Wells Fargo Hit with $1B in Fines - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/20/604279604/wells-fargo-hit-with-1-billion-in-fines-over-consumer-abuses <comment><USER3> OK, but Wells Fargo made $5 billion last year, and the activity they were fined for took place over many years, which leaves me to ask: after the fines, was this activity profitable or not? If it was profitable, do the fines actually dissuade future dishonesty?

Also, apparently Wells Fargo thinks that 27,000 people lost their cars over this. I bet none of those people will be made whole. Cars are really essential things: lose your car and you may be unable to take a child to school, unable to shop for food, or even unable to get to work. It's a pity that can't be undone.

<comment><USER4> Will fines dissuade future dishonesty? Not likely. But jail time of the guilty decision makers would.

Steal a candy bar? Go to jail. Knowingly ruin someone's life? No problem. The shareholders pay for it.

<comment><USER5> Why massively put people in jail for everything?

In most countries jails are no good to prisoners. They are used to isolate people from society, not to help people to become a better person. And society is putting tones of money to support penitentiary system.

I believe for economical crimes people who took the decision should be fined a lot and banned from taking positions where they can do the same things again. No need to isolate them from society. At least for the first time. The same for other crimes where people do not hurt or threaten to hurt other people.

<comment><USER6> >The same for other crimes where people do not hurt or threaten to hurt other people.

Isn't that the thing though? Don't these bankers actually hurt more people, and hurt them worse, than any violent criminal could? So the person who hurts one family gets jail but the one that hurts thousands "doesn't get to work in the industry" anymore? That sounds like hogwash to me.

Has everyone just forgotten about the principle of equality under the law?

<comment><USER7> No, we've just gotten really good at interpreting our contract from the late 1700s really well.

The Lucas critique, or Campbell's law, both refer to the same concept. Any metric that becomes a target is no longer a sufficient metric.

The Constitution has been our metric for 250 years. I don't have a superior alternative, but it occurs to me that we've demanded it be a literal document, but when its our own skin on the line, we suddenly forget the inconvenient parts, and contort our minds to find absolution for something we are going to do anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something has happened to big banks along the way, where they no longer actually provide banking services to their customers. When I walk into a Wells Fargo branch now and sit down with a "banker" to take care of my accounts, it consists of sitting next to them while they call 1-800-WELLSFARGO for me and talk to a call center. There simply is no service anymore. I walked into my local branch to open up an IRA last week before the tax deadline, and they literally couldn't even do it for me in time because the person on the phone said "we'll do our best effort, no guarantee." I walked up to the teller, asked for a cashier check for the full amount in my accounts, and opened up an account next door at a small local bank (First Republic). They were able to sit down with me and immediately pull up all the paperwork to create and fund an IRA account with no hassle at all right there, no phone call involved. It was like night and day.

These huge banks have simply become way too big, and it serves no one's interest but their own. They have zero incentive to provide actual customer service anymore. There needs to be a massive restructuring of our system to allow smaller banks to thrive and provide actual competition.

<comment><USER9> It's definitely an industry ripe for rebirth. For instance, I should be able to partition my money into several lightweight accounts - one for groceries, one for home expenses, investment, etc - and automatically have fractions of my deposits sent to those accounts so my budgeting and money management are handled without any effort on my part. I should have lightweight cards available for each of those accounts with online card management (request/terminate cards, track per-card spending); multiple cards per account so I can give my wife full use of "grocery" card, and alerts/notifications when I am spending too much in an account/not efficiently allocating the full amount/potentially using a card improperly; financial projections; and so on.

Most consumer products and customer services should be totally accessible through a web interface. All of this could be built on top of today's banking infrastructure as a mostly-frontend service but instead I'm forced to give my personal information to services like Mint (who can not and will not ever do what I actually need it to do) or trust Random Startup #347 with access to my bank account because banks are monoliths without technical capacity or consumer-oriented business practices. I imagine some upstart will eventually come along with a better solution but banking regulation (though absolutely necessary in many ways) will hinder growth of any challenger.

If anyone has any recommendations in the meantime, please let me know!

<comment><USER10> I work for a large bank and can offer a tip. When you find yourself in this situation -- please create an incident report by lodging a complaint with the branch manager or online . Tweet if you must : your goal is to make sure that an incident shows up in the CRM. Branch managers bonus is tied to customer satisfaction parameters. This will not make you situation more bearable but it will force the branch to be more responsive in the future.

<comment><USER11> No.

The correct answer is to close your account and move to a bank that actually has an interest in providing customer service. (Credit unions are great.)

I have zero interest in some company's CRM, how they apportion money to employees, or anything else of that sort. If a company cannot get meaningful feedback about customers' reaction to their service, well, that sounds like they have a serious business problem to solve, and expecting me to fix it for free is, frankly, insulting and doomed to failure[1].

My rule in life with this sort of thing is simple. Don't do business with assholes.

[1] Get back to me when WF's CEO's bonus depends on customers going out of their way to provide feedback.

<comment><USER12> This is the correct answer. Many times people feel trapped in their bank because it is a pain to move, but it's not hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've interacted a lot with the larger banks and been flabbergasted at how they view the world.

Banks, big and small, regard the consumer operations of the bank as a cost center, which they should do as little as possible to maintain. In fact - <USER2> believe the only reason that they even have public facing consumer branches is largely to get access to capital as cheaply as possible. Every proposed improvement to the consumer experience is viewed in the light of "how is this going to make the bank more money." If a direct line from improving the customer experience to make more money can't be drawn, the bank won't do it.

Long gone are the days where banks provided a core function to the vast majority of society. They just exist to enrich themselves.

<comment><USER14> > In fact - I believe the only reason that they even have public facing > consumer branches is largely to get access to capital as cheaply as possible

I would agree with this. Banks nowadays– maybe not local independent banks or credit unions– leverage your money to purchase investment vehicles on better credit for their higher-profile clientele, and also as liquid capital to dispense as needed.

> If a direct line from improving the customer experience to make more money > can't be drawn, the bank won't do it.

Yep. I have an account at a sizable bank, and their mobile app has been broken the half dozen times I've used it, across as many months.

It's the 21st century and a bank cannot figure out how to finance a proper mobile management application.

<comment><USER15> To be honest, the same could be said about some Silicon Valley tech companies as well…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The government should've instead created a "fine" where they receive something like half of Wells Fargo's profits for the next ten years or so. Then cap executive compensation for the duration. Then force every board member to resign and have a regulator on the board. All for the next decade. These one- and-done fines that are paid by shareholders instead of management, even large ones, do nothing...do something with _lasting_ consequences if you want to punish, modify behavior, and put the fear of god into others considering cheating.

<comment><USER17> Your plan is to loop the government/regulators into the scam? What exactly is that incentivizing and how does that improve things for the average bank customer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The executives responsible (principally Carrie Tolstedt and John Stumpf) not only did not go to jail, they ended up money ahead to the tune of 8-9 figures, even after clawbacks.

So if you're an executive, you know what to do...

And if you're a shareholder, is a billion dollar fine compared against 88.4 billion in 2017 revenue sufficient to sustain your motivation in an endless fight against the backscratching director and executive culture?

<comment><USER19> You think that even in this day and age, anytime you're getting hit with a _billion dollars_ in fines, you'd sit up and pay attention.

I'm not saying WF (or more importantly, their shareholders) actually cares. But you'd think that they would at that level.

<comment><USER18> A billion ain't enough.

I don't have faith in Wells Fargo ownership or leadership to ensure ethical or even legal behavior in the absence of sufficient incentives. The market as currently set up encourages large scale misbehavior and destructive abuse by Wells Fargo of its customers. The stockholders are insulated by distance from the misery their company causes, and the executives outright make out like bandits, even when they get caught.

This is ultimately a problem which can only be solved by voters and their representatives inflicting meaningful punishment.

<comment><USER20> My parents opened an account for me with a bank when I was ~6 years old in 1988 that was swallowed up by Wells Fargo in the early naughts, which I maintained until about 6 years ago. At around the time I withdrew all my money and moved it to a local CU, I was going through financial hardships, and frequently would have less than a hundred dollars to my name. I never had any problems with them until then, when they would seem to hold up smaller debits as pending, even if a deposit was made which was also held as pending, until a larger debit was made and they were able to shift the order of transactions to maximize overdraft fees.

