Ask HN: How do you take notes? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking through my paper based notebooks recently and noticed that chop and change between note taking systems, and there is no structure to my notes.<p>I was wondering if anyone could point me to structured note-taking systems or methods they use to bring some consistency to their note taking. <comment><USER2>
        #!/bin/bash

        date="$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")"
        location="/home/developer/Dropbox/Personal/journal"
        filename="$date.md"
        output_path="$location/$filename"

        echo $date
        echo $location
        echo $filename
        echo $output_path

        # No existing file so lets create it
        if [ ! -f $output_path ]; then
            echo "Creating Journal Entry"
            touch $output_path
            echo "Journal: $date" >> $output_path
            printf "</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>\n\n" >> $output_path
            echo "$output_path:20000"
            code -n -goto :2000 "$output_path:2000"
        else
            echo "Opening Existing Journal Entry"
            echo "$output_path:20000"
            code -n -goto :2000 "$output_path:2000"
        fi

Bound to the star key (I have an Ergo 4000 that has a non-standard key right in the middle).

All it does is create a markdown file with the name of the current date and then open that in vscode and move the cursor to the end of the file unless the file already exists in which case it skips creating it and just opens it at the end.

vscode realtime markdown preview is lovely.

I'm aware the bash is horrible, it was a 30s hack to see if it'd work (about 6mths ago...).

</comment><comment><USER3> Pen and paper - dot grid notebook with a systematic approach. Addition details in the hn thread below.

For professional life: Pen + dot grid notepad - developed independently, but similar to the bullet journal technique. Dot grid plus pens make the whole thing ultra customizable. I can sketch engineering designs, make a calendar, track action items, take detailed notes, all in the same format. The key is to be strict with page numbers, dates, and index as much as possible.

Things I occasionally miss - keyword search (I can still look things up by date or subject in the index), multimedia inserts (think dragging video/photos/sound clips into one note), never ending space (notebooks run out of pages), easy backups (thinking about digitizing with photos or scans), team collaboration (if this is necessary I use Trello).

Things I like - no OS/tech stack compatibility issues, "it just works", lighter then a laptop) tablet, don't need to charge, easy to read, can bring into a secure area (where outside electronics are not permitted), travels well, hard to damage.

[http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/](http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/)

For personal life: add Google keep for simple lists, and then a mix of Trello and dot grid for larger projects (less strict formatting than professional life project management).

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537675)

<comment><USER4> very interesting. i just wonder about merge, do you find yourself merging knowledge about a single item scattered along different pages and then creating a new page for the merged item? if so how much percentage of the logging does this take, if short how come? tips?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are some discussion about note-taking in the past:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406198) (123 comments)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945882) (85 comments)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15579047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15579047) (77 comments)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1750534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1750534) (69 comments)

</comment><comment><USER6> I use and develop Standard Notes. It's an open source encrypted note taking app available on all platforms:

[https://github.com/standardnotes/web](https://github.com/standardnotes/web)

</comment><comment><USER7> Went through a million of note taking apps and got back to pen and paper.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're oriented towards academic writing, "How to Take Smart Notes" from Sönke Ahrens describes the Zettelkasten method which is akin to the GTD method but focused towards writing. Besides, the book contains interesting insights on how we learn and get motivated to work. Recommended reading.

</comment><comment><USER9> When it comes to notes in meetings or daily notes/to do lists, I use a notebook. The only "organization" is the date at the top. When it comes to taking notes in lectures or conference talks, I use a text editor on my laptop.

I usually write down _a lot_ of stuff when listening to conference talks in person. Then I go through the notes in detail and compile them into a blog post that hopefully makes sense, which also forces me to organize the notes and review what I'd learned. Because of the sheer volume of text and the need to keep up with the talk I use a laptop for this, typing being much faster than my writing.

For meetings or other more relaxed occasions where I have more time and less volume, I just jot stuff down on paper. Aside from marking everything by day I don't really have a system there.

</comment><comment><USER10> I used to use Evernote but now I have completed Switched to StandardNotes which has end to end encryption. Link: [https://app.standardnotes.org/](https://app.standardnotes.org/)

<comment><USER11> If it legitimately uses end to end encryption, then them hosting a webapp which presumably allows you to view and edit your notes seems odd.

Even if it asks for your vault key each time, since they control the JavaScript delivered to the webapp, it largely negates the benefit of E2E encryption.

<comment><USER12> The key could be only on the client side, derived from your password. Ok they could be evil and send it to their server in the next update, we will have to trust them not to do so.

<comment><USER11> If the argument is trust, then end to end encryption isn't much of a selling point, you could make the same argument when they have raw access to the messages themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> repeating a previous comment of mine:

"What works for me is taking notes via email. Backing up, organizing, searching, and distributing email is more-or-less a solved problem, and my note-taking inherits those solutions. I can read and add notes from my phone and from my computer, with the ability to choose from a plethora of applications. I have multiple backups of my email around the world via standard email syncing. My email host has been 100% reliable in not losing my emails, as well. If I want to migrate to a different email host, that is trivial."

I wouldn't say my notes have much structure, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> emacs org mode. with a heavy customization inspired by bernt hansen ([http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)).

</comment><comment><USER15> Emacs Org-Mode (4 years & counting) for daily work-related notes, design documents, conference talk notes, TODOs -- I'm happy with the default structure it offers (and I use checkboxes and related built-in features). And a plain white notebook and pen for ad-hoc design, diagrams, and other unstructured notes. My handwriting is pretty decent, if I may say so myself, and I appreciate the rotary motion from writing with a pen. I find myself writing on the paper more and more.

</comment><comment><USER16> Post-it notes for notes that have a lifetime of a few hours or less. One of my notebooks for notes that have a longer lifetime, for math, for figuring things out, for diagrams. Org-mode for planning, documenting research, and structured note taking. Stylus on my phone or laptop for drawing diagrams by hand that I need to share with others. (Also this is the best way I've found to practice my penmanship without wasting paper for no reason.)

</comment><comment><USER17> I trello everything in my life. Todos/bookmarks/everything. Linked to IFTTT I have my completed todos in G calendar and some other integrations like that.

</comment><comment><USER18> At the beginning of the day, I pull tasks from Notion ([https://www.notion.so/](https://www.notion.so/)). I use a dot grid notebook (this one is good and cheap [http://a.co/fQUVPpF](http://a.co/fQUVPpF)) for general notes and design. At the end of the day I review and put the important stuff back into Notion.

<comment><USER19> Notion looks really cool. Does it work offline?

<comment><USER18> Their solution for offline work is to view the page when you're online so it's cached, then any changes you make while offline will be synced once back online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I use [https://www.lifepim.com](https://www.lifepim.com) (disclaimer: I wrote it) for all my notes now. It has a simple cut down version of markdown with headings, code blocks and linking which works very well for me.

I manage the structure through the folders feature so notes are grouping into my categories (Dev, Design, Study, Fun, Home, Work, Health, Business)

</comment><comment><USER21> I use nvALT, Todoist, and a calendar to organize everything. I don't have a good system for writing the notes specifically though.

</comment><comment><USER22> I write down notes in diary form through Notes on macOS.

It's light and fast, enough for casual notes taking. Too complex thing is hard to last.

</comment><comment><USER23> Workflowy changed my life [https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> For meeting summaries I use paper, if i need it searchable I will type it into a single google doc title meeting summaries. For actionable notes I forward to my email (android app named Mail Mysels), and then I use Centask to manage and schedule a single outline composed of emails, todos, notes, links, and google drive files/images

</comment><comment><USER25> Shameless plug: [http://write.pub](http://write.pub)

We're evaluating moving entirely to the browser using webassembly. Our experiment is here: [http://www.write.pub/wasm- demo/hello.html](http://www.write.pub/wasm-demo/hello.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm trying to figure this out myself. I do some pen and paper, but for online I use OneNote, used to use Evernote. OneNote is free, and on any given day I could be on iPad, iPhone, Windows, Mac or Linux. OneNote has a web client and iOS clients so things stay synced up.

</comment><comment><USER27> I use a graph paper notebook for planning, a blank paper notebook for design and software notes.

When I need to take longer or more important notes, I use markdown and vim. I keep them in ~/Dev/notes/

</comment><comment><USER28> I keep to notebook at my work-desk, it is to sketch out diagram, pseudo code, quick thoughts...

