Biologist E.O. Wilson suggests 'moon shot' conservation effort - <AUTHOR> https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/03/biologist-e-o-wilson-suggests-moon-shot-conservation-effort/ <comment><USER2> The challenge isn't coming up with moon shot ideas, the challenge is implementation -- putting the bell on the cat.

Legislation without popular support is authoritarian, which people resist, even if they like the law. They claim there is an environmental crisis, but when voting, Americans don't see it that way.

You'll find no greater fan of science and education than me, but we need to get to the next level of conservation isn't more facts nor moon shot ideas from scientists who know that these things can work in principle.

We need people with the social and emotional skills of leadership -- not likely forefront scientists, though basic scientific knowledge would help.

What works?

Speaking of successful moon shots, JFK wasn't a rocket scientist. He was a skilled leader. He led and motivated people based on the situation of the times using social and emotional leadership skills.

<comment><USER3> JFK's actual moonshot 1. required no sacrifice, 2. And wasn't a coordination between people to sacrifice

That's the problem we face in dealing with environmental challenges. People have a short run incentive to defect and exploit the environment.

<comment><USER4> How are billions of taxpayer's money not a sacrifice?

<comment><USER5> Sacrifice means giving up something in return for another thing that is worth much less (or nothing) in value.

Most people, especially on HN, would argue that the Apollo program has yielded enormous benefits for America. And it cost only $25 billion - about as much as Trump's border wall (the cost estimates for which are most likely grossly optimistic).

<comment><USER4> OK, so the only thing we disagree is the definition of "sacrifice".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good idea if only because the natural world contains technology far beyond what humans are capable of engineering today. I use the word technology loosely here. Plants and animals are self-sustaining, self-replicating, intelligent, et cetera. We depend on this natural technology to survive.

However, it's a tough political sell for many people (and many powerful people). The more of us who put up money, the closer to the goal we are.

Charities such as the Nature Conservancy finance nature preserves... I'm curious about other organizations and philanthropists who do too.

<comment><USER7> This is an excellent point. When we lose a species, we are throwing away genotype-phenotype data which took billions of years to develop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm reading E.O. Wilson's "Letters to a young scientist" right now.

He's a thoughtful man who really knows his stuff when it comes to biology.

If he suggests anything at all, the world should listen.

We owe him a greater debt than most people will ever realize.

<comment><USER9> He's also a (literally) down-to-earth author who knows how to hold the reader's attention ... a fairly rare distinction. He won Pulitzer Prizes for General Nonfiction (for _On Human Nature_ in 1979, and _The Ants_ in 1991).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "he also said that the current U.S. administration's negative stance on the environment has created an opportunity to mobilize public support and make common cause among groups concerned about other policy areas"

It would be ironic if that is the lasting legacy of the current administration.

<comment><USER11> Another lasting legacy of the current administration might also a re-awakening of civil rights discussions. See Daryl Davis in "How can you hate me when you don't even know me?" — [https://www.yahoo.com/news/unfiltered-can-hate-dont- even-kno...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/unfiltered-can-hate-dont-even- know-113457690.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds wonderful, but I nearly laughed out loud at how unrealistic it is in today's political climate. We can't even uphold our end of the Paris Agreement.

<comment><USER12> Put differently: it would have been a moonshot three years ago. Today it's nothing more than a political statement.

<comment><USER13> > _" [I]t would have been a moonshot three years ago. Today it's nothing more > than a political statement. Today it's nothing more than a political > statement."_

I'm not sure if this is just a statement on the current political climate or an attempt to label Wilson as an opportunist speaking now without conviction. I can't really speak to the former, but as to the latter, Wilson has been active in conservation for decades, from advocating for forest protection[0] to calling for setting aside 50% of the planet for wildlife.[1]

[0]: [http://www.saveamericasforests.org/congress/congress.htm](http://www.saveamericasforests.org/congress/congress.htm)

[1]: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world- real...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set- aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/?no-ist)

<comment><USER12> The former. In my view the idea is empty (beyond being a thought experiment/illustration of how badly we've messed things up already), but I'm not suggesting it's empty for lack of conviction, only that he must himself see how unrealistic it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's easy to be in favor of not cutting down rainforests when you're sipping Brazilian coffee at your cushy software development job, it's much harder when you're the one planting the coffee so your family doesn't starve to death.

<comment><USER15> Why assume (some) coffee planters are too dumb not to understand a balance sheet with the pros and cons of rainforest destruction clearly set out?

<comment><USER16> Why did you jump to stupidity? When a person's livelihood is threatened, they think about ensuring things like shelter, food, and clothing, not what the environment will be like in a century. You need leisure and plenty before you can worry about that sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Wilson, Harvard's Pellegrino University Professor emeritus, says that > setting aside half of the Earth's land and half of its oceans would be > enough to save 85 percent of species, which are becoming extinct at a rate > between 100 and 1,000 times the rate before humans.

This is ridiculous. Species extinction is nothing new, that literally is the process of evolution and the universe as we know it. The amazing thing is one species has so far overcome that and managed to bring evolution to an ever increasing degree under its own control. If we don't want a species to go extinct our primary concern should be how it effects human well-being. Some species going extinct is very likely a net positive for human flourishing on this planet, others very likely a huge loss. But regardless I think it should be weighed in that context. Obviously, this still means you should look after the world - its the only one we've got - and we want to maximize human flourishing in it so we need to care for it.

But these people are so far removed from nature's reality its crazy - especially considering they are biologists. This idea that nature is something beautiful and lovely apart from these evil humans who live in it is, frankly, absurd. Nature is harsh, brutal and violent. If you don't believe this try living without heating, electricity, running water, and access to a grocery store for a prolonged period of time. I've done it and its brutal and that is with a massive amount of technology and tools to overcome the harsh environment that surrounds us.

<comment><USER18> One of the advantages of our mastery of the environment is that we can choose to do things for frivelous reasons. We don't have to protect nature but we want to because it is beautiful and amazing. Just like we don't have to send humans to space, but we really want to.

These are primarily moral questions. The environment and our interactions with it are just too complex to manage in such a mechanistic way.

<comment><USER19> If we aren't making the world better for people, what are we doing it for? How can the objective 'make the world better for people' be immoral? Its a zero sum game, every dollar and man-hour spent preserving the Laotian spotted dung beetle could have been spent helping improve the lives of people.

I'm not trying to argue their isn't value in the nature, aesthetically, recreationally, scientifically, etc. but these are points that need to be weighted against the human cost of preservation not 'let them eat cake' platitudes.

<comment><USER18> All sides invariably believe that what they are proposing is in the best interest of humanity.

The environment is tricky because there are so many things that you would ideally not want to put into conflict with one another. Just look at the debate over herbicide use in farming. You have to balance the livelihood of farmers, the health of insects, food supply, human health etc. I don't think there is a single simple answer to that question. That is why it becomes a political and moral question. That is the process that we use for answering difficult contraversial questions. And the solutions inevitably have benefit and costs to different people.

<comment><USER19> > You have to balance the livelihood of farmers, the health of insects, food > supply, human health etc.

This is the role that money serves in society. If the greater we can't or won't pay a Brazilian to not cut down a bit of rainforest - it literally wasn't worth saving. (because the collective we would rather have the hardwood/farmland).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My applause to harvard.edu and Mr. Powell for including the name of the human in the title instead of the outrageous and demeaning "scientists say" motto that lazy journalists use commonly. We need more people aware that science is done by individual people with real faces and names.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can only happen if we manage to reverse this clock. In the current political climate this can only happen through pandemic outbreaks of deadly diseases or through world-war. Barring those we'll consume ourselves to death.

[http://www.worldometers.info/world- population/](http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/)

</comment><comment><USER22> The article misses that the reason we need to do this us much more than for enjoyment of nature, but that we need it to survive.

</comment><comment><USER23> I mean this proposal is sort of ridiculous. There is just no chance this is going to happen at all.

Stopping global warming is far less ambitious and we clearly can't do that.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is not a "moon shot". The total cost of the entire Apollo program over 14 years was around 200 billion 2016 dollars.

The costs of reserving half the Earth's land and oceans will easily be in the trillions in terms of economic opportunity costs.

In addition, it will need to be defended. My guess is that much of the critical areas needed for this effort are inhabited or exploited by some of the poorest people in the world and they will desperately fight anyone who tries to take away their livelihood (witness for example the backlash of people in coal country to any attempt to curtail coal)

Given how humanity is not really doing much about climate change which in the next few decades will significantly affect humans directly and costs a fraction of what is being suggested here to mitigate, I have no hope that anything even resembling this will come to pass other than by someone forcibly conquering the world and then issuing a decree.

<comment><USER25> > The costs of reserving half the Earth's land and oceans will easily be in > the trillions in terms of economic opportunity costs.

That's not really that much money in the grand scheme of things, especially since the benefits would greatly outweigh the costs.

<comment><USER26> Could you make an attempt to enumerate and quantify the benefits and discount them back to today (DCF analysis)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > which are becoming extinct at a rate between 100 and 1,000 times the rate > before humans

I have always wondered how people come up with that conclusion. How do people guess at those numbers? We honestly don't know how fast species went extinct at various points in the past and we don't really know how fast they are going extinct right now. We are still discovering new species, by the way, and there may be some that go extinct that we never discover.

