How we used Tinder to catch the thief robbing startups in SF - <AUTHOR> http://blog.buildzoom.com/buildzoom-office-burglary

<comment><USER2> tl;dr > _We created a Tinder profile using a picture of the woman who broke into our office. This seemed like the easiest way to get her face in front of a few thousand San Francisco residents._

I was hoping for some ingenious use of tinder (like assuming the thief was a tinder user, and right swiping til they found them). Instead, they are simply spamming their "wanted" photo on tinder to get more eyeballs.

Crime is a serious matter. We should take appropriate measures to identify criminals and alert the police. Spamming is not an appropriate measure.

<comment><USER3> I think it's hard to judge so quickly when we could easily consider a sliding scale of importance. If someone steals a pack of gum from the local CVS, I put that much lower on the scale of importance than say an extreme of a child being kidnapped... or in this case, theft of thousands of dollars worth of computers including data, work, etc. We accept that "Amber Alerts" flash on our phones, highways, emergency systems because society has decided that it's important to get a lot of eyeballs. It's a public good. Well Tinder is a private business, and as such they can certainly take down any 'spamming' photo. But I am willing to bet a lot of users--especially justice-minded users --could see this as a potential feature. Every 20-30 pics, a wanted ad is posted and if you contribute to catching them... you get a reward or maybe even some kind of 'good person flair' on Tinder. I'm just throwing ideas out there... but really trying to show you that what you see as just 'spamming' could actually be a huge opportunity both for Tinder users and Tinder itself.

<comment><USER2> It's pretty clear that this is a misuse of tinder according to its current usage. In some alternate reality or future world when tinder explicitly condones this, then your point would be valid.

I doubt tinder would consider this because the public benefit doesn't outweigh the annoyance to users. If you want to spread the word, you can use Facebook, which is actually better since people share what they think is important, so it's more tuned to people's actual priorities.

<comment><USER3> >a misuse of tinder according to its current usage

So is the supposedly ingenious idea you mentioned of assuming the burglar is a Tinder user and swiping through thousands of people (using bandwidth, making themselves a fake profile, etc.) to find the correct one. They offloaded the work of 1 second per thousands of people, rather than hours onto a single or small group of people... for which there was no guarantee of success and no real 'end.'

I think that their idea was pretty ingenious, especially if they are successful in the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Um, a master key, presumably from the factory, was used to break into multiple installations?

I think I would be sending a nice legal letter to the security company for not telling me that such a master key existed or how to disable it. And sending them the bill for replacing their broken security system.

<comment><USER5> I've used Doorking systems to gain entry before. It's not a "master key," just a factory default that you are supposed to change.

If you notice in the video, she has her phone in her hand when she comes in. Most likely because she added herself as a new tenant into the system. If she didn't remove it after she left, her phone number should still be programmed in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Been HNized?

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6wBz6pO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6wBz6pO5-SsJ:blog.buildzoom.com/buildzoom- office-burglary+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - we got HNized. Putting it behind CloudFront. Should be up momentarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where's the part where they actually get caught?

</comment><comment><USER8> It doesn't seem to have actually worked yet

<comment><USER9> I think its poor formatting or something. I've found other sources saying the company found the contact details of the burglar within 2 days.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/burglar-who-targets- silicon-v...](http://www.businessinsider.com/burglar-who-targets-silicon- valley-startups-caught-on-tinder-2014-12)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We're getting the blog back up. Good coverage is available here if you're interested in the story: [http://www.businessinsider.com/burglar-who-targets- silicon-v...](http://www.businessinsider.com/burglar-who-targets-silicon- valley-startups-caught-on-tinder-2014-12)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this has the potential to be a great business model for Tinder.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just see: "500 Internal Server Error"

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - the HN traffic just killed the server. We have the blog on a jalopy instance. Fixing - should be back up momentarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure they need to use the term "alleged" until the person is actually convicted.</comment>


GlaxoSmithKline Pays $3 Billion Fine - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/gsk-pays-3-billion-fine/

<comment><USER2> These off-label settlements are always interesting to me because they arise out of how the drug approval system works.

When a drug is approved by the FDA, it is approved for a specific indication (disease or condition). Based on the clinical trials that were run, the FDA and the drug company go through a series of negotiations to determine what the label on the drug will say (yes, it's literally the label on the bottle or the package insert). The reason why they negotiate over the label contents is because it limits how the drug can be promoted.

If your drug gets approved for the treatment of schizophrenia in patients who failed a prior therapy and that is what the label says, you can't promote it for anything else. Your sales rep goes in and says "Hi Doctor, we have a new drug for schizophrenia" you just did an off-label promotion. You rep needs to say "Hi Doctor, we have a new drug for schizophrenics who have already failed a therapy". Now you're legal.

Where the complication comes in is that doctors are allowed to prescribe off- label. If you promote your new schizophrenia drug and the physician chooses to use it in patients who haven't failed a prior therapy, he's completely within his rights to do that.

So what the drug companies do is walk a tight-rope. They avoid "promoting" or "marketing" their drug for off-label uses, but they are allow to drop off journal articles that show the drug is useful in conditions outside of the label. Also, if a doctor uses the drug off-label and it works, he's allow to tell other physicians about it, in essence promoting it off-label. That's completely fine as long as the drug company didn't encourage the physician through compensation of some sort.

Why is off-label prescribing such an issue? Well, if you can have your drug used in a disease you never had to run clinical trials for, or get FDA approval for, you've just expanded your market without spending a dime to get it approved.

I'm not defending the drug companies at all. Off-label promotion is illegal and they (GSK in this case) obviously broke the law.

However, one has to wonder how much the gov't cares to stop it. Pfizer had a massive ($2.3B) settlement a few years ago related to off-label promotion. Normally, any company that is convicted of off-label promotion is banned from doing business with Medicare, which would bankrupt a lot of companies. So in this case, Pfizer created a shell corporation out of one of their subsidiaries, which pleaded guilty and was banned from doing business with Medicare, while Pfizer was left unpunished, all with the gov'ts blessing. These settlements seems more like tobacco taxes, the gov't wants it to stop, but also want the revenue.

</comment><comment><USER3> The charges being settled are:

1\. for promoting off-label use of Paxil and Wellbutrin,

2\. holding back data and making unsupported claims regarding its diabetes drug Avandia, and

3\. that their sales force used inappropriate tactics to get doctors to prescribe their drugs, including various forms of "high-priced entertainment" and large speaking fees.

<comment><USER4> I love how lying about the safety and efficacy becomes "holding back data and making unsupported claims" when filtered through the 'science-based medicine' blog. And how paying tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes, including over 275k to Dr. Drew alone to have him secretly promote the product on TV, becomes 'high-priced entertainment and large speaking fees'.

If you want to know what they were actually doing you can read about it directly from the DOJ with all the big pharma apologism:

<http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/gsk/us-complaint.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Our startup, <http://www.comprehend.com>, makes software to help get new drugs on the market quicker and cheaper. One of the most appealing things about starting an enterprise startup are the size of the problems: the fine GSK is paying ($3bn) is almost as large as _all_ AppStore revenue last year ($3.4bn). Another datapoint: Oracle's 2011 revenue was over $35bn.

If you're going to devote several years of your life to a startup, you owe it to yourself to make sure you are attacking a huge problem.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am very curious to know how GSK actually pay $3 billion. Does the CEO and/or board members walk into their bank and request for a transfer? What are the typical security restrictions in place?

<comment><USER7> An interesting point. Do they happen to have a bank account with billions? Think of all the methods money arrives into a large corporation. There must be thousands of accounts.

Imagine the accounting department going through hundreds of accounts pulling a few million from here and there. At the end of a rush week the CFO logs into their bank's website and sets up a bill payment for $3,000,000,000.00.

Now on the government side, does the government have a massive bank account? They need to collect taxes so there must be something that can handle super massive payments.

On the one hand it is silly to think of governments' and corporations' accounts being run like a scaled up family. Yet I also cannot imagine that everything is done with massive IOUs.

<comment><USER2> Take a look at any large corporation's balance sheet. They usually have short- term cash (basically bank accounts) and short-term cash equivalents (very liquid assets like gov't bonds).

So basically you are correct. The CFO devises a plan to pay that fine by pulling cash from a number of different sources.

I also assume that the gov't is paid with either a single payment or a couple payments. I can't remember the context in which I saw it, but there was a copy of a check posted on a website for several billion dollars. Looked like any other corporate check (with a few more signatures on it).

<comment><USER8> The Mitsubishi check?

<http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/06/12-money-shots/>

Since this kind of money can disturb a bank (a bank lends a multiple of what it has floating) wouldn't it be "cleaner" if the government just opened an account at the same bank and had the money transferred there?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related links:

\- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosiglitazone>

\- <http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AGSK></comment>


Timeline of the far future(2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future <comment><AUTHOR> another beyond-1000000: [http://www.futuretimeline.net/beyond-1000000.htm](http://www.futuretimeline.net/beyond-1000000.htm)</comment>


Apple admits use of child labour in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-child-labour-in-China.html <comment><USER2> Please, if you are in favor of child labour and worker exploitation, the best thing you could do is express your outrage at Apple for independently auditing, investigating, and punishing their suppliers for these practices.