For digital, I use Notes.app because it has iCloud sync and it works well for me for multi device notes.

</comment><comment><USER29> Loose A4 Paper + Pen - new note always on a new paper; bundle similar papers with a paper clip; I also add sticknotes on the first page of a bundle to uniquely identify it.

</comment><comment><USER30> org-mode, with this snippet:

      (defun open-new-journal ()
        (interactive)
        (find-file (concat "~/notes/journal/" (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d") ".journal.org")))

      (defun open-things-todo ()
        (interactive)
        (find-file "~/notes/dashboard.org"))

</comment><comment><USER31> simple markdown files enhanced with search+tagging via qOwnNotes synced with NextCloud

[https://www.qownnotes.org/](https://www.qownnotes.org/)

</comment><comment><USER32> jrnl: [https://github.com/maebert/jrnl](https://github.com/maebert/jrnl)

</comment><comment><USER33> Google Keep + a small Moleskine notebook.

</comment><comment><USER34> Pen and paper.

</comment><comment><USER35> Workflowy

</comment><comment><USER36> Blank A4 sheets from the printer folded twice and ripped apart.

Too cheap for notebooks and I'm a lefty.

Notes I want to keep/search are in keep.google.com

I use clocker to track my time so I don't worry too much about noting what I do each day because it's mostly in there.

Paper is mostly for just remembering things, todo, doodling, or drawing up system flow when I need it.

The paper is mostly ephemeral I find the things I want to look back at historically are what I did when which is in clocker, old scribbles are just that. If it's important it went in keep or email.

Edit, now that I think about it, has anyone looked at digital paper solutions? I use a mix of hand written and typed and find hand written doesnt lead to distractions like context switching on my laptop often can.

<comment><USER37> Do you have a link for clocker? The only thing I can find is a world clock.

<comment><USER36> Whoops, clockify not clocker. [http://clockify.me](http://clockify.me)

It's buggy (components reloads on server response even if you're in the middle of updating something else) but it's a free toggl and works decently well.

<comment><USER37> I'm gonna give it a go. They have an interesting business model: > You can use cloud version for free, or pay for a self-hosted version and host Clockify on your own servers and premises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use [https://slite.com](https://slite.com) \- it's a very nice, clean modern markdown editor with keyboard shortcuts and ability to paste images from clipboard.

You categorize notes in collections and you can search them, export them to markdown or pdf, and work as a team. It has Slack integration as well if that's your thing.

Highly recommended!</comment>


Ask HN: How are Kubernetes startups doing? - <AUTHOR> I know there are quite a few Kubernetes startups around, also from Y-combinator. I have been wondering how they view the container management space.
Is there a gigantic pull where everyone is slowly converging towards managed container engines by Amazon/Google/Microsoft?
How much are companies like CoreOS, as early movers, struggling against them? What is their long term view when asked how to survive against the big cloud providers who are racing to the bottom, price wise, and who don't even need to a turn a profit on most features? <comment><USER2> As someone who worked on cloud stuff (startups and Google cloud) I advise you not to join cloud startups for monetary goals. In a cloud services startup you'll learn a lot but most of those startups are aquihired at best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any war stories/details you could elaborate on?</comment></comment>


The Healthy Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.guidena2codes.com/2018/07/the-healthy-programmer.html <comment><AUTHOR> Any Opinion Friends about the subject?</comment>


The end of GPS is here; the future of global positioning is vision-based - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@huubheijnen/mapping-the-world-part-1-where-am-i-1dc49dbd330a <comment><USER2> How would vision-based location services work in the jungle, in the desert, or on the ocean?

It's naive to think that, because people can "recognize Big Ben" and know they're in London, we could eliminate GPS, which is literally what this post suggests.

<comment><USER3> I doubt its designed for non urban areas. Which seems sensible as multipath interference is not a huge problem (save for a few places)

Trying to get decent GPS fixes in urban canyons is pretty hard. Hence why uber have been doing multipath mapping ([https://eng.uber.com/rethinking- gps/](https://eng.uber.com/rethinking-gps/))

The other thing to note is that the "VPS" (ugh, stupid name) would work indoors as well, something GPS/Glonass/Galileo can't do.

Using visual keypoints has much bigger advantages, unless you're using a 360 camera (and most people really arn't they are terrible) you not only get potentially a much more accurate location, but you get a heading too. something GPS only gives you with two or more samples.

Depending on what or how the "VPS" works, those same keypoints could be passed to the client so that local tracking can be more accurate.

So, is it a GPS replacement? no, does it provide something GPS can't do? yes, very much yes.</comment></comment>


My Apple Watch After 5 Days - <AUTHOR> http://www.mollywatt.com/blog/entry/my-apple-watch-after-5-days

<comment><USER2> I'm a big fan of 'accessibility first' design. Beyond the obvious benefits to those who need them, it also creates affordances for people without disabilities too.

An aside, but the Bradley watch[1] mentioned looks great. Shame it's so big.

[1] [http://www.dezeenwatchstore.com/shop/the-bradley- stainless-s...](http://www.dezeenwatchstore.com/shop/the-bradley-stainless- steel/)

<comment><USER3> >Shame it's so big.

40mm is actually on the smaller side for watches. Divers start at 42mm typically. The Apple watch she purchased is also 42mm.

<comment><USER4> Increasing watch size is a trend. Watches have not always been comically large.

See:

[http://www.ablogtowatch.com/whats-deal-big-watch-sizes- large...](http://www.ablogtowatch.com/whats-deal-big-watch-sizes-large- timepiece-explained/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/fashion/trends/watchmakers...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/fashion/trends/watchmakers- introduce-bigger-and-bolder-models.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am impressed and pleased that what a few years ago would have been a highly specialized disability support tool seems to now be a case of changing a few settings in a mass-produced product.

<comment><USER6> Apple have always been known for excellent accessibility in their products.

There was a story that came out when Jobs died about how he'd personally intervened when a bluetooth update(?) broke the software a kid in a wheelchair was using.

<comment><USER7> It probably would be more accurate to say "for the last 10 years" than "always".

In the early 2000s, Apple realized that some of their most prominent school deals were in danger of falling apart due to OS X's insufficient section 508 compliance. Since OS X marketshare was too small to ensure a sufficient ecosystem of third party accessibility solution providers (as existed for Windows), Apple formed an in-house accessibility team.

Over time, Apple realized that doing accessibility in-house and treating it as a full stack responsibility fit in well with the company philosophy, so today accessibility is indeed treated as a very important aspect of products.

Coincidentally, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the official release of VoiceOver, Apple's OS X screen reader.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Expected a very negative response, which to my surprise, was actually positive. Also very impressed with how even gadgets like the Apple Watch aimed at "high-class" citizens are still very consumer-friendly.

Also TIL about Usher Disease!

</comment><comment><USER9> Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.mollywatt.com/blog/entry/my- apple-watch-after-5-days)

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting reading about the haptic notifications for navigation (different vibration patterns to turn left/right). Was something I worked on as a research project 4 years ago so it's neat to see being used for real.

</comment><comment><USER11> This was a fascinating read for a view into a world I know all too little about. But an equally big takeaway for me is the idea that haptic feedback may end up being the biggest change that successful wearable products bring to our lives. The potential is there for nearly everyone. Great post.

</comment><comment><USER12> I haven't thought much of the apple watch yet but I may have severely underestimated the utility of a device that's always with me and able to gently give my arm a tap or a buzz.

The apple watch's kill app may be haptic.

<comment><USER13> I think Apple is counting much more on the 'novel' input/output stuff like the little drawings, different buzzes, etc. And it makes sense, considering that, in my opinion, this has been one of the biggest reasons for success. The iPod? clickwheel. The iPhone/iPad? properly done touch interface. Or for that matter where it started: mouse + keyboard!

I think many of us, especially in the tech world, underestimate how crucial these kinds of innovation are for mainstream success. I recall people shrugging when the iPhone came out because 'we had touch devices before', for example, not realizing that there's a world of difference between the PDA- generation interfaces that required a stylus and the finger-touch interface of the iPhone.

Whether Apple's 'interface innovations' with the Watch are enough to make it a success remains to be seen, of course. But I strongly suspect that Apple is relying much more on these things to be a core part of the Watch' success than anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd be really interested to hear from someone close to the Apple Watch, or who understands UX better than me on how much this accessibility was by design and how much it just naturally follows from good UX design.

