Easy to use tool to download images from medium export - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/midorikocak/medium-images-downloader <comment><AUTHOR> Recently I wanted to leave medium.com and go back to wordpress. I exported my data, and found out that images were just not included. Also, medium included only links to small images. I was very frustrated and I wrote this tool.

Let me tell you how it works:

First it searches for the medium export files in the directory you are in. Medium files have names like YYYY-MM-DD-whatever-(Hash with 12 hex digits).html

After it searches your files for images. Exported Image links by medium are small (400/800 etc). So this tool replaces the url and gets the original file.

Downloads all images to export/img folder.

Then it replaces all image links in your html files, and saves them to export folder.

Original html exports stays the same.

It downloads all files, so it can take some time.</comment>


Goldman Sachs Posts Lowest Annual Trading Revenue Since 2005 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-16/goldman-sachs-profit-declines-on-drop-in-fixed-income-trading.html

<comment><USER2> Goldman Sachs Fined $800,000 for 'Flash Boys' Style Dark Pool Trading... Coincidence? [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/goldman-sachs-fined-800000-flash- bo...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/goldman-sachs-fined-800000-flash-boys-style- dark-pool-trading-platform-1454903)</comment>


Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B - <AUTHOR> https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2019/09/11/anduril-a-startup-from-oculus-founder-palmerluckey.html <comment><USER2> Yuck. It's like the perfect marriage of taking any remaining humanity out of law enforcement and add tons of bottomless greed to it. It's so very Peter Thiel-ish.

I'd love to say I wish them well, but I hope this company goes out of business due to a public outrage. But they'll always find someone to sell to, like authoritarian governments, and make money hand-over-fist.

<comment><USER3> >It's so very Peter Thiel-ish.

soon, all of the United State's defense companies will be named after stuff from Lord of the Rings

<comment><USER4> Reference: Andúril is the name of Aragorn's sword from Lord of the Rings. Stephen Colbert owns one of the prop swords from the films.

[https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/And%C3%BAril](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/And%C3%BAril)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was a really great podcast where Palmer was interviewed about this company and why he chose to focus on it:

The Human Code - Anduril Industries & Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey (69 MINS)

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/turner-podcast- network/the-...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/turner-podcast-network/the- human-code-with-laurie-segall/e/58088888)

It might help shed some light on the "why" that many people here seem to be asking here in the comments.

<comment><USER6> This is indeed a really great podcast. I'm sympathetic to his points that 1) the US is falling behind and 2) that in a strong democracy policy plays a big role in shaping the technology.

<comment><USER7> Is the US regarded as a "strong democracy"? Surely some can argue just how strong, especially with the effective 2-party system. It gets repeated a lot, the US being the greatest democracy and all, but that doesn't make it true per se.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, between the entrenched 2-party system, Citizen's United, gerrymandering, voter suppression (voter-ID laws, the war-on-drugs combined with felons not being eligible to vote, etc.), the politization of the supreme court and the complete dysfunction of Congress, I'd classify the US as a 'failing' democracy. Not 'failed' mind, you but well on its way. I'd put it about 2-3 democratic dysfunctions behind Turkey and 4-6 behind Russia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Say "Orwellian security company"

"Virtual Wall" is not the only thing they do.

<comment><USER10> The submitted title ("Palmer Luckey's new startup, a virtual US/Mexico wall, valued $1B by A16Z") broke the site guidelines, which ask: " _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don 't editorialize._" We've reverted it to the original now.

Submitters: Rewriting titles has a massive effect on discussion, so please don't do that unless the original title is misleading or linkbait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER11> >misleading or linkbait

Those are massively subjective concepts, especially in the modern political climate. Have you considered adding examples or further discussing this point in the guidelines?

<comment><USER12> It should be pretty obvious to anyone using the internet for long to identify what's flamebait.

If you need examples just look at the political sections of Twitter and Reddit where all sense of civility and intellectual debate has been abandoned. Or look at the headlines of clickbait news sites like Buzzfeed and Vice which target that demographic and do the opposite. There's no shortage of examples kicking around.

<comment><USER13> It should be for a lot of people. But, for more than enough people, it's not. And, even if it is obvious, the drama it promotes even among the knowledgable is a big negative I'd prefer to avoid on HN.

<comment><USER12> Well dang is an expert in it by now and I 100% trust him to make the right choices. Not everyone has to 'get' it and if there was any serious problems they'd bubble up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Awesome!

Anduril is one of the few startups today I believe is solving a core problem in the United States' institutions - Defense industry dysfunction. It costs American taxpayers billions of dollars on weapons that under-perform at best and endanger American lives at worst.

Palmer correctly identifies some of the incentive issues with current defense contracts. Rather than working on contracts pre-defined by the DoD, which puts the US Treasury on the line for all cost over-runs and entangles project planning in Pentagon political intrigue, Anduril R&Ds technologies on their own dime, to their own specs, before trying to make a sale. High-risk, but one way to do it right today. He explains his vision more in this interview: [https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1087803794266550272](https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1087803794266550272)

<comment><USER15> > core problem in the United States' institutions - Defense industry > dysfunction.

Not Super PACs? "they can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size." [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee)

<comment><USER14> > _a_ core problem in the United States' institutions - Defense industry > dysfunction.

You missed a word.

But to answer your specific suggestion for No. 1: No, I don't think Super PACs are near the Top 10 issues facing the United States' institutions. They might be in the Top 100.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "I felt like there were not nearly enough high-tech companies working on defense problems in a way that was more similar to the Silicon Valley model of innovation rather than a traditional defense contract." (Luckey)

Is this true (not enough companies applying "SV innovation model" to "defense problems")?

<comment><USER17> A bit of a tangent, but how is the US/Mexico border a "defense" issue? The Mexican military is not planning an invasion. I am unaware of any Latin American terrorist groups threatening the USA.

I am not trying to be pedantic here, but words are important. If the US/Mexico border is a defense issue, then it should be entirely militarized?

Andruil would be most accurately described as a surveillance company, would it not?

<comment><USER18> > how is the US/Mexico border a "defense" issue?

Well, whether you agree with it or not, part of the justification is that if anybody can cross easily, terrorist groups will, too. IIRC, the 9/11 hijackers didn't fly into the US since we were looking for them, they flew into Canada and crossed the border (although Canada's not Mexico, of course…)

<comment><USER19> > Well, whether you agree with it or not, part of the justification is that if > anybody can cross easily, terrorist groups will, too.

You don't hear a lot about the big wall we need across the Canadian border.

<comment><USER18> That might be because it's way bigger than the wall we would need on the southern border or because more people cross from the south than from the north or because they actually are using border security as an excuse to keep out Mexicans - but keeping terrorists out is (one of) the justifications for classifying border security as a national security and therefore military issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Although Luckey left Oculus in 2017 amid controversy over his political > contributions, he has maintained some links to Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), > which bought Oculus for $2 billion in 2014. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of > Andreessen Horowitz, sits on Facebook's board alongside Peter Thiel, whose > Founders Fund previously invested in Anduril. Andreessen Horowitz also > invested in Oculus, which makes virtual reality headsets.

This sentence is _really_ stretching for "maintained links to Facebook".

</comment><comment><USER21> This is probably how the wall should be built for the most part. It allows wildlife to freely roam but then uses AI to identify specific threats. This will probably save a lot of lives too. Then Trump can have his wall and we can all laugh that it is invisible but it will hopefully be effective for border security and environmentally friendly.

<comment><USER22> >It allows wildlife to freely roam

well good to know that the wildlife is going to have more privileges than the people. Truly a humanitarian technology company. We sure do live in interesting times.