For example, $50 balance, $25 debit, $20 debit, $100 deposit, $80 debit resulting in a logical balance of $25 would be shifted to clear as a $50 balance, $80 debit (+$30 fee), $25 debit (+$30 fee), $20 debit (+$30 fee), $100 deposit leaving a balance of -$65 and a daily fee until I could find more cash to deposit and not use my debit card.

These transactions could happen over multiple business days, which made zero sense. Even now that I have a more stable job and a comfortable pillow of cash to fall back on, my CU seems to want to dictate where that money should go, instead of me shifting it around. Just this week, I went into a branch to withdraw some cash where the teller asked if I wanted to shift some savings into a money market account, which I agreed to, but said I didn't have much time that day to discuss it. Before I could go next door and get lunch, he had moved the money and zeroed out the account, which (despite being a saving account, is where my debit purchases get withdrawn from), managed to get me two overdraft fees when I bought lunch.

I'm seriously considering purchasing another mattress to store my money. In this day and age, there is no such thing as a bank. They are all financial institutions.

<comment><USER19> And it is for reasons like you mentioned that I discourage everyone I know from using debit cards for anything.

I only use credit cards for purchases, and _I_ control when the money moves around. And I always pay the balance every month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I heard this discussed in NPR as a reasonable fine because "it hit their profits but they still made money that quarter" and "the CEO steppe down".

How is that enough when so many people had their life totally screwed? It should decimate their profits and high ups should serve federal time.

Id executives don't fear the government over something so egregious were opening the door to more of the same.

</comment><comment><USER22> disgusting.

conclusion: Bankers are above the law.

They should be in jail, along with the CEO. This isn't just white collar crime. This was blatant, premeditated, financial fraud. Directed from the very top to every single Wells Fargo office.

How is the public so stupid and uneducated, as to not be outraged?

All this does, is help to motivate the next generation of sociopaths. Zero consequences.

<comment><USER23> > This was blatant, premeditated, financial fraud. Directed from the very top > to every single Wells Fargo office.

Oh no! No it wasn't! They never directed their employees to do anything illegal or unethical in hitting those unrealistic account targets, and the fact that hundreds (or more) tellers to do so the very same way is entirely coincidence and not the executives' fault! /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I had high hopes for Bank Simple some time ago when they came out. Then they got acquired by a bigger bank. This industry is nearly impossible to disrupt. Just like the Oil companies back in the day, these banks are so big and powerful that it's impossible to innovate in the current market conditions.

<comment><USER25> Big Oil was broken up by anti trust legislation. It's possible this comes back around. Currently reading a biography on Brandeis who was one of the titans of anti-trust in the 30s and 40s. I'm hoping that kind of regulation comes back around.

<comment><USER20> How? The CFPB wasn't perfect, but like the ACA, many think that if legislation is not perfect, it should not be enacted. That's the entire basis of the Hastert rule, if the majority party isn't able to "secure" a majority of votes, then bills shouldn't be voted on.

Isn't that the point of voting?!? Why are our representatives pre-voting on bills to determine if they should even be argued, debated, amended and tried? I'm reminded of something one of my senators said last year about the Russia investigation (specifically the election interference, not "collusion"), in context of them not wanting to investigate because the facts were not known. THATS THE F __KING POINT OF AN INVESTIGATION YOU DIPSH*T, TO FIND FACTS.

Everyone needs to vote this november. I don't care if you vote Republican, Democrat or any of the 3rd parties. Just vote. Get the old guys out. Disrupt their legacy. We (software developers) hate the Waterfall method. We like being Agile, whatever that means. Make our government operate the same way. Iterate in small, meaningful chunks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not sure how they calculate fines like these but it sure should work something like the following:

$100M + [(entire bank profit gained from illegal activity) * 7.0] + [(number of people screwed) * (average fees charged per person) * 2.0]

In addition, there should be a stipulation that the bank _cannot_ (in present or future) pay the fee through employee layoffs or other cop-outs. Ideally, the government is able to require fine payments to come directly from executive compensation or by selling assets, etc.

My guess is it would come out to, let's say, a hell of a lot more than this.

<comment><USER27> > Ideally, the government is able to require fine payments to come directly > from executive compensation or by selling assets, etc.

Interestingly enough, DF allows the government to do this if the bank is considered "too big to fail", which is a classification they define precisely in the bill.

But not before that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Where does the fine go? Does it get divvied up amongst the people affected by WF's wrongdoing?

<comment><USER29> > Does it get divvied up amongst the people affected by WF's wrongdoing?

Are you crazy? The fines usually get distributed around different politicians to spend on their favorite things. Like this [https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/07/14...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/07/14/lohudreacts- spend-pnb-paribas-fine/12634055/)

Which is why these fines will continue. Everyone hates the banks so the regulators can just keep fining them for everything indefinitely, when they run out of ideas they find some new problems with the 2008 mortgages again.

<comment><USER28> Was mostly a sarcastic question ;)

This pattern can be seen everywhere...

1) politicians regulate an industry with the best intentions

2) industry becomes a safe haven for "the big fish" that can pay to play

3) Rinse and repeat for a while, creating bigger and bigger barriers to entry into the marketplace. Politicians are happy, mega banks are happy.

4) Megabank inevitably does something reprehensible

5) politicians slap them with some fines. Fake remorse ensues...

6) go back to step 1

<comment><USER30> Stop paying taxes.

<comment><USER28> Well, taxes go towards some stuff I appreciate... plus I would probably be thrown in jail. So not sure that is a solution :p

<comment><USER30> Conscientious objection to taxation should be a thing though.

<comment><USER31> It is: it's called "renouncing your citizenship and moving to Somalia". Go ahead!

Oh, you meant to say that you want to be able to object to taxation but still freeload on all the benefits. Sorry, no.

<comment><USER28> I object to most of the roughly 50% of my income that is taken from me and can't say I've ever been called a freeloader... That's an interesting point of view you have there; "either don't be a US citizen or never complain about tax policy".

<comment><USER32> "Conscientious objection" to taxes means you wouldn't pay taxes, it doesn't mean you just complain about it. You can't do that and stay a US Citizen and not go to jail.

<comment><USER28> I guess I just don't care enough to ruin my life over it. It's a pretty interesting thing to think about, actually. To think that a bloody revolution was sparked over much less than what we put up with today... It's almost like Stockholm Syndrome.

<comment><USER33> That revolution was fought because there was no representation in the body that levied the taxes. We do have representation in the body that levies taxes now.

<comment><USER32> Tell that to the people of Washington DC! (No voting congresspeople)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Was the fine expected to be much worse? They're trading up at the moment

<comment> nappy-doo It's not as much as the fine was expected to be worse, just that the situation is now resolved. WFC can put this behind them, and move on. AFAICR, this is the last of the scandals that have rocked the bank. As soon as the cap on their assets is lifted (likely before the end of the quarter), there's nothing left in the queue holding the price back. As such, the company will be able to take advantage of the higher interest rate environment we're moving into, and the stock (already undervalued compared to its peers) will benefit as a result.

Or, markets are irrational.

Take your pick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> When a large fine is levied, there is only one question which actually matters: Did the company profit more than the fine from the illegal actions? If they did, then the fine will be written off as a 'cost of doing business' and nothing will change. It wouldn't make sense to do otherwise. When dealing with entities as large as Wells Fargo, they can often get away with anything as long as it is profitable enough. Since their personhood doesn't extend to the government actually being able to curtail their free movement or actions, and fines are the only way they can be censured, the fact that the public itself will balk at fines which are simply seen as "too large" can enable them to get away with anything.

</comment><comment><USER36> This only hurt old Wells shareholders (stock is up nearly 2% today on this news). Meanwhile the Wells executives who clearly broke the law get off scot free.

Martin Shkreli instead get's the book thrown at him, assets seized, and sent to federal prison for much less.

<comment><USER37> He defrauded rich people. That can't be allowed.

<comment><USER38> He also gloated.