<comment><USER28> > We honestly don't know how fast species went extinct at various points in > the past and we don't really know how fast they are going extinct right now.

Citation needed please. Yes, they're estimates, but there are scientists who have devoted their entire careers to exactly that question. A quick Google turns up entire books devoted to this topic ([http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/344/13...](http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/344/1307/local/front- matter.pdf)) Your phrasing here makes it sound like this number is entirely random and not based on any evidence or science.

<comment><USER29> It seems like blanket denials of research to impeach an article would be against the rules here.

<comment><USER30> I don't know about the rules, but the comment is certainly uninteresting. It's getting downvoted currently, which is nice.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


America's system of checks and balances might struggle to contain a despot - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21716060-next-four-years-will-keep-students-constitution-busy-americas-system-checks <comment><USER2> The power of the Presidency has been slowly expanded over the last few centuries. Each time, when the power was expanded, it was done so under a President who seemed reasonable enough that nobody was afraid of what the change truly meant. They knew that their current President wouldn't abuse it, and they didn't think much further ahead than that. Many of these expansions of power were made for very short-term political gain that seems downright silly in retrospect.

Trump should be a lesson that reverberates throughout future history on why we should always be wary of expanding the Presidency's power. There _will_ come along a President every once in a while who will abuse every drop of power given to him and who will basically act like he's in an episode of Game of Thrones. The government should be designed to work fairly even with such a person in power.

<comment><USER3> I have no stakes in here (I'm not American), but as far as I know, he's just doing what he promised he'd do if he got elected. What you're asking for is... to protect people from themselves? I don't understand.

<comment><USER4> In my social circles we are ecstatic that Trump is following through on his promises.

<comment><USER5> I suspect your social circles will end up paying dis-proportionally once the bill for Trumps promises arrives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 1933 few people expected that 12 years later, no one would admit to being in the 43% that voted for the Nazi party. But in their defense they had no idea what the future would hold, the economy was a disaster, the country downtrodden, and the Party kept the worst of their ideas rather quiet in the big cities. The problem here is different, but we still don't know where this will go, while we can see what was done so far we don't know if this is mild compared to the future or the worst is done.

Having said that, the time to deal with a despot of some kind is before it's too late, the problem is knowing when that is and not waiting until you can't do anything any more. Our system here was an amazing design for the 1780s but they couldn't know all the problems that would only appear 240 years later. At the start they weren't even sure it would last to the 2nd president.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bruce Ackerman, whose work was cited in the article, gave a dead-on analysis of the current situation in 2011:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lCgKfxmuQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lCgKfxmuQ)

He appears to be discussing certain points in his book, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic. Here are a few:

\- The rise of a dual-election system for president increases the likelihood of an extremist president. Imagine a political spectrum ranging from 1 to 100. In a single election, the winning candidate appeals to the fat 50 range. In a dual-election primary system the winning candidate appeals to the fat extremes of 25 and 75.

\- The decline of the press leaves an information vacuum which political media manipulators fill to the president's advantage

\- The constant rat-tat-tat of the War on X (where X is drugs and terror) gives a sense of urgency that only unilateral presidential action can address.

\- The rise of the military as a check (or aid) to presidential power (think Turkey).

\- Cabinet-level departments are increasingly influenced or controlled by non- confirmed staffers (e.g., Elizabeth Warren), removing an important check on presidential power.

\- The lack of a "Leader of the Opposition" position in the American system leaves the job of braking presidential power to a diffuse Congress.

\- The rise of polls as de facto privatized elections that legitimize the administration's agenda ("polls show the majority of Americans favor the President's actions").

Ackerman also notes the key role the Obama administration played in advancing these trends. This is not a question of parties, but of institutions.

<comment><USER8> The rise of the military as a check (or aid) to presidential power (think Turkey) is one thing that I strongly believe can't happen in this country not solely in a legal sense but military personnel won't be used in force against citizens they will simply refuse to.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't assume that. The Kent State shootings ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings)) and Bloody Sunday ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches)) are enough to convince me that it is possible. Additionally, the current president had strong support in the military and police (estimates have him winning their votes with a margin of over 10%).

<comment><USER8> Those are good points... I guess was just implying more along the lines of a larger scale citizens oppression a la rounding up people on a national scale. Kent or the march are akin to police shootings that we still currently have happening as far as scale/injuries but I guess that's being semantic.

Riots (even imposed by the people there to "control them") will always be difficult, confusing, awful situations. However the hyperbole of this problem being akin to Nazi Germany bothers me. Our military would simply tell a President to go get fucked before they would round up US citizens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's hard to know where to begin. It appears that the Economist believes that as long as the right person is president (and, I presume, the right people control Congress), then the Constitution works fine. That isn't a compliment. As James Madison said:

"[W]hat is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself" (Federalist 51, [https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=10&page...](https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=10&page=transcript) ).

The Constitution was designed with the assumption that the people in any branch of the government wouldn't necessarily be "the right people," and the other branches would need to serve as watchdogs (even though the other branches wouldn't necessarily be run by the right people either; in the worst case, ruthless politicians in Congress are expected to keep tabs on a ruthless president, and a ruthless president is expected to keep tabs on a ruthless Congress).

There are mistakes in the original Constitution (e.g., the elections of 1796 and 1800), but if today's Constitution relies on the people electing angelic politicians, then we've done something seriously wrong.

Having Congress and the president keep each other in check appears to work in practice as long as they are controlled by different parties. Of course, they are currently controlled by the same party, so there _is_ good reason to worry. The only real solution in that case is to not give power to the president if it bothers you that the person in the Oval Office might not always be someone you like. If you don't like the fact that President Trump can order the assassination of an American citizen, the time to speak up is when President Obama first claims that authority ( [http://www.salon.com/2010/02/04/assassinations/](http://www.salon.com/2010/02/04/assassinations/) ).

<comment><USER11> > If you don't like the fact that President Trump can order the assassination > of an American citizen, the time to speak up is when President Obama first > claims that authority.

The Economist DID speak up against that when Obama tried to do it. [http://www.economist.com/node/21531477](http://www.economist.com/node/21531477)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could someone tell me more about the American Enterprise Institute? They critique "Trump's executive-orders" situation, which a lot of organizations could do but they ended up in the Economist. They basically enter the picture like "we're an authority and we're saying stuff is bad, like we have an actual code for how bad it almost is".

They're a conservative think-tank, they seem to have intelligence/military ties, seem to be pro-intervention (foreign war), were against emission trading (but pro CO2 tax) and have received large donations at one point from ExxonMobil. It's still a bit of a murky picture to me. The name sets off alarm bells for me.

On the article: I noticed the phrase "students of the constitution"; it's an odd combination that elicits (for me) student protests and conservative ideology.

I'm not surprised by the current Trump situation. I've been following the shift to authoritarianism in the US and UK for a while, and this seems like the logical next step.

I haven't considered the US as a travel destination in a while, the same goes for the UK. These countries aren't stable, they're very unfree relative to where I live (NL), and I just won't stand for the level of humiliation their checks at airports have arrived at. They also seem like dangerous places to go, as they're close to no-law zones where the TSA has free reign.

It's bad enough that our largest airport has scanners that make 3D images of your naked body, but to top it up you often get a full pat-down, especially if you wear clothes with pieces of metal in it (like of jeans).

I'd much rather go spend my time and money in countries that don't require my genitals to be patted down by strangers.

Off-topic: I'm not sure why this thread was flagged. I also think it's weird that replies were disabled for e.g. the comment by TulliusCicero, but that might just be because I don't understand the disable-reply-button system.

<comment><USER13> Agree that this doesn't warrant flagging. Thanks for re-posting. As an American who regularly travels within and beyond our borders, I've developed similar feelings about the protocol for security checks in the US. Getting the full-body patdown is awkward, taking off jackets, belts, shoes, etc. and then putting them back on in front of a throng of people borders on humiliating for someone with anxiety issues.

<comment><USER5> I lost a pair of boots on the way to a meeting on an internal flight in the US. It really can get quite crazy. (And no, steel tipped boots are not weapons but a safety device and are very common in rural areas).

You could argue about my dress sense, but to confiscate my boots is just nuts.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't be surprised if the boots fit the person that confiscated them -- or someone else who was working that day. Are they really supposed to not be allowed?

<comment><USER5> > Are they really supposed to not be allowed?

From Canada (Sault Ste Marie) to Minneapolis it wasn't a problem, but on the connecting flight to San Francisco it was.

And in a way that's the problem: these rules are quite selectively/randomly enforced and even if there is paragraph somewhere that allows them explicitly I never even thought of challenging the official handed over my boots and bought a pair of new shoes on arrival in San Francisco. (Try finding a pair of shoes that early in the morning...)

So you're probably right, even so I'm not stupid enough to start a fight with a TSA guy and end up in more trouble than it is worth and they probably abuse that when they can get away with it (foreigners).

Their rules include something like 'The final decision rests with the TSA officer' so good luck challenging that.

They settle cases for millions each year where TSA employees were caught stealing from passengers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Might? They've been struggling since the Bush Administration ushered forth an era of warrantless wiretaps and black sites.

