users, and providing with a clear sense of what to do after they register. They got sold about some value proposition before they registered, and chances are they probably need to do some work before they start seeing that value: adding friends, installing a client, setting preferences, etc.

Users need their hand held in those first few screens. It's easy to get tunnel vision about a product when you've been building a product for weeks, and obvious steps don't seem so obvious to fresh eyes. Asking strangers to sit down and complete tasks while you watch is one of the best learning experiences you can have about your own product.

I learned the hard way a few times when I got registrations and no repeat visits. I was able to cut it significantly by guiding users on what to do next (I took some lessons from Twitter's onboarding), and following up via auto email if they still didn't get started. Copy made a big difference, too.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for saying so! (I'm the author)

Also, 100% agreed on all the point you make. That's not far from being a blog post unto itself!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I became a user when this site taught me to append ?share=1 to the URL to access the content.

<comment><USER18> This is great - thanks. Though the site is still annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a user, I find Quora to be weird and confusing. The sign up process was like a labyrinth, and trying to figure out how to use it is quite cumbersome.

</comment><comment><USER20> I know this isn't exclusive to quora, but I really hate the "follow X topics/people/tags/boards that you probably don't even care about but we're going to force you to before we'll let you really use the app so our numbers look good" pattern.

<comment><USER21> That is a quite essential step for something like this. Take for example Twitter. If you signup for Twitter and don't follow anyone, it is going to be a pretty useless service to you. Same thing with Quora and many others, you need to have a starting point to see the value and start actually using it.

<comment><USER22> I might be a special case but I signed up for Twitter just so I could keep an eye on who is tweeting about my company and make an occasional reply. I don't follow anybody and wouldn't have finished the signup process if I was forced to follow someone. I find it a pretty great solution for real-time customer service, both as a founder and as a customer, but I don't want to hear everything anyone has to say unless they're a good friend of mine and in that case they are on Facebook. For notable people, if I care at all what they have been up to I will go to their blog, and for a real-time event I will simply search for it on Twitter.

The awesome thing about Twitter is they let me use their service exactly how I want to and don't force me to do anything else, like randomly click 5 topics I couldn't care less about. I wish Quora were similar in that respect.

<comment><USER21> Is there a Quora use-case I'm missing? What is the scenario where you wouldn't want to follow topics on Quora? Granted, I haven't been on Quora much over the last year, so things could have changed.

<comment><USER9> I think the issue people are encountering is trying to read an article linked from elsewhere (e.g. Twitter) and having to go through the full onboarding process to read it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is anyone else having trouble reading the linked article or seeing the slides? I see page number 1/58 and the first slide is visible, I press the 'next' arrows and then everything is blank - just the page numbers change. I tried in both FF/Chrome.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry to hear it's not working for you - would you care to reach out to me on Twitter at @UserOnboard and try to troubleshoot it in realtime?

<comment><USER23> Aah. Got it. The first image you've posted in the slideshow is hosted on amazon AWS, and all the other on google drive, which is blocked in my office. So your blog won't work in many offices.

<comment><USER9> I had no idea google drive was often blocked - thanks for letting me know!

<comment><USER23> Yeah. I know it's weird. They block Google Drive (and all other drive/sync software like Dropbox, Skydrive, Box.net client etc.) but not Gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just this past weekend I clicked a google link to Quora and there were so many steps trying to get to the discussion and answer that I ultimately just closed the tab and went on to another search result. Horrible "onboarding" experience.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, the quality of teardowns is great! Is there an RSS feed I can follow? I'd rather not sign up for emails.

<comment><USER9> I'm glad to hear you like it! This is kind of a side project for me, and I haven't heard too much of a need for RSS, so I haven't set that up yet. I tweet all of the teardowns on Twitter at @UserOnboard, though.

<comment><USER26> I just want to echo how cool of a site this is. I'm actually not a designer at all(far from it, I do entirely backend work) but I've gone through most of your teardowns just because they're interesting to read and it's cool to learn about UX stuff like this.

The only comment I'd have is that I found the "zoom in on mouseover" to actually be really confusing at first, and I don't really get any utility from it. I suspect this is because I'm primarily interesting in what you have to say about the site, and not the zoomed-in details of a particular page.

Thanks for the site!

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the feedback! The zoom tool just went out last night, and I don't think it's completely "there" yet. As a (former) developer myself, I'm really glad to hear it's interesting to non-designers, too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> so pretty much everything this person said was great is why i hate quora.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am a Quora member, but never ever read the site logged in. Instead I just suffix "?share=1". There's something about blurred content that requires me to 'unlock' it that just puts me off. Maybe it's the memory of Expert's Exchange.