Someone pointed out to me once that the parable of the boy who cried wolf is a story where not only did he lie, he also laughed in their faces and mocked them for believing him. He gets eaten in the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Marketplace reported this morning that while WF was fined $1B, they apparently saved more than three times that amount due to the new tax law.

[http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik- wells-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wells- fargo-20180420-story.html)

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo- earnings-2...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo- earnings-20180112-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER40> It's hard for me think of wellsfargo as an "evil" company, because every time I had to go into the branch, they have some of the nicest tellers and it's always a pleasant experience.

<comment><USER41> I felt sorry for the branch manager at by local branch when I closed my account. She's a great person who really cares about her customers, unlike her employer.

<comment><USER40> I think this raises a fair point. How can we punish the employers and not the employees?

Maybe we should have jailed the executives or responsible party, so no one dares to pull that kind of shit again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Critically, Well Fargo "submitted to an unprecedented order Friday that would give the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the right to remove some of the lender's executives or board members" [1]. TL; DR Senior management and even Board members can be fired by the OCC.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-20/wells- far...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-20/wells-fargo-said- to-be-fined-1-billion-over-consumer-missteps)

</comment><comment><USER43> Until people start going to jail for their illegal activity rather than just paying out nominal fines I wouldn't expect their behavior to change. This is at least the 3rd major fine Wells Fargo has paid in the last few years.

If only people remembered that the second half of the expression about "a few bad apples" is that they "spoil the bunch."

</comment><comment><USER44> A fine isn't going to hurt Wells, especially when it's about two weeks worth of profit. If you want to teach a bank a lesson, you have to hit their business model. If after a fraud is uncovered regulators instituted restrictions to account openings instead of fines, you would see change. For example, if Wells wasn't allowed to open a new account - of any kind - for six months they would start to lose customers - and bankers - to institutions without restrictions. That would change the industry.

</comment><comment><USER45> Gone are the days of Enron when the people responsible actually go to jail, it seems :(

</comment><comment><USER46> There doesn't appear to be any reparations for the actual consumers.

Where exactly do the fines go? A class action lawsuit would have served more justice.

<comment><USER47> This depends, but generally in Federal regulatory action, to the US Treasury. Victim restituion is a separate issue.

[https://www.alternet.org/economy/bank-fines-and- crime](https://www.alternet.org/economy/bank-fines-and-crime)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Relative to a salary of $90k / year, $1 billion fine is roughly equivalent to a $1k fine.. or roughly a parking ticket in downtown SF.

</comment><comment><USER49> Where are the proceeds of the fine going?

This "fine" should be returned to the American people and not used to fund obscure government programs

<comment><USER27> It is being returned to the victims as the law requires the CFPB to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> WFC had net income of $5.9 billion in Q1 2018. A $1B fine is a joke that is being played on the rest of us.

<comment><USER50> It won't put them out put business, but I guarantee this is not a good look for them or their board, even internally.

I have no sympathy for them, fyi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Maybe its a stupid question... but what do these agencies do with so much fine money?

</comment><comment><USER52> I dare you o steal a marsbar in the supermarket, three times please.

</comment><comment><USER53> Does anybody have recommendations for good banks?

<comment><USER47> As a general best bet: local credit union.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Will they take out a 0% loan to pay that?

</comment><comment><USER55> So the government gets to keep $1B collected from WF. What about the people who overpaid all those fees? Are they being refunded?

<comment><USER56> The CFPD is required to use all money from fines for victim compensation, and where that's not practical, they keep it to compensate future victims or they can spend it on consumer education and financial literacy programs.

They are not permitted to spend the money on anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> What a great start! Keep it up!

</comment><comment> cup-of-tea What's really funny is this is a bank and the bank essentially printed that $1bn itself anyway because banks control the money supply.

</comment><comment><USER58> Remember: This isn't the Trump administration. This results from the regulation that was put in place and the enforcement that was started _before,_ and that his administration is busy trying to deconstruct.

Setting the political aspect aside, there seems to be a broader consensus that this "bankster" behavior is bad and needs to be reined in.

And investment depends upon a certain degree of stability as well as reliable financial and legal systems.

How this behavior is handled -- or not -- has more of an impact, down to start-up ventures and their environments, than people sometimes stop to think about.</comment>


Show HN: A Smarter Pocket x Evernote - <AUTHOR> https://digital-brain.co/ <comment><USER2> I am pretty sre that by "NLP" you actually mean "Natural Language Processing"[0] rather than "Neuro Linguisting Programming"[1] (which is what your site says), but I must admit it would be pretty interesting if I was wrong.

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

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't believe we made that mistake! Thank you so much for pointing that out.

<comment><USER2> Oh, believe it. It is a far more common mistake that you might think (probably because the term that _isn 't_ about programing artificial neural networks is the one that has the words _neuro_ and _programming_ in it).

<comment><AUTHOR> The entire team (three of us) have been on the website multiple times a day and didn't notice at all. Only HN can find these things haha!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a power user of Chrome, I've always wanted to go back to certain articles that I had read — but I was always faced with pages and pages of Chrome history.

So we built out DigitalBrain — a chrome extension that automatically will categorize what you're surfing and put it into different buckets+ based on what subject/topic it is using NLP. We also help you annotate and take notes within those articles.

Please let us know what you think, we're happy to answer questions about anything. Let's change how we use our browser history.

Here is the demo: [https://youtu.be/hfbY13xXMd8](https://youtu.be/hfbY13xXMd8)

Sign-up for early access: [https://digital-brain.co/](https://digital- brain.co/)

</comment><comment><USER3> What specific nlp tools are you using? For example under what bucket ie scikitlearn, tensorflow, pytorch, etc and are they in house?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're using a pretrained model on tensorflow. However, we're planning to make it in-house in the near future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Can I store my data locally? 2\. Are you selling information on my browsing? 3\. Does the extension allow me to choose whether I infringe copyrights? e.g. can I still annotate/save/read SciHub papers? [https://sci- hub.tw/](https://sci-hub.tw/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your question!

1\. So far we are saving all the personal data locally. So we don't have access to what you are browsing personally. In the future we are going to save the data to our servers for the sake of synchronizing in case you want to see your profile from another device. 2\. We are not selling any personal information. 3\. Our extension doesn't use any APIs for copyrights. The only thing our servers receive is a link that the server can scrape for necessary information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> +

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks interesting. What are you using for category names? Can I add my own private categories?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're using a specific NLP tool that helps with categorization; the topics/subtopics are actually quite deep.

We're currently building a feature that will help users build their own private categories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> maybe you should join forces with [https://worldbrain.io/](https://worldbrain.io/) :)

they just have full text search, but the rest of the product is great, it could really be a good synergy

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your recommendation. Memex looks great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems super interesting. What tech are you guys using?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!

We're using a couple of NLP tools and the server is on Node.JS</comment></comment>


Reversing The Pokerstars Protocol, Part 1: Compression and transport basics - <AUTHOR> http://daeken.com/reversing-the-pokerstars-protocol-part-1-comp <comment><USER2> Great article.

I built a poker bot (see my submissions for more info) and can safely say that if your original intent was to build one too, you would have been way better off screen scraping. It's not nearly as elegant or as cool, but it gets the job done with minimal effort.

One note, which you all might find interesting. A lot of people have tried to do what daeken has done, not necessarily for botting purposes but in hope that the decrypted traffic would contain your opponent's holecards. I had a program at one point that someone built that decrypted about half of the incoming traffic. Not very useful, but cool nonetheless. A few people succeeded in decrypting the entire thing and discovered, to their dismay, that it doesn't contain holecard information. Go figure.

When a hand goes to showdown, the loser can muck his or her cards, meaning they don't show it to the table. Anyone seated at the table can view the hand history and see what the mucked cards were, but its hidden from people observing the table. The people who cracked the transport algorithm were able to extract this information, meaning they could log all the showdown hands for every game on PokerStars. I'm not sure what they did with this ability, but they could made some money quietly following around high stakes players, recording all of their hands and mucked cards, and selling it to their competition, who could use the information to decypher and exploit their weaknesses.

I wonder what PokerStars will do now...

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks much for the article. As a sometimes PokerStars player and fulltime software guy, this stuff (including the Coding the Wheel article set on a poker bot) is super interesting.