My biggest criticism of Obama has always been his lax attitude towards the War in Terror infrastructure: NSA mass surveillance; drone strikes against American citizens in countries we are not at war with; the unaccountable FISA court, to name a few.

Obama gave his successor a loaded gun. I was uncomfortable with Obama handling it, much less anybody else.

<comment><USER5> And that is exactly the reason why all these 'I've got nothing to hide' types are so wrong, you _never_ know what the next government will be like and all that data is just one small step away from being subpoenaed and abused, if it hasn't found its way to a government owned server already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When more than half of one of the checks firmly backs the despot of course it'll struggle.

</comment><comment><USER16> David Frum recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic outlining the likelihood of a "backsliding democracy" in the United States. I found it chilling:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how- to-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an- autocracy/513872/)

<comment><USER17> I didn't care so much for his opening narrative - but the later arguments about (potentially inadequate) check/balances definitely makes the article worth reading. It is indeed chilling to consider how quickly things could deteriorate if media/congressional opposition are coopted/made feckless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We deserve Trump. We deserve every fucked up thing that happens. We deserve this because we did heed the warnings, we did not stop expansion of powers, we were complacent. It's too late to be angry now.

</comment><comment><USER19> Congress is supposed to be a check on that power. However, because of the systematic corruption of money, Congress is full of compliant and easily bought politicians, though, thus leaving few that would actually have the willingness to fight a despot.

<comment><USER10> The only way to get money out of politics is to stop making it a worthwhile investment. As long as people can turn a profit, they will be willing to spend money to get in line.

<comment><USER20> That will never happen until the power of the Federal government is rolled back to its strictly enumerated powers as intended by the framers. That, unfortunately, isn't going to happen any time soon unless an Article V convention starts whittling away at the last century of overreach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cult_of_the_Preside...](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cult_of_the_Presidency.html?id=1JeGAAAAMAAJ&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER22> Ackerman's quotes throughout the article are pretty spot on:

>from an 18th-century notable to a 19th-century party magnate to a 20th- century tribune to a 21st-century demagogue

I also largely agree, we have given power to the President over the years because they at least had some reasonableness to them, at least in their context. I am squarely of the opinion that it isn't quite "both sides do it" equally, but it is true both have contributed to Trumps soon to be zero checks on power.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why is this flagged?

The flagging feature is not a "hide" button. Try the "hide" feature to make posts disappear.

</comment><comment><USER24> might?

</comment><comment><USER25> Timing is suspect. We've known this for a long time.

<comment><USER26> How is it suspect? We now have a president with authoritarian tendencies, it makes sense to be worrying about this now.

<comment><USER27> this entire article has no place on this site and the DNC through its sycophants and the press has been pressing the Hitler angle since before the swearing in.

Do you feel like a parrot yet?

This site is rapidly sliding into uselessness with all the direct and indirect political crap. apparently the rules don't apply when one side is upset.

No one blinked an eye when the last President decided assassination of American citizens abroad was okay nor having investigations to include wiretaps of journalists.

<comment><USER28> Interestingly, the article was flagged dead at one point but has apparently been restored. So there is at least some contingent that agrees with you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adopting RxJava on the Airbnb App - <AUTHOR> https://realm.io/news/kau-felipe-lima-adopting-rxjava-airbnb-android/ <comment><USER2> I've prototyped UIs with RxJS (the javascript version of reactive extensions) both by itself and with Cycle.js. I've also used reactive programming in Perl 6. There are a lot of things to like about reactive programming, but anymore I'm not sure if it's the right answer. Let me first preface this by saying that I'm building upon thoughts presented (by someone else) here: [http://blog.paralleluniverse.co/2015/08/07/scoped- continuati...](http://blog.paralleluniverse.co/2015/08/07/scoped- continuations/)

One problem with reactive programming (and also with promises), is that you are essentially using monadic composition in an imperative language. Because of the lack of special support for monads that you have in a language like Haskell, you have.to.chain.flow.control.methods. As a result of this, you lose access to the standard flow control the imperative language provides you, and you also generally end up with mangled stack traces. Now I know that rxjs5 is working on the stack trace problem through the usage of a recursive scheduler, but I'm not sure how this works on the Java side of things.

An alternative approach can be found in languages like Go and Erlang. In these languages you generally do not need to worry about exhausting a thread pool because they have made creating "threads" extremely cheap. As such, you can write normal imperative code that blocks, potentially indefinitely, and also still preserves stack traces and which uses the plain flow control structures (and error handling) of imperative programming.

Furthermore, if you couple this approach with CSP, you can leverage specialized systems that can "prove" (to a "good enough" level vs a mathematical proof level, although the latter is probably possible) that your design is correct. I'm not certain if a similar capability exists for reactive streams. See [http://reaktor.com/blog/why-csp-matters-ii-how-do-i-know- syn...](http://reaktor.com/blog/why-csp-matters-ii-how-do-i-know-sync-works/)

Now granted, this discussion may be overkill for a small app that needs a little bit of reactivity. The article does mention that they are using this only for networking code. I've tried to use it in a much more general way, and I'm not yet fully convinced that it's the right approach in a typical imperative/OO language. Of course, if it seems like adding green threads to the language is nontrivial, as may be the case with javascript, then perhaps rxjs is the best option after all. :)

<comment><USER3> > One problem with reactive programming (and also with promises), is that you > are essentially using monadic composition in an imperative language. Because > of the lack of special support for monads that you have in a language like > Haskell, you have.to.chain.flow.control.methods. As a result of this, you > lose access to the standard flow control the imperative language provides > you, and you also generally end up with mangled stack traces. Now I know > that rxjs5 is working on the stack trace problem through the usage of a > recursive scheduler, but I'm not sure how this works on the Java side of > things.

Your point is kind of validated by C#'s introduction of async/await at the language level. If Rx extensions for .NET would have lived up to their promise (and those are much, much more mature that the poor man's imitation that is RxJava), there would have been no need to introduce a completely unrelated mechanism for doing async work (and mandate its usage in the Universal Windows Platform).

<comment><USER4> I'm having trouble following this thread of conversation : isn't reactive more about restructuring your app as a composition of event streams that trigger actions and GUI state changes, rather than just simply performing async tasks ?

Fwiu, It tries to have you build your app as a static tree of flows, in a descriptive manner. It's a much broader goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I want to integrate RxJava in my Android app, but I can't seem to find an up- to-date, cohesive tutorial to do exactly that. Most tutorials I read usually step 1. very basic reactive concept, step 2. ..., step 3. profit.

<comment><USER6> We ran into that as well integrating it into a 3 year old Android codebase.

We followed these tutorials at first, but it definitely just took a lot of time and trying things out. [http://blog.danlew.net/2014/09/15/grokking- rxjava-part-1/](http://blog.danlew.net/2014/09/15/grokking-rxjava-part-1/)

RxJava + Retrolambda has accelerated our development speed once we got a grip on it, but it does complicate our build process.

<comment><USER7> +1 for Grokking RxJava, really great set of intros, especially from an Android perspective. Gonna pile my two cents on this as well. I think the easiest place to add RxJava in an existing Android app would be your networking code. Square's Retrofit works really really well with Observables and you can do some very interesting things that imo are more immediately graspable than say writing reactive UI code.

[https://joluet.github.io/blog/2014/07/07/rxjava- retrofit/](https://joluet.github.io/blog/2014/07/07/rxjava-retrofit/)

This is a short post that I think nicely shows how Retofit+RxJava fit together

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For Rx w/Xamarin (iOS, Android) and Windows Platforms check out [http://reactiveui.net/](http://reactiveui.net/) :-)</comment>


Ask HN: If the iPad succeeds, what will this do to business applications? - <AUTHOR>

A few years back I suggested (with tongue in cheek) that rich web applications like Google Mail were educating users about how helpful and useful computers can be, which in turn would put social pressure on business application development to keep up.
http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/09/we-have-lost-control-of-apparatus.html
Now I wonder: If the iPad is as much of a success as the iPhone, what will this do to business applications. Does it raise the bar for user interfaces? <comment><USER2> most heavy lifting business applications are complex, and built with efficiency of the user in mind. it is difficult to reduce a very complex system down into a simple UI without killing efficiency. i've tried. (or maybe the software i work on is just way too complex). so, most business apps do their best to make a good UI, and then throw a manual at users and say "learn the system".

<comment><AUTHOR> Content-free aphorism: "A business application should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."</comment></comment>


Svbtle for common People - <AUTHOR> http://simvla.com/beta You like to write but you're not as vetted as D. Curtis likes? Still waiting for you Svbtle application to be reviewed!? Look no more! We have built the solution for you. Meet Simvla, the "Open" blogging platform. <comment><USER2> Don't work good!

<comment><USER3> what didn't work?

<comment> J-H No content for any of the blogs?