I think all American companies should know that, if they take it upon themselves to reveal what _is already happening_ in China in an attempt to _right the wrong_ , they will be rewarded with sensationalist headlines, public outrage, and bad press all for the sake of page views.

Oh, and you _might_ want to read the _other_ side of this story: [http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/27/apple_taken_to...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/27/apple_taken_to_task_for_reporting_partners_child_labor_violations.html)

<comment><USER3> Actually, I'm not sure I believe the "pro-Apple" story entirely. It states "During most of our audits, suppliers stated that Apple was the only company that had ever audited their facility for supplier responsibility".

Seriously, who the hell asks their suppliers if they have been audited by other clients?

I think its great Apple audited their supplier, but I'm not convinced we have the full story (in fact, its possible they were tipped off in this case too, and that's why the age audit was initiated). I should also add that we shouldn't praise hardware companies for performing an audit once or twice. Furthermore, they certainly aren't penalising their suppliers for their poor working conditions!

All that will happen is a few underage workers will stop working. The living conditions will still be a joke, workers mistreated, and the dodgy supplier wont suffer in any way (other than needing to find replacements).

<comment><USER4> "Seriously, who the hell asks their suppliers if they have been audited by other clients?"

Who says anyone asked? If I was the only company auditing my suppliers, they would probably say "I don't understand why you're doing this; none of our other clients have ever audited us."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I understand the general sentiment against child labour, but somehow a 15-year old doesn't seem incapable of working at a factory. Child and teenager are diferent words, except when they're not. People have been working the fields from small ages throughout history. As long as the child didn't drop school or something else to go there, maybe getting a job was the best idea. Having a hard age limit just seems arbitrary, outsourcing the worries about worker mistreatment (a real problem) to a magical number. Perhaps, counterintuitively, not being able to get the amount of workers necessary for the cost allowed by apple's contract, leads manufacturers to press workers to work longer.

<comment><USER5> Similar things were said in the U.S. when we outlawed most forms of factory work for children. Our society became better when we did outlaw this.

How about this form of outsourcing? Rather than Apple owning and managing the factory in question they contract it out so they can assuage their guilt when children end up working there.

<comment><USER6> > Our society became better when we did outlaw this.

Cite for this, please. As far as I know, we outlawed child factory labor purely because children, with their small bodies that could fit into more- easily-constructed mineshafts, dexterous hands that could assemble small parts, and lesser demand for pay, were being _preferred_ for most jobs, and so adult workers basically had a union action against them to make sure _their own_ jobs were safe. This decreased efficiency, took a source of discretionary income away from children who wanted it (these weren't forced workers; they just took jobs to better their life), and artificially lowered the unemployment of adults who couldn't compete with kids.

<comment><USER5> Is this a serious request? You want me to cite the basis for me stating that our society became better by outlawing the employment of children in factories and mines? This isn't obvious to you? I am grateful that people with your point of view didn't prevail when the United States confronted this issue.

<comment><USER7> The US and the rest of the west experienced unprecedented per capita BNP growth since around the time western countries banned child labour. This is the reason for increased living standards. It would not have mattered much in the long run who prevailed because rich (by the standards of 1850 we pretty much all are) parents don't let their children work full time in factories.

<comment><USER5> When I say the U.S. became a better country by outlawing child labor this had nothing to do with economics. We became better in a moral sense. We Americans equate, too often, the concept of better in a money sense. This is a bad trait amongst us. (I'm not saying you have this bad trait.)

<comment><USER8> I am not completely sure we are better off. Being barred from meaningful work is to the moral detriment of precocious kids.

Not that we should let people in general subject themselves to danger they don't understand, and kids might lack judgement about that. And education absolutely shouldn't be blown off. But there's something appealing to me about kids being able to work real jobs if they're willing and capable.

Something like this . . . <http://www.bigheadpress.com/eft?page=14>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked at a lab programming for minimum wage when I was 15; this isn't sweatshop work. Children are allowed to work in the US, too. (Though, certainly, not at factories.)

The title is is misleading, as well: Apple contracts these oversea factories; they don't hire or force children to work for them. It's all a bit inflammatory.

<comment><USER5> Ah...the old imperial justification. Apple doesn't directly hire the children to work in the shops so their moral obligation ends there. I'll bet those kids even earn more than would have made if Apple hadn't contracted out to the factory.

I wonder if your working conditions were the same as the Chinese kids' working conditions. Hmmm...I wonder if you would be willing to work under the same conditions as these kids work in.

<comment><USER4> "I wonder if you would be willing to work under the same conditions as these kids work in."

That rather depends upon what the possible alternatives are, doesn't it? The average middle-class, privileged westerner wouldn't, but the average middle- class, privileged westerner has much better options--and for that matter, turns his nose up at the idea of living without cable TV or a microwave oven.

If there's a way up to the developed world's standard of living that doesn't involve sweatshops, it hasn't been discovered yet. Thankfully, the sweatshop stage is growing shorter and shorter over time.

<comment><USER5> I'm from the Canal Zone. I grew up there. I'm a former American colonist. The bulk of the workforce was Panamanian. Their wages were much lower than American wages. The justification by we Americans was that they were paid better by the Company than they would get in Panama. It's the standard imperial justification and it's wrong.

Panama has done quite well without America and their wages have improved. This isn't universally true but the justification that this is just something that every country must go through is wrong factually and morally. It is immoral for us to profit off of forced labor, unsafe working conditions, and child labor. That our country turns a blind eye is repugnant.

<comment><USER4> Who said anything about forced labor?

If the choice is between paying someone in another country the same amount you'd pay someone at home and not hiring them at all, the simple fact is, they're not going to be hired at all. The unspoken assumption, of course, is that we can let the whole rest of the world languish in poverty so long as we're sure that every appliance in our electrified houses and every damned faucet for our hot and cold running water was made by American hands in an American factory. That's even a consistent worldview--but you have to acknowledge what you have to give up in order to maintain that consistency. If we have to consistently choose not to interfere with cultures less technologically and economically advanced as our own, that means _no_ interference. That's a hard pill for most people to swallow. What's more imperialistic--contracting with a Chinese company for manufacturing or "rebuilding Haiti" (in our own image, of course).

<comment><USER5> No one said anything about forced labor. I included it in a list of things that it is immoral to benefit from. In that list of things was child labor; the point of the discussion. Sorry for not making this clearer. I should have left it out.

Corporations aren't building factories in China so that China benefits. They are building the factories so that they benefit. There are lots of reports of forced labor in China, of unsafe working conditions, and of worker exploitation. Our companies are fine with this arrangement because they fall back on the, "But we don't actually hire these workers. We contract this out." It's wrong.

The American public is OK with the arrangement because it means we can buy cheap crap. We don't mind migrant laborers in this country being exploited because we want cheap food.

What we lose sight of is the damage that this does to us and the world. That pollution that the factories produce in China to make cheap shit for us, in the long run, will do a lot of harm to China and the world. It's immoral for us to benefit from this.

What we could do is make trade contingent on a base level of standards being met. Make companies run the factories instead of hiding behind, "We don't actually hire the workers." The externalities need to be addressed.

<comment><USER4> "What we could do is make trade contingent on a base level of standards being met."

That's exactly what Apple does, and that's exactly why you're reading this story about Apple, instead of Asus or Lenovo or any other company--because Apple, unlike almost every other company, does the audits and enforces the standards on their contractors.

<comment><USER5> After rereading the article and reading the comments on this thread I'm inclined to agree with you as far as it pertains to Apple. The overall point I made applies though. Not necessarily to Apple itself but to behavior of Western companies in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> telegraph.co.uk:

"Apple admits using child labour […] At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.[…]"

apple.com/supplierresponsibility/auditing-compliance.html:

"In 2009, our audits identified 17 core violations: eight violations involving excessive recruitment fees; _three cases where underage workers had been hired_ ; three cases where our supplier contracted with noncertified vendors for hazardous waste disposal; and three cases of falsified records provided during the audit."

"Apple discovered _three facilities_ that had previously _hired 15-year-old workers_ in countries where the minimum age for employment is 16. Across the three facilities, our auditors found _records of 11 workers_ who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit."

EDIT: Emphasis added to highlight relevant bits.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Apple admits using child labour"

"Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones."

There's a world of difference between those two statements. The first being the headline, the second being the quick summary.

Talk about link bait.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which is why I've subtly modified the title here.

