Teeth marks at the rear end - <AUTHOR> http://www.yosefk.com/blog/teeth-marks-at-the-rear-end.html

<comment><USER2> An extremely long winded post about how Python is a good language because it behaves mostly according to the author's expectations. Unless you have no experience with dynamic languages there isn't anything to learn and even then there are much more succinct explanations.

<comment><USER3> But it's really entertaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "In particular, a programmer is a kind of user, and a programming language is a kind of user interface. So is a function or a class or a library. If the programming language or a library doesn't do what actual programmers out there think it would do, than it sucks. If it goes as far as silently doing the wrong thing instead of telling the user about the mistake in a clear way pointing to the exact source of the problem (I'm talking to you, C++ template weenies), then, my friends, it totally and uncompromisingly sucks. Period."

This was the only paragraph worth reading in the entire rant. This is the longer way of saying write programs for others to read.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you had to be in the right mood for it. I found it very entertaining, though long. I liked the neophilia vs neophobia with mushrooms. Referring back to the white-on-yellow highlighting several paragraphs along is a clever way to unify the piece. I suspect the author spent quite some time writing this -- it only appears to be a disorganized rambling rant.</comment></comment>


The Mexican immigrant who set up a global drone firm - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31356080 <comment><USER3> A couple thoughts here:

1) Great to see Mr. Munoz getting some press for himself since it's been Chris Anderson getting all the attention until now with his involvement in 3d Robotics. A bit sad that it's in the context of Munoz being "a mexican immigrant" rather that merely being "an awesome human" but I guess that's the angle here

2) There is a big rift between the UAV community and the general public regarding terminology. No one - not a single person as far as I can tell - <USER2> the community calls them "drones" because it is an ugly word and it's associated with machines that fly to pakistan and murder people. Everyone - every single person - outside the UAV community does call them drones. I see no solution to this except for the fact that if you're a part of that community and you meet someone else who is, and you call it a UAV or multirotor, they know you're "in" which is sort of cool I guess ;-)

<comment><USER4> _No one - not a single person as far as I can tell - in the community calls them "drones"..._

It's not entirely unanimous though. A popular UAV community site is called [http://diydrones.com/](http://diydrones.com/)

This is analogous to the euphemism treadmill. Pretty soon "UAV" will become too dangerous sounding and the community will switch to another label.

<comment><USER3> Yes you're right, lots of beginners are coming over from "the public" and still call them drones.... And there are a lot more of them than experienced RC folks.... so I'm guessing that maybe the word "drone" will grudgingly be accepted.

Yes, lots of blogs and sites with "drone" in the domain name... part of our google-seo world I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All feel good fuzzies about American dream this and that aside.... let me get this straight, he's an illegal alien creating an illegal business with illegal documents in order to break laws by flying drones for commercial purposes?

<comment><USER6> You do know that there's no logical reason why there are countries to begin with?

All countries are, are "people" with fences and guns, willing to slaughter people they don't like.

<comment><USER7> Each people has a different identity, heritage, customs, etc; and it's the right of those people to protect their identity, enforce a code that they see fit, etc.

This kind of thinking is what has Africa and Eastern Europe all fucked up, forcing different indigenous groups together, carelessly increasing tensions so bad that wars break out. Go tell Bosnians, Israelites, Japanese, etc., that they shouldn't have their own country, see what happens.

<comment><USER8> A different interpretation would be that Africa and Eastern EU was fucked up because of the current notion of country: essentially group of people should group together if they have the same identity and agree to the same code, with the corollary being that they can leave and join any group that they share the identity/ code without much obstacles. In other words, countries should exist, but border and restriction on movement shouldn't be.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


India's banking system is flirting with a Lehman moment - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2018/11/08/indias-banking-system-is-flirting-with-a-lehman-moment <comment><USER4> The Indian Government trusts no one and will make 99% of Indians jump through all kinds of hoops like KYC, getting bank letters, stamp paper documents, notarized documents to supposedly avoid such problems. And then they find out all the bureaucracy they put in place was rendered useless because the 1% bad actors know how to leverage that same bureaucracy to beat the system.

The American Govt trusts everyone and lets them go about their business and self report while keeping the option to audit or selectively target the bad actors. Its why foreigners love to start businesses in the US. Its so refreshing.

</comment><comment><USER5> In the weeks following IL&FS disclosure, government fired and replaced the managing body. But as IL&FS is a holding company with more than 60 different subsidiaries it is very difficult for the new managing body to fix things. Check out this podcast for more detailed information: [http://www.seenunseen.in/episodes/2018/10/22/episode-91-ilam...](http://www.seenunseen.in/episodes/2018/10/22/episode-91-ilampfs- and-the-indian-financial-system)

<comment><USER6> Hey its Amit Verma's podcast. Fancy seeing that in the wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's really not clear what's going on in the Indian state.

IL&FS apparently has funded quite a large number of infrastructure projects, which unlike Lehman have tangible value. NHAI, the state highways agency is said to owe a great deal of payments to IL&FS (rumoured to be on the order of $ 5 B).

<comment><USER8> > It's really not clear what's going on in the Indian state.

It's crystal clear actually. Decades worth of stupid decisions (or indecision, as many claim) are finally bearing fruit. Unfortunately the current government, the first in many years that is actually taking some decisions to get the ship in working order is gonna get caught in the quicksand created by its predecessors.

<comment><USER9> The BJP(current government) has neither the brains and nor the motivation to develop the country. All they want to do is get the country back to the vedic period(which is nothing but denting the education to the majority of the people).The leader of the party Modi was in the ads(jio) publicly. It was a public announcement by the corporate to the other organizations that they own the government. Also this same government banned the beef. This government is more like trump focusing on religious hatred for votes and nothing more that that([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_riots) was led by the current leader and prime minister of the party).

<comment><USER10> Yup.

Construction of roads and toilets, GST, IBC, electrifying of all villages and all other reforms initiated by the current government are part of a larger scheme that's taking us back to the vedic period.

<comment><USER11> To understand real indian culture with the proofs and evidence this short essay(Annilation of Caste) will gives the idea [http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/reading...](http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf). Once you read this essay you will have pretty clear idea when speaking to indians about their motivations. Also this author arundathi roy is fascinating [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddKzcrwC9os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddKzcrwC9os). She has shared stage a lot of times with Noam Chomsky too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Full Version:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181110084624/https://www.econo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181110084624/https://www.economist.com/business/2018/11/08/indias- banking-system-is-flirting-with-a-lehman-moment)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, but this doesn't work for me either. It loads the article, but then some additional scripts load that stop the article from displaying fully.

<comment><USER14> Loads fine with JavaScript disabled (via uMatrix).

<comment><USER15> As does the unarchived version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the disastrous consequences of the current government rule is the stifling effect it has had on press freedom. There is no honest discussion of the issues. I have invested in the non-banking financial sector, as have many other Indians, directly, or indirectly through mutual funds.

There is no honest and frank financial reporting on the current imbroglio even in the financial press, aside from some vague reports on the fight between the government and the central bank, RBI.

What is the exposure due to ILFS default? What are the projections? What are the fallouts? How much recapitalisation is necessary? Is it only ILFS? No discussion.

What was the demonetisation for? No discussion.

The fin min has been trumpeting "consolidation" of public sector banks. Isn't this "too big to fail" coming up? Do we really need this? No discussion.

\-- Another fact that I sometimes worry about: after demonetisation, real estate has stagnated, and mutual funds have seen a boom. Hence the exposure of the economy to bad loans made by the banks has increased in the last 2 years. So the catastrophe, when and if it happens, might be much more enormous than might otherwise have been.

<comment><USER17> In contrast i see the usual media personalities rallying against the govt. on a daily basis, i do not see how can you claim there is an issue with the media.

