Ron Conway Would Like To Clarify His Nuclear Attack On Fellow Angels - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/26/ron-conway-would-like-to-clarify-his-nuclear-attack-on-fellow-angels/ <comment><USER3> This is getting tricky again... We now know that Ron Conway knew about the dinner beforehand. We also know that his partner did not want to attend, presumably because he knew the type of conversations that would be had. They talked and decided that David Lee should go.

To me it seems that what changed before&after the dinner, was the publicity it took, which switched Ron Conway from a 'wait&see' approach (at the very least) to the openly hostile approach we saw in the 'nuclear bomb' email.

While before this update I gave Ron the benefit of the doubt (not in small part due to pg vouching), it now seems that he was much less surprised than I thought.

My estimate that the 'nuclear' email was damage control intended to be publicised has just gone up.

<comment><USER4> _To me it seems that what changed before &after the dinner, was the publicity it took, which switched Ron Conway from a 'wait&see' approach (at the very least) to the openly hostile approach we saw in the 'nuclear bomb' email._

Isn't it also possible that Ron Conway and David Lee decided David should go because they didn't know what was going to go down, and then once they knew, Ron decided to distance himself from that group?

<comment><USER3> Of course it is. Nothing at all is certain when working with so little information, which is why I mentioned probabilities.

However, we know that two such dinners took place, and that David Lee was present at both. Also if they didn't know what was going to go down, why didn't David Lee want to go in the first place?

Again, we are only talking probabilities here, there is a huge amount we certainly don't know.

<comment><USER5> Another possibility: David Lee is the leak. It may have been Ron Conway suggesting he attend to see what was going on. Even if he isn't the leak I tend to think David Lee was there simply to find out what was happening for SV Angel, not having intent to form agreements.

<comment><USER6> What's the connection between Arrington and Conway? Someone told Mike about the meeting (as he wrote, he wasn't invited). Then someone told Arrington about the content of the meeting (Mike wasn't there). Connect the dots.

It's possible that Ron Conway intended to blow it up from the beginning, including his own plant there. But as it always happens the shrapnel takes the unexpected course. Consider this a badly botched operation.

<comment><USER5> Keep in mind Michael Arrington said he talked to three different people who were at the meeting. It's possible David Lee was one of them. I have a hard time believing all Angels assembled were comfortable with the direction the meetings appeared to be taking. I think someone (possibly publicly defensive, and with a flamboyant writing style) had the bright idea to bring Angels together for mutually beneficial agreements to control market forces affecting them, but before things went very far things went public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I admire Ron Conway for his business acumen and regard for entrepreneurs. But he's taking on a lot of needless baggage for continuing to talk about a meeting he himself did not attend, and for continuing to speak on behalf of his partner in an ambiguously denial-oriented style. "thou doth protest too much" comes to mind. The whole thing seems fishier than it probably really is because of it.

<comment><USER8> Actually, I would say that the Angelgate meetings have been happening for a long time. Conway blasted all those people in the Nuclear email, but how would he know what to say if he hadn't been to either of the last two Bin 38 meetings? Did Lee tell him what happened in the first meeting and the leak just crystallized his thoughts, triggering the nuclear email? Why didn't Conway go to the first meeting? Being an entrepreneur's guy, Conway with Lee realized when discussing whether or not to go was "damned if we do, damned if we don't, but we'll be more damned if we don't" turns out due to the leak he was wrong, and so now wants to distance himself from the organized greed, which in the open seems all the more repulsive.

Welcome to the The Collusion Room, where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." I wouldn't just limit this to Angels either, the problem is knowing when to draw the line between collusion and cooperation. Where and when do VCs meet like this, and how about Fund managers? Who watches over clubs such as <http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org> ?

Who actually setup the Bin 38 meeting?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"I regret David Lee was involved in the gatherings. I am sure he does too."_

In the previous email, it actually looked like Ron Conway threw David Lee under the bus.

This clarification was much needed.

<comment><USER10> I think that was unintended and this clarification is of exactly that part of the original email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's very interesting that Ron Conway appears to have known about - <USER2> endorsed! - David Lee's attendance at these meetings.

Did it really need to take 2 meetings (oh, and Arrington's input) to voice disapproval?

</comment><comment><USER12> Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.

I value the character judgment of a few people who have vouched for Conway (including pg), so i assume he's not a dishonorable man, but have no illusions -- your best interests as an entrepreneur aren't the same as the best interest of investors. Sure, they want to see you do well, but there will often be disagreements on how much to risk and how much to pay to see you get that succes.

I always say investors can get a 10% success rate and be incredibly successful. You, however, need a 100% success rate.

Yes, you need the angels, and if product/market is big enough , you'll need VCs. But don't kid yourself, investors are your 'friendly adversaries'. If you keep this in mind, and recognize the symbiotic relationship for what it is, you won't get disillusioned if thing don't exactly go your way.

</comment><comment><USER13> What I don't quite get is... how angel investors can collude effectively. It reminds me a bit of having a 'monopoly' on advertising. I suspect there are good arguments to be made, I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seriously, there might be better things to discuss on HN, than the Ron Conway saga. :( Last I checked there are about 18 comments on Techcrunch on that article. Bound to be a hell lot more soon. The previous one had 411 comments, 2000 Facebook likes, 1786 retweets on techcrunch So where ever you hide, you are not going to miss the mails and clarification of Ron Conway. I dont think ANYTHING of value is added through speculation/opinionating over here. Let the guys at techcrunch do their job..we can catch up whatever is happening by googling "techcrunch Ron Conway" :)

<comment><USER15> I'm quite enjoying it. It seems of interest to the startup world, and I personally don't twit or facebook or go directly to techcrunch if I can avoid it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only thing I like more then actual news is more info on angelgate. awesome.

<comment><USER5> AngelGate _is_ actual news. It may not be a story broke by CNN, or which appeals to their audience, but it involves real money, people, and laws. Apparently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now involved. This is not some frivolous gossip story. Also, it does seem to be topical considering it's on a spin-off news forum for a site with the primary purpose of angel investing. I for one am quite interested in learning more facts about this story.

<comment><USER16> It was actual news and it is important. It seems to have now descended somewhat into gossip.

<comment><USER5> I agree any news we receive right now will have a gossip feel to it. Nobody is under oath, after all. However, I think we can learn some relevant (even if speculative) information from those closest to the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A question..

Several miss spellings were in the posted original RC email at TC..miss spellings that you would think RC would not make.

Are we sure that the original RC email that TC posted was real and from RC?

Things are just not matching..

But for a group of Super Angles not to know that they cannot participate in a discussion where they suggest to collude to price fix.. tells me that I should not take any business advice from them..How about rest of HN readers?

<comment><USER18> > _But for a group of Super Angles not to know that they cannot participate in > a discussion where they suggest to collude to price fix.. tells me that I > should not take any business advice from them_

Collude if you can get away with it is bad ethical advice.

On the other hand it is consistent with the amoral (not to be confused with immoral) standards by which business may be expected to operate. And from a rational economic actor standpoint it makes a lot of sense.

That's why the story is plausible.

Even if we don't like the implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ron comes across as a phony.

<comment><USER20> not at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Topic closed.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm just happy he's using his spell checker now. No more "entrepeneur"

</comment><comment><USER23> Slightly off topic, but is anyone else a bit surprised at the grammatical errors in Ron's letters?

<comment><USER24> Not this again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _Last Thursday Tech Crunch published a leaked email from me to some angel investors who attended the Bin 38 dinner.

I would like to clarify some confusion from that email.

David Lee, my partner at SV Angel did not want to go the Bin 38 dinner. We talked and then agreed that he should go.

David Lee shares the same passion and satisfaction as I do in helping entrepreneurs bring their innovation to fruition and that's why we work together and I am proud to call him a close friend and partner.

This is the last time I am going to say anything about this topic since we must focus our attention back where it belongs..with the entrepreneurs and helping them build great companies!_</comment>


Ask HN: What Browser Versions Should I Support? - <AUTHOR> As a web developer, I have to support several different browsers at different versions.  But recently, I had a discussion with a manager and the client wanted us to continue supporting ie11.  I don't think the site should, but it does raise an interesting question.  How far back in versions do you other web devs and designers support? <comment><USER2> Look at [https://caniuse.com/usage-table](https://caniuse.com/usage-table). IE11 has 2.66% usage. Is that worth the time investment in development?

If your site is already active, I would also look at Google Analytics and see if any of your audience uses IE11.

And the last question, the user experience will, of course, be best on evergreen browsers, but will it completely break on older browsers?</comment>


Is Verizon FiOS blocking traffic from Windows? - <AUTHOR>

I have a very interesting situation I am facing. I have Verizon FiOS as my ISP at home. I am trying to connect to a server inside my company's firewall. I VPN in, fire up Safari on my MacBookAir and type in the URL. I connect with the server - no issues. Next I boot up a VM running Windows 7 on the same MacBook. I fire up IE and type in the same URL. After waiting for a while, IE times out saying that the server did not respond in time. I try Firefox on the VM - same error. When I try Firefox on the host Mac OSX, I connect with no issues (just to verify its not a browser issue). Any other server inside the firewall, I can get to from the VM - not just this one. I even turned off the firewall on the Windows VM - no luck.
So, I think it is a VMWare issue and boot up my ThinkPad running Windows 7 natively. Same problem - I cannot connect to that server. I try it from Firefox, Chrome and IE. No luck.
I decide to take it one step further. I fire up the hotspot on my cell phone (coincidently also Verizon) and reconnect the VPN. Wonders - I can connect to the server. From all browsers on all three OS instances - Mac OS, Win 7 in a VM on the Mac and Win 7 native - no issues at all.
What do you think is going on here? Is Verizon FiOS or the router issued by them blocking (some) traffic  from Windows 7 machines? Any ideas what may be the issue here and how can I fix it? <comment><USER2> Q: Is Verizon FiOS blocking traffic from Windows? A: No.