<comment><USER3> we're just getting started.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Secure Messaging Scorecard v1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/node/82654 <comment><USER2> Interesting - there's no indication of status of Pidgin/OTR for Linux.</comment>


Check My Torrent IP - <AUTHOR> http://checkmytorrentip.com/

<comment><USER2> Somewhat related question:

Which is the recommended tracker to use when creating private torrents nowadays?</comment>


Implementing Simple Game Mechanics to Reward Your Users - <AUTHOR> http://seogadget.co.uk/implementing-simple-game-mechanics-to-reward-your-users/ <comment><USER2> been looking into gamification a lot lately. A really interesting way of gaining long term traffic, lower bounce rates and user-generated content on your site.

From a generalized perspective, it's just so damn fun too.</comment>


Snap prices its IPO at $17 a share - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-ipo-price-2017-3 <comment><AUTHOR> I thought that they'd price a little lower than this ($14-$15) but it seems that the market (1) doesn't care too much about not having a vote or (2) has lots of faith in Snap management.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next 6 months.</comment>


The Zen of Weight Lifting - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/well/move/the-zen-of-weight-lifting.html <comment><USER2> I've been doing strength training for the last few months with both bodyweight and dumbbells and am really loving it. It's amazing how fast you can go from feeling completely hopeless as a beginner to making significant improvements with almost every workout if you stick with it, are consistent, and don't get hurt. It has fixed my back pain, neck pain, wrist pain, hamstring tightness, and improved my posture. The desire to keep improving has also motivated me to eat a lot better.

One thing that has made it more enjoyable for me and helped me avoid injuries (I initially had some nagging shoulder issues) is to stop caring about the number of reps. Obsessing about hitting a certain number causes form breakdown, injury, a stunted range of motion, and discouragement when you can't reach your goal. It's far better to just do as many as you can on each set with good form and not focus too much on what number you hit. As long as you're pushing yourself on the last few reps, your muscles won't know the difference, and if you're consistent in your workouts and diet, the numbers will take care of themselves over time.

<comment><USER3> Any recommendations on how to get started?

<comment><USER4> Stronglifts or starting strength

<comment><USER5> I'll second stronglifts. I used the app too. Super simple- three times a week, 35-45 minutes each time, and super gradual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For all you middle-aged keyboard jockeys ready to grab a bar and start lifting, make sure you take the time to learn about proper form and stick to it while lifting. Our bodies are generally shit by middle age, so you're probably already experiencing joint degeneration and bone spurs. You should still lift, but do it wisely.

I just had shoulder surgery on Friday. The problem was more than likely caused by other things, but weightlifting made the issue obvious and forced me to fix it.

Also, FWIW, don't neglect cardio. I know lifters will tell you that lifting gives your heart a workout, and it does, but from personal experience I felt a lot better as a whole when I was cardiovascularly in shape. Lifting, for me, helps with things like posture, back pain, self image and weight control. It does not, IME, increase average daytime energy level, help in the bedroom, or make climbing a few flights of stairs feel effortless. Look to cardio training for that.

Edit:

"For most, the plateau is a form of purgatory."

I can't agree less. Sure, there are lots of folks who go to the gym and pursue literally endless gains until some form of injury comes along and derails them. Personally I find having some realistic goals to be a much better approach. I hit a 400 pound deadlift and decided that's enough. Why the hell would I want to lift more? I'll never use it, and those gains will just require even more maintenance.

<comment><USER7> At the same time, don't be so obsessed about form you don't let yourself make any progress. Overload is a key part of "progressive overload" \- if you're doing that, your form won't be 100% picture perfect all the time. Learn to know the difference between a rep that's a little off and a rep that's dangerously off, and accept that some ugly (but safe enough) reps are part of the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've learned something recently that I wish I learned long ago:

That it feels really good to move.

A sedentary programmer I will no longer be!

I walk to a local yoga studio to practice for an hour every day now and have literally never been happier in my entire life.

I literally break out into a wide smile every single time I begin preparing to go to yoga... and trust me... I was never that kind of happy go lucky guy.

It's no surprise that moving makes you feel good.

Science has documented countless examples of exactly how it does that.

Endorphins are released as a direct result of moving.

Moving is my favorite nootropic.

It's easy to get stuck sitting in a chair day after day.

It's just as easy to keep the momentum of movement going if you can get the ball rolling.

I really wish I knew that earlier, but I am happy to know it now.

Get out there and move around HN!

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing I love about lifting is the stats. Being able to track my progress in the main lifts, and seeing the small progressive improvements add up to big changes overall is very rewarding.

I'm also the kind of person that started off saying, "I'd like to be able to do a body weight pull-up" which soon became, "I'd like to be able to do 4 body weight pull-ups" which eventually became... you definitely get addicted to the gains and even if you plateau in one lift or another, there's always another muscle you can train.

Once you start moving real weight there's also a euphoria to hitting those big PRs which you can work yourself up for and then it's a blast when you finally hit them.

I lift 3x a week - push, pull, legs. I do 6 week cycles of 12 reps, 8 reps, 5 reps (for the main lifts). And at the end of each 5 rep cycle I test my 1 rep max on bench, deadlift, and squat. 14 weeks ago I just missed adding those up to 1,000 lbs (a big milestone) and fully expect to exceed 1,000 when I test again in 3 weeks.

I was never a weight lifter / body builder. Aside from a brief stint trying CrossFit I had basically never touched weights aside from a class in high school. If you looked at a picture of me 5 years ago I was a completely different person. It took 2 years of cardio and yoga just to work up the inner strength and basic flexibility to feel like I could safely approach weights.

I like that it's the _number one priority_ for one hour, 3 times a week. The rest of the week you never ever have to think about it. Well, you will _feel_ it, but it takes no mental strain. Then you get in and get it done and feel awesome that you're just a little bit better than last week, and go on with your day.

The most important thing is doing it right, doing it effectively, and most of all doing it safely. Getting injured will set you back hard.

Pay a trainer once a week to do one of the three workouts with you, critique your form, and tweak your program. Go for the big milestones when you have a pro watching you, and listen when they tell you stop. Best investment of time and money I've ever made.

<comment><USER10> 100% agree - hiring a trainer was the best investment in my weightlifting journey. Sure, you can watch videos and try to nail proper form, but when you hit the gym floor solo, nobody is going to correct you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> mandatory plug for Starting Strength novice program if you want a can't-miss first 12 weeks of starting lifting. Regardless of what you do after it, it'll establish a base of strength and safe movement patterns to go down whatever body building, strength, powerlifting, cardio direction you want.

</comment><comment><USER12> Weightlifting's been the only constant of my life the last 3 years, becoming the first thing I do in a day 6 to 7 times a week. I can't recommend it enough as a habit that can draw you out of the deepest recesses of your mind. Not to mention the physical and aesthetic benefits :)

</comment><comment><USER13> This article severly downplays one of the main attractions of weight lifting, explained by that one scene in American Beauty:

'I need to shape up - fast!'

'Well are you looking to just lose weight or do you want to have increase strength and flexibility as well?'

'I want to look good naked.'

<comment><USER14> Lifters can look bulky. I m sure other forms of fitness make you look even better

<comment><USER15> Most people will never get to the stage of being bulky, especially for a woman due to the lower testosterone levels. Those big dudes and gals you see on the internet are on steroids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was mostly sedentary until about 1.5 years ago.

I have tried almost every form of exercise, but the only thing that has truly hooked me so far is circuit/interval training (for both cardio and resistance). I have done almost 400 sessions so far, almost without fail at 5 days per week (which is the real testament to how addicting it is).

Actually I find the cardio classes to be more interesting and challenging than the resistance / weight lifting classes. Although the focus is cardio, they do not neglect training your muscles, they just tend to rely more on body weight than barbells (burpees, jump squats, sprawls, etc) with the occasionally machine thrown in (rowers, bikes).

I have not lost much weight (that requires a better diet) or gained a huge amount of muscle but my body feels way more tuned. The classes are pretty intense and burning 1000 calories/hour is common. My heart rate used to max out at 180 and my resting heart rate was 80-90. Now my max heart rate is 160 and my resting gets as low as 50. I used to struggle to do 50 push-ups now I can do 100 without much struggle.

The real benefit though is that I feel healthy and less afraid of things like heart disease.

<comment><USER17> Congratulations on your progress, but those numbers don't look quite right. Most people can't sustain 1000 kcal/hr for a full hour, especially not when doing circuit training. Consumer fitness tracker devices commonly overestimate calorie consumption by a significant amount.

Max heart rate doesn't really decrease with fitness unless there's some weird pathology going on. As fitness increases you can generate more power at the same heart rate, but max heart rate remains roughly the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you're a beginner in this thread focus on going to the gym/your favorite workout environment first. Don't listen to all the people giving rep counts. If you go everyday for a month and do 1 effortful rep its better than going 2 times a week--getting sore and forgetting about it after soreness goes away. Also listen to your body, we are all different. The similarities--id even suggest only focusing on body weight stuff for a year or two and the only weight you lift is a deadlift(just the bar--about 45lbs in most gyms) or air squat.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://startingstrength.com/](https://startingstrength.com/)

I did this with a coach for about a year. After that I installed a squat rack in my backyard and train on my own (with occasional one-on-one coaching sessions every six months or so to make sure technique hasn't gone to hell).

There's nothing like gaining strength. It doesn't have to be monster strength either. Most people can't lift 250 lbs off the floor. Going from struggling to lift a 60 lb bag of dog food with two arms to carrying one bag in each hand is massive improvement for 95% of people. The funny thing is that this isn't a crazy goal at all and it is attainable within a year for almost anyone.