They claim emergency at a drop of a hat, the SC makes a lot of decisions unilaterally frequently crossing its constitutional mandate without accountability to anyone.

I would say that the media is doing a bad job of unearthing the actual facts and not being able to portray anything impartially without a political angle to it.

The fact remains that this govt has been cleaning the sins of the 2005-2013 years and initiatives like GST, demonetization even with their short term pains are a much needed antidote in the long term cleaning up of the system. There has been a significant jump in the tax collections from individual taxpayers in this year and last and these are changes that will contribute in the cleanup.

<comment><USER5> Which media houses are you talking about exactly? Even a cursory glance on the news channels at prime time will reveal the govt bias quite easily. People have been fired for criticising govt and even NDTV recently had, what some believe, to be a politically motivated takeover.

<comment><USER17> even a cursory glance at twitter and the usual high profile journalists: Shekar Gupta, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt etc. Only Arnab Goswami amongst the English media is more inclined towards this govt.

In the last 15 years, ever heard any media house criticize Sonia Gandhi ? Even after the umpteen scams. That is what real power is.

Sure they make fun of Rahul Gandhi, but every few months articles and reinvention of his persona is done.

This is in contrast with the hounding of Modi from his CM days and nowadays where every tangential issue is attributed to him. Will Modi answer is like the Thanks Obama version of India.

<comment><USER5> Check the reply on their twitter posts for a more balanced perspective. These people hold almost no influence. Think of Prasoon Bajpai, Karan Thapar, Vinod Dua etc. thats the trajectory Sardesai, Dutt et al are on, and not on their path of becoming the next Arnab.

Of course they did name Sonia Gandhi. Do you remember the India Against corruption movement which gave rise to AAP? The movement had posed questions to MMS and Sonia Gandhi and media had championed the movement. There was no equivocation about it from any mainstream channel, neither about the multiple scams that preceded it. Media houses had done their duty in speaking truth to power especially in UPA2 days.

What I am trying to say is your opinion about Modi's hounding in media seems to be built on what gets printed in wire/print/caravan etc. Although these sources might be heavily represented in your FB timefeed their influence/readership is miniscule compared to a news channel and news papers which have extremely lenient to Modi. Just think how hard media was on UPA2. That same level of scrutiny is sorely missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I never understood is that many countries like America and EI states have triple A credit ratings despite having trillions of debt that is never going to be paid back. Whilst developing countries have much worse ratings on the assumption they can't pay it back. Neither the rich or poor countries are going to pay the debt back yet the system is rigged to allow the richer ones to have AAA/AAB ratings so they can continue taking more money to invest. Am I missing something or is this true?

<comment><USER19> The United States has never missed a coupon payment and it doesn't look like it will for the forseeable future (many, many decades). What would you call that besides the best credit any organization could _possibly_ have?

<comment><USER20> That is a very low bar though, any country still functional enough to run a printing press can make coupon payments.

The issue is, if someone lends the US enough money to buy a coffee, it is difficult to see why they believe they are guaranteed to get a coffee+ worth of money back.

The numbers are staggering, the economic growth isn't there. The US has a technological edge and a big army, but at the end of the day it is 'just' a country like all the others. At this point, a reasonable observer could conclude that the political process is locked in to running up debt until the interest can no longer be paid. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats are in a position to improve the numbers.

After the '07-'08 era crisis, it seems a legitimate question to ask why the taxpayer should pay their debts if the financiers seem to get a pass when it all gets too hard for them.

<comment><USER6> At nation scale, lending money does not work like buying coffee.

ITs an entirely different mechanism. Think of the difference between breaking styrofoam apart and pulling atoms apart.

<comment><USER21> > At nation scale, lending money does not work like buying coffee.

This seems to be the econ 101 answer all modern day Chicago - <USER2> influenced economists give out.

Student: if the US has a debt that's more than their current GDP, isn't that bad? If a family had a credit card debt higher than their current salary, we'd say that they were in bad financial shape.

Economist: The macroeconomics of a nation work much differently than a single family's budget.

Student: Well, when the family has no plans to cut expenses, continues to charge more and more each year on the credit card, and their solution involves some vague plan of getting a huge raise sometime in the future, how does this not end in disaster for the family, but turn out fine for a government doing the same thing.

Economist: Running deficits and borrowing money in perpetuity is good for a large country to do, just not for an individual. It is known.

Student: well eventually the family's interest payments will be more than they actually make, leaving nothing left for actual expenses. At that point, their card is canceled and they have to sell all their stuff, move out of their home, and crash with the parents. And nobody lends to them again for a long time, and only at high rates. How does a nation avoid this outcome when the math is the same?

Economist: Trust us <waves Jedi hand>.

I get the feeling we're going to someday look at today's accepted macroeconomic theories, and wonder just WTF we we're thinking.

<comment><USER22> > Student: How does a nation avoid this outcome when the math is the same?

Economist: As I have told you multiple times by now, it isn't. That is what we taught you in first year. You can't simply arbitrarily scale up models from lemonade stand to international trade. Things are not all linear, simplifications in one model are simply not valid in another model.

Arguments like these always strike me as similar to "if evolution, then why are there still monkeys". Maybe you are right, everything is really simple and everybody else has been too stupid to see it. Or maybe people are right when they tell you that you don't quite understand what you are talking about.

<comment><USER23> there are many facts about computers that seem trivial to me, but would take weeks of background to even begin to explain to my intelligent friends in other fields, so i can accept that there might be some complex topics in other disciplines where you just have to take the experts at their word. that being said, are there any economists here who can ELI5 the actual difference between private and public debt?

<comment><USER20> I've been experimenting with explaining this - here is the current draft.

An ordinary borrower has a number of ways they can get in to trouble - <USER3> losing their job and so being unable to repay a loan. The government avoids all that because government writes the law and it controls the creation of currency so it can always choose to technically not have a problem.

These changes make it almost meaningless to assess a government's debt in norminal terms (eg, 'the debt is $x trillion!' isn't actually a concern, because the government as a body can simply create $x trillion if it wants. Wish I could do that :P).

So we have to look at the governments debt in real terms, at which point we need a completely different model than a small time player, who is mostly concerned with by nominal issues. Then you run in to the issue that in real terms, nobody agrees on anything - which is why the economy is run with a nominal currency system. But there are people, like me, who think in real terms the US of today is a completely different beast from the US of the 1970s. There are massive demographic and political differences.

<comment><USER23> thanks for the stab at an explanation.

it sounds like you're saying that the debt load vs GDP _is_ important, but the relationship in nominal terms doesn't say much. is that an accurate reading?

<comment><USER20> Yes. But even then it is a bit difficult to speak with certainty because governments choose the tax rate and as long as the army stays intact can recover from nearly anything.

In this context, I believe debt load to GDP for the US after WWII, and that didn't cause a problem. The concern is that the US has a debt load consistent with a world war and conditions that are really quite favorable. So the obvious questions are "at what point does this get paid back?" and "in like- for-like real terms, assuming politicians are cynical and greedy, is there any reason to believe this debt will be honored?".

<comment><USER24> You make it sound like the answer to the student's question is something like: "Government debt is different because it's in a currency that the government can arbitrarily create. The government can force its subjects to use this currency through the power of taxation and in the worst case, military occupation and martial law"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I read a time ago corrupt officials take a cut of every project. Don't know if still a fact.

</comment><comment><USER26> The country that banned banks from buying crypto is about to go bust. Cause or effect?

<comment><USER16> Probably unrelated. This crisis is due to aggressive lending to unreliable parties, leading to mass default. The Lehman analogy is apt and to the point.

<comment><USER26> I wonder if they fear higher liquidity in cryptos leading to lower liquidity in bonds.