<comment><USER21> I mean this is if we "have" to have a wall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's hearing things like this that make me regret having supported Luckey on his Kickstarter. I had followed him for a few years on the MTBS3D forum when he was experimenting with various HMD prototypes (usually modding the heck out of the Forte VFX-1). He just seemed like a kid with a dream, and the will and ability to make it happen - and potentially revive VR for "Round 2".

I suppose he did do that, and while I didn't like the "sell-out" to FB and Zuck - I couldn't blame him, either. Then it seemed like things went downhill from there.

I don't have any problem with someone being a republican or a conservative, but I can't and couldn't understand why someone would support a person like our current POTUS. To me, it would be similar to continue to voice support for Manson while saying "well, it isn't like he killed anybody himself, so it's ok" \- umm, no - it's not ok.

...and now this.

I sometimes wonder if we humans will ever get over this artificial border fetish we have. I don't have problems with property rights, to a certain level, but I'm not sure it has really worked well at the large scale level. All it has seemed to do is create some level of tension at best, and outright violence at worst. I am not certain that we as a species can continue on this path for much longer, not without some very terrible things occuring.

So - while I would prefer a "monitored solution" to border control over physical imposing measures, my real preference would be for us to all work toward eliminating these national-level borders completely. Instead, it seems like we're going the opposite direction, even online, and erecting virtual barriers to separate us from each other, instead of working to understand each other and work together on solving our world problems.

<comment><USER24> I applaud your honesty in expressing a desire for open borders. I think culture would benefit from more open and honest discussions on this topic as all the double speak makes it frustrating and boring to discuss, normally.

I'm not really very interested in borders one way or the other but national borders certainly aren't "artificial." There are certainly some artificial aspects (lines of longtitude, etc) but borders are also created by geography and culture and saying that culture is artificial is odd to me. There are distinct peoples with different values. We also have lots in common as humans, but the border of France and Germany, for example, is very real and those countries have different cultures.

I think the EU is a good example of improved relations between countries but it's certainly fine and not some sort of mental disorder to think that Switzerland and Italy are different and it's fine that they are different.

If nations want to have distinct boundaries and populations then there should be an avenue to respect human rights and not resort to racism and undue nationalism. It's also a good time to point out that immigration has been essential for major countries and is a very powerful positive force.

<comment><USER25> You're mistaken about borders being some kind of fact of human nature, and you're mistaken about different countries having some kind of fundamental "different cultures".

Nation states are an invention of the last few hundred years. Before that, kingdoms had borders between the lands they controlled militarily, and while they would certainly stop an invading army, they didn't have the administrative capacity or desire to stop small scale migration of individuals.

Historically, the culture and language of people living on the Baltic in what is now Germany would certainly differ greatly from the language and culture of people living on the Mediterranean in what is now France. But there was not some magic dividing line between those 2 points, between "the French" and "the Germans". People living around what is now the border of France and Germany would have had a very similar culture and spoken a very similar language.

In the last few hundred years, with the help of such technologies as the telegraph, the railroad, and the radio, nation-building rulers enforced speaking of the Parisian dialect in what is now France, and the Bavarian dialect in what is now Germany. They also created a lot of propaganda and myths about their "national culture" and invented far-fetched stories about the greatness of their national ancestors. In Germany's case, this went way too far and had disastrous results. The French national myths were much more benign, mostly centering around arrogance about cheese.

<comment><USER26> I'm always amused when people dismiss something because it is merely "an invention of the past few hundred years."

<comment><USER27> People often want to believe that modern social structures are based on human nature. That's sad rather than amusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Good. I like my borders like I like the safety of my home: secure.

</comment><comment><USER29> For various reasons, I'm slightly sketched out by pretty much every company I've heard of that is named after something from Lord of the Rings. Even when I don't think they're contributing to a dystopian surveillance state (à la Palantir and this one), you have the other HN front-page story about Mithril Capital being accused of mismanaging investor funds.

Is there some weird self-selection that causes only certain types of people to name their companies that way?

Edit: I was looking for a list of companies named after LOTR and apparently the link that connects all of them is that they're owned or heavily invested in by Peter Thiel.

<comment><USER30> I've been considering Gollum Capital as a name for a VC fund. You have to admit it has a nice ring to it...

<comment><USER31> Definitely sounds like a place that would put my precious funds to good use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What is wrong with enforcing border security laws? Curious why you think less of him for supporting those efforts.

<comment><USER33> In principle, nothing. In practice, _current_ policy at the southern US border is directly responsible for acts which are unconscionably cruel and inhumane.

Separating children, babies and toddlers from their parents. Keeping children in bed-less, 24/7 lit rooms. Not giving sanitary pads to menstruating girls, etc. The list of atrocities is growing, depressing and unforgivable. Apprehended migrants are treated in ways that most humans would consider too cruel for dogs.

It is because of these policies that enforcing border security is immoral. Because of these policies, any increase in enforcement has a direct, causal, traceable and immediate consequence of increasing human suffering.

"Law and order vs chaos" is a false dichotomy. There can be peaceful lawlessness and cruel law and everything in between.

Anduril, anyone working there, and anyone backing them, will now be directly responsible for an increase in human suffering. I will never pitch A16Z again.

<comment><USER34> By that logic, doesn't someone also support "unhumane practices" if they do any kind of work or subcontract to US government? If you group everything together, then anyone supporting US is "directly responsible for an increase in human suffering". Does that really look like sound logic to you?

<comment><USER33> Of course not. I don't think there's anything in my comment that would suggest that.

My comment was explicitly about: inhumane acts done to apprehended migrants and building technology to apprehend more migrants. Those seem very connected.

<comment><USER34> Does the manufacturer of cars that they provide for the border patrol contribute to the "increase of suffering"? This technology is directly related to apprehending more migrants, in fact those cars are used on the ground to do that exact thing. Some of those cars are used to separate children from families by driving them away. To clarify, my point is if you see such technology as directly related, then cars would also be directly related?

<comment><USER33> Yes. Selling cars to the border patrol is, in this formulation, unethical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How much of that money is going to go to back to help feed poor kids and communities recovering in war-torn Gondor? HUNH?

</comment><comment><USER36> Wait until I launch Gimli you fools, it will be even better.

</comment><comment><USER37> Love these Lord of the Rings names.

</comment><comment><USER15> > towers with cameras and infrared sensors that use artificial intelligence to > track movement.

No automatic gun turrets and autonomous drones? Phew!

<comment><USER15> Liberals and downvoters are designated primary targets. Weapons free, my friends, weapons free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Think of all the marketing opportunities there are in this sort of evil. It's so positively lucrative.

You could televise drone camera footage and have bets on which drones shoot the most fleeing brown people. You could have an e-sports league, but instead of playing Star Craft you could have nationally recognized "players" manning the drones. People would fill stadiums!

You could even, with a little thought on the tech stack, have machine gun turrets that the public could operate for $20 for 20 minutes. Hell they could do it through the internet from the comfort of their bunker. So long as the turrets were pointed south there wouldn't be any risk of any of the "important" people being killed.

Truly this is a visionary whose time has come.

<comment><USER15> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purge)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Did we create a super-villain by ostracizing him for supporting Trump?

<comment><USER40> Maybe this is too off topic for HN, but I'm genuinely curious what is the best argument for why it is bad/racist to enforce immigration laws? I've heard people argue that a wall won't be effective. But some people seem to have the view that immigration laws shouldn't be enforced at all and we should allow people to use whatever loopholes (refugee status, traveling w/ children) there are to get in and then not show up for their court hearing. Im genuinely puzzled that this is so controversial.