</comment><comment><USER15> One interesting point in review is that she is finding the function for sending heartbeat of small sketches useful. I think these were dismissed as more or less useless demo stuff right after the launch by some journalists.

Now when I think more, the sketches could be actually quite nice quick and discreet way of communicating with close friends. Quite quickly you would probably come up with simple symbols for various things.

Here could be a network effect that would help Apple sell more watches. Get an Apple Watch or you are excluded from the communications.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's an interesting use-case for small-group tap messaging that I hadn't even considered. Time to write something for Wear!

</comment><comment><USER17> Can someone tell me why when you pair you take a photo of the watch face? I'm guessing it just connects over bluetooth, so how does the photo help?

<comment><USER18> It's actually a video. The Watch plays a graphic that the iPhone parses (somehow) and pulls out pairing information. Once they've synced up, they play the same video before continuing on in the process. It was pretty slick.

<comment><USER17> Ah, cool! Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is the error page cached somewhere? I get _Error displaying the error page [..]_ hehe

</comment><comment><USER20> am i the only one getting a malware-warning when hitting the page? Might be avast though

</comment><comment><USER21> Naah, it can't be true that Apple makes things that help people live their lives. They just make fancy baubles for rich assholes. Right?

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice to see that accessibility is still being thought of, a lot of developers and designers take this type of stuff for granted.

However, I found this to be quite a "jarring" read, with "Apple Watch" being constantly written as such, seemed like an advertisement or at the very least just some SEO trickery. Disrupted my reading flow quite a bit

<comment><USER21> Why are people on HN so obsessed with this? People buy things and talk about them. Get over it.</comment></comment>


What is the best health insurance for freelancers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm paying about $170/mo for a $1500 deductible after which I have 100% coverage from BCBS. Maybe that's not terrible, but a few years back the same coverage was only $114 for me. I've stayed healthy, but BCBS doesn't seem to care - they just keep increasing the rates.<p>What are good options for freelancers like me? <comment><USER2> Sounds like you already have good insurance. Here in NY the most minimal insurance starts at around twice you're paying and goes up from there. You can see the prices of freelancer insurance from MediaBistro here: <http://www.mediabistro.com/insurance/newyork.asp>

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe that rate isn't too bad but it seems like too much because I never go to the doctor / hospital. I'm very healthy.

I did incorporated myself (as a freelancer). Does that change anything? Maybe I could add my brothers and do a small company group plan or something?

Thanks for your help, and for the link! :) I've been asking around and this was the first even remotely useful thing I've found! :D

<comment><USER2> Small group rates aren't that different than the rates you can get through a professional group, though both are much lower than purchasing insurance as an individual. This site lists some small group rates for groups of 2-50: <http://www.nysmallgroupplans.com/category.aspx?id=MISC5> The lowest small group rate, based on their comparison spreadsheet, was around $275.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pet project update – translating emojis into URLs - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/emoji-express <comment><AUTHOR> Last week I had the idea of offering emoji support for URLs in a website. It was pretty well received - some people had suggestions for emojis, others requests for features like customization.

Today I had a pretty interesting request of translating emojis from URLs into text, so I wrote a couple scripts, built a data set, and implemented a proof of concept for it.

Examples:

yoursite.com/<BAT_EMOJI><MAN_WALKING_EMOJI>

translates to: yoursite.com/batman-walking

yoursite.com/<FIRE_EMOJI>-in-the-<HOLE_EMOJI>

translates to: yoursite.com/fire-in-the-hole

The feature is included in emoji-express 1.1.1

<comment><USER2> Twitter fails to parse emojis when right after domain url in tweet. I ditched this because of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh crap, it's true - although all other platforms do parse them right</comment></comment></comment>


Newlisp - <AUTHOR>

how come the reception for newlisp is so cold(silence) in this communty?is it for the same type of reasons that the french refuses to reform their spelling or are their any "real" reasons? <comment><USER2> Here's a quote from the "about" page on their website:

"newLISP is a scripting LISP for people who are fascinated by LISP's beauty and power of expression, but who need it stripped down to easy-to-learn essentials."

A stripped-down Lisp? What's missing? I have no idea, but that doesn't inspire me to take the time to learn newLisp, when I'm already a user of Common Lisp and Scheme.

That said, I have nothing against newLisp. I just don't know it, and thus don't talk about it. I advocate neither for nor against it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do you think the french refuse to reform their spelling? Why did you pick the french? Is there something french about hackers on news.yc?

<comment><AUTHOR> because they think that it's a good thing for a language to be difficult.i think it is quite the opposite.according to newlisp.org users of commonlisp make the same mistake.i suspect they are wrong.but i don't know. why is common lisp a better language than newlisp?</comment></comment>


NASA Open Sources Apollo 11 Code (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://apcmag.com/apollo-11-code-goes-open-source.htm <comment><USER2> Anyone who is looking for something to run it on could take a look at _Block I Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC): How to build one in your basement_ [1]. The build took one guy four years and a _lot_ of wire-wrap. A fascinating and quite awe-inspiring piece of work.

[1] [http://klabs.org/history/build_agc/](http://klabs.org/history/build_agc/)

<comment><USER3> Haha... That's pretty amazing...

How about an emulator?

<comment><USER4> Sure: [http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/](http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/)

Or, if you want a web-based version (via asm.js): [http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html](http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html)

(I knew about the Burkey version, but the JS port I just found. Ain't the modern world amazing?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a blog linking to a blog linking to the source (from 2009).

[http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/07/apollo-11-missions-40...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/07/apollo-11-missions-40th- anniversary-one.html)

<comment><USER6> ^. Submissions should link to the source as much as possible, instead of reposts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's worth noting that the software, while only 36k machine words long, and the hardware, which was very slow even by the standards of other computers of the 60s, were remarkable works created in only a couple years by huge teams (peak of 800 people working on hardware and 400 on software IIRC).

Its popular to dismiss the AGC as simple and uninteresting, but it was a challenging engineering task, and it never once had a failure in flight.

There's lots of resources on the internet to read more. A great book on the topic is Digital Apollo by David Mindell

<comment><USER8> It never once had a failure in flight, except for the short in Apollo 14, which they managed to hack around mid-flight. Cool story: [http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/#Final_exam_for_the_advanced_s...](http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/#Final_exam_for_the_advanced_student_)

<comment><USER7> That was caused by an actual physical short (in space, conductive bits, usually soldier balls, floating around and shorting things was a big problem), which happened somewhat commonly. I think Apollo 12 nearly aborted the launch because the display was showing all 8s briefly, also caused by a short.

However there truly was never an unknown software bug discovered in flight. Lots of known software bugs had workarounds, partially because there was a hard deadline of about 4 months where the software couldn't be changed before the launch. Pretty amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If this kind of thing interests you, there are some great resources here about the Gemini and Apollo guidance computer architecture, including recreations of them: [http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/](http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/). I also recommend the book "Digital Apollo" about the role of digital computers in early space flight. I found both fascinating.

<comment><USER2> I second your recommendation of "Diagital Apollo". A very interesting book.

Two other books worth checking-out are _The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation_ by Frank O'Brien and _Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer_ by Eldon Hall. The latter book is not particularly well written, but the author was the AGC hardware design lead and this book captures a lot of his first-hand knowledge of the hardware development and testing process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not really new, you should have added the suffix "(2009)" to the title.

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Lum...](https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Luminary099/LUNAR_LANDING_GUIDANCE_EQUATIONS.agc#180)

That article calls out this line (among others). I wonder what the actual story behind this comment was. I'm sure it's not as bad as, "I'm just putting this in temporarily and we should fix it before it goes to Mars". It probably means something else.

Anyone have any idea?

<comment><USER2> Further down in the same file there's a line:

        GAINBRAK,1      # NUMERO MYSTERIOSO

<comment><USER10> Yeah, considering the number of people working on this, I can't imagine anything was left to chance. Did the comments have some connotation that was lost to time, was it just joking around, or is there something that the developers seriously weren't sure about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We invest a lot of code in GUI, which makes me think of:

 _I 'm afraid the holodeck will be society's last invention. - Scott Adams_

And this ultimate GUI would require the ultimate coding effort.

<comment><USER12> The Apollo 11 UI module, code named DSKY/PINBALL, was meant as a demonstration unit and never meant to be the actual operating interface for the mission.

 _" As time passed, and more and more people became familiar with the demo, nobody got around to inventing an improvement for the user interface, so the coders simply built it into the flight software without any specific requirements to do so"_

The future will _always_ be duct tape and bubble gum.