<comment><USER12> > "Apple admits use of child labour in China"

Still reads as if Apple is doing this directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A relevant music video bringing awareness to child labor exploitation:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs>

</comment><comment><USER14> And how are going to make Apple force the issue with companies like Foxconn and Wintek? These conditions are the reason why Apple enjoys the margins it does.

<comment><USER15> You make Apple force the issue with public outcry. It seems to be working; did you read the article?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, and how often does this occur? How many factories are contracted out to in China by American companies that aren't subjected to public outcry? Apple should face very severe sanctions for allowing this to happen. They are not innocent.

<comment><USER15> Apple audits their suppliers, finds violations and fixes them, so you want them punished? Not a very good way to encourage other companies to clean up their act.

<comment><USER5> If you are right about Apple then I retract my statement as it applies to Apple. However, this is not a legal requirement for companies who do business in the United States and it is not a standard practice. Even when it is standard for a company to do this it is done with a wink, so to speak. Companies and consumers in the United States (and Europe) are content to leave the issue of exploited labor out of the public debate. The general justification being that the companies don't actually hire the workers and so their hands are clean. It's convenient and immoral.

My overall point stands and it is sad that it has been down voted so much. It reflects poorly on the social awareness of the rich.

<comment><USER16> _If you are right about Apple then I retract my statement as it applies to Apple._

It says as much in the linked article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At least they don't let iPhone apps show boobs. They wouldn't want to "sully" their image.

<comment><USER5> I don't know why you are getting down voted. It's says much about society that you are. People on this site get outraged about App Store policies but not about child labor and Apple's ability to wash it's hands because the labor was contracted through a third party and they periodically do audits. God forbid Apple actually own the factory that makes their products and ensures that no children ever work there.

<comment><USER4> Apple may not own the factories (why the fuck would they, they're not a manufacturing company) but they do what they can to ensure children don't work in the factories that build their products. They've stopped doing business with the contractors that were using child labor.

This story is the moral equivalent of turning "Apple fires employee for kicking co-worker in crotch" to "Apple caught kicking employees in crotch".

<comment><USER5> Indeed, they shouldn't own the factory. If they owned the factory their bottom line might be affected. People might start asking uncomfortable questions about the pay of those employees. The current arrangement allows they to say, "We didn't hire these kids, it's not our fault. Why the fuck would we own the factory? "

<comment><USER4> You seem to be implying that Apple deliberately contracts out their manufacturing specifically to exploit child labor. I find that absolutely contrary to the evidence--in particular, if Apple were doing that, wouldn't they try to cover this up instead of auditing the manufacturers themselves and making these abuses public? As it stands, Apple goes out of their way to ask the uncomfortable questions.

There are lots of perfectly non-cynical reasons to outsource manufacturing--or for that matter, anything your business itself isn't exceptionally good at.

<comment><USER5> American companies contract out factory work so they can wash their hands when improprieties show up. They know this shit goes on and their quest for greater profits is more powerful than their social conscience.

Apple could easily run the factory itself. If this meant a loss in profit then we must ask ourselves why it would mean a loss in profit. It would mean a loss in profit because Apple itself would never run a factory that was unsafe or exploited the workers. And this is the reason Apple and other Western companies share in the blame.

<comment><USER4> "Apple could easily run the factory itself. If this meant a loss in profit then we must ask ourselves why it would mean a loss in profit. It would mean a loss in profit because Apple itself would never run a factory that was unsafe or exploited the workers. And this is the reason Apple and other Western companies share in the blame."

This is a fallacious and ignorant argument. To understand why, stop and consider why things like AWS and Google Apps exist, just for starters. Then think about why Apple doesn't own their own cargo ships for international distribution, and why Apple uses FedEx rather than driving their own delivery trucks. There's no essential reason that manufacturing is any different. Apple's a design, development, and marketing company, not a manufacturing company. They don't know shit about manufacturing and they wouldn't be able to accomplish much by hiring the people who do.

If you'd really rather buy a laptop from a company that runs their own manufacturing, buy a Lenovo. Of course, they're manufactured in China, and Lenovo doesn't do anything to audit the labor practices of their own factories, so we'll never know what goes on in there. But at least they're not evading responsibility for things they'll never tell us about.

<comment><USER5> It's not an ignorant argument. Of course Apple isn't going to own or control every piece of the puzzle for getting its products here. But there is a reason their factories are in China and not in a country that has, you know, actual labor standards. Steve Jobs needs more money and people like you need cheaper products. I'm sorry. They don't own the factory so they are absolved of guilt and people like you can shop without thinking about the bad externalities with the current arrangement.

<comment><USER16> The reason Apple uses Chinese suppliers is because the Chinese are the only ones who can do the supplying. There is no other place to get a computer made. Apple could start a factory in the USA, but it would take 10 years to spin it up. Chinese labor would need to be imported because nobody in the USA has the right expertise.

The factories in the article are not Apple's. They are Chinese factories owned by Chinese companies run by Chinese people. This isn't old school imperialism. This is new school global trade. Apple already leans on the Chinese to clean up their labor practices, which is arguably more imperialistic behavior than doing business with them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the friendly alternative to Stackoverflow? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I came by to recommend the Programmers Stack Exchange [1], which it looks like was renamed to Software Engineering [2]. It is more friendly to basic questions or ones that fall within the scope gray area than SO.

[1]: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com)

[2]: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286962/is- software-...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286962/is-software- engineering-the-replacement-of-programmers)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://hashnode.com/](https://hashnode.com/) claims to be that. Not sure how friendly they are in practice, but worth checking out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thank you for this question.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Didn't realize until I saw this question this is something I want too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> r/learnprogramming on Reddit is my suggestion.

In general they're much more open to less laser-focused questions than would be allowed on Stack Overflow, and to helping people who might not fully know what questions to ask, or how to ask them.

</comment><comment><USER7> chat.stackexchange.com

programming.stackexchange.com

IRC Freenode for whatever language/technology you use

Or just use Stackoverflow and be very specific about your problem.

<comment><USER8> IRC is hit and miss with the friendliness. One tip is to make sure you ask properly:

catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quora</comment>


Managing Developers: Understanding Work Styles and Individual Needs - <AUTHOR> https://www.7pace.com/blog/managing-developers-work-styles <comment><USER2> Do not try this at home. This is so superficial and disrespectful of developers. This is like the alpha/beta personalities or the "eight personality types"...

<comment><USER3> It's important to remember that no matter how detailed or grossly you judge someone, you're not going to capture it all. So what?

Superficial or disrespectful or whatever, I don't see any reason to delve into why broad types are useful, when they are shown to be. As a gamer, the "types of gamers" has been the difference between virtual life and death, many times over. Be it PvP, raiding, or completion goals.

Like you, I'm fairly confident that developers don't fit into these "categories" as cleanly because they aren't addressing the work environment (ie process). Conway's Law has been shown to be a reliable indicator of developer action. Once you get away from that (self-directed teams), some sort of personality matrix like this might become visible, but it's unlikely you'll ever see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Should you tailor your message differently to each person? Yes.

Does that mean dividing them into "personality types"? No.

By and large, there is no strong evidence to support personality types.

Of the various kinds, OCEAN is the most reputable, and of that, the only metric that really seems to be thoroughly studied is the O (for Openness to new experiences).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Li...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Limited_scope)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just buy the book. Five stars on Amazon!

[https://www.amazon.com/Business-Chemistry-Practical- Crafting...](https://www.amazon.com/Business-Chemistry-Practical-Crafting- Relationships/dp/1119501563)

Does anyone do any real work anymore?</comment>


Ask HN: Is the machine seen in "Person of Interest", within grasp of making? - <AUTHOR>

Person of Interest is a TV show about a machine that absorbs all information from every type of source (CCTV, Internet, TV, Radio, Phones, etc) and from this data, finds plots to kill people, or commit terror, etc. See the Wikipedia for the show here [1], and the trailer here [2].
What I'm wondering, is if we have reached a point where this is technically possible and maybe feasible.
What kind of technology would you think is necessary, existing and non-existing, to build a machine of this type.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCM14jNOYcQ <comment><USER2> I think it's pretty common knowledge that the Government is investing a lot of money into being able to do just that -- that should be enough.

I would think that doing something like this is less about the technology available, but thinking up an intelligent way of doing it. If you imagine a world where you have all the data at your finger tips: let's say you obtained every camera's footage, every phone's phonecalls,etc for a mile radius for a month before,during and after some disaster. Shouldn't be too hard to imagine.

The problem is: what are you looking for? How do each of the moments that you detect link to each other? What patterns are indicative of someone who is plotting something?

Those are very difficult questions, and that's what makes the problem difficult. Tackling a problem like that requires knowledge of voice recognition, NLP (Natural Language Processing), ML (Machine Learning -- If you don't want to put in every possible scenario yourself), and much much more. The rate of data creation (and thus data processing) would also be very high.

How to do this well is the difficult part.

