The Fight - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/the-fight <comment><USER3> This, as any would be, is certainly a valid way to respond to a brush with death. But implying that this is somehow a lesson to be learned by everyone, suggesting that others should live their life this way, seems misguided to me in context.

Contemplating your mortality shouldn't necessarily convince you to double down on your current priorities (especially if those priorities are centered around banal platitudes like "doing something remarkable with your life," which are probably masks to keep you from thinking about what really motivates you.) It should cause you to reevaluate them.

The fact that you will die, the fact that everyone you know will die, and the fact that eventually the universe might become a field of equidistant neutrinos means that it really, really doesn't matter what you accomplish. All roads, if you stay on them long enough, lead to the same place. There will be no progress. There will be no one remarking.

I would say that the lesson to be learned from thinking about death is just that there's no reason to adhere to anyone else's values, or to feel pressure to do anything in particular. You should do what you want, what makes you happy, even if it's humble.

Existential steps backward can be a tool to remove yourself from things that aren't really helpful, like for example a hyper-competitive capitalist rat- race justified by language like "fight the status quo" or "great visions of the future" that, instead of contributing to humanity, is mostly really about love, insecurity, and fear of death (like so many human pursuits).

"Fighting" here, the battle between the heroic pursuit of accomplishment on the one hand and the "insidious machine called quo" on the other, is just the author reporting his own conflicts about what he wants to do. Part of him wants to expend massive amounts of energy attempting to out-compete the people he sees as his peers. But another part of him doesn't want to do that, which is why he loses motivation and doesn't always end up behaving the way a hero- CEO might. There is not some kind of evil, inherent inertia at work that all people must fight against. Instead, there is only ambivalence and subconscious motives.

In my opinion, if you really internalize death and it's implications, the notion that you can justify prescribing ways of thinking or behaving just starts to look absurd.

<comment><USER4> The crux of your argument is the claim that, if the universe becomes a field of equidistant neutrinos, no action or thought in the meantime matters. The implicit assumption behind this view is that events only matter to the extent that they leave a legacy. In particular, it asserts that things only have ultimate meaning if they extend to temporal infinity. I believe that how one reacts to Curtis's post, and to your statement, depends on the following question: to what extent can something temporary and finite have meaning?

Imagine this scenario:

A man stands on the shore, miles from any other human presence. He is desolate, alone. For the past twenty years of his life, he has worked ceaselessly on a critical open question in mathematics, the solution to which would make it feasible for humans to travel across galaxies. Educated at the best institutions, mentored by the greatest geniuses of his day, and encouraged by his incredible past successes in the field, he had begun to work on the problem with as great of fanfare as can exist within an academic community. Gradually, as he had toiled without progress, his reputation had faded and he had become increasingly reclusive. Eventually, divorced and estranged from his family, he had pruned away every aspect of his life outside of this one question. The man walks slowly back and forth, wracking his brain for what had gone wrong in all his previous approaches, what key had escaped him.

In a blazing flash of insight, he understands. The wrong turns, the twisted equations and garden-path lemmas, the towering perplexity of twenty years - gone. He understands. It is true; it is real. With the mere publication of one proof, even the sketch of the dazzlingly unlikely intuition, humanity will dance across the stars within a century.

In the next moment, a titanic wave engulfs the coast, obliterating him in one painless moment.

Does his epiphany matter? This is the limit of your supposition: a moment of supreme realization and an achievement that only a few among billions could hope for, lasting as short a time as could matter to a human being. What you think of meaning in human life depends on what you answer to that question. If you believe that his epiphany does matter, you also believe in the meaning of temporary things - of what leaves an impression, but not a legacy.

In this case, the "fight against inertia" does matter, but only as the genuine pursuit of a deeply felt aim, rather than lust for meaning swaddled in the language of social contribution. To use the language of "Drive," people feel most fulfilled when they have autonomy, mastery, and purpose; less pedantically, we are only happy in the deeper sense when using our abilities to their fullest extent. Chasing your visions and striving for achievement matter as a consequence not of the goal, but of advancing towards it. It is important to know that your goal matters to others, and that you have the means to achieve it, but it does not register on the scale of personal meaning whether it is ever achieved. Only the motion, the overcoming of inertia, differentiates between personal meaning and lack thereof. Mathematically, although everyone's life begins and ends at zero, that fact in no way diminishes the value of the integral in between.

Happiness, success, passion and meaning are four qualities that attract some of the most contentious attention from both HN readers and young people in general. I would argue that they share a common quality: they are only achievable at the highest level as byproducts of action, not goals in and of themselves. Pursuing them directly drives them away; if the young Mark Zuckerberg had been in it for the money, he would have gone to Microsoft, and if the young Steve Jobs had made it his goal to find meaning, he would have stayed on perpetual pilgrimage in India instead of starting Apple. The victory of ambivalence and subconcious motives comes from mistaking the yearning towards these things for the path that leads to them.

Internalizing death, if you believe in the meaning of temporary things, does justify certain ways of thinking and behaving. It means knowing that you will, relatively soon, be rendered forever passive and motionless. In the meantime, you may as well move.

<comment><USER3> My point isn't that everything is meaningless necessarily. I would say that the more one thinks about death the harder it is to make _arguments for meaningfulness._ I wouldn't make an argument for meaninglessness, I would just say that you can't really extrapolate a positive value system from the fact that life is short.

It feels like you're arguing in favor of narrowing our vantage as a way to preserve meaningfulness, which is totally valid to me. But it's basically using a belief (the meaning of temporary things as you put it) as comfort. My point, as was pointed out below, is that you may as well move but you also may as well stay still.

As an aside, it seems strange that Jobs is the illustrative example here, as if it's primitive that we should all want to be Him. Given the option to gain a problematic and presumably painful personal life and what I understand was a totally unnecessary early death along with creating apple and "changing" an arbitrarily tiny subset of human history, that seems like a very easy thing to decline. I take his decision to avoid treatment to reflect profound pain that I would love to avoid.

<comment><USER5> I concur with most of your arguments, I do concur with you that there seems to be over importance given to Job's personal-life than it should. But, your last paragraph about Job's life seems to be out of line with your philosophy. You are claiming that Job's death was unnecessary. Unnecessary in whose terms? Is the purpose of life living the longest possible life? Here, by saying that his death was unnecessary or untimely, you are implying there is a time for a person of his stature to die. Now, its no more about making decisions that make you happy or not worrying about the shortness of life, or the lack of meaningfulness of life, but rather you are now preaching how somebody should live their life(or make certain decisions) just like the author or the article is trying to do.

P.S- I do think Steve Jobs contributed greatly to his field and I admire him & his products. The arguments made above are purely for discourse

<comment><USER3> I guess I was making the observation personally that my priorities are very out of sync with wishing for Jobs' life. I don't think anyone else should have the same priorities as I do. I'm terrified of dying and would like to life as long as I can. I would also feel badly if I knew I died earlier than necessary for psychological reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some time ago I came across an elderly man in some difficulty lying in the street in London. While waiting for an ambulance he 'died' (no heart beat, no respiration, no signs of life at all, blue lips and gums) and I immediately did CPR on him until the ambulance arrived. Months later I learnt that he survived.

Any brush with death makes you seriously think about your own mortality. I know that watching this stranger's eyes go dead was quite life changing for me.

<comment><USER7> This is a field where a surprising amount of progress is being made. People still tend to assume that CPR is mostly a token effort so bystanders feel like they're doing something. In reality, high quality CPR + rapid access to an AED can give just about any heart a fighting chance at beating again (assuming the underlying problem is transient or easily treatable... if your LAD cardiac artery is 100% occluded and half your heart has died, there's no coming back from that...). Techniques like 'hands only CPR' are dramatically increasing the willingness of bystanders to get involved and do something productive.

The area where really exciting progress is being made is in improving the rates of survival to discharge from the hospital. Techniques like the therapeutic hypothermia mentioned in the article are rapidly gaining acceptance. ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support, the standard of care for acute cardiac emergencies, including cardiac arrest) now suggests that providers should 'consider' therapeutic hypothermia whenever a return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is achieved (I know 'should consider' doesn't sound all that exciting, but the American Heart Association is an (understandably) conservative organization, and doesn't make broad based recommendations without a fair amount of data to base them on).

I could ramble on about this for a long time, there's a lot of exciting research being done (continuous compressions, continuous EtCO2 monitoring for evaluating compression efficacy and alerting when ROSC has occurred, even really controversial stuff like withholding Epinephrine (a large scale study from Japan has shown that while Epi increases the odds of achieving ROSC, it may _decrease_ the odds of survival to discharge)). This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I volunteer with my local ambulance service, and I'm very close to my New York State Paramedic certification (just need to take the exam). Calls like the ones described in the comments here are exactly why I love doing this... The overlap between my work in EMS and my day job (development) is bigger than you might think... Debugging is debugging... the stakes are just a lot higher.

<comment><USER8> No offense to your passion, but I thought that CPR can be quite dangerous and ineffective. Don't many doctors wear DNR tags because of this?

The wikipedia article [1] has some information on this. The survival rate is something like 4% even though immediate recovery is around 40% (they survive long enough to get to the hospital, where they die due to the underlying condition). Meanwhile, the person has to suffer with the pain of broken ribs or other damage from the CPR attempt.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation#E...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation#Effectiveness)

<comment><USER9> As a paramedic, the "DNR" thing is part "folklore", part reality, but not for the reasons you cite.

If CPR is ineffective, the result is death. Dangerous? Not particularly.

Most people wearing DNR tags (aside: even a DNR tattoo on the chest is not considered legally binding against "heroic measures", unless signed by a physician) do so to provide some measure of what the patient might want (due to life expectancy, illness, etc).