Ask yourself which is more likely: that a major ISP is blocking traffic from the dominant operating system, or that you've configured something incorrectly?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have checked all the configs - remember it work fine when I switch my ISP over to my cell phone from FiOS. I am not implying a conspiracy - just trying to get a solution

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that it has nothing to do with compatibility between Windows and FiOS.

I'm guessing you configured your VPN correctly inside of Windows...right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I can get to every other URL I tried that is inside the firewall, including other similar servers</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are plain resumes still relevant today? - <AUTHOR> I am a Computer Science student in last year of my undergrad. While preparing my resume, I came across two conflicting sets of advice. One recommends a plain resume with minimal formatting, with black text on white background. The other set argues for using a modern looking resume built via sites like enhancv.com. This made me curious: Are plain resumes still used by developers? <comment><USER2> Plain resume (I use LaTeX).

This also filters companies to an extent. I would rather work for a company that values the content of the resume over the presentation.

Resume: [http://willem.co/cv/wp_resume_2016.pdf](http://willem.co/cv/wp_resume_2016.pdf)

Template (LaTeX): [http://willem.co/cv/wp_resume_template.tex](http://willem.co/cv/wp_resume_template.tex)

Awesome Resume Templates (LaTeX): [https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/](https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Your CV's format is irrelevant so long as it doesn't look like a dog's breakfast or a Xmas tree.

When writing your CV, keep in mind that only three things count:

1\. Short. You're seriously testing a recruiter's patience if your CV is longer than a page or two.

2\. Scannable. Your CV only gets a few seconds of attention before a recruiter decides to read it or not. Make each second count.

3\. Results. Don't stick to writing what you worked on. Also spell out the results and how it contributed to the business.

Last but not least, never forget that your CV's only purpose is to get an interview. Just like a marketing brochure for a product that requires a sales meeting, less is often more because it can give an employer a reason for saying "no" before you ever get to talk to them:

[https://steveblank.com/2011/08/05/bonfire-of-the- vanities/](https://steveblank.com/2011/08/05/bonfire-of-the-vanities/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Résumé is like raising children: they are plenty of people with definitive advices about the perfect way to do it, all of them being contradictory.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use a resume which I hand coded in HTML&css and while sending it to HR folks, I manually turn the HTML page into a PDF and usually include a reference to the online version too ([http://veerasundar.com/resume](http://veerasundar.com/resume))

<comment><USER6> Looks nice. I like it.

But what are the percentages next to your degrees in the education part, like "B.E. CSE 72%"?

<comment><USER5> It's the mark percentage.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, I use a plain resume: [http://printf.net/resume.pdf](http://printf.net/resume.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Did you use LaTeX for that?

<comment><USER9> > Did you use LaTeX for that?

I'm not OP, but yes. The "creator" field in the PDF is: "LaTeX with hyperref package" and the "producer" field is "xdvipdfmx (0.7.9)".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd much rather see a plain resume, especially if I have a lot to skim. Only time I've ever seen more slightly creative approaches have been designers.

I'd be a bit wary receiving something like enhancecv - if you have space for a quotes block, what are you leaving out? I might use something like that if putting my CV on my website, but _as well as_ the boring traditional plain format.

</comment><comment><USER11> Put yourself in an employers shoes. They really care about the content, not the design. They're sifting thru lots of resumes looking to spend 70,80,100k on a person, a templated colorful design just is not an influencing factor at best and a distraction compared to plain white at worst. (Unless it's for a design/creative position).

<comment><USER12> Depends entirely on the role of the "resume". I call mine a BIO and use it to tell people more about myself when they want my background.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvn72sci1g2dy9d/lane-bio- rev.pdf?d...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvn72sci1g2dy9d/lane-bio-rev.pdf?dl=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Your resume is so far down the list of things that will get you the job that the formatting question should go to a specific person who can answer the question.

That is, if you can't get the basic question of "best resume format to get through hoops at company x" answered, any formating work you could do is swamped by orders of magnitude by building contacts in the company work.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am super disappointed that jsonresume.org can't fix their formatting issues surrounding output to pdf and ms word. I am not casting stones as the contributors are all a super talented bunch. Coming from the Python/R-project universes and having started up a professional services firm for individuals in Shanghai; English resume editing, interview coaching and LinkedIn Profile creation, I simply don't have the time to learn and modify the underlying node.js code. The ability to easily ingest and store the resumes I am supplied with and then the highly improved product I create would be invaluable. I have learned the hard way how difficult programmatic formatting for the mass market really is. As a professional resume editor, I concur 1) simpler is always better, 2) white space is as important as what is on the printed page, 3) use 1 1/2 to 2 pages for readability. Many resumes are run through ATS parsers/processors and you do not want to use such fancy fonts and styling that you provide any chance for your document to be rejected by the system. There are other tips and tricks but those are the most basic. Great discussion here.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there any online resume solution (beside running my own website) where I can hide some detailed information behind bullet points (like accordions) and I can track the viewers activity on the page? I am curious whether this kind of information could help me to build a better resume.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do you want to stand out above other CV and make the life of the person who is reviewing the CVs a bit less boring? If you answer is not, then do a plain CV. Otherwise do something different. Put some marketing in your CV, grab the attention of the recruiter and get him out of his routine. I am not talking about a lot of text with funny colors or a weird layout. Just take a look to some CV of designers, they usually do something different to show their creativity. Why wouldn't you do the same? There are a lot visual techniques to show your working skills and past experience.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use a plain pdf resume that is written in Latex. I host it on Overleaf so its always easy to update.

[http://nicklocascio.com/resume.pdf](http://nicklocascio.com/resume.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> Mine is not plain-text. I embrace rich-text.

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/amirbehzad/pro_resume.pdf](http://s3.amazonaws.com/amirbehzad/pro_resume.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> I use the moderncv template in LaTeX [1], which I prefer for a few reasons:

* It's fairly plain and minimal but looks nice and professional, and can still be customized so it doesn't look cookie-cutter.

* Using LaTeX means I can track my resume with Git and easily convert to plain text.

* Using a popular template included with many TeX distributions means finding help is easy.

* Using a template means you can just focus on the content and stop worrying about design.

[1] [https://www.ctan.org/pkg/moderncv](https://www.ctan.org/pkg/moderncv)

</comment><comment><USER20> Plain resume, hands down. Whenever I see something that is supposed to be "enhanced" I just assume they are trying to get my attention away from the actual contents of the resume itself.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like how others are using this post to link to their own resumes.

I understand, a picture is worth a thousand words, but this is too convenient.

Anyway, I vote for _plain text_ too, somehow it looks more serious and clean.

<comment><USER22> I appreciate seeing the concrete examples of people's real resumes, and they're interesting glimpses into somebody else's life that I would have never have experienced, since I'm not a recruiter.

I'd advise plain or simply formatted resumes (unless you're a designer who can apply your specialty in a relevant way to a resume).

At Sun, one of the interns applying to the SunTools desktop user interface group made an interactive GUI version of their resume called ResumeTool!

But now days (at least for software development jobs) isn't it easier to just provide a link to your LinkedIn page and GitHub pages?

LinkedIn has a "View Profile As => Save as PDF" feature. A quick google [1] reveals there are a bunch of tools to convert your LinkedIn profile into a resume, even one from LinkedIn labs [2] (which seems to be offline now, but here's an quora question about it [3]).

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=linkedin+export+profile+as+r...](https://www.google.com/search?q=linkedin+export+profile+as+resume&oq=linkedin+export+profile+as+resume+&aqs=chrome..69i57.4173j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=linkedin+profile+as+resume)

[2] [http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/](http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/)

[3] [https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-useful-tool-for- converting-...](https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-useful-tool-for-converting-a- LinkedIn-profile-into-a-resume-or-equivalent-even-if-all-it-provides-is-a- good-starting-point)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really like plain resume. I had my resume in .doc/.docx format, but couldn't a proper way to edit it on linux. So I moved to web based resume. Here it is : [http://resume.rohittrivedi.com/](http://resume.rohittrivedi.com/) .

I've taken the source code from here [https://github.com/jglovier/resume- template](https://github.com/jglovier/resume-template) and made changes according to my requriement.

<comment><USER24> This may be a cultural thing as I see you are apparently Bengali but I would put your title/responsibilities in bold for the sub-headings, and the employer name smaller. At least internationally speaking, nobody really ever cares more about the employer than what you did there. Secondly, terms like MNC are hyper South Asian and should be dropped 99% of the time in international communication. Something like "...have experience working effectively within all scales of organization" would arguably be more natural/generic/international. Also replace "%age" with "%".

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Make a plain PDF resume that's as easy to read as possible. If you want, also make an enhanced portfolio or a personal site.

Someone might print a stack of resumes on a crappy printer that's running out of ink. A recruiter might fax your resume to a client. Someone might want to read your resume on an off brand PDF viewer on a phone with a slow connection. Someone might have 200 resumes to look through and not want to figure out the unique UI for yours.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think it depends on the company you're applying to. Big companies routinely get thousands of resumes and may use some form of automation to screen them. If the software can't pick out the basic details, the whole thing may be skipped.

On the other hand if a human is reading your resume, creativity may be a plus. So that might apply to small businesses, start-ups, etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> At an undergrad level, it really matters you understand the fundamentals and are quick to learn both technically (the frameworks in your field) and socially (to interact with people in a team). That said, a plain resume with any past volunteering / team-based appointment would suffice.