<comment><USER29> me too, registered , logged once, got spammed,blocked it ,never returned on Quora. It could have been an interesting app, but they blew it for reasons i fail to understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> How the heck do any of these comments have anything to do with the linked piece?

Samuel, great stuff. Another solid teardown!

<comment><USER9> Haha, thanks for saying so! (the "great stuff" part)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> can somebody tell me what quora.com is? is it like stackoverflow.com for programming only or for everything like yahoo answers? I don't want to sign up to find out. :)

<comment><USER32> As belluchan said, "as a scummy, low-quality content farm."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7106091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7106091)

Which, I suppose, makes this site a "scummy, low-quality content farm farm."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Quora is suffering badly from questions like:

1) "What was the most awesome thing a teacher ever told you?"

2) "Is coffee bad for you?"

3) "What is it like to live in Berlin?" ...

and so on.

The answers are usually very shallow essays instead of to the point, clear and competent answers. The search facilities on Quora are super-bad - it is virtually impossible to find something on there. The voting is as already mentioned a popularity contest.

In my opinion each end every Stackexchange web-site is more useful and (intellectually) entertaining than Quora which is indeed nothing else than a highbrow Yahoo! Answers.

</comment><comment><USER34> Ssssshhh....

[http://anyurl.quora.com/?share=1](http://anyurl.quora.com/?share=1)

</comment><comment><USER35> how the hell does quora plan on making money

<comment><USER36> It's a content site, so probably from pageviews with ads. I doubt Quora is going to stick around, and if it does it will be in there with about.com, ehow and the like. A scummy low quality crowd sourced content farm.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Go to Google Maps. Type Your Twitter Handle (with @) - <AUTHOR>

This is getting mixed results from people. For some, it's gives a pretty accurate location of either where you are or a place you go. For others, not so much.<p>I don't geotag tweets, and it still did a pretty good job. It appears to be content based. <comment><USER2> So after giving it some thought and doing some additional research it looks like they are building a superdetailed graph based on your relations, textual content etc. etc., try and determine and geocode locations based on the analyzed data and then plot those locations through Google Maps. It looks like it is even smart enough to go through your followers, determine the kind of relationship you have with that particular person, and if you and the other person are closely related enough pick certain locations up from their timeline and share those locations between your profile and that of the other person (something which supposedly has happened to a friend of mine given the returned data.)

Anyway, not scary at all, nope. </sarcasm>

<comment><USER3> It pinpointed an (old) address for my future workplace and I haven't even started there yet, presumably because I follow several of my future co- workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty scary actually, it managed to pinpoint me to locations that I hadn't mentioned on Twitter at all, incluing where I work.

<comment><USER4> I've since determined that Google scrapes our corporate website, which lists employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Just did a small test: It gave the approximate location of my office (luckily off a few streets, so my privacy is not too badly damaged).

Coincidentally, my office is the only spot where I am logged in to Twitter using Google Chrome. Using Firefox at home.

UPDATE: If your Twitter handle gives a false result at first, try prefixing it with the term: twitter

E.g. 'twitter @whateveryourhandleis'

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting.

I'm licensed through a company called Shirlaws Group - Australian HQ is where I work in Brisbane; global HQ is London. Google Maps pins 'me' at Shirlaws motorcycles in Aberdeen, Scotland.

So it's smart enough to make some connection "Jacob Aldridge = Shirlaws" but must be missing some wider data or geo information.

</comment><comment><USER6> Mine goes to University of Michigan...which is a different country altogether.

Just tried @Obama, Guantanamo Bay Detention camp.

<comment><USER7> @potus is super accurate - the White House...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was put into the Yankee Stadium (@bopfger). It must be able to read my mind as I would love to be there. Not sure, how Google would put me there, though as I have never been there and never tweeted from New York either.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've got "Columbus Ohio" listed right in my twitter bio (as a location rather than just included as text) and GMaps went directly to some swimming related retail business in Valencia, CA, weird.

</comment><comment><USER9> Mine is somewhat accurate, I was here a month ago. [http://imgur.com/8m8tbr2](http://imgur.com/8m8tbr2)

</comment><comment><USER10> Pretty terrible result frankly. I geocode a number of tweets, but it shows my "location" as that of the office for a company I've conversed with here in Thailand.