Survival rate to discharge is HIGHLY dependant on many, many variables - <USER2> mention elsewhere that in certain parts of the country, due to concerted education and well managed/funded EMS systems, survival rates can approach 50% to discharge. You are right, though, successful CPR isn't going to negate the underlying cardiac condition.

If CPR buys a patient a year to five years, the pain of broken ribs is probably fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.

There are, as mentioned, a whole host of advances. My home EMS system does some fairly deep analysis of all CPR attempts and works to revise protocols, including what drugs to administer, through to 'continuing compression through defib shock' (studies done on medical students showing it to be a viable possibility).

Ultimately, education is the key - the ability to get skilled compressions more quickly on the chest, continuing to perfuse the brain and other organs has a huge impact in survivability, as well as damage done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's all good, but if you haven't had a close relative or a close friend die or come close to it, then no amount of preaching - Live now! Fight the momentum! Live it to the fullest! - is going to do any good. You have to _experience_ it, unfortunately there's no other way.

My dad died suddenly two years ago. Just like that - here he is, poof, here he is not. I tried to capture the feelings in a written form and then have people relate. It does not work. It is a sort of experience that no one will re-live willingly. It's just too damn dark.

<comment><USER11> Going on 10 years, similar experience. People don't understand how much suddenness of the death affects you. What I have come to realize is that there is no right way to deal with people dealing with death. And that everyone will deal with death differently. I remember at my dad's funeral stuff the number one line I heard from people was, "if you ever need anything..." I didn't know what that meant then, or now. But its a good line.

As a side note, I was in AP comp sci at the time with only 4 other students. Our teacher was an ex marine computer programming since the punch card days and really strict and emotionless. My indian friend that was in the class with me said that it was so sad and quiet in class the next day that they could hear the teachers heartbeat. I'll never forget that line.

<comment><USER12> That line means "if you need somebody, I'm here". It's there to let you know that while you have to go through this by yourself, you are not alone.

But yes, words are insufficient. Even if the other person speaking them has gone through the same pain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a great post, but to me there's another message that Dustin - understandably - hasn't focused on: "perfect health" is often (usually?) an illusion.

Given what I've learned about health in recent years, I can't accept that this guy really was in _perfect_ health; if he was, he wouldn't have suffered a major cardiac arrest while simply jogging on a treadmill.

I think it's mostly a failure of modern medicine and modern attitudes towards health that most of us walk around feeling and looking like we're in "perfect" health, only to find all too late that a severe condition was lurking undetected.

The answers may lie in fields like Quantified Self [1], or PG's suggestion of Ongoing diagnosis [2].

But whatever the case, we're only just starting to scratch the surface of an area that I think this post demonstrates is hugely important.

[1] <http://quantifiedself.com/>

[2] <http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

<comment><USER14> _I can't accept that this guy really was in perfect health; if he was, he wouldn't have suffered a major cardiac arrest while simply jogging on a treadmill._

That may or may not be the case. I suspect that the vast majority of cases of sudden cardiac arrest are attributable to risk factors, but probably not all. Our bodies are pretty incredible, but not perfect. Sometimes they just malfunction.

<comment><USER15> Do you have any evidence for that? Cardiac arrest is a pretty major malfunction.

I'll grant that there may be a _few_ cases of spontaneous malfunction among people with systems functioning optimally.

But I'd wager that given the knowledge someone had cardiac arrest, the odds of something being wrong with their system are higher than 99.999%.

Specifically, I'd be interested in cases of spontaneous cardiac arrest among hunter gatherers or other groups that largely avoid the 'diseases of civilization'.

<comment><USER16> See my parallel comment. Aside from a possible genetic defect, it's quite possible that this person is healthy by all normally measured features. In the general case, a hunter gatherer lifestyle would likely have triggered this sooner, if anything.

<comment><USER15> A genetic defect, if not impacted by lifestyle, would do the trick. However, 'normally measured features' may not fully capture cardiac health.

I'd still like to see studies of cardiac arrest among hunter gatherers, or as another poster commented, primates. Lots of genetic problems can be impacted by lifestyle (epigenetics).

I don't know about about the condition you posted to say how lifestyle affects gene expression in that case.

Assuming the disease isn't strongly affected by gene expression, my statistics are likely off then. Wikipedia listed the condition as having a .2-.5% prevalence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those of you who haven't had a CPR refresher in a few years, they now heavily promote the use of AED's [Automated external defibrillator]. The prognosis for recovery after CPR alone is in the single digits and moves well, well into the double digits if supplemented with an AED.

Gyms, schools, and works areas should all have a $1000.00 AED onsite. I was surprised that he had to wait for the ambulance to arrive before being defibrillated, since he was in a gym.

<comment><USER18> What are the legalities involved here? If you attempt to help are you opening yourself up to potential blame and legal action? What about DNR wishes the person may or may not have, or religious beliefs?

<comment><USER17> Nobody wants to live in a world where people find a dying person laying on the floor and let him die because they're afraid of legal issues. The law protects you from such nonsense.

Even if it didn't, in my opinion, no person worth a damn would allow that consideration to color their response.

<comment><USER19> A few months ago there was an incident in China where a young girl was run over by a truck while crossing a street. Nobody stepped in to help, precisely because they were afraid of the legal consequences. The entire thing was recorded on video, and it got a lot of exposure. It was horrific, the kind of thing one wishes you had never seen or heard about.

On the other hand, and thankfully this was a much minor event, my wife once got a traffic ticket for moving her car a few meters past a red light in order to make room for an ambulance. Something like that is enough to make you think twice.

<comment><USER20> Can't speak about China, but most states in the US have laws to protect people with the proper training from legal exposure (for example if you're giving proper CPR and break a patient's ribs). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law#United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law#United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just over a year ago my favorite uncle died suddenly in a freak car accident. Besides his immediate family, my mother and I were the very first ones to make it to the hospital where he was DOA. They took us in to see him one last time before he was sent to the morgue or wherever they take the bodies of those who die in the hospital. Everyone says great things about people who are recently deceased but I must stress that he was an extraordinary man. Really. And I thought that long before he died. Seeing his lifeless body there was shocking. What got to me the most was seeing the lifeless expression on his face. He was a man who was always smiling and more full of life than anyone I've met. The contrast between the live man I knew and the heap of dead flesh I saw will stay with me forever.

From that day on I have thought about death at least once a day since and always remind myself that every fear I have and every psychological block that keeps me from being who I want to be and doing what makes me happy is an illusion. It's not real and it can't hurt me. But it also reminds me that my hopes and dreams are meaningless too. But if I'm going to be alive I might as well live happy regardless, right?

Unfortunately, the problem is that knowing this has not changed my behavior. There's this weird mental barrier between knowing you have a short life and need to really live it and actually doing it. And so despite knowing this truth and coming to realize it in such a traumatic way, I still don't live it nearly as often as I should. I suspect many people are like that. I don't know why that is but I hope someday we can figure out how to go from knowing how we need to live to really doing it in a real way.

</comment><comment><USER22> Those in the UK (or soccer fans in general) will be more aware of this due to incidents involving Marc-Vivien Foé who collapsed and died during a game, and more recently Fabrice Muamba who survived a cardiac arrest (his heart had stopped for over an hour but was receiving CPR[1] during this time).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc-Vivien_Fo%C3%A9>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Muamba>

After the Foé incident there was a lot of promotion of the Cardiac Risk in the Young charity in the UK <http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/> who do ECG and Echocardiogram screening for those between 14 and 35 for a donation to the charity.

I got myself tested a couple of years in a row (until I turned 36!) as I was doing a lot of long distance (>200 miles a day for multiple days) cycling and my HRM showed me that I've got an atypical heart (resting heart rate down to ~40bpm at my fittest but I could regularly see >200bpm on my HRM whilst playing 5-a-side and I could average ~185bpm for an hour without feeling uncomfortable at all). A chat with the cardiologist after the scan(s) put any fears at bay, whilst mildly unusual there's nothing fundamentally wrong with my heart, if anything it's just a little smaller than average (hence the high HRmax).

Thoroughly recommended and you won't be wasting their time as you'll be helping support the charity by donating.

1\. From, among other medical staff, a consultant cardiologist who just happened to be at the game, the same cardiologist later treated him throughout his stay at hospital.

</comment><comment><USER23> This really reminds me of Paul Graham's post from a while ago, talking about things people in the future will think are weird about our time.

One of the things that struck a chord with me from pg's post: In the future, people will get regular health checkups to prevent problems _before they happen_. I don't know about this particular case, but it makes a lot of sense to me that many people who seem to be in perfect health, might not be. Today, the extent of checking up on yourself is mostly taking a blood sample, talking to a doctor, etc. And it's not done that often, either.

In pg's future world, people would check themselves out several times a year (maybe more), with machines that catch many of the most basic problems. In fact, I'd wager that one of the most promising avenues for advancing humanity is to develop better, more affordable tests to check for common problems that we can cure with some foresight.

</comment><comment><USER24> In my final year of university, I worked on a project to build a device that induces therapeutic hypothermia. Following graduation, 3 friends and I decided that there was enough need for this device to pursue the venture full time. We won a few business plan competitions, received funding through a small incubator, and set out to improve the outcomes of cardiac arrest patients.

Two months in to full time work, the four of us were walking back to the office from from lunch when one of my colleagues collapsed of a sudden cardiac arrest. Similar to Dustin's friend, mine was immediately treated with bystander CPR and first responders were on the scene within 5 minutes. Unfortunately however, my friend was not as lucky as Dustin's. He is no longer with us today and it's devastating to think that his life was taken at the age of 24 by a cardiac arrest.