I haven't been playing as much online this past year and recently exchanged a series of emails with PokerStars support. Basically, I was arguing for the ability to have a pseudonym instead of a fixed logon displayed as a user and in log files. It seems like a simple step to kind of cut-off lowest hanging fruit for unethical players. Some of the heads-up displays (skins riding on top of the poker stars client) are showing opponent hand ranges based on data mining game logs. This seems like something that should be part of the thinking process of the game, not your HUD tools. No casino is going to let you sit down with your snazzy odds calculator at the poker table.

The official response is that this is info that a player knows about the opponent anyway and doesn't represent any threat to the integrity of the game. Course, maybe I read too many postings from players who are multi-tabling 24 games at once with their backend dbs and HUDs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very fun read. I love seeing into the mind of someone as they reverse-engineer protocols and such.

Looking forward to part two - what's the next step?

<comment><AUTHOR> The next step is documenting how the service connections actually operate, and showing some basic connections, e.g. getting lobby data. I likely will also include my protocol wrappers used in the client and server (they use a common network library) and show the initial steps of the server emulator.

Thanks for reading!

<comment><USER5> This is a discussion of the LZH-Light algo.

<http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184403560?pgno=5>

<comment><AUTHOR> I attempted to implement it based on that and reading the C++ code I found, but the descriptions didn't match up to the code, and it was simply too vague to pull it off. In the end, I think just using the code I found was the best route; wish I hadn't wasted days trying to implement it myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I tried to pack a lot of info into this post (perhaps more than I should've), so some of it may be unclear. If anything doesn't make sense or isn't explained well enough, let me know and I'll try and explain it to the best of my ability.

<comment><USER6> Neat stuff, your Nethooker lib looks pretty nifty. I was confused about how the server emulator worked, or even what it was exactly. From your comment above, maybe that's a part II topic. A high level diagram of the key components would be helpful I think.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does Ask.com manages to make money? - <AUTHOR> I mean, don't know anyone that <i>willingly</i> uses their product, still they're everywhere. <comment><USER2> [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ask.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ask.com)

33rd globally, 63rd in the US, and I don't think anyone is twisting their arm. To a lot of less technical people, search is search is search—it doesn't matter who's providing it.</comment>


New data shows losing 80% of app users is normal and why the best apps do better - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/new-data-shows-why-losing-80-of-your-mobile-users-is-normal-and-that-the-best-apps-do-much-better/

<comment><USER2> About time we had some better data on retention. It's critical to long term success and measuring Product Market Fit.

</comment><comment><USER3> So what is this quettra software and how do I ensure its not installed on my android devices?</comment>


City Blocks Email Account of Alderman Who Refuses Cybersecurity Training - <AUTHOR> https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/city-blocks-email-account-of/ <comment><USER2> This guy, Massey needs a reality check.</comment>


Ask HN: Review our startup, SkedgeMe - <AUTHOR>

I'm a long-time Hacker News reader, first-time poster...would to get your feedback on our scheduling startup.
http://SkedgeMe.com
SkedgeMe offers web-based calendaring for business that enables online self-booking for customers and provides CRM and custom reporting on customers, staff, and services.
Feel free to ask questions. Looking forward to your feedback! <comment><USER2> This seems to be a fairly popular application right now. I feel like there has been quite a few calendar/appointment apps recently. Lots of competition.

A few quick notes: 1) The team page is broken when you click on one of the images. 2) I have not watched the video yet, but I'd like to have screen shots and text descriptions of what the benefits of the app is. I can read faster then it would take me to watch the video. There is not enough details yet to make me want to watch the video. 3) I would call out that 'Appointment' where a user can actually use it (as a customer) and see what their customers would see. It is non obvious that you should click on it. 4) There is no email address on the contact page 5) The refer a business text is a long run on blob of text. It needs better formatting.

It seems like one way you are trying to stand out from the crowd is the CRM aspect but I don't see where you drill down on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Made some quick changes to address 1,4, and 5.

2 & 3 will take a bit more time to change but is great feedback nonetheless!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clickable: <http://skedgeme.com>

My impression was that the home page lacked a unique value proposition; "X made easy" is rarely unique enough. The "on steroids" tagline is a step in the right direction but unfortunately too vague. Also, the screenshots seem to be switching too quickly (the interval). I also found the features/benefits portion below a little wordy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback as well! I've been wanting to revisit that text and this is just the nudge I needed!</comment></comment>


After 60 Years, B-52s Still Dominate U.S. Fleet - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/b-52s-us-air-force-bombers.html <comment><USER2> The New York Times tries to play up the issues of the (indeed, terrible) American military procurement system, but I think there's something else going on. The B-52's Soviet equivalent, the Tu-95 (turboprop-powered, even!) is also still flying!

Part of the cause is that big bombers with enormous payload capacity and long range can always be adapted to new missions and tactics - there's always something you can do with an extra few tens of tons of ordnance.

Where the US military-industrial complex _has_ fallen down on the job is that the physical airframes are still from the original production run. While the USAF always thought its new and different (first supersonic, then stealth) bomber designs would allow it to retire the B-52, the Soviets kept building new variants and retiring old airframes. So while American B-52s have been heroically kept operating since the 50s and 60s, Russian Air Force Tu-95s were all built in the 80s and early 90s with assorted design improvements and new avionics.

<comment><USER3> Indeed!

I've often wondered why, for instance, we don't build brand new A-10 Warthogs. They provide the best close air support in perhaps the entire history of military aviation worldwide (great range, extremely resilient to small arms fire, low altitude / low speed capabilities, etc.). Instead, the Marines Corps scrambles (no pun intended) to find a replacement after realizing that the JSF program wasn't real (it turns out that the F-35 will bankrupt the Milky Way Galaxy before being finished, not to mention it has too much wing loading to provide adequate close air support). Yet, the wonderfully designed A-10 Warthog languishes in military relic status.

Why not make new copies these greats, with any of the little kinks worked out?

<comment><USER4> The A-10 is great, but there are a number of reasons why we aren't building more of them. Chief among them is that the teams and facilities that produced them have been gone for decades now. It's not a product you can simply re- order. Of the planes in inventory, it's efficient and useful in low intensity CAS, but if you were ordering new for those missions you'd likely focus on something that's less overkill and lower cost like the super tucano.

<comment><USER5> Ironically, after the request from JSOC and the Marine Corps for a modified Super Tucano (A-29B) was nixed, the United States' main procurement facility for this plan is still building them... _for the Afghan airforce_.

Sure, the Super Tucano doesn't have the punch from the main gun or crazy survivability of the A-10. But in a battlespace where air supremacy is guaranteed, it has the advantage of being able to get a close-up visual on the target, and accurately fire ordinance tens rather than hundred of meters away from friendly forces.

My personal understanding is that the Super Tucano was sacrificed on the alter of _the myth of technological progress._

Every airframe, every digital HMI, and every weapons system must be more technologically sophisticated than the last, even if that solution is completely unsuited to ongoing and forecasted combat missions.

The fact that our most common enemies can't field a proper SAM site, much less a fifth-generation fighter, be damned.

Of course there is also the cultural issue. That the great United States might have to admit that the South Americans know more than us about air warfare in counter-insurgency campaigns is anathema to both the military and the civilian government.

<comment><USER3> However, I think light attack roles that the Super Tucano can fill can be filled by the new Sikorsky S-97 Raider, and because the Raider is a helicopter, it can also server a number of other roles, and it can land anywhere, and when you consider the cost and strategy differences between a helicopter carrier and a carrier battle fleet, or between a helicopter carrier and taking over / maintaining / defending an airfield behind enemy lines, the Raider, IMHO, will be a godsend for roles where the Apache Longbow is overkill and where the goal is to continually push for new FOBs behind the lines (range for Thunderbolt II and Super Tucano is ~800nm - got a new air field every 325 miles? Only plan to attack targets near the ocean?).

<comment><USER5> The Sikorsky S-97 is the perfect emblem of what I mean by _the myth of technological progress._

The Super Tucano A-29B:

•Has a greater range, at 800nm vs. 320nm, much more for the Tucano with one pilot and the extra fuel tank, with an even greater difference if the Raider flies at top speed. (Yes, I know, it's easier to refuel a helicopter.)