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't seem to work for me, anything special you have to do? Maybe the feature is locale dependent. Could you post a link if it's serialized in the url?

<comment><USER12> Doesn't seem to work here (Finland) either.

<comment><USER3> Works for me. (Finland also)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It gave a city outside my hometown. I've definitely never used twitter there, so I'm puzzled as to why.

</comment><comment><USER14> perfect. plus random sampling of my follower/ees was dead on to their business location.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hahahahahahah I got CERN labs in Switzerland. I'm pretty excited about that actually.

@bartozone

</comment><comment><USER16> The result it gave me is in a country I've never set foot in.

</comment><comment><USER17> Mine returned the last account I tweeted at, Puma's HQ...

</comment><comment><USER18> Mine and the few friends I tried are nowhere close.

</comment><comment><USER19> With my handle (@go), I get a store in Poland.

</comment><comment><USER20> I got the whitehouse and I am not sure why.

</comment><comment><USER21> I got Avebury's Stone Circle... wtf</comment>


Ask HN: What is working as a VC like? - <AUTHOR> I work at a not-really-startup anymore Data Science software and consulting company in the midwest. I work as a data scientist and director within the company, though most of my time is, lamentably, making datasets. I don't see a way out of this particular predicament for a few years.
The Managing Principal from our primary investor asked me what I thought about becoming a "deal guy" or working as a VC analyst type person. He says he thinks it could be a great use of my talents and interests.
They also announced they are looking for a director of business development now. It sounds like an intriguiging opportunity and one where I can get exposure to more things, rather than being pigeonholed into "well, you're better at ETL than these people and can manage yourself so here's this project with a poorly written scope, client we can't say no to, and no real condition for success".
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Imagine hearing 20 of the dumbest ideas you have ever heard. Everyday.

I assume that's what it's like.

<comment><USER3> And investing in one of them. ;)

<comment><USER4> The wrong one

<comment><USER5> And realizing that the dumber one you didn't invest in is now worth a billion dollars.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Official DeepNude Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/deepinstruction/deepnude_official <comment><USER2> It looks like the writer forgot to omit some .pyc files which disclose their name. Searching for their name and "DeepNude" on Google locates some interesting articles (some of which are removed due to EU data protection laws) with their name, age, and location. Anonymity is hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Rule34 holds true there is a paired dataset that could be used for better results — and yes a quick Google search reveals entire websites dedicated to showing the same person in the same pose with and without clothing.

What this project ignores is that there is a LONG list of people I'd rather see with MORE clothes. Take Kim Kardashian for instance, every time I see her I'm like man wish she was wearing rain boots, a wind breaker, and a trench coat, a parka, a scarf, gloves, a sombrero, sunglasses, hockey mask, basically throw the entire Bass Pro Shop winter catalog at her and give my delicate eyes a break.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hrmn. I could be missing something, and I'm generally for freedom and all. But working on this seems like a shitty thing to do. What is this for, other than harassment?

<comment><USER5> Would you argue that porn has no benefit?

Id argue that billions of people have more enjoyable lives because of porn.

That's not to dismiss the potential for misuse.

<comment><USER4> I would not argue at all against porn.

However, I think the consent of the participants is a bare minimum for acceptability, and this seems to violate that directly.

<comment><USER5> > What is this for, other than harassment?

I was answering that question you posed. It's not just for harassment. It's mostly for porn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As they say, Porn drives innovation in tech. I expect to see this being used to make the next spiderman/woman.

<comment><USER7> maybe not 'porn' \- but I would pay good money to see say Citizen Kane performed by a bunch of deep-nudists.

First person who creates the Chrome plugin that will nudify all photos will be a millionaire.

<comment><USER6> how does one make money from a chrome plugin?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like it got 404'd. Taken down by GitHub themselves, or by the original creator?

</comment><comment><USER9> You can download it here: [https://sites.google.com/view/deepnude/home](https://sites.google.com/view/deepnude/home)

</comment><comment><USER10> "But after 12 hours of launch, due to viral articles and clickbaits, the software had been hacked and modified. With multiple illecit DeepNude version in the web, anonymous and unknown users, virus and malware, the assumption of security dissolved soon. There are no valid security systems, when hackers from all over the world attack you."

What does it mean???

<comment><USER11> The version they were attempting to sell would watermark the images as fakes; these systems were removed. They decided to open source the project & stop selling it, since they saw no feasible way to prevent these reverse- engineering attacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is there not DeepCat? Turns everyone into kitteh.