</comment><comment><USER28> I much prefer a plain resume. It's so effortless to pass around a pdf file that sites like enhancv.com should be considered supplements, not requirements.

[https://michael.chisari.us/michaelchisari- resume.pdf](https://michael.chisari.us/michaelchisari-resume.pdf)

<comment><USER29> Looks good, I would remove the underlines though. In this context makes text harder to read. I would use light blue-black for links instead of underline.

<comment><USER28> Point very well taken. Updated. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My last round of interviewing and taking a new job was resume-free. Most companies just printed out my linked in, and really only to give interviewers something to take into an interview.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes; in fact they are preferred.</comment>


We have placed a public interest notice on Tweet from Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/TwitterComms/status/1266267446979129345 <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347155)

</comment><comment><USER3> That's it, he's definitely moving to Gab now.

<comment><USER4> That would be a good thing for many reasons

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now, Twitter also protest against @realdonaldtrump.</comment>


Waymo applies for no-driver testing in California - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/amp/Exclusive-Waymo-appplies-for-no-driver-testing-12832425.php <comment><USER2> Do you think the recent Uber crash will hurt their chances?</comment>


Facebook shareholders try to block encryption plan By Zoe Thomas - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52779897 <comment><USER2> Their excuse is that encryption will make it harder to detect child abuse in private chats. On the other hand, they're happy to leave _public_ credit card fraud groups stay up until a high-profile blog calls them out on it: [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/deleted-facebook- cybercr...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/deleted-facebook-cybercrime- groups-had-300000-members/)</comment>


A First Look at Reactive Cocoa 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scottlogic.com/2015/04/24/first-look-reactive-cocoa-3.html?utm_campaign=iOS_Dev_Weekly_Issue_195&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly

<comment><USER2> Could someone comment on ReactiveCocoa vs Bond[1] or other solutions. I know very little about functional reactive programming, but I see a lot of people talking about it. It seems useful, but I'm not sure which project I should be spending time to learn (if any).

[1] [https://github.com/SwiftBond/Bond](https://github.com/SwiftBond/Bond)

<comment><AUTHOR> Bond looks interesting but also fairly young (initial commit ~ 3 month ago unless I'm missing something). ReactiveCocoa already has several years behind it. It's very stable for Objective-C (several parts of Genius Scan are written with ReactiveCocoa) and now coming to Swift.

These frameworks actually don't require you to rewrite your whole app in a different way: you can easily migrate a few classes or just rewrite a few new classes. I would recommend this as a way to get familiar with functional reactive programming in an applied way.</comment></comment>


OMG! The moment you "stumble upon" a competitor - <AUTHOR> http://foundread.com/2007/10/28/question-of-the-day-just-found-a-competitor/ <comment><USER2> Well, I've had plenty of moments of stumbling across a competitor. I was never so far along the process that I had to tell investors about it so I usually backed off and went to another idea which turned out to be the wrong move most of the time.

Just because there are competitors doesn't mean you should back off the idea. It's a good thing if you stumble upon a competitor. It means your idea has some sort of value and since you didn't know about the competitor chances are a lot of your potential users/clients don't either. Even if your competitor is larger they might want to buy you later on to decrease competition or another larger player looking to enter the market might buy you in the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> link didn't work for me - here is the new link [http://foundread.com/2007/10/29/question-of-the-day-just- fou...](http://foundread.com/2007/10/29/question-of-the-day-just-found-a- competitor/)</comment>


'Silk Road Reloaded' Just Launched on a Network More Secret Than Tor - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/silk-road-reloaded-i2p?utm_source=mbtwitter

<comment><USER2> To put this in perspective:

\- 'Silk Road Reloaded' is just one of many blackmarkets; there were something like 50 openings in 2014 alone (see [http://www.gwern.net/Black- market%20survival#data](http://www.gwern.net/Black-market%20survival#data) & [https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2r58vs/2014...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2r58vs/2014_in_dnms_by_the_numbers/) ). There is nothing new or interesting about a new blackmarket opening.

\- It's not even the first site to be called 'Silk Road Reloaded'. The name is also a blatant effort to fool newbies and claim unearned credit.

\- Heck, it's not even the first site to be run on I2P. I believe that was pioneered December 2013 by the late lamented The Marketplace (which also introduced multisig escrow). A few other markets tried afterwards, but the problem with I2P is that it's slow and doesn't seem to reliably work for users with all sorts of configs, and they all either closed quickly or set up a Tor hidden service. Thus far, the potential security advantage of I2P has not justified the hassle. And it's not like blackmarkets are often busted.

\- Likewise, not a pioneer in the use of Litecoin, Dogecoin, _or_ Darkcoin. Might be for Anoncoin, but I suspect it will find like past marketplaces that there's just not a lot of interest in those by users. The problem for blackmarket sellers is not 'my coin is only pseudonymous', the problem is cashing out to fiat safely and efficiently; Bitcoin currently offers the most scope for cashing out, and it will be a long time (if ever) for those others to match it.

\- The admin is a raging asshole, if you check out his Reddit comments. Anyone want to trust him with a few thousand bucks in anonymous e-cash...?

\- On top of that, he supposedly began coding the site after SR1 was busted. How does it take over a year to set up a simple e-commerce site when almost 60 other clones were able to set up in that time? To me, that reads like it's a hobby, at best, or that he's completely incompetent, at worse. In neither case does one want to use his site.

<comment><USER3> _> >\- The admin is a raging [expletive], if you check out his Reddit comments. Anyone want to trust him with a few thousand bucks in anonymous e-cash...?_

To add to this, [http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadrel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadreloaded_is_live_on_i2p/) , Notice that all his comments are downvoted and check out what he says. Do you agree with any of it? Here's a particularly "nice" thread: [http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadrel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadreloaded_is_live_on_i2p/cnihlzl)

...and this.. [http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadrel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/2rp0aw/silkroadreloaded_is_live_on_i2p/cnign0s)

<comment><USER4> > [expletive]

Is that really necessary? Profanity is part of the English language. :\

<comment><USER5> Everything we say is part of the a language. Do you conclude that it's appropriate to say anything on here?

<comment><USER4> Yep. We're mostly adults here, right?

<comment><USER5> And you can say any ol' thing to an adult and it's always fine, right?

You must be loads of fun to work with, live with, or otherwise interact with in any way.

<comment><USER4> > And you can say any ol' thing to an adult and it's always fine, right?

Yep.

> You must be loads of fun to work with, live with, or otherwise interact with > in any way.

I dunno, I'm too self-centered to think about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the good place to ask

Is, in your opinion, i2p really a good alternative to tor?

What I can personally think as positives/negatives:

* Tor is trivial to install (just download the bundle)

* Tor is working on TCP-level, i2p on IP level, which allows it to be used for BitTorrent (but it's really slow for that)

* Tor is usable for "normal" web browsing, i2p not really (it has one outwards proxy that you can use but that's it)

* Nobody uses i2p so it's really slow, and I am not sure if it doesn't decreases the actual anonymity

<comment><USER7> An important consideration when deciding if it is a good alternative is how good is it's security and ability to keep you anonymous? Since that's the whole point of using it anyway.

When evaluating, it's important to look at past vulnerabilities. The following links are to posts from Exodus Intelligence about a vuln they found in i2p in July, 2014. \- [http://blog.exodusintel.com/2014/07/23/silverbullets_and_fai...](http://blog.exodusintel.com/2014/07/23/silverbullets_and_fairytails/) \- [http://blog.exodusintel.com/2014/08/25/tails-from-the- cri2p/](http://blog.exodusintel.com/2014/08/25/tails-from-the-cri2p/)

On the one hand you could say it is more secure now because Exodus Intelligence reviewed it, and said "I2P had many cross-site scripting vulnerabilities" of which all were fixed. Also the way in this could be exploited is a little unique (by using XSS to hit the internal I2P router configuration intranet), so it's hard to fault the developers too much for overlooking those XSS problems originally.

On the other hand, there is the view that the more vulns that are found, the more likely it is there are more as yet undiscovered vulns.

<comment><USER8> Disabling JS would be a good start to avoiding those issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is money to be made in i2p, people. Time to start creating eepsites.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully this ends up making i2p a stronger alternative to Tor, by having more crypto guys taking a look at it and finding bugs or bad designs in it.

<comment><USER11> Quite. It's been around for many years but I don't think it ever got the crypto attention that Tor has received, mostly because it was (and is) very little used. A few Russian sites toyed with using it when they started blocking sites for piracy over there but it was never adopted - too slow, not user friendlh enough.</comment></comment>


Caddy 2 – The Ultimate Server with Automatic HTTPS - <AUTHOR> https://caddyserver.com <comment><USER2> FYI: Caddy 2 is not released yet. Check back in about a week.</comment>


Ask HN: How is the staging/dev environment setup at your workplace? - <AUTHOR> Some background about me. I've been working on web APIs for the last 5 years. Initially it started with a monolith codebase, plugging in all sorts of APIs and packaging it all together. It was fairly easy to setup a staging cluster due to the simplicity involved in hosting the code and configurations.
Over the years I've realised the importance of services and have adopted that strategy over time. With multiple micro services comes the problem of discovery, config management and tooling around it so we created ansible playbooks with configurations for 3 main environments. However we were still hosting these services the old school way of running it directly on VMs. A few major problems arise due to this.
- There are 3 pre-defined environments. prod, stage and test. To create an environment, lets say for individual developers, a lot of manual work is involved. - Infrastructure cost increases linearly with every new environment we spawn. - Service discovery, config management becomes a mess.
A few months ago after reading about Kubernetes and how it solves most of these problems, I've created pods for most of our services (mostly using brute-force), this is just a start and I've made notes of all technical debts which have been accumulated during this process. The immediate consumers of this platform is the QA team. Long term plans also involve replaying production traffic on this cluster and to bench it out.
My questions:
- How is the staging cluster setup in your organisation? - What are some of the learnings and the problems faced while building it? - Is the thought process of having a working cluster for every developer make sense? <comment><USER2> I did it myselve ( asp.net mostly).