As someone who has been extremely close to this topic for the past year, I can't stress enough the importance of basic understanding. People who seem to be "very healthy" can still be impacted by cardiac arrest. A sudden cardiac arrest is not the same as a heart attack. Bystander CPR and the use of automatic external defibrillators can have a significant impact.

"SCA kills more Americans than lung cancer, breast cancer and HIV/AIDS combined." [1] So please spend some time understanding the risk factors that contribute to cardiac arrest, take a CPR course, and educate those around you. I really believe that a single individual can have a significant impact in a situation such as this.

[1][http://wwwp.medtronic.com/Newsroom/LinkedItemDetails.do?item...](http://wwwp.medtronic.com/Newsroom/LinkedItemDetails.do?itemId=1347640295807&itemType=fact_sheet&lang=en_US)

</comment><comment><USER25> All reasonably-sized gyms should have Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs). CPR on its own is not incredibly useful on its own (although it does buy you time for paramedics to arrive).

They're only about $1k, which is about 25% of one of the treadmills. I'm surprised it's not mandated by law.

</comment><comment><USER26> A very close friend was in a car accident that put him in a category 3 (GCS) coma for two weeks. Worst two weeks of my life... Until my girlfriend was electrocuted and hospitalised for two weeks barely able to move her body. Worst two weeks of my life... Until I lost a close friend overnight. Bam. Gone. Forever.

Life is meant to be lived. Unfortunately, that is a lesson you can only learn by yourself.

<comment><USER7> Despite the name, comas aren't generally categorized by GCS. If they were, most of us would be walking around in a "Category 15" coma all day...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's only trite because it needs to be repeated so often.

<comment><USER28> Yes and no. This is a very personal, very delicate subject, almost impossible to be expressed in or understood from a single random post at a random blog. Sadly, constant repetition of this particular appeal usually leads to cheap, bleak, even personally and socially irresponsible substitutions like YOLO movement that have very little in common with the level of awareness and appreciation of being alive that OP has acquired (and lost, and acquired again).

<comment><USER29> >even personally and socially irresponsible substitutions like YOLO movement that have very little in common with the level of awareness and appreciation of being alive that OP has acquired (and lost, and acquired again).

I'm pretty sure YOLO is a joke. At least I've never heard anyone say it without at least a hint of facetiousness in their voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I know the person he's talking about in this article, he's an old friend of mine from primary school, he's only a little bit younger than me. It was a shock to everyone. He was incredibly fit, in the prime of his life and everything.

I'm on the other side of the world from him now, but it was still a bit of a wake-up call. Inspired me to go travelling, something I'd been putting off for ages.

</comment><comment><USER31> Fantastic. Great start to the week. Everyone go out there and fucking kill it this week.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a tangential aside, reading the opening paragraph of this article reminded me - in the US, if you have cardiac arrest, you want to have it either the counties surrounding The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or Puget Sound:

While cities like Detroit, Chicago and New York have less than 10%, down to 2% survival for /witnessed/, VF/VT (ventricular fibrillation / tachycardia, the rhythms an AED can shock) arrest (i.e. the "best" cardiac event to have), Rochester Minnesota, and the three counties of King, Pierce and Thurston (Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia) have above 40 to nearly 50% survival.

Learn CPR.

\-- a paramedic

</comment><comment><USER32> The romans used to say.. "memento mori".

</comment><comment><USER33> Heart attacks in young people (under 35) are rarely related to smoking or high cholesterol (unless accompanied by morbid obesitas) and more often undiagnosed heart or congenital issues (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, et al.), related to drug abuse (cocaine, weight loss drugs) and/or eating disorders (bulimia).

Memento mori, carpe diem, but know that your chances of being struck with heart attacks at a young age are very slim. If it runs in your family, get a screening, but other than that, don't worry too much.

</comment><comment><USER34> My grandfather is 96, he's been on dialysis for nearly 2 years now. He has zero kidney function and a tumor that has literally taken the place of one of the kidneys. His mind is sharp and he's totally lucid.

He won't let us sell his cars. He believes that he's going to get better. He talks about it all the time. "As soon as I get better, we'll..."

It doesn't matter if one lives 20 years or until the heat death of the universe, everyone has the same experience. Death is unexpected and unwelcome. And completely inevitable.

<comment><USER35> > Death is unexpected and unwelcome. And completely inevitable.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

<comment><USER34> As for death at 20, I'm with you, but as for the latter example, I'm open to suggestions on ways to prevent the heat death of the universe. I'm not entirely sure there's anything I can do about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's not trite. Especially when things aren't working, and it would be so safe and warm and simply to stop wanting to do extraordinary things and sink back into momentum, inertia, the rhythm of everything that has ever been or will be. Not that I wish any of you to have a huge loss, or near loss, but once you do it is galvanizing - if you let it reach you at the core. As others on this thread have said, memento mori.

</comment><comment><USER37> Im curious to know the suspected cause. Since he was young, it seems like it was <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrophic_cardiomyopathy>

<comment><USER7> There are plenty of other cardiac abnormalities that can cause sudden cardiac death. Wolff-Parkinson-White (and other conduction pathway disorders), prolonged Q-T syndrome, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> An interesting bit about Steve Jobs (from the biography) was that he had a foreboding feeling that he'd die early. That also seemed to encourage him to work against the status quo before it was too late.

</comment><comment><USER39> It was an amazing article, really, it get a tear out of me.

Thank you for sharing so much.

</comment><comment><USER40> Fighting is a waste of energy. Find your flow and go with it.

</comment><comment><USER41> And depending on which country he lived in, this whole episode either cost nothing or has saddled him with crushing debt for the rest of his life

</comment><comment><USER42> Why do people get heart attacks in such a young age? Is it life style, something in genes or etc? Are there things one can do to reduce risks?

</comment><comment><USER43> Inspired by Steve Jobs' quote mentioned in the article, I built this thing that reminds us about how much time we really have: www.lifing.it

</comment><comment><USER44> I never really understood what those words meant, "Live life fullest, live like its your last day, etc"

Can anyone tell me what that really means?

</comment><comment><USER45> I agree, i believe we should not forget death to help us fight the ordinary vain reality. Thanks for sharing this.

</comment><comment><USER46> "I had once again become a cog in the insidious machine called quo." That is a masterful turn of a phrase!

</comment><comment><USER47> Memento mori.

</comment><comment><USER48> You know what's really classy? A giant kudos button at the bottom of this page. Awful.

</comment><comment><USER49> He's given the typical FOOLISH response people give after brushes with the death plague - live life to the fullest.

How about instead thinking of ways to fix the problem. That can also be considered - living life to fullest - and also fixing the problem.

In his case, he could have considered how can cardiac arrest be better dealt with. Have drones nearby that automatically go towards the patient and revive them. What's involved in that, collecting the data, manufacturing drones etc. etc.

The entire world is focused with having the latest shiny bullshit from the mall/walmart. Go there and see the masses of consumerist idiots picking up plastic crap and clothes like monkeys. How about they instead spend that time crafting a pitch for a new invention that solves a death-related problem on kickstarter. There are 7 billion people, probably only a few thousand of them are working towards actually worthwhile things.

Living life to the full doesn't have to mean buying or building crap to fulfill child-like urges to see shiny things, it can instead be using the "god given" brain to tackle the most important challenges, of which survival is number 1. Animals probably look at humans and think what retards, they themselves spend all their time trying to survive.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is the most sincere and human thing you've ever written, Dustin. Bravo.

</comment><comment><USER51> I can not +1 this enough

</comment><comment><USER52> "Running at the gym" ..so many people do it, but wouldn't the energy be put to better use building something? Running barefoot outside would be my choice.. getting grounded and Vitamin D. Gym running is a weird sensation, and unnatural: it's more a striding exercise. Gyms can also be very dirty. But good that he recovered, he should try and work out the how and why so it doesn't happen again.</comment>


All O'Reilly Ebooks 50% off today - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreilly.com <comment><USER2> I've found myself falling into this pattern, and wondering if others share it:

a. I see a 50% off book at O'Reilly that I'm interested in. b. I check the price at Amazon.com. The regular price is usually a few dollars more than the discount price at oreilly.com. c. I purchase the book at Amazon because it is just easier, even if it slightly more money.

I actually feel a bit bad about this: I'd rather give the money to Tim and Co directly. And, yes, I know it isn't that hard to do this from the O'Reilly site...

<comment><USER3> I much prefer buying directly at O'Reilly, given that they can sync the books straight to my Dropbox in both Kindle format and a variety of others, and I particularly like supporting them for their lack of DRM..

<comment><USER4> Exactly. I don't buy ebooks from Amazon as they only offer Kindle books, whilst I want the epub version.

DRM free and available in dropbox so can be read on my laptop, ipad and android phone at any time is key.

Also feels good to pay the publisher directly and not fund Amazons tax dodging.

I do though have way too many ebooks from O'Reilly and Prag Prog :)

<comment><USER5> Doesn't Calibre let you convert from Kindle books to epub?

<comment><USER6> Yes, but the fonts, layouts, tables, diagrams, etc don't translate that well... sometimes OK, sometimes really bad.

I'd rather get a epub directly and save conversions for books that aren't in epub format at all, like fiction/non-fiction kindle format. Text-only or mostly text conversions (e.g. mobi to epub) work much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is in celebration of the day against DRM. [http://www.defectivebydesign.org/](http://www.defectivebydesign.org/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, what do people think of reading a programming book in ebook form? I love using my Kindle for novels, but I tend to read programming books in quite a non-linear fashion, and like the fact that I can quickly flick through the book to find information about a specific topic. Having said that, I have not tried reading a programming book in digital form, so it may turn out to be better than I imagine.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER9> It varies widely.