<comment><USER12> Absolutely serious. Whimsical applications should drown out the pervs in the DeepX space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Something to consider:

From Wikipedia: "X-Ray Specs are an American novelty item, purported to allow the user to see through or into solid objects. In reality the glasses merely create an optical illusion; no X-rays are involved. The current paper version is sold under the name "X-Ray Spex"; a similar product is sold under the name "X-Ray Gogs"."

"X-Ray Specs consist of an outsized pair of glasses with plastic frames and white cardboard "lenses" printed with concentric red circles, and emblazoned with the legend "X-RAY VISION".

"The "lenses" consist of two layers of cardboard with a small hole about 6 millimetres (0.24 in) in diameter punched through both layers. The user views objects through the holes. A feather is embedded between the layers of each lens. The vanes of the feathers are so close together that light is diffracted, causing the user to receive two slightly offset images. For instance, if viewing a pencil, one would see two offset images of the pencil. Where the images overlap, a darker image is obtained, supposedly giving the illusion that one is seeing the graphite embedded within the body of the pencil. As may be imagined, the illusion is not particularly convincing.

"X-Ray Specs were long advertised with the slogan "See the bones in your hand, see through clothes!" Some versions of the advertisement featured an illustration of a young man using the X-Ray Specs to examine the bones in his hand while a voluptuous woman stood in the background, as though awaiting her turn to be "X-rayed".

</comment><comment><USER14> How has GitHub not yet banned this??

<comment><USER15> Why should it be banned?

<comment><USER14> It can be used to create pornographic images of strangers without their consent. I'm honestly surprised that you _don 't_ find it objectionable.

<comment><USER16> Photoshop has been used for that for decades. Why not ban Photoshop?

<comment><USER17> In Queensland, under Revenge Porn laws:

> "The new laws also cover photoshopped images – where an image has been > altered to look like a person is portrayed in an intimate way." > \--[http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2019/2/13/revenge- > por...](http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2019/2/13/revenge-porn-now-a- > criminal-offence)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Battlefield 3's Interface is a (Technically Rough) WebApp -- In Depth - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/113218107235105855584/posts/LiEJtXTpMPf

<comment><USER2> "1. it's a flash application"

I don't think this is correct. There is a flash Websocket transport, but the rest of the app is HTML.

A link to the developers: <http://www.esn.me>

(A bonus, being a web app means I can check it at work!)</comment>


Google Gives All SF Homeless Free Voicemail - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23377190

<comment><USER2> Perhaps so they can contact their chefs? <http://valleywag.com/356298/google- chef-in-homeless-shelter>

But seriously, this is something that _could_ actually help homeless people get jobs, etc, so good for Google.

Hopefully the numbers are untraceable back to this initiative, so there's no chance of discrimination against homeless...

<comment><USER3> Have you seen the homeless people in San Francisco? Do you really think that a lack of voicemail is what's holding them back from getting a job?

You can give 'em a phone, a shower, a shave, a set of clean clothes, and even some lessons on interview skills, but you can't convince them that working for a living is better than begging passersby for money.

edit: Of course most of 'em aren't lazy, they're mentally ill. Voicemail doesn't help much there either.

<comment><USER4> The ones who aren't mentally ill are hooked on drugs. Do not toy with heroin. It 0wns you.

A girlfriend of mine once worked as a counselor at a homeless shelter. It was a somewhat stressful experience, since the drug dealers line up outside the shelter to tempt the people coming in and out -- it's a good way to get return customers.

She reported that, actually, one of the big problems with chronically homeless people is that there's an immense amount of red tape associated with signing up for housing assistance, signing up for free healthcare, scheduling interviews with social service agencies, drug rehab, potential employers, etc. She spent the majority of her time helping people fill out forms, send emails, and use the phone. That's kind of what social work amounts to.

And, of course, these people have no permanent address, so it's hard to get agencies and employers to call them back. Hence, voicemail could be a tremendous help.

You can imagine what it's like to try to fill out IRS forms while you're in heroin withdrawal and being tempted by dealers every time you go out. It really puts my caffeine-withdrawal headaches in perspective.

Incidentally, the large majority of homeless people are in and out of homelessness as fast as possible. Nothing inspires you to action like being in a homeless shelter... where, among other things, other homeless people will steal all your stuff. Almost nobody stays homeless by choice.