If you still don't believe me: boil it down to just one source. Phones. Lets say you had a wiretap on every home in which a hitman was hired to (and succeeded in)killing a neighbor. It might be a good thing to run a simple text search on the word "kill", or "hit", and you'll catch the low hanging fruit (by this, I mean the people who are bad at hiring hitmen/commit crime), but it becomes more complex when you get more serious about catching people who aren't stupid enough to say exactly what they want to do, then you have to find patterns, assuming they are there.

</comment><comment><USER3> the main flaw in that show is that it assumes that the machine has access to all these devices at any point when the truth is most of those devices are on a closed circuit or not even on the global internet but instead a local intranet the same is true for shoes like NCIS where they can just pull up any video feed at any point in time is just too unrealistic, however in the near future more and more cameras and CCTV's will be put on the internet where ANYONE can gain access to them, so while its not impossible its just very unlikely (not to mention that most of the devices that are on the net and accessible are of such low quality and streaming so that if something did happen in front of them you would need a recording and a court order to obtain such data) so Possible? maybe Feasable? not really imagine sucha machine getting hacked (even in the show they say thats not possible but everything can be hacked)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point about substantially missing data sources, but i was more thinking in terms of building a machine that is capable of all this processing and building of a database that can see the patterns that indicate a harmful intention; the software part so to speak.</comment></comment>


WeddingInviteLove: A Comprehensive Wedding Invitation Designer Directory - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/04/15/weddinginvitelove-a-comprehensive-wedding-invitation-designer-directory/

<comment><USER2> Looks nice.

There's also OneWed (<http://www.onewed.com>) which has a directory of all types of wedding vendors as well as their sister site, Nearlyweds (<http://www.nearlyweds.com>), which makes beautiful wedding web sites. I highly recommend them (disclaimer: I'm also friends with them. :)).

<comment><USER3> But are those created by Hacker News posters?

[http://www.limedaring.com/im-a-designer-who-learned- django-a...](http://www.limedaring.com/im-a-designer-who-learned-django-and- launched-her-first-webapp-in-6-weeks/)

I definitely intend to use that service for my next few marriages.

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats! I've been following WIL's progress as a designer co-founder myself. Proud of ya that you learnt to program urself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Still got a ton to learn, but working for yourself makes it fun and definitely worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> hey Tracy, I've been following WIL's progress for quite sometime. Very impressive.</comment>


Ask HN: Basic cryptography course for average developers? - <AUTHOR> When I was working with JWT, I realized I have no idea about the difference between different types of algorithms: RSASHA, ECDSSHA, RSAPSS,... What are they used for and when to use what? Why different algorithms require different types of public/private keys, what is a PEM file, what is a certificate...?
I understand hashing, signing, how public/private keys work in general, but that's about it. So I'm looking for resources where I could learn more about this and to discover the unknown unknowns area of my cryptographic knowledge.
Some of the resource online I found (mostly blog posts) usually cover only 1 topic or sometime very shallow. I'm looking for something organized, good coverage, and practical. Definitely not planning to become an expert or anywhere near it, just enough for an average developer's daily works.
If you have any suggestions, online courses, books, lecture videos... please let me know, I don't mind paying for quality contents. Thank you very much! <comment><USER2> This one is pretty great - [https://www.coursera.org/learn/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/learn/crypto)

Unfortunately, they never released the 2nd part on Coursera - so you'll still have to research for a lot of concepts after this course. But nonetheless, this 1st part provides a solid foundation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I'll definitely check this out.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Chicken and egg problem in a community startup with a slow velocity? - <AUTHOR>

Here is my startup, Fridge to Food.  It is crowd sourcing for recipes: http://www.fridgetofood.com
A couple of months ago I posted this and got great feedback.  I've been through quite a few iterations since then and have what is now a site that is minimally feature complete.  I'm beginning to work on the more advanced reputation dependent features, but have a bit of a chicken and egg problem with the community.  I have about 150 users, of whom some 20 maybe visit on a regular basis.  And a handful post recipes on a regular basis.  The site has a pretty slow velocity, because even the most dedicated users only have recipes to post a few times a month.
The issue I'm facing is that I'll need enough of a community to test the reputation dependent features when I implemented them.  And I don't really have that right now.  Unless I make the reputation threshold incredibly low, which beats the point.
So I'm facing the classic community based chicken and egg problem.  I've pretty much mined my solid connection network out.  The ones who cook regularly already use my site.  The ones who don't, well, don't.  I've been working pretty hard on Twitter and the various food-based subreddits to try and draw in some new early adopter users.  But I've experienced limited success with that.  Those who comment love it, and join.  But the slow velocity often prevents them from doing much before forgetting about it.  I've been trying to build connections with food bloggers, however, that is slow going.  I'm not naturally a marketer type, so I have to spend a great deal of effort doing that.  And it takes time away from writing code.  I've considered cold e-mailing bloggers with a basically canned e-mail, but haven't tried it much.  And when I have, I experienced pretty limited success there too.
So how can I solve the chicken and egg problem?  People seem to love the concept of my site, and like the implementation.  But the slow velocity and small community is preventing me from... well building a big enough community to have a higher velocity.  Also, I'm having trouble just finding ways to get the link to it out there.  Despite being pretty active on reddit and twitter I've only garnered about 3,000 unique views in about 1 month and a half.  What are some other places I can put it out there? <comment><USER2> It has to be first and foremost useful to people. So IMO you gotta fake it till you make it and here here's my suggestion: create 'fake accounts' and start scraping tons of recipes online to populate your site. Start working the SEO so when people show up, it doesn't look like the site is dead.

You have to invest time into the bloggers and try to incentivise then to join your site. You can start by listing the food bloggers that you like on the site (do follow) and slowly build up a relationship with them by regularly commenting on their posts.

Your first 1000 active users are going to be super important and will set the culture for the next 1000000 users. So even if the the current marketing efforts dont 'scale' very well, you still need to put in the grunt work to get escape velocity and some level of critical mass in your community.

How about going to events where there might be many of your target audience present to establish comms with them as well?

While Im at it, I think your homepage doesnt have a clear message. I can guess what the site is about from the food pictures but as Steve Krug says, what make me think?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://www.fridgetofood.com></comment>


The Jim Weirich Scholarship Fund: honoring Jim's legacy through education - <AUTHOR> https://jim.neo.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Posting this here because I thought the many people who posted here, on github, and on twitter might want to know that there is a scholarship fund being started in Jim's name to help pay for CS education. The fund is being administered by the Cincinnati Scholarship Foundation. If you're a ruby developer, you know who Jim is, and you use his work whenever you type `rake` or use Flexmock.

More information on Jim: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weirich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weirich)

</comment><comment><USER2> I didn't know that Jim had died. I think I may have been on vacation when the news would have broken.

His work on Ruby Koans helped me tremendously when learning Ruby. And of course there's rake. This sort of thing feels like an appropriate match to his own contributions to the community. I couldn't give much, but hopefully my little bit can help.

A few notes for the developers of the page: the form fields are wonky on Firefox (upstream on Aurora at least) and I'd suggest a country field for non- Americans.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I also learned ruby with the ruby koans and was lucky enough to meet him through our local ruby community and eventually end up working with him. His other free and open-source educational work was git immersion: [http://gitimmersion.com/](http://gitimmersion.com/) which you might like.

Also, here's one of my favorite practices to watch Jim do & to practice as well: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ronr_CG8x0Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ronr_CG8x0Y)

Thanks for the bug report, I'm opening an issue. Can you email me a screenshot? email address in profile.

</comment></comment><comment> Dorian-Marie I would rather give for a funding of free online classes that would benefit to millions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do it! It can be complimentary to this effort. Jim's educational work lives on and touches many people for free. See for example: [http://rubykoans.com/](http://rubykoans.com/) & [http://gitimmersion.com/](http://gitimmersion.com/)

You can contribute to these here: [https://github.com/neo/ruby_koans](https://github.com/neo/ruby_koans)

[https://github.com/neo/git_immersion](https://github.com/neo/git_immersion)

[edited to be more constructive]</comment></comment>


Show HN: Objective-C to Swift or to Java Instant Code Block Converter - <AUTHOR> https://apps.myappconverter.com/cbc <comment><USER2> I copy and pasted in the example code from the link at the bottom, and the code it produced is not valid java code. It still includes Obj-C types (eg. NSString) and is repeating method names. eg:

      NSMutableArray  array=NSMutableArray.arrayarray();

<comment><USER3> I got similar results. I took some sample code from the Apple SpriteKit documentation:

      CGFloat distance = sqrtf((clickPoint.x-charPos.x)*(clickPoint.x-charPos.x)+
                                 (clickPoint.y-charPos.y)*(clickPoint.y-charPos.y));

And got this in Swift:

      var distance:CGFloat  = sqrtf((*((clickPoint.y-charPos.y)*()

Most of the code I put in converted to Swift correctly (though it wasn't efficient Swift code) but the above line was just plain wrong. So, it still seems a little buggy but it is a good idea. Like you pointed out, it is only useful for Objective-C to Swift since the Foundation framework is not available in Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for testing the service, we will fix the issue you have mentionned. This service gives just code snippet conversion. You can try an iOS project conversion to swift or Android. We have created a mapping technolgy to support iOS frameworks,Foundation and others are mapped to android API that will be included in the converion output project

Our mapping technology : [https://docs.myappconverter.com/mapping_tech/ios2android/](https://docs.myappconverter.com/mapping_tech/ios2android/)

iOS project converion : [https://apps.myappconverter.com/users/sign_up](https://apps.myappconverter.com/users/sign_up)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> By way of intro, we've been working for the last two years on this project. Our goal is "to enable mobile developers and application owners to quickly bring their applications to any mobile device, without compromising quality or performance."