<comment><USER41> I'll bite because I'm ambivalent about immigration laws. Why should people that just happen to be born in a third world country live a shitty life with no way out? You can't just say they have to do a revolution in their own country, not everyone is interested in activism, why should this be the fight of their life instead of stuff they actually want to do? You were born in a nice place by sheer luck. It's unfair.

I like the idea of a fundamental human right to "mobility". In the grand scheme of things a human being should be able to move anywhere as long as they obey local laws, pay local taxes, etc.

<comment><USER42> The standard counterargument is that not allowing mobility is what enabled us to have any nice places to begin with, in an "ant and grasshopper" way. Building a "nice" and affluent country is generally a multigenerational project involving plenty of individual sacrifice for the sake of a future that the sacrificing individuals will rarely themselves experience. If Norwegians knew that they all could move to any country they choose at their pleasure at all times, why would they save their oil money in a sovereign wealth fund instead of quitting work, blowing it all on blackjack and hookers right now, then taking out the greatest national credit line their country can secure to buy some more blackjack and hookers, and relocate a few 100km into Sweden once it's all used up? Knowing that the Norwegians would be thinking along those lines, what would stop the Swedes from racing to beat them onto the blackjack- and-hookers train?

Now, in reality, Norwegians and Swedes are sufficiently similar and familiar with each other that they probably would be able to predict the other's actions and jointly avoid racing to the bottom, but could you say this about, say, Germans and Egyptians, for more complex downward spirals than "burn through our assets faster than the others get to"? Add to it that the short- sighted policies that actually make the difference between successful and failed countries rarely are so straightforwardly bad as buying blackjack and hookers: more commonly, we'll be talking about economic experiments, corruption and kickbacks for interest groups, and really a handful of policies where we still can't confidently say if they were actually good for a given polity in the long run (space programmes, social programmes , infrastructure megaprojects...), but have to rely on history to naturally select for political processes that crystallise better instincts for their selection.

In less abstract terms, I think that especially many right-leaning Americans feel that Latin-American socialism gets close to being an instance of "blackjack and hookers" in the sense of the above metaphor, and in the same vein Germans feel that Levantine... sectarianism?... does. (As in, sitting down and negotiating a sustainable peace with people from other ethnic groups who might be heretics and devil-worshippers is the hardship-and-sacrifice option, whereas using any momentary advantage to enrich your friends and blow up infidels is short-term fun.)

<comment><USER43> This counterargument conveniently ignores the history of 'European colonization of America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the colonies into the United States of America [0]'.

I'm not the most well-versed on these topic (colonization / mobility) but it would seem that that mobility is what helped shape America into what it is today rather than "not allowing mobility".

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

<comment><USER40> I think you two both agree, actually. How did colonization work out for the indians?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Nice. I hate it.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting, why would Andreessen Horowitz fund evil, well I guess this is a perfect fit for why I detest venture capitalists.

<comment><USER46> > Interesting, why would Andreessen Horowitz fund evil

It's tech. It could make lots of money. Evil is relative (/s).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> So basically a laser tripwire? Like for Roombas?

</comment><comment><USER48> I find it ironic that Andreessen tweeted this yesterday:

"If you're on the right side of the issue, just keep driving until you hear glass breaking. Don't quit." —T. Boone Pickens, founder of Mesa Petroleum, RIP</comment>


Can cable block the Google TV revolution? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/#!/tech-policy/news/2011/02/can-big-cable-block-the-google-tv-revolution.ars <comment><USER2> Direct link --- [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/can-big- cabl...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/can-big-cable-block- the-google-tv-revolution.ars)</comment>


Dropbox Uploader: Bash script to upload, download, list, delete from Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader <comment><USER2> The one tool I constantly wish for is something like Hyperdesktop ([http://gethyperdesktop.com/](http://gethyperdesktop.com/)) 's entry on the Windows "Send To..." menu: something that takes a file on your drive, pushes it anonymously to a file-hosting site (where it'll expire as soon as people stop looking at it for a while), and then puts a link _directly to the file_ on your clipboard. But, you know, for all file-types, not just images.

I _can_ currently do this using Dropbox, but it's rather a hassle; the quickest method I've found is to use the web client[1], navigate to my Public folder, drop a file onto it, wait for it to upload, then right-click -> Copy Public Link.

Making that one step would be wonderful. Making the link a "promise"[2], so I don't have to do synchronous clipboard gymnastics when I'm trying to get multiple links at a time, would be even better.

Droplr ([https://droplr.com/hello](https://droplr.com/hello)) is pretty similar to all this--but it doesn't do direct links, so my most common usage- pattern for it (treating it as an "I need a CDN to show people this image/audio/video for the next 30 seconds or so, then it can disappear" service) is mooted. Dropbox also changed their service to remove Public folders for new users, with the "shared files" in its place having the same wrapper+HTML embedded file design.

Temporary hotlinking of my own content is important; I'm willing to pay for it!

\---

[1] The Dropbox native client's uploading thread is optimized for background "forget about it, it'll just be magically synced later" processing, not synchronous use. The web client lets you upload as fast as your web-browser can manage.

[2] A "promise" link would be something like--if the file hasn't finished uploading yet, figure out whether the User Agent is a human or a script/bot. If it's a script/bot, just let their connection sit open until the file finishes (they won't mind.) If the user-agent is human, however, immediately return a 408 (Timeout) error _with HTML body content_ showing a spinner. Estimate time-to-completion plus a little bit, and put that time into an HTTP "Refresh" header. (Remember those?)

<comment><USER3> check out [https://wsend.net](https://wsend.net) I just launched it and it might be what you're looking for. It is anonymous for small files, but you can purchase an account if you'd like to support the service. I would greatly appreciate any feedback and or purchasing of an account. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> I know you want to make money, but consider making a self-hosted version, you could even charge for it.

<comment><USER5> From my experience (building a SaaS product for consumers which can be self installed) it's not worth the hassle and most people who claim they'd pay actually don't.

It seems that the best way to get people to pay for something is to make it a requirement (to use the service or a set of features).

<comment><USER4> Alright, but I'd just use some free software alternative on my server.

<comment><USER5> That supports my statement. People will usually go free if given the option.

What I'm building is free, it is Apache2 licensed. The fact is that the self install userbase just isn't that monetizable. So the cost of supporting them is a net negative.

We do it but it is not our first, second or even third priority as a company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      > ./dropbox_uploader.sh COMMAND [PARAMETERS]...
      >
      > [%%]: Required param
      > <%%>: Optional param

Doesn't square brackets usually mean optional.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool.

But my 80% case is just installing Dropbox headless on a server. Then I can use 'ls', 'cp' and 'rm'.

<comment><USER8> I came here wondering why anyone would want this instead of just installing the client. Then I realized this script would prevent needing to keep another copy of your library on your system. Clever!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wanted to do the same exact thing except in a browser:

1\. fire up a JS-based shell

2\. implement basic commands like mkdir, cd, ls, rm, touch etc. (using HTML5 FileSystem API)

3\. implement extra command 'edit' that fires up an Ace session on target file

4\. allow to mount Google Drive folder via JS API

5\. allow to mount Dropbox folder via JS API

I did 1-4 and found out that Google Drive was not a good candidate for this project (too many files of unexploitable format + no real tree-like structure).

Then I lost interest and motivation. Should have inverted 4. and 5 :-/

Please, someone without a demanding day job and/or children, implement something like this! It would be a perfect companion to a Chromebook (offline).

