Cardiovascular Deaths Linked to Poor Dietary Choices - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/health/number-of-cardiovascular-deaths-each-year-diet.html <comment><USER3> This was known for decades. People in the future will not believe how bad we were eating in the last 50 years. Food is so important to our physical and mental health. We are literally killing ourselves, at this point the food industry is almost guilty of mass murder for profit. Same for fossil fuels, pharma, etc. I don't understand our "developed" countries.

<comment><USER4> This silly.

In the last few months I have been changing my diet because of cholesterol readings. It's annoying, because I like steak, and I like coconut, and bacon, and ghee, and prawns and, and, and...

Desire for such a diet has always been with us. The food industry has, for the first time, made it affordable for hundreds of millions of us. They are guilty only of mass feeding for profit.

<comment><USER5> > It's annoying, because I like steak, and I like coconut, and bacon, and > ghee, and prawns and, and, and...

How is that annoying? All of these things can be part of a healthy, balanced diet. Why cut them out completely?

<comment><USER4> I certainly didn't cut them out completely. The point is to moderate them, I had to discipline myself.

On the other hand, how the heck is the food industry supposed to moderate me, why also supplying these things that you point out are part of a perfectly sensible diet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anecdotal:

Growing up, our parents never added salt to our food, avoided as much as possible any processed foods and made everything from fresh ingredients.

After moving out and living with various people, shifting my diet multiple times, I generally feel worse now than I did before. When I fast and shift myself to healthier eating I feel better. What interests me is why most people don't feel "bad" when they're eating the food that I would feel sluggish from the next day. My pet theories are their body is accustomed to it/or they simply don't know what it feels like to not feel that way- if you know what I mean.

I thought it was self evident that anything that weakens you is likely to be bad for you.

Glad that these findings are going more mainstream.

<comment><USER7> > What interests me is why most people don't feel "bad" when they're eating > the food that I would feel sluggish from the next day.

Eating processed foods for years causes huge changes in the gut microbiome. Presence of different microorganisms means you'll process various foods differently from others.

[http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/07/1...](http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/07/16/processed- foods-immune-system-gut-health.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a substantial hole in the logical argument of the article "a substantial portion of these deaths could be prevented". Obviously everyone studied will die despite the articles implication that giving up steak results in eternal life. They'll just die of something else. It is also not intuitive that merely not dying from a cardio problem will result in a longer life. Surely you can eat less meat and be less fat merely by skipping some meals and smoking a pack or two of cigs or dipping tobacco, and it seems like cardio death rates would drop, but overall death rate due to lung cancer would probably increase to a net systemic higher level. It doesn't have to be that extreme. Maybe something as simple as replacing a bloodthirsty steak with a nice glass of vegan corn syrup soda could cause a net increase in death rates while slightly dropping cardio death rates.

There are also peculiar side issues such as declaring fish to be healthy not- meat means mercury intake would explode and the fisheries will be wiped out sooner than if we didn't. The net long term effect of wiping out the fisheries for all time might be worse than merely eating land based meat for that time interval.

Finally there are peculiar geographic problems where urban vegans absolutely refuse to admit there is some land suitable solely for beef production, or the hipster quinoa fad which for a grain isn't as bad as most but the fad primarily resulted in starvation in south america.

<comment><USER9> I think there is a substantial hole in your train of thought as well. Don't miss the forest for the trees.

I think this guide will help you understand the bigger picture: [https://zenhabits.net/plants/](https://zenhabits.net/plants/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've lost over 25 pounds in the last couple months by changing my diet slightly. I essentially eat a nice sized lunch and no other real meals. I drink a protein shake with some peanut butter and a banana for breakfast and a soylent drink for dinner. Sometimes I substitute the soylent for booze if I've got an event to go to. I fast, skip the lunch, on Mondays. It's incredible how different my body feels without that extra weight and barring a couple nights of thinking about the gelato in my freezer it hasnt been that difficult.

I'm not sure if I'm just now gaining the will power to stick to a diet or if I got to a weight I was truly uncomfortable with but I wish I could get my family on the same plan to avoid stuff like this.

<comment><USER11> > I essentially eat a nice sized lunch and no other real meals. I drink a > protein shake with some peanut butter and a banana for breakfast and a > soylent drink for dinner.

A breakfast is a meal. And the way you describe it, it can easily be upwards of 600 calories. Peanut butter is one of the most calorie dense foods on the planet and bananas add up very quickly in terms of calories.

Also iirc, a bottle of soylent is 400 calories, which is not insignificant.

So all in all, you still probably consume ~2000 calories, which is enough to lose weight, but also enough not to feel hungry by timing the consumption correctly. Small-framed women, for example would gain weight with the same diet.

> I'm not sure if I'm just now gaining the will power to stick to a diet

I wonder what is HN's obsession with sticking to specific diets? Generally speaking there is an infinite number of possible healthy diets that get you your macros at every calorie level.

<comment><USER12> > I wonder what is HN's obsession with sticking to specific diets? Generally > speaking there is an infinite number of possible healthy diets that get you > your macros at every calorie level.

It's easier to eat a healthy amount if your diet is pre-determined. No need to think of alternatives and mess up. The counterpoint would be that the monotony of the same foods also make it easier to "cheat" and revert your progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I'm not "old" yet, I'm not as young as I used to be and I can feel my life time of poor diet is starting to catch up with me. So I've become very mindful of my diet very recently. I've switched to a mostly plant based diet and avoid most processed food combined with some intermittent fasting. I'm feeling much better, I'm losing weight at a healthy pace and I'm sleeping much better, though that might be more related also dropping caffeine and alcohol. The rest of my family is also eating more healthy, though not with the same strictness as me. I went cold turkey and it's a bit more of a gradual process for them.

<comment><USER14> The best thing you can do is avoid sugar. I started doing it about a year ago for similar reasons. I lost 30 pounds and feel great. I also cut way back on caffeine and alcohol. That probably played a part in my feeling better but perhaps not losing weight.

<comment><USER15> Cutting out alcohol will have a significant effect on weight loss (positive effect). Alcohol gets consumed, for calories, more easily than sugars and other calorie sources. So your body will process your alcohol intake quickly. Once sated, calorically, your body has to do something with the rest of what you've eaten/drunk. This means it's expelled from the body, or stored (as fat) and your weight goes up (or stays high).

It's a bit like sodas, here. It's easy to get many or most of the calories you need from alcohol (especially beers) and sugary sodas. You don't feel sated so you still eat, now you've exceeded your calorie goals and you end up gaining weight (or maintaining a higher than desired weight). Eliminating sodas and alcohol moves your caloric intake to be, predominantly, food stuffs. Now you'll feel sated when you're full from your meal, and, with a bit of planning and practice, before consuming too many calories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A plant-based diet has been proven to prevent many of the leading causes of death and is also what is best for the planet. Our modern diet has way too much animal flesh and animal byproducts, all kinds of evidence in our anatomy, genetics, and biochemistry. The amount of land and water use for animal agriculture is insane, the greenhouse emissions and life-killing pollution are another set of externalities.

A lot can change for the individual organism and the whole biosphere with a simple diet change. I think a plant-based society is the only kind that could live harmoniously with our home planet and expand successfully onto other planets.

<comment><USER16> I fail to see how switching from meat to plants will decrease the usage of land and water. Also, planet could not care less what we eat or what we do.

<comment><USER17> Because growing 1000 calories worth of a plant takes less space then growing 10000 calories. And if you want a 1000 calories of cow meat you will need to feed it much more then 10000 calories of plant.

<comment><USER18> That's a gross oversimplification and not true in many cases.

For instance, New Zealand lamb flocks are grown high up in the mountains, eating and drinking from local sources unsuitable for plant farming. It would literally take more arable land for the equivalent plant based diet.

<comment><USER19> I'm sure the lamb is delicious at the dozen or so restaurants and butchers in which it is sold for a high price.

When you're talking about scale, feeding 10's of thousands of people, plant based food sources win out.

<comment><USER20> 'Dozen or so'? You can get a lamb roast at _Costco_.

<comment><USER21> Do you get these high-altitude grazing New Zeeland lamb at Costco? Most lambs are raised in the lamb factory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Diets low in omega-3 fatty acids, found in seafood [...] also played a role.

In seafood you also find a lot of toxins, especially mercury. So trying to get your omega3s from there comes with it's own problems.

Thank God for flax seeds! A cheap and pure source of omega3s. Freshly grind 2 tsps and mix in your food every day: you will have covered your omega3s, amongst other micro-nutrients.

<comment><USER23> Mercury binds to selenium and inactivates its "toxic" effects.

Thankfully, fish is high in selenium (almost 1:1 to with mercury, thus canceling both out, in swordfish. Most others have ratios < 10:1).

<comment><USER24> Does that mean that tuna does not have much selenium? Would it be possible to mitigate the effects of a tuna rich diet with by also eating other food rich in selenium?