<comment><USER27> My (off the cuff) theory is they want the money to stay in the banks and the reason is the same as for them getting rid of large denomination bills to make the friction of holding cash higher. Can't really recapitalize the banks if everyone has their money on some blockchain or in their mattresses.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


C++ Interlude - <AUTHOR> http://talesofcpp.fusionfenix.com/post-23/interlude <comment><USER2> Nice to see that C++ is picking up speed after C++11. In my previous job I had to work with "legacy" C++, but now I'm working with "modern" C++. The difference is huge. C++11 features allow me to do more with less headache and I'm more confident in code correctness.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting post, thanks! If the TS model means that more stuff can be added to c++ even faster, I'm not sure that's a good thing though. On the other hand, people have expected the language to crumble under its weight for a long time now, and that hasn't happened yet.</comment>


Ask 37signals: Installable software? - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/724-ask-37signals-installable-software

<comment><USER2> About 6 months ago, I've seen a usability study of a downloadable app (P2P/Bittorrent app to download movies, music) and they tested in on 5 people. Users had to download the app, install it and then use the site to start the downloads. Out of 5 people, not a single person managed to complete the task because everyone was suspicious of installing anything.

The aversion to install anything and fear of viruses and spyware is absolutely amazing.

<comment><USER3> i understand the desired and _potentially_ correct conclusion, but what can you really conclude with a sample size of 5 people?

<comment><USER4> We have a much larger sample at RescueTime.com and we're seeing this... But it's not too painful. Our conversion rates are pretty outstanding (20% or so of absolute uniques download our software).

It's all about credibility (a bit harder to establish with no-name p2p app).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Instead of "Would you?", I think the question should be, "Why would you?"

<comment><USER6> 1) Performance. Which begs the question, "Does performance matter?" I think it does for Id, Blizzard, EA, etc., and not many others.

2) The need to access hardware, especially external devices.

3) A more straightforward business model, _viz_ , "Buy my software for 20 dollars."

4) Avoiding the intrinsic hackery of the "Web Application". This problem is going away.

5) Security concerns on the part of the customer. Oddly, people are more worried about trojans stealing data than they are about trusting their data to XYZ corporation's web servers.

<comment><USER5> "This problem is going away."

What made Wayne Gretsky such a great hockey player? He didn't skate to where the puck WAS, he skated to where it was GOING TO BE.</comment></comment></comment>


Revolut is at risk of losing its European banking licenses - <AUTHOR> https://www.siliconrepublic.com/companies/revolut-kremlin-lithuania-banking-license <comment><USER3> The sins of the father?

I wonder if there's more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye here. It seems very strange to me that Lithuania, who has put a massive amount of effort into becoming a friendly location for fintechs would risk alienating such a big company on such a flimsy pretext as the founder being Russian with a Russian father at Gazprom (I'm ignoring the server piece because I don't know what to make of that - Russia is a big market and if they wanted to expand I believe they need to have servers locally and it may be a cost cutting move).

edit to add sources for context: [https://sifted.eu/articles/emoney- authorisation-lithuania/](https://sifted.eu/articles/emoney-authorisation- lithuania/) \- article describing Lithuania's push to become a fintech capital [https://investlithuania.com/key- sectors/technology/fintech/](https://investlithuania.com/key- sectors/technology/fintech/) \- Government website describing the process and their 'forward thinking' regulation [https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/05/apple-russian-user- data-...](https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/05/apple-russian-user-data-local- servers/) \- article about Apple's storing of some user data on servers in Russia to comply with the local data law

<comment><USER4> > _I wonder if there 's more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye > here._

There are additional risks for Lithuania with regards to Revolut which are not often discussed (but they have been raised by the parties concerned, and others, etc.) Consider: Revolut is now (with its new banking license) able to take in customer deposits. They are (by law) insured by the state (up to a certain sum). If the bank goes bust, the state-owned insurer is on the hook. Now consider Revolut's pan-European expansion plans (flaunting and expecting continued aggressive growth). There is a lot of exposure here; through a pretty dodgy company no less. So there really is a lot to consider here. Bank of Lithuania (a regulatory body) _inviting_ Revolut themselves also doesn't look too good. Hence parliamentary oversight steps in, with legitimate concern on hand. Bear in mind that core intention is not always seeped in some kind of behind-the-scenes malice, or pure populism, or what have you.

I personally see fintech as a field with some interesting companies and potential for innovation, but also as a possible catalyst / accelerator of the next tech-related bubble bust. One should invest into the field with care and cautiousness.

<comment><USER5> Only deposits are insured. Having account on Revolut does not count as a deposit. So until Revolut starts offering such option there is no risk. And not sure if current license permits accepting deposits.

<comment><USER4> Yes, of course; but deposits will come, Revolut communicated as much (IIRC). Also (IIRC) the license does permit accepting deposits, but as of now there are limits / quantity constraints imposed. So there is that. But those limits can be raised (and intuition (not knowledge) tells me it may not be hard; but this also stems from my distrust of BoL and its regulatory oversight capacity).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They should loose their license for their business practices [1] irregardless if they have ties to the Kremlin.

[1] [https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/33454/tales-from-the- da...](https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/33454/tales-from-the-dark-side-of- the-revolut-revolution-cfo-resigns)

</comment><comment><USER7> All I care about is that my funds are safe. I currently have a lot in Revolut, I've had nothing but positive experiences with them but moving to another bank is not a big deal for me.

<comment><USER8> If they aren't part of the legitimate banking system then likely your funds are not safe. In the US you are automatically insured by the FDIC for up to $250k per bank and per account type (like savings and checking).

Does the EU have a similar concept? If so, will you lose insurance if their license is revoked?

<comment><USER9> Yes, EU has something like that for up to 100000 EUR per person per bank. Revolut is not a bank, so this doesn't apply there.

<comment><USER10> If they currently have a European banking license, how are they not a bank?

<comment><USER9> Ask them. You can have a banking license and operate a grocery shop. I guess you can have a banking license, not be a bank, and do some other money related business.

Edit: I just looked at their website and didn't found any mention that they are a bank. I'll violate their ToS and link to their website here:

[https://www.revolut.com/legal/website- terms/](https://www.revolut.com/legal/website-terms/)

> We are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money > Institution under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 for the issuing of > electronic money. We are included in the FCA's registered of electronic > money institution firms (Firm Registration Number 900562) which can be found > on the FCA website.

"Electronic Money Institution" is not a bank.

Interestingly you can't link to their website from social media without violating their ToS. Funny. Also you can't link to them if you want to criticize them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The Lithuanian government has accused Revolut of having Kremlin ties before, > which reached boiling point when it was reported that the company would be > moving all of its servers to Russia.

That I did not know. I was an early user of Revolut but I've been done with them for a while (their marketing team is responsible for me dropping it). Time for me to send them a GDPR removal request I guess. They don't provide any way of deleting your account other than going through their awful chat support system so I guess I'll have to suffer through that again.

<comment><USER12> I have the same problem and didn't use it because of their scummy marketing practices.

I uninstalled the app thinking I could just log in to the website to cancel it but no luck, you have to phone.

Is there a simple way to submit GDPR deletion requests like this? They're being deliberately obtuse with closing accounts. They deserve to lose their licences.

<comment> jon-wood A GDPR request may not go far because banking regulations supersede GDPR when it comes to retaining records that might be required for financial investigations. I believe in a UK there's a requirement that they hold onto details of any transactions done for at least eight years.

<comment><USER11> I understand the banking requirements but in theory they should only be keeping certain information for security practices and scrubbing it from everywhere else (e.g. marketing/analytics etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> May be not related to the headline, but Revolut is locking many accounts without any reasons and not much can be done... Would be nice to know where to send a complaint about them in Lithuania, any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER14> Let me explain what's actually happening.