Jenkins with git ( gitlab) connected: alpha, beta and master branches seperately. It can execute batch, powershell, msbuild and .exe files in the user environment.

All packages contain nuget publishes to our own nuget server. The versioning is like ( for alpha, beta): {packagename} Version {MajorVersion}.{MinorVersion}{PatchVersion}-{PreReleaseString}{BuildNumber}

{PreReleaseString} is removed for the master ( production) builds.

All nuget packages are constantly build, including api nuget packages. Just make sure you change the MajorVersion,MinorVersion and PatchVersion when doing newer versions that change features/functionality accordingly. ( mostly isn't required because the incremented jenkins build number).

It supports parameters and a publish can choose to include / exclude : database migrations, nuget packages, api and web frontend ( normally, all of them are published/executed)

Alpha, beta and master is chosen because of the alphabeticle name. So the beta version appears on top of the alpha version.

I created a powershell script, that uses EF-Migrations for multiple databases depending on an auto-generated XML file ( with all connectionstrings in it). So it's server /database agnostic.

Powershell also sets the web applications offline/online accordingly. So the user receives a notification on the webfrontend ( we are back soon) and the api gives a 503.

The API libraries trigger an error on 503 and it's explained in the documentary for third parties ( One update a month with 30 minutes downtime in the morning from 06:30)

Tests happen after the "builds", if the tests fails, the build fails. But nothing has been changed ( database and published code).

If the migration scripts fail for a database, a "instable" build is given. Mostly these are manual fixes.

The offline html file gives an internal link to a Jenkins build monitor ( for duration estimation). You can see how long it will take till a "normal" finish of a build.</comment>


Older Americans Are 'Hooked' on Vitamins - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/well/older-americans-vitamins-dietary-supplements.html <comment><USER2> The truth that I have seen is that many Americans suffer from some type of ailment that traditional medicine offers no elucidation of the cause. It could be diet, lack of exercise, mental health but there is not explicit test to say, "yes, you have ailment X because of Y."

So what is one to do? IMHO, the best one can do is to persevere and try to survive the best they can. One way of doing that (and I think a very productive way) is to be a scientist of your body and try different things. For some exercise works, for some vitamins, for others a certain type of diet.

I will not judge another for trying to take care of themselves as best they can. However, I will judge against how scientific they are about doing so to a degree only to critique their methods in hopes they can reach a state of reasonable comfort if they havent already obtained it.

Spend an afternoon reading examine.com. Follow the studies. Read conflicting studies. Read about placebo. You will see that these supplements do help a significant portion of the populate for condition X. Not everyone though and likely because conditions X is really a superset of conditions X0, X1, ... XN. Until we can elucidate condition X into its true subcomponents, I think Americans will continue to seek their supplements.

<comment><USER3> The whole problem with being your own scientist and blind testing things is the potentially long transitions to deficiency. And then there is the matter of spotting problems. Feel like filling in a questionnaire 4 times a day? (A full dietary and extra of "feel" plus any ailments. Do extended bloodwork every some time.)

Then knowing how to apply statistics properly?

This is not viable for most people even with modern tools...

On the other hand it is a decent way to lose weight by pervasive tracking according to a few studies.

<comment><USER2> > Feel like filling in a questionnaire 4 times a day?

I'm currently working on a paper showing you can track 2 things every day (total of 3 measurements) and make quite an improvement for a common health condition.

> Then knowing how to apply statistics properly?

Yes and no. The ultimate gauge is how the person feels. If its placebo then so what. If they can afford it, who am I to say its wrong.

Also, many intelligent people are involved in the supplement movement and beginning to organize well and document. Applying an ANOVA isn't that difficult to do. Any large university will also have a statistical consulting center which you can visit to have them review your "tests" and explain a good way to do the stats (I've done this).

> On the other hand it is a decent way to lose weight by pervasive tracking > according to a few studies.

Yes, you are correct.

<comment><USER4> > The ultimate gauge is how the person feels.

By that metric, psychics saying they can talk to your loved ones can be morally justifiable.

<comment><USER5> I think you're understating people's ability to listen to their own body, and using an ungenerous definition of 'feeling'.

Listening to your body is a skill that can be developed over time. Several years ago, I did not pay attention to, or was not aware of, any relation between what I ate, and how my body felt afterwards, what things looked like on the other end, etcetera. After starting to work out and taking my health seriously, I spent more time tracking things like 'how does food X agree with my stomach? How does it affect my energy levels when I have sugar in the morning?', and learned a lot. There are foods now I'm very hesitant to touch, that I would have eaten without a second thought several years ago, because I now know they affect me personally in undesirable ways.

This is not to say that one should eschew the scientific literature, or their doctor's advice. You should just take both into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see this as another symptom of USA consumerism. Your feel a little stressed? Take this tranquilizer! You feel tired? Take these vitamins!

As a consumer the idea that you can let your problems go away by just swalling a couple of pills is tempting. And the doctor and the farmaceutical company are making some money on it as well.

The reality is that staying healthy and vital at an older age takes discipline and effort: you need to eat and drink moderately, keep a balanced diet, exercise regularly and get enough sleep. But that's a tough message to sell and nobody is making money on it.

<comment><USER7> "Balanced diet" is just a way of hiding the difficulty. How many dozens of ways does a diet have to balance, and how much leeway do you have on each one? Nobody really knows. A supposedly-balanced diet could still be lacking in vitamin D or iodine or...

If you can solve some of those factors with a pill, why not? Supplementation is not a cure-all but it can help in a lot of cases.

Note that I'm talking about small doses here, not taking tons and tons of arbitrary substances.

<comment><USER8> For most of the people with "dieting" problems, stop eating any junk food is a good enough "balanced" diet.

The attitude of "taking the pill" is very detrimental, because it typically mistakes solving the symptoms with solving the cause.

<comment><USER9> > For most of the people with "dieting" problems, stop eating any junk food is > a good enough "balanced" diet.

That - naively - assumes that people know what / how to eat and cook when you take away junk food. I also gathered there's huge areas and neighbourhoods without access to a normal grocery store - you know, places where they sell vegetables and such.

<comment><USER10> And your comment - cynically - assumes that no one knows how to cook anything. A friend of mine who works in a VA hospital sends every patient home with a cheat sheet on how to cook vegetables to make them delicious and has seen fantastic uptake, especially when the card comes with an explanation of how much better your life can be if you'd stop eating refined sugars and pre- packaged foods.

<comment><USER11> I think you're making Cthulhu_'s point. People need external guidance to know how to eat well. It's not an innate skill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ideally I would periodically track my diet for a few weeks and only supplement for deficiencies, but I've found that when I track what I'm eating, I eat differently.

So instead I take half a multivitamin to ensure I'm not totally deficient in anything. Reasoning:

> On this point, let me emphasize the logical corollary which I've spelled out > repeatedly but that people keep missing: unless your diet is composed > entirely of fries, Coke, and fast-food burgers with the lettuce, ketchup, > and tomato thrown out, no one should be taking a full daily dose of any > commercial multivitamin. You are absolutely guaranteed to get too much of > many nutrients, and to create or exacerbate imbalances in others.

From: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a9-5VyW...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a9-5VyWVsH0J:www.longecity.org/forum/stacks/stack/122-michaels- tiered-supplement/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER13> What does it cost to go to a doctor and get tested for deficiency? You'd only need to do that once a decade or after implementing major changes to your diet. I have a feeling it would come out to less than your strategy of eating pills "just in case".

<comment><USER14> It's not quite that simple.. Firstly, it is surprisingly costly and it's getting more so because of several factors (a big one being insurance company regulation around requiring tests to be linked to diagnosis codes. This makes the doctor look bad for giving "unnecessary tests" which in turn makes them not want to give you a test if there isn't clinical evidence to warrant it, regardless of your desire and willingness to pay for it).

Secondly, you need to be tested much more often than once a decade. Levels can vary wildly based on diet in sometimes complicated ways. For example? Vitamin D levels are dropping despite no changes in vitamin D intake (and sun exposure). This turns out to be a calcium deficiency, which is required for vitamin D absorption. The calcium deficiency in turn results from some other condition not necessarily related to diet.

You also need to be re-tested potentially many times after beginning a supplement to determine if you are at the correct dose. In some cases when the supplement can be dangerous at high levels (such as Vitamin B6 or Iron) you need to be tested regularly for a while to ensure you aren't overdosing (especially B6 levels too high can cause _nasty_ symptoms).

Source: personal experience doing exactly this with a variety of vitamins and minerals

<comment><USER15> > _It 's not quite that simple.. Firstly, it is surprisingly costly and it's > getting more so because of several factors_

Well, in these parts of Europe it's like €50 or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So far as I can tell, the only reasonably common deficiencies are vitamin D and magnesium, and among women anemia.

Every other deficiency is in the tenths of a percent range, well outside of the level at which people in the general population would be treated if it were e.g. antibiotics or other non dietary drugs.

<comment><USER17> Vitamin D supplementation is also still controversial, so there isn't even good consensus on that.

<comment><USER18> Vitamin D supplementation for vitamin D deficiency that is quite common is not controversial at all.

If you mean taking more D than is needed, your are correct.

You can measure the D vitamin levels from blood serum.