<comment><USER23> I don't have the ratio for tuna off-hand, but IIRC a selenium supplement is all you need to counteract a fish-heavy diet.

But, yes. You can also supplement fish with higher sel:merc ratios to balance it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm curious what people think of diet-hackers.. this forum is probably more sympathetic than most.

It seems like there's a bi-modal distribution where either you don't care about diet, or you ascribe metaphysical properties to food and how it was obtained and prepared. The later seems like ho-hum, nutrition is much more complicated than the FDA labels, but I have to believe it's possible to synthesize boring goop that gives you everything you need. I really don't care that much about eating.. as in, if I could flip a switch and never eat again, I would unhesitatingly do so.

I tried Soylent for a while, which I liked well enough, but they are optimizing for things I don't particularly care about like vegan ingredients and sedentary nutrition profile. Lately I've been using 100%FOOD which I like quite a bit in the triple protein profile, and is helpful for my activity level.

<comment><USER23> > _but I have to believe it 's possible to synthesize boring goop that gives > you everything you need_

It is, but to make it as bioavailable and "healthy" as regular food is a challenge (and extremely expensive).

Contemporary goop uses synthetic micronutrients (as opposed to more bioavailable organic) and extracts (as opposed to full-profile concentrates).

This is also ignoring that Soylent's ingredient profile is likely incompatible with a large part of the public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hey seen salt so directly linked to heart disease.

<comment><USER27> Salt is generally only an issue if you already have, or are via family link likely to have heart issues... Of course, the anti-saturated fat and dietary cholesterol claims were also unbalanced and not well supported. However, most people have far more salt in their diet than they need anyway...

What gets me more is the amount of "natural" flavors added to food... when you have a hypersensitive sense of smell and taste man some of that stuff is nasty, and 19 of 20 can't even smell/taste it. It may be natural and some people will respond positively to additives, but it's really harsh to some of us.

<comment><USER28> Inspired by Pascal's Wager:

Even if it's not clear that salt intake and saturated fat is bad for you, why take the chance? Three choices:

1\. Salt/saturated fat are bad for you and you eat too much of both -- bad outcome.

2\. Salt/saturated fat are not bad for you and you eat too much of both - neutral outcome

3\. Salt/saturated fat are bad for you and you limit your intake - <USER2> outcome.

I don't think anyone is arguing that too much salt and saturated fat are _good_ for you, so the three scenarios above are the logical choices.

If the scientific studies are wrong and you cut back anyway, you have "lost nothing".

If they are right and you cut back, you have gained. There is no benefit by taking a chance that the accepted wisdom is wrong.

<comment><USER29> > Even if it's not clear that salt intake and saturated fat is bad for you, > why take the chance?

Pascal's Wager makes sense in that you have mutually exclusive options. Dietary choices don't work like that.

Practically speaking, if you avoid certain ingredients, you expose yourself to more of others.

Psychologically speaking, the average person only has so much willpower. It's best spend avoiding the worst foods and pursuing the best ones. Spending energy on pointless diets affects one's ability to pursue good ones.

<comment><USER28> I agree. That's why I said "too much". I didn't say "cut out". In my case, I know my will power is weak. I keep "unhealthy" food out of the house so I'm not constantly being tempted. During the week I only have to resist temptation at lunch since I don't have access to junk food at work or at home.

During the weekend, I don't go crazy but I don't go out of my way to eat healthy.

If I do want something to sweet, I buy the smallest portion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> On our next breaking news: Gun deaths linked to bullets

</comment><comment><USER31> Dog bites man!

</comment><comment><USER32> no kidding.

</comment><comment><USER22> The "TLDR" summary of the article:

> Cardiovascular disease claims 610,000 lives in the United States each year. > It is the leading cause of mortality nationwide, accounting for one in every > four deaths.

> A new analysis, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, shows that > a substantial portion of these deaths could be prevented by healthier > eating.

Nothing new; has been shown numerous times. Article does not state how this analysis is different.

> In 2015, more than 400,000 [2/3rds] deaths from cardiovascular causes were > linked to unhealthy diets, according to the research

According to the article, for a healthy diet we need to eat more:

* whole plant-based foods (nuts, seeds, vegetables, whole grains and fruits), and omega-3 fatty acids

...and we need to eat less:

* salt (sodium), trans-fat, saturated fat, processed meat, sugar

> Ashkan Afshin, co-author of the study, said: "some of the leading risk > factors are not high intake of unhealthy foods, but low intake of healthy > foods."

> Over all, the results of the study were consistent with global patterns.

\-----

Now my observation. When they talk about what we should eat more of, the instruction is clear (only omega3s are cryptic). But when stating what we should eat less of most of it is cryptic.

Well let me decrypt it for you... reduce or stop eating:

* meat/dairy/eggs (bad fats, bad protein, toxin build-up)

* processed foods, like oils & sugar (they have been separated from their original form thus lacking fibers and nutrients)

* non foods, like chemicals (sugar replacements, preservatives, colorants, etc.)

<comment><USER3> Not sure about eggs. I get a lot of contradicting opinions. My conclusion is that 4-5 eggs a week is good for us.

<comment><USER22> I contains a lot of cholesterol and "bad" protein (the protein that has lots of sulfur-based amino acids); besides that very little nutrients.

If you want you can have a ton of nutrients for the same cholesterol/calories by choosing whole plant-based foods.

So in the absence of choice, eggs are great. But most of us have so much choice nowadays, that eggs are clearly an inferior option.

<comment><USER33> Dietary cholesterol does not directly affect blood serum cholesterol. This has been known for years. You are just spouting bullshit nutritional advice that has contributed to the obesity epidemic since the 1950s. Enjoy your "healthy" low fat foods, I will enjoy my "unhealthy" fats. I just hope no one listens to your advice without doing some research.

<comment><USER22> > Enjoy your "healthy" low fat foods

Where was I advocating "low fat" foods?

> You are just spouting bullshit nutritional advice that has contributed to > the obesity epidemic since the 1950s.

Yes I advocate for "whole food plant based" diet. After doing my research. But please tell me how WFPB has "has contributed to the obesity epidemic since the 1950s", because I do not get it.

> Dietary cholesterol does not directly affect blood serum cholesterol.

You say so. But do you think that replacing 5 eggs per week with whole plant foods is not going to lower someones blood serum cholesterol? Because I think it does.

<comment><USER18> > You say so. But do you think that replacing 5 eggs per week with whole plant > foods is not going to lower someones blood serum cholesterol? Because I > think it does.

You make it sound obvious but it's does not sound like that to everyone. How is one nutritional healthy food better or worse than another nutritional healthy food?

And the "eating cholesterol gives you high cholesterol" statement is in the same league as "eating fat makes you fat". It's not necessarily true and an oversimplification.

<comment><USER34> What about the ~20% of the population with one or two APOE4 alleles?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft accused by EU of harming web browser competition, again - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/19/microsoft-accused-by-eu-of-harming-web-browser-competition-agai/ <comment><USER2> See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=437333>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438639>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439233></comment>


Commentary on the Sixth Edition Unix Operating System - <AUTHOR> http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/ <comment><USER2> Lions' Commentary. I have an official copy I bought from Western Electric, both volumes. The Computer History Museum already has a copy. Any suggestions?</comment>


Six days to landing, Chandrayaan 2 makes one last orbit around the moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/six-days-to-landing-chandrayaan-2-makes-one-last-orbit-around-the-moon-1594219-2019-09-01 <comment><USER2> That title is the title of the article, but it is wrong.

They made the last course correction for the orbiter ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2#Fifth_lunar_orbi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2#Fifth_lunar_orbit_burn)). It will make multiple orbits around the moon (looking at the lower chart in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2#Charts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2#Charts), about 12/day) before the lander will be separated from it about a week from now, and, if possibly, more after it has separated.</comment>


Mover: Easily move files between cloud services - <AUTHOR> https://mover.io/ <comment><USER2> Have you used this? I was just looking at these guys along with [http://www.cloudsfer.com/pricing/#oht:lang=en- us](http://www.cloudsfer.com/pricing/#oht:lang=en-us) yesterday and would love to hear your feedback!</comment>


The CNET "Bombshell" and the Four Surveillance Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/16/the-cnet-bombshell-and-the-four-surveillance-programs/

<comment><USER2> Yes...

Anyone think it's unfair that the government (or tech companies) has trouble refuting any accusation, up to and including of full and complete surveillance of every bit of data concerning US citizens? Anyone think it's unfortunate and unjournalistic that in this atmosphere such accusations will come up repeatedly?

Until the government makes it legal to know what it does and does _NOT_ do, any accusation of such things will seem plausible and any denial of such things will seem implausible. That's what happens when you have laws that effectively start, "first off, this gives people the obligation to lie about what the government is doing..."

That has destroyed the credibility of any defender of the US government.

Secret law and laws of secrecy are coming home to roost.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's "unfair" at all to the government. They're the ones who insist on secret courts and fight any attempt to make information public.