The code block converter is just a free tool, which is part of bigger platform called MyAppConverter.

We've built MyAppConverter as an instant and automatic native to native code conversion platform that helps achieve our goal. Our technology is based on semantic code transformation and model driven engineering.

By the way, the entire platform is free to use as a self-service and we currently support Objective-C to Java (Android) and to Swift.

Feedback much welcome.

<comment><USER5> I don't see any mention of what kind of code you are enabling me to convert between platforms. The majority of code in an app is relatively platform- specific. i.e. Networking code, all UI code, sensors, etc. All code except for probably models.

Are you doing purely language-based conversion or platform API conversion as well? For example, UITableView -> ListView

<comment><AUTHOR> The code block converter is converting any code from Objc syntax to Swift/Java syntax You can do a free iOS project conversion using MyAppconverter.com. This conversion will generate a report for code features that could be converted and you will have a generated project containing the supported features equivalent. To have an idea about the supported frameworks: [https://docs.myappconverter.com/#ios-to- android](https://docs.myappconverter.com/#ios-to-android)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well done - the technology is pretty amazing if it lives up to its promise. I'd be curious to know what you use behind the scenes to parse Objective-C? Do you build parse trees with clang or is there some other black magic going on?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have created an ObjC parser using its grammar. our converion service convert iOS project code source to android or swift project. This conversion is done using syntaxic and semantic mapping technology. You can check out converion samples here [https://github.com/MyAppConverter](https://github.com/MyAppConverter)

For more information about mapping technology: [https://docs.myappconverter.com/](https://docs.myappconverter.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there command line utility for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> No,but you can use our Xcode plugin to convert your Objc code to Swift code : [https://www.myappconverter.com/instaswift](https://www.myappconverter.com/instaswift)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN".

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I will do this.</comment></comment>


Adding Scheduling to Twilio with IronWorker - <AUTHOR> http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/build-a-scheduled-reminder-app-with-twilio-and-ironworker.html <comment><USER2> Since this was on the front page, I took the time to figure out what IronWorker was all about. It looks to be cron, and memcached as a service, which to me are not real pain points.

Twilio on the other hand is Asterisk, TTS, telephony gateways, and a bunch of other telephony stuff as a service, which is a real pain point.

If I were to implement this app with neither iron.io nor twilio, it would be easy, however using twilio would save me about 2 hours, and cost the same money as a regular SMS gateway. Iron.io would require an additional several hours, and cost additional money. In short, I see iron.io as a negative value add.

<comment><USER3> I'm an ex-intern of Iron.io (ply me with enough alcohol and I'll tell you about it), and I can roughly explain IronWorker: background processing without servers, with a scheduler on top.

I wouldn't call it a 'negative value add' because it means you don't have to babysit a server somewhere, assuming you want to add scheduling onto a Twilio action (call/SMS).

If you took Iron.io out of the equation, how would you schedule the Twilio call? I assume you mean via cron, which is all well and good if you want another server/script to babysit.

That said, I haven't used anything from Iron.io since I've left, and I've written scripts which use a loop, sleep and two if statements to 'schedule' a Twilio call.

<comment><USER2> Doesn't this require a server for a signup page? Once you have that, you get cron for free.

<comment><USER3> That Sinatra application can be run locally. From what I have gathered from the article, the Sinatra application is a pretty form for putting your phone number in, nothing more, Twilio calls Iron.io directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> grate</comment>


Ben Carlin - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carlin <comment><USER2> " _Money from Carlin 's estate was used to found the Charlotte Carlin Scholarship (named for his mother), awarded for "the proficiency of the English language with the avoidance of clichés"_."

</comment><comment> 1-more There's a free audiobook about this guy and the journey in Half Safe. I quite enjoyed it!

[https://www.amazon.com/Half-Safe-Obsession-Around-World- Adve...](https://www.amazon.com/Half-Safe-Obsession-Around-World- Adventure/dp/B00B63DLRE)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious - what's up with the scarves these old timer adventurers wear under the shirt. Is it fashion or there's some practical aspect to it?

<comment><USER4> In warm/hot areas with low humidity you can get enough of an evaporative cooling effect around the major artery in your neck to make a enough of a different in temperature feel to make it worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great read.

I came to the bit about his journey taking ten years and thought "his poor wife".

I later saw that they divorced.

<comment><USER6> However, "Carlin almost decided to abandon the journey and liquidate Half- Safe, but was convinced by his wife to continue."

Sounds like she was – at least for a time – just as invested.</comment></comment>


Sharing affiliate revenue with users - <AUTHOR> http://www.callum-macdonald.com/2007/08/23/affiliate-revenue-sharing/ A discussion about sharing affiliate revenue with the users who spend the money, effectively offering a discount scheme. <comment><USER2> It's a good business model but most affiliate programs ban this type of revenue sharing. You'd have to individually negotiate with the affiliate programs or operate under the radar.

I made a very respectable amount of money (and a polo shirt and hat) several years ago by paying my friends to sign up for Party Poker accounts under my affiliate bonus code. I could have made a lot more if I had more money to put up. It was debatable whether this was allowed under their terms of service... they froze my money for 6 months but I got it eventually.

I believe that all the rakeback sites that are operating legitimately have individually negotiated agreements with the poker sites. Similarly, if you wanted to set up an Amazon buyer's club on facebook, you'd have to negotiate with Amazon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whether the affiliates would allow the revenue share is a valid point. I was thinking from the perspective of a community site. A site with even 200k active members in a specific field would have a good basis to negotiate a specific deal with an affiliate. I think it's a trend we'll increasingly see.

Fundamentally, affiliates make money by giving recommendations, but they're paid for giving those recommendations, so they can't possibly be totally objective. In a revenue share model, the affiliate is paid for negotiating a better deal for their users. Instead of the current situation where only the affiliate wins, this model means win-win for affiliate and user.

That's how I reckon it'll play out anyway... :)

<comment><USER2> <http://www.fatwallet.com> is probably the best example of a community with a whole lot of negotiated affiliate revenue share agreements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've seen sites do this.. Read this post and the comments about Google AdSense revenue sharing:

<http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006387.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an interesting point. We're working on some AdSense revenue sharing stuff at the moment, thanks for the link.</comment></comment>


Btrfs at Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/824855/292319a1b8e1f78f/ <comment><USER2> > it's not Btrfs if there isn't an ENOSPC issue

Not the best advertisement :)</comment>


How Coffee Fueled the Civil War - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/how-coffee-fueled-the-civil-war/ <comment><USER2> My grandpa fought the WWII in the Italian Army. He told me that during war, they had to drink coffee with anise every day, and they were forced to do so. Of course it wasn't really just "coffee with anise", but it contained some kind of drug. He remembers that, after drinking that "coffee", he could see a dying fellow soldier calling for help, and just don't care about that.

He was sent to war after a quick training lasted just a few weeks, and I guess that without taking some kind of drugs, the average 20 years old guy wouldn't be able to fight a war without going crazy.

<comment><USER3> _he could see a dying fellow soldier calling for help, and just don 't care about that._

Could be side effect of 'plain' amphetamines, which were used heavily by all sides in that war. Wouldn't be surprised at all if that or similar substances are still being used today: when not considering the disadvantages, it will make a person better at certain war-related tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found a picture of the Antietam memorial depicting William McKinley delivering coffee: [http://www.dispatch.com/content/graphics/2012/08/27/Antietam...](http://www.dispatch.com/content/graphics/2012/08/27/Antietam15.JPG)

</comment><comment><USER5> This made me think of a great HN piece from a few weeks back: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691)

Balzac on pleasures and pains of coffee.

A generation before the Civil War but interesting to see how coffee was used experimentally to spur creativity and production. He mentions other artists with similar experiments.

To say we are addicted to coffee or tea is not just to talk of the dependence on caffeine but the whole set of rituals around it. It draws my attention and I love articles like this. I also love to learn how other people make tea or coffee (though I reserve the right to be very judgemental in that regard).