One of my favorite things to do once I got to 250 lb deadlifts was to go to the regular gym every so often, pick up a 120 lb dumbbell with each hand and go do standing rows. I don't look like a bodybuilder at all. All the big huge guys doing 70 lb dumbbells could not understand what was going on. I'd literally grab 240 lbs of dumbbells and go to the bench to do a bunch of reps. A few asked what the hell was going on.

There's a difference between strength training and bodybuilding. It is my opinion that, for the average person, strength training is what brings more benefits, particularly as you get older. Bodybuilding can look good (in terms of body shape) but I am not sure it carries with it the same benefits. This is just my opinion, never really researched the topic beyond the basics.

As others have said: If you are going to do this, get a coach. It is critical to ensure you are using proper technique. Without this you could get stuck and struggle to make progress, get hurt or both.

</comment><comment><USER20> Henry Rollins' "Iron and the Soul" is a fantastic take on this as well: [https://www.oldtimestrongman.com/articles/the-iron-by- henry-...](https://www.oldtimestrongman.com/articles/the-iron-by-henry- rollins/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd like to offer something a little different. People who are interested in starting an exercise routine will often be inundated with conflicting declarations about how it must be done. You have to lift this way and you have to eat "clean". What is often missing is this: one of the great things about exercise and eating is that there are so many ways that can be used with great success. And one of the single most important factors to consider when choosing a routine/diet is what makes you happy enough to want to continue rather than quit. And if you get bored, you can switch to something slightly different or completely different.

</comment><comment><USER22> I deeply despise the picture that goes with this article. It's superficial, I guess, but the idea dragging a fake barbell to the top of some photogenic rocks and waiting for the perfect lighting for a photo op is antithetical to everything positive in the article and perfectly captures the off-putting assumptions about fitness that keep many of my friends out of the gym.

Also I thought we were past using the word "Zen" as a label for any kind of temporary abatement of stress or neuroticism. Not that we knew better, of course, but that it was thankfully out of fashion. I'm sad to see that is no longer the case.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is something I'm pretty sure I'm missing right now.

Since I got started in cross country running in high school, which included just the most modest of weight training, I've been interested in it. I'd often have gym memberships, and dabble with the various machines, trying to cover muscle groups.

Eventually, I joined fitocracy.com when it was young and full of active members. It was there that I learned about Starting Strength, and where the programming rewarded logging barbell activities much more than running or using a machine. Before long, I had bought the Starting Strength and began teaching myself the movements. I began with little or no weight, and using videos I took of myself to improve my form. I also paid more attention to dietary intake, and used If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) to design my daily goals for macronutrients.

The results were manifold. Of course I got stronger - barbell lifts done right are so much more efficient and effective than any chaotic routine, or even somewhat organized attempts with machines. I was visibly in better shape. But I was also naturally more confident, more in tune with the world around me. As the article mentions, I was seeing how my own decisions were affecting my life, and I would direct myself in other areas to zero in on decisions within my areas of control and concern. My energy increased and my focus improved on the job. I was able to find a healthy relationship that continues today.

However. I lost my way. Eventually the habit was interrupted and was never fully restored. Today, I'm distracted, procrastinating on a task I've procrastinated for too long already. I'm irritable and I don't want to waste my day at the office, but I'll go home, and I won't make good use of my time their either. I'll snack too often and grab unhealthy things.

Of course I'm not saying that this one habit will fix all of your problems, but it is a bit of a foundational habit, and it can leak into other areas of your life. And, of course, strength is helpful! You can move furniture and chop wood and have the bad posture on your office chair you were going to have anyway, but with a stronger back, you'll find yourself injured less often. So I recommend it, and I hope I can take my own advice!

</comment><comment><USER24> I wrestled in college so my knees and back are terrible. I swear that the one thing is that has kept my posture and back from degrading while I live life in terminal is the barbell. I highly recommend 5x5 and after a few weeks adding in complex olympic lifts.

[https://stronglifts.com/5x5/](https://stronglifts.com/5x5/)

Complex: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZ_ol0piKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZ_ol0piKM)

</comment><comment><USER25> [http://archive.is/vm7SE](http://archive.is/vm7SE)

</comment><comment><USER26> Doing sport is what I started to recommend recently to all my friends who are 30+ based on my experience. It improved my life, my body, happiness, energy, sexual drive and I feel and look better than 10 years ago. For a consultant and engineering lead it had an additional benefit to look fit and dynamic for my clients and co-workers :)

Working full time and (if you want to do more) studying or coding at home becomes hardy sustainable and a problem in 30s. It is in our interest to prioritize the health of our only body, the holder of our brains, a thing we so heavily rely on for basically every activity.

It is so amazing how our bodies can reshape and adopt to physical activities we do! You can pick sport to shape your body in a desired way. My example: I am quite small, sturdy, with tendency to become fat if I do not do enough sport. I did bjj + gym for a few years - I looked like "squared", the mixture of wide shoulders, muscles, and fat - a bit like Fedor Emelianenko. A few months ago I fully switched to running (2-3 times a week 10-15 km) plus endurance 1-2 times a week of bodyweight exercises. Within 2 months my body adopted to my new activities - I became slimmer, lighter, with stronger legs.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's a lot of good advice in this thread. One thing I'd like to suggest to anyone new to lifting is: get a trainer.

I spent a lot of years trying to get in shape, but never getting there, because I would hurt myself. I finally decided to get a trainer a few years ago for other reasons[1], but the biggest benefit has been a total lack of injury. Injuries often come from bad form, not working on small stabilizer muscles and/or over-doing it - a decent trainer will be able to correct for these cases. I'm almost 40 but I'm in as-good or better shape than I was in my late-teens because I've been consistent and working with someone who knows how to get good results.

A trainer does add to the expense, but at least for me, I'd rather pay more for a workout that I actually do regularly, than paying for a gym membership I can't use half the time because I'm injured.

[1] The other nice thing about a trainer is that they provide some accountability. It's much easier for me to blow off a workout day if I'm not also screwing up someone else's schedule/income.

</comment><comment><USER28> I like lifting weights. It reminds me of coding. Both are mostly solitary activities. At this point, I just enjoy the activity even if the physical benefits don't improve much.

If you want to nerd out lifting theory, I suggest [https://www.barbellmedicine.com/](https://www.barbellmedicine.com/) .

<comment><USER29> Interesting to see this here. I got some internet coaching from Jordan when he was still affiliated with Starting Strength. I'm curious, if you don't mind, how did you find Barbell Medicine?

<comment><USER30> Not that guy but I bought one of their strength templates. I found them through Alan Thrall's YouTube channel.

<comment><USER31> Thralls channel is a lot of fun!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This sounds like something that I could have written, heh.

I've been lifting for around 10 odd years now with a break of a few years in between. The hardest part for me was stepping back into the gym and trying to figure out what had worked in the past. After trying out a few other workout apps, I just decided to bite the bullet and build my own. It was a really fun exercise and tracking my workouts now really motivates me to keep upping my game.

I've also opened it up to the public - registration and use is absolutely free - it's been around for 2+ years so the chances of it going dark are slim: [https://ewolo.fitness](https://ewolo.fitness) :)

</comment><comment><USER33> I started weight lifting in my Air Force days, about 35 years ago. I've kept at it regularly since then and am convinced it's good for overall health.

About a year ago, I got a shoulder injury doing bench press. (Not the first time, but this one was from a lighter weight and it lasted longer.) I saw an older gentleman in the gym this week and thought I'd ask him how he keeps from getting injured.

The older gent (his name is Ralph) said he recommends lots of warmups. He was benching pretty good, about half of what I was, I think I do ok for a mid-50s weightlifter. Ralph looked pretty fit, but his hair was totally silver. I was floored when he mentioned he has a son that's 61!

I remain committed. I think it's really good for health.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you're a beginner I recommend starting with 5 sets of 5 reps using dumbells, bars or cables. Use as much weight as you can without hurting yourself and MAINTAIN FORM.

Check your ego at the door and maintain form, otherwise you are fucked when you start lifting real weights. You will get hurt. You will learn the bad form and fuck up your shoulder or joints. Don't do it.

Those beginner gains are crazy fast, and in six months you will be totally changed. You will be stronger. Push yourself.

</comment><comment><USER35> Something I wish I knew 10 years ago:

"To minimise injury risk, practitioners should aim to maintain the acute:chronic workload ratio within a range of approximately 0.8–1.3."

Figure 6, [https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/5/273](https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/5/273)

</comment><comment><USER36> Just to give an alternate viewpoint:

[https://youtu.be/wlLpCh-lE54?t=71](https://youtu.be/wlLpCh-lE54?t=71)

(for the record, I also sometimes pick heavy things and put them back down, but it is an inherently silly activity :D )

</comment><comment><USER37> Strength training has changed my life. I did martial arts a bit over the years, but this has made more difference (for so much less effort) than anything else I've done.

</comment><comment><USER38> Anyone have a recommendation for a good protein shake? Most of them taste horrible. I found a strawberry one but can no longer remember the brand as we recycled the jar.