[http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/ForDummies.html](http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/ForDummies.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/LICE...](http://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/LICENSE.txt)

"The software for the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and LM Abort Guidance Computer (AGS) is believed to be in the public domain."

Eh? So is it open source or not?

I doubt someone would come around and claim exclusive copyright on this, but still... Netlib had the same problem, and that's why replacements exist. The ACM still once in a while claims copyright on ancient Fortran code from the late 1960's. Back then it was a blissful golden era when people didn't even think that source code was elligible for copyright.

</comment><comment><USER14> Given the pocket calculator joke[1] I'm wondering if anyone has built functionally equivalent AGC code on a more modern processor? And by functionally equivalent I mean a black box tester with an Apollo AGC would not be able to tell if it was running the old code or the new code.

[1] _" It's been famously remarked that the on-board systems in Apollo 11 had less computing power than a modern pocket calculator."_ \-- [http://apcmag.com/apollo-11-code-goes-open- source.htm](http://apcmag.com/apollo-11-code-goes-open-source.htm)

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes it's a 2009 blog post, but I still found it new and interesting.

Especially the "# TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE" comments, so I decided to look into them and hopefully find someone who has a clue to explain...which I did, here's a link for anyone else interested...

(last comment) [http://www.metafilter.com/83450/Apollo-11-Source- Code](http://www.metafilter.com/83450/Apollo-11-Source-Code)

</comment><comment><USER16> "July 23, 2009"

<comment><USER11> Misleading indeed but is not like realeasing the latest kernel patch, where the code date is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Trashy Little Subroutines is going to be my new band's name.

[https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Lum...](https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Luminary099/LUNAR_LANDING_GUIDANCE_EQUATIONS.s?r=258#1375)

</comment><comment><USER18> So they must have written this simulator without help from source code [http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html](http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html). While it doesn't strike me as a bad simulator, I wonder if it's right.

</comment><comment><USER19> If anyone compiles this; remember to set your turbo button to off or the timings will be wildly inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER20> Weird... ISTR hearing something like this a long time ago.

Edit: Nevermind, just saw the date on the article.

</comment><comment><USER21> NASA open source Apollo 11 code...5 years ago. How about a (2009) guy?

</comment><comment><USER22> Google Code? That still a thing? It must be enterprise-government-class contracts like this keeping it alive.

It would have been much cooler to see it on Github and people forking away at it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Time to start my own backyard space program.

</comment><comment><USER24> please add 2009 to the end of the title</comment>


FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,...  domain names - <AUTHOR> http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/fulltiltpoker-com-pokerstars-com-domain-names-confiscated-fbi-1020606/ <comment><USER4> SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Friday against the founders of the three largest internet poker companies operating in the U.S. The indictment charges eleven defendants, including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses, according to Federal authorities in New York. Restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts used by the poker companies and their payment processors, while five Internet domain names used by the companies to host poker games were seized, federal authorities added in a statement. [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of- top...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us- online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news)

Indictment [http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

<comment><USER5> This needs to be modded up. The ICE mass domain seizures were more blatant violations of due process.

I would also add, if they are going after these poker sites for money laundering, at this point players probably will be unable to deposit or withdraw any money in to their game accounts.

from the indictment: "The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint (the "Civil Complaint") against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies."

That means they are taking _everything_ Any asset that any of these defendants has, that is within US government reach will be seized. The domain names were probably the easiest part.

additionally from the indictment: "Defendants BITAR,SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK, TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not presently in the United States and have not yet been arrested. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is _working with foreign law enforcement agencies_ and _Interpol_ to secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of criminal proceeds located abroad."

That doesn't sound like a rogue US seizure of some domain names they didn't like (which was the case with the ICE seizures.)

<comment><USER6> So the government gets to indict you; then sieze your assets; then take you to court (where you cannot afford a lawyer anymore, because they have already seized your assets).

I guess it's nice to be the King.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file:

$ host pokerstars.com

pokerstars.com has address 188.8.131.52

pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com.

$ host absolutepoker.com

absolutepoker.com has address 188.8.131.52

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 10 mail.absolutepoker.com.

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.absolutepoker.com.

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.absolutepoker.com.

$ host fulltiltpoker.com

fulltiltpoker.com has address 184.108.40.206

fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 200 mit-mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.

fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 100 mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.

$ host ultimatebet.com

ultimatebet.com has address 184.108.40.206

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 100 mailb.ultimatebet.com.

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 200 mailc.ultimatebet.com.

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 10 mail.ultimatebet.com.

$ host ub.com

ub.com has address 188.8.131.52

<comment><USER8> The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out.

I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures.

[1]: [http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press- releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...](http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press- releases/2011/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-charges-principals-of-three-largest- internet-poker-companies-with-bank-fraud-illegal-gambling-offenses-and- laundering-billions-in-illegal-gambling-proceeds)

<comment><USER9> > The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank > accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out.

Sure, but we can at least take a screenshot of our accounts for the purposes of a class-action lawsuit later, either against the site or the government, itself.

<comment><USER10> Against the site? What venue will that take place in?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's real and it's happening now.

I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next?

The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government.

Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public awareness about this disturbing issue.

I won't be surprised to see US based domain registrars to start loosing a lot of their business quite soon.

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html>

<comment><USER12> Indeed. I'm quite disgusted by the principle of the thing. Something about being deprived of property without due process of law.

My primary domain is a .net. I'm loathe to part with it since the TLD is a useful descriptor in this case, but now I'm very seriously considering registering and switching over to the .eu equivalent, which is only a couple bucks more per year.

<comment><USER13> Does the EU not have a similar procedure they could follow? Or do they just not have a history of doing this (yet)?

<comment><USER14> They likely have jurisdiction only over .eu TLD.

That said, they have implemented mandatory wiretapping on everyone some years ago, so I wouldn't count on EU sanity or benevolence there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a disaster. A very sad day for the internet. We are entering into pastor Niemoller territory here: first they came for the file-sharing websites, next they came for the online gambling websites, and I would guess that Bitcoin is probably next in line, and following that, Magic: the Gathering online and the MMORPGs.

<comment><USER16> No. It's not a disaster. Just the end of the .com/.net/.org era. As soon as people realize that .com/.net/.org are not neutral, but under US jurisdication, they will move to other TLDs operated in countries with more liberal laws.

<comment><USER13> Laws can change. I think it's well time to start thinking about how to organize the internet so that it routes around governments even more easily.

<comment><USER17> Eh. You don't have to "route around" this currently, just use a DNS resolver outside of the country that re-introduces domains which get taken out by oppressive governments.

Nobody wants to do this, though, as it would destroy the fabric of the internet as we know it or something. But a simpler method would just incur more government push back in an arms race around censorship. Do what the chinese [citizens] do: go covert.

<comment><USER18> This is actually an interesting idea to me. Forgive me for not being very knowledgeable about the DNS, so if somebody could correct me, I would appreciate it.

What happens if people start selectively paying attention to the ICANN root servers? For instance, my computer is set to use google's DNS. What happens if the DNS admins at google decide that they're going to just ignore the update from ICANN?

And what happens if there is a second-tier DNS that crops up specifically to thwart attempts at messing around with the records? (Honestly, domains being 'seized' should be treated like faulty equipment. If a drive starts bailing out, you replace it. To me, it sounds like the US gov't's ability to modify the DNS at their will is a click-of-death on the DNS)

<comment><USER17> First of all, let's be clear: the root servers are owned and operated by various entities in countries all around the world. The root zone file is the sole domain of the Department of Commerce of the United States of America. So you'd have to ignore all of them, and i'm not completely sure the US Government wouldn't force Google to apply the one correct root zone file (after all, Google is such a powerhouse you could complain of a monopoly of internet control or influence).

Potential legal issues aside, what you end up with is a New Internet. Of course routes all remain the same, but nobody refers to addresses or routes: they use host names. Thus you run a huge risk of networked applications just not working, which would affect everything from entertainment to commerce to government services and god knows what else (what if medical devices in hospitals needed to retrieve a firmware upgrade and couldn't connect to the right host?).