Tech companies who are actively fighting it deserve a fair amount of sympathy - Twitter, Google, sonic.net, Yahoo for the 2007/2008 case they lost, presumably others. As Marcy pointed out the CCIA (including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and others) opposed telco immunity back in 2008: [http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/09/once-upon-a-time-the- pr...](http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/09/once-upon-a-time-the-prism- companies-fought-retroactive-immunity/)

The telcos and other tech companies who are going along without fighting it tooth and nail do not (in my books) deserve any sympathy.

<comment><USER2> That is my point, yes.

The tech companies are upset and should be upset because the law has destroyed their credibility. But by that token, by that very token, nothing they can _say_ will get that back. It's really a problem because when a law direct people to lie, it produces an effect about as pernicious as anything.</comment></comment></comment>


Can you explain your research using only the ten hundred most common words? - <AUTHOR> http://authorea.com/upgoerfive <comment><USER2> I will explain one part of my work here. (This is just my story about what our trusted group does, and the other people who work on it might not agree with how I said everything.)

We give people letters from a trusted group to show that their keys are the keys that they should be. A person who gets one of these letters can put it on his or her computer. That computer can show it to other people's computers when they talk to the first computer. The other people's computers read the letters and check that the key that the computer is showing them is the same one that the letter says should be used. If so, they know they have a safe way of sending things in both directions. Then no one else can read or change those things.

Why is this needed? Because a state or another party (like the people who let your computer talk to the world) can say "I am the computer you wanted to talk to; use this key when you talk to me". Here, each key is a big number. Since a key is very hard to remember (and it's hard for a person to tell quickly by looking whether two keys are the same or not), a person couldn't know whether the key is the actual key from the real computer he or she wanted to talk to, or a made-up key from someone who wants to listen in. If you believe in the made-up key sent by such a person, you do have a "safe" way to talk, but the problem is that you're talking with the bad guy, not the real computer you meant to talk to. The bad guy could decide to talk to the real computer and show you what it says, so everything feels normal to you, but now what the real computer says isn't hidden from the bad guy, as it was supposed to be.

But, although people can make up their own keys when they want, people can't pretend to know a key that they don't actually know. And knowing what key someone wants you to use doesn't allow you to take that key for yourself. So, it's really important to have a way to know whether a key that you think you see is really used by the computer that you think it is. (Your computer can check this for you because of the letters written by trusted groups like ours. The computer will only tell you if what's in the letter doesn't match up.)

Our trusted group is different from many older ones because we don't try to make money by writing these letters. (Businesses give us money instead just because they want us to do this for everyone.)

We also have computers write all the letters without help from people, so they can do it very quickly and write a lot of them—and writing each letter is almost free for us. The computers can check for themselves whether what's in the letter (about what key to use) is right, because other computers show us that they control names and are allowed to have one of our letters. This way of doing things is not perfect because a state (or someone else) could still take away someone's computer's name because it doesn't like what that person is doing, or try to confuse us by changing things that are supposed to show who controls which name. We think we are doing things as well as other trusted groups do, though.

Our trusted group has been around for about two years and we think we have written more letters by now than any other trusted group. It makes people safer when they use computers because not as many other people have ways to know, control, or change what people are reading and writing with their computers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could somebody explain the original 8 or so equations of maxwell using only the ten hundred common words?</comment>


Ask HN: Why has no-one fixed the problem of web elements moving as things load? - <AUTHOR> This is probably my pet peeve: Going to a website and trying to read some text, or maybe clicking on a button or even just seeing elements move around on their own as things load in. I try to click on a button and have it whisked away in front of my eyes and a new unrelated action occurs...<p>Why is this still a problem? With the website community still so stringent on standards and acessability why does this still happen on such prominent sites as youtube, facebook, google search etc. Is it just because the problem is hard to solve? Or is it just that there's market research or something that determines it's better to have some elements load early even if it results in bad practise? <comment><USER2> It's a trade-off between starting to render a page and waiting for all page- elements to finish loading. And some javascript (widgets) can be delayed and keep loading more fonts or more CSS rules which require repainting. Or simply some resources load slow.

Keywords are 'repaint' or 'reflow'.

[https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/browser- re...](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/browser-reflow)

<comment><AUTHOR> And yet, the worlds biggest sites have this problem constantly? Why?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Relationships/Side projects balance tips? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN !
I am in the middle of moving in to live with the GF after 1 year of seeing each other. Things are doing great (Or maybe I am just hypnotized).
The lonely me thinks it will be a great situation. We'll get to go see places. Do stuff together. Explore the world. It's all I have ever wished for; spend time with someone I deeply love.
But the Hacker me thinks it's gonna take his breath away. The Hacker me enjoys the silent evenings. The Hacker me have learned to enjoy being alone. The Hacker me keeps asking himself: "how am I gonna get in the zone ?" "How am I gonna get stuff done ?", etc.
So I figured out lot of people here are for sure successful in their relationships; are happy parents or darn good lovers, all while their github profile is full of activity. New articles always showing in their blogs, etc.
So do you guys have a secret ? Like, how do manage to get in the zone all while not making your significant other feel ignored ?
How do you manage to do it ?
Thanks in advance for your answer. <comment><USER2> You'll still need/want some alone time, each to yourselves. Sometimes it comes naturally due to schedules. For example, before we had our little guy, my wife was a teacher. So she'd go to bed at 10 or so, and I'd work on stuff from 10-midnight.

I'd talk to your significant other and be honest with each other.

</comment><comment><USER3> Talk to your GF about it. The best part of living with someone, is you don't have to give them your attention every second you're together. If you need time to spend on your interests, surely she does too?

Try to schedule some guilt free time so each of you can do something you enjoy. Just make sure you respect that schedule that you've agreed to, otherwise you'll find yourself with all the free time in the world and no one to share it with.

</comment><comment><USER4> Communication. Communication. Constructive Communication! Best advice for relationship! Talk to your girlfriend about your concern.

</comment><comment><USER5> Set some time that you are working on your own thing. That might mean staying up 2-3 hours after your mate has went to bed. See if you get get up 2-3 hours before her. Use the "real" time for real life stuff. Work around it. I've done it for years and launched several successful products while maintaining a happy life of a husband and father of 2.

</comment><comment><USER6> Guess what? The hacker you and the you that love your GF are the same person.</comment>


Intro to K, by Arthur Whitney - <AUTHOR> http://www.vector.org.uk/archive/v101/whitney101_74.htm <comment><USER2> K is an interesting little language; it is used pretty heavily in some circles on Wall Street. Most use k in the context of kdb, an in-memory vector-/column- oriented database.

Arthur has designed several similar languages, and from what I can tell 'q' (his newest) has superseded 'k'. Much like k was used to program applications in kdb, q is used to program applications in kdb+.

You can download a trial version of kdb+ to play with q... I don't believe you can get kdb/k anymore.

Here is their publicly accessible sample code, which is useful for getting a feel for what k and q are like:

<http://code.kx.com/>

Worth checking out if you need to do timeseries analysis of large tick databases or the like... I know of at least one vendor (to remain nameless) that used it as the datastore behind their webapp with mixed results. It's very easy to develop with and great for certain applications -- but it's a little bit lacking in documentation (to be generous) and there's not a large developer community.

Just my 2 cents...

<comment><USER3> From the q) console, type backslash-enter, and you'll be at the k console.

q is just a very simple syntactic sugar layer on top of k4.

<comment><USER2> did not know that... so k code is executable within q? is k4 significantly different from k3?

<comment><USER4> Yes, you can easily switch between K and Q (and call functions defined in either language from the other [side of the same coin]).

K4 is a significantly more powerful language (tables are a first-class data type). Stevan Apter summarized the differences here:

[http://groups.google.com/group/personal- kdbplus/msg/f18fb3a8...](http://groups.google.com/group/personal- kdbplus/msg/f18fb3a8f69fc875)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used K in an internship in college (DB stuff for a data company whose clients were mostly financial companies). The learning curve was really steep, but once you can parse it, it's incredibly fast to program in, incredibly fast to execute, and generally awesome.

We had a vague guideline at work that if any algorithm took you more than 3 lines, you were doing it wrong.

Legend has it that Arthur Whitney wrote the compiler in a few files - a.c, b.c, c.c, up to around q.c, with each file being exactly 52 lines and 80 columns so they could all fit on one page.

See "no stinking loops" at <http://www.nsl.com/> which has some great examples of really good K code (scroll down a bit).

</comment><comment><USER6> you can also get a+, also by arthur, when he was at morgan stanley. thankfully, I never had to use it.

<http://aplusdev.org/>

I still have nightmares in which the error "kaplgallant not found" flashes in console window the lower right. My workstation did that every few minutes for the entire time I worked there -- five years.

<comment><AUTHOR> You were missing the A+ font. You couldn't get it or turn the warning off?