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome! I've been meaning to build something like this for my Dropbox anonymous upload site, [http://dbinbox.com](http://dbinbox.com) (shameless self plug). Would be super nice to be able to upload stack traces or log tails as a text file to a Dropbox account without worrying about Auth stuff.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your Bash + Dropbox combo inspired me to clean up my 1Password hack I've used for the past couple of years and put it online:

[https://github.com/opyate/1Bashword](https://github.com/opyate/1Bashword)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a dropbox user, but I've always imagined you could simply mount your dropbox as a file system?! I'm surprised that that doesn't seem to be the case.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I have that set up and ~/Dropbox works pretty well.

One big place the docs fall down is explaining how it talks to multiple dropbox accounts. Or how it authenticates to any account at all. I'm not nearly as interested in uploading to one dropbox account as 50, or 50K.

The usage case is probably something like an ebook delivery service where you release edition 3 of your "learn trendy language in a ridiculously short amount of time" so you run a script and all 100K previous buyers magically have ebook_version_3.pdf magically appear in their dropbox. There are ebook publishers doing this now. Like Pragmatic. I would imagine they have a tool vaguely like this in their backend system. Or teams of hundreds of bored interns doing it all by hand. Perhaps there's a completely different API for .com bulk uploading. Hopefully we never get Dropbox spam delivery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This tool has been around for a while. All my AWS images sport it, I found it very useful to quickly move files to my computer whenever I need to. Very reliable.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is the perfect tool for a simple and free backup solution for servers for configuration files, logs, and even encrypted database dumps.

<comment><USER16> in the free account files get deleted (see docs) so I would suggest not to use it as a backup system. Also, from same docs, the intended use is sending files, becareful with different use cases ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Please explain to a layman.

Does it mean that I can get a user to upload 500mb file irrespective of if user has dropbox or not?

Kind of like what filepicker.io helps us do?</comment>


Is Basic Authentication Really Insecure? - <AUTHOR> http://www.skorks.com/2009/08/is-basic-authentication-really-insecure/ <comment><USER2> The problem with basic auth has nothing to do with how it's encoded. All authentication is insecure in flight if you're not using SSL. The problem with basic auth is that you can't log out.

You may work on a computer that only your cat can access, but a lot of people --- maybe most --- don't have that luxury.

<comment><USER3> it might be worth noting that basic auth is slightly worse than the others because it sends your password across in the clear for every request, whereas session-based authentication is only sending it once.

if i login to flickr at home and then go to a coffee shop a few days later, i'm never sending my password in the clear. of course, someone can steal my session cookie and be me, but they still won't have my actual password. with basic auth, i would have been giving my password out on every page view.

<comment><USER2> You could stop that behavior with a session cookie, but then you might as well just bite the bullet and use form auth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, yes it is. The article talks about how non plain text authentication schemes are moot if you've got tls (https). I think you should. While this idea violates defense in depth strategies I think the core of his argument is compares apples to oranges.

Refraining from sending passwords plain text along your transport is always a good idea. Even if on the public internet the password's transport may be encrypted, once it hits your network it might not be. HTTPS accelerators (or reverse proxies) will remove this secure layer and with basic authentication you'll be left with the base64 clad password.

While you could argue that if your local networks are compromised you're screwed anyway. (think bad network topology in your data center) Think back to defense in depth, I'd rather the passwords never enter my network to begin with. (Think digest, or better yet Kerberos.)

<comment><USER2> Digest is worse than Basic-Auth: it has most of the same underlying problems, and adds the problem that _your passwords need to be stored cleartext on the server_.

Nobody uses digest.

<comment><USER5> It requires the server to store _either_ the password or the hash of the concatenated username, password, and realm. As long as the realm used in the challenge is consistent, the password need not be stored (at all, anywhere).

<comment><USER2> If you want the challenge to be password-equivalent, then yes, you can avoid storing the password. This defeats one of the purposes of digest authentication.

Note also that by doing this, you're also conceding to store the password in an extremely insecure hashed format. It's not as bad as cleartext, but it's markedly worse than a real password hash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only way to intercept this data is to:

1\. Hijack a DNS on route

or

2\. Sniff packets from the air or wire of the computer or server

right?

Both of those seem like reasonably safe risks to take.

<comment><USER7> >2\. Sniff packets from the air or wire of the computer or server

From your home connection, maybe. Anywhere else I wouldn't trust it.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk's SpaceX Is Testing Technology To Make Rockets Reusable - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/09/elon-musk-spacex-reusable-rockets/ <comment><USER2> Here's the video of the most recent SpaceX Grasshopper flight:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2Ivr6JF1K-8)

(via: [http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30708.msg10...](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30708.msg1024337#msg1024337) . May not be available in some areas due to music licensing.)

<comment><USER3> That was pretty cool. Why was I the 314th person to watch it. Surely there must be more interest in rockets like the Sci-fi books always described? In most books, the rockets came down like the Grasshopper.

<comment><USER4> There's a good reason for it, and usually is a sign that the video is immensely popular. You can find out why on Youtube it self: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't have an aerospike engine. The first leg of the journey is always the hardest at sea level so if they can use less fuel there, it will be easier on the rest of the trip. Aerospikes are more efficient at lower altitudes and offer a greater throttle range (since each burner can be independently controlled).

Whether this is a multi stage or single stage, an aerospike is something they need to look into. It's been overlooked by the majority of manufacturers and enthusiasts, which is a shame because, even though the engineering may be difficult, there is still a lot of research behind it as well.

<comment><USER6> Aerospikes are oversold. NASA and LockMart tried to prove the technology with X-33/VentureStar and it proved to be far, far less promising than it looked initially.

Also, the idea that we need some new technological silver bullet to advance spaceflight has been a pernicious impulse in the spaceflight community since its inception, and it very much has not helped. We don't in fact need any breakthrough technology, just incremental improvement stacked on incremental improvement and so forth. It's amazing how far you can get with just that. What's more amazing is how little it's been tried so far!

SpaceX's vehicles are fundamentally almost a 1960s era design. A simple 2-stage LOX/Kerosene vertical launcher. And yet by doing nothing more than applying existing technology (rather than trailblazing new technology) they've built the lowest cost launcher on the planet. And now they're iterating the design to improve it even more. Iterating the engines and building history's highest thrust-to-weight ratio large cryogenic engine (the Merlin-1D). Iterating the vehicle design by changing the first stage engine layout and stretching the fuel tanks (to get the Falcon 9 v1.1 which will have >40% more capacity than the v1). Iterating vehicle designs which use Falcon 9 components modularly to create the Falcon Heavy (which will have a payload capacity to LEO of over 50 tonnes). Iterating pressurized capsule design to create an unmanned cargo vehicle (Dragon Cargo) and taking the lessons from that to build a manned capsule (DragonRider). And iteratively testing ideas to allow reusability of the Falcon 9 launcher (grasshopper, etc.)

We don't need anything more than perseverance and pragmatism to revolutionize access to orbit, and thankfully some companies are doing that.

<comment><USER7> _> We don't need anything more than perseverance and pragmatism to revolutionize access to orbit, and thankfully some companies are doing that._

Jerry Pournelle and many, many others had been saying that for decades. Just keep on building rockets, do it a lot, with the principle that "practice makes perfect" in mind. Instead, governments were just paying contractors to mostly do the same thing for cost-plus, with only relatively slow progress over time to show for it.