In practice there would be no technical hurdle to do this. It's simple to just configure your domain name server to include some records, leave out some records and change others. Some people do this if their ISP redirects failed lookups to some advertising-laden homepage, for example. But on a large scale, the modification of the naming system to one's personal tastes has broad- reaching negative consequences related to availability of hosts and the functional and legal consequences therein. On a personal scale (modifying only your own name server results), you get to connect to your poker site again. I prefer the latter solution. If operating systems just started including a simple GUI to modify their personal domain name caches we probably wouldn't need an alternate dns root.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those that are skeptical, check the nameservers:

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po...](http://network- tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=pokerstars.com)

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu...](http://network- tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fulltiltpoker.com)

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub...](http://network- tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub.com)

All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit ([http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fu...](http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fusion_Unit))

What's more interesting (to me): the domains don't appear to have been using US domain registrars.

<comment><USER20> Neustar, Verisign, and Afilias operate the actual registry for most of the commercial TLDs (.com, .net, .me, .info, etc), and are all within US jurisdiction. Further, they all hold hefty government contracts.

<comment><USER21> .me is operated by "doMEn, d.o.o., a Montenegrin joint venture (doing business as .ME Registry), whose partners include Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net d.o.o." (<http://www.domain.me/about.html>), so it seems like it's not under the US jurisdiction.

<comment><USER22> However the backend is run by Afilias who are subject to US jurisdiction, even though they have their group parent company incorporated in the Republic of Ireland (for tax purposes).

<comment><USER21> Thanks for information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Has a bureau of the US federal government just claimed ultimate authority over the internet's domain name system?

If this is the case, then obviously we have a very serious problem on our hands. This threatens the way the internet works at the infrastructure level. Clearly the US needs to be stripped of their root DNS server privileges.

<comment><USER24> Stop hyperventilating, they did nothing of the sort. .com is based in the United States, and (whether or not you agree with the US's stance on online gambling, I don't) they seized an asset that they claim - probably rightly - is within their jurisdiction and is assisting these companies in committing acts that are illegal in the United States.

If they seize a .co.uk, then there's something to be worried about, but as far as I am aware that has not happened.

<comment><USER25> The line is less clear than you suggest: [http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/141645-s...](http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/141645-spanish-website-owner-pledges-to-fight-dhs-after-his- domain-name-is-seized) (summary: Spanish site links to, but does not mirror, copyrighted material; Spanish courts finally say it's legal; DHS still seizes it).

In the above case, (almost) no crimes were committed by anyone in an area the US has jurisdiction over; fulltiltpoker.com, at least, could be said to be actively recruiting Americans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Isn't their image with no alt tag (<http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg>) in violation with _Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973_? [1]

        Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

        A Federal law requiring US government electronic and
        information technology (EIT) to meet accessibility
        requirements

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973)

<comment><USER27> You know, I almost wonder if it's intentional. Using an image-based seizure page with a very generic image name prevents search engines from having any content to spider (and thereby prevents people from searching for seized sites).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The indictment from the DOJ with a list of the charges:

[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

<comment><USER29> Fascinating. This contains some pretty damning charges, if true.

<comment><USER30> the UIEGA outlaws 'internet gambling' so the case will be based on if poker is considered gambling, which the supreme court has already found to not be the case when California attempted to pass laws to legalize card rooms back in the 70s

A lot harder to avoid the money laundering charges, but they could argue that they had to process payments in that way because the banks wouldn't accept them because of an unjust UIEGA law

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news.

As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online.

Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures.

If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.

<comment><USER32> Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? Do these sites pay interest?

How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't cheating you?

<comment><USER9> I made a longer post below (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452958>) that explains it all a bit better, but for poker players, their balances on poker sites serve both as checking accounts (in many ways) and as their capital. That's like asking why a corporation's value is tied up in its stock. A poker player's account balance _is_ his livelihood.

You can sit at some tables with $100K. It's very easy to 4-table. Moreover, it's very easy to have a 10-buy-in swing. This means that at a bare minimum, a legitimate player has at least 15 buy-ins on any given site, and he damned well better have another 15-25 somewhere else (cash, other sites, etc.) if he doesn't want to risk blowing his entire bankroll (going "busto").

The players with these kinds of balances are part of a very tight-knit community that is largely centered around 2+2. FullTilt and PokerStars both have representatives that post there. It is basically to the poker world what Hacker News is to the tech world. If even one player's money was seized for an undisclosed reason, the major sites (which make money hand-over-fist daily from rake) would lose a lot of faith, and their entire business model centers on their customers' good faith.

There were a few people cheating before on UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker. Thanks to the aforementioned community reconciling various players' hand databases (each hand can be logged), they were caught and both of those sites lost a ton of business.

<comment><USER31> > There were a few people cheating before on UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker. > Thanks to the aforementioned community reconciling various players' hand > databases (each hand can be logged), they were caught and both of those > sites lost a ton of business.

I also replied to your post below but just to clarify this for everyone: despite he effort from hese communities, those involved in he cheating were never caught. In fact. those named by the DoJ as the heads of Absolute Poker are heavily implicated and the company line has been that ownership had changed hands; this is clearly not the case.

And despite significant pressure, large amounts of money has not been returned to players. And despite Absolute/UB temporarily seeing great loss of traffic, they regained and were up to last night the 3rd largest American-facing network or site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Someone came up with a Firefox add-on to automatically use alternate domain names when one tries to access one seized by the US Government:

[http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s- government...](http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government- domain-seizures-110414/)

I'm reminded of the John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

<comment><USER34> John Gilmore was talking about Usenet, where that was actually true; if some intermediate netnews server started deleting articles that contained bad words, people using other news servers wouldn't even notice unless they got their only newsfeed from the censoring site. (Later on, this became a problem, as it was impossible to censor spam as well.)

The internet is not like Usenet in that way. Its design is full of central points of failure: root nameservers, TLD nameservers, DNS registries, BGP, and AS and IP allocation, among others. Some newer network protocols like BitTorrent are indeed capable of routing around censorship and other forms of damage, but older ones like the Web are not.

I've written a bit about some thoughts on how to fix that, but I still haven't done much: [http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2006-Novembe...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2006-November/000841.html)

<comment><USER35> The quote is still quite valid when applied to the _culture_ of the Internet, however. People create tools ranging the gamut from Tor to MafiaaFire to circumvent and prevent censorship from occurring, even with systems that are anything like robust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I for one am incredibly glad!

Nothing is a more serious menace to our society and our way of life than ... online gambling. I'm glad that in this time of unprecedented natural disasters, geopolitical unrest, and financial crisis our government still has its priorities straight.

<comment><USER37> I guess you are for alcohol prohibition too?

<comment><USER38> Seems like you missed the "/sarcasm" comment, unless I'm being leveled?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wow this is huge.

I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling_provisions)

It's worth noting that these are _NOT_ American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people.

It also appears people are still playing.

<comment><USER40> The real issue here is the seizure of domain names. US citizens who gamble online know full well that they're breaking the law and are subject to lose assets.

The domain seizures are very troubling, though.

Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate" in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized", the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that the "cash is locked up" as the result of government action.

<comment><USER41> You do understand that gambling online isn't illegal in the United States, right?

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

UIGEA "prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state law." but does not make it a crime for a citizen to engage in the activity.

<comment><USER39> It is illegal in a handful of states.

<http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Law-Summary/>

You are right though, the UIGEA makes it illegal to transfer money from a US citizens account to an 'illegal gambling operation.' It doesn't actually define what an illegal gambling operation is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> While I'm not at all surprised to see this happening, I'm still astonished that the USA continues to try to stamp out gambling through legislation. I remember growing up being astonished at the number of references on USA TV shows to illegal gambling; I've never once come across it in the UK.

I love cricket, but there's been a persistent series of match-fixing and spot- fixing allegations for years, almost exclusively originating from illegal south Asian (primarily Indian) bookmakers. The legal markets haven't been the source of this sort of problem at all.

Much as I might not like gambling, there is a persistent human desire for it and the evidence seems to be that banning it, as so often, exacerbates rather than minimises harm. The US government should stop trying to hold back the tide on this.

<comment><USER43> The casino lobby would prefer that online gambling didn't exist. Therefore, since these online companies are not in the US and have no lobbyist money in play, they have no standing.

Voter preference, individual rights, domain name sanctity, jurisdiction, shortsightedness with regard to keeping control of TLD's, futility of the fight, all have no bearing when uncontested lobby money wants something, and doubly so when states think it will mean more tax dollars in their pockets.