<comment><USER39> I like ON Gold Standard specially the "Double Rich Chocolate" flavor, it's also one of the most recommended protein powder on bodybuilding forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is such a strange article. To a lot of the world, physical labor is just what you do every day. There's a reason you call it a "farmer's carry".

I wonder what people will do in 25 or 50 years for recreation that we today consider work.</comment>


EU agrees Brexit extension to 31 January - rwx<comment> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50205603f </comment><comment><AUTHOR> Links seems to be dead :

Maybe point on [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- politics-50205603](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50205603) instead.

</comment><comment><USER2> I expected another extension. There have been so many extensions already, I feel conditioned to expect they'll just keep doing it. It feels like noone on either side actually wants Brexit to happen, but they've politicked each other into a corner, and they're all too proud to back down. It will be a shock when a deadline hits and they finally don't extend it.

<comment><USER3> Only 2nd extension. It's more about "democratic rule and negotiations is difficult". If it was XVIII century they would have simply leave & do the rest with an Armada.

<comment><USER4> Third, actually.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit#Extensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit#Extensions)

Granted 22 March 2019, 10 April 2019, and today.

<comment><USER5> Or fourth, perhaps.

This all started after the referendum, when David Cameron decided not to send in the A50 letter on the next working day. The EU-27 first mumbled politely that was okay, then mumbled equally politely that the letter had better be sent before a year had passed. And indeed it was signed and sent shortly before a year had passed.

There was nothing formal about that, but if you want to count deadlines then that one may be the first. Or not, IMO it depends on why you're counting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What happened to the ditch Boris Was going to dig?

<comment><USER7> Die in _

<comment><USER6> I would have hoped he would have the courtesy to dig one deep for himself after his rhetoric

<comment><USER8> If anyone would actually dig one and then lay in it as a stunt, it's Boris.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a UK citizen, I wonder if we should just switch to PAYG EU membership contract until we work out what new phone we want. /s

</comment><comment><USER10> RT @julianpopov: The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister visits Brussels to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline. No one remembers where this tradition originated, but every year it attracts many tourists from all over the world.

</comment><comment><USER11> At some point they should give the UK an indefinite extension so the UK can just remain in the process of leaving for the next several decades.

There's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution...

<comment><USER12> Keep Calm and Brexit On.

<comment><USER4> Requesting extensions will eventually become part of the UK's ceremonial tradition, like dragging the Speaker.

<comment><USER13> "The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister visits Brussels to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline. No one remembers where this tradition originated, but every year it attracts many tourists from all over the world." \- [https://mobile.twitter.com/julianpopov/status/11856641961780...](https://mobile.twitter.com/julianpopov/status/1185664196178042880)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The next extension might as well be to February 31st.

<comment><USER3> There will be no more extensions. This is it.

<comment><USER2> Didn't we hear that already? Multiple times, already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The soviet union did hard exit.

</comment><comment><USER15> EU shouldn't have agreed to this, either leave now or never

<comment><USER16> No. It would hurt not only Uk's economy but also most of EU's economy.

How, say french PM, is going to justify to his ppl that they will suffer... say loss of 1% of gdp, just because politicians decided to teach British a lesson?

No politician would be willing to do this, that would be career suicide brought up every elections.

Plus bonus UK then gets a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card.

'Oh, the evil EU kicked us out without us having say, and now we are suffering. See how bad EU is' \- Borris or another brexiter PM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Flagged as off topic. And probable rubbish comment thread.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's a crisis of democracy when the people voted so clearly and they're not given what they voted for. They're being slowly ignored by the political class.

<comment><USER19> In what world is 51.89%/48.11% "so clear"? You make it sound like it was 90%.

<comment><USER4> It's baffling to me that Parliament requires a 2/3 vote to call an early election, but something earthshaking like leaving the EU somehow is 50% + 1.

<comment><USER20> At no point would there have been a 2/3 majority to join the EU in the first place, though.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_United_Kingdom_European_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum)

Yes: 67.23%

<comment><USER9> The EU and the ECM (what was voted for back in 1975) are two different beasts.

Maastricht and Lisbon treaty would of been key changes in that transition that many countries had votes (and also revotes) upon. The UK, did not alas and it is pretty obvious that it should of.

Ironically, the children of 1975 era had no say in their future until 2016 and you can see how they voted. Also those that who in 1975 voted to join the ECM, turned out to be twice as likely to vote to leave the EU in 2016.

But the whole aspect of thresholds is one that does need some thought and equally turnout. Maybe voting should be compulsory? Maybe threshold standards need to be defined. After all, does the EU really want to have members who are not that commited to the goals?

Democracy is a fickle matter depending upon how you measure it.

<comment><USER20> To make matters more complicated, the primary reason the UK isn't part of the Euro is because Britain crashed out of the pan-European exchange rate controls in 1992; if it wasn't for the "Black Wednesday" crisis, the pound sterling may have been abolished, again without popular referendum.

Both predicting and contributing to this crisis was George Soros, who shorted the pound sterling and profited immensely from it. This is one of many reasons he is a controversial figure in some circles.

<comment><USER9> ERM and the Euro, whilst somewhat entwined are not mutually inclusive. The reason the UK never took on the Euro, was many fold and nothing to do with Mr Soros and the great EMF gamification for printing money.

If they did a referendum upon the Pound and the Euro in the UK, the result would be much clearer and conclusive than any membership referendum. Heck, even Scotland if it leaves the UK, wants to keep the Pound.

AS for the Euro, it worries me, so much QE has been actioned by the ECB, that it just feels like, once that eventually stops [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-ecb-qe/the- life-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-ecb-qe/the-life-and- times-of-ecb-quantitative-easing-2015-18-idUSKBN1OB1SM) though they have instigated new QE measures this year.

One aspect the UK has impacted the Euro has been in blocking (as a members vote) many initiatives to control the financial markets and with that, been instrumental in curtailing the controls needed for a large encompassing currency.

But I totally disagree that the UK's primary reason for adopting the Euro was due to the ERM shenanigans. [https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/215/uncategorized/why- uk-...](https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/215/uncategorized/why-uk-stayed- out-of-euro/) covers some reasons. But to say it is complicated is part and parcel of any currency control.

Remember, the UK's key income area's are Financial and Services, two area's in which the EU has been stymied to take control of, mostly due to it not being in the UK's main interest. Heck, even opening up services has been a backfoot EU initiative with members still not opening up those markets. But that is another matter, equally complicated and hard to summarize in a few sentences.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Sun Open Source Model - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/the_sun_model <comment><USER2> > deliver, for a fee, the means to create value between deploy and scale, for > those who need it.

Ok, I do like reading business books, but that one went over my head. Can anyone give an example of what they think it means?

I'm quite interested to see what Sun does with open source.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like "deploy for free, pay for scale"

<comment><USER2> Sounds vaguely plausible. For something like Mysql, I can see it. For stuff like Java or Openoffice... I'm not so sure; although I'm sure there's lots of consulting work to be had regarding Java.</comment></comment></comment>


Everything you need to know about Twitter. In one tweet. - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/justinvincent/status/2155414693

<comment><USER2> @tdm911's guide to twitter: Use it as you wish. There is no right, wrong or otherwise. This is the best thing about twitter!

Please note: This doesn't mean I will enjoy you spamming non-stop or endlessly RTing celebs. Your choice though and my choice not to follow.</comment>


Google introduces fact checking feature to help people see if news is true - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-fact-checking-presidential-election-candidates-news-hoax-fake-real-a7361231.html <comment><USER2> This is awesome, I am currently building something very similar i call "probably", which is a chrome plugin that tells you if a site/story is either "probably true" or "probably bullshit".</comment>


Google, Oracle Java API Copyright Battle Lands at Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/google-oracle-java-api-copyright-battle-lands-at-supreme-court/

<comment><USER2> As many others have noted, the implications of this case are deep. If APIs can be copyrighted, program compatibility becomes strictly controlled by the copyright holder. [1]

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/dangerous-ruling- oracl...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/dangerous-ruling-oracle-v- google-federal-circuit-reverses-sensible-lower-court)</comment>


This is not a 3D drawing, it's a restaurant in Korea - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1186458041975066624 <comment><USER2> Any videos of the restaurant with people in it? I'm curious how it would "feel" with a room full of colorful people.

EDIT: I should have taken time to search before asking! Here's one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAmL5LgmkE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAmL5LgmkE)

</comment><comment><USER3> "I'll have one Escher stake, and one stake-Escher."

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice concept, but they would need an extra care for cleaning it. Any stain or burn will be noticeable and ruin the effect.

</comment><comment><USER5> Neat, but in my opinion this kind of content doesn't really belong here. From the Guidelines:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER6> This gratifies my intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER7> ditto</comment></comment></comment>


How to Access Gmail When It's Down - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5354314/how-to-access-gmail-when-its-down

<comment><USER2> How to make Google App's email functional when Gmail is completely down: set alternative MX record.

<comment><USER3> which would do nothing to give you access to your emails already stored at google.</comment></comment>


Introducing Web Profiles - <AUTHOR> http://instagram.com/tomclaus

<comment><USER2> It'll be interesting to see what this does for other web/instagram clients like web.stagram.com. I suspect it'll butcher their traffic.