Last week I sat down to watch a movie randomly picked from the Critereon Collection on Hulu. "Jeanne Dielman..." by Chantal Ackerman. Blew me away. 3.5 hours of very little action and a central scene where she does little more than make coffee

Coincidentally I was sitting and reading this while grinding coffee. 2 morning rituals: HN and fresh ground coffee.

<comment><USER6> "Paul's coffee service, the fluted allow of silver and jasmium that he had inherited from Jamia, rested on a low table to her right. She stared at it, thinking of how many hands had touched that metal. Chani had served Paul from it within the month.

 _What can his desert woman do for a Duke except serve him coffee?_ she asked herself. _She brings him no power, no family._ "

I always was fascinated by Herbert's use of coffee in Dune. A civilization so far removed from our own, by thousands of years and possibly light-years. Yet along with all the Dukes and Barons, you get coffee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is well known that a graduate student is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.

But who knew that the American soldier can be a machine for converting coffee into freedom?

<comment><USER8> Only if you take the romantic view that the civil war was fought over slavery, instead of over states' rights.

Or perhaps if you define freedom precisely as that which you fight for in the name of America.

<comment><USER9> The Mississippi declaration of secession states _explicitly_ that it's about slavery:

 _In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course._

 __Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery __\-- _the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin._

(emphasis mine)

<comment><USER10> If I want to keep beating my wife, and you want to come over to my house and stop me by beating the hell out of me and my kids, in my mind the issue is about you coming over to my house. In your mind the issue is about domestic violence.

It's not an either-or situation. The Civil War was about some states having the right to do things that other states found immoral. In that way, if it hadn't been slavery, it'd been something else. States' rights was the principle, but the fuel that the fire burned was slavery.

I'm happy that it ended the way it did, but I see no need to demonize the south or glorify the north. Slavery was unfinished business from the founding that caused hard feelings for decades. Both sides were eager for a fight to finish it, and that's what they got.

Once you move beyond the moral issue, it's pretty obvious that what was going on was that a rural, agrarian, spread-out country was becoming a centralized industrial one. This was the true benefit of the war: taking the nation into the modern age. Slavery is just a red herring. A moral crusade tacked on to a pre-existing war of consolidation.

<comment><USER11> > a centralized industrial one. This was the true benefit of the war: taking > the nation into the modern age

This is another can of worms. Once the federal government concentrated its power and became more centralized, one of its first acts was subsidizing the railroads, passing the high distribution costs of large, centralized industrial firms on to taxpayers.

This effectively crowded out more decentralized methods of production that could have been more effective, using networks of small rails or canals to more cheaply distribute local goods, for example. The concentration of capital of centralized industries continued to increase under this regime, with the state being used as a blunt force instrument to distribute external costs of large industrial firms to the public.

This relationship between the state and industry continued to mutate into the corporatism we have today, with the corporate form now being massively privileged and protected by the state through subsidizing infrastructure (transportation, communications, etc.), limiting legal liability, tariffs, patents, copyrights, etc. The state acts as a blunt force instrument for concentrating capital in the hands of a few, on behalf of legal fictions called corporations.

This is the modern age, and in many ways it seems like there are more slaves today than there were before, despite the so-called efficiencies of centralized industry.

If you're interested, Kevin Carson puts forth a critical survey of orthodox views on economies of scale in Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, refuting proponents of centralized industry such as Joseph Schumpeter, JK Galbraith, and Alfred Chandler. He provides a strong argument for decentralizing industry as a way to truly lower real distribution costs, by stripping away the many privileges afforded to corporate forms by the state, in preference of freed markets and bringing more wealth into local economies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder about the relationship between caffeine and the near-universal spread of tea and coffee as hot beverages.

I love tisanes, what are informally called herbal teas. I find it striking that there are literally hundreds of plants used to make herbal teas with an incredibly long history - mint, chamomile, dandelion, jasmine, red clover, elderflower, passion flower, hibiscus, etc. etc. But none of them have a tenth of one percent of the popularity of coffee or true tea.

Many people who enjoy tea and coffee enjoy the effects of the caffeine. But I'm surprised at the scale of the difference between the popularity of caffeinated and non-caffeinated drinks.

<comment><USER13> But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

<comment><USER9> Tea and tisanes are to some extent substitute goods, so increased demand for tisanes lowers the price of tea in China ;)

<comment><USER14> I have few pleasures in life greater than finding a way to answer that question no matter what situation. Sadly, as a result, no-one ever asks me anymore. Thanks for the memories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Muckets look interesting, especially the galvanised jug shaped ones. I remember seeing white enamel pots of similar shape used by workmen road mending and track mending - they brewed on a brazier cast iron with coke as fuel. I'm talking 60s in UK.

Does anyone know the tricks used to 'settle' the grounds?

<comment><USER5> My grandfather would put a piece of eggshell in to settle them - not sure how scientific that is...

edit - found this [http://blog.khymos.org/2010/08/04/norwegian-egg- coffee/](http://blog.khymos.org/2010/08/04/norwegian-egg-coffee/)

"When looking into the chemistry behind this it isn't as strange as it may sound. Fish skin as well as eggs contain proteins. The addition of proteins while preparing the coffee serves two purposes: 1) it helps the coffee grounds to flocculate, allowing them to sink faster to the bottom of the pot (this effect is probably more pronounced when using eggs) and 2) the proteins bind irreversibly to astringent and bitter tasting polyphenols in coffee to form insoluble complexes that will precipitate. The end result is a clearer coffee with a pleasant and mild taste. The bitterness is only barely noticeable, but the coffee still has enough "body" so it doesn't feel too thin! "

<comment><USER16> I had heard of egg shells in coffee from an old-time Navy man. I had assumed the calcium neutralized the acidity. This appears to be a better explanation. I wonder if ship cooks still put the morning's egg shells in the coffee?

<comment><USER15> This hypothesis just _has_ to be tested. I'm hunting for an enamel jug/pot tomorrow. I reserve the right to revert to my moka pot though.

<comment><USER17> Post this as a Shown HN when you do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I believe Coffee is an addictive substance well suited for human beings. Although it is addictive, it is self-limiting. Most people will naturally stop drinking it at the sweet spot.

<comment><USER15> 360 pounds a year = about 3kg of beans a week. That is a fair old sweet spot!

I have one strong moka pot of coffee a day, say 400ml cup. If I stop having coffee for a week or two now and again, I get a headache the first day or so.

<comment><USER19> The article said 36 pounds ... I don't drink as much coffee as I used to, but I suspect I'm in the ballpark of "surviving on Union rations".

<comment><USER15> Must change my reading glasses.

That seems a much smaller 300g ration per week. I get through a 200g bag of fine ground coffee in a couple or three weeks at one strong mug a day or there abouts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The part at the end especially, kind of makes me want to give up coffee. Seems too addicting, like it has too much control over us, and I don't like that.

<comment><USER15> I do a week off tea, coffee and juices, just water, every now and again. Some headaches and discomfort day 1, usually fine and chipper by day 3 onwards.

I'm on one strong large mug (two ordinary cups) of coffee and one or two teas a day normally. I don't have caffeinated soft drinks at all.

<comment><USER17> I have not seen evidence of any significant negative health effects from either tea of coffee. The positives would appear to be fairly high. Juice I avoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are similar anecdotes about the use of coffee during cattle drives in the West post-Civil War.

<comment><USER22> wonder how historians will write about silicon valley. you can probably use that same text

<comment><USER23> Same for med students on amphetamines

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ah coffee. I wonder what percentage of coding is fuelled by coffee. Quite a lot I'd imagine.

</comment><comment><USER25> For the British soldier, substitute tea or 'a brew' as it's referred to.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ahhh! Enjoying this article over my morning cup.

<comment><USER19> I was grinding as I read the comments ... now to brew :)

<comment><USER5> heh - me too</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to maintain IP reputation in email campaigns? - <AUTHOR> Based on this post[0] I have a question to startups/eCommerce sites, who do email marketing.
How do you maintain IP reputation if you want to keep costs small.
Does using services like MailChimp fixes all of your issues?
Any tips and hints for companies to keep email marketing cost small?
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493127 <comment><USER2> Using Amazon SES will most likely solve all your problems. Check Sendy (Paid) or MailWizz (Paid) or freeCodeCamp Mail for Good (Free) for a host it yourself solution.</comment>


Ask HN: AOL – geocities – friendster – myspace – Facebook – who's next? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> When measured by engagement, they all devolved to distracting ads and media. Facebook now looks like Alta Vista and Lycos used to look like before Google wiped them off the map. Google has one thing right - they continue to solve the core need that created them, regardless of monetisation. The next would be either: 1\. The site/s that solve the human need behind Facebook cleanly. 2\. Or the government partitioning/open-graphing Facebook for rigging and silencing republican news in an election year.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well Facebook own Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and MSQRD (snapchat-like filters) so I think they have a pretty solid hold on the market.

If they can erode some of Snapchats market share with their upcoming Snapchat- like app then they will be doing well.