<comment><USER5> > _Almost_ nobody stays homeless by choice

Supporting link: [http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2006/06/changing- your...](http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2006/06/changing-your- life.html)

<comment><USER4> Well, that depends on your definition of "home". This guy apparently slept in Kinko's. How he got away with that, I don't know, but if we define "home" as "a place where you can sleep without being arrested, robbed, attacked, or frozen", then he had a home.

I should mention that I live in the Northeast. Here, being homeless is a much bigger deal than in California because of that whole "frozen" factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like this and I think it is a good idea...

...but how will the homeless people check their messages? How is this better than a homeless applicant getting a pay-as-you-go phone to get a job?

I understand that the go-phones are not free, but there is no contract or long term commitment, and that way they will actually have a way to get to their voice mail.

This reminds me of a story a little while back about a man who voluntarily limited himself to $25 and the clothes on his back, worked his way to an apartment, a truck, and a decent amount of savings in less than a year.

Congratulations Google et. all. I hope this project works out well.

<comment><USER7> "This reminds me of a story a little while back about a man who voluntarily limited himself to $25 and the clothes on his back, worked his way to an apartment, a truck, and a decent amount of savings in less than a year."

[http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/02/18/scratch- beginni...](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/02/18/scratch-beginnings- an-interview-with-adam-shepard/)

Any other links?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Grand Central was doing this long before they got acquired by Google. Before they offered their product publicly even.

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/12/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/12/BUGMVI7JKD1.DTL)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's been tried before:

<http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001004.html>

Fortunately "Project CARE" is a much better name. Sorry t-rex.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a true lack of places to call your voicemail without a cellular phone.

<comment><USER11> That's actually quite interesting. Where does one go to use a phone these days?</comment></comment>


Opera Confirms WebKit Prefix Usage - <AUTHOR> http://farukat.es/journal/2012/04/650-opera-confirms-webkit-prefix-usage

<comment><USER2> Here's a better idea, developers: stop using vendor prefixes. Use the W3C-defined property only. If it isn't standardized yet (i.e. doesn't work), then don't use it.

Stop opening your Christmas presents at Easter.

(sorry; typed from a mobile device)

<comment><USER3> So because people continue to build bad browsers, it is somehow my fault that their users can't enjoy what the rest of the world gets to see?

Users, stop using broken browser. You are only holding the rest of us back.

<comment><USER2> "bad" is quite relative here. Have you taken a glance at Chrome, Firefox or Opera recently? They're very innovative programs.

The salient point is for the developer to use discretion before toying with bleeding-edge features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always thought that this didn't seems so bad idea. We use vendor prefixes so specific vendor errors and omissions doesn't become a property of the released standard.

An alternative to vendor prefix could have been draft prefixes instead. So for example, Firefox could say that we have partial implemented `shadow-box` draft 1, so we call it `-d1-shadow-box`. If Firefox had a number of omissions they could instead call it `-ff1-shadow-box`. If an later browser supported shadow- box exactly as Firefox did with the same omisisons, they could simply adopt `-ff1-shadow-box`, which then most likely would later become the standard.

<comment><USER5> They are generally unlikely to have good enough test cases to make sure they implement these the same, as they are experimental.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Prefixes do not make sense on 2012 since any browser updates itself every few months.

Therefore it makes zero sense to not support every css property whose meaning you understand in the next three months (the lifecycle), and in the next version you can correct it if it deviates.

<comment><USER3> Actually all browsers, except IE, should update themselves per default.

The problem is basically that IE and Opera hasn't been run of the market yet.

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry, but I fail to understand your grief about Opera. They've been nothing if not standard compliant since before most people had internet access. Not to mention the huge amount of not-PC-hardware they have provided a browser for (Opera Mini for feature phones, Opera for TV's with internet, Opera for Nintendo DS, DSi, 3DS)

I may be biased as long-time users often are, but they're definitely not comparable to the plague that is IE.

<comment><USER3> They have just a few percent of the market and they expect us to write special CSS codes just for them.

In addition I don't recall them being open source.

If they had taken on IE back in the day, it would have been something else but I just can't see why I should care today.

<comment><USER7> > _They have just a few percent of the market_

Like blind users are just a few percent? Or people with motor-control disabilities are just a few percent?

<comment><USER3> Yes. And no, they don't get to play the HTML5 games I make either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If laziness got browsers into the vendor prefix mess, laziness could get them out; the way to do that is to build good developer tools.

For example, a tool could scan CSS files and compare usage of vendor prefixes against the current state of cross-browser support for "better" alternatives. Perhaps you see warnings like "property 'webkit-xyz' can be replaced by 'xyz', which has been supported by the top 4 browsers since 2006".