The O'Reilly eBook versions are very consistent. I really rely on the reviews on Amazon for the Kindle versions (there are often complaints of layout issues in code examples and diagrams).

O'Reilly is by far my favourite publisher/store for eBooks. If they can't lay out a certain technical book in a usable form in epub or mobi, then it probably can't be done. In those cases, I just use the PDF on my computer or on a large tablet (Nexus 10). It's all DRM free, multi-format so I can use whichever format is best for the content.

For diagram/image-heavy books I usually default to PDF.

In terms of non-linear reading, it's got to be printed books or PDFs with a proper TOC and bookmarks on my computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some people are confused whether the O'Reilly sale deal is in fact less expensive than Amazon. Important fact #1: This sale is for DRM-free e-books, which are only available from oreilly.com. Amazon sells only the Kindle edition, which is copy-protected.

To take an example I'm familiar with, _Programming Android_ in e-book form in a choice of DRM-free formats is $18.99 at oreilly.com, on sale. Purchasing (sort of, Amazon can revoke your purchase) at Amazon.com costs $19.79.

But, and there's always a big "but," you can rent _Programming Android_ in Kindle form for $8.96, which is a great deal for a programming book you may not need to keep around after you read it. You can even rent it twice if you are slow getting through it and it would be cheaper than buying the Kindle edition from Amazon.

Some people find reading code in e-books difficult. All the code in _Programming Android_ is available for download, which you can read in Eclipse or Android Studio, with cross referencing and doc pop-ups and syntax coloring. E-books do have an advantage in that O'Reilly's "animal" series is all monochrome printing in hard copy, but the e-books have syntax coloring and color diagrams.

</comment><comment><USER11> O'Reilly ebooks are always 50% off!

They send these promotions regularly, but you can always pay half the published price.

<comment><USER12> This does indeed seem to be the case. And since that means the original topic here is not really news, I'll use this space to point out that this is why, in general, I hate sales and companies that have a lot of them. Constant sales basically tell the customer that the sale price is the real price and you're a sucker if you pay full price... but you have to constantly check and watch and do a bunch of extra work to be sure you get the real (sale) price.

Please, just have a price and charge it. I know, I know, it's better for your metrics to practice price discrimination, and constant sales are a way to do that... but it pisses off customers who just want a simple, fair price. If you really need price discrimination, add "enterprise" features and let people who want throw money at you pay for things no one really needs. Just don't make me stop in the process of buying something because I know the price isn't actually the price and I have to wait until the price is corrected to the real price with a sale (and likely never actually remember to come back when the sale is on).

Having frequent free shipping sales creates the same effect. If I know you offer free shipping sales more than say... once a year, I literally will not buy from you if free shipping is not currently offered. And I will quite likely forget what I was going to buy once free shipping is turned back on.

<comment><USER13> I agree with everything you said except... "If I know you offer free shipping sales more than say... once a year, I literally will not buy from you if free shipping is not currently offered."

You will not buy an item unless it has "free shipping"? You must miss out on a lot of good deals. You do know "free shipping" is NOT free as it will be included in the price of the item so it's the total price that matters not if it has 'free shipping'. Having "free shipping" is not always a good (or the best) deal... I do wish all online stores would price stuff with "shipping included" as to make it easier to compare prices.

<comment><USER12> No... I wasn't entirely clear there. I didn't mean I only buy when shipping is free. I meant that there are certain places I shop online that regularly run free shipping promotions. Every two or three months, they have a promo code for free shipping with no change in prices otherwise. I only buy from these places when one of the free shipping promos is on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 60% for orders over $100, which they only do a few times a year. Beneficial if ordering higher priced books from other publishers like Morgan Kaufmann or Newnes, which I took advantage this morning.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hacker News, what are the best books that you have read that are focused on mobile app development?

<comment><USER16> I'm reading Big Nerd Ranch's Android guide, and it's been pretty solid so far.

<comment><USER17> I recently bought and been reading through "programming 3D applications with html5 and WebGL" by Tony Parisi. Extremely well written and thorough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why buy an ebook when they offer Safari Books Online?

I've been able to discard hundreds of pounds of dead trees and reclaimed the associated storage space.

I was easily spending over $50 a month buying books before I became a subscriber.

<comment><USER19> As someone that reads a couple books a month I find that really interesting. It is pretty unclear from the website how much it costs, any idea what a personal subscription is?

<comment><USER20> Pricing: [https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/subscribe](https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/subscribe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a question, can someone help me better understand the fight against DRM? (please, not trolling or insults, I want to genuinely understand).

Is the fight against all DRM or is it against painfully annoying DRM implementations that provide no benefit to the user or is it a pricing issue?

Isn't the (at least initial) idea behind DRM to protect content creators from piracy?

<comment><USER21> My best description is that the "cost" of inconveniencing a customer (e.g. limiting device playback, etc.) will never really meet the goal of protecting content. This is because those who want it for free will always find a way to get it (at some "cost"). Those who don't have time/don't give a shit, will pay for the content because the opportunity cost of pirating something is greater than just paying for it.

That said, i find it really annoying as a parent to have to jump through hoops to make backups of my kids DVDs, or convert them to digital for the iPad. So, I'm not stealing anything as I already bought the DVD. I just want my kids to be able to watch it on the iPad.

I don't know of any DRM that "provides a benefit" to the user.

<comment><USER5> That makes a lot of sense, thanks. So the problem with DRM is primarily that is typically only makes things harder for legitimate users while not proving significantly effective against those determined to pirate the content

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nicely broken redirection on oreilly.com: \- While searching for interesting ebooks, I open each new title in a separate tab, \- I then open a new tab to log in, then "Reload All" other tabs... \- ...and BAM, half the tabs are now displaying the same book.

Quite embarrassing for a programming books publisher.

</comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have recommendations on data analysis and big data books from the O'reilly collection?

[http://shop.oreilly.com/category/browse- subjects/data.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/browse-subjects/data.do)

<comment><USER24> You might want to check their Data Science Starter Kit collection

[http://shop.oreilly.com/category/get/data-science- kit.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/get/data-science-kit.do)

Thinking With Data's a great introduction too.

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029182.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029182.do)

<comment><USER25> Highly recommend "Doing Data Science" (it's on list provided in the link above). The guest-lecture style chapters keep the material interesting (the author based this book on a class she taught at Columbia University) and as someone who was reading this part-time (alone), I enjoyed working on the exercises that are listed in the later chapters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Packt Publishing is running a similar promo today: every ebook and video is only $10.

[https://www.packtpub.com/](https://www.packtpub.com/)

<comment><USER27> Thank you. I bought couple of books 80% off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Considering how many of their publications revolve around web development, that website sure is ugly.

</comment><comment><USER29> That moment you bought a book two days ago (sad frog).

I really like that O'Reilly publish publish them as pdfs.

<comment><USER30> You should perhaps contact their customer service. I had a good experience with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Amazon is still cheaper in most cases.

<comment><USER32> I don't have a kindle and O'Reilly offers more formats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> for a moment there I actually though this topic was about Bill O'Reilly's books.

I am glad I was wrong!</comment>


Bitcoin Forum: Password hashes may have been leaked - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=42572.0

<comment><USER2> It's a forum, who gives a shit.

<comment><USER3> password reusers.</comment></comment>


Robot Wars: An oral history of the birth and death of BattleBots  - <AUTHOR> http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/6/18/4438250/battlebots-robot-wars-combat-oral-history

<comment><USER2> I was really sad to see BattleBots go... The only sport I could actually sit through.</comment>


If you attach a fake tail to a chicken's butt, it walks like dinosaurs did - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.com/walk-dinosaur-scientists-put-fake-tails-chickens-study-how-t-rex-mightve-moved-video-1553846 <comment> norea-armozel Poor chicken. :C</comment>


Mark Cuban Broke, Cheap or Desperately Seeking Attention? - <AUTHOR> http://ad-nonsense.net/mark-cuban-broke-cheap-or-desperately-seeking-attention/

<comment><USER2> I don't think he's broke. Trump isn't broke and does the same. It can be a vanity thing, but books can really increase speaking demand, and helps boost the whole expert look. Also these are really just a collection of his blog posts, so it's also a way to further monetize his blog.</comment>


Ask HN: Help us to improve our product by providing feedback - <AUTHOR> Hi, guys! We're developing the AI-based automatic quiz creator https://itsquiz.ai/. The website generates tests on any topic without manual work, will be useful for teachers, e-learners, recruiters. It's on beta-testing now and we'll be happy to hear your feedback. P.S. Subscribe to mailing list to get notified of the launch <comment><USER2> People cannot provide feedback on something that has not launched.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your answer. Here is the demo version [http://demo.itsquiz.ai/](http://demo.itsquiz.ai/) where you can try to create tests

<comment><USER2> Neat. The demo link might make a good 'Show HN' so long as it meets the guidelines.

Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!Submitted just now)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I built a Bitcoin app you may find useful - <AUTHOR> https://coingram.co A few weeks ago, a friend and I had the idea to build an app to send and receive bitcoin over social networks. There have been many times in the past where we wanted to send bitcoin to people on Facebook or Twitter (to tip, or as a gift, or to pay back friends), but could never do it easily. The recipient has to set up a wallet, understand how it all works, and send me their address, among other things.
The entire bitcoin experience seemed to be a real pain for average users. We thought they would be more at ease transacting on platforms they're familiar with, with people they can identify and trust, as opposed to anonymous addresses.
So we built Coingram: https://coingram.co
It's quite straightforward: you can send bitcoin to anyone on Facebook or Twitter. You can also receive bitcoin from anyone by sharing a link: coingram.co/[your-username]. And you can send very tiny amounts (as little as 1 micro-bitcoin). Everything is free.
We have many features planned (mobile app, embeddable buttons, attaching media to your transaction) but we think it's reached a point where we want to see if anyone's actually going to use the darn thing.
We think it has some potential. What do you guys think? <comment><USER2> 6 new accounts created in 15 minutes with comments that amount to nothing but "this is awesome"?! Your astroturfing is showing...