      <    30  nmol/L is vitamin D deficiency

      30 - 50  nmol/L is considered inadequate

      50 - 125 nmol/L is adequate

      >    150 nmol/L evidence of potential adverse effects

Adequate level has increased over the years.

<comment><USER19> but shouldn't you always complement vitamin d intake with vitamin k? If I recall correctly (I am not sure!) then vitamin d without vitamin k can be harmful.

<comment><USER20> Vitamin K is found in vegetables, so you don't need to supplement it. I think the worry is that too much Vitamin D contributes to buildup in arteries over the long term, and K helps to clean it.

<comment><USER21> >Vitamin K is found in vegetables

"Vegetables" is a category that's about as useful in this context as "food".

<comment> 52-6F-62 Greens.

I think with vitamin D supplementation you also need to consider vitamin A intake.

Spinach and eggs every morning more than covers you there

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> All right, but apart from Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, B12, K2, iron, iodine.... what have supplements ever done for us?

<comment><USER23> Northerners with a vitamin D deficiency, 3rd-worlders with iodine deficiency, vegans with B12 deficiency, carnivores with K12 deficiency, women with iron deficiency, etc- yes, supplements are quite helpful, when you're acutely deficient.

But if you're not actually deficient, they can be legitimately harmful, and your average person reading HN is probably not acutely deficient in any of these things you listed except possibly vitamin D.

<comment><USER22> I'd rather not wait until I'm 'acutely deficient' before acting -- mildly deficient is good enough for me, especially given the concept of _triage_ : metabolism prioritises certain processes over other still important processes according to intake of key nutrients. Hence recommended minimal amounts may be sub-optimal in various cases.

Also, given the increased tendency to ban and censor stuff nowadays, I want to help protect individual choice in this area. If medics have to prescribe them you know they'll be slow and 50X pricier.

<comment><USER23> At least seek to be smart about it, and perhaps supplement with low values- 10% of DV instead of 10,000%.

Toxic iron dosage can be as low as 2x the therapeutic dose, and men are especially at risk (most of us on this thread are probably men). Long term studies have also repeatedly found negative expected outcomes from supplementing various vitamins/minerals in large quantities (Calcium, C, E, & A come to mind)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I know this is anecdotal evidence, but my granddad took multivitamins faithfully for years. After my grandma passed from cancer, and due to not eating as much food with those vitamins, his body had a calcium build up to a state of calcium poisoning. This did a number on his kidneys. His kidneys did not recover. Instead of dialysis , he chose hospice. Multivitamins have the potential to give too much for the body to handle.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, that's a great point -- especially for older people, you have to tell doctors _all_ supplements you take, because some can affect how fast your blood will clot. For instance, I believe garlic supplements reduce blood clotting, so an older person (especially) might have complications during a surgery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I didn't see anything about being 'hooked' in the article. Might have missed it, otherwise the title is clickbait

<comment><USER27> Maybe hooked is over doing it - probably overly optimistic or misguided is more correct. But this passage is most relevant.

> Often, preliminary studies fuel irrational exuberance about a promising > dietary supplement, leading millions of people to buy in to the trend. Many > never stop. They continue even though more rigorous studies — which can take > many years to complete — almost never find that vitamins prevent disease, > and in some cases cause harm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One dissenting opinion of note mentioned in the article is the Harvard School of Public Health's recommendation in favor of a daily multivitamin: [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/multivitamin/](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/multivitamin/)

I don't plan to stop taking mine; it seems like the potential benefits outweigh the risks.

</comment><comment><USER29> The way I think of this is: "Food is not a linear combination of nutrients". The system is more complicated than that. It includes your body and the food supply.

Science is inherently reductionist (isolating variables), and in the case of nutrition, this can fail badly. The holistic view is more accurate.

(Although, this is all relative to what has come before; there are of course basic nutritional deficiencies like lack of vitamin C causing scurvy.)

I have to give credit to Michael Pollan for writing clearly about this over many years.

</comment><comment><USER30> Americans enjoy how a convenient pill can "fix" their micronutrient problems and make them "healthier." In reality, their macronutrients are so imbalanced that these little micronutrients do little to counterbalance overall bad dietary choices. Specifically - the carbohydrate-heavy diet in the USA is unequivocally contributing to skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Separately - I'm surprised that this article does not mention Vitamin D. Recent research seems to indicate that it is so important that it is closer to a hormone than a vitamin. [1]

[1] [https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/2/491S/4649916](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/2/491S/4649916)

Edit: For anybody interested in this topic, check out the product and blog of the startup Virta Health. They are using diet to cure type 2 diabetes. Raised $45M this week. (I'm not associated with them). [https://www.virtahealth.com/](https://www.virtahealth.com/)

<comment><USER31> The carbs hypothesis doesn't really hold up once you look around the world. There are groups of people such as the Hadza and the Mbuti who derive an enormous portion of their calories from carbs/sugar and show none of the issues Americans deal with: obesity, insulin resistance, etc.

<comment><USER30> From what I've read about these hunter-gatherer societies - they don't have a calorie surplus, and they experience periods of fasting that probably improve their health.

In developed countries, I think that the availability of food combined with low satiety from carbohydrates creates a positive feedback loop.

<comment><USER32> There's also time-restricted eating. In mouse models, 2 mice with the same bad diet (high sugar, high fat), but one eating during a 12 hour window and another eating any time, the 12-hour window mice staved off conditions like diabetes much longer.

So it's not only what we eat, but "when" we eat as well.

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/satchin- panda](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/satchin-panda)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm trying to be as healthy as I possibly can be. I do this with a ketogenic diet, fasting, jumping rope, stretching, and trying to get enough sleep. I also take a lot of vitamins. I did it by evaluating them one at a time.

But at some point, maybe it's too much. So I'm taking the idea of "email bankruptcy" and starting a "supplement bankrupty." So, at some point this year, I'm going to stop taking everything, see how I feel, and then reintroduce supplements again one at a time. I don't know if this is a good idea or not yet, but hopefully it's helpful, so I thought it was worth saying here.

<comment><USER34> What are you taking? I cycle keto, do IF (with 3-5 day fasts a few times per year), lift heavy, etc. I've greatly reduced my vitamins to just vitamin D and a probiotic. It's really nice not throwing back a ton of pills throughout the day. In their place, I focus on eating more green vegetables, I take a greens drink, and Udo's oil (omegas) and drink a ton of BCAAs throughout the day. Feel much better than when I had 15 different pills.

<comment><USER33> Happy to talk about this outside of here! <my-hn-handle>@gmail.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Many supplements do not actually fill the most common deficiencies. (Either due to lack of or insufficient amounts of the active ingredient.) Vit. D, B12, magnesium and potassium are most common in western world. Depending on the kind of salt or algae you used iodine might be a minor concern. More rare but also high impact are folic acid metabolism problems which require specific forms of folate. (There are reliable genetic tests for this.)

And most important part is that in older people impairment of metabolism can go either (worse absorption/production or clearance) way making RDA not reliable as it was calculated on healthy people.

<comment><USER35> "Many supplements do not actually fill the most common deficiencies."

I am someone who actually needs supplements. I have at least a moderately bad case of Celiac disease, the one that everybody knows as "that disease wot gave us all those gluten-free freaks", but is much lesser well-known as being a disease that makes it so the digestive system is not as good at extracting nutrients. I have experienced, diagnosed, and corrected several deficiencies in myself over the years. (Sometimes I feel like I have to pack my digestive track with nutrients the way one has to pack a black powder pistol... get _in_ there, you stupid nutrients, tamp tamp tamp...)

So unlike someone who is just sort ambiently taking nutrient supplements in the vague hope that maybe they'll be helpful, I have actual symptoms to compare them against and see whether they address the issue.

So I can tell you with great confidence that there are a lot of _very bad_ supplements out there. What you find in the grocery stores may be worthless. What you find in _speciality stores_ may even be worthless. Fortunately, you can usually find things online.

Several people here have mentioned magnesium deficiencies as being one of the common ones. Unfortunately, if you just walk down to your local drug store and buy magnesium supplements, what you'll get is magnesium oxide. Fans of chemistry may recall that oxygen binds pretty tightly. I don't know exactly how bioavailable that is, but I can certainly attest that when I switched to the chelated magnesium you can find online and nowhere else I've seen, I saw _huge_ differences very quickly. Trying to supplement magnesium via magnesium oxide seems to be about as successful as trying to supplement your iron by eating iron oxide. Won't work.

The drug store also stocks a lot of supplements that use a lower-quality or less bioavailable version of whatever it is. Vitamin D seems to have gotten enough attention that they mostly stock the good ones now, but a lot of the other ones verge on worthless too, despite their labels claming to have 1000% of your RDA.

The good news is that you can find good stuff if you look hard enough. The bad news is that it can take some time and effort. The weird news is that often the good stuff isn't all that much more expensive. Do you want to spend $7 on something that doesn't do squat or $9 on something that does? The former is hardly a savings....

Anyway, I would say to anyone who does feel like experimenting, do a bit of research and _at least_ try with something that may actually work. The data is useless otherwise.

<comment><USER36> What was your experience with Magnesium aspartate such as found in ZMA ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMA_(supplement)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMA_\(supplement\)))? Most of the research I saw was that this would work fine in terms of actual absorption.

<comment><USER35> No experience. Now that I found one that works, I'm not hunting around.

It probably isn't that hard to find a form of magnesium that is more bioavailable than slapping an oxygen on it and hoping the body can pull it apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So awesome. You don't need vitamins, because your food has enough. Why? Because vitamins are added to your food.

<comment><USER38> Especially Vitamin C. It's added everywhere because it's a preservative.