<comment><USER3> Why would I want to run such a tool?

I want the web broken for users of broken browsers. I want those who use IE to suffer, so that they will upgrade to better browsers.

I want those who use Opera to stop and to start using a better browser.

I am tired of the progress of the web being hindered by this absurd notion that we should support every browser in existence. We shouldn't.

<comment><USER9> Better in what sense? I don't like Safari and Chrome has turned into a buggy mess for me, whereas Opera is always stable. I've given up on the huge bloat of Firefox. IE is terrible. What's left?

<comment><USER3> I disagree with your concept of Chrome being buggy. It is not more buggy than the rest and has decent support for the new advanced features (with the exception of the calc css feature).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how this will affect those who have started using javascript aids like <http://leaverou.github.com/prefixfree/>

At this point there are enough prefixes to make manually adding each more than a bit pointless.

</comment><comment><USER10> WebKit. Killing the open web since 1998.

<comment><USER11> How exactly is this the fault of the webkit team? Lazy developers caused this, combined with a stupid response from the browser makers.

<comment><USER12> The root cause of this issue is that prefixed properties are prefixed for too long as the standardization speed doesn't match the reality of how fast the web evolves and wants to evolve.

Fast releases and automated updates only make it worse, as two minutes after a prefixed property is thought up, a seriously large number of users will have support for it, developers will play with it and then the css code gets stuck on the internet.

By now most developers are in the mindset that it's okay to let a page differ in some browsers as long as the difference is only minor/aesthetic and not a functional handicap. And matching this vendors are perfectly happy with letting developers use prefixed properties as if they were stable.

Since these vendors make up the whatwg and w3c, they need to get their shit together and standardize faster and in the meantime developers need incentives to only use prefixed properties on test sites, which could be as simple as a console message that it should be removed (like how they did with the event.layerx deprecation) or having the user enable test mode in their browser configuration.

<comment><USER3> So you want to hold the development of the web back, by giving developers incentives (really making them look like fools) to slow the progress of the web.

The only thing the prefix system threatens is a few unimportant browsers that arguably shouldn't even be around anymore and the pride of the w3c.

And you want to save them, by throwing the future of the web under a bus?

<comment><USER12> No, don't get me wrong. I don't want to hold the development back. Websites, design wants to evolve fast, faster than anything ever before. I think vendors get this on some level, that's why they let us use these properties, but they need to do a better job as a collective: the working groups that draft the standards. If they standardize faster, there won't be any change in your ability to use brand new technology at the current rate.

For example: webkit devs think of a new property. They build it, they like it, they make it publicly available. Chrome guys enable using this in the dev and beta channel. In a couple weeks they have feedback on performance and stuff. Whatwg convenes, they finalize the details, webkit guys make a few adjustments (and it's fine because there's only 2 webpages on the entire internet that's been using it for a month tops) and then soon it hits the stable channel. This is what we need. Fast updating browsers could rape the benefits of such a system very nicely, fast updating is what we need to let the web evolve fast enough anyway. Slow updating browsers can go die in a fire, they are just as slow with supporting everything else.

Also, not to nitpick, but opera on the mobile front isn't unimportant. It's the only alternative to webkit, it's nearly ubiquitous and not a bad experience on mobile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In a world that has both Chrome and Firefox, there is no reason to use another browser. They are both open source and available on all PC platforms.

Opera needs to stop accusing us of being lazy, and to die. They had their attempt and they blew it. Their existens only hinders the progress of the web.

<comment><USER13> Should there only be two car manufacturers? Competition is important. We should always push for open standards so they can be implemented by anyone. Maybe someday Google will decide that building a better browser is no longer in their best interest.

<comment><USER3> A car needs a road to run on, that is all the infrastructure that has to be common between cars (your car might need gasoline, but that does not mean that your neighbors car can't run on diesel or be an electric car).

So you driving an old car does not mean I can't drive a new much more fuel- efficient car.

A web browser on the other hand has a gigantic interface between it and the users and as such it is extremely arrogant to assume that the web should be held back due to your choice of browser.

If you don't like the look of it, or whatever you can totally apply skins or plugins to make it obey voice commands (I would love to read a blog post about how you did that) since those things don't interfere with the progress of the web.

<comment><USER13> Are you still talking about Opera? They are aggressively trying to be compatible? They are even implementing WebGL.

<http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html>

Yes, I agree being held back by one browser is a problem. However, that browser is IE8.</comment></comment></comment></comment>