Some context first.

Lithuania's Central Bank (Lietuvos Bankas) is currently led by a rather modern team which created a process that allows fintech companies to acquire "money institution" or bank licence in a sandboxed environment. That means that companies can only do non-risky business (like transfers) with a special oversight. LB was/is quite vocal about their interest in attracting companies from the UK in a post-brexit Europe as a banking licence in Lithuania is valid in the whole EU.

The person that leads the central bank is Vitas Vasiliauskas and he is strongly supported by the current president.

Quite a few companies have shown interest in this fast-tracked process (even Google opened their branch). Revolut was one of them, as it is really popular in Lithuania. I believe, that Lithuania is the third country by the number of Revolut users (a year ago 3% of the population were using Revolut).

The commission (The Commission of Budget and Finance) that's responsible for the investigation is lead by Stasys Jakeliūnas. He is a member of the current ruling pro-peasant party. The commission itself is a part of the parliament.

One of the other things that the commission is also currently investigating is the way the government has handled the crisis of 2008 and the role that the banks have played when interested rates were being adjusted. The government was led at that time by the current opposition.

The meat of the story.

Next month there is going to happen the elections for the parliament of the EU, and a few weeks after a presidential election. In 2020 MP elections are going to happen.

The current consensus is that whatever Mr Jakeliunas is doing is for the sake of the elections. Their (LŽVS - peasant) party electorate is rather uneducated and hates banks (banks=evil) in general so doing something against the banks is supposed to score points.

Since the current president supports the candidate that's not supported by LŽVS, going against LCB and Vasiliauskas is supposed to score some points for their candidate (or rather something against the other leading candidate). Also, they intend to score some points against the current opposition party which is leading the polls due to the supposed connection in mishandling the banks and the crisis itself in 2018.

Finally, since Revolut is backed by the investors (DSI Global) that are originally from Russia and one of the Revolut's founders is Russian that's another batch of free points because Lithuanian public hates Russia due to rather well-known reasons.

So just you know, LCB and VSD (Valstybės Saugumo Departamentas - <USER2> equivalent in LT) has done a thorough background check on Revolut and found no national security risks.

I hope this paints a much clearer picture and I didn't miss anything important.

TLDR; Jakeliunas is playing his part for the election and in the process of doing that he is doing irreparable damage to the global image of Lithuania.

<comment><USER4> It is probably best to avoid political commentary on HN but since you provided (one possible) political interpretation of these events which I am convinced is absolutely incorrect, I feel compelled to (merely - nothing more) note for others that it is just one possible interpretation; and that _calling it the "consensus" is quite a stretch_; even when one's scope is restricted to employees (past and present) within BoL. (I grant that yours is one possible narrative, of course). I will add a couple of notes here and will then suggest not to pursue the matter further, since its nature is both speculative _and_ political. :)

I will only ask you to consider --

> _Next month there is going to happen the elections for the parliament of the > EU, and a few weeks after a presidential election. In 2020 MP elections are > going to happen._

Consider observing how investigations will continue after the elections above (need to wait for that). (2020 elections... may as well say that everything is done as a function of the four year election cycle in that case, but that would be a bit moot, I would think). Also consider that the recession / VILIBOR etc. investigation conclusion dates were pushed ahead past the target May 2019 election dates (which had been agreed by a parliamentary vote back in 2018, _voted for by opposition as well, including their main presidential candidate (she hadn 't decided to go ahead with her candidacy back then), by the way_) - and this push-ahead was an idea suggested and advocated by the chairman of the commission. P.S. besides VSD there is also FNTT, and FNTT has a pretty different (and rather bleak) outlook on these matters.

<comment><USER14> Why should one avoid political commentary on HN? It's FULL of it.

>"consensus" is quite a stretch

Well, for everybody that's not related to LŽVS.

>which I am convinced is absolutely incorrect

You forgot to share the things why do you think that's incorrect.

<comment><USER4> > _Well, for everybody that 's not related to LŽVS._

That is not true: there are people in BoL who do not share your view at all. How do you think the internal VILBOR report came about and resurfaced initially (BoL was later forced to publish it)? Unfortunately, we will have to be patient until the names and views of the people become public, if it comes to that. I hope it does, but there is also backlash and retribution for them awaiting from within BoL. I know this all sounds speculative, so the only thing I can ask is some patience.

> _You forgot to share the things why do you think that 's incorrect._

I can expand, but I do not think this is the place to do so. I also do not think I am capable of currently convincing you otherwise; I hope in time we shall see. I'll consider adding more details later. But my purpose in replying to you was to merely communicate that there is no definite consensus at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft says Windows for the Internet of Things will be free - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/04/02/microsoft-says-windows-internet-things-will-free-starting-phones-tablets-less-9/#comments

<comment><USER2> I see a few problems for windows in the IoT realm: 1) Its to heavy. Even the embedded versions need a decent CPU and memory to chug along. Try running Windows on the RPi hardware. 2) Its to heavy. ARM is powering/going to power the IoT since it is so good for lightweight systems and low power usage. Yes, there is Intel Atom, but that series of chips barely makes a dent in the world of connected things. 3) Linux already powers this entire market and development for Linux is cheaper (no Visual Studio licenses) and easier (huge open-source and developer network). 4) Its Windows. Great for businesses, not so good for small, tiny, low power devices.

</comment><comment><USER3> Far too late. Linux has been free and infinitely more customizable for the "internet of things" since forever</comment>


Google: Privacy Is Alive And Well - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/12/privacy-facebook-gmail-technology-security-google.html

<comment><USER2> To me, it reads like somebody in the trenches who wants very much for this to be true -- but doesn't necessarily have the authority to make it happen at a higher level.

The fact that Eric Schmidt feels otherwise, and that privacy is a leaky thing, suggest that this may be an employee engaging in wishful thinking.

<comment><USER3> "Alma Whitten is Privacy Engineering Lead at Google."

I don't know whether that means real influence within Google, but apparently this isn't a random employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe I'm jaded, having worked with Marketing agencies, but that reads so clearly like a PR piece, feels fake, did not ease any concerns over the author's boss mocking privacy just a few months ago. But perhaps that's what works for the audience of Forbes magazine.

</comment><comment><USER5> _ads, incidentally, that help pay for all the great content on the Web, so it can stay free of charge_

Oh, thank you mighty google for making the web free! Where would we be with you!

With adwords you are the internet's true saviour and not really the cause of the billions of spam sites, spam comments and spam blogs plastered with your useless ads trying desperately to capture extra clicks that you didn't catch the first time.

Man that really stuck in my craw. Google are fast becoming my new monopoly to hate.

The only possible application I can think of the Ads Preferences Manager is to deliberately choose things I hate/have no desire for so they don't even catch my eye.</comment>


The Architecture of SQLite - <AUTHOR> https://www.sqlite.org/arch.html <comment><USER3> One thing I find very interesting is the following:

>SQLite has its own private implementation of printf() (with some extensions) in printf.c

Why?

<comment><USER4> (1) Consistent, repeatable results across all platforms - the library will not fail or degrade because of a platforms dodgy printf() implementation.

(2) SQLite's printf includes extensions like %q and %Q that help prevent SQL injection attacks. These are used internally. (grep for '%q' and '%Q' in the SQLite sources and see for yourself.)

(3) Nothing like sqlite3_mprintf() is available from standard libraries. And yet it is a very useful and important interface.

(4) SQLite has a printf() SQL function for formatting text. I don't know of any way to build that using a standard-library printf() implementation - <USER2> need to have direct access to the printf() source code to make it work from SQL.

(5) Library printf() implementations are often subject to LOCALE, which means that if "3.14159" is render as "3,14159" (as it is for some LOCALEs) it will break SQL syntax rules when used to construct an SQL statement.