<comment><USER3> Or if you eat fresh / not overcooked plants. (Most have non negligible amounts.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Didn't they recently find out that vitamin b causes cancer in higher than average doses?

<comment><USER40> Hmm that's interesting. I'm on 1g of B a day (neurobion) for herniated disc. That's quite a lot; most supplements do about 50mg of B. This warrants more investigation.

<comment><USER41> B is divided into different forms. Some of them you can take a lot of (e.g. B12), while others you should be careful with (e.g. B6). I suggest you do some research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> You need independent studies.

Unfortunately, the FDA has undergone regulatory capture to a significant extent -- more from the pharmaceutical companies than from the supplement manufacturers, including the former trying to use political influence to kill off or capture the latter.

And universities and their programs have become increasingly dependent upon and so captured by commercial dollars for funding.

So, we need science to help sort this out. But at the same time, our practiced science is becoming more political, commercial, and biased.

P.S. We also need science to say "we don't know" instead of "we don't have a scientific explanation, ergo it's bollocks".

</comment><comment><USER43> Last winter I got five colds, each lasting two to three weeks. The winter before that, I got four, and every winter I can remember before that I got three colds. Two winters ago I tried an experiment. I washed my hands religiously and didn't touch my face at all. I had hand sanitizer with me at all times. It didn't help at all. I asked my doctor what to do and he said wash your hands.

Last fall when the cold season started I got a cold. Around the time it went away I started taking 200mg vitamin C every night before bed. I have not had a cold since. This might be anecdotal but I am now a big believer in vitamin C.

<comment><USER44> Last fall came before last winter...so you were cured before last winter?

<comment><USER43> feels like it is still winter I guess

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16771087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16771087)

Similar post at the same time. Did this one go up because it has a shorted title?

<comment><USER46> Probably because it was NY Times...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was walking in Manhattan at a pretty busy corner, and noticed this supplement store. Typically they're filtered and you forget you ever saw it. But I couldnt help but think about the amounts of pills or supplements this store had. The various varieties for any kind of "need" one might have. How was it selling enough to rent real estate...

I wondered how do people by this stuff believing it helps them (as opposed to the usual remedy of sleep, exercise, and good diet). Than I asked my self, maybe I'm missing something! Should I be taking supplements too?

<comment><USER47> > I wondered how do people by this stuff believing it helps them

Read Amazon reviews. It's pretty amazing what people can come up with.

I take the usual suspects: Magnesium (I run almost every day) and a Omega 3/Vitamin D combo (I don't eat fish and we don't get a lot of sun here in northern Germany). Seems like a reasonable thing to be doing but I can't for the life of me tell any difference with or without them. I do buy the cheap ones though - maybe I'd feel 10 years younger if I'd buy the top shelf ones...

<comment><USER48> You have to get blood work done to see if there's a difference

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Precautionary principle. When we are taking supplements, we are really playing the odds.

And the odds are that there will be side effects. What side effects and how many people will be affected is the question. That's because it's hard to pinpoint the interactions between substances in the supplement and what's in the body. It's all the more difficult to see the second and third order effects that might happen.

My principle, taken from NN Taleb's work is try not to take anything unless you are really sick. It's really a thumb rule, more than anything.

Read Taleb's work.

<comment><USER50> Dr. Valter Longo, who has been researching the fast-mimicking diet (also autophagy and longevity) says you're probably safe taking vitamins every 3 days. Because that should minimize or eliminate potential long term damage of the vitamins while also ensuring you don't become deficient in certain vitamins. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

In a previous HN thread some were mentioning that "Vitamin E causes cancer" study. But it was over a 12 year period and the people were taking like 15x the RDA dose every day. And even then I think it only increased the "chance" of cancer by like 20% (I may be not be remembering that part right, though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Zinc Status and Deficiency

[https://examine.com/supplements/zinc/#summary1-3](https://examine.com/supplements/zinc/#summary1-3)

</comment><comment><USER51> Yet I manage to totally suppress hay fever symptoms with mega doses of vitamin C.

Something I can't do with Cetirizin or other "real" drugs (they make me sleepy too).

<comment><USER52> Tip: try to lower your carbs intake to below 30-40 grams/day. My hay fever disappears after 3 days of low-carb diet (I tried this diet just for fun, and now I skip carbs for 2-3 weeks every spring and I don't need antihistamines at all.)

<comment><USER53> Do you have more information on this?

<comment><USER54> Sorry, also anecdata, but I've experienced a similar result. Was on daily allergy pills, eye twitches during allergy season, that sort of stuff, and started a low carb diet, my skin cleared up and I stop being so damned itchy.

I suspect it's because the diet eliminates some foods that I'm allergic/sensitive to (how could it not with how many foods it necessitates cutting out?), so the causation might not actually be the low carb diet, as some vegans claim a similar result. In that context it stands to reason that both sets of dieters are finding existing sensitivities and chalking up the gains to the diet. I found out that for me glutamate, both from natural and artificial sources, causes substantial headaches, which is a bummer because I love bone broth. Beans also give me restless legs at night.

So while it's hard to be absolutely scientific in your everyday life, it doesn't mean it's impossible to glean any sort of improvement in your health and well-being through personal experimentation.

<comment><USER55> > So while it's hard to be absolutely scientific in your everyday life, it > doesn't mean it's impossible to glean any sort of improvement in your health > and well-being through personal experimentation.

This is something I'll always be grateful to the equal parts brilliant and crazy, late Seth Roberts for teaching me.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964443/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964443/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It is not about eating right but eating right every day that makes it hard. The way vitamins work is that you need them every day which is why there is a daily recommended percentage of all our foods. Which is why it is still a good idea to supplement with a vitamin tablet.

</comment><comment><USER57> Link to a recent lecture on the difficulty of using supplements expeditiously: [https://vimeo.com/channels/hgp/257767863](https://vimeo.com/channels/hgp/257767863)

</comment><comment><USER58> Who is funding all these studies about vitamin supplementation? It's clearly not vitamin manufacturers or they'd never be published, but who else has an interest in the outcome?

<comment><USER9> > It's clearly not vitamin manufacturers or they'd never be published

Do you honestly believe that or was that cynical? Probably not directly but the vitamin industry is a big industry and it's in their interest to promote taking supplements.

<comment><USER59> Considering that the article lends the reader to understand that studies are indicating vitamin supplements are not as necessary as we'd like to believe, I don't think op was being cynical.

Random quote from the article:

> I faithfully chewed those calcium supplements, and then a study said they > didn't do any good at all," said Ms. Bentley</comment></comment></comment>


Use different DNS servers for specific domains - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lexfriedman.com/post/2856721099/dns-servers-specific-domains <comment><USER2> This is actually illegal.

The DCMA and perhaps some earlier electronic circumvention laws make this act a very real breach of US law. Publicly stating it is a bit dangerous and could cost the author if the NFL decided to pursue a case. How crazy is that?

Of course, while illegal, I personally think it is very RIGHT.

<comment><USER3> It is not RIGHT. The NFL has the _right_ to sell their content however they like, and they coordinate their blackout rules with the cable channels who pay for them. If you don't like it, the RIGHT action is to pay for cable, buy tickets, or do what I do and go without.

<comment><USER4> I'm on the fence here. The NFL is not HBO. They're not locking down content and forcing you into old business models to get to their content. The NFL goes to GREAT LENGTHS to make content available to you without cheating. GREAT LENGTHS.

* Sunday Ticket is free for DirecTV users

* Sunday Ticket is $40/season with the purchase of $60 Madden 25 (meaning, $100/total for the whole season of Sunday Ticket), and does not require a cable/satellite package of any kind

* NFL Rewind offers all games and condensed games next-day (not live) for $40/season (or $10/mo)

* HDTV Bunny Ears or Aereo will provide local in-market games for free (or the cost of Aereo)

* Many games are broadcast online for free on NFL.com or through the website of the network showing the game, like Fox or CBS

And I'm sure there are other options, too.

My friends and I are discussing the NFL Rewind option, while it's not live, it does include condensed games which is great for fantasy players with lots of players across lots of teams.

<comment><USER5> > Sunday Ticket is free for DirecTV users

No, it is $60 per month or $300 / season.

> Sunday Ticket is $40/season with the purchase of $60 Madden 25 (meaning, > $100/total for the whole season of Sunday Ticket), and does not require a > cable/satellite package of any kind

That's a little misleading. A) It sold out before the season began. B) The cost is $100, because for people like me who don't own an XBOX or PS3 and bought the game for the coupon, I now have a game I'm never going to play. I shouldn't have any issues selling it, but it will be at a used game price.

Also, you are supposed to only be allowed the streaming option only if you can't get DirecTV service, which most people in the US can. IMO, skirting that rule (as I've done) is no better/worse than using a European IP. You are either being dishonest to the NFL, or to DirecTV.

> HDTV Bunny Ears or Aereo will provide local in-market games for free (or the > cost of Aereo)

As they have for 40+ years. This discussion isn't about in-market games, it's for out-of-market. Also, depending on who you talk to (certainly the networks and the NFL), Aereo is considered cheating.

> Many games are broadcast online for free on NFL.com or through the website > of the network showing the game, like Fox or CBS

No, many aren't. Some are. But the key is I want to watch my team every week, and my team (as most) only play a few primetime games per season, which tend to be streamed.

To conclude, I'm a avid sports fan who lives out of market, and I pay for the MLB package, the MLS package, various college sports subscriptions, and have paid the $300 for DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket in the past. I'm _happy_ to pay for my sports, and I'd love to pay the NFL a reasonable price for an NFL package, but since they don't offer one, I have to resort to cheating DirecTV.