<comment><USER44> Actually the company I (a minion stuck in the cogs) work for is a government run lottery that set up a division called Digital Interactive Gaming just to design and build online a gambling website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Okay. This makes me want to indulge in youthful indignation.

If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying "No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government to seize internet properties terrifies me because it might set a national and international precedent. (Other countries already do this, but U.S. doing it kinda makes it globally sanctioned.) I'm terrified of a slippery slope, even though I usually find slippery slope arguments dubious. (Plus, I just think this is a dumb seizure to begin with...)

(End of youthful indignation.)

<comment><USER46> I just had the same though except substitue OpenDNS with Google. OpenDNS would be better for users but this feels like a Google-y thing to do especially after the whole China debacle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is actually perfect. Filesharing sites don't register on the average user radar.

Online gambling sites? Joe Schmoe's everywhere are about to get seriously angry.

It's sad it came to this but maybe it takes something as overreaching as this to get the attention of people.

</comment><comment><USER48> US government has been gunning for poker sites for a while (since 2006 when the UIGEA passed). Some places like Party Poker withdrew from the US market, while others flourished by skirting the rules to the best of their abilities (e.g. can't have ads for internet gambling on TV, so let's make a play money site fulltilt.net that will eventually funnel traffic to our real cash games).

I am however surprised that they're seizing domains as I figured this would remain one of those "live and let live" legislations, like the online gambling equivalent of brown-bagging your drink. I imagine this will not end well for whoever was involved in this decision.

Also, 2+2ers sup bro.

<comment><USER49> There was so much hope that poker would be granted legal status about a year ago, but congress does tend to get sidetracked.

Nice to see other 2+2ers on HN.

<comment><USER46> It's kinda cool to see a link to 2+2 at the top of HN, sucks that it has to be for this though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Probably related to this - former online gambling lynchpin turns cooperating witness.

[http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the- lin...](http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-line/story- fn6ck45n-1226039907165)

</comment><comment><USER51> This is another case of government manufacturing criminals.

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law- abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers."

\- Ayn Rand

</comment><comment><USER52> As what happened with the guys run the porn redirector under the Libya domain, if you're using a domain/registrar which is regulated under laws which make your website illegal then you're just asking for trouble.

It's just basic common sense: Use domains/registrars which fall under the legal authority of a country in which your website is legal.

<comment><USER16> I think that up until now .com was considered to be a "neutral" domain, with individual domain names falling under the jursidication of the country where the registrar is located. However, in this case at least for ub.com the registrar is located outside the US, so this implies that the US has jurisdication over all .com domains.

If I'd was a non-US company using a .com domain I think now is the time where I'd switch to another TLD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The MAFIAAFire Firefox plugin will redirect seized domain names to alternate domains. It's already working with all of the domains listed in the article. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire- re...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/) Of course, it depends on how much you trust the maintainers of the plugin not to do something nefarious :)

</comment><comment><USER54> If the press release is true, these guys are going away for a long time. They allegedly bribed the owner of a US bank with cash and allegedly purchased 30% of the bank in exchange for the bank allowing them to circumvent US money laundering and anti-gambling laws.

There's a lot of civil liberty discussion in this thread, but I think this is actually a fascinating story about the linkage points between the internet and the real world -- in the real world, these guys needed bank processing. To get it, they went way, way over the line, as did the Bank owner.

<comment><USER55> Over the line? Why did they have to bribe a bank to accept their business? That's crazy! The liberty to conduct everyday business is the most important liberty we have. It's what puts bread on the table.

The fact that they had to bribe a bank to open and use an account is really really sick.

<comment><USER54> It's not over the line; they wanted to do a business that's illegal in the states, so they (allegedly) committed crimes. If they had wanted they could have banned US players, and only accepted money from players in other countries. They didn't want to do that.

I'm presuming most of the main people here don't live in the states, they are no doubt implementing their own personal Plan B's right now, and have already landed in their chosen spots.

The US citizens living in the US are in the most trouble, I'd guess.

<comment><USER55> _they wanted to do a business that's illegal in the states, so they (allegedly) committed crimes._

It's funny, but you do realize the government defines what is and what is not a crime? I only hope for your sake the government doesn't make your industry illegal. Otherwise you may have to bribe others to earn a living.

It's unfortunate that many don't realize this is just the beginning. There is a multitude of other industries which are on the "edge" and trust me, if this goes well for the government (3 billion profit) they will come after everyone else with full force!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Crazy. DC government just passed a bill allowing the city to offer online gambling. Will the FBI also sieze dclottery.com?

<comment><USER57> DEA raids California medical marijuana stores that are legal according to state law, so ... yeah, if they want to, they will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> "Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry.

The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - <USER2> been shut down."

Read more: [http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology- news/f...](http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/fbi- charges-11-internet-poker-kingpins-20110416-1difk.html#ixzz1Jf3LFavT)

</comment><comment><USER52> It's worth noting that most gambling sites warn their employees against travelling to the US. The US has in the past arrested employees of foreign firms for actions which are entirely legal in their home country but illegal in the US.

And it's not just gambling sites, in 2001 Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested on a similar basis.

<comment><USER6> To be quite frank, as a foreign national I'd be a lot more worried about visting the US than I would Cuba.

That's hardly a ringing endorsement for the land of the free, is it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Viewing Google cache, I noticed ub.com about us page:

All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd., Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta, owner of this website.

Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions were occurring in the States?

<comment><USER60> The DHS (and now FBI) believes that all .com domain names are "located in the USA". It is not hard to get a judge (generally they are pretty ignorant of technology) to go along with this. Therefore, even if the registrar and the company are overseas, the FBI is able to sieze the domains.

Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system.

This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.

<comment><USER61> I wonder long before they're shutting down foreign .com sites for the 'crime' of infringing US patents.

Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one basket now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large, very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone confirm if their poker clients are still functioning properly?

<comment><USER63> Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to process transactions to them.

<comment><USER56> Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it.

The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> America sucks more every day.

</comment><comment><USER65> Here's the full indictment: [http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER66> It seems that it's stuff like this that could be the biggest driver in validating non .com domain names.

I could see a Benelux registrar organization setting up a quality .tld that was free from seizure over stupid shit.

There are still other minor routing problems that can occur, but with proxies and DNS, that is much much more of a whack-a-mole problem than high level domain name seizure.

</comment><comment><USER67> I don't know why but this issue really irks me. The hypocrisy on this is off the charts. Gambling is legal in our country - the WTO has made that legal judgment ([http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto- rul...](http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rulings-on- internet-gambling/)). Our actions are an attempt to preserve a protection racket for U.S. gambling operations and it's just wrong. Not only that but the strategy of seizing domain names, arresting execs, will never solve this problem. This shit pisses me off - I'm sorry.

</comment><comment><USER68> Great Job FBI, really thorough crackdown.

<http://www.pokerstars.net/> <http://www.pokerstars.jp/> <http://www.pokerstars.de/>

<comment><USER9> pokerstars.net only offers a play money client; it is not a gambling site by any stretch of the imagination. .jp and .de are not under US jurisdiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> So yeah, about that distributed DNS idea...

</comment><comment><USER70> CNBC Twitter: Three Largest Internet Poker Companies Charged With Fraud, Illegal Gambling - Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, & Absolute Poker - <USER3>

<comment><USER71> MarketWatch says it's bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling.

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of- top...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us- online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Note to self: all future domains I buy won't have a .com extension.

<comment><USER73> I'm using .is from now on. Sure, it's more expensive, but there are no fucking "domainers" there – even two letter domains are still available. And I have a hard time thinking of something Iceland would shut down (except for child pornography, obviously).

<comment><USER74> I tried to register a two-letter domain with few registrars found by googling: it seems that one isn't allowed to register a two-letter .is domain anymore; a very common policy in domain names.

<comment><USER73> That seems odd. I just registered one a few days ago… (fj.is).

Also you can register domains directly at isnic.

<comment><USER74> ! You are correct, isnic allows to register two-letter domains :) It is probably better to register there anyway than with some random registrars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> <http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com>

Shows the propagation is underway.

<comment><USER76> Beautiful:

       <HTML>
         <TITLE>WARNING</TITLE>
         <IMG SRC="banner7.jpg">
       </HTML>

I'm surprised they don't have text and audio for ADA compliance.