<comment><USER3> Agreed, and there's even more than that now...

Flagged as spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like something I may use but financial transactions have never been social. If I have to send someone money (friend or someone I owe), I'll use PayPal or something which they can recognize. With bitcoin, a lot of people want to "get in the game" as an investment. Maybe it's just me but I can't relate to a situation where I'll have to send a friend or someone I owe bitcoin through his/her facebook handle.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's all nice and well, any way to turn USD/EU to bitcoin instantly (without paying 5-10% commission)?

I mean if we don't solve this problem first (which not entirely technical), all these prototypes are futile.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hmm, seems a bit similar to social transactions at [https://greenaddress.it/](https://greenaddress.it/)

You can send from GreenAddress.it's wallets to anyone over Facebook, email, and Reddit (Twitter coming soon). Then they receive an encrypted private key which can be redeemed on GreenAddress.it, or other wallets.

Also you can receive funds by sharing a 'Receive' link.

GreenAddress.it is maybe not as polished for this particular use case, but I think might be worth checking out as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry but .. where are the keys ?

Do I have to trust you are not going to get hacked ? Because that's just not going to work and we both know it.

</comment><comment><USER8> What's your monetization plan?

</comment><comment><USER9> Thank you for using uB as the default unit!

The fact that Bitcoin is "so expensive" is a huge psychological barrier for people who don't understand that it's divisible.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A few weeks ago, a friend and I had the idea to build an app to send and receive bitcoin over social networks. There have been many times in the past where we wanted to send bitcoin to people on Facebook or Twitter (to tip, or as a gift, or to pay back friends), but could never do it easily. The recipient has to set up a wallet, understand how it all works, and send me their address, among other things.

The entire bitcoin experience seemed to be a real pain for average users. We thought they would be more at ease transacting on platforms they're familiar with, with people they can identify and trust, as opposed to anonymous addresses.

So we built Coingram: [https://coingram.co](https://coingram.co)

It's quite straightforward: you can send bitcoin to anyone on Facebook or Twitter. You can also receive bitcoin from anyone by sharing a link: coingram.co/[your-username]. And you can send very tiny amounts (as little as 1 micro-bitcoin). Everything is free.

We have many features planned (mobile app, embeddable buttons, attaching media to your transaction) but we think it's reached a point where we want to see if anyone's actually going to use the darn thing.

We think it has some potential. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER10> So, I assume you're storing the bitcoin in transit, right? What happens if I send bitcoin to someone and they don't claim it? Will you give it back to me, store it forever, or keep it for yourself? Are you ever converting it to fiat, or keeping it all in bitcoin?

If you're storing bitcoin, will it be stored in internet connected servers, or will you be using cold storage (and can you talk about what type of cold storage you're using)? and will you be acting as a fractional reserve or not?

What security precautions have you taken?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> this is brilliant

<comment><USER12> holy astroturf batman!</comment></comment>


An actual PHP hammer with the claw on both sides - <AUTHOR> http://flic.kr/s/aHsjz16tWo <comment><USER2> How do I nominate a double-clawed hammer as the new logo of PHP?

<comment><USER3> <http://php.net/download-logos.php>

> In case you have found some PHP logos, icons or other material around the > web, feel free to point those out to us, so we can include them here, if > appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using PHP for well over 10 years, and I love this thing. It seems like most commenters take this as a snub to PHP, I don't see it that way at all. Note that the guy who made this is also a PHP dev and has been for a long time.

<comment><USER5> > I've been using PHP for well over 10 years, and I love this thing.

You're not alone. There are many of us. PHP powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success.

As far as hammers go, I had my wife make me a stuffed PHP elephant! It's on my desk right now.

<comment><USER6> Period?

C powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success.

<comment><USER7> Yeah yeah smart kid. And x86 machine code, and transistors, and electrons. And sand, and don't forget about the high-tech machines that were used to make the chips.

<comment><USER8> Kittens power the internet, everybody knows that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quite possibly the best thing I've seen this month. You can hammer nails using the side... Sorta.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you offset one side, it might actually be useful for longer nails that are already started, you could turn the Hamm... I mean claw tool around and continue to extract the nail where you don't have to tilt the handle all the way down and put that narly bend in the nail. Nice job on the construction.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, he did a really good job of making that weld disappear.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I love how it's two perfectly good hammers, cut in half ; with the most important bit thrown away, and the rest "cut-n-pasted" together, then lovingly smoothed over so you cant tell… I think I've seen that before…

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I want one with JavaScript written on it. And a curved nail with DOM written on it.

<comment><USER14> and of course the handle is semi-colon shaped and completely optional!

<comment><USER15> With completely being not so complete. Sometimes they change the code flow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _want_!!

If you're going to make more, please announce; I'm buying.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've seen worse Kickstarters.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't know what exactly to call this corner of the world, but this is exactly why I love it.

<comment><USER18> couldn't agree more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Rasmus Lerdorf was at my college recently, and he too describes PHP in the very same terms.

>GG: Your take in one line on PHP.

>RL: In one line…it's a web hammer - the one tool that you can use to solve any web problem you have.

Full interview at <http://gg.ieeeiitr.com/rasmus_interview.php>

The interview was for the college IEEE magazine.

</comment><comment><USER20> Where do I place an order?

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm sure there's a joke somewhere in its resemblance to a Ruby pickax, but I'll leave it for someone else to sort out.

</comment><comment><USER22> Right now this is the top post on HN. Why?

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the downvotes, but I'm serious. A link to "funny" image is at the very top, this is one small step from memes being posted on HN.

<comment><USER23> It relates to a previous thread on HN discussing PHP being like a hammer with a claw on both sides. It's not some random image link.

<comment><USER22> Shouldn't it then be a comment on that thread? I see plenty of comments in serious threads pointing out that topic was already discussed in referenced threads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Easily the best part of this photoset is that it's hanging in a spot labelled "wrench".

I have never seen PHP explained quite so succinctly.

</comment><comment><USER25> This. Is. Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER26> hahaha, that is fantastic

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't see what all the fuss is. A good craftsman could build a house no matter what hammer he chooses. Don't be such a _snob_ about insisting that hammers must have heads to drive nails, just because all the hammers you've used before happened to have them.

<comment><USER28> For that matter, why do they even need handles? Primitive ape-men just used big rocks as their tools. If it's good enough for the ape-men...!

<comment><USER29> A rock would be too simple; this is PHP, after all.

(Where's my NailDriverDeviceFactoryModuleImpl?)

<comment><USER30> You're confused with Java. In PHP it is simple, just counter-intuitive and set up to mislead you. It would look like a rock but turn into a viscous liquid as soon as you try to hit the nail and the nails get stuck in it.

<comment><USER31> In Java it would be:

DeviceFactoryFactory().createDeviceFactory().getNailDriverDeviceFactoryModuleImpl();

<comment><USER32> [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/execution-in- king...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of- nouns.html) _For the lack of a nail, throw new HorseshoeNailNotFoundException("no nails!");_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> More PHP envy? Get over it, PHP > all, and that's not gonna change anytime soon

</comment><comment><USER34> This thread has very much of a "She's a witch! Burn her!!" vibe going on.</comment>


I.B.M. Releases Bluehouse for Workplace Collaboration  - Bits Blog - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/ibm-releases-bluehouse-for-workplace-collaboration/ <comment> raw-- What a bunch of bullshit.

Seems to me like the big ones are struggling - teams way to big to produce something as simple as 37signal's basecamp.

So much more space to innovate here.

</comment><comment><USER2> sounds like notes with a new name and an integrated wiki

when you hear "lotus notes", RUN THE OTHER WAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN

anyone who has actually used it will agree</comment>


Coinbase Response: Data On Merchant Pages - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coinbase.com/post/47198421272/data-on-merchant-pages#

<comment><USER2> This is a good, level-headed response. I think a few things are worth pointing out here:

1) The initial frenzy was (I think) overblown. Lots of people jumping to conclusions about a 'breach' when it's clear there really wasn't one.

2) Coinbase responded immediately to both posts here and on reddit explaining that.

3) Despite the fact that it was overblown, they still gave a thorough, smart response, took responsibility, and posted this within a few hours.

My sense is that there is some anxiety in the Bitcoin world right now. Prices are high, naysayers are calling for a crash, yaysayers are hoping for $400 Bitcoins, and everyone is on edge for chinks in the armor.

Deep breath everyone...

<comment><USER3> Coinbase has had at least one other recent incident. IIRC, downtime or a DDOS.

Considering this is a YC company, I think it's worthwhile to be... attentive... to Coinbase's operations.

I want them to succeed, but they're definitely deploying into a hostile environment. It's not cat pictures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disallowing a link in robots.txt will not stop google from indexing the page. Google "reserve the right" to index the page if they see links going towards it to stop webmasters shooting themselves in the foot, they however won't fetch the page in accordance to robots.txt.