<comment><USER4> If you pay $300 for Sunday ticket with DirectTV call them up RIGHT NOW and get your refund. That's what someone pays at full price doing zero work to lower their bill. That's the price people pay who don't even try to get a lower price, the easy price.

I literally have never met someone who pays the $300 for Sunday Ticket, and I've never heard of DirectTV enforcing the $300 price tag. Sounds like you've had some terrible luck.

I notice you replied to everything except for Rewind.

The fact remains that there are many options depending on device, and the fact that you don't realize the price of DirectTV Sunday Ticket tells me that you seem to be more willing to cheat them than to find the right deal.

Seriously, if you want to cheat DirectTV call them up, go to retentions for cancelling service, and get FREE (or heavily discounted) Sunday Ticket, just like many others.

<comment><USER5> > Seriously, if you want to cheat DirectTV call them up, go to retentions for > cancelling service, and get FREE (or heavily discounted) Sunday Ticket, just > like many others.

Your entire first post was about getting NFL content __without __cheating (see: "The NFL goes to GREAT LENGTHS to make content available to you without cheating"). Whether you are dishonest to DirecTV's retention dept, or you are dishonest about your IP location, or are dishonest about your ability to get DirecTV service, or a slew of any other methods, it all involves being dishonest to someone.

The root problem is there is no way to get out of market games without resorting to cheating. Every other American sports league offers this type of subscription package.

The NFL has stated they're shopping the exclusivity of Sunday Ticket to carriers other than DirecTV starting next season. Hopefully that is the case so they can address this glaring hole.

> I notice you replied to everything except for Rewind.

I ignored Rewind because that doesn't involve live NFL games.

<comment><USER4> No offense but you have a lot of 'privledge' to insist that you are owed live broadcast of sports. So owed, in fact, that you can justify stealing it when same-day or next-day options are available to you.

I mean, go ahead, I justify a large amount of piracy myself, but you sound like someone dismissing a minimum of work (I have to _CALL_ them and _ASK_ to pay less? UGH!) in favor of reverting to piracy.

<comment><USER6> Please explain to me the difference in outcomes between piracy and using Aereo. In both cases you are getting someone to retransmit you a feed over the Internet, while paying nothing to the NFL in exchange, yet one of them is _stealing_ and the other is perfectly alright.

I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating.

<comment><USER4> Because the NFL explicitly allows over-the-air broadcasts in-market and explicitly denies illegal, unlicensed global internet streams.

When your internet stream places a PHYSICAL antenna IN-MARKET that only you can access, then you have grounds to call your internet stream equivalent to Aereo. But the fact is, I rent a physical antenna from Aereo to enjoy local broadcast content, while you utilize a (likely foreign and obviously illegal) internet rebroadcast of licensed content.

The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes for you to dismiss basic licensing is fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is completely misleading. You still need to pay for NFL Game Pass which is several hundred dollars for the season.

I do something similar with a proxy server for NBA. I connect to a Swedish VPN and purchase a season pass. I can then connect to the VPN, start a game, and watch my home team without blackout issue.

You can also disconnect after the initial connection and not have to worry about issues with slowdown going through the VPN.

<comment><USER8> it's free in the netherlands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How exactly does this work? Is the NFL's only protection against Americans viewing for free the fact that American DNS servers give access to a different server, instead of actually checking the IP?

If this were the case, why pay for a DNS service when you can just find the relevant entries and put them in your /etc/hosts file?

<comment><USER10> I believe they redirect certain hostnames through their servers and proxy those connections. It's also possible that the NFL, etc, use dynamically generated CNAMEs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" You thus get to watch every NFL game streaming online in high definition, since the league offers that option to folks in Europe at no charge."_

Where did you get that? I'm based in EU and I need a GamePass at 150€ to watch games, or pay 12€ per week.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what he meant, but I read it to mean that HD is free in Europe for those who've purchased SD, where as it costs extra in the US. Does that make sense?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr - this solution does not work, but Aereo, as of 2013, does.

I was successfully able to watch the Summer Olympics last year using a VPN in this manner. Actually ended up watching the whole thing via the BBC -- it was oddly enjoyable to listen to the British commentators remark about the Yanks as if we are a race of athletically superior, somewhat lovable, giant children that are obviously in every other way doofuses :) .

The solution as proposed does not work from the USA for NFL Season Pass. I've tried, very hard, to find a way to make it work. (I cleared cookies, caches, changed the clock on my computer, deleted an installed a browser for the sole purpose of watching these games, etc. etc., to no avail.)

But every time, the NFL can somehow, someway, sniff out that I am a US user, and directs me to the page saying to sign up through your local cable provider. I've never owned a TV or subscribed to cable, so... grrrr.

Happily, Aereo, which last season was blurry, blotchy, and somewhat inferior to going to the local bar / friends', is this year very, very good. I set up the NFL games on CBS and NBC yesterday to record. They recorded, and I watched them from a giant Dell screen I have set up for the purpose. We also watch our Netflix and Hulu stuff on the same screen.

They do have a tough time with games that go over the scheduled time, like last night's Seahawks-49ers game. If you see that that is going to happen you have to go to the next show, and the next, next show, and click "record". So that even though you have no intention of watching local news at 11, Aereo is recording the correct station at the correct time.

For a non-TV, occasional sports fan who does not need a whole bunch of bells and whistles, Aereo is a fine solution.

(And, no, I have no professional, personal or other affiliation with Aereo other than the $10 a month they nick me for the service.)

<comment><USER14> > tl;dr - this solution does not work, but Aereo, as of 2013, does.

I use one of these services for Pandora, and it also supports the NFL thing. I just went to the site, and it works (I can watch a game, although I have no interest in NFL), so that preamble is wrong.

<comment><USER13> The solution does not work for US-based users.

<comment><USER14> Why not? How does it know if you're in the US, if you're going through a proxy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The title is misleading. You still have to buy NFL Game Pass. I think it is $25/week or $250 for the season.

Not sure, but Game Pass might have been free the first weekend. Sunday ticket in the US has a free preview the first week of the season. The original poster might have thought the free preview meant it was free every week, but just speculating.

</comment><comment><USER16> Assuming that it's true that you can watch the NFL for free from Europe (as asserted in the article), why not just use a VPN service or fire up your own AWS instance in Europe?

<comment><USER17> 1\. $2 usd is cheaper and already works.

2\. Maybe you want to watch netflix on your TV, and there you can only change DNS servers.

<comment><USER6> 1\. Depending on how many games you want to watch, there _are_ VPNs out there with free plans. I used to watch Hulu using one.

2\. You can configure the gateway (router, whatever) to route the TV through the VPN. That said, I'd rather pay the $2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does a DNS service like AdFree prevent non-subscribers from using their servers?

<comment><USER17> You have to log in and they associate your IP with your paying account. So they only accept requests from known IPs.

<comment><USER19> Its a DNS server, it doesn't change your IP. Only changes the IP for the hostname that you lookup.

<comment><USER17> I wasn't clear. The service knows your IP and then can resolve DNS queries for you.

If your IP isn't in their system, they can ignore it. That prevents non-paying users from using the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I get where this poster is going with the idea of using different resolvers for different services, but there's some serious flaws in the logic. 1) Many sites utilize a redirect in order to force the user back into the optimal datacenter. Using anycast name resolution the user will always end up in the closest datacenter. This is a pretty standard CDN offering by the first tier providers. This is utilized mostly because using a DNS provider like Google would otherwise result in traffic flowing to datacenters thousands of miles from your home. It's also used to to ensure geo restrictions, which would kill this method for many sites. 2) The poster mentions setting domains like Netflix back to the original DNS server. Content delivery is a bit trickier than this. Fire up Wireshark when you're watching Netflix and you'll see there's a large number of domains involved, and the actual content comes off a third party CDNs. Setting DNS servers per site is a lot more complex than choosing a single domain name and setting it to a server.

</comment><comment><USER21> I do not find the "scholarly legal document"[1] very convincing. The DMCA says, "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

[1] [https://adfreetime.com/wp_super_faq/is-this-service- legal/](https://adfreetime.com/wp_super_faq/is-this-service-legal/)

<comment><USER22> The _service_ is legal. Your use of it to watch NFL games from the US may not be.

<comment><USER21> The service is not legal according to US law. I don't know where they're based or what the laws are there, but I wouldn't make any bets either way. They may well have their .com domain seized by the US Gov't some day.

<comment><USER6> "Ad-free time! is located in beautiful Victoria, British-Columbia, Canada."

<comment><USER23> That means they're less likely to have their servers and data seized by the US Gov't (assuming it's all hosted in Canada, and not an EC2-US instance), but the .com address is a US asset that can still be seized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use privateinternetaccess VPN to achieve the same, and get complete encryption and anonymity for all my web activity to go along with it. $40/year.

EDIT: the Netherlands has NFL gamepass for free btw

<comment><USER6> How do you know privateinternetaccess isn't logging everything you do?

<comment><USER24> They say repeatedly on their site and in reviews that they log nothing. Of course you have to trust that they actually do what they say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's still not worth the money. I watch a small amount of NFL during the season. Occasional I might sit down to watch a portion of a good game. However, I'm not willing to spend much more than a few dollars a month (that's how it sounds from the comments) to watch a few out-of-market games on Sunday. NFL charges too much. I guess it's OK though because obviously some people are willing to pay for it.

<comment><USER26> Different strokes. I got a pass to watch all the Sunday games for free this year by preordering the Madden video game, but barring that I'd gladly pay $2/month (or even a little more) to watch games. Still way cheaper than paying for cable.

<comment><USER25> I'd pay $2/month, if that's what the price really was. I thought about purchasing Madden, but decided not to do so. I have to have cable at the moment though to watch college football.