The A+ source looks like Arthur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks interesting, but it sounds crazy expensive and very proprietary, though I could be wrong about the expensive part. I do really like the vector/scalar manipulation syntax, but this project is crying out for an open source alternative - anyone game?

Wikipedia has more on K and KDB+: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)>

<comment><AUTHOR> J (<http://jsoftware.com/>) is also an option. It's not open source, either, but older versions of the source are available (j7, IIRC), and there isn't a restriction on commercial use.

I'm still trying to figure out the APL language family. I'd love to implement one, eventually, but it's a ways off. (I've done a toy interpreter already, but that was just to make sense of some basics.)

<comment><USER2> For anyone not familiar with the APL family of languages, prepare to have your mind blown:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4>

Terse, cryptic, powerful. It's like doing magic tricks with code. (Not that that's a recipe for maintainable software, but that's an entirely different debate.)

There's also (meant to mention this before) A+, which is GPL, I believe:

<http://www.aplusdev.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I spent most of a Saturday morning picking apart the prototype J interpreter (<http://www.nsl.com/papers/origins.htm>) with GDB, which convinced me there was _something deep_ there.

I've read most of _J for C Programmers_, and, this week, I also got _APL: An Interactive Approach_. The mindset is starting to make a lot of sense. (I've also looked at A+, but I'd rather stick to the ASCII variants.)

<comment><USER4> A+ has an ASCII mode, activate w/:

      $mode ascii

For a mapping between ASCII tokens and APL glyphs, see:

\- <http://www.vector.org.uk/aflat/tutor/index.htm>

\- <http://www.aplusdev.org/APlusRefV2_15.html#HEADING349>

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thanks. I will give A+ another look.

Having read more about APL, though, I'm feeling less inclined to write off the extended character setup. Still, it's an issue one needs to sort out upfront. I guess it's the APL equivalent of bitching about parenthesis, when either is a shallow detail compared to what's _really_ novel about the languages.

Many languages seem to have shibboleth complaints, to show when people haven't made it past the surface - Lua indexes from 1, Lisp has the parens, Python has the whitespace, etc. Maybe there's a community value in that, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've always been a fan of array-based programming languages, but I feel like that most popular ones (J, K) are needlessly unreadable. I discovered Nial a while ago while researching array-based programming languages and found that it was pretty much what I wanted.

I will try to give you an extremely brief introduction here, but you should really download it from their page (<http://www.nial.com/>) which has a great implementation guide, as well as manuals in their documentation ZIP package.

      > p :+ 1.5 1.6
      > q := 3 4
      > p * q
      4.5 6.4
      > * p q
      4.5 6.4
      > + * p q
      10.9

There exists several forms for writing vectors/lists in Nial:

      s := 3
      v := (3 4)
      m := [2 3 4, 5 6 7]

      > + v
      7
      > + m
      10 18 28
      > each + m
      9 18

In the K tutorial they have psuedo-code which looks like Nial code.

      > v + v
      6 8
      > v eachleft < v
      [false true, false false]
      > v eachright < v
      [false false, true false]

Keep in mind, I am lieing here. true is actually represented as 'l' and false is represented by 'o'. Strange, but it works.

      > v * m
      [6 9 12, 20 24 28]
      > + * v m
      26 33 40

Function currying is done on the left side.

      (2 *) m
      [4 6 8, 10 12 14]

Given a list of cashflows c that come at corresponding times t with a prevailing discount rate d, then ...

      > c := 0.1 0.1 1.1
      > t := 1 2 3
      > pv is op c t d { + * c (d power t) }
      > pv c t 0.9
      0.9729

I don't really follow the last example, and it doesn't translate to Nial because Nial requires the shapes to match up. So giving an array of 4 to PV doesn't work. If they keep it to an array of 3 it does.

      > pv c t (1 0.9 .81)
      .765585
      > pv c t (0.9 .81 .729)
      0.581773

This gets a different answer from what they show though. Shrug.

Nial also has indexing primitives like k.

      > t
      1 2 3
      > t@1
      2
      > m
      [2 3 4, 5 6 7]
      > m@1
      5 6 7

You have to be careful how you define your variables to have indexing work right (which is frustrating). For example:

      > a := [2 3 4, 5 6 7]
      > 1 2 pick a
      ?address
      > b := 2 3 reshape 2 3 4 5 6 7
      > 1 2 pick b
      7
      > shape a
      2
      > shape b
      2 3
      > shape a@1
      3
      > b@(1 2)
      7

When defined the first way, a doesn't understand the shape of the sublists. So you have to manually touch it to see what it is. Lame.

      > a := 2 3 reshape link a
      > a
      [2 3 4, 5 6 7]

LINK forces a into a single list, and reshape changes the shape of A so the outer-most container understands what it is. '2 3 reshape A' will make a shape that is 2 3, but it wont be what you want.

      > 2 3 reshape [2 3 4, 5 6 7]
      [[2 3 4, 5 6 7, 2 3 4], [5 6 7, 2 3 4, 5 6 7]]

That said, It's likely that the implementation isn't as good/efficient as J or K, but the source code is available.

</comment><comment><USER9> A Shallow Introduction to the K Programming Language: <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/14/22741/791>

</comment><comment><USER10> J and APL resources:

<http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/Bibliography></comment>


Whose Internet History Should Be Purchased First? - <AUTHOR> https://www.searchinternethistory.com/ <comment><USER2> Buying internet history requires a seller. Even with 47 CFR 64(U) removed, nothing _compels_ selling of data. ISPs would be crazy to sell internet history of people in power to activists. They would even be crazy to make a clear marketplace.

Selling of info is going to be shady back deals invisible to consumers, not a store where you can buy the history of whatever subscriber you like.

<comment><USER3> Money talks.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly why the cable companies wont sell congressional data. Why would they shoot the goose that laid the golden egg?

<comment><USER3> Because money talks. I used to play a game when I really wanted to bargain hard on something: I'd change my money to as many notes of the lowest possible denomination, and show up with a huge stack of notes.

You're be surprised what a huge stack of notes can do. It triggers something in the recipient of said huge stack of notes. It's deeply psychological. People stop thinking when faced with a huge wad of money.

People will do anything for money, including bad longterm decisions.

<comment><USER5> ISPs are not 5 year olds.

They are not going to intentionally fuck over the congresspeople that voted for this for chump change. It's incredibly stupid to think they would.

<comment><USER3> You're incredibly stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Help me out here: where is this notion that anyone will be able to buy personally identifiable browsing data coming from? Isn't it likely to be (more) aggregated or partially anonymized data about browsing behavior and habits? I'm upset by this bill, but I've yet to find any information to suggest you could ring up AT&T and request to buy a specific person's data.

<comment><USER7> The plan seems to be to use geolocation data and ip addresses to reasonably identify individuals from within the data.

"Once the law is signed by President Trump, geolocation data along with browsing history data will again be on the market for ISPs. That means a company with dedication and resources could likely, with a reasonable degree of certainty, pinpoint Blackburn, Pai, Ryan, or anyone they seek to take down based on their browsing data and IP address alone."

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/29/this- politi...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/29/this-politician- gave-away-your-data-now-buy-hers.html)

<comment><USER8> > "Once the law is signed by President Trump, geolocation data along with > browsing history data will again be on the market for ISPs."

The law repeals protections _that are not in place yet_. Those protections were _already removed_ last year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The creator of Cards Against Humanity has vowed to do the same. [https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/846437803164684290](https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/846437803164684290)

</comment><comment><USER7> Was just thinking someone really should do this.

Hope it works. Or at the very least makes some of those politicians squirm while they wait to find out if it works.

Think I'll at least throw a few $$ at the gofundme.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would the cable companies sell the data to a group hoping to get legislation changed that they just lobbied to enact? I don't know all the details of the bill--is there anything that requires a company to sell data to the highest bidder? My limited understanding was that the bill allows them to sell, but at their own discretion, just like any other monetized data.

It seems wildly unrealistic that this will accomplish anything. I applaud the sentiment but I fear this is wasted money and energy.

<comment><USER10> The bill text: [https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/sjres34/BILLS-115sjres34e...](https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/sjres34/BILLS-115sjres34enr.xml)

All it says is that the previous FCC rule no longer has any effect.

It does not layout anything about regulations or consequences of removing those privacy protections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An unintended benefit of this law passing is moving a common practice closer to the user. Let's not forget that Google and Facebook already normalize your traffic and sell it without your consent. Now ISPs can enter that market directly and completely bypass Google and Facebook.

<comment><USER12> Don't you consent to let them use your data when you sign up for their services? You don't need to use Google and Facebook to use the Internet. You do need an ISP to use the internet.

<comment><USER11> Google will track even on non-Google products by virtue of their various media and analytics products that are prolific on many sites. No consent required. A couple of years ago they were caught collecting private home wifi traffic from their map/photo cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought the concept of purchasing history for a specific person was not possible? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13992953](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13992953)

</comment><comment><USER6> I suppose an upside of this is it affects everyone: including those who voted Republican and for Trump. We ought to make sure they understand what's happening too.