</comment><comment><USER4> What is the unifying feature of this series?

<comment><AUTHOR> They all started as non-algorithmic light-weight technology platforms which were more focused on duplicating the last popular social platform. (BBS'es -> Compuserve -> AOL) This is different from companies like Google for example, that started out as algorithmic-first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A privacy-focused social network that people actually want to use. Peer-to- peer networks for individuals, groups and communities. With a monetization scheme that doesn't suck.

Disclaimer: I'm working on this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Facebook could definitely go the way of myspace & AOL Instant Messenger! It doesn't have a "wide moat", or "margin of safety" like Google, that's for sure.

</comment><comment><USER7> As Facebook is included, the question must mean "who's next to succeed" in the space.

</comment><comment><USER8> Facebook doesn't belong in that list

<comment><USER9> Why not? It has more users than any of the others ever did.</comment></comment>


Lamson's Bounce Detection Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://lamsonproject.org/blog/2009-07-09.html

<comment><USER2> I don't check my spam folder. If it's in there, it's not delivered.

Email providers should (optionally) bounce spam, rather than sending it to a spam folder. This would eliminate the problem of false-positives, since senders would be notified. It would reduce traffic, since spammers would know the message didn't get through to any inbox, and so would focus elsewhere. Finally, it would eliminate the temptation of a spam folder for people who don't want spam, but peek 'just to make sure', and thereafter go on to support spammers.

Perhaps someone here is running an email provider, or working on such software?

<comment><USER3> Bounce it where? The return address is _always_ fake and sometimes it's that of an innocent bystander.

<comment><USER4> I'd 550 the spamming server sending it to me, they can take care of the bounce themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As I discussed in an earlier thread, our custom mailer uses Gmail on a custom domain for storage; fetchmail connects via IMAP and then pipes to procmail which pipes to a Python script.

Lamson looks like it can offer a lot of great features, but I'll have to run my own SMTP server and I'm worried about downtime. If I let Gmail store the messages, I don't need to worry (much) about messages going missing. If my server crashes, fetchmail will just pick up the missed messages in the next fetch, only a few minutes late.

For others who run mail servers: how do you handle downtime?

<comment><USER6> Besides what sho said about SMTP uptime not being that important, Lamson can read messages from a Maildir queue. You could use Gmail -> fetchmail -> Lamson.

[http://lamsonproject.org/docs/deferred_processing_to_queues....](http://lamsonproject.org/docs/deferred_processing_to_queues.html)

<comment><USER5> Aaahh cool. I didn't think about putting fetchmail in between. I was assuming I'd have to do Gmail forwarding to Lamson. We'll probably migrate to Lamson eventually to make good use of things like this neat bounce handling. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the page that says what the Lamson project is about (emphasis mine):

"I'm always looking for people doing interesting things with e-mail. _Even if you're a spammer_ , or someone trying to destroy the spammers, I want to hear from you" (Zed Shaw, maintainer of the Lamson project).

<comment><USER8> He's made the point before that any advance in email technology will be primarily used for spam.

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/03/lamson/print.html>

"I totally think Lamson will be used more for spam than for anything really useful. My hope with Lamson is that it acts like a modern sewage system for the internet. Everyone's gotta poop. You can't escape it, so why not try to do it in a clean fashion that improves the general health of everyone involved?"

<comment><USER9> He's also said that he hopes it will mean spammers end up better at targeting so that there will be less shit flowing overall.

<comment><USER3> Makes sense. The huge amount of backscatter ain't helping anyone</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WSJ: A Very Gloomy Picture Of Larry Page's Short Tenure As Google CEO - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576536521984562128.html Challenges have piled up for Mr. Page since he assumed his post in April. They include a broad U.S. antitrust probe of the company's practices; the settlement of a long-running criminal investigation into Google's advertising business; and shifting industry forces that led him to make a deal to buy mobile-device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings.. <comment><USER2> In his short tenure, he's shipped Google+, coordinated the redesign of several Google properties and reorganized the entire company [1].

Even if he wasn't focused on these long-term projects, it would be foolish to judge him this early on. This piece speaks more about the cynicism of WSJ than of Page & Google.

1: [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/exclusive...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/exclusive- google-ceo-larry-page-completes-major-reorganization-of-internet-search- giant.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely agree with you but unfortunately, none of those you mentioned are currently creating "value" for shareholders, which is what these short-sighted Wall Street analysts are looking for.

In fact, two things that "destroyed" value (at least in the short term) happened under Larry's watch. 1) 12.5 Billion acquisition of Motorola 2) $500 Million settlement with the DOJ.

Read my other comment below for more details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ha they dropped 9.1% compared to the market's 8.4%? So the only dropped 0.7% below market average. That's really not so much. Sounds like they are trying to make it seem larger by phrasing it that way. The whole article seems a little sensational. A lot of this stuff doesn't have so much to do with him.

<comment><USER4> This whole article is quite silly. It puts a negative spin on his tenure as CEO by downplaying the single most important fact: under Page, Google+ actually shipped, and was actually good! Gundotra and Horowitz led the operation, true, but it's hard to believe Larry Page wasn't heavily involved with that.

All the rest is short term ephemera. 9.1% vs. 8.4% is, as you note, nothing. The Motorala deal is for the patents, and they'll probably spin off the hardware end after the deal closes. Expensive but well within Google's budget. As for the $500 million payment, the federal government is suing every company it's not bailing out. Nowadays some sort of federal shakedown is just a cost of doing business in the US, unfortunately. Heck, some guy even recently tried to get Dropbox in trouble with the FTC. You get big enough and you're just a target for all kinds of this stuff.

In his short tenure, Page cleaned house, fired tons of nonperforming "VP Bizdev" types, and catalyzed nothing short of an engineering renaissance at Google. Google+ in particular is tremendous for internal company morale and has stemmed the tide of defections to FB. Page knows what's important, but Amir Efrati, the author of this Journal piece, clearly does not.

<comment><USER5> I think the jury is still out on the Motorola deal. That is a lot of money just for patents. Even for Google's checkbook. And if Google intends to spin off the hardware business expect it to take an even bigger loss on its investment.

If Google+ stemmed defections to Facebook that is a good thing. But hopefully a lot more is in store than what Google+ delivered. It was not nearly enough to undo Facebook's market dominance.

Eric might have found another solution to the Motorola merger if he was heading the company. But who knows if it would have been better. He already passed on both Palm and Sun. Together they would still have been much less than Motorola and probably twice as useful.

<comment><USER6> From a blog post[1] I wrote:

 _Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent.

MMI: ($12.5B - $5.5B (cash and assets)) / 14,300 patents = $489,510.49 per patent.

Plus 6,700 patents pending.

Plus a hardware company._

It was a lot of money. But it looks like a pretty good deal against the market rate, if the Nortel deal was any indication.

Schmidt is still executive chairman.

[1]: [http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9026076073/google-motorola- an...](http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9026076073/google-motorola-and-patents)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you don't subscribe to WSJ (like me), then you can pull the full article by clicking on it from a google search results page: [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=For+Google+CEO+Larry+Page%2C+a+Difficult+Premiere+Role)

<comment><USER8> Doesn't work for me... probably have cookies?

<comment><USER9> I deleted all WSJ cookies then clicked the link from the Google search results and it worked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, apparently the order went out, and with typical news corp subtlety the WSJ is going after Google. Last week the piece with them and Apple, now this.

So who wants to speculate on motivations: Murdoch business interest? Or a sense that Google and Obama are friends?

</comment><comment><USER11> It's always been easy to point out a few Google products that essentially own their category and a few more that are dying quietly on the vine. What would really worry me is if that culture of calculated gambles goes away.

</comment><comment><USER12> That didn't sound gloomy to me at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

</comment><comment><USER13> sensationalist (headline, article, author, etc.).</comment>


MEPs back EU ban on throwaway plastics by 2021 - <AUTHOR> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20181018IPR16524/plastic-oceans-meps-back-eu-ban-on-throwaway-plastics-by-2021 <comment><USER2> Meanwhile all my vegetables, fruits etc is double packed or I pay three times the price for unpacked stuff. In my home the amount of plastics I have to put into the yellow bin has quadrupled over the last 10years.

<comment><USER3> I don't really get why they styropak fruits and vegetables in parts of Asia and Europe. I'm not talking bags, actual trays wrapped in plastic film—as chicken meat in a US supermarket.

Unfortunately even the US is catching up to this trend where things are portioned out in standard packs (rather than loose).

You can see how different countries have different customs for storing their goods here [1], this was linked few days ago in a diff thread, but is illustrative.

[1][https://menzelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Hungry- Planet-F...](https://menzelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Hungry-Planet- Family-Food-Portraits/G0000zmgWvU6SiKM/C0000k7JgEHhEq0w)

<comment><USER4> This is very much a regional thing, in my experience. E.g. in parts of the Southeastern US, I found that plastic+styrofoam overpackaging was ubiquitous as far back as the 1980s. In markets I've been to in parts of the Northeast and Northwest in decades since, it's been virtually nonexistent to entomb produce in plastic – bulk produce has been the norm.