<comment><USER26> Fair enough, if I had cable then I probably wouldn't care about any of this. I currently live out of market for the teams I like (USC and Seattle) so I have to rely on streams of iffy quality and questionable legality, so the increase in quality and reliability alone was worth it with the Madden deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does /etc/resolver/* work on Linux?

<comment><USER28> I am really interested in this too, however I could not find any indication of it in "man 5 resolver" :(

You can do this with dnsmasq by using the --server option where you can pass individual upstream servers for different domains (in addition to the default ones read from /etc/resolv.conf):

      --server=/google.com/22.214.171.124 --server=/www.google.com/126.96.36.199 will send queries for *.google.com to 188.8.131.52, except *www.google.com, which will go to 220.127.116.11

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A similar provider is unblock.us. The /etc/resolver tip is OS X specific. On Linux you can use dnsmasq.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use this for Pandora/Netflix, but I don't like giving that company the ability to MITM any site I visit. If you're running dnsmasq, you can tell it to only use that DNS server for a few domains like so:

        server=/netflix.com/pandora.com/yourserverip

</comment><comment><USER29> Google passes your /24 in a DNS extension, so I'd hope that companies like Netflix take advantage of this information.

[https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/faq#cdn](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq#cdn)

</comment><comment><USER30> In Germany, the NFL website doesn't allow you to watch all games for free. You have to purchase the NFL game pass, which is around $200 per season IIRC (there's multiple packages), which is the same you'd pay in the US.

</comment><comment><USER31> Interesting, but it is more work than just finding an online stream of the game.

</comment><comment><USER32> It works for me! [http://i.imgur.com/TamLSvf.png](http://i.imgur.com/TamLSvf.png)

</comment><comment><USER33> As an aside, does anyone have any good hacks for watching cable television online? If I don't have cable? ESPN, E!...

</comment><comment><USER34> Really interesting that Mac OS offers this. Neat.

<comment><USER35> It's DNS. Mac OS isn't offering anything, it's just using some DNS servers.

<comment><USER6> No, the part where the system resolver calls different DNS servers based on the domain is certainly part of Mac OSX.</comment></comment></comment>


Irish-born English speaker in visa limbo: low score in voice recognition test - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-09/voice-recognition-computer-native-english-speaker-visa-limbo/8789076 <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU)

<comment><USER3> Good ol' Burnistoun :) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489312/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489312/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: 15 inch laptop without numpad - <AUTHOR>

Just when I thought PC makers had closed the gap with Macs wrt screen resolution and weight they have gone ahead and inflicted numpads on all new 15 inch laptops. This results in an asymmetric design where the mousepad is not centered and the keys are smaller than they otherwise could be. Only exception that I know of are the XPS 15 and the dell m3800 but those appear to be having teething troubles.<p>Any pointers to other laptops / manufacturers that havent followed into this numpad trend like lemmings? <comment><USER2> I'm a fan of the Lenovo U4xx, however, it's 14" and not 15". In terms of size it's about the same size as the 15" MBP. NO numpad either. My config is i7/16GB RAM.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thinkpad T530, the 4th gen CPUs vs 3rd gen CPUs is marginal. I bought one with Full HD for ~$700 and it's a super fast machine.

HTH

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - that seems to be the best bet so far - will decide between the T530 and W530 once I can compare the GPUs.</comment></comment>


Certificate Authority implemented in Ruby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cchandler/certificate_authority

<comment><USER2> Nice. Running your own CA is a great way to enhance internal security, and the existing shell/make/perl scripts to do it tend to be pretty limited in their functionality.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was a large motivation behind this. I think a slightly larger problem then their lack of functionality is their arcane-at-best documentation. I'm trying to make the whole standard more approachable in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice, now everyone can run their own CA. That's good for Honest Achmed and his cousins :)

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647959></comment>


Russia accuses Google Maps of 'topographical cretinism' - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/29/russia-accuses-google-maps-of-topographical-cretinism/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly, Google displays different maps to different countries.

<comment><USER3> google tries to please the population of each country by displaying different names for disputed land depending where its being accessed. e.g. Northern Cyprus is labeled TRNC when viewed from Turkey but when viewed from the rest of the world its not. its their way to maximize their userbase I guess.

<comment><USER2> Well, at the article suggested/stated also, they don't really want to get countries angry, esp. Russia not _just because_ but for business reasons: Russia can find a way to punish Google financially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was a bad move, now they will be even more daring</comment>


Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Using React, Redux, and Web Audio - <AUTHOR> https://io808.com/ <comment><USER2> thanks for submitting, had a lot of fun over the last couple hours</comment>


Profit per employee for some large tech companies - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/05/14/congratulations-google-staff-210k-in-profit-per-head-in-2008/ <comment><USER2> A little googling puts Craigslist at 81 million in revenue. I don't know how much of that disappears into serving 9 billion page views a month and the payment on their Victorian mansion in San Francisco, but before that at 24 employees they're over $3 million.

<comment><USER3> And looking at the numbers for HP and IBM, I am becoming ever more convinced that small is the way to go and big companies are just not the place to be.

<comment><USER4> I'm amazed that IBM has _20 times_ more employees than Google. I thought I was working at a big company, but apparently there's big and then there's _BIG_.

It was like how in one of the recent news reports, NEC just _laid off_ more than the entire population of Google. We're peanuts compared to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And then there's Nintendo, at an estimated $1.6 million per employee:

[http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/16/nintendos-profits-per- empl...](http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/16/nintendos-profits-per-employee-are- higher-than-goldman-sachs/)

<comment><USER6> I'd be interested in knowing how Blizzard and Valve fare in this sector. Specifically, I'd like to know the labor efficiencies of running virtual world game services and digital content delivery platforms.

<comment><USER5> I doubt they can beat the cash cow of

      * making a profit on all hardware sold
      * taking a cut on every copy of every game sold, at essentially zero cost to them

The only comparable business is Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch ecosystem. The other console manufacturers cross-finance the hardware with game sales.

<comment><USER7> Valve own Steam, and take a cut on every game sold on their platform without having to sell any hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> More interesting to me is _expense_ per employee:

<http://zentu.net/snaps/exp.png>

(Disclaimer: I studied accounting)

Amazon, Google and Apple also have the most expensive employees; the cost-per- head is almost 900K.

<comment><USER9> Since you studied accounting, can you translate the combination of _expense_ and _profit_ per employee into _return-on-investment_ (ROI) per employee?

<comment><USER10> It's not the appropriate number. Profit margin makes more sense.

ROI is useful in a case where you make an expenditure now, and get back money (or savings) in the future. For example, you automate shipping for $1 million, and save $300,000 a year, for an ROI of 30%.

It doesn't work for employees, except to the extent that you're taking an up- front hit ("We paid for her to get a Master's degree") in exchange for something else ("Now she's more productive").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One point that that the article didn't mention, is that a very large fraction of Apple's employees are retail staff. I'd be curious to see how Apple's profit per employee measures up against Best Buy or Wal-Mart.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+profit+%2F+apple+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+profit+%2F+apple+employees)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=best+buy+profit+%2F+bes...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=best+buy+profit+%2F+best+buy+employees)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=walmart+profit+%2F+walm...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=walmart+profit+%2F+walmart+employees)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For a 30 years old company Microsoft is still pretty impressive.

<comment><USER14> Heh, when I worked at Microsoft we once had a division-wide developer meeting, and a business dev guy was doing a presentation on how well the company is doing financially. At one point he said "As you can see from this chart, your division is doing quite well, earning XXX dollars in profit per developer!" At that point we all just sort of looked around at each other while trying to reconcile the difference between our salary and the number, and he paused for a few seconds. You could see a bit of discomfort on his face as he realized exactly what he said and who he said it to. I never heard this figure given in any future division meeting :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15>
        # $210k profit per head in 2008: Google
        # Just over $30k: IBM, Yahoo, Amazon and Dell.
        # Around $64k: Oracle and Intel.
        # Around $120k: Adobe and Cisco.

Does it exclude their market capitalization?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. It's profit per employee. Market cap is based on (shares) x (stock price). Stock price is based on the whims of investors, and profitability is based on product costs and the whims of consumers :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> IBM has almost 400,000 employees? woah that's crazy.

<comment><USER17> IBM is also a vertically integrated company, they do many things like services, software, chips, etc. It's not really a good comparison.

<comment><USER4> Google is also vertically integrated. They're famous for their NIH syndrome - they tend not to use anything developed outside the company.

<comment><USER18> Not true, Look at chrome, Its mostly leveraging various externally developed pieces of sw, and then adding some sauce (process isolation) into the mix.

Google unlike other companies knows how to leverage open-source for its profit and does it like no other

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Although it's nice to see these numbers, I'm a bit sceptic and think one should not over-interpret them.

Reason: Who says this is a systematical effect due to their organizational strucuture? I know I'm being picky now, but you could also be the leader in this table if you were selling half of your assets in one year.

<comment><USER20> or lay off a lot of employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm amazed that the numbers are so high.

What does it cover? Do any of them do any significant profit sharing? Google provides lots of creature comforts, are they paid for by the 'profit' or are they some of the costs before profit is calculated?

<comment><USER4> This is based on net income, which is basically everything that's left over after salaries, CapEx, perks, contractors, etc. It's money that goes to the shareholders, at least in theory. (In practice, it often gets blown on overpriced acquisitions, so it's money that goes to the entrepreneurs. ;-))

This is why you want to be a shareholder and not an employee...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm think Profit per employee of Google and Balsamiq is the same. Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a cute but silly measurement, isn't it? Salaries are part of the expenses you subtract out to get profit.

</comment><comment><USER24> Do the employees actually get _paid_ that amount or is it just another cute metric?</comment>