<comment><USER14> It's a peculiarly American conceit to assume that people of opposite political views lack understanding of an issue. In reality, some people lack understanding, while some understand an issue perfectly well but have a different value system. They may regard privacy as genuinely unimportant because they are authoritarians, or they may consider themselves to be qualitatively different from their political opponents and therefore wish for different treatment for themselves and for others.

<comment><USER6> Except that this is an opaque issue that the general public often does not understand. Most people probably couldn't not explain what happens when you visit a webpage, let alone what data exists around that and what can be done with it. I would also assume most Democrats don't completely understand either, but they didn't vote for the majority of people who passed this measure.

>they may consider themselves to be qualitatively different from their political opponents and therefore wish for different treatment for themselves and for others.

Of course, but what they wish and what is reality is not always the same. The will not be treated differently.

Republicans tend to be opposed to government intrusion into their lives and privacy. In this case it is not the government doing the intruding directly, but it's not a far cry. Lastly, rural Republicans usually don't have much love for giant corporations weaseling their way into their lives to begin with.

<comment><USER14> I don't mean his to be snarky but your comments strike me as naive given the daily displays of cognitive dissonance in matters political.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately I am well aware of the cognitive dissonance. Many voters might also be single issue voters as well.

I don't take it as snark, your point is very valid. And to be sure, I'm not immune from biases. That said, the issue I did take with your point is that generalized it to all issues, then applied it to me, while I am merely talking about understanding of a single issue. A rather technical issue that American voters of all parties probably don't understand in depth. Again, the reason I focused on Republican voters in my comments is because it was primarily Republican politicians who voted for this measure.

<comment><USER14> I really want to agree :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> the fact that the info is stored at all makes it possible for _someone_ to use it. in the holocaust records was used to kill people.</comment>


Make Use of Knowledge Management for Your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://startupstash.com/knowledge-management/ <comment><USER2> Interesting topic. I don't think there is a good tool on a company level for this.</comment>


Ask HN: How long is too long? - <AUTHOR> I've been in my current dev job for about 4 years, moving a C++ fat client to .NET/web (mainly .NET dev and team lead prior to that).  I'm probably the one with the most experience/knowledge of the "newer technologies" in the office, but compared to your average hacker in a startup, I'm just a beginner.
Most of what I'm learning is what I'm teaching myself, although I'm learning the odd bit about C++ from colleagues (easily my weakest area).
I live in Berlin, so the startup scene is pretty good, and the prospect of working with a bunch of "like minded" talented people really excites me. On the other hand, I'm gaining experience in web (specifically JS, angular), and I've run training sessions for the company, which I find a really good way to get a deeper understanding of a language or technology.  Being the "go-to" guy for questions & architecture certainly has a feel-good factor, even if I still feel like a beginner.
This will be my 5th year, and I'm weighing up staying on, learning-by-doing (as opposed to from colleagues) as much as I can, or trying the startup scene.
5 years feels like a limit - I don't want to stagnate, but I enjoy what I do.
How long do you consider to be too long?  i.e. if you read a CV (EDIT: resume), how long would give you a negative feeling about the candidate? <comment><USER2> Hows the local ageism in Berlin aka how much longer will you be able to work? If you soon will be unemployable anyway, then how the resume looks doesn't matter. Or perhaps you'll only have one more chance to "get it right" so maybe you should stay at a decent place. On the other hand maybe the job market is healthy and you have no such limitations. Just bringing up a dimension that was not discussed yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. I'm 35 now, but I honestly don't know what the local ageism factor is. This was also my first job in Germany (previously UK), so I've not got much to compare it too. It's a factor I previously hadn't considered, so thanks for bringing it up.

I guess a startup would be more likely to be ageist, and hence that move should be sooner rather than later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It really depends on the company. I think 5 years being a long time is very much a startup-sector mindset. It's not uncommon for good devs to stay with bigger companies 10+ years if they like the job and working conditions (pay, hours, benefits, etc.). The classic 40-year IBM tenure is maybe no longer as common, but that doesn't mean everyone has gone all the way to the other extreme of only 3-4 years per company.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best app for group messaging? - <AUTHOR> I'm taking a group of college students to Canada (from the US) and don't really want everyone to have to turn on international text and/or data. Assuming we have regular access to wifi, what's the best app for us all to communicate? <comment><USER2> Kik has pretty good group messaging

</comment><comment><USER3> Slack.

Also, there's nothing wrong with WhatsApp..</comment>


Bandsintown.com Feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.bandsintown.com
<comment><AUTHOR> What kind of features would you guys like to see in place next? (Adding friend? Commenting ability? Past Events, where you can upload photos, and media? anything else you have in mind?.......)

let us know, we are working hard but would like your input as to how to make our site as useful as it can be. thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> Firstly, very nice. Your color scheme reminds me of slashdot. I like the fact that the site is fairly usable without login. The only thing I can recommend is getting a widget out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Yeah that is def something we are working on... Hope to have that ready soon.</comment></comment>


List your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.appwharf.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Appwharf is a directory that helps you find useful apps, products and services offered by startups from all across the world. Remember whatever you need there is always an app for tha</comment>


Apply with me to YC in the next 3 days and change the world - <AUTHOR> I'm throwing a hail mary here - because desperate times call for desperate measures.
I have an awesome prototype built that brings an emerging tech to the masses and I think has a good shot at changing the world.  YC has expressed interest (got to the interview as solo applicant in the last batch but decided to defer without a co-founder).  This idea won't be fresh forever (there are others starting to look into it) so I want to move on this asap with the right team.  But there is one thing holding me back from knocking this out of the park: I have yet to find the right co-founder.
For the past year I've met with 1 or 2 people a week, either by phone or coffee, and despite some close calls that person hasn't turned up yet.  But I believe they are out there, and I'm hoping they are reading HN tonight.
Getting a "shotgun wedding" is really not ideal, but if you are the the right person then I don't care how we meet.  I'm going to improve my chances of finding you any way I can.
So what is the idea?
Credit card fees are too high.  In the next five years merchants are going to start moving away from paying 2.5% plus 30 cents per transaction when fast secure alternatives become available.  They're going to (at first) offer them at checkout alongside traditional credit card options, and then eventually start incentivising consumers to make the switch.  If Amazon has a 5% margin on a $100 text book they aren't going to give $2.00 of their $5 to Visa/MC forever.
The same thing is going to happen in mobile.  Your phone is going to become your wallet, and I don't think 30 year old credit card technology is going to be powering this new ewallet when someone goes to buy a cup of coffee in 10 years.  All solutions today are carrying along the legacy baggage of credit cards.
So what will this solution be?  It's going to be a digital currency, like bitcoin or some derivative of it, running in the cloud with a solid api to build an ecosystem around it.  It's going to spring up organically in developing countries first I think, or places without stable currencies.  If you think bitcoin sucks, this isn't really the right place to get into a flame war on it.  I'm making a long term bet here and when it's more clear in five years or things have evolved it will be too late to jump on this, so whoever is going to win this needs to start now.  Digital currencies show some early promise but are way too difficult to use for normal people (or are proprietary and controlled by one company like facebook credits).  To me this is an opportunity, and I'm in a position to start laying the groundwork for this new platform.
Here are some screenshots of the prototype: http://imgur.com/a/KSKOt  It has basic send/receive functionality but is still super early stage.
In a few words, this is paypal for bitcoin.  The killer app will be in disrupting transaction fees that are a tax on every transaction in our economy.
Who do I want to meet?
You must be technical, have a passion for this space, and have insane work ethic.  This is going to be super fucking hard, but the payoff is that we have a non-zero chance of really changing the world in big way.  This isn't another photo sharing app.  Let me just stress again that you must be a deeply technical builder (I am one too).  There is no room for idea people at this stage.  I'm happy to share more of my background if we get in touch. (Edit: I added some of my background below).
If interested please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com And include (1) something awesome you've built (2) why you would be right for this and (3) a phone number and how late I can call you.
Even if you aren't the right person, please upvote this and help us meet.  This post could literally form a company in the next three days. <comment><USER3> What dmix said. Why are you using a throwaway account?

A co-founder relationship is very important, and my willingness to join you on this venture has less to do with your idea and more to do with _you_. Specifically:

\- Who are you, and what have you done?

\- What is your professional and personal experience, and what does it bring to the table in a general sense of running a startup, and in a specific sense, this idea of yours.

\- Why you? I need to be able to trust my co-founder pretty much absolutely and unquestionably. What is your character and who can vouch for it?

Funnily enough, your idea and the fact that you have a prototype is a fairly minor signal compared to the above.

<comment><USER4> The irony is he's using a throwaway even though his identity is not concealed. If you visit the website address in the screenshots, click "help" and then take the name listed and google it you have a full profile on the guy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but there are a few basic principles I follow:

1) When people are making money off of something, they protect that method of making money, and evolve if necessary.