•Is currently in proven service in CAS roles in COIN operations with 23,000 combat hours vs. the S-97's zero combat hours, which only flew its first demonstration flight in 2015.

•Costs far less at $9 million per unit with almost no development cost vs. a government projected program cost of $200 million and a unit cost of $15 million at full production. Defense analysts expect this to rise to $30 million a unit and $500 million in development costs.

•A low-flying CAS helicopter is a great idea, unless of course you're flying in thin air in the Hindu Kush, or your opponent has the ability to down such aircraft. Ask the Soviets how that worked out...

But the totally unproven S-97 incorporates new technology, which requires R&D thus inviting the procurement bonanza, so it beats out the combat-tested Super Tucano in the GAO procurement arena every time.

There's a reason JSOC wants the A-29B.

<comment><USER3> You're right, except for the first point. The value of not having to return to a base or ship to refuel cannot be passed up as a small point. It's a game changer. Being able to establish FOB and project from there changes everything in irregular warfare.

I hadn't heard about the Raider costing $30 million eventually, but that's ridiculous, if it turns out to be correct. However, $30 million is still less than half that of the AH-64D.

The one thing I'll add to your criticisms is that the Raider (badly) needs more armament (perhaps another 7-shot Hydra 70 pod).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a worthless article. Yes, the B-52 is old - but it works. Yes, replacements with different missions for different times have failed, or come and gone. We're about to build the LSB which will try to replace the old plane more directly than those previous programs. Defense procurement is messed up. none of this is news.

the article is wrong in so many of the pithy little notes that the whole thing comes off as snarky propaganda at best.

* the nuclear-powered bomber was never seen as a practical program - just a way-out-there experiment

* the B-58 was retired because ICBMs did it's job much better as soviet defenses improved

* The (x)b-70 did not have highly toxic exhaust - it used regular jet fuel. author was confused about 'zip fuel' which could have been used in many planes - but didn't go into use.

* weighed down by infamy?

* like taking a biplane to iraq? huh?

geeze - having gone over this in more depth I think that the author actually has no message at all. it's just a bit of filler, with some 1960's antiwar jabs, and an arch tone.

<comment><USER7> Had a little bit of trouble figuring out what the LSB was.

It appears you are referring to the LRS-B.

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

<comment><USER6> that's the one - thanks for clarifying!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I don't get is, if it is such a simple aircraft - pretty much an airliner with the passenger section being a bomb bay - and we're pretty good at making airliners these days - why don't they as a short term stop gap just turn an airliner airframe into a bomber?

With modern materials, avionics and engines you could have a aircraft that flies faster and more efficiently, thus able to fly further and for less ongoing maintenance cost. I also imagine training would be simpler, if it meant they didn't have to train pilots with slide rules...

<comment><USER9> You would think right?

For a parallel, let's look at the state of the USAF tanker fleet ("Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas!") The workhorse of the fleet is the pride of 1957, the KC-135. They're old, and so the Air Force wants to replace them, with the KC-46, which is pretty much a Boeing 767 but with seats replaced with big gas tank, and boom off the back. The 767 isn't a new airframe, it's a 30 year old design. And aerial refueling isn't a new technology either. Afterall, the plane that's being replaced has been in service for almost 60 years. Proven airframe. Proven technology. This is a slam dunk right?

Well, no. The KC-46 keeps getting delayed.[1] It's essentially too complicated and too flashy. For exampe, Boeing is ditching the tried and true, and dirt simple system of guiding refueling booms by having a guy look at a window and put the boom into the receptacle, and instead go with some unproven system using an occulus rift and stereo cameras. Why? I don't know. I guess because it's "high tech".

And do you want to know the most damning part of all? Boeing currently sells the KC-767, a refueling tanker based on the 767 airframe, that not only works, but is cheaper than the KC-46, and available today!

It's almost as bad as the F-35 debacle, but not quite.

Honestly, I don't think the military knows how to buy anything, and the contractors take advantage of that. It's Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex writ large.

[1] [http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/broken-booms-why-is-it- so-h...](http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/broken-booms-why-is-it-so-hard-to- develop-procure-a-1698725648) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus)

<comment><USER10> Question: is Boeing pushing this high tech approach, or are they just designing and building to match a requirement?

In other words, is the government dumb enough to ask for it and pay for it, or is Boeing just out to lunch?

<comment><USER9> That's a good question. Either way, it doesn't look good for the military. Either they're snowed or stupid.

<comment><USER10> A lot of what I see large defense contractors get attacked for is just them simply giving the government what the government asks for. Now, that doesn't mean the big guys are or should be immune from criticism. But they're not going to ignore a big pile of money to do something, even if that something is dumb. The days of Kelly Johnson sending money back to the government because "we're building you a real dog" are (sadly) over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Even as the bombers were being assembled, defense officials were planning > their replacement, but each plan was undone by its own complexity. First was > a nuclear-powered bomber able to stay aloft for weeks (too radioactive), > then the supersonic B-58 with dartlike wings (kept crashing), and then the > even faster B-70 (spewed highly toxic exhaust).

Second system syndrome at its finest.

Sounds like what they really want is a new implementation of roughly the same design as the B-52.

<comment><USER12> From what I've read, it seems like a problem of being overly obsessed with the highest tech and most dramatic missions. Every new bomber is designed for the goal of nuking Moscow, including figuring out the best way to get past defenses. Never mind that if we actually wanted to nuke Moscow, we would use ICBMs instead.

What we really seem to have demand for is something that can carry a whole bunch of bombs cheaply and reliably in airspace that we already have air supremacy over. But apparently the Air Force can't get it's head around that design goal. Nobody seems to want to champion a cheap, dumb bomb truck plane that does simple stuff right every time. Instead, they keep going for the technological marvel designed for a goal that we'll probably never need to do and already have better weapons for anyways.

<comment><USER13> "Never mind that if we actually wanted to nuke Moscow, we would use ICBMs instead."

Look up "nuclear triad", "not putting all your eggs in one basket", and "suspenders and belt".

<comment><USER12> Yes, I'm aware of the value of having multiple weapons systems to do a critical job. But that doesn't mean that every new bomber must be designed to nuke Moscow. Let's make the bomber version of a 747 for when we need to attack Afghanistan or ISIS, something that we can crank out cheaply and is already proven and reliable. Then we can have another project to try and make a bomber that can hit high-value well-defended targets. Or at least decide how many billions of dollars we want to spend for a redundant weapon system meant for a deterrence mission.

<comment><USER13> You are pretending that "nuke Moscow" is some kind of specialized mission requiring specialized planes that can't be used for anything else, _even though the B-52 itself is a glaring counterexample_.

"Carry a heavy load of weapons anywhere in the world while having a decent chance of penetrating air defenses" is a better description of what a bomber does, but that doesn't lend itself to the kind of facile sneering that was in your original post, does it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Russia still uses the "Bear" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95) too.

In particular it has been just used to fire stealth cruise missiles Kh-101 - by contrast, the most modern weapon, almost 60 years younger than the bomber itself - in Syria.

</comment><comment><USER15> Two things strike me: 1\. If it ain't broke, don't fix it 2\. The military/red-tape bureaucracy/contracting/bid system behemoth that has been created in the meantime disallows any innovation that could ever take its place

<comment><USER16> If you RTFA, you'll see that it is broken.

This article is silly. The replacement of the B-52 isn't a better bomber, it's a different tech; ICBMs, drones, etc. - which the article doesn't even mention.

The article also mentions the amount of B 52s there are, and were. Today's fleet could be described as, "small" in comparison.

<comment><USER17> I think the US considered using ICBMs to deliver conventional strikes (and in fact they didn't even contain a warhead - just the kinetic energy of the missile was enough), but decided against it as they couldn't be differentiated from a nuclear strike by early warning systems.

As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? As in they take off from the US to strike in the middle east or anywhere else? Can any drone do that? So if you don't have a drone in theatre, it can't replace what the B-52 does.

<comment><USER18> Conventional ICBMs are being considered under the Prompt Global Strike project [1]. From the summary:

> Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) weapons would allow the United > States to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This > capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by > allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or "fleeting > targets" at the start of or during a conflict.