<comment><USER77> I was really hoping there was a banner{1-6}.jpg

<comment><USER78> those are probably for child porn, drugs etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Interesting back story [http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online- poker-scand...](http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker- scandal-2011-4)

</comment><comment><USER80> when this happened a while back for wikipedia and filesharing sites i wrote a script that lets you add, update, dump, and share entries in your local hosts file (you can even put the text on a website and pull it from a url). it's not really much use since the sites will be moving anyway if no-one else can contact them, but in case someone finds it useful - <https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet>

</comment><comment><USER9> Did anyone happen to cache the IP address for fulltiltpoker.com? I'd like to add it to /etc/hosts so that I can at least connect to the client and get a screenshot of my balance.

<comment><USER81> 220.127.116.11; it's posted abovethread.

<comment><USER9> That is the already-seized alias IP address. Go ahead and browse to it.

<comment><USER6> No, that's the actual IP address, but you have to browse it as "www.fulltiltpoker.com", otherwise it redirects you to there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Coming soon...

PokerStars.cz FullTiltPoker.ly

</comment><comment><USER83> Online gambling is legal almost everywhere - how does the FBI have the ability to do this?

<comment><USER84> They are using a TLD (top level domain name) operated by a US company (Verizon).

The government hasn't gone out of it's jurisdiction, technically speaking.

<comment><USER22> Verisign, not Verizon.

<comment><USER84> Autocorrect on iOS, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> The event was big and changed a lot... but not for pokerstars or other services.

The client can use ips to auto-update with new domain names probably (it's got a pool of addresses to try). In a few days enough new links will be created to pokerstars.net that it will be reasonably visible on google. Service itself will buy loads of domains and start advertising as pokerstars.{your_tld}. In the meantime, pokerstars.net is still available as usual.

</comment><comment><USER86> This will only get worse, and the US has no issue with doing this with International sites. Remember rojadirecta.org? It's a Spanish site, owned and operated in Spain, that fought for 3 years a legal battle, and won. Then the DOJ just came and in one day seized the domain. No appeal, no warning, their whole legal battle for nothing. They have been offline ever since. The Internet is at the complete mercy of the guys in ICE.

</comment><comment><USER87> Here's what the domain names look like, for those of us who's DNS hasn't propagated yet.

<http://184.108.40.206/>

</comment><comment><USER88> If anyone hasn't figured it out yet, the Internet Police have come and they're starting the crackdown. So people who have been relying on the non-enforcement of certain laws, even the dumb ones, are going to get some nasty surprises soon. Or at least, that's how it looks to me.

They've killed several botnets and lots of other sites, too, if anyone has noticed.

</comment><comment><USER89> In case anyone thinks this is about deterring online gambling, Washington DC (the municipality, not the Federal government) has recently legalized online gambling as a type of lottery.

[ <http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC>]

</comment><comment><USER90> How exactly am I supposed to live in a system like this? I understand I can't have a perfect legal system, but the amount of effort required to challenge these ridiculous seizures seems very difficult. There are so many unconstitutional laws that need to be fixed. We need a second supreme court.

<comment><USER91> Oh great another 9 headed beast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I was under the impression that Howard Lederer and possibly several other "celebrity" poker players had ownership interests in Full Tilt Poker so I'm surprised I don't see any familiar names listed as defendants in the indictment

</comment><comment><USER92> You know, these "asset forfeiture" laws will _never_ change as long as it's the 'little people' who are getting reamed.

The day the government grabs the assets of a few rich people, you can bet your ass these laws will change in a hurry.

<comment><USER93> It takes just one man to rile the public. What we need is widespread and incendiary oratory; governments operate only with the consent of the governed. Inaction, in this case, is effectively consent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> PokerStars is back - <http://pokerstars.eu>

This is the message I get when I log in: <http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png>

</comment><comment><USER95> Wow, I don't know why this surprises me so much - although I know plenty of people that play poker "illegally". A quote simply because I personally feel it's ridiculous.

I also recall the difference between the poker related .com and .net sites. So fulltiltpoker.net is still up as is pokerstars.net - that, if I recall correctly, was because the .net website was aimed a playing poker with "fake money" while the .coms were all aimed at playing poker with "real money"

</comment><comment><USER96> Pretty strong charges:

* Violation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [5 years prison]

* Operation of Illegal Gambling Business [5 years prison]

* Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud [30 years prison]

* Money Laundering Conspiracy [20 years prison]

And for all of them fines double the gross gain or loss: [http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER97> So far the US is only cracking down on domains in the .COM TLD. Do you guys think the US will eventually crack down on non-US-owned TLDs that are operated by US entities, such as .CO (operated by NeuStar)? And after that, perhaps a doomsday scenario, will they eventually force US-hosted DNS caches to expunge records that are related to criminal activity as, in a way, they are aiding and abetting..

</comment><comment><USER98> Another interesting thing to note is that most of these are not US companies (I doubt any of them are, my guess would be a US based registrar)

</comment><comment><USER99> An interesting article about Sunfirst Bank, and a previous brush with money- laundering problems:

[http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory- forum/2011/01/...](http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory- forum/2011/01/07/fdic-sunfirst-action-a-reminder-of-third-party-processors- risk-to-banks-complinet/)

</comment><comment><USER100> They're resolving to normal web sites for me in California. It takes six hours for DNS servers to resolve? I checked whois and it looks perfectly normal. Also, you can ping the domains to get the URL, e.g., <http://184.108.40.206> Is this story true?

</comment><comment><USER101>
        Winners don't conduct illegal gambling operations.

        -- William S. Sessions, Director of the FBI

</comment><comment><USER102> And yet so many people are urging this same government to craft new "net neutrality" laws. Bewildering.

<comment><USER103> Well, net neutrality is to protect us from corporations. Protecting us from the government is something the government won't do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> The sites mentioned still resolves for me but if this is actually true... I am at a loss of words

<comment><USER105> The alleged story behind all this:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker- scand...](http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker- scandal-2011-4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> This domain seizure nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg.

[http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_r...](http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_releases_trusted_internet_id_plan/)

</comment><comment><USER106> I'm located in Hungary.

Pokerstars.com works, Fulltiltpoker.com works, UB.com gives me an FBI page.

<comment><USER107> Same from Canada. Also, would seizing the domain name actually stop the clients from working? I would imagine that the devs, seeing the rash of increasingly ridiculous seizures, would have pushed an update to the client that bypasses DNS. That's what I would have done, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> Odd, they're all resolving for me. I wonder if that's USA only? I'm in Canada

<comment><USER109> Probably just hasn't propagated yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> For some more perspective: [http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur- watch/20110418-s...](http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur- watch/20110418-super-bad-to-supergrass.html)

</comment><comment><USER111> Web app to report how much money is frozen in your poker account: <http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker>

</comment><comment><USER99> Two ineresting side notes:

pokerstars.net is still up

pokerstars.co.uk gives a 404 error, after redirecting to pokerstars.com/uk

seems like sloppy webmastership from the FBI.

</comment><comment><USER112> The domain, <http://www.pokerstars.net/>, is still up

</comment><comment><USER98> They all show for me apart from absolutepoker.com but that could be DNS related

<comment><AUTHOR> I have the FBI message currently for UB.COM and Absolutepoker.com so yes I think it's DNS related.

edit: confirm for PS and FTP also, you can check with that webproxy: <http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The entire attack on online poker, and poker in general, is funded, supported and encouraged by that completely immoral mix of human misery and animal cruelty known as the racing industry.

The sooner horse racing ends up where it belongs, alongside dogfighting and bear-baiting, the better.

</comment><comment><USER113> Meta: This is probably the most upvoted HN post I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER114> The worst part: look at the HTML they replaced it with!

</comment><comment><USER115> So no season II of 2 Months 2 Million?

</comment><comment><USER116> Well, there goes Full Tilt Capital...

</comment><comment><USER117> seems to open fine in california

</comment><comment><USER60> Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can defend themselves against drug dealers".

It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.)

Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any moves to undo this legislation.

Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who take life savings and then _spend it on themselves_.

Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at risk.

When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint, and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a legitimate government.

We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all criminals.

Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws.

Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here.

Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.

<comment><USER9> This post really highlights the needs for collapsible threads. I'd be very interested in discussing more about asset forfeiture at large, but it's ridiculous to have to wade through all the Liberty Dollar bullshit in order to do that.

<comment><USER118> Here you go:

[http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads- for-...](http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads-for-hacker- news/)

<comment><USER119> Very nice, that helps a lot.