<comment><USER6> In the US at least we put all our eggs in one basket (the Shuttle) and ended up foregoing about 2 decades of development in conventional launch vehicles (until the Challenger accident forced some sanity). Also, a lot of the big aerospace companies (such as Boeing) have surprisingly shallow experience with orbital rocketry (although it's improved a bit with the EELV generation). Very few folks at those companies actually had hands on experience with building or flying rockets, and even less experience with testing (as a rule most launch vehicles fly straight down the middle of the flight envelope as much as possible, so even in a vehicle like the Shuttle with 130+ flights that's nowhere comparable to having the same level of understanding or confidence in the vehicle if it had flown that many flights while exploring the envelope).

<comment><USER8> When government does something, it tends to put all its eggs in one basket.

And the way lobbyists run our government makes the problem even worse, as there's more pressure to keep spending regardless of results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This impressive video from Armadillo is three years old. I wonder what they are up to now.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0qlIoSSkQ>

<comment><USER6> Right now there are several companies working on reusable launchers. SpaceX, of course, who already has a proven expendable orbital launcher. But also Blue Origin, Armadillo, XCOR, and Virgin Galactic. None of those companies have an orbital launch vehicle but each is working on building the foundations for reusability in the form of pioneering various control mechanisms (vertical landing being one) as well as engineering various component parts (from engines up to propellant tanks and so forth). Some of them are looking more at the sub-orbital space tourism market to provide early returns and some of them are certainly more dedicated and more well funded than others. Overall it'll be exciting to see what comes of it all.

<comment><USER10> If Virgin Galactic can get the costs down enough, the really exciting thing about what they are proposing to do is turning 18 hour airplane flights into less than two hour suborbital flights. Even if you don't care about space for the sake of space, it's obvious that that would be a huge improvement in transportation between various points on Earth.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but if you can afford a suborbital flight, you can probably afford to spend those 18 hours in international first class, where you'll have access to a bed, unlimited champagne, caviar, and whatever else you want. Why cut that party short?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Privacy-Preserving Captcha Service: NetToolKit Shibboleth - <AUTHOR> https://www.nettoolkit.com/shibboleth/about <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

We are launching an alternative CAPTCHA service and we would love your feedback. We've developed some unconventional puzzles to entertain your users, and you can also review your users' solutions to see if the challenges are too easy or too hard.

We are particularly interested in feedback in two areas: 1) if your team would consider using our services, please let us know what needs to change in order for you to actually make the switch and 2) if you have ideas on how to develop an effective CAPTCHA that is accessible to the sight-impaired (while still being generally usable), we would really like to know.

Thanks so much for stopping by!</comment>


Multiple var statements in JavaScript, not superfluous (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://benalman.com/news/2012/05/multiple-var-statements-javascript/?view=article

<comment><USER2> I do not - presently - write much JS, but I do write a great deal of C and C++. I always put variable declarations on their own line, so it's easier to cut and paste them to somewhere else.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the points to remember while doing code review? - <AUTHOR> I am working on project which has thousands of files and millions of lines of code. Also, we are constantly updating it with new enhancements and bug fixes.
Now, since last few months it is happening that new enhancements happen over the system and it brake something.
I know it is impossible to eliminate error but what are the points or things or strategy that you follow while doing code review that help to reduce these types of broken effects. <comment><USER2> [https://mtlynch.io/human-code-reviews-1/](https://mtlynch.io/human-code- reviews-1/)</comment>


The Start-Up of You - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html?src=rechp <comment><USER2> I hope I'm not the only one that actually embraces this sort of work environment.

<comment><USER3> At first glimpse, it seems a bit intense, but if it's what it takes for us to compete on a global scale, then so be it. I'd take it over the bigco where I'm currently at, if only so I could just continue to learn.</comment></comment>


We analyzed San Francisco's parking data and this is what we found - <AUTHOR> https://www.spotangels.com/blog/san-francisco-worst-neighborhoods-for-parking-tickets/ <comment><AUTHOR> We tell you what are the most ticketed blocks and neighborhood in SF where more than $124m worth of parking tickets were issued

</comment><comment><USER2> Do you have this data for new york?

<comment><AUTHOR> Comming soon!</comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Aza Raskin, co-founder, Massive Health - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/6063336041

<comment><AUTHOR> Every time you make the user make a decision they don't care about, you have failed as a designer.

\- Aza Raskin (@azaaza)

<http://startupquote.com/post/6063336041></comment>


Web Developers need a Web App Store.  Has this been attempted before? - <AUTHOR>

I wrote in the comments of another post about this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3484928. It was a bit off-topic so I'm expounding on it here.<p>I wish there was an app store for web apps. The web needs easy way to sell access to web apps like in the app store. If all I had to do was click 'purchase' and enter my password to get access to web apps like turntable.fm for a reasonable price, I would gladly pay. This would open up a whole new revenue model for web apps. There is a whole class of web apps that are trying to rely on ads now but don't have the millions of visitors a month to make that feasible. A web app store could provide a place for these lower traffic but still very useful and relevant products. I envy mobile developers since they have this avenue as an option.  Who could pull this off?  You need the database with everyones credit cards like Amazon or Paypal. Anyone else feel this way? <comment><USER2> No, thanks.

But yes, it exists: <https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home>

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been to the chrome webstore but I don't see a way to buy anything. Can you charge for an app on it? Is there an api that you can use to process payments if they go directly to your url?

<comment><USER2> Yes, you can charge: <http://code.google.com/chrome/webstore/docs/index.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you checkout Bushido? <http://gobushido.com>

We deal with opensource apps only right now. But you can see how LocomotiveCMS is using Bushido to allow users to setup instance of the app with just a click. <http://www.locomotivecms.com/>

Disclaimer: I work for them.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess we became too spoiled with the freemium model for that to work. The problem I have is reaching the audience with my project since I come from Slovenia I can't get it out of Slovenia - to the world. So the web app store as sort of a fair would be nice, but the problem is that it'd become overcrowded in a sec. So you just have to hustle :)</comment>


Ask HN: What is your stack? - <AUTHOR> With the mean stack (http://mean.io) I realized the importance of those 4 factors to any web application developer workflow.
I personally am using the JVM as my platform, grails as my 'backend' framework, ember as my front end and postgres (or should I say hibernate?) in the database realm.
I feel like getting to know other devs stacks helped me realize what is really important for a modern web app development.
So what is your stack? <comment><USER2> [http://stackshare.io/trending/stacks](http://stackshare.io/trending/stacks)

</comment><comment><USER3> TL,DR: Node, Erlang, React, Flocks.JS, MySQL, and CloudFront.

For the frontend, I am writing a routable, cached SPA in React and d3, orchestrated with Flocks, stored in S3 and fronted with CloudFront, generated by Node, backed with MySQL (because it has semi-mature clustering.)

For the backend, I use a custom Erlang stack built on htstub and emysql.

The build process is orchestrated with gulp, uses eslint, vows, karma, and jsverify for testing, travis ci for CI/CD, and deploys automatically on full test passing. (I have extensive test coverage.)

I can use remarkably few tools to get the results I want. I am happy with the stack.

I have an alternative approach to handling multiple interfaces, as a replacement for responsive. I don't use media queries to do that. Instead I have a top level React layout control, and which top level control is invoked is based on the client. The same goal is suited, but it isn't jury rigged through CSS.

</comment><comment><USER4> C++ backend, pure javascript (with some emscripten) front-end for the web conferencing platform I work on. Mysql/perl/php for the website, with Centos 6 on the server.

I'm more interested in building a very efficient and reliable service and solving challenging problems than using trendy technologies.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://stackshare.io/rvalue/tools-and- skills](http://stackshare.io/rvalue/tools-and-skills)</comment>


Zeus crimeware source code leaked - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/zeus-source-code-leaked-051011

<comment><USER2> Code (supposedly) linked from [http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/05/finally- source-code-of-...](http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/05/finally-source-code- of-zeus-crimeware.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, this malware has better documentation than most open source projects I've used.</comment>


Amazon: A New Kind of Antitrust Risk - <AUTHOR> https://diff.substack.com/p/amazon-a-new-kind-of-antitrust-risk <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, anti-competitiveness regulations can only go so far.