Poor guys :-(

<comment><USER3> Surely they realised that it was only a matter of time.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A profile with pictures: <http://instagram.com/mycookingdiary>

<comment><USER4> Wow, the design is very similar to Facebook's cover photo layout with the profile photo overlaying it part way, the buttons on the right, and the blue bar on the top. Hopefully this isn't the beginning of a Facebook/Instagram merge.

<comment><USER5> That's what I noticed too! I don't think there will ever be a merge, but they're definitely doing it on purpose. Brand awareness?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I supposed to be seeing something other than a grid of photos?

</comment><comment><USER7> _Instagram is focused on the production of photos from mobile devices so users are not currently able to upload from the web. We're excited about how Web Profiles will make it easier to browse and share content on the web for all our users._

\-- So there is nothing new here? Just seems like competition for existing instagram viewers that are web-enabled...

</comment><comment><USER8> Need to add a no-wrap to the login link guys:

<http://i.imgur.com/8QLDO.png>

<comment><USER9> What browser is this? How'd you get into this state?

<comment><USER8> chrome/os x - this happens when i command+ zoom. it wraps and then unwraps and then wraps again with each successive zoom.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: 3 Day Project, Drawing Telephone Game - <AUTHOR> http://paintacquaint.com/paintTelephone

<comment><USER2> Awesome, very fun! How did you pair random people together?</comment>


Uber and Lyft Are Overwhelming Urban Streets, and Cities Need to Act Fast - <AUTHOR> https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/07/25/uber-and-lyft-are-overwhelming-urban-streets-and-cities-need-to-act-fast/ <comment><USER2> > The bulk of TNC trips — 60 percent — either replace transit, biking, and > walking, or would not have been made without the availability of TNCs.

I feel like those numbers need to be broken out in order to make a cogent policy argument. Replacing walking/biking/transit is very different from a trip that otherwise wouldn't be made.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was in an old school taxi cab here in San Francisco last week and I asked the guy what he thought about Lyft and Uber. Usually when I pose that question the cabbie goes on a tirade about how his/her livelyhood is ruined. But this guy's response was different.

He said.

"There are now more Uber and Lyft drivers in this City than there are people that need a ride."

<comment><USER4> Doesn't this sort of thing self regulate. If there is not enough passengers, people will stop offering lifts as a primary income. If roads are full and slow, people will use public transport.

I realise short term there may be some negative effects on city culture and transit finances.

Regulating ride shares is not very different from taxis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The bulk of TNC trips — 60 percent — either replace transit, biking, and > walking, or would not have been made without the availability of TNCs.

The same could be said of trips in people's own cars. Go ahead, replace "TNCs" in that sentence with "private automobiles" and it's just as true. Sure, it's a problem if TNC drivers go 3mi empty for every 5.2mi with a passenger, but it's a much _bigger_ problem that transportation infrastructure sucks in most cities and zoning is flat-out insane. Attack the 1.6x multiplier in miles for a small population (TNC users) or the 2.5x multiplier for a much larger one (all drivers)? Or just turn a blind eye to the bigger issue because writing about the smaller one gets more clicks?</comment>


WordPress.com turns on HTTPS encryption for all websites - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/08/wordpress-com-turns-on-https-encryption-for-all-websites/ <comment><USER2> Kudos to the Let's Encrypt and Wordpress teams. This is what the future looks like. Every webpage needs to be encrypted, and http (as opposed to https) needs to go the way of telnet (as compared to ssh).

What's particularly great is that there is no configuration of any kind for Wordpress authors or their readers. Like they have done, we need to always default to secure.

<comment><USER3> There should still exist one well-known unencrypted page. Sometimes, I need to log in to hotel or airport wifi and therefore need to accept a MitM attack. I would prefer this not to be the case.

<comment><USER4> [http://example.com/](http://example.com/) perhaps?

<comment><USER3> I use [http://xkcd.com](http://xkcd.com), but that works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not to say this is a bad thing, but I'm sure Wordpress just broke a lot of links on their user's sites. For example, any embedded images from other servers not using HTTPS means that they won't load anymore due to browser policies, essentially breaking the links. It also means that any embedded images/videos/etc. will only work if the remote server has HTTPS. Again, not a bad thing, but it's pretty painful to have to deal with this with a lot of users that aren't experts on HTTP, and I'm sure it's a similar story at Wordpress.

I can flip the switch for default HTTPS on Neocities in a day. The hard part is figuring out how to not break user's sites in that process. Ideas welcome.

<comment><USER6> We've been working on this for quite a while and several parts of the solution deal with rewriting embedded URLs using HTTP. If you have any examples of breakage, let us know.

<comment><USER7> > If you have any examples of breakage, let us know.

I believe it's breaking podcast feeds being served with WordPress.com, because iTunes doesn't support Let's Encrypt certificates.

[https://www.dominicrodger.com/2016/02/29/lets-encrypt- itunes...](https://www.dominicrodger.com/2016/02/29/lets-encrypt-itunes- podcasts/)

This may not affect a _lot_ of customers (since WordPress.com doesn't support PowerPress for feed generation), but I know some podcasters create feeds by hand or with other apps.

This issue will cause at least some podcasts to disappear from iTunes without warning unless you can coordinate with Apple to fix it.

<comment><USER8> > I believe it's breaking podcast feeds being served with WordPress.com, > because iTunes doesn't support Let's Encrypt certificates.

Do you have an example? We have already implemented workarounds for iTunes. If they aren't working I would love to know the specifics so we can fix it.

<comment><USER7> > Do you have an example?

Just the confirmation from Apple's podcaster support team that iTunes doesn't support sites which use Let's Encrypt. (I don't use WordPress.com myself.)

I've just posted a request for examples in popular podcasting groups, and I'll let you know when/if I get responses.

> We have already implemented workarounds for iTunes.

Can you elaborate just a smidge? Is WordPress.com, for example, not encrypting content when it's requested by iTunes? (Thanks!)

<comment><USER8> > Can you elaborate just a smidge? Is WordPress.com, for example, not > encrypting content when it's requested by iTunes? (Thanks!)

Yes, we have some targeted exceptions for incompatible clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Original announcement:

[https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/https-everywhere- en...](https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/https-everywhere-encryption- for-all-wordpress-com-sites/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Not relevant to the WordPress part, but can someone explain to me why websites like eBay don't run on HTTPS except during login? Doesn't that allow any sniffer to steal your authentication cookies?

<comment><USER11> Yes, yes it does. It's pretty annoying, aliexpress does similar too. You'd think big ecommerce sites would have caught up with this.

As for their reasoning... maybe performance, but more likely laziness.

<comment> at-fates-hands From their perspective, its not their issue.

If a user gets their credentials hijacked, and a hacker makes a bunch of unauthorized purchases with their saved credit card, who's the customer going to call? AliExpress or their bank to mark the purchase and fraudulent and refund the money?

To them, they're merely supplying the vehicle to do business. It's the payment processing companies, the banks and third party vendors who handle the money, so its their responsibility to notice the charges and shut the account down.

Like last week, I got a call from my bank asking if I was making purchases in Belgium, Norway and France. I was like, "Uhhhhhhhhhhh no, that's fraud." They blocked the purchases first and THEN called to confirm with me. It was pretty obvious based on my banking behavior this was out of the norm and immediately flagged. It wasn't the travel sites fault they let it happen, it would've been my banks problem if they let those purchases go through.

I'm glad they have an incredible fraud detection system. This is the second time they've flagged something on my account and shut these down before any damage could be done.

<comment><USER10> Is identity theft not their issue? That site includes a history of your buying/selling habits, your address, your phone number, your payment information... screw the money itself, there's a lot more damage a nefarious eavesdropper can do than make a purchase with your account in Belgium.

<comment><USER12> Identity theft is non-thing, a lie made up by unscrupulous creditors to pretend it's not their fault for incorrectly authorizing a criminal then charging you for it.

Think about it: This information you're revealing to eBay is basically the same for any other online merchant. If that's enough to "steal your identity", where does the problem really lie?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Meanwhile, the chromium preload list just passed 10.000 domains. Things are moving forwards.

[https://twitter.com/lgarron/status/718242465782853633](https://twitter.com/lgarron/status/718242465782853633)

<comment><USER14> Do you know how they're stored on my PC? Last time I checked they were all in a giant C source file, which sounds like a pretty bad idea to me since I can't imagine it'll scale well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome to see stuff like this. LetsEncrypt is really doing a great service to make the Internet a better place.

</comment><comment><USER16> WordPress.com illustrates an interesting challenge in supporting SSL if you allow people to use subdomains on your service:

[https://bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com/](https://bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com/) works fine

[https://www.bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com/](https://www.bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com/) displays a certificate warning

Unfortunately I don't think there's a good solution for this. Humans are gonna www- things.

<comment><USER17> I never understood why you can't get a wildcard cert for * . * .example.com. Then again, the whole concept of wildcart certs being priced differently is pure price segmentation, so that's to be expected.

<comment><USER18> It's not price segmentation. You can encrypt X hosts with a wildcard cert, and X can be any number. So you basically buy encryption at a flat price, which can save you a LOT of money.