I can probably think of other reasons, but those are the ones that come quickly to mind.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Am I missing the Lisp magic? - <AUTHOR> I grew up coding in C and the many languages it inspired syntactically. I am currently learning some Erlang, which is cool. I for one can not understand the draw to Lisp or its syntax. It just looks confusing to me and in no way any easier than C to write/read. And looking at C-ish source code is effortless to get the right context but with stuff like )))))) ?? Someone explain please, also I understand some people like Lisp for some of its features, but are they tied to the syntax or can be easily copied over in another language? Also I know why functional programming so lets keep the discussion on the Syntax! <comment><USER2> If you are looking at the ))))) you are looking at the wrong place. It's like placing your attention on the } } } } in C. Look at the opening parenthesis instead, and more importantly _the indentation_.

The benefit of S-expressions (lisp syntax) is that they make it easy to work with "code as data" instead of "code as text". This in turn makes it easy enough to generate code and define new forms of expression that people can actually do it without blowing the complexity budget.

<comment><AUTHOR> How often is it important to treat code as data (in general) and would you say it makes things less complex than a C-like language?

<comment><USER3> You should use that a lot with lisp (or rather use it for projects that require you use it a lot). The secret sauce of lisp is that code is data.

Instead of using hacks like c's function pointers, lisp lets you pass code around as easily as any other variable type (1st class functions) instead of just pointers to the code. You can then exploit this ability to make code that will generate code on the fly and then execute it (macros). The homoiconicity of the language itself makes it much easier to make useful macros as opposed to just toy examples.

Since lisp and c are both turing complete, anything you can do in one language you can do in the other, but lisp's macros, 1st class functions, and homoiconicity make it possible to actually write something that would be almost impossible in c due to complexity issues. For example, in Cal's old intro cs course which used a lisp dialect, the last project of the course was writing a meta-compiler for the entire language. In contrast, Cal's compiler course uses c++ to compile only a small subset of python2 over an entire semester, and is considered one of the hardest classes due to the project's complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another point is that when programming in a Lisp, it's highly recommended to use an editor/IDE that automatically handles the balancing of parentheses and provides keyboard shortcuts for common transformations of s-expressions.

For my day-to-day work with Clojure, Emacs and Paredit[1] meet that need handily.

[1] <http://emacswiki.org/emacs/ParEdit>

See also the Paredit CheatSheet: <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PareditCheatsheet>

</comment><comment><USER4> An important aspect of the "Lisp magic" is the language's homoiconicity[1].

Scheme, Clojure and other members of the Lisp-family share this language property, but it's not exclusive to lisps[2].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity#Examples>

</comment><comment><USER5> You can implement the functional aspects of lisp in almost any language, however S-expressions are only present in a very limited number of programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you ever written anything with it?

</comment><comment><USER7> (no)</comment>


Upvote someone you disagree with today - <AUTHOR> http://martinsvanberg.com/upvote-someone-you-disagree-with/ <comment><USER2> I heartily agree! I do it all the time.

The only stuff I really downvote is uncivil comments / mean people.</comment>


Sudanese-American boy handcuffed for bringing homemade clock to school - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/16/sudanse-american-boy-handcuffed-homemade-clock-school <comment><USER2> There's a photo of him in handcuffs, wearing a NASA t-shirt:

[http://i.imgur.com/itmlhX8.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/itmlhX8.jpg)

Unless he's really resilient, we've lost him as a future STEM student.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any study to ascertain how these kind of incidents affect children psychologically, the effects of which manifest only years later? (Let's assume that this boy is a gifted engineer, and this incident leaves deep psychological scars not expressed in the next few years, but eventually leads him to take up activities later in life which are harmful for American citizens)

<comment><USER4> > activities later in life which are harmful for American citizens

You mean like inventing robots that take away american jobs? That's just the free market.

Projecting a criminal future adds to the harm to him, don't do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why there are real ones.

</comment><comment><USER6> let's all avoid the M word.</comment>


The Last Goodbye - <AUTHOR> https://path.com/goodbye <comment><USER2> Path in its day was way ahead in ux and detail compared to other social networks. Stickers and reactions on facebook came later and even then/now never were as 'finished' compared to what Path had.

A great example of how the better product doesn't always win. There are just too many factors (like timing and network effects in this case).

<comment><USER3> Path was not better. They got busted repeatedly playing fast and loose with user privacy, and iirc their bad behavior was the proximate cause of Apple adding contacts permissions to iOS. Good riddance to these jerks.

[https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782947/path-ios-app- user-...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782947/path-ios-app-user- information-collected-privacy)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, my memory of Path is that they spammed all my contacts in the first week of having it installed and then I uninstalled it and never went near it again.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly how long it stayed installed on my phone and those of my friends who I helped originally sign up for it.

I don't think they ever recovered from that incident. [https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782947/path-ios-app- user-...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782947/path-ios-app-user- information-collected-privacy)

I can't believe they somehow trotted along for another six years. Never seen anybody use it since.

<comment><USER6> Hard to find a mobile app these days that doesn't demand contact access, try using WhatsApp without providing it and it's a rough ride, I'm super reluctant to upload mine but that one was basically unusable without doing so.

How times change.

<comment><USER5> That's very true. Though it wasn't the contacts upload on its own so much. It was that they were uploaded in the background without permission or notification and your contacts were spammed without your permission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Path was very popular in Indonesia when I visited a few years ago. I guess people just switched to other social networks like Instagram. I wonder whether people will have moved on from Instagram in 10 years.

<comment><USER8> I heavily believe social networks will always be cyclical, as people always want excitement. A new social network launches, everyone gets excited for something new and different, it grows to the point where your grandma and your teachers or kids are on it too, you lose the excitement and start looking for the next "entertainment".

The world is moving faster than ever with entertainment and attention spans. Facebook is already showing signs of fizzling out. I don't believe it will die, just like MySpace and Digg are still going, they're just not the hot shit they once were. I think we're pretty much hitting the point now where Snapchat and Instagram are "hotter" than Facebook, and Facebook is running on momentum for a fair while longer before being "just another social network".

Instagram and Snapchat are in their peak right now. Everyone under 30 has both, and most over 30 at least have an account to follow their kids, friends, whatever. I think 10 years is even optimistic, I wouldn't be surprised if another transition happened within 5.

When Instagram and Snapchat lose their excitement, the next thing will come along. There's hundreds of startups already working on trying to be the next big social network. It's a given it'll happen eventually.

(I'm not in the industry and don't know stats, I don't use social networks other than following people on Twitter for updates, this is just the ramblings of someone watching it all for 20+ years)

<comment><USER9> You underestimate several things:

\- the difficulty of changing services for the technically challenged.

\- Facebook's technical prowess (much different than MySpace was)

\- Facebook's variety outside of a pure social network (they are a news app, craiglist/classifieds, meetup/events, Picasa 10.0/photo app, messenger, and a myspace clone, all rolled into one, with new services added all of the time). Probably missed something else.

<comment><USER10> Facebook stayed ahead in many ways by buying out it's future competition i.e Instagram and WhatsApp and tried very hard for snapchat without success so copied it with instagram. Most people in my extended family no longer post much on Facebook but are regular and heavy users of WhatsApp groups and instagram.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What did they do? Their home page doesn't give it away and their about page is just the farewell letter linked by the OP.

<comment><USER12> This provides more context: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/17/rip- path/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/17/rip-path/)

<comment><USER13> Crazy that they turned down a $100M+ offer from Google in their first year.

<comment><USER14> Hindsight is 20/20.

I remember when zuckerberg turned down $1B from yahoo and I couldn't believe how stupid and greedy he must be to turn that down.