A better step, albeit a much more controversial one, is to address the problem at an earlier level.

Before companies have the ability to engage in sustained anti-competitive behavior, they have to grow to a certain size.

This allows them to use their heft to squeeze out competitors. Amazon and Walmart, for instance, have enough cash that they can consistently underprice smaller competitors until they go under. And what happens next? The Wal-Mart Effect, where people who otherwise might have been able to own and sustain small businesses now need to become employees with no ownership stake, allowing the mega-corps to continue growing larger and squeezing out more competitors. And that has major public-welfare implications.

So how would we address this problem at an earlier stage?

It would involve pulling a lot of levers -- taxes probably being the biggest one -- to make it harder for mega-corps to compete purely on size, rather than on innovation or quality.

It would also involve a major mindset shift. We need to recognize the hidden negative consequences of an economic environment in which massive conglomeration is widespread and encouraged, while small-business and cooperative ownership is disincentivized.

<comment><USER3> What you're describing is Walmart consistently selling cheaper goods than any competitor can.

This is _good_ for consumers.

Anti-trust laws should protect consumers, not competing companies.

<comment><USER2> It is only good for consumers in the short term, when there are many other options.

But over the long term, why would a company need to compete on price if it's already squeezed out all its competition?

There is also the effect on labor to consider. Is it really a net positive if consumers can save X dollars on products at Walmart if its moving into a community drives down wages by X dollars?

<comment><USER3> If the big company raises prices later, it leaves room for competitors to undersell them.

I know the popular story is that then they lower prices again, and crush these competitors again, etc. It's an intuitive story, but from what I've read about economists studying this, that "common sense" effect isn't how the real world works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A simple law that I think would solve a lot of the perverse incentives that exist in platform economies:

Make it illegal to compete on your own platform.

Amazon would no longer be allowed to sell products on Amazon. Google would no longer be allowed to promote its own services on Google. etc..

It's pretty obvious to me that platforms are natural monopolies: the best platform experience is where there's just one and it has all the inventory.

I wonder what the side-effects of a law like this would be? Would it create new problems I'm not thinking of?

<comment><USER5> Do you extend this to store brands?

Should Kroger be able to offer Kroger Private Selection alongside other brands?

-edit-

Here's another one. Should Amazon be forced to let Kroger sell Kroger Private Selection in their Whole Foods stores (and vice-versa)? Why or why not?

<comment><USER6> The difference is that when you go to Kroger you search the shelves with your own eyeballs. When you go to Amazon, their opaque algorithm does the searching for you, and it could be (and probably is) prioritizing Amazon brands or "Amazon's choice" over other brands. I suppose an argument could be made about the layout of store shelves serving a similar purpose to the prioritization inherent in search engine algorithms, but I don't think it's a perfect parallel since the shopper arguably has more agency in determining what products they see and when in a meatspace store versus online.

<comment><USER7> _> The difference is that when you go to Kroger you search the shelves with your own eyeballs. [...] I suppose an argument could be made about the layout of store shelves serving a similar purpose to the prioritization [...] the shopper arguably has more agency in determining what products they see and when in a meatspace store_

For example of Kroger or any other retail store, the shopper doesn't have full visibility of buying options because the _curation_ also happens before any product gets stocked on the shelf. E.g. the hidden retail-corporate-buyer-and- vendor relationships. Kroger example[1]. Costco example[2].

Because shoppers are not sitting in grocery chain's corporate headquarters to see what products the company rejects/prioritizes, they will still be influenced by self-interest of the retailer. Those are private negotiations of vendor contracts that influences what shows up on shelves so they can be as opaque as Amazon's recommendations algorithms. If Kroger wants to remove Kraft Macaroni & Cheese from the shelves and just promote their own-store-brand _Kroger_ Macaroni & Cheese[3], the shopper doesn't really have any more agency.

[1] [https://www.thekrogerco.com/vendors-suppliers/become-a- suppl...](https://www.thekrogerco.com/vendors-suppliers/become-a-supplier/)

[2] [https://www.costco.com/vendor- inquiries.html](https://www.costco.com/vendor-inquiries.html)

[3] [https://www.kroger.com/p/kroger-original-macaroni- cheese/000...](https://www.kroger.com/p/kroger-original-macaroni- cheese/0001111085151)

<comment><USER6> Those are excellent points that I had not considered (or even been aware of). Still, though, while the set of brands and products available at a brick-and- mortar store is predetermined in a way that the customer has little to no influence over, it's at least much more _visible_ if I go into Kroger one week and there's a full selection of different brands of mac & cheese, and then come back the next week and it's all Kroger brand with no sign of any other brand; whereas if I go to Amazon and search for, say, AA batteries, or Lightning cables, and all I see is AmazonBasics batteries and AmazonBasics Lightning cables, is that because Amazon stopped stocking Energizer batteries and Anker cables entirely, or because Amazon forced them to a later page of results to bolster sales of the AmazonBasics brand?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This feels a lot like when JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley were separated. The combination of commerce layer and infrastructure layer turn out to be too important when combined, and too hard to assail in a free markets sense.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow it's really creepy that there is a subscribe button that is prefilled with my email address. I realize that sub stack has this information, because I've subscribed to other newsletters, but I don't associate myself with having an account with substack or with that any of my personal information or credentials should somehow cross the barrier between newsletters. Also, I'm just super paranoid I might accidentally click subscribe while scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jason- furman/](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jason-furman/)

Jason furman, a well known economist, argues that Amazon is not really a risk as they compete with Walmart and basically all retail (he doesn't break out the book segment).

A bigger monopoly risk are firms which grow by buying competitors. Looking at you facebook.

<comment><USER11> Right. In addition to Walmart, I think Shopify also has a chance at taking on Amazon, from a different angle. More broadly, all big retailers seem to target Amazon as a common enemy.</comment></comment>


Vybe: concert starved music fans in the middle of nowhere will get notifications - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/08/03/feeling-the-vybe-new-music-app-pushes-song-show-and-video-updates-to-fans/

<comment><USER2> Interesting concept on driving time to a concert as opposed to distance in miles...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It was really a pain point for us as founders, most of my life I haven't lived in a big city but been a die hard music fan willing to drive to shows hours away. It was always tedious having to go through and check each nearby city that got decent shows.</comment></comment>


Roundup found in 95% of studied beers and wines - <AUTHOR> https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/roundup-beer-wine <comment><USER2> Tsingtao has the highest glyphosate content of the beers tested at 48.7ppb. That's 0.02254 mg per 16 ounces. You'd have to drink nearly 100 pints per kilogram of body weight in a day to get to the 2mg/day EPA safe limit recommendation referenced in the linked article. The article, and the US PIRG report that "1 part per trillion" of glyphosate can stimulate cancer cells but doesn't say what unit of measurement that figure is measured from.

Also consider PIRG's funding sources and biases. I'm absolutely for minimizing the use of pesticides but, this is just not it.

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=49.7+ppb+of+16+ounces](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=49.7+ppb+of+16+ounces)

[https://uspirg.org/feature/usp/glyphosate-pesticide-beer- and...](https://uspirg.org/feature/usp/glyphosate-pesticide-beer-and-wine)

[https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/u-s-public- interes...](https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/u-s-public-interest- research-group/)

[Edit: I missed the per kilogram of body weight part of 2mg/kg/day on the EPA guidance]

<comment><USER3> It's not just 2mg/day; it's 2mg/day/kg of body weight.