2) There are intricacies to our currency that might not seem immediately obvious. People depend on the discreet nature of physical currency - <USER2> controls the entire world of corruption (a lot of movies like to use diamonds as black market currency, but in reality its too difficult to rule out man- made diamonds these days, or to quickly evaluate the worth of a lot of diamonds). Corruption does not occur solely among gangsters, but all manner of people - from the most prolific bankers to the most "reputable" politicians. Digital currency can too easily be traced.

3) The government has made little effort to create its own digital currency, despite the fact that it would save tax payers billions, negating the need for the IRS, Mint, and reduce the need for the FBI and Secret Service (which monitors counterfeiting among other things)...and the corruption associated with physical currency. You might encounter more red tape and inertia than you anticipate -- if not now then when Visa lobbies its favorite candidate to create laws that work against you.

4) Third world countries are not a great target for digital currency IMHO, unless they have prevalent technology and understanding of it.

<comment><USER6> Without commenting on your first 3 points, I'd argue that a 3rd world country could potentially be an excellent place to gain mass adoption.

In the U.S. we have credit cards and fixed addresses to mail bills. There's probably a billion people who don't have this. There is absolutely an opportunity in 3rd world countries to leapfrog credit card systems, which for a variety of reasons don't work in these environments.

There's a mobile phone currency company in Kenya called MPesa which is currently processing 20% of the countries GDP! There's simply no way you could get that adoption in the U.S. that fast, since you'd have to displace VISA, Mastercard, and debit cards...no easy feat.

So OP is working on a hard problem, but its doable.

<comment><USER5> That is (genuinely) a great point, but I would ask what this mobile currency is based on - the country's currency? Is it mined like bitcoin? Processing payments via mobile phone bills is a different beast than creating a new currency, IMHO...but then again, maybe I am not understanding these companies correctly. :)

<comment><USER7> you may not have heard of m-pesa - which arose out of people being able to transfer mobile minutes and then became a fully fledge mobile currency in it's own right.. as xtrumanx says (below) m-pesa is huge. you might also note that this has already happened ;-)

<comment><USER8> That is very interesting. Is there some way I can start developing apps for the M-Pesa ecosystem? Mind pointing me in the right direction? :)

<comment><USER7> sure is (interesting). unfortunately I don't know enough about it beyond just suggesting you google m-pesa and go from there.. ;_)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know the OP and he's the "real deal." Hard-working, friendly, insightful, and smart. I'd definitely start a company with him if I hadn't already started one last year. So if you've been thinking about starting a startup but don't have a co-founder, shoot him an e-mail!

<comment><USER10> +1 He definitely is the "real deal". Known this guy for years and he is all of the above + healthy and hearty. Much startup experience and independent projects. Working with him on this would be a true adventure for those who have the privilege.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not currently looking to join a startup. But if I was I would rather have 5 paragraphs about who _you_ are, why you are the right person for this problem and what you bring to the table... with 1-2 paragraphs about the idea. Team = more important than ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a good point - I was trying to stay semi-anonymous.

For now I'll just say, I've built one startup previously to profitability and 20k users. Have also worked at 2 YC companies, one as employee #2 and the other in a role that is relevant to this idea. I have a masters in CS and studied economics undergrad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree that credit cards are going to be displaced, but what is the rationale that the solution requires its own currency? Most transactions are very much within national (or European) boundaries.

I think companies like Venmo, Dwolla and Square (or even PayPal) are well- positioned to becoming credit card alternatives.

So: why Bitcoin/a separate currency?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Dwolla is a valid approach that is better in the short term (doesn't ask people to change as much) but is not as good in the long term. They are built on ACH which still takes 1-3 business days. The way I think of it is Credit card = fast and expensive, ACH = slow and cheap, digital currency = fast and cheap. So it's the speed of credit card at the price of ach. Also, ACH doesn't work internationally well so there is an opportunity there (Western Union, etc).

<comment><USER12> Sure, but look at the way Venmo/Square are approaching this problem.

Venmo: You have a venmo balance. Initially, money is brought in from a CC, but they just moved to Bank Accounts. Payments are fast because it's just venmo balance --> venmo balance most of the time.

Square: They control apps on the merchant (register, square) and the client (card case, now pay with square), rendering a physical credit card useless. At some point they connect to your bank account as well (or open their own bank).

I think having a niche currency is just another barrier to success. Not saying that you shouldn't proceed with this opportunity, but you're far from the only player in the space who realizes the magnitude of the opportunity and sees what the future looks like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What dmix & potatolicious said, plus:

\- The killer app in this space is whether you have an answer to "Why can a startup displace the incumbents?" and "How are you going to get people using this?" The answer to the second must be understandable by my dry cleaner, who would not trust bitcoin even if it were issued by the US Treasury. The prototype at this stage is probably about as useful as PayPal's first prototype (which was for a different idea, IIRC). Edit: not hating on Bitcoin, just pointing out that success here will derive in part from expanding its use beyond the core early adopters.

\- Work on your writing & proofing. It may seem petty, but you're aiming big so this stuff matters. People (cofounders included) will pay attention to sloppy writing at this stage, using it as a proxy for information they don't yet have about you. Plus, when my cofounder emails senior people at major banks, will I feel compelled to rewrite the emails? Temp accounts plus poor writing => no response.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

<comment><USER14> On that second item, writing & proofing: it might help to use a word-processor that includes a grammar-checker. Spell-check alone is not sufficient to catch things like

"It's killer app will be in" => should be "Its"

"Their going to (at first) offer them" => should be "They're"

"along side" => should be "alongside"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Conceptually, I believe Bitcoins, or some derivative of them, will change the world. However, after writing a 25 page report on the legality of Bitcoins, I'm convinced the US government will view them as "domestic terrorism."

Yes, you read that correctly.

There are laws that state that anything that can be used to facilitate money laundering OR threaten the US economy is illegal.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm one of the most active Bitcoin fans I know, I think the concept is unbelievable. I just wanted you to know that there might be some additional legal barriers as you can gain traction.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you link to the paper? Happy to read it. My thoughts/plan in general though: basically do what facebook credits did. Get licensed as a money transmitter, collect info on all users to comply with AML and know your customer laws. It's a pain, and expensive but doable and there is precedent for it (Paypal blazed this trail as well). Then there will be a PR battle where you win hearts and minds by highlighting the benefit to small business owners.

<comment><USER15> Bitcoin Paper:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/86764784/Diepenbrock- BitcoinReport...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/86764784/Diepenbrock- BitcoinReport2011)

Due note that the paper was written in April of 2011. However, this shouldn't change any aspects of the legal analysis.

If you have any more questions, or just want to talk, let me know!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think you've properly thought this through. Many people have, and there's a reason we still have the system we have today:

How do you handle chargebacks? What about fraud? If you don't properly protect your users, you're not really providing a good service, and you need to make the rules incredibly clear for your merchants, they aren't going to work with you.

How are merchants supposed to respond to the volatility of bitcoin? For a currency that sees semi-wild (compared to standard FOREX) swings in value, they could be waffling between the red and the black on a daily basis. There's no value in holding bitcoins when there are better currencies out there.

Where do you make money? Transactionally? On a flat-fee basis? In loaning out the cash? The problem with banking is that the fractional reserve system has created a risk environment such that you can't make money unless you're leveraging your reserves for lending, and that's an incredibly complex system on its own. The big banks make money because they are vastly huge. How would you move into that scene? Is the intent to be acquired? How do you leverage startup inertia to compete against a company doing hundreds or thousands of times the volume in a day than you'd hope to see in a month?

Just a few questions. Many people have given this particular problem a lot of thought, and none of them have been able to make it work as of yet.

<comment><USER17> Sometimes thinking this much about why not to do something keeps you away accomplishing things in life. I am sure when Amazon started in 1994, if they had to worry about all the problems associating with selling things online, they wouldn't start. If Google had to worry about how to make money from a search engine in beginning, they wouldn't be here. Assume that problem you going to face in future will have solutions and just start your idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Paypal had enormous problems with fraud that almost killed them (and did kill their competitors).

I think Bitcoin is awesome, but it offers users no protection - it's more of a cash replacement than a credit card replacement. This is something that might end up being difficult to handle (something to make sure users will understand).

</comment><comment><USER19> I like the idea, mainly because its such a big domain and a hard problem. I don't feel however that you should find a cofounder this way. Since this is such a tough domain to begin with, meeting someone and then starting a business together within days is setting yourself up for failure. The idea of changing the world is cool, and may be able to bind people together for the immediate short term, but what happens when you hit the really bad lows in the startup? You haven't known each other for very long, and may split. That being said, I'm sure you have already thought about that, and are ready for that risk. If you are, then god speed and I really do hope you can change the world.

</comment><comment><USER20> IMO You're better off applying on your own and stating your intention to find a cofounder.