<comment><USER15> Is his life that much better than if he had taken the money and run? I am a big believer that the best life is found at the upper, upper middle class level where you have enough money to do almost everything you want, but where you can walk down the street without bodyguards.

<comment><USER16> He didn't want money, he wanted power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Path has been used by my girlfriends family for the past six years as their familial social network. They all just follow each other and because they don't use it for anything else it's a perfect little community for sharing memories. It was hard for them to cope with the fact that it's all getting shut down after six years using it.

Makes you wonder why smaller family or close-friends type social networks don't work. I guess the value isn't there to build it because it can't sprawl in the same way as other social networks.

<comment><USER18> _Makes you wonder why smaller family or close-friends type social networks don 't work._

Because they are run by for profit companies, operating in a capitalistic framework.

That is one of the core pillars of free software as envisioned by Stallman - software that can truly serve the needs of the people, because it is not subject to those pressures.

A world where your girlfriend's family could painlessly deploy their own such service for just a few users and not have to worry about a company shutting it down whenever they feel like it would be wonderful.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I'm sure they would be able to deploy the service, have it secure and updated, having apps up to date on their new devices. Or maybe that takes time and effort, and people need to pay their bills.

<comment><USER20> I think for people don't mind paying for things they actualy own.

For instance grand-parents don't want to pay for instagram but will pay premium to have great pictures printed and framed.

Or pay to have their own domain name.

People pay for Dropbox or Squarespace.

I'd totally see my parents paying for a Synology if someone could install it and maintain it for around 10$/€ a month. Currently they pay for one time install fees + maintenance hours for their windows machine for instance, it's not a big stretch.

<comment><USER21> Synology is heavily business focused, but I do feel they're making steps towards competing with the bigger companies by offering smaller scale options. They now have Chat, Drive, and Moments which all do things like Slack, GDrive, and Timehop and with apps. Obviously the main caveat is they're not as refined/full featured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Remember Ello? The invite only social network that blew up in 2014. I was on it for a week then I had to say Oodbye as well.

[https://ello.co/](https://ello.co/) [https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-ello-the- social-network-that-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-ello-the-social- network-that-wants-to-be-the-anti-facebook/)

<comment><USER23> Ello is still operating, though its social aspect is fading.

The founders' initial plan was to create an artists' and designers' platform, and they've pivoted hard back in that direction over the past couple of years.

<comment><USER22> Thought their initial pitch was an ad free social network?

<comment> village-idiot It was. Turns out that's really hard to do.

<comment><USER24> Especially when you take a bunch of venture capital: [https://ar.al/notes/ello-goodbye/](https://ar.al/notes/ello-goodbye/)

Note that that was written when they had taken $435,000 in VC, and now they're up to $11M: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello- inc](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc)

<comment> village-idiot I'm genuinely surprised they've lasted this long.

<comment><USER23> And ... it turns out there's just been a management coup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It started as a good idea while social networks hadn't yet reached the level of adoption and engagement that they would later, but getting users to start using anything new is very difficult. The limit on the number of contacts (that one could have) may have further impacted the network effect.

It's a bit unfortunate that the first thing that comes to my mind when Path is mentioned is the address book upload by the app without asking users.

I don't think there's no space for such an app now, since more people (relatively speaking) are aware of and are concerned about large networks like Facebook and their impact on privacy and society. Coming back with a privacy focused offering that targets those who want more meaningful interactions with a limited number of people might get some traction, even if it remains niche.

<comment><USER26> I'd be interested in a peer-to-peer one, rather than one with a centralized server and database.

<comment><USER27> There's Diaspora, since 2010 no less, but it's hard for it to really take off when most people would rather use a centralized service, and centralized services would rather lock people in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Time to retire either my day or night iPhone

</comment><comment><USER29> Speaking of dead social networks, [http://peach.cool/](http://peach.cool/) is, somehow, still up.

<comment><USER30> If it costs almost nothing to run why ever kill it off...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31>
      - 9.17.2018 : Notice on Path service discontinuation
      - 10.1.2018: Unable to download/update the app in iTunes and Google Play
      - 10.18.2018: Termination of the Service (Unable to access to Path)
      - 11.15.2018: Path related customer service will be closed

Seems like a fairly abrupt wrap-up of the service?

I remember a friend used it years ago with her partner as a private social network of sorts which I thought was interesting. Then that was the last I ever heard of Path until now.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm sure they did lots wrong, including being deceitful with peoples private address books.. but also, wasn't one of the novelties of Pty that you could only have 20 "friends" or something like that? That seems like a huge gamble and makes it that much harder to build, grow and sustain a network doesn't it! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER33> I remember Path back in college. It was not that popular but its mobile app was beautiful, top-notch in terms of UI design and animations back then.

Sadly it did not take off, which on the other hand is comprehensible, having other options such as Facebook and Instagram where most of the friends and connections are.

</comment><comment><USER34> Cool domain name though

<comment><USER35> The domain is probably the most valuable asset they own following the demise of the service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Never even left beta…

<comment><USER37> I think this was for the web version. They were mobile first for a long time, and a lot of the core team left years ago before the web version was complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't understand when startups just closes down. Isn't minimum established unit of success is aquihire these days?

<comment><USER39> They did get bought out by KakaoTalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> [mis-stated comment edited out too late to be deleted]

<comment><USER41> You mean Journey app? It doesn't allow sharing</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you give me a food and shelter if i code for you? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I have 5 years visa to the united states, 4 years remaining of this visa, each visit i can stay 6 months, i don't want to break any U.S rules that's why i want to code for your startup for no money, just food and a place to live in transportation would be nice too but i am not going to take money from you and i am not going to ask your for health insurance or be your employee, i don't want to break any rules, i have +8 years of experience in JS, PHP, Ruby mainly as a full stack web developer i also do game development using Unity3D + C#, i'm a Musician since over 15 years at my free time and i can design sounds and soundtracks i work with many DAWs, i'm bilingual i speak fluent Arabic and English beside having many more skills.
The reason i am doing this because i live in a war torn country, some issues happened and i've lost all my savings and i refuse to give up, I'm already 31 years old and i don't want to spend the rest of my life in this place enough is enough, i've been to California in 2014 and i loved it so much, i can't get an H1B visa because i don't have a university degree although i have a high school diploma and a college diploma in business management and e-commerce.
I have no idea what would the outcome of my visit to the states be but i want to try it at least maybe i can find someone who can sponsor my education so i can stay in the U.S or maybe something i haven't thought of would happen.
If you'd like to interview me please send me an e-mail to email@example.com, thank you.
Thank you for reading my post.
ps: Please if you can't help me at least try not to be negative in the comments i already have enough negativity going on in my life and i could really really use some motivation, but after all you are free to write whatever you want of course and i appreciate it. <comment><USER2> Hello, your post was killed by a spam filter. Sorry about that; they're more aggressive on posts by new accounts. I marked your account legit so this won't happen again, and you're welcome to repost your question, if you want to. Please don't be discouraged if it doesn't get many responses, though, or if people criticize your proposal. HN is unpredictable when it comes to posting personal stories.

Either way, good luck to you. From your description it sounds like you've managed to learn a lot despite severe obstacles. That perseverance bodes well for your future, so keep going and don't give up! And welcome to Hacker News.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you a million, i reposted my question hopefully i will get some responses this time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi there. I work in an environment where I can probably show people your resume and help you get exposure to opportunity. Feel free to contact me at the corporate domain in my profile. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried e-mailing you but it's not working would you please send me an e-mail to email@example.com and i will reply? thank you a lot.</comment></comment>


Preschooler Secure Password Technique - <AUTHOR> https://artur.co/blog/07-30-17-preschooler-secure-password-technique <comment><USER2> [Nitpicking alert] Since the letters have different shape and weight, this will not ensure an uniform distribution. The "X" is easier to grab than the "I", but the "I" would not be hook other letters like the "X".</comment>


RadioShack closing 1,100 stores after dismal holidays - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-radioshack-closing-1100-stores-20140304,0,3447962.story

<comment><USER2> I honestly can't think of a less relevant technology sales channel. Out of curiosity I walked into one not all that long ago and honestly didn't see a single thing in there I was interested in buying except for a few oddball radio receivers I really wouldn't have a use for. And everything cost more than I could get online or down the street at another store.