Still, though, this feature _really_ should be part of HN proper, especially since it's so simple to implement. I think a lot more attention would hit posts that aren't already at the top, which would encourage people to write new posts instead of responding to whatever happens to be above the fold.

It's not going to fix the comment quality problems, but it _would_ give a bump in the direction of wider, shallower comment trees, which will probably help a bit (deeply nested comments tend to either meander off topic or degenerate into arguments between a couple of people).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> FBI needs to back down, citizens have a choice.</comment>


Skills and education (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part2.html <comment><USER2> The knowledge covered by an MBA can easily be picked up by reading a few books. The value of an MBA is the connections from networking with your classmates in a tier 1 program. A non-tier 1 MBA is worthless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which books would you recommend?

<comment><USER3> The Goal is really good from a manufacturing perspective. And The Phoenix Project is good from a IT/devops perspective. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_\(novel\)) [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix- pro...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-project)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think so. Out of all things taught there, the few useful things are: accounting, business law, marketing just to learn the terminology, logistics, and out of all "high finance repertoire" the only useful things are fx transaction hedging, and trade finance. Well, and math as well if yours is not on a university level already.

All critical thinking stuff, "strategy" well, for the most part, is simply laughable. When people who dished out 6 digits for an elite degree challenge that, they do so because for them admitting to that mean to admit that they wasted that ton of money for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> what's your background?

<comment><USER4> Long story short: been into engineering from my early years, and by my late teens firmly set my eyes on microelectronics, to the extend I managed to self study it to the level of somebody on the second year of university program, but insistent parents were hellbent on sending me studying "businessy things rich people do" (or so they thought those do.) I somehow managed to get back into technology after graduation and work in an engineering consulting now, closer to the business side

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An MBA is a great addition to addition to a Computer Science degree. If you don't have a Computer Science degree then get one of those first. The skills you learn are that which are not talked about in both fields. In the business world you have to understand the business person's motivations by speaking their language. An MBA is a great way to round out and provide those skills and understanding.

</comment><comment><USER6> Learning is quite a reverent topic. I am an excellent student and it is important for me that I have enough time for each item to master it. But sometimes time is simply not enough ... Therefore, you have to write a daily routine in order to somehow plan your time. I even bought a special pocket notebook [https://onplanners.com/planners/best-academic-planners- colle...](https://onplanners.com/planners/best-academic-planners-college- students) for this. It is very convenient, you can record any information in it, it does not take up much space. So who has problems with the allocation of time, I advise you to write yourself daily routines)

</comment><comment><USER7> Reading this article last year, and i have change my major from economics to computer science eventhough my for the past 3 years i have been dropping "hardscience" to more liberal arts studies. I am pretty much agree that liberal art is "useless", full bunch of people debating something that not really practally usefull and thats not my nature. Luckily i got accepted to change my major, and much more enjoy to do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> So will you do an MBA later?

<comment><USER7> It already becomes my option. Though I am still open with any opportunity, i am thinking about focusing more in cs problem, considering master in cs. I saw right now, it is much more interesting and has higher leverage. But will see that later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >A few months ago I went to Princeton University to see what the young people who are going to be running our country in a few decades are like.

Talk about privilege ...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What do you guys think? How did you guys learn the business skills to run, scale and raise funds?

<comment><USER9> You never stop learning. If you stop learning, you're done. Mentorship throughout out ones career is invaluable.

I am a fan of education, but on business, two thoughts -

1) Business is like swimming. One can study, talk, dsicuss, group project, all we want about business, but it's standing beside the swimming pool.

Nothing teaches swimming other than diving in, and learning not to sink. No swimming instructor will succeed if you can't learn to float, and then move. The key learning in business comes from lessons (good and bad) from experience.

2) The peeople teaching the skills may have no relevant or recent experience in business. So you may be learning to practice the past. Today, if courses take 2 years to develop, and 2 years to approve, the material is often out of date by then anyways. This a real problem most insitutions are facing as other groups are eating their lunch.</comment></comment>


Fanta – A Koa/Express inspired framework in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/trezm/Fanta <comment><AUTHOR> creator here, feel free to ask questions/give constructive criticism!</comment>


Security Advisory: Stored XSS in Magento - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sucuri.net/2016/01/security-advisory-stored-xss-in-magento.html <comment><USER2> Almost 50 days to patch a vulnerability? That just too much, something really simple that could have been done way faster.</comment>


Thrown to the Ad-Wolves... or, Learn from My AdWords Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/thrown-ad-wolves-or-learn-my-adwords-mistakes/

<comment><USER2> I used to be a big fan of Adwords. The customer service used to be awesome.

This year, I don't even get a response after sending multiple emails.

<comment><USER3> Ditto.</comment></comment>


Datanectar – project to mitigate friction between data science and engineering - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wesmadrigal/datanectar <comment><USER2> Hey, this looks cool. How does this differ from luigi?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Web API access to jobs is provided for free, job output storage schema is defined and handled with s3, and logging persisted to s3. Luigi provides nothing but the skeleton for writing data processing applications. This is a data processing application skeleton that can be forked and expanded upon.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to monetize from a TV Guide? - <AUTHOR>

I have built an online TV Guide, and I'm looking for some smart ideas to monetize it more from it. It get some traffic by search engine, but all revenues based on traffic are not enough (only few bucks to pay the hosting).
I have all the data on my database (Schedules, Cover images, IMDB references, Plot, Actors, metadata etc..)
I'm looking for some smart ideas.
http://www.staseraintv.com/ <comment><USER2> Have you tried box sets (DVDs) of popular tv-series via Amazon affiliates program?</comment>


Node.js v9.9.0 - <AUTHOR> https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v9.9.0/ <comment><USER2> Node is evolving pretty fast and thats good, I am personally in love with async/await that can be used without transpilers. But I believe it may be a good time to sort of slow down/mature so as to give long term stability for developers. It's bit crazy now. Isn't Java, which is like 14 years older just reached v10 like yesterday or so?.

<comment><USER3> Java also has a very different development structure. It's owned and build by Oracle (RIP Sun), who get final say in everything added to the language. This additional red tape, and a smaller dev team working on both bug fixes and new features naturally lead to a slower release cycle.

Compare that to Node, which, while organized by the Node.js foundation, makes it very easy for people to contribute bug fixes and ideas. The core node repo is nearing 2,000 contributors. Having people help out, even if it's just with bug fixes, allow core developers to focus on new features. I don't think iteration speed is a sign of instability. Node has a well established release cycle and LTS process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Be aware that theres some ongoing issues like this one for 9.9.0: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/19519](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/19519) Other than that, congratz to the Node team!</comment>


Show HN: Beam – if texting app showed what your friend is typing (try with bot) - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beamlab.beam

<comment><USER2> Didn't we already try this and realized that it's a horrible idea with ICQ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Wave did this.

<comment><USER4> OP also posted 3 weeks ago. Was wondering where I saw it before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I put it up again because we had a major update where we were able to intro a very rudimentary chat bot, so ppl who sign up and don't yet have any friends to talk with can still see what it would be like to receive real time (RT) texts.

A lot of people have a bunch of presumptions about RT but have never used it, so they wouldn't know the benefits of it. They just go by "what it sounds like". It's new technology, so people are justifiably wary.

As for g wave. Yes, i'm aware. This hasn't been done in an app however, so thats #1. And #2, we introduced a unique "beam in" mechanic that allows people to actually respond, comment (interrupt even) on point, as far as I'm aware, noone was able to solve this problem, of 2 people talking at same time, before (solve it well that is).

<comment><USER5> I think "new technology" is a bit of a stretch. It's just not really done because it has very little benefit. I think a lot of people also don't like the idea of all their typos and "actually I won't send that" moments being broadcast to the recipient.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well we did spend time to actually figure out how to properly display "2 people typing same time" situations. And I think we done that fairly well, considering there are very few rt examples out there. Hence the "new" frame.

As for the perceived dislikes, lack of benefits; i doubt people really had experience with anything outside of turn-based sms stuff, you included. I do agree though, most people do think that, but after they use it's actually not a big deal at all, you barely notice "your side of real time".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Grindr app goes straight – but there are different rules for women - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/06/grindr-gay-straight-dating/print

<comment><USER2> Am I misunderstanding how this app is going to go 'straight'?

If it is going straight, it can't be just full of gay men and women. How are they going to get straight men into the app?</comment>