YC does occasionally accept sole-founders who plan to find someone else, as far as I know (I may be wrong) they've never accepted a team which was put together by strangers for the purpose of YC.

YC places a huge emphasis on team (over everything else in the application) and team dynamics play an important part in that. They need to know the team won't fall apart when under pressure as that's one of the main reasons startups fail. If you pair up with someone you've never worked with, then neither you or YC have any indication how the team dynamics will work.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why are you trying to recruit someone just like you (technical)? You might want to consider looking for someone more on the business dev side, or someone with mad banking knowledge/security chops.

One thing people sometimes don't realize about financial services apps is it is not just the quality of the app that matters, it's how they deal with fraud (chargebacks). This alone destroy most early starters. PayPal succeeded where others failed because they started out trying to solve the problem of online fraud and then pivoted to become an e-wallet.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't think alternative currencies have a long-term future. The only reason they exist now is because people and governments in most countries are quite ignorant about technology. Once they become more widely used, they will start causing a whole lot of problems* and will be banned by governments.

The real solutions, in my opinion, _have_ to use real currencies or they will face a severe risk of death by regulation.

* Use for illegal activities.

* Problems with controlling capital flow across national borders.

* Problems with estimating money supply in an economic system etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a precedent for doing it legally, Paypal, Facebook Credits, etc are all digital currencies. They do it by getting licensed as a money transmitter and complying with all AML and know your customer laws. It's an expensive and long process but people are able to do it. Not sure I fully understand the last two bullets. In general I think you're right that this startup will have larger legal challenges/costs than most but building something that is 100% above board and shows you're making a good faith effort to comply/do the right thing buys you a lot of good will. You want to be YouTube, not MegaUpload.

<comment><USER22> Paypal is more of a wallet service that works with real currency. Even then it's quite heavily regulated in India, where I live. I'm not sure about other developing nations. FB credits have extremely limited use as far as I know, so it's not much of a threat. Another non state-issued currency is food coupons (like sodexo). As long as the new currency cannot be universally used, it's of no concern to the authorities.

You cannot, for example, pay some shady person for a handgun with FB credits or food coupons. From what I can tell, your currency will make that possible. If this transaction happens with a regular bank account (through creditcard or bank transfer), the bank will be able to point the police to the person involved. Will you also be able to do this? The price for reliably collecting, holding, updating such information is quite high.

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure that storing an audit of your transactions is a legal requirement for any financial services company. It's a compliance no-brainer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this just boil down to writing a bitcoin client web app (and/or mobile app)? So you are betting the house on bitcoin becoming popular.

</comment><comment><USER25> I agree with potatolicious and dmix. Also, what's the difference between "Bitbank", Paypal, Stripe, etc. What makes this idea unique?

<comment><AUTHOR> Paypal, Stripe, Square etc all use credit cards which cost 2.x% plus 30 cents. Bitbank uses a digital currency with low or no fees. It's more competing with Visa/Mastercard than with Paypal, Stripe, etc. Those companies could become partners actually if they decided to support it as another payment method.

<comment><USER26> But from my POV (consumer), I get a 30 day float (assuming I pay my bills on time). Whats in it for me to not use a credit card?

<comment><USER27> You know how some people pay with credit card simply to get the airline miles or 1% cash back?

Who pays that? The merchant. (Well, the merchant adds it to the price that everyone pays, but I digress).

Now given the option. Pay $100 with your credit card or pay $98 if paying with bitcoin, which are you going to choose.

Stripe and PayPal both are at 2.99% + $0.30, Square is at a flat 2.75%. So giving the customer the 2% discount for paying with bitcoin still yields the merchant more than had the customer paid with a credit or (signature-based) debit card transaction.

<comment><USER26> But, almost no one seems to offer a discount for cash - which they pay 0% on and they don't have to wait to collect from the credit card companies.

There are so many of these alternative payments systems available nowadays, but none seem to really offer any benefits (or protection or increased warranties) to me over a credit card to change my personal purchasing behavior.

<comment><USER27> Merchants incur expenses dealing with cash as well, so accepting $0.98 worth of bitcoin might be equivalent to accepting $1.00 in cash and coin after the hassle of dealing with cash in factored in.

It will be some time before we see bitcoin used at retail, point of sale. But it really solves problems for online purchases -- for the merchant. And maybe that's where the the sweet spot is. If you want what the merchant sells and the merchant wants bitcoin (for the reasons you state -- protection from fraudulent customer chargebacks), you won't be given the opportunity to use your credit card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm gonna call it right now: bad idea. It's not about efficiency, it's about convenience. Plus, what makes you think you math is right? Square only takes 2.75%, and also Amazon is a high-volume, low-margin exception. The long tail is low-volume high-margin, and I doubt you will convince people to radically change payment systems for a lousy 3% savings.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a friend of mine who would be a good fit. He is working on a product in the exact same space as you and he has a EU license to act as a payment provider. He's also the kind of person who wants to change the world.

Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I will introduce you to him.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would also suggest not to make it sound like a job interview. At the moment you have an idea and not much else. If you want to find a cofounder then you need to be the one showing people why they should choose to go with you not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER30> Transferring bitcoin funds is already easy with the GUI. Sure a wrapper around it might make it slightly more user friendly but it's trivially easy to implement. Not to mention the fact that Bitcoin is illegal in most developed countries.

<comment><USER27> It is? How so would that be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Although I'm only slightly interested (don't really have too good of a work ethic :)), I think this is a really interesting space that has plenty of room for innovation. Hope you kill it!

</comment><comment><USER32> Boy. This is the 60000 dollar question isn't it? Who wants to be my partner? Good luck. I really hope you find them. Taking on the credit card industry is going to be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER33> Not fond of the idea and I just did not get inspired nor saw its potential.

For next batch, I applied as lone founder with no-idea, if you did not get in, seems like I might have similar fate.

</comment><comment><USER7> a little unfair to tack this response on to this particular post, but it reminds me (again) how much time people spend on the outward appearance of apps around alternative currency without addressing the part that's actually hard.. how do you give an alternative currency real value?

<comment><USER34> >how do you give an alternative currency real value?

I'd start by looking at how they implemented the Real in Brazil. They managed to convince an entire country to trust and use an, at the time, completely fictitious currency. There's an excellent article about it, which unfortunately I can't find.

The trick was to get people to start thinking of prices in terms of Reals, while continuing to use the original currency. If you can accomplish that, you've given your currency value.

<comment><USER35> _There's an excellent article about it, which unfortunately I can't find._

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how- fake...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money- saved-brazil)

HN Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1757716>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Did you invest in Bitcoin when it was $21, and want to bring that price back up?

</comment><comment><USER37> I love all the "aren't the current players going to win this war" posts. That's a HUGE advantage for you: everybody is going to underestimate you and your possible impact.... until it's too late. This isn't a sure bet, not by a long shot, but it's got a good chance of being something as impactful as Square has the potential to be, and that's a big fucking deal y'all.

</comment><comment><USER38> Because bitcoin worked out so well. Have fun with that, dude.

<comment><USER39> There are many hard startup problems (autonomous robotics, craigslist competitors) which have had people crash upon the rocks in pursuit them. Does that automatically make them stupid to try? Bitcoin's failures don't mean all non-state issued digital currencies will fail.

<comment><USER24> Yes but he's actually using bitcoin, not trying to come up with another digital currency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> No thanks. I'd rather sell sugared water.</comment>


Data Breach Reveals 100k IEEE.org Members' Plaintext Passwords - <AUTHOR> http://ieeelog.com/ <comment><USER2> I understand that many organizations, even fairly large/respected organizations like the ieee work on a limited "IT" budget, but we've reached the point in our society where it's reasonable to expect these guys to do the bare minimum.

Just like everyone working in a restaurant needs to know the basics of food handling in order to avoid getting people sick, everyone who's operating a website with logins has a responsibility to:

a) Not send passwords over http b) Not send passwords via GET (which is typically logged) c) Hash their passwords

Anything less, and you're putting the public in danger.

<comment><USER3> OK, please educate me. (Take me as a model web developer.)

I occasionally quickly hack some stuff together in php/javascript/html. I never figured out what should I do exactly to actually set up Apache to work with https, without needing to pay some money to some authorities.

I just have a simple LAMP server and I don't really understand Apache. How do I make it "https"?

<comment><USER4> And, upon re-reading my other answer and noticing it came out far snarkier on screen than it did in my head… Sorry 'bout that…

<http://www.startssl.com/> will give you a free SSL cert.

They've got a "How to install" section that specifically deals with Apache (and another one which deals with WHM/cPanel if you're using that for your LAMP management).

It's less than an afternoon's work to get up to speed.

Note that you'll need a dedicated ip address (or you might settle for a server running new enough versions of Apache to use SNI - <http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/NameBasedSSLVHostsWithSNI> \- but that'll still not work for IE6 and very old versions of other browsers - pre 2.0 for Firefox)

<comment><USER5> For the sake of completion:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#No_suppo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#No_support)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The browser data graph is actually quite interesting. I'm guessing that the slight windows where Firefox edges out Chrome for the top spot corresponds to European users waking up a few hours before North American users.