<comment><USER17> Fair enough; maybe the term isn't correct. My point is that a wildcart cert is technically no different than a 'regular' cert, and the CA incurs in no extra cost, unlike with EV certs. The price difference is purely based on the fact that buyers who need wildcart certs tend to have larger budgets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is great news. All the more so as there is a _tremendous_ amount of high- quality content under the Wordpress.com domain, something I chanced on while seeking out signs of intelligent life on the Internet.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/tracking_the_conversation_fp_global_100_thinkers/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is anyone providing a certificate solution for LAN deployed devices/software where there isn't a stable name, or for that matter an administrator?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11457567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11457567)

</comment><comment><USER21> I think this is awesome news. Hopefully we will see Chrome starting marking http only sites as non-secure and Apples App Transport Security (ATS) forcing people to switch to https all over the web within a year or two.

[https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/marking- http...](https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/marking-http-as-non- secure) [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS9.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40016198-SW14)

</comment><comment><USER22> I would recommend the HTTPS everywhere extensions for your fav. browser. It forces all web-pages to be loaded using HTTPS (if available).

[https://www.eff.org/HTTPS-everywhere](https://www.eff.org/HTTPS-everywhere)

<comment><USER13> If available, and if someone has added it to the database of more or less manually maintained rulesets for redirection;

[https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/atlas/](https://www.eff.org/https- everywhere/atlas/)

[https://github.com/EFForg/https- everywhere/tree/master/src/c...](https://github.com/EFForg/https- everywhere/tree/master/src/chrome/content/rules)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how they work around Let's Encrypt rate-limiting?

<comment><USER9> This is about custom domains, not subdomains of wordpress.com (they're using a wildcard cert for that, and have been for years).

Rate limits aren't much of an issue in that scenario unless someone has more than 20 separate subdomains set up as a WordPress.com blog under the same domain. Even then, you could theoretically get 20 * 100 subdomains covered every week if you're smart about which domains you combine on a single SAN certificate.

<comment><USER23> Those are the rate limits, as far as I understand them:

* 100 Names/Certificate (how many domain names you can include in a single certificate) * 5 Certificates per Domain per week * 500 Registrations/IP address per 3 hours * 300 Pending Authorizations/Account per week

It seems to me that WP.com could reach at least one of those... So I was curious to hear how they were doing that.

And yes, I was wondering if they would replace the *.wp.com wildcard - i guess not...

<comment><USER9> The rate limits have been changed to 20 certificates per domain per week recently.

The registrations/IP rate limits aren't really a problem - WordPress could, in theory, run their entire Let's Encrypt infrastructure using one registration (account).

Pending authorizations shouldn't be much of an issue given that all custom domains are CNAMEs pointing to their servers, so they should be able to solve all challenges.

(By the way: If you're building a large integration, Let's Encrypt can change the rate limits for you.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A little on-topic hype if allowed: free "HTTPS Everywhere" monitoring [https://nonstop.qa](https://nonstop.qa). Hacker News passes with flying colors:

[https://nonstop.qa/projects/387-hacker- news](https://nonstop.qa/projects/387-hacker-news)

(Free because I'm applying the GitHub model: free public projects, will eventually charge for private ones.)

</comment><comment><USER25> Let's encrypt is great, but I'm still running into people that have Chrome on WinXP or even IE8. It's crazy, I know. They did promise to start supporting both o XP because it had something to do with an intermediate cert somewhere. They didn't deliver on that promise. I don't blame them.

By the way, the cert on Wordpress.com is issued by GoDaddy, all the examples I could come up with are also. Guess it's a roll out process.

<comment><USER26> Windows XP support was rolled out March 25 2016.

You can find more information about upcoming and completed features here:

[https://letsencrypt.org/upcoming-features/](https://letsencrypt.org/upcoming- features/)

<comment><USER27> But that doesn't really help you if you are using SNI to host multiple sites on a single IP address, does it?

<comment><USER9> Internet Explorer doesn't support SNI on Windows XP, correct.

Let's Encrypt doesn't force you to use SNI, though. SNI is not something you "stick" on a certificate - it's a TLS extension which you don't _have_ to use at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great. Tumblr enabled it earlier this year as well.

<comment><USER29> Only in their dashboard, not for individual blogs itself.

<comment><USER28> [https://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/account_security#ssl_what](https://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/account_security#ssl_what)

<comment><USER30> It says they don't support it on custom domains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Let's Encrypt is great, but Start SSL has also shaped up considerably. A while back their process and the GUI was a real stumbling point. Today however it is a breeze to get it going. (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Start SSL)

<comment><USER30> Amazing what a bit of competition can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> While this helps *.wordpress.com users or custom domains using the wordpress.com back end, it's going to cause a ruckus with self hosted ones.

Neither WordPress or LetsEncrypt has any way to modify global server setting on any shared hosting environment. Slapping in an SSL certificate doesn't make a site secure, properly configuring the services that use the cert is what makes it secure.

GoDaddy isn't going to let Company Xyz rebuild Apache or configure cyphers server-wide...

In the end, while this is a move in the right direction, I fear it will give false confidence to many web providers that don't have enterprise experience with security fundamentals.

<comment><USER33> This won't affect self hosted sites, only those on WordPress.com's platform. A lot of the code for that service isn't present in the self hosted script.

So it won't break servers or shared hosts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Google's Blogger is moving to https too, over time, my dashboard shows.

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if they bundle multiple domains in one certificate?

</comment><comment><USER36> This is awesome news.

I wonder if Squarespace will follow suit in this endeavor.

<comment><USER37> Squarespace already allows this for non-custom domains, but if you have a custom domain then you can't use https.

I hope this move by Wordpress will push Squarespace to support https for custom domains as it's a very frequently requested feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Squarespace needs to follow suit

<comment><USER39> Does SquareSpace do any encryption for non-admin log in things?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> 12+ years in the making.

</comment><comment><USER41> Nice.

However, they could have shelved out a couply of hundred of bucks for a wildcard cert before.

<comment><USER42> This includes custom domains not just *.wordpress.com

<comment><USER43> Is it not live yet? The article uses the present progressive "is activating", but e.g., [https://whatever.scalzi.com](https://whatever.scalzi.com) serves a certificate whose CN is *.wordpress.com (i.e., one that is invalid for the intended domain).

<comment><USER44> whatever.scalzi.com is on WordPress.com VIP—same platform, but a different segment of users. Our VIP sites often use 3rd parties (mostly ad servers) that don't yet support https, so we haven't defaulted any of those sites to https—it's an option available if they want it though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Wordpress is still a security nightmare.

PHP, mostly dyanmic everything, unmoderated cesspool of plugins, themes, etc... where you just drop code, predictable URLs and pages to brute force, I could go on...</comment>


New Horizons' Evocative Farewell Glance at Ultima Thule - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-02-horizons-evocative-farewell-glance-ultima.html <comment><USER2> I'm wondering what would be the gravitational force between them. Could you push one from the other with a small bump and set them free?

<comment><USER3> Someone over at PhysicsForums[1] estimated the forces on Ultima Thule.

While small, the bodies aren't exactly featherweight, they're both on the order of 10^15 kg, so you'd still need quite the push to move them.

edit: I see now[2] that the system is much flatter than anticipated, which would affect the mass the calculations in the link I posted. Still, they won't be something you just push around.

[1]: [https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/net-forces-on- ultima-t...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/net-forces-on-ultima- thule.963691/) [2]: [http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News- Article.php?page=20...](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News- Article.php?page=20190208)

<comment><USER4> A small explosion might be good enough?

<comment><USER5> A rough estimate of the escape velocity for Ultima Thule, assuming it was a sphere of uniform mass (it isn't) of mostly ice comes out to ~7m/s ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18811511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18811511))

Even better Jake-Low made a rough estimate of the forces between the two lobes: ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18811366](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18811366))

 _And just for fun, I also worked out a best guess for the force between the two "lobes": 1.5 x 10^13 N (assuming Ultima Thule is the same density as our Moon)_

Even ignoring that the two lobes are probably vacuum-welded together, it's quite a large explosion you'd need to permanently separate the two lobes. Granted combinging two rough estimates to get a sense of the escape velocity of one lobe from the other is super messy, but it's probably informative as a yardstick.

Simply breaking them apart wouldn't free them, they'd mostly fall back together, you'd need to impart quite a bit of acceleration to one or both lobes to keep them apart. I'm not sure to what extent that would be feasible, but if it was it would take an array of carefully orchestrated nuclear detonations, or huuuuuge rockets along with the nukes.

I think.

<comment><USER4> Using the assumptions in the post you linked, I got that the gravitational energy bound in that system is on the order of 10^17 Joules. That's about the yield of the Tsar Bomba (so not quite a small explosion, lol), so we could get a thermonuclear device of similar magnitude of those to transfer most its energy into the two, it should separate them.

<comment><USER6> > it should separate them.

How much damage would that bomb do?

(I take it not much otherwise you would have written 'what's left of them' instead of 'them')

<comment><USER4> It looks like it would at least make a sizable hole, extrapolating from this document: [https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6696719](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6696719)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's super fascinating watching this unfold. This object is shaped in a way that really might change the way we understand how solar systems form!</comment>