> Some analysts, however, have raised concerns about the possibility that U.S. > adversaries might misinterpret the launch of a missile with conventional > warheads and conclude that the missiles carry nuclear weapons.

[1] [https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf](https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The C-130 is still in service too, for the same reason. The mission hasn't changed. The B-52 simply doesn't do anything really technological - it's not stealthed, it's not intended to go head-to-head with fighters. It carries a big load of bombs and drops them somewhere, and the technology for that was fundamentally done by the '60s. There will come a time when we don't need to redesign our aircraft every few decades any more than we do our infantry's rifles.

<comment><USER20> > There will come a time when we don't need to redesign our aircraft every few > decades any more than we do our infantry's rifles.

Except that the M4 is from 1994, making it significantly younger than the B52.

<comment><USER21> Huh? The M4 was directly based on the M16, which was based on the AR-15, which was all ultimately based on the AR-10, which was first made in the mid 1950s, thus making it almost exactly as old as the B-52 bomber.

There's a lot more differences between a B-52 bomber when it first rolled off the production line and what they're like now than there are between an AR-10 and a modern M4, though of course the rifles are a lot less complicated.

<comment><USER20> So then maybe we should just rebrand the "modern" B52 and call it a day.

<comment><USER21> It's not really analogous because the rifles that are called M4s today aren't retrofitted versions of the same actual rifles that were previously AR-10s. This all has to do with rifles and airplanes being very different from each other in size, complexity, and cost, so there aren't many accurate analogies to be made.

<comment><USER22> Are you sure about that?

The lower receiver - the part of the gun that's a controlled "firearm" \- is identical between the AR-15 _, M-16, and M-4. The only things that really change are the barrel length and the parts that go in the lower to differentiate between automatic fire and burst fire.

_ the "real" AR-15, by Armalite - not the semi-automatic version commonly available to civilians.

<comment><USER23> True, but they are physically new devices.

The B-52s are the _same planes_ as were built in the 50s (not just the same designs. It's true that there aren't many parts in those planes that exist from the '50s, but and M-4 isn't a AR-15 that was taken the factory and rebuilt - it is a brand new rifle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd say that they are still using unreliable 60 year old bombers is something to celebrate in that carpet bombing is passe so who cares if the tools are a little clunky. Along the same lines I hope the UK fails to spend £100bn to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent. I mean if come WW3 we push the button to nuke Moscow and the thing doesn't go off who really cares? The money would be much better spent on humanitarian projects.

<comment><USER25> Nobody really cares whether or not the button actually works, but when you say "it works" that is supposed to be a credible threat. If you think it works, then Kremlin probably thinks it works, and will think twice about nuking you in the first place.

It's a deterrent, not a weapon.

<comment><USER24> Yeah but if you have several nuclear ICBMs pointed at you even a 25% chance of each working is probably a deterrent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The B.U.F.F. (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) is a bomb truck: it carries heavy ordinance over long distances in uncontested airspace. Yes it drinks fuel, yes it's a maintenance hog, but it's paid for.

<comment><USER27> I think you mean ordnance [1] :)

1\. [http://grammarist.com/usage/ordinance- ordnance/](http://grammarist.com/usage/ordinance-ordnance/)

<comment><USER28> Once we master the art of political warfare, we can send B-52s to drop destructive parking regulations, zoning requirements, noise restrictions, and other heavy ordinances to cripple the enemy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One thing I've been wondering recently in regards to the NYT Online is why some articles allow for comments and some don't (as generally the debate is reasonably well balanced).

This article is obviously more of a magazine-style, so perhaps from an aesthetic perspective it doesn't fit. However, even in more "standard" articles they are sometimes available and sometimes not. I appreciate that some articles / topics are more sensitive, but surely they are the ones that need debate more than ever. Also if it's appropriately moderated anything deemed inappropriate can of course be removed.

</comment><comment><USER30> Think of when we reach the point where a piece of "high technology" reaches its 100th year of operation.

Some bank of servers or other type of computer, or this B-52 airplane, or cruise-liner.

</comment><comment><USER31> So when do the B-52s get the "Battleship Yamato" treatment?

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

OK, kidding about the cartoon alien tech, but somehow, I would not be shocked to see somebody strapping high tech engines under the BUFF to give it [sub]orbital capability some day :-)

<comment><USER32> Read "Flight of the Old Dog" by Dale Brown. It's a bit dated by modern standards (it was written in the 80s, when the Soviet Union was still a thing), but still good. I won't spoil it for you, but the book features a heavily modified B-52 saving the day.

<comment><USER33> "Fatal Terrain" is good as well. Released in 1997 so slightly more up to date. I read it hoping for fantastical descriptions of flying battleships hanging from a paper thin plot and was not remotely disappointed.

<comment><USER32> Dale Brown books are one of my guilty pleasures. Actually, Silver Tower was the first sci-fi book I remember reading when I was a kid. He went to military thrillers after that one and I've read all of them too. But Silver Tower and Old Dog are still two of my favorites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The B-52 (and Tu-95) can stay in the air so long as their is no challenge to air superiority. The last real challenge might have been the Vietnam war for B-52's and their SA-2 missiles. Once real challengers show up, they have to be herded away. Just look at the decimation of B-29's over Korea when Mig-15's showed up.

<comment><USER31> Yes.

They bat cleanup in an established no-fly zone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Two reasons the B-52s are still around -

1) its replacements, even if they had worked perfectly, would not have improved upon the original to a degree not already covered by ICBMs, cruise missiles, and drones. It fills its niche perfectly, as does its Russian counterpart.

2) its three toughest opponents have been Vietnam, Iraq, and Serbia. Scrappy countries to be sure, but not first-class air defenses with targets deep in enemy territory. So very few have been shot down.

I suppose once the parts run out to keep a decent fleet operational, we should consider building exact duplicates - with some modern upgrades of course, and just keep trucking.

</comment><comment><USER36> "infamy lingering from the carpet bombing of Vietnam"

Carpet bombing is defined as bombing within a large boxed area with the goal of obliterating everything in the area regardless of the military value of the targets in the area.

Yes, B52s carpet bombed some jungle areas of Vietnam. No, there was no carpet bombing of Hanoi, which is what this is probably referring to. Can't believe after all of these years the NYT is still misreporting this. If Hanoi had been carpet bombed, it would have been leveled. It's obvious that bombing was limited to specific targets of military value.

<comment><USER14> > No, there was no carpet bombing of Hanoi

actually were.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20719382](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20719382) "North Vietnam, 1972: The Christmas bombing of Hanoi"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Vie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Vietnam_War)

"The zenith of B-52 attacks in Vietnam was Operation Linebacker II (sometimes referred to as the Christmas Bombing) which consisted of waves of B-52s (mostly D models, but some Gs without jamming equipment and with a smaller bomb load). Over 12 days, B-52s flew 729 sorties[148] and dropped 15,237 tons of bombs on Hanoi, Haiphong, and other targets.[90][149] "

>If Hanoi had been carpet bombed, it would have been leveled.

Hanoi did have air defense.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#/me...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#/media/File:%D0%A1%D0%92%D0%A1_%D1%83_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D1%81%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%91-52_%D0%B2_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8F%D1%85_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%8F_23.12.1972_%281%29.jpg)

<comment><USER37> The air defenses weren't that great. They could knock down some B52s but the majority could deliver their payload and return.

The Wikipedia article on Linebacks II says the US air force targeted military targets and power plants.

Around 1700 people died. A true carpet bombing of a city like Hanoi would result in a lot more than that.

<comment><USER38> They lost dozens of B-52's during Linebacker

<comment><USER37> Around a dozen over what like ~700 sorties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Well, if the B-1 had been designed for conventional payloads or hadn't become such a political promise in the 1980 election, the B-52 would probably have been retired. Even the B-3 specs don't look like something that will retire the B-52.

Honestly, I'm really not sure that the whole justification on "strategic" vs "tactical" bombing that spawned a separate Air Force was such a good idea given the types of wars fought in the nuclear age.

</comment><comment><USER40> The DC-3 is another airframe that just never goes obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER41> Are they better than [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot)

</comment><comment><USER42> There have been several proposals to re-engine the B-52 fleet with four jetliner engines, but it hasn't happened yet.