It's a shame because I _do_ remember going there in the 80s to get computer odds and ends and TVs and such. But the RadioShack store format, intended to sell radio parts and other do-it-yourself odds and ends hasn't been able to keep up with the more disposable consumer electronics of today.

Hell, they didn't even have Arduino kits or robotics sets I could have made a case for.</comment>


GnuPG 2.1.12 released - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2016-05/msg00002.html <comment><USER2> How long do we have to wait until other GUI based PGP tools are using this in the backend?</comment>


Ryanair blocks bookings made through screenscraping. - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7549547.stm

<comment><USER2> From my experience, Ryanair doesn't seem very concerned about PR. Their only real focus is to preserve a reputation as the cheapest no frills airline in Europe, and do everything possible to make their ticket prices appear lower than competitors. Or maybe they're just one of the sleazier companies out there.

While their base ticket prices may seem incredibly low, they make their profits by tagging on extra "service fees" that appear on their website after you've begun checking out. For example, a few years ago I remember I had to pay extra for "baggage insurance", which ensures that your bags do eventually make it to their intended destination and don't get lost, something that is usually implicitly included in the original ticket price of other airlines. The UI of the Ryanair website stresses the importance of this baggage insurance with a popup window. Other airline comparison sites probably have decent UIs that don't push these options to the extent of Ryanair.

They also go to great lengths to cut any cost. I've heard that employees are not allowed to charge phones at work in order to save on energy bills. And from my experiences, their employees really don't seem to have any sort of customer service training. Or maybe they're just grumpy because Ryanair treats them so poorly.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair> The Criticisms and Complaints section is actually pretty interesting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The truth, more likely, is...

      1. They are jealous and want to gather the customer information for themselves.
      2. Don't want people to know if they are truly competitive on price (apart from a few headline grabbers).
      3. Don't want pricing pressure/war encouraged through open comparison.
      4. They don't actually care about the customer, just their money.

<comment><USER3> 5\. They will lose customer because of this.

<comment><USER4> Only .5% of customers though, according to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how they refer to customers giving them money in exchange for services "unlawful activity". Fine with me, I fly your competitors anyway.

Hilariously, the "related articles" sidebar contains "Ryanair warns of potential losses". Maybe if you didn't cancel people's reservations you would make more money.

</comment><comment><USER6> If they had an api comparison site wouldn't have to screen scrape

<comment><AUTHOR> Many sites do not have API and hence the need to screenscrape. It is probably against their interests to have an API, being the type of organisation that wants to control the type of interaction others (especially customers) have with it rather than encourage more (even if it will benefit them in the long term).

Also, if they did, it would reduce much of the value of the price comparison sites by reducing the barrier to entry (allowing more competitor services to the market) and hence they may not want it either (rarely see a comparison site in any sector ask for APIs).

Electronic harvesting is against the rules of many big sites out there (sadly), so is it wrong comparison sites do not abide the terms and conditions of others to fix something that is broken and add value to people?

If they paid these sites a fee to compensate, would that be good or bad? (as basically it boils down to money, and one party not happy another makes money "off its back", so to speak)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was trying to get on the ryanair site a few days ago but the site was too busy. Perhaps this was the reason.

That being said this is an over-reaction.</comment>


2048 in sed - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/themattrix/sed2048#

<comment><USER2> I think this game is a bit different than [http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/](http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/) Take a look at this situation:

       ___________________
      |___2|____|____|____|
      |___2|____|____|____|
      |___2|____|____|____|
      |____|____|____|____|

in the original the result of going up would be

       ___________________
      |___4|____|____|____|
      |___2|____|____|____|
      |____|____|____|____|
      |____|____|____|____|

but in this game it's

       ___________________
      |___2|____|____|____|
      |___4|____|____|____|
      |____|____|____|____|
      |____|____|____|____|

<comment><USER3> no score too! :(

how am i suppose to know when i break my own record [i.e. 3012 - never got passed 512 on the tiles]

<comment><USER4> Score is now implemented -enjoy!

<comment><USER3> thanks!

edit: you broke it :(

<comment><USER4> Fixed! The score is now calculated as the sum of all merge results (like the original game), instead of the sum of all cells (like I was doing).

As a bonus, the score calculation is now done in pure sed.

If you notice any other issues, please let me know!

<comment><USER3> thanks

<comment><USER4> One final gameplay tweak: there's now a 90% chance that a newly-spawned tile will be a "2" and a 10% chance that it will be a "4".

The gameplay should now be identical to the original 2048.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> robinson-wall > Note for OS X users: The version of sed installed has different options than > the Linux one. Notably, it does not have the extended-regex option -r. I > recommend building the latest version from here: > [http://sed.sourceforge.net/](http://sed.sourceforge.net/)

The option is there, just different: -E (the same as grep)

<comment><USER5> Why doesn't Apple just ship with standard GNU utils?

They are the de facto standard. Having the need to compile all these basic stuff for any scripting to be portable is a nightmare.

<comment><USER6> If your well-beloved GNU coreutils did not breach every POSIX standard and add new flags to every program, no such problem would exist. Seriously, I do not know whether Mac OS is using a custom implementation of UNIX utilities, or distributin BSD coreutils, but I know that it is a licensed, certified UNIX.

<comment><USER5> UNIX certification means nothing if the utils are intentionally outdated and incompatible with the de facto UNIX-like implementation due to petty licensing concerns.

At the end of the day, whether some script works is the issue, not a UNIX branding.

<comment><USER7> Except Mac OS X is a de jure UNIX implementation, and concern about GPLv3 is not petty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am so sick of the Three's, 1024, 2048 posts on Hacker News, but I upvoted this because of sed :P

</comment><comment><USER9> We just need now the 2048 in assembler, and we'll be done!

Just joking, I love these and I'm unemployed. Keep'em coming!

<comment><USER10> Well, there's this: [https://github.com/Sanqui/2048-gb](https://github.com/Sanqui/2048-gb)

It was posted on HN but didn't really take off, sadly: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7434529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7434529)

<comment><USER11> I bet had they left "Show HN: " off, it would've gained more traction. I have several theories behind that:

1) It looks more like a discovery.

2) It doesn't look like a self promotion.

3) The point of the article is at the beginning. I.e. a certain percentage don't read past "Show HN".

Again, just theories. No idea if this is really the case. But I don't remember many (maybe _any_ ) of the other 2048 clones making it to the first page being "Show HN" submissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sed awesome.

Also, disappointed no one has blatantly embedded [https://github.com/progranism/Bitcoin-JavaScript- Miner](https://github.com/progranism/Bitcoin-JavaScript-Miner) to put all this time wasting to good u$e.

<comment><USER13> Sadly that javascript miner is stupidly slow. You could have a top Hacker News post and still only make pennies.

<comment><USER14> Not even that really. You might get a single difficulty 1 share or two, worth literally less than the maximum precision BTC allows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is Sokoban in sed too.

For who is interested in other games written in sed.

[http://aurelio.net/projects/sedsokoban/](http://aurelio.net/projects/sedsokoban/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I also like his poker hand sed script.

Best part is he uses BSD sed. No newlines as patterns.

We use tr(1) for that.

<comment><USER4> Author here - glad you like it! I actually found the poker hand identifier more challenging to write than 2048, but I also tried to make it as compact as possible.