And of course, we now have evidence that educated users practice superior computer security; compare "1234" (the most popular password among the general populace) to "123456" (the most popular password among IEEE members). That's at least 50% more secure!

</comment><comment><USER7> What concerns me is that I have to renew my IEEE membership very soon, and if they have the wrong logging enabled how can I be assured that they aren't logging me CC details? I've seen it happen in one of my client's production systems, but at least they never put the log files up on a public FTP site.

I checked the ieee.org website and nothing about this has been mentioned yet. Not even a "We're investigating the allegation" snippet of news.

<comment><USER8> If they're taking credit card information, they have to be PCI compliant. An auditor should notice pretty quickly if they're logging CC transactions. Not to say it can't happen and you're absolutely right to be suspicious, but if they are there will be repercussions.

<comment><USER9> If they don't do the processing themselves, they can fill out the self questionaire, which basically amounts to "pay the damn application fee already".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone else said, why are there passwords in the logs? If these were submitted via POST (multipart), they would not be visible, right?

Then there's the issue of permissions. That's how these logs were visible. Why can't we scrap this idea of permissions? Plan 9 did it. The shared computing era ended long, long ago. If permissions are too error-prone for even the admin at IEEE to get right, how can users ever be expected to master permissions? They're not even being used for their original purpose - use on systems that were intended to be shared. Instead they're being used on systems that are not supposed to be shared with anyone. Think about this. Why do you need to have permissions on a system that is _not meant to be shared_? Who would introduce that into the design? It is a (poorly) repurposed relic.

As for plain text passwords, unless I read this wrong, the passwords were gleaned from server logs not a password database. It seems that people want to discuss "storing plaintext passwords" even though that had nothing to do with this incident.

How many commenters actually read the article?

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry, but the entire purpose of the ieeelog site is to document this breach? Fine...I guess? It just kind of threw me off...I thought it was somehow connected to IEEE-proper, as if it were the dev blog for IEEE.

</comment><comment><USER12> "For a few days I was uncertain what to do with the information and the data."

what? how is telling the ieee not completely the right thing to do, as soon as possible?

(this is the source - <http://www.dragusin.ro/>; seems like an academic rather than a hacker. still, that seems like an odd thing to be uncertain about).

<comment><USER8> People have been threatened with legal action for discovering vulnerabilities before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is without doubt terrible, we all know that. But it is not uncommon that web services leak passwords, so common that we are quite accustomed to it and expect it to happen from time to time.

This is not the right way to deal with the problem.

Authentication security for cloud services should be something that sits in the browser, not (only) on the server. This is done by 2factor auth, but that too relies too much on the server admin being good with security.

Maybe one solution would be that the router everyone has at home doubles as file server, and that all webapps files are stored there instead on the remote server? That would move the responsibility away from web devs (who often behave irresponsibly) to the ones writing the os for the router.

There are of course many ideas that are better than mine, but to let web devs have control of this is evidently not a good one. Something needs to change.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think it's time for web browsers to step up and start showing a visual indication for websites that store passwords in plaintext.

<comment><USER15> How would a browser ever know this?

<comment><USER16> Probably the same way they know which sites are likely to contain malware or be involved in phishing scams: user reports.

<comment><USER17> Yep. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555083>

I.E. is actually the best at stopping social engineering attacks on your average consumer because of their SmartScreen technology, which relies completely on feedback from the community, both automatic and manual. No reason to downvote this or the original comment IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice to see computer professionals practice what they preach, both in terms of writing systems that don't store plaintext passwords and using passwords that don't suck.'

</sarcasm>

<comment><USER19> The most common password in a giant list of passwords is going to suck sort of by definition.

<comment><USER18> Actually, you're right: only 1% using (1234...) ain't half bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> OT, but why in God's name do some people/countries feel it appropriate to use periods rather than commas as a thousands separator?

Do these people just _want_ to cause industrial disasters, medical errors, zombie uprisings, and lost planetary probes?

<comment><USER21> Maybe those people/countries think the same about people using the comma as a thousands separator instead of a decimal?

<comment><USER20> The trouble is, the period already means something very different. This has been the case since at least the 15th century. ( [http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2298362?uid=3739960...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2298362?uid=3739960&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101250798947) )

Overloading the dot/point symbol as a place-value separator was just insanely goofy. This isn't like the Imperial versus metric system. There are reasons to scrap the Imperial system, but there was no reason to introduce a second notational convention for decimals, especially in a way that seems engineered to mislead and confuse people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For an organization like IEEE that pushes for professional codes of ethics & quality, certification, etc., it is remarkable how derelict they are in providing even basic security for their users' passwords.

</comment><comment><USER23> Properly hashing/salting passwords on the client (in JavaScript) is more or less a must now.

Client-side encryption is the next logical step. Although not perfect, it is better than storing plaintext data on the server.

<comment><USER24> It's a horrible solution. Just store them hashed on the server end, and make a secure connection. I would argue that more browsers support SSL than JavaScript...

<comment><USER25> Agreed. I see three possibilities:

1\. The server is non-malicious and competently written. The passwords are correctly hashed with something like bcrypt or scrypt. (This is super-easy, so server programmers have no excuse for not doing this.) Browser-side hashing has no advantage.

2\. The server is non-malicious, but incompetently written, e.g. they store plaintext passwords or some crap like that. Hashing passwords in javascript would help, but it's not as good as fixing the server, and almost certainly a lot harder.

3\. The server is malicious. In which case it can serve up malicious javascript, so you're just as screwed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Its probably not a great idea admitting to downloading all that data.

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone have the file?

<comment><USER27> I'd be interested in it too.

But the Robert Morris worm wreaked devastation with a 350 word dictionary (and some mangling). And it don't think passwords have changed that much since the late 80s.

(<http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2012/papers/4681a538.pdf>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is that this esteemed organization of technical people doesn't know how to md5 passwords before storing them in the database?

<comment><USER29> Because it's not that important. In most cases what someone could do with my account is to view articles I have paid for, either piecemeal or as a subscription. It's much more in _their_ interest than _my_ interest to keep that private.

They've sent me my cleartext password several times before I finally wrote it down in a place I could keep it safe, and I was always thankful.

Also, the default password is something very simple per account. I don't want to go into any more detail on that.

<comment><USER30> > Because it's not that important.

yes, it very much is.

> In most cases what someone could do with my account is to view articles I > have paid for

That's not the problem with leaking plaintext accounts. If the user database is compromised, you can safely assume all of the site is and the site's data is leaked as well (or would be if anyone gave a fuck).

The problem of cleatext (or easy to reverse) password databases is twofold:

1\. Most users reuse the same password again and again and again. Having their password leaked on site 1 means all of their accounts are now wide open to whoever got the passwords.

2\. _Even_ if only the passwords themselves are leaked, this provides a huge dataset of effective, real-world password. This is a treasure trove of human behaviors and enables the improvement of brute-forcing mutators. In fact, one of the most substantial and important events in modern hacking history was the RockYou password leak.

<comment><USER31> "Most users reuse the same password again and again and again. Having their password leaked"

Yes it is generally accepted that many users reuse the same password on different sites. But that is a separate issue and really has nothing to do with what has happened here or why proper security should _obviously_ be followed. Not disagreeing with that.

But I disagree with the fact that since the user does the wrong thing many times, it is the responsibility of the site operator to assume that in the building of their product (in the way this issue is being discussed). If it is, where are all the warnings on any site saying "make sure not to give us a password you use anywhere else". (I've rarely seen any warning like that, have you?)

Of course this is all a matter of degree. There are many cases where you have to prevent users from their folly. True. My question is simply while there are many ways that sites try to enforce correct password behavior, I've yet to see (meaning if it exists I haven't really noticed it whereas I've notice other password thoughts) one that informs people to make sure the password they use is unique to their site AND the other typical restrictions (length, mixed case etc.)

<comment><USER30> > Yes it is generally accepted that many users reuse the same password on > different sites. But that is a separate issue

No. That's the one and whole reason why you're supposed to one-way encrypt passwords with a suitable hash: protecting the shared secret.

> But I disagree

So what?

> If it is, where are all the warnings on any site saying "make sure not to > give us a password you use anywhere else". (I've rarely seen any warning > like that, have you?)

Yes, I have. These warnings don't actually add to anything as they're not followed, and impossible to get followed without making the system so cumbersome it's unusable. Apart from using 2-factor auth. Which is an other "responsibility of the site operator" which I guess you wouldn't want foisted upon him as you seem to believe site operators are and should be irresponsible.

> one that informs people to make sure the password they use is unique to > their site

A suggestion which will go instantly ignored by 99% of the users (on average, technical sites will probably be lower). The single % left already don't reuse passwords.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>