The recommended way is to allow google to crawl the page but explicitly "noindex" the page via the robots meta tag (or even the x-robots header) - [http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156449)

Edit: Matt, explaining in a video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBdEwpRQRD0>

</comment><comment><USER5> This is so blown out of proportion... yes, letting Google crawl email addresses is not kosher, but come on, public data already includes their company name, website, and phone number, it's not like those merchants are anonymous.

Given the attention span of the folks who circulated the news in the first place, I would mention that _no transaction data was leaked_ somewhere in the first paragraph.

<comment> k-mcgrady I don't think the problem here was anonymity. As the links were easily accessible the email addresses were being scraped and there was a phishing attack being carried out (which Coinbase blogged about yesterday).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They are doing a mistake ....

Never ever ever use robots.txt to prevent indexing.

Robots.txt is only for preventing crawling. Rather detect bots from the user agent and throw a 404 header with a die and include a meta noindex as well just in case. Facebook recently got millions of secret URLS indexed in Google with emails in them - and yes crawling was blocked with robots.txt.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't recommend detecting bots, Google will see it as clocking and badly penalise you for it as it goes against there guidelines: [http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355)

Returning a noindex meta or header should be enough for the honest crawlers, if your worried about dishonest crawlers then your fighting a loosing battle and have a different problem all together.

<comment><USER6> Yes meta noindex is the standard way.

But what if you don't want to waste server resources in bots crawling thousands of meta noindex pages? Perhaps you are using some heavy SQL queries on those pages.

You can block crawling with robots.txt but then Google won't see the noindex and URLs will be indexed.

If you block and send a 404 to bots I think that's fine. They will see a blank page - nothing to gain from that in ranking. So cloaking, perhaps yes, but I don't think it would be risky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> PR by numbers:-

1\. Get in front of the problem; 2\. Offer a full and sincere apology; and 3\. Provide a forum for users to rant and moan.

</comment><comment><USER8> I personally feel this is a really minor problem (if that!)

I found my personal phone number appearing on customer bank statements as a Stripe merchant. That's a bigger deal than exposing an e-mail address, but it's still a minor issue.

Do you know how Google Checkout solves this? It explicitly states what's public information to buyers so I can make the decision of what I'm exposing.

<comment><USER9> (I work at Stripe)

Sorry this wasn't clear! I can imagine it was a shock to have your number appear; I'll make sure we make this clearer when signing up.

For some background: it's a card network rule that you include a customer service phone number; this is intended to help reduce confusion with your customers and to ensure they have an opportunity to reach out to you. Since Google is an aggregator, they may include a phone number they control if you choose to not expose your own.

One approach you might consider is to have your phone number respond with a message suggesting users email you or visit a certain page on your website. The important bit is just that your customers have a clear way to get in touch with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Brian is very level headed- glad he wrote this up. As a merchant, I'm not very concerned (my email is already public).

<comment><USER11> +1 -- Brian is excellent.

I believe we (4chan) were the first merchant to use their merchant tools and it's been a real pleasure to get to know Brian and work with his team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> But I've already have my pitchfork ready and my torch lit :(

</comment><comment><USER13> Good response. A++. Will buy (from coinbase) again.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like much ado about nothing...

</comment><comment><USER15> Weren't they warned about not having a secure checkout page like Paypal, and against having an unsecure lightbox on the merchant's site, a few months ago by someone here? Or was that a different issue?</comment>


Welcome to the new decade - <AUTHOR> http://www.levelofindirection.com/journal/2010/8/20/welcome-to-the-new-decade.html

<comment><USER2> > Intel suing Google over Java

* Oracle suing Google...</comment>


Net-zero emissions energy systems - <AUTHOR> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/eaas9793 <comment><AUTHOR> Here, we review the special challenges associated with an energy system that does not add any CO2 to the atmosphere (a net-zero emissions energy system). We discuss prominent technological opportunities and barriers for eliminating and/or managing emissions related to the difficult-to-decarbonize services; pitfalls in which near-term actions may make it more difficult or costly to achieve the net-zero emissions goal; and critical areas for research, development, demonstration, and deployment. It may take decades to research, develop, and deploy these new technologies.</comment>


Bytecode cache is experimentally released in Ruby2.3 - <AUTHOR> http://rimuru.lunanet.gr.jp/blog/cruby-bytecode-cache-is-experimentally-released <comment><USER2> For those who missed it, a HN user is working full-time on dynamic optimizations in Ruby (just finished his PhD thesis on it) - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791428) \- It's showing significant (10x) speed-ups using real interesting methodologies. He's working on it full-time as the project lead at Oracle now. That thesis is worth a week-end read, it's something I would dedicate 4-6 lectures to if I was a professor.

<comment><USER3> I believe the link you pointed to is for work specific to JRuby, while the OP is specific to MRI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is definitely a nice improvement which can lead to Ruby performance improvements.

It's also worth noting that Ruby 3 in general will have a focus on performance. Matz talked about performance and the Ruby 3x3 effort during his RubyKaigi keynote. The goal of Ruby 3x3 is to make Ruby 3 be 3 times faster than Ruby 2.

Full disclosure: I work for AppFolio which is helping to sponsor the Ruby 3x3 effort.

<comment><USER5> Do you know if it has been decided where AppFolio is going to direct its generous support yet? Are you hiring anyone?

I think the most realistic option is the idea of putting the LLVM bitcode of MRI's functions into the MRI binary so that an LLVM JIT could optimise through the core library. Evan Phoenix talked about this idea at Ruby Kaigi.

<comment><USER4> Yes, we are going to hire someone. We now have the position open and are looking for candidates. We already have a couple of folks interested and we'd like to get a few more so that we can find the best fit.

[0] [http://www.appfolioinc.com/jobs- openings?p=job%2FoZ1c2fwY](http://www.appfolioinc.com/jobs- openings?p=job%2FoZ1c2fwY) (it says Santa Barbara, CA but really anywhere in the US is ok)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When is the last time you hear CPython performance objectives and improvements?

I think the main problem of 2-3 transition is not the incompatibilities, but lack of gain. If Py3k is 20% faster than Py2k it's a strong signal for mass upgrading.

<comment><USER7> Py3 is a lot faster than py2, read the release notes. In general though I think the CPython team prefer a cleaner implementation than a confusing one that's a bit faster. Just use PyPy

<comment><USER8> Do you have a source for this performance that's not the release notes? In day to day work I don't see much more than a 10% gains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like that there seems to be a lot of emphasis on performance for Ruby these days. I know it's a hard subject to optimize for, especially in the case of Ruby, but it's really appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER10> On the "Ruby Kaigi" presentation ([http://www.atdot.net/~ko1/activities/2015_RubyKaigi2015.pdf](http://www.atdot.net/~ko1/activities/2015_RubyKaigi2015.pdf)), Koichi Sasada states that Matz doesn't like the automatic compilation of source files a la Python, which automatically generates .pyc files.

Why is this? I understand the inconvenience of having lots of compiled files in your deployment structure but I guess having a static compile phase would be worse. Any opinions on this?

<comment><USER5> I think Rubinius used to do it the python way (.rbc files in the same directory) but I think it stopped (not the authority on that so may be wrong).

I think if you could do it transparently as a cache, and out of sight and synchronised properly it would be fine, but writing files everywhere is not ideal. Imagine two users running the same files but with different configurations in the same directory at the same time. It's just a mess waiting to happen.

Don't know if that's Rubinius' or Matz's problem with it though.

<comment><USER11> Rubinius stores the bytecode either in $PWD/.rbx or $HOME/.rbx depending on which of the two exists. By default $HOME/.rbx is used.

 __EDIT __: I meant the default being $HOME /.rbx, not $PWD/.rbx

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great news! I just hope Ruby community won't be as recalcitrant as the Python community about the 2-to-3 transition ;).

<comment><USER13> The 1.8 to 1.9 transition was a significant hurdle, and virtually all of the anecdotes I've heard from people who quit Ruby because of its purportedly bad backwards compatibility were about 1.8->1.9. The cause of the difficulty was similar: Unicode.

In any case, Ruby has/had a much different dynamic back then. Most developers using Ruby were doing so because of Rails. When Rails made the move, _not_ switching would have been tech-debt-suicide for any stack depending on Rails or library that was heavily associated with Rails.

I've just recently started using Python...and while there are a few big players who still have SDKs in 2.x...I can't think of any single Python library I've used that has had as much pull as RoR does on Ruby.

<comment><USER14> We have both in our company. And they stills struggle with Python 2 in many cases because software just never got updated to 3 (but still is somewhat active). While our Ruby team could just upgrade one after the other thing, especially as most gems pretty soon supported 1.9 as well.

It is also worth mentioning that i still need to have Python 2 and 3 installed to properly work on my Linux box. But i havent had needed a Ruby 1.8 since at least 1.5 years now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is actually "Do not parse and compile the files which have been parsed and compiled. Use the cache.".

Can't believe it is done so late.</comment>


Quirky serifs aside, Georgia fonts win on Web (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/style/09iht-dlede10.2150992.html <comment><AUTHOR> Of note, the article (originally from the _International Herald Tribune_ ) cites the website of _The New York Times_ as being the primary example of Georgia on the web. Today in 2017, NYTimes (which hosts the linked article) is still using Georgia despite the ease of using custom fonts in modern browsers.</comment>


Quirky Raises $79M, With $30M From GE to Make Connected Home Gadgets - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131113/quirky-funding/ <comment><AUTHOR> > _For the Quirky products, GE is making available thousands of its patents on > things like holographic and fast-focusing lens technologies, thin-barrier > coatings for electronic devices and asset-tracking technology. GE is also > offering up some of its relationships with suppliers, and other support for > products as they emerge and are built._

Interesting move by GE to make intellectual property available for product development.</comment>


ESR on gun rights in 2010 "No hacker should have any trouble understanding this" - <AUTHOR> http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/

<comment><USER2> It's not about hackers in general. This is a provincial American phenomenon, and mostly prevalent in the fly-over country. (I said mostly. Of course you can find it in the coasts too).