[https://github.com/themattrix/poker_hand](https://github.com/themattrix/poker_hand)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Have someone made Emacs version? Isn't it more easy to write it in elisp compared to sed.

<comment><USER18> Well, writing in sed has essentially the "heh, look what I did in sed!" value. Elisp would be a far more simple place to build it (we already have tetris there, there's even a very old simple version of Elite in emacs lisp!)

<comment><USER19> Yep. "Real programmers write games in sed".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey Matt... I mean "Sed and Awk the great" :)

<comment><USER4> You've revealed my secret identity!</comment></comment>


Git 2.9 has been released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2188-git-2-9-has-been-released <comment><USER2> I really wish they would include a command line option to specify the key file to use.</comment>


Newsrooms must stand up to targeted campaigns of harassment - brian-armstrong https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/2/17644878/the-verge-new-york-times-sarah-jeong <comment><AUTHOR> Newsrooms must circle the wagons to protect one of their own, but when it comes time to make a buck off of someone else's social media flubs...</comment>


Blogging Like a Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/17/blogging-like-a-hacker.html

<comment><USER2> Programmer writes own website platform. Standard.

I've often thought that history etc for cms/blog systems should be pushed off to a proper version control system etc. I even drafted out a project spec to implement basically the same thing as this guy. Then I put it to the very bottom of my priority list. Emacs muse-mode + darcs FTW.

edit: not to sound like a prick - good on the author for working on a personal project, getting something he likes working and then using it. I just don't think it's news.

<comment><USER3> _"... good on the author for working on a personal project, getting something he likes working and then using it. I just don't think it's news ..."_

Neat software hacks are always news. I couldn't think of a better place to post your new bits of code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was sorely tempted to follow the same path. But then I had an insight: github may be a terrible blog platform, but it is _good enough_ by itself.

So far, it sucks not having full text RSS feeds and having to manually tag posts in delicious. It's slow and some readers seem to miss the comments. But a Tom says, you get to write in textile or markdown. And as for not having CSS, I have convinced mself it's a benefit; I am not spending any time tweaking page layout.

<http://tinyurl.com/homoiconic>

</comment><comment><USER5> On the topic of blogs and CMS...

Does anyone else think that Wordpress is getting too complex with all the added features due to it being open source?

I feel like people like my dad, who would be happy with a very straightforward and simple-to-use interface without all the added features, are turned off by the complexity of Wordpress.

I think a very lightweight CMS that would basically be a password protected AJAX textarea that could easily be embeded into any template would be ideal. No back-end interface or complex editing tools.

<comment><USER6> You may be looking for Drupal. The core is extremely light and you could easily configure it to do just that. Drupal's done a great job of only adding the most necessary features. I'd like to see them pull Book + Forum and add CCK + Views to core, but I think that they still need to keep some obvious out-of-the-box functionality for new users.

<comment><USER7> I remember when I chose Drupal. I downloaded the code of five open source CMSs and finally decided to use Drupal, mostly because the code was the shortest and most legible. It has grown quite a bit since then, but I would still recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You may also be interested in:

* chronicle blog compiler: <http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle/>

* ikiwiki wiki / bliki compiler: <http://ikiwiki.info/>

I find ikiwiki particularly interesting in that it coordinates with a local vcs (git, hg, svn, etc) to handle revisions and history.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another good static site generator is <http://webby.rubyforge.org>

It features support for LaTex, markdown, textile filters, autobuild, publishing only changed pages etc. Very small and clean.

'gem install webby' is all needed to get you started.

<comment><USER10> Webby rocks.

I'm all for people scratching an itch and rolling their own, but I'm curious why Webby wasn't suitable for the task.

In fact, this:

<http://github.com/mojombo/tpw/tree/master/index.html>

looks exactly like what Webby does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Webby is a great system and very close to what I needed; indeed I took many ideas from it. But webby does not help me with the blog specific parts that I wanted to have automated. The entire point of Jekyll is to remove every last bit of pain associated with creating, maintaining, and posting to my weblog.

<comment><USER10> Webby has a blog mode, though I've not used it, but I'm guessing it wasn't quite what you needed.

When I see people sort-of reinvent a wheel or two I wonder what the reason was.

Out of curiosity, did you consider forking Webby, or offering to add in the parts you wanted back to the Webby project? Is it easier to grab the ideas you like and start fresh on your own than to try to hack on someone else's existing code?

For myself, when I find myself writing something similar to an existing project, it tends to be because a) I wasn't quite aware of what the other project offered, b) (more often) the 80/80 rule kicks in: The existing code gives me 80% of what I want, but I'll be spending 80% of my development time trying to get the rest of what I need, and writing my own version looks to be more efficient in the long run. This is more so if I expect to be reusing that code for many projects, so I can readily see the motivation in creating your own blogging software if you plan on using the hell out of it, regardless of what existing tools do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tom, that was very inspiring.

Coincidentally, I decided to roll my own blog a week ago.

It's written in Lisp.

<http://jamrides.com/blog/s/20081114004158.html>

<comment><USER12> I enjoyed reading your blog, I especially liked the "And nothing big starts big". quote in your about page. Intersting startup too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice.

It looks surprisingly close to the blog system I had stewing in my brain. But hey... now I can just hack at your's. Only thing you're missing is comments, but perhaps that's what HN is for...

Now I just have to learn Ruby.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've opted to rely on HN for discussion in lieu of comments, but you could easily hook up disqus or another embedded commenting system. Send me a pull request on GitHub when you've got your features hacked in!

<comment><USER14> I almost created the exact same thing when I started my blog. It was a source- controlled (SVN, though) Textile powered static blogging engine.

Comments were the reason I ended up looking into wordpress and movable type. I thought heavily about autosubmitting every post to reddit or hacker news and using that as the discussion but that could be constituted as spam (or offtopic). I thought about using one of the out-sourcing services like disqus or JS-KIT. The problem (back then) was they didn't index properly on search engines and it has really really high switching costs.

If those two issues have been solved (the search engine one might have been), I'd consider switching to a static engine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As sites grow, re-generating and re-copying the entire site may get cumbersome and time consuming. An obvious feature is the make-like ability to determine what has changed since the last invocation, and only modify those files. You can accomplish pushing newly generated sites to remote servers without undue copying through rsync, or an approximation of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there's lots of smarts left to add to Jekyll. Only regenerating modified posts/assets is a big one.

<comment><USER15> It might be easier to actually _use_ make instead of reproducing its functionality. This implies that an invocation of jekyll would produce one static page instead of the whole site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> On the subject, to the people who have rolled their own similiar blogs: What text formats are you using?

Many seem to follow the "title: \n date: \n tags: \n" type style which seems to do the job pretty well (and can be easily parsed).

Any other formats worth investigating?

</comment><comment><USER16> I enjoy his writing, and enjoy reading about ideas for generating sites, but I'll use my own blog compiler, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER17> After I implemented the world's best photo-sharing site using Scheme I discovered it was also a decent blogging platform. See my blogs here: <http://friendfeed.com/brlewis?service=blog>

</comment><comment><USER18> For the lulz: [http://github.com/cliffmoon/fake- tpw/commit/2f5a0c888c784a9a...](http://github.com/cliffmoon/fake- tpw/commit/2f5a0c888c784a9a6f213c38518504a03d90741a)

[http://github.com/cliffmoon/fake- tpw/commit/df2fbc653e928624...](http://github.com/cliffmoon/fake- tpw/commit/df2fbc653e928624fe99a4b99902b8d8b57781e7)

[http://github.com/abhay/fake- tpw/commit/f81f8577111f6e82cdee...](http://github.com/abhay/fake- tpw/commit/f81f8577111f6e82cdee7886b447d96277df6694)</comment>