So a woman who weighs 110lbs (50kg) would have to drink 50 times that, or 5000 pints in one day to pass the EPA limit.

Obviously most people won't drink that in a year, and this article is fairly useless for limiting itself to the easy-clicks topic of booze versus industrial agriculture chemicals. What I think _would_ be interesting is to look at, across an average diet, what one's _total_ daily glyphosate exposure might be, against any relevant clinical information, but that's more of a research paper than a piece of blog content.

<comment><USER4> Whats the clearance rate? Does it store in fat? What is the dosage from other things in the diet. Those are very important questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is pretty misleading.

There is no substance that is absolutely safe at any level for humans. Even water will easily kill you (over-hydration is a real risk, especially for athletes).

FTA:

> _The EPA says glyphosate is safe up to 2 milligrams per kilogram of body > weight per day, and Bayer, who now owns Monsanto, claims that its safety for > consumption by humans has been proven by years of research. However, the > World Health Organization 's International Agency for Research on Cancer, > among many others, disagrees, and considers glyphosate a potential human > carcinogen._

The three claims are completely compatible, the WHO isn't disagreeing, it is simply listing as a potential carcinogen. This is actually less bad than eating salami, which is actually a known carcinogen.

Regardless of the actual safety of glyphosate, the article is journalistic crap.

And that's before we get into the actual amount of beer you'd have to drink to ingest any significant amount of glyphosate...

<comment><USER6> Referencing the toxicity of water is a bit disingenuous, since the average human body is 60% water or more to begin with. Glyphosate, on the other hand, is a substance wholly artificial and foreign to the human body. Its only logical that if the substance is capable of interfering with a plant's enzyme pathway, said molecule can also have a similar role in animal hosts as well.

Surely each of us is carrying more than trace amounts of this substance, unfortunately. Its used in grain crops as a pre-harvest crop desiccant, although in a way to limit residue effects. The fact that France has banned the herbicide, with other European countries considering similar bans, is something I found interesting.

<comment><USER7> Glyphosate interferes with the shikimate pathway by inhibiting the EPSP synthase enzyme. The shikimate pathway is not present in animals.

European Union follows the precautionary principle, that means it would ban a substance if there's a scientific uncertainty about the substance's safety (unlike US, where you'd have to prove that it's harmful). The problem is you can never be 100% certain about any substance's safety. And it's quite easy to convince the politicians that the safety concerns are bigger than they really are by using bad science and aggressive lobbying. Even so, the France's decision to ban glyphosate was very controversial in EU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish they could have included more craft beers or smaller wineries. I don't drink the mass market stuff, in part because it's a given they will engage in worst practices if it saves half a penny.

Peak Organic IPA was the one microbrew they did test and it contained no glyphosate. It's also a really good beer.

<comment><USER9> I doubt it matters -- all the craft breweries and home brewers are sourcing malt from the same set of farms as the big guys.

<comment><USER8> That just sounds like a cynical thing to say, not a fact backed up by evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an example of a very bad science that should never be published.

</comment><comment><USER10> If there was actual proof we wouldn't be reading about beer on a site that manipulates browser history so you can't use the back button.

<comment><USER11> Bad web dev practices may hint at a site being unreliable, but it's a bit ridiculous to assume something is false because of it.

<comment><USER12> I absolutely agree it's not proof.

However, I'd bet it's not statistically independent either. If you assume that submitters to Hacker News often put effort into selecting well-behaved web sites, and if you assume that legitimate news stories are carried by a wide variety of outlets, then it skews the odds in favor of the story not being legitimate.</comment></comment></comment>


100 Years Ago, French Artists Predicted The Future With Eerie Accuracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680400/100-years-ago-french-artists-predicted-the-future-with-eerie-accuracy#1 <comment><AUTHOR> #6 is especially spooky / accurate...</comment>


Mojeek – 1.5B Pages and Growing (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mojeek.com/2016/12/1500000000-pages-and-growing.html <comment><USER2> Visited their blog, typed a simple search for "python"[1] into their search box, and got "Sorry your search appeared automated and was blocked."

[https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=python&site=](https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=python&site=)

<comment><USER3> Hi I'm Marc the developer of Mojeek. Sorry about this, I'm aware it's happening too often and will look into it. If you press refresh twice without doing anything else that should fix it.

<comment><USER4> Also getting the automated error message. Sorry but it's practically useless at the moment :/

<comment><USER3> Did you reload the error message page twice? That should fix it, if not please try searching from the homepage and let me know if neither works, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have some amusement courtesy of [https://www.mojeek.com/preferences](https://www.mojeek.com/preferences):

      Crawl date: [x] no (default)  [ ] yes  [ ] no

(It was in amongst a bunch of other settings that also had those same 3 options)

As can be seen by simply mentally timing the delay, and also by the "in 0.47s", queries seem to be being cached. That sort of admits that the cache isn't _that_ up-to-date.

Also, I tried my standard "bamboozle google" query, "ketmax", while looking for results suffixed with "35", "." and "zip". No dice. (ixquick eventually found it that one time.)

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks for the feedback.

I'll most likely be changing the preferences back to a more traditional yes/no soon! It was meant as a clear setting and use whatever the default is for future searches (which may change).

Yes the results will be cached for up to 1 hour which is why subsequent searches didn't take as long.

I'm limited to how much I can index, so ZIP files have been skipped for now.

<comment><USER5> Wow, cool to see the author checking in! :)

Thanks for clarifying the purpose of the "clear" preference. There's no description underneath that option (and only that option, making it seem like an outlier that was supposed to be removed or something) so it was far too easy to assume there was a glitch somewhere, eg a template fault (that made that option get the same set of radio buttons as the three elements underneath it).

Ah, the cache lasts an hour. That's only four times longer than Google's turnaround time (they aim to have data from most sites into search results pages within 15 minutes), so all things considered that's not shabby at all. (I'm not saying "only" here sarcastically)

I'm curious as to the indexing limitation, which I presume directly translates to current storage capacity. This may ( _may_ ) be interesting: GitLab recently asked Hacker News for advice about a systems upgrade [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153031](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153031) and received many, many comments. This forum is no replacement for the existing partnerships you've forged over the last 13 years but it's possible that networking on here _may_ be interesting. Not presuming; just putting a datapoint out there. (The main caveat is that GitLab is within the collective on here. I can't see why Mojeek couldn't be too though.)

Now for a bunch of other things.

I'm very curious how you're doing text analysis for the search entries,

How are you figuring out the (full-resolution) result counts (like "18,342,669" \- not "16.8 million") for the "from $resultcount in $time" bit? This is something Google continually gets wrong!

Most my interest stem from impressedness at the fact that you're using C for all of this (which absolutely makes sense; it's cheaper to run!); my curiosity is specifically about how you're doing those things from C, how you're managing inevitable crashes, etc etc.

I'm also curious what database you're using (and also the query parsing architecture) - because searching is actually pretty fast (even from Australia!).

Feel free to answer whatever you like here (highly appreciated!), but what would be _really_ cool would be a multi-page writeup explaining everything in- depth (basically everything that's non-competitive) and then posting the URL as a new article here (it might take a couple goes till it "sticks" and people see and upvote it). That would be very interesting to a lot of people on here, I think.

Just a thought.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, really appreciate the feedback! HN is actually my most frequented site, I just don't talk much!

I did see that post at the time but will read it again. Index limitation is basically just lack of servers, funds, etc.