</comment><comment><USER43> It is common misconception that in military everything needs to be state of art. It needs to be effective.</comment>


Ask HN: Who is running full Bitcoin or Ethereum node these days? - <AUTHOR> Given the current size of the complete blockchain for BitCoin or Ethereum, who would be able to afford to run the full node these days? I know that I can't. It almost feels that one would need to purchase a specialized hardware which would not be chip, just to be able to run the node. Isn't this by itself defeats the purpose of blockchain?
And it's not getting any better over time -- it's only going to get worse. Does the size of these blockchains jeopardizes the future of these cryptos? <comment><USER2> I've been running a full bitcoin node continuously since 2011. I don't mine anymore. though. FYI, the block chain is taking up about 230 gigs of space. Bandwidth and CPU usage is negligible.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yup, like the many other fundamental issues. It was fun for a minute, might get a few more minutes of hype

</comment><comment><USER4> You are right. I can't afford the electric bill and hardware.</comment>


Ask HN: To which tech email newsletters do you subscribe? - <AUTHOR> Once I learned that cron.weekly was going away (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148954), I found myself thinking about the many tech newsletters I find valuable.
I'm thinking of writing a blog post about my favorites. (Leaving out general news sites, marketing-related newsletters, or off-hours stuff like SF-related topics... just tech stuff for programmers, sysadmins, and other geeky folks.)
What would you include? <comment><USER2> I actually started a newsletter [0] on growing as a T-shaped developer after I didn't find anything similar online that scratched my itch. I try to do one or two small explorations a week in different areas of tech that I wouldn't normally come across in my day job as a front-end engineer, and I decided to send them out to others too!

I like the metaphor of a T-shaped developer, which is why I mention it on the site. I decided on "Breadth First Growth" as a cute way to convey the focus on growing sideways (and reference the search of course). It's mostly geared towards junior developers and those without a solid CS foundation, so although I might not recommend it for the average HN reader, I've heard good things about it from other junior devs and bootcamp grads. It's been great to make and share!

[0] [https://breadthfirstgrowth.com](https://breadthfirstgrowth.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another shameless plug: I write a series of emails about mistakes I've made during my career as a software engineer, and what readers can learn from them. So rather than being a "here's a series of news links", it's very personal, for better or for worse. So far have published 70 of them weekly over the past year and a half; new subscribers start at the beginning so get them all.

[https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/](https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/)

<comment><USER4> I found this one after watching your talk at PyCon last year. Thank you for writing this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shameless plug - I run [https://betterdev.link](https://betterdev.link)

I like a bunch of language from Go/Elixir/Clojure/Ruby/Elm and also work as a DevOps engineer so my links tend to be spread out between many language/stack with focus on infrastructure(Kubernetes, Docker, Security etc)

It kinds of my personal reading list that I put up and hope it deliver value to people.

The code is also open source: [https://github.com/yeo/betterdev.link](https://github.com/yeo/betterdev.link) It also have an Elixir application(which I has not deploy yet) that allow peple to submit links and bookmark etc(frontend is in MithrilJS).

Let me know if you like it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Shameless plug - I run [https://discoverdev.io](https://discoverdev.io)

A curated daily digest of the most insightful software engineering articles I find across the web. I've curated and tagged over 1000+ articles to date. (Initially tried an ML approach to crawl and classify articles, it didn't work out. So there is a fair bit of human intervention to keep up the quality of the links)

As of now there is a RSS feed, starting this month there will also be a newsletter (it's about time, over 1000 people signed up). Just give it a look and tell me if you like it :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Benedict Evans' newsletter on mobile and related tech (everything in tech is related) is quite good as a weekly round up of important stories, plus his own long form writing which is top notch. [1]

Ben Thompson's Stratechery is good too. More hit and miss because it's mostly his original hot takes, but frequently insightful. [2]

[1] Subscribe at bottom [https://www.ben-evans.com](https://www.ben-evans.com) [2] Also a blog I guess, hit menu and subscribe by email. [https://stratechery.com](https://stratechery.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the only one I subscribe to: [http://softwareleadweekly.com/](http://softwareleadweekly.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I really like Alertbox by the Nielsen Norman Group. Lots of great information on UX.

[https://www.nngroup.com/articles/subscribe/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/subscribe/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat orthogonal, but if you prefer RSS, I highly recommend using this site: [https://www.kill-the-newsletter.com/](https://www.kill-the- newsletter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I haven't used this myself, but I have heard only great things about [https://char.gd/recharged](https://char.gd/recharged) by @ow (twitter) - I'm sure you could reach out to him if you needed to ask about anything

</comment><comment><USER11> If your into side projects and building things, I would recommend the Indiehackers newsletter

[https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses)

</comment><comment><USER12> One of my favourites is C# Digest.

[https://csharpdigest.net/](https://csharpdigest.net/)

Five links every week, all in some way useful or informative for a .NET developer.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://webopsweekly.com/](https://webopsweekly.com/) covers some similar ground.

</comment><comment><USER14> My personally best newsletter is a feed2mail subscribes rssfeed. An my local ccc mailing list. After that comes Twitter.</comment>


How to lose an argument online - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/11/how-to-lose-an-argument-online.html

<comment><USER3> I understand why "Godwin's law" is so often cited, but really. It's silly to compare Obama or Bush or whoever to Hitler simply because you don't like them, but it's not silly to bring up Nazis when someone is advocating eugenics.

It's also not silly to bring up Hitler, Stalin and Mao when somebody claims that religion is the source of all oppression. They clearly demonstrate that atheistic worldviews can be radical and dangerous, too.

To simply point and yell "Godwin!" at every mention is more childish that bringing up these topics when they're not really relevant to the discussion. Surely there are SOME valid lessons from the worst mass killings in history.

<comment><USER4> You still need to make sure that your comparison is apt. More often than not, comparisons to Nazis and the like are hyperbole, or at least sound like it.

 _It's also not silly to bring up Hitler, Stalin and Mao when somebody claims that religion is the source of all oppression. They clearly demonstrate that atheistic worldviews can be radical and dangerous, too._

True, but be careful about how you use this. I've had people claim that Nazism, Communism, et al, were forms of religion themselves, which is true, depending on how you use the term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 3 and 4 are the worst killers. If an "opponent" resorts to them you know you've won.

A forum I hang out on has an "almost troll" that has a favorite argument pastime of thinking up a conspiracy - googling some related idea and posting a long rant about it.

When he butts into the middle of the discussion with one of these you just know it's going to spiral down badly - for example whilst discussing the idea of a back door in W7 (I know, I know :() he sidetracked us onto discussing de- armament codes in missiles :)

</comment><comment><USER6> There is a 'slippery slope' (#7) when it comes to software - <USER2> maintenance can consume your resources. Charge early and often. Make it a product - price it at least more than your lifetime maintenance cost. This is from experience.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another classic about how to argue: <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is good, but I disagree with #8: Going to the edges

Most times it is very useful to determine just what another person is saying. Language is extremely slippery. I agree that going to the edges can be awful if done poorly, but if somebody says something like "I'm a utilitarian" I think it's perfectly honest and respectful to ask something like "Does that mean you would sacrifice a million people to give humanity an additional ten years of lifespan?"

Because sometimes "utilitarian" means that and sometimes it doesn't. Utilitarian is just a label, and labels don't in themselves have a lot of meaning. Words only have context when related to other words -- this is why every honest web discussion usually ends with a discussion in terms. Unless you explore the extremes you really have no idea what the other person is saying.

Godwin's law is awesome, but just like Occam's Razor, it has it's limits. Sometimes people are really talking about something that resembles naziism -- like say, modern nazis. So sure, 99% of the time you're whacked for bringing up nazis, there's also that other time when you're not. And you probably can't tell the difference! (smile)

</comment><comment><USER9> Most items on this list are surprising effective when done by the media.

</comment><comment><USER10> IMO _Try_ not to mention breasts, it doesn't help your argument:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=909015>

and woefully still digging the hole:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908944>

\----

Funny that another breast mentioning thread devolved into a a homophobic and antisemitic troll

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=909389>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=913155>

<comment><USER11> Uh, what?