Nothing universal (Belgian hackers could not care less, for example) or that interesting about it.

I'm not saying it's stupid because it's an american phenomenon. I'm saying it's not universal and "logical" as presented, but a particular national folly / hobby that he tries to rationalize.

(And those others he cites are doing the same, starting from all-american assumptions and argument)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you could be a little more specific regarding the problems you see with the argument/perspective we might be able to have a discussion.

Heres my perspective on how the issues are related:

I've never met a hacker who believes a particular line of code should be illegal. This is because code is just a tool which can be put to any number of uses. Even blatantly malicious and infectious code should be legal in and of itself because we can learn from it and put that knowledge to use. You know our adversaries are doing the same. Using that code in a way that causes harm is what should be illegal. Writing the virus or a proof of concept for an exploit is how we become more resilient. This same line of reasoning applies to firearms.

<comment><USER2> Unlike code, which is infinitely malleable, firearms have an inherent use. Pointing to people with them and/or shooting them.

Whether it's for protection or attack, I don't particularly care.

In both cases the acceptance of firearms raises the bar for tolerance of violence and makes both protection and attack more violent, ending up in a more violent society.

When you make it OK to have firearms for "protection", you also make it OK, if not a necessity, for assaulters to carry firearms in their attacks too. Conversely, in places were private firearms are not tolerated, not even attackers (robbers etc) use firearms (with rare exceptions).

Of course it's not that the first (firearms for protection) causes the second (firearms for attacks) -- it's the underlying distrurbance in how society sees violence that causes both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the author's statement was too strident, but I think I understood immediately what he meant.

I was born in Oklahoma (what some might consider flyover country headquarters), and raised from an early age to use guns. One idea my family and I repeatedly discussed was that gun ownership was an essential safeguard against government overreach, an essential part of keeping power in the hands of the people. Without it, we said, government might voluntarily restrain itself, but there would be little to actually prevent it from doing whatever it wanted.

Putting aside whether that is actually true or not, the parallels with the open source movement are really obvious to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, guns are tools which are a form of technology. You may put them to use for good or evil and it is the willful action to use them in bad ways which should be the illegal part.

The same goes for code.</comment></comment>


Netboot Linux over the internet - <AUTHOR> https://netboot.xyz <comment><USER4> I wrote Bootrino - an entire cross platform/cross cloud netboot over the Internet desktop application that supports AWS, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean. It did also support Rackspace but Rackspace is effectively dead as a cloud hosting platform and Bootrino also supported SoftLayer but I found after alot of work that SoftLayer is a very locked down environment that does not permit total control over what you run on your VMs.

Kinda takes this core concept and pushes it alot further and lets you boot from your own web servers - you just publish the (simple) bootrino config file plus the OS image and off you go, bootrino configures the instance and builds it from your own web infrastructure, be it internal or public.

You can see a demo of bootrino here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJhxmVlR46c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJhxmVlR46c)

The purpose of Bootrino is that it allows you to boot ANYTHING on the cloud - i.e. Unikernels and a whole zoo of other tiny operating systems, run-in-RAM operating systems, embedded operating systems etc. You are no longer restricted to running only the operating systems permitted by the cloud vendors.

Lets you do things like make RAM only Postgres databases servers, or run your web server applications purely from RAM without any login, for speed and security.

<comment><USER5> _Rackspace is effectively dead as a cloud hosting platform_

Could you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious and didn't see anything obvious to explain it in search results.

<comment><USER4> Well it's my own personal judgement.

I did ALOT of work implementing support for six cloud computing platforms (also MS Azure, which I did not mention above).

All of them provided me either with free or cheap access to their services - <USER2> was building something for the platform after all.

Rackspace started out with a developer program, which they withdrew as my project was coming to completion. I asked for more free/cheap developer access and they said no - it was going to cost me several hundred dollars per month (the base line cost for Rackspace) just to support their service. I thought "no thanks". I also thought that any other cloud provider that actually cared about getting people to use its platform would provide a free/cheap program for developers to build tools around it and support it. What I saw was that Rackspace just don't really care about its cloud platform any more.

How can a cloud hosting platform company take a cloud hosting product to market whilst actively selling support for its just-the-same competitor (i.e. AWS) and still be credible? Doesn't make sense.

I noticed at the same time that Rackspace shifted focus heavily towards providing support for other cloud computing platforms like AWS and also observed in the news some of their business challenges and came to my own conclusion that they have been defeated in cloud computing but have not declared defeat yet.

So it's just my opinion but I think Rackspace cloud is dead/defeated and will meet its fate soon enough, maybe to be sold off or something. Just my opinion.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. About 3 years ago I had a similar project - <USER3> [http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/original/](http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/original/) and [http://stani.sh/walter/cims/](http://stani.sh/walter/cims/) \- but ex- employer decided they wanted to keep IP, so I haven't been able to open source it.

<comment><USER6> Never sign IP clauses, they're criminally unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can't do the stuff described at this site universally on any cloud due to various technical restrictions. There's certainly no standard way to do it. I even found it to be problematic on the cloud for which it was intended - Rackspace.

HOWEVER - there IS a way to boot anything at all you want on any cloud.

It's a little bit tricky.

The solution depends on the fact that EVERY cloud runs just about exactly the same version of Ubuntu. And every cloud provides a way to run Ubuntu with a boot script. What this means is in effect that every cloud has a highly standardised boot process.

So what you do, is boot Ubuntu with a script that drops the operating system, formats the hard disk and installs a new OS, i.e. a Unikernel, Alpine Linux, TinyCore Linux, Windows even, whatever you want.

I built Bootrino around this concept (see the other message in this thread about Bootrino). Bootrino is essentially a front end that boots an instance, passes in a boot script that it gets from your web server, the boot script does the job of dropping the OS, reformatting and then reconfiguring it to be whatever you want. It pulls in the OS files from any URL so it's super flexible. True net boot for the cloud.

Sounds a bit odd but it is highly reliable and works very nicely. I got a whole nunch of stuff running including Unikernels, Alpine Linux, TinyCore Linux and a few even more tiny exotic operating systems.

There's some real challenges to do with the differing ways that the clouds implement networking but I worked all that out with only just enough pain to make me tear out my eyes.

<comment><USER7> How do you get to Windows in that case? AWS doesn't let you get to GRUB or similar, does it? Chain loading NTLDR is a pain in the best circumstances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is super cool. You could sell this as a service to IT departments. Give each customer a subdomain, let them manage their own ISOs, maybe throw in kick-start support, and you've got a real product.

Edit: and this would be a great way to build trust, your paying customers would support the public service and distribution maintainers could get official accounts on your service to distribute to their users.

<comment><USER9> I'd be wary about using this in a professional capacity without assurances of the security of the images stored upstream and better support for SSL (this last point is more an issue with PXE clients than with the hosts).

Really where this comes into its own is for personal builds. In those situations the convenience of not having to download an ISO and burn it / whatever is an arguable reasonable trade for the potential security hole it creates. Where is in business security is more critical and builds are more frequent so the effort of downloading the latest ISO is mitigated by the frequency you may end up using it.

This last point is why many corporate networks will have their own internal imaging servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks a lot like the old boot.kernel.org (BKO) site which was taken down a while ago. I don't remember why it was taken down but you can still find some references to it, e.g.

[https://www.howtoforge.com/boot-linux-over-http-with- boot.ke...](https://www.howtoforge.com/boot-linux-over-http-with- boot.kernel.org-bko)

[http://git.etherboot.org/people/pravin/BKO.git/blob_plain/e6...](http://git.etherboot.org/people/pravin/BKO.git/blob_plain/e6c51a0c7172f3c78c4a3cd59e348a2861eddcea:/index.html)

[https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/slides/lin...](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/slides/linuxcon2009/hawley_linuxcon09.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> In true style, I've thought for over a year about creating something like this.. turns out it already exists. Yes!

Side note, iPXE is awesome.. most recently I was using it to test a bug with iBFT (how the BIOS describes an iSCSI root disk to the operating system).. since iPXE lets you setup the appropriate stuff to do iBFT insteading of needing the relevant network card. So many good things from iPXE

</comment><comment><USER12> Why should we trust you? Sure you set the mirror to rackspace but easily things can go wrong and if your competent enough to get iPXE running you should be doing the job your damn self.

<comment><USER13> In addition to the trust factor, what happens when this service dies? Netboot.me offered essentially the same service years ago, but disappeared and stopped working, with many guides written for and around their service.

<comment><USER14> I made an IPFS(the torrent+git+ thing) based fork of this because of these reasons.

It uses IPFS gateway setup in local network, this enables: * Caching of downloaded data (this is useful when using it to boot multiple computers in one LAN) * More trust: boot menu is served from local IPFS gateway using immutable hashes. It is also really easy to review it by hand. * It's a bit more service-dies-scenario proof

Downsides include lack of better documentation and messy code in places - it's a large scale refactor that changes the basics of how the tool works and isn't quite polished. It lives at [https://netboot.devtty.eu/](https://netboot.devtty.eu/). There is no set-up instructions(tr;dr setup: run lan-open ipfs gateway, add A dns record 'ipfs.local' pointing at it in your lan DNS server, rest like netboot.xyz).

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to use .local as a unicast domain name due to its use in mDNS/Zeroconf

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Weird to see this today because I was using netboot.xyz only yesterday to install OpenBSD.