Currently we're doing a full index search for every query and so know the exact amount of hits within our index. This might change in the future though and become "about".

No databases except for what I've written myself. It started as a hobby so everything was from scratch from the beginning and just continued that way.

Yes thanks that's a very good idea. I'll try and put something together.

Marc

<comment><USER5> Thanks for piping up about this!

The article _may_ be interesting to go through but most of the comments were discussing fairly stock-standard "popular"/hyped software stacks, so YMMV with that specific data. Untangling all of the individual pieces into a coherent picture was also fairly involved (I gave up). I mention the link solely to reference the _idea_ that GitLab did get lots of hits and feedback, and that you _may_ find it an interesting idea to consider networking on here regarding server resources. It's just a thought, may not be useful.

Okay, so... a small continuous load of users is doing full index over 1 billion items within 500ms per request. That's... that needs to go into your writeup, along with what your current usage load is like. Prepare for inquiries and offers when you do your post!

Also, you're definitely going to have a _lot_ of interest in the database system if it's homemade; your use-case (high read and query load, moderate write load) is fairly widespread, and different implementations always lean themselves toward being super-awesome at certain kinds of queries.

I'm not going to push the open-source idea myself, but you'll definitely have a bit of clamouring. That will need to be worked out; if this site is your most frequently read (cool) then you probably already have a good idea of the pros and cons of open vs closed.

Very much looking forward to hearing about this, whenever it happens. Doesn't need to be immediate by any means - comprehensive, in-depth analysis takes a while, and if it's not rushed the results are very good.

<comment><USER3> It's a very good idea and I definitely should do it anyway.

Most of the 500ms is generating the snippet, the search itself is usually much quicker. The search is effected by the load more than generating the snippet though. I'll try and get it all written down.

Thanks very much!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=ycombinator+news](https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=ycombinator+news) vs. [https://www.google.de/search?q=ycombinator+news](https://www.google.de/search?q=ycombinator+news)

Google's first result is on track, theirs is not. A full index is not everything, your search algorithm needs to be on top as well.

<comment><USER3> Hi, if you click the more results from news.ycombinator.com it is there but for some reason the submit page is pushing it down a place. I'll look into it, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tried it out with searching for snapchat on news. All of the top results are from last week but todays news of their 12% drop is hidden in the results? Wouldn't newer news be more relevant [https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=snapchat&fmt=news&news=1](https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=snapchat&fmt=news&news=1) ?

</comment><comment><USER8> What is being used to tune the search results, if user tracking isn't involved? I'm of course guessing here, but I would assuse no tracking means no log of queries and no log of clicked results?

</comment><comment><USER9> looks like it's worse than duckduckgo for programming-related searches.

<comment><USER10> This is the second "alt search engine" submission I've seen today. Normally I'm in favor of healthy competition in the "open/non-evil" products space. But search engines probably more than any other web-based application, benefit from economies of scale.

So why bother starting another one when DuckDuckGo is already gaining mind and market share? It just seems wasteful to re-index the Web and develop algorithms for searching it when someone else is already doing it.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I started developing Mojeek way before DuckDuckGo as a hobby project. We also have our own search index unlike DDG, which I've only more recently had the funds to start growing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any non-ASCII character search will redirect to home page.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great to see an English search engine where there is no tracking and independent results are given!

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone have any luck with the CloudFlare leak search parameters?

</comment><comment><USER14> Why would I use this over duckduckgo?

</comment><comment><USER15> what are the back-end technologies used to make mojeek.com work?

<comment><USER3> Hi, it's been developed from scratch in C by myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was posted in Dec 2016

<comment><USER17> Thanks, we've updated the submission title.</comment></comment>


Why big companies like AOL are so painfully sluggish - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/aol/powerpoint-paralysis-247173.php <comment><AUTHOR> Was from Valleywag...may be they redacted it.. but here's the text and the instructions on how to get the the PowerPoint:

3/26/2007 1:07:09 PM "Ever wonder precisely why big companies such as AOL are so painfully sluggish? Here's an insight. AOL recently launched an enhanced search service which, alongside search results from Google, showed capsule reviews, videos and other content from AOL itself. Straightforward enough. Splice in the different databases, slap a name on the product, pray. Not for AOL. The company engaged a top-tier naming agency, evaluated 120 different options, tested the finalists with focus groups in Denver and Chicago, checked on the meaning in 16 languages -- and the brand strategy group explained its process in a laughably belabored 20-slide presentation. After all that preparation, they forgot to remove the Powerpoint file from the website. Read on, for the screenshots, and a window into the corporate hive mind."

To get the full AOL Powerpoint, paste this in Google: fullview site:aol.com filetype:ppt

</comment><comment><USER2> And it's not even a good name! We could come up with something better than that in 5 minutes. Ouch.

<comment><USER3> I work for IBM, from my perspective it looks like AOL works at LIGHTSPEED! We can't keep up with those new Internet companies ;)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, if I have learned anything from watching various startups and the like is that bureaucracy kills you, better to give a small team of developers with concise goals some money and have someone keep them on track. If they need more people then let them explain why, and how they are going to use them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I downloaded the actual PowerPoint just to check the "notes" section..here's one beauty: "...A very strong name - since we probably don't have any PhDs in Linguistics in the audience today, I'll give you a few nuggets from them about FullView - Interestingly, Full and View are both very recognized English words in many language worldwide. They are easy to pronounce and clearly understood. Some interesting facts about Full, in particular, are that the word has positive connotations - in Quebec French, for instance, can translate to "totally"; in Turkish, esp amongst poker players - means good luck. And even in Chinese, Full correlates to Fu which means Rich".

<comment><USER5> here's the powerpoint: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/19386/Search-Naming-aol- powerpoint>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> here's the powerpoint:

<http://www.scribd.com/doc/19386/Search-Naming-aol-powerpoint>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> the URL is: <http://valleywag.com/tech/aol/powerpoint-paralysis-247173.php>

</comment><comment><USER6> And they ended up with FullView? ...Nice one.

</comment><comment><USER7> not working.</comment>


Why Hg is better than X - <AUTHOR> http://whyhgisbetterthanx.com/

<comment><USER2> why do the SCM's feel the need to compete... I'm getting really sick of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hg isn't better than X, as it makes a crap display server.

</comment><comment><USER4> HG is crap. Ever tried checking out the mozilla-central tree?

</comment><comment><USER5> i wouldnt say its better just different... certainly has a better distributed model than SVN and much easier to setup than GIT (but no where as efficient)...</comment>


Show HN: Forget LinkedIn. MercuryPuzzle evaluates your talents. - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurypuzzle.com/login

<comment><AUTHOR> Additional Info:

MercuryPuzzle let's you self-evaluate your skills and talents and gives you the chance to find your dream job.

After one year of development we partnered with companies like Microsoft and Oracle (more to follow) to achieve this goal.

Here is my profile as an example (you can control in detail who can see your assessment data): <https://mercurypuzzle.com/alexander-birke/assessment>

Use HNROCKS as invite code to exclusively pre-register.

</comment><comment><USER2> This idea rocks, but what about privacy? How can I control which company gets access to my assessment data?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Privacy is extremely important to us. Our main goal was that everyone has complete control about who can see your data. You can explicitly set each section to private, your contacts, or public. Furthermore, before you haven't shared your profile info to a company they are not allowed to access your data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What does "authorize 5 minute coffee break for our developer team" mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Everytime a user requests a code using this checkbox a "coffee-bell" rings in our office :D

<comment><USER3> Ah! nice! Enjoy the coffee for me to! looks nice, i'm looking forward to see more!</comment></comment></comment>