<comment><USER10> the article mentions topics not to mention. Like comparisons-to-Hitler.

Mentioning breasts is a similar way to instantly lose an argument, and I provided some links to arguments that relied mentioned breasts and died.

Did you follow any of the links?

<comment><USER11> I did. I thought the people that brought up breasts won. I agreed with them, and they got lots of karma points.

If that's losing, I want to lose.

<comment><USER10> In a HN sense, you're right. I think (and I did say IMO) that they lost the arguments. One moron started abusing gays and jews (last link). Is that "winning" by your definition?

<comment><USER5> > One moron started abusing gays and jews (last link). Is that "winning" by > your definition?

That wasn't the one that brought up the breasts though was it? The person that did made reasonable (if direct) points and obviously people agreed with them.... that sounds like "winning".

<comment><USER10> What I said: _Funny that another breast mentioning thread devolved into a a homophobic and antisemitic troll_

I didn't say it was the same person. So there were two morons working in tamden (kryo and Zarathu).

You conveniently ignore the poor person[1] who replied to the first breasts comment. She didn't get any upvotes, but the aggressive first post did and the homophobic anti-semite managed to get an upvote.

tianaco was so offended she wrote _kryo, that was a really nasty, disparaging, and insensitive thing to write._ You cast this nasty/insensitive as _reasonable (if direct)_.

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

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912851> (tianaco)</comment>


What looks like an N64, costs 50x as much, and runs Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepowerbase.com%2F2012%2F06%2Flinux-mint-enters-hardware-game-with-mintbox%2F&h=MAQENJv_DAQGuJyTAvHBi2dsVNaipVIlhRH0YyHVP0e-rrg&enc=AZMrHODXcT8KrMx8bhbWVqMJHI869eQLHSKBahxiPVtOBgLpYm2WxEUQvUI69YPm_2X8tnC8lkzd_JRunvrxk0u4

<comment><USER2> Someone forgot to strip the facebook redirect from the url?

<comment><USER3> Lordpenguin only submits articles from powerbase. I wonder if he decided to change things up in order to astroturf more effectively...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why there is no any successful auto based messaging application? - <AUTHOR> We are working on auto (license plate as id) based messaging mobile app and searched for if any successful app exists before. What we have found so far:
1-) www.bum.com : last news from 2011 seems to failed.
2-)https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marzki.reparkapp seems to be inactive.
3-) http://platewave.com/ focus on dating and UK  only and only web and mobile app. <comment><USER2> What would be the purpose?

Chatting with people? This is what a normal messaging app does.

Chatting with nearby cars? You'd need geolocation accuracy to be continuous and very precise. Waze, a navigation app, allows crowdsourced submissions about traffic info, police, etc; it's goal-oriented and works.

Nintendo 3DS consoles will interact when they're in proximity. That's goal- oriented and works.

Several normal chat networks, like Snapchat, allow you to locate nearby users when they're in geolocation mode.

General purpose, semi-anonymous neighbor chat is just not that big of a market (yet), even when you discount a focus on cars. Yik-yak was similar by offering geofenced anonymous chat based around fixed (in real-world) locations, but they just pivoted away from anonymity.

<comment><AUTHOR> here some use cases from video of bump which what we tought similar ones.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk#t=129](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk#t=129)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Because network effect. You can't get there from here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any details you know?

<comment><USER3> Apart from the obvious one I just mentioned?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, here is the video of bump which shows use cases. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk#t=129](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk#t=129)

<comment><USER3> I don't see what use cases have to do with anything.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interactive Salary/Equity Chart for Jobs Offered in the San Francisco Bay Area - <AUTHOR> http://minimaxir.com/2016/05/sfba-compensation/ <comment><USER2> I think it's inportant to point out the source of data is Angel List and therefore the numbers predominantly reflect those of startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is there _never_ a chart on HN that makes me feel like I'm paid fairly?

Surely that's some sort of HN bias ...

<comment><USER4> Hah, HN gives me the same feeling pretty consistently. If/when I leave the game industry I'll be disappointed if I have less than $500K total comp as a result of years of reading HN comments on what decent engineers should get paid.

<comment><USER5> I love this comment. I've been running my own small game studio for nearly five years in San Francisco and this resonates deeply. After reading HN for a while I constantly question my life choices work-wise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are plenty of engineering jobs in the "non-engineering" graph.

      ("Fullstack Javascript Ninja" 3% 50K)
      ("Avionic Software Lead" 6.25% 120k)
      ("Software [Developer]" 3.5% 32.5k)

This seems like it invalidates the results.

<comment><AUTHOR> 3 jobs out of _3,000_ in a category does not invalidate the results and is within acceptable error (and even if there was a super-mega-ultra outlier as a result, that's why the median is used instead of the average). Although I made my best effort, it's infeasible for _anyone_ to get 100% perfect categorization, which is why I would not have made this visualization without having a sufficiently large sample size.

<comment><USER6> I agree that a few misclassifications is not a huge problem, but it suggests a bigger methodological flaw. Looking at your source code, it seems your definition of engineer is

      grepl("engineer", tolower(job_title)) | grepl("developer", tolower(job_title)

This seems like a poor definition of engineer to use. It includes "VP Engineering" but excludes "CTO", it includes "Growth Engineers" (marketers) but excludes "Code Ninjas" (developers). Short of word2vec, I don't think you're going to be able to automatically classify people as engineers based on job title.

<comment><AUTHOR> That heuristic is good for 99%+ of the data set (and probably higher accuracy than a word2vec approach anyways). That's more than acceptable for this analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lower range for engineers than I would have expected.

<comment><USER8> This is just from angel list. So essentially just early stage startup salary ranges, presumably?

<comment><AUTHOR> What I wanted to do was map offers to startups (so I could at the least tag smaller startups), but the AngelList API _intentionaly_ omits the startup name/information from the Jobs endpoint. I'm annoyed.

<comment><USER9> I was going to say, why not scrape their pages? But they seem to require you to log in to view any job postings, and even then it's some custom feed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice charts, this is really cool. One thing, though - it's weird to have "researchers" not compared against engineers, since at lots of places they're functionally just two different titles for the same job. Is there a reason for that choice?

</comment><comment><USER11> Equity percentage graphs of a large number of companies, with no additional information, are completely useless information. I'd much rather have 0.01% of Google than 1% of whatever your startup is.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd be curious if the distribution of salary data from H1-B filings was more or less the same. Anecdotally for brand name companies, eg Netflix, the selection bias of Angel List data to the lower end seems to be confirmed. The database publicly searchable and I had seen a visualization once but can't find the link.

[http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=NETFLIX+INC&job=SENIOR+SOFT...](http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=NETFLIX+INC&job=SENIOR+SOFTWARE+ENGINEER&city=&year=2015)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'll weigh in; work (remotely) for a startup in the Bay Area, around 100k salary with .5% equity.

I'm hoping to have more equity granted to me in the form of options in the coming months as the company turns a profit.

Otherwise, life is good.

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe the ranges are more useful in the Bay Area. For Berlin I saw some companies putting €30k - €100k because it's required on Angel List.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pathetic amount of equity, 0.1/0.02%. Startups should be ashamed. Your greed, your loss.

<comment><USER16> If you have, say, 200 employees, how much equity do you suggest offering?

<comment><USER17> Of course, they should get 10% each. Don't be a greedy bastard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would cut out all the data with equity above 2% as the signal there is probably very noisy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting data - what do the colors mean on the chart?

<comment><AUTHOR> They're just a visual aid to list the change in salary. It works well with the background of the hover tooltip.</comment></comment>


An 'oasis' for women? Inside Saudi Arabia's vast new female-only workspaces - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/20/an-oasis-for-women-inside-saudi-arabias-vast-new-female-only-workspaces <comment><USER2> I wonder if these sorts of places can provide the spaces needed to seed civil rights movements to demand societal changes in gender rights</comment>


In a Warming World, Is Aramco Worth a Cool $2T? - <AUTHOR> https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-in-a-warming-world-is-aramco-worth-a-cool-2-trillion-1.8084384 <comment><USER2> In my view this IPO is akin to selling the crown jewels and thus says something about the state of Saudi Arabia finances and/or about their outlook on the oil industry.</comment>