My only gripe with netboot.xyz is that it seems to be missing a few of the less mainstream yet still platforms like NetBSD and Dragonfly. But I know from my own experience writing something similar but not as good that the maintenance of something like that is rather large. So I can't really complain.

<comment><USER15> I've seen discussions about getting new images and the maintainers are super willing. It's most likely that no one has put the effort in yet, rather then netboot.xyz saying no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Apparently boot.kernel.org is no more. Does anyone know what happened?

<comment><USER17> Wild guess - kernel.org was compromised some years ago, maybe they never rebuilt that service. Also, consider what would have happened if boot.kernel.org was compromised at the same time as kernel.org? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In this age of containers you can still do some pretty impressive things with PXE. That doesn't make it a _good_ standard.

I first saw this trick using iPXE from boot.rackspace.com.

iPXE is also an amazing thing in itself. I would pay for a detailed writeup of the CDROM emulator that does HTTP-range requests when the "device" is accessed.

<comment><USER18> I'm an occasional iPXE contributor, I guess it's my time to shine!

Bootloaders are reading block of data from CR-ROM, disk, floppy or USB drive by using int 13h[1] whose handler is set by the BIOS. A bootloader is only asking the BIOS to read data for him and does not have to implement drivers.

iPXE replaces the int 13h handler in the interrupt vector table[2] by its own, and when a read is issued by a bootloader, it performs it with an HTTP range or iSCSI request.

It's actually really simple. :)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INT_13H](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INT_13H)

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

<comment><USER19> How does iSCSI work for Windows then?

I setup iPXE to boot Windows 7 (Embedded Standard technically) to boot off an iSCSI target and it shows up as a disk in Windows. Does Windows still allow for int 13h handlers or is there some other special handling?

<comment><USER18> iPXE uses the iBFT[1] to pass this information to the OS.

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/systems/support/bladecenter/iscsi_boot_firmware_table_v1.03.pdf[1]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this similar to [http://httpredir.debian.org/](http://httpredir.debian.org/) ?

I just created my first live debian chroot earlier today, and was amazed at how it seemingly worked.

debootstrap downloaded everything required for a basic debian install in a few minutes from [http://httpredir.debian.org/](http://httpredir.debian.org/) and I was in and using the fresh system.

Is that what netboot.xyz is? The same thing but for multiple linux distros?

<comment><USER21> FYI, [http://deb.debian.org/](http://deb.debian.org/) is preferred over the httpredir these days. deb.debian.org is backed by multiple CDNs, whereas httpredir is backed by the traditional mirror network. The latter does its best to avoid redirecting to an unavailable/outdated mirror, but the former typically works better.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for that, looks like I should try to update the official debian chroot wiki page then! [0]

[0] [https://wiki.debian.org/chroot#Basic_Installation](https://wiki.debian.org/chroot#Basic_Installation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It looks like this thing bundles ca.ipxe.org and ca.netboot.xyz certs. It also makes a SHA256 checksum of each boot disk, and creates signed signatures for all source files.

But it is not verifying signed checksums of the bootloaders themselves, which you would expect to be probably the most important part of running an OS downloaded over HTTP from random mirrors you don't know.

Also, thanks for giving us your encrypted secrets database, as well as your S3 secret access keys, author?

</comment><comment><USER23> A good example where gigabit connection makes it usable.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is great! Especially for utility disks like gparted.

No longer needing to make 30 different bootable CDs or bootable USBs is nice.

<comment><USER25> Indeed, although with modern laptops not having Ethernet ports, it would need to be able to use wifi

<comment><USER7> IPXE only supports one WiFi chips and many laptops have a whitelist of USB Ethernet adaptors they'll PXE boot from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of using wanboot with Solaris (boot over HTTP) [http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/wanboot_tech.html](http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/wanboot_tech.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Netboot, sure. But why Linux?

This isn't in any way Linux specific.

<comment><USER28> The intro gif shows Linux, BSD, and Windows installer categories.

<comment><USER27> Exactly. So why is the story titled "Netboot Linux over the internet"?</comment></comment></comment>


'Impossible' rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11769030/Impossible-rocket-drive-works-and-could-get-to-Moon-in-four-hours.html <comment><USER2> It's just another manipulation of a information to create nonexistent news for lucrative purposes.

[http://www.wired.com/2015/07/really-propellantless-space- dri...](http://www.wired.com/2015/07/really-propellantless-space-drives-still- not-thing/)</comment>


16 Y Combinator Funded SaaS Web Apps To Help Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://cloudomatic.com/tag/ycombinator/ <comment><USER2> Are you aware that your site is vulnerable to XSS attacks? I mentioned it in a previous thread[1] and also on twitter[2] but it never got fixed. The attack pattern still works[3]. I can imagine you would like to ignore me but please, for the sake of piet, fix it as soon as possible.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210001>

[2] <http://twitter.com/antony311/status/10921429114>

[3] [http://cloudomatic.com/?s=<script>alert(1);</scr...](http://cloudomatic.com/?s=<script>alert\(1\);</script>);

<comment><AUTHOR> No intention of ignoring you. It was fixed the other day, but it seems the fix isn't active due to us toying us around with a new feature/product that heavily plugs into search/querying. Should be gone soon enough. Thank you again for pointing it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Typewith is not funded by YC. It just uses some open source software created by a YC-funded co.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mentioned that below. Though not YC funded, it's basically Etherpad and wanted to include it as a "YC" app. I'm emotionally tied to Etherpad, so yeah, subjective call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My top-picks:

1\. Dropbox 2\. Wufoo 3\. Mixpanel 4\. Directed Edge 5\. Cloudkick

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, there's a good chance we might be missing some apps. Let me know and I'll personally add them immediately.

I also kept TypeWith as a YC tag since it's basically Etherpad recreated.

<comment><USER5> You forgot to include reddit, which can help a startup build a community around their product. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Under 280 Slides you might want to mention Cappuccino, their open source web framework; it's probably a lot more useful to startups than their presentation app.

<comment><AUTHOR> The framework isn't a SaaS app, but we're going to go and tag Cappuccino apps. I will also link to Cappuccino from there. Great reminder for me to add Atlas though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Heroku is categorized as 'Finance' -- is that applicable?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the tip, we just just fixed it, and is now development.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Dwolla vs Stripe - <AUTHOR>

OK, I am getting ready to launch an idea where at different levels I would like to be able to accept $1, $5, $25, and $100 from payers. I would like to keep the monthly costs low initially in case I am about to learn more about the viability of my idea than how to build on it :-)<p>Given that, and given all transactions would be on the web, would you use Dwolla, Stripe, or something else (PayPal?) to accept the transactions? <comment><USER2> I would think a lot depends on the demographics of your market. Impulse buyers will be deterred by a non-standard payment method, meaning you have to have the most common. An audience like ycombinator readers will be more likely to evaluate, sign up, and use something alternative, and may be more likely to refuse to use Paypal at all.

My advice is to pick on what is easiest to integrate with at first. Regardless of the payment method, you should be able to validate the idea by getting at least a few customers, and then add payment options going forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. Integration is definitely something I'm starting to look into, but reducing friction is also important. I'll see if there's anymore contributions to the discussion, but at least that gives me a couple additional points to consider. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I could be wrong but I believe Dwolla is a totally new payment system that actually bypasses the credit card system by directly depositing/debiting bank accounts. It designed to replace credit cards and requires the customer to signup for a Dwolla account to pay[1]. Stripe on the other hand is just an API for processing credit cards.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/this-28-year-old-is-making- su...](http://www.businessinsider.com/this-28-year-old-is-making-sure-credit- cards-wont-exist-in-the-next-few-years-2011-11?op=1)

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends what you're trying to process. Keep in mind Dwolla is it's own network. It doesn't process VISA/MAST/ other like Stripe. In theory Dwolla is another payment form that could easily be built into Stripe but the two do very different things.

Using both obviously gives you the ability to do cc/debit transactions for those who want and have the upside of when someone pays using Dwolla.

</comment><comment><USER5> Payal is, um, horrible, but a standard paypal button is the simplest thing I've seen by a large margin. Just cut and paste.

I just did a Stripe implementation. It's pretty slick, but no more so than Braintree - although I will say the webhooks are a nice feature. The stripe benefit (over Braintree) is cost and not having to have to set up a merchant account.

Never used Dwolla.</comment>


We're building an API for ordering things, starting with Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://www.shiply.co

<comment><USER2> I really don't like Amazon. Why?

They treat marketplace sellers like garbage and they make up 30%+ of their yearly profits.

Customer is king, which means that if they file an A-Z claim (Amazon's dispute system), they win in 99.9% of the time. The customer gets a refund and gets to keep your product.

You are required to have a 30-day return policy (which is perfectly fine), but if a customer wants to return something 6 months after they purchased it, they will win an A-Z claim if they file it.

I know a seller that lost a claim a year after the fact. I can't imagine Best buy accepting a return on a book a year after it was purchased. Amazon doesn't even do this themselves.

They've taken the Google approach and run their entire seller help center using automated responses with nobody actually on the other end.

It's sickening that they can keep this position. They treat their workers and sellers worse than anyone, yet people just don't seem to care.

Ebay, with all of their problems, is actually much better. They are much more fair to their sellers.

<comment><USER3> Cool story.

In other news I think this is neat idea. Basically your goal is abstract me from the underlying workings of all these different APIs so I can use a single API with a single style, uniform responses etc...

<comment><USER4> and provide APIs for sites that don't have APIs :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Background video on the site is a cool idea but on slower connections it's making the page unbearable. I'd consider a static photo instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We're considering estimating connection speed and falling back to the static image if it's below some threshold.</comment></comment>