<comment><USER3> Oddly I'm seeing this packing creep in in places like Trader Joe's and some other (small) independents, not so much the big chains, thankfully.

<comment><USER5> Trader Joe's, a small indie? Try "owned by one of the Aldis".

<comment><USER3> Yeah sorry, I missed the Oxford comma there. Those are separate sets.

<comment><USER5> Fair!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One solution is to start a 1000 year landfill pipeline. Plastic is usually inert and harmless in a landfill and will slowly decompose. Landfills >> Rivers

<comment><USER7> A TON of people have an irrational gut reaction against landfills in general and the concept of burying plastic in particular. There is absolutely no shortage of landfill space, but due to some mafia fuckery in the 80s (MOBRO 4000: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened- to-90s-e...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened- to-90s-environmentalism/#5)) a ton of people think we're on the verge of running out of space.

<comment><USER8> If you try to open a new landfill you'll be against a ton of people protesting you.

So we're not out of space in theory but in practice it's problematic.

<comment><USER9> The same goes for sewage treatment plants or basically any infrastructure at all. A city where everybody is happy cannot exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> (clickbaity piece on topic, sort of)

Metal drinking straw fatally impales woman through her eye after fall

Elena Struthers-Gardner, 60, suffered brain injuries when she fell onto an eco-friendly metal drinking straw which impaled her eye, an inquest heard.

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/metal- drinking-...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/metal-drinking- straw-fatally-impales-woman-through-her-eye-after-fall/ar-AAE5usQ)

<comment><USER11> I'm always very uncomfortable with people drinking out of bottles or using straws or other utensils in a car while it's in motion. If the driver needs to brake urgently bad things can happen.

Bottles will take out your teeth. Straws and other utensils will damage your palette and throat or an eye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if the EU wouldn't accomplish a lot more for the world if it worked with (e.g.) China to fund a solution to catch the plastics flowing out of their rivers.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the- plas...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic- tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The article notes that "Single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks or cotton buds, will be banned in the EU under plans adopted on Wednesday...." because "These products... make up over 70% of marine litter".

Being 70% of marine litter is a good argument that there's a _problem_ to be fixed, but banning something only makes sense if there are reasonable alternatives or that doing without is acceptable. Plates and cutlery of single-use plastic have obvious alternatives. Straws are more complicated; here's one list discussing the alternatives: [https://earth911.com/food/straw- alternatives/](https://earth911.com/food/straw-alternatives/) It wasn't clear to me that the impacts of this proposal were considered in detail; I _hope_ the impacts were considered!

<comment><USER13> Surely 'no straw' is an obvious alternative to straw? In a generic sense, 'no X' should always be the first option if plausible.

If your car could run without fuel, we wouldn't need alternative fuels!

<comment><USER14> Tell that to McDonalds' customers who will refuse to "eat" their milkshakes without a straw. I do agree we should stop using these single use plastics, especially for junk from McDonald's, but in this instance you can't just tell people to stop using them in all circumstances.

<comment><USER15> I'm sure the customers will eat milkshakes without a straw when the choices are eating it without a straw and throwing it away. You don't need to tell people to stop using straws. You just stop giving them straws.

Realistically though the plastic straws will be replaced by a slightly more expensive, biodegradable alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember a few years ago Coca-Cola was creating a plant-based bottle. [1] Does anyone know why this tech isn't taking off more than it has?

[1] [https://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-center/press- releases...](https://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-center/press- releases/coca-cola-produces-worlds-first-pet-bottle-made-entirely-from-plants)

<comment><USER17> My wife bought a plastic water bottle at McDonald's in Munich today. I can't say that I've looked at them much before, but I happened to look at this one. The label said "plantbottle®" and "14% nachwachsende Rohstoffe, 35% wieder verwerteter Kunststoff, 100% recyclebar" ( _14% renewable raw materials, 35% recycled plastic, 100% recyclable_ ). The numbers might not be exact, just going by memory.

So there's something out there at least. It was Vio brand, which I think is a Coke or Coke-related brand?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like a huge portion of trash in Manhattan is due to single use utensils and container for food take out. The plastic bag ban that will take affect in 2 years doesn't even affect takeout.

The trash problem in Manhattan has to do with density and lack of room for dumpsters in semi-public space, so it isn't more trash but just making manifest the same trash problem as everywhere else but on a local scale. This is a good microcosm for politics.

I use next to no paper at work, don't even bring a backpack, and yet use plastic utensils every day. I'm stuff-free except this most basic wasteful junk.

I would like to in addition to banning single use plastics also require that all offices have dish washers, and all take out places allow you to bring your own container.

</comment><comment><USER19> Meanwhile the majority of the plastic comes from certain countries that will remain unnamed and that will never do anything about it...

<comment><USER20> Before anyone starts saying anything about trash exports, some statistics for you to consider (Copypasted from last time this came up, also sorry mobile users for the formatting):

      2010 total plastic marine debris[0]: 4,800k - 12,700k metric tons
      2010 EU plastic marine debris[0]: 50k-120k metric tons (Higher than the US by ~1k)
      2010 EU plastic marine debris percentage[0]: 1%
      2016 EU export of nontoxic garbage to a country in top 10 plastic marine waste[2]: 269k tonnes (a lot missing statistics so wide error bars here)
      2015 percent of nontoxic garbage export that is plastic/mixed[1]: ~9%

      Probable amount of EU plastic that gets exported to top 10 country: 26.9k - 53.8k tonnes
      Crude adjusted EU ranking if 100% of the doubled amount makes it into the ocean: ~10th
      Incredibly crude adjusted EU plastic marine debris percentage: 2%

[0]: [https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_...](https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_AMERICANA/Science-2015-Jambeck-768-71__2_.pdf) (the footnote of table 1 specifically)

[1]: [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php?title=Waste_shipment_statistics_based_on_the_European_list_of_waste_codes#Non- hazardous_notified_waste_based_on_LoW)

[2]: [http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do](http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do) (You'll have to screw with the customizations to get useful statistics)

[3]: [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/transboundary- waste-...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/transboundary-waste- shipments)

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER21> > Incredibly crude adjusted EU plastic marine debris percentage: 2%

Whoa, you are telling me can have a measurable, whole integer impact? That sounds like a huge win!

A lot of the ways we solve this problem are going to be <1% at a time. 0.05% here, 0.75% there.

We could say, "this doesn't solve a big percentage of the problem so why bother" or we can meaningfully tackle something as large as 0.5%.

<comment><USER7> Technically you can carve a wood log with a piece of sandpaper, but I recommend a chainsaw.

<comment><USER21> The problem we have is not a wood log. The problem we have is a widely distributed pile of sawdust. If you find a wood log we can cut with a chainsaw, by all means let's do so. I just don't believe it exists.

<comment><USER22> Here are 10 logs. Let me know if you need help starting the chainsaw.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the- plas...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic- tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/)

When 93% of the ocean's plastic waste is coming from 10 riviers, those need to be the focus. That doesn't mean ignore the ~7% coming from elsewhere, because this truly is a problem we all need to solve together.

<comment><USER21> Read that article again. 93% of the plastic _sent into the ocean by rivers_ comes from just 10 rivers. The article says between 4 and 25% of the ocean's waste comes from rivers.

So, yes, there are some big items there. The Yangtze could be 2% - 12% (based on the article's comment that it was roughly half of river trash.) But other rivers are smaller, and we're back into the realm of talking about single integer improvements.

<comment><USER7> Rivers are of particular interest because they represent the primary mechanism by which _inland_ plastic finds it's way into the ocean. Coastal releases of plastic only happen in coastal regions. Granted, most of the world's population lives reasonably close to a coast, but even in those regions the plastic waste is often carried to the ocean by water through smaller waterways, such as rain water carrying plastic litter down storm drains. (Or the waste is left directly on the beach and the next high tide picks it up.)

This article goes into the correlation between plastic waste in Asian rivers and Monsoon season: [https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15611](https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15611)

That correlation suggests that a large portion of plastic in Asian rivers is being carried into those rivers by rain water, a similar mechanism to how plastic waste is emitted from coastal regions.

Of course there are other mechanisms in play too, such as municipalities deliberately, perhaps illegally, dumping their waste into rivers or off a coast. But a ton of it is coming from ground litter either left directly on the beach or carried to the ocean one way or another by water. Regions with the heaviest rain and the most ground liter are the biggest contributors, as you would logically expect.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A New rsync-based Dropbox Alternative for Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.acrosync.net/index.html

<comment><USER2> rsync? So if i change the name of an 800 mb image-file i have to reupload it? Really?

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone get the link yet?</comment>


Become An Xcoder - A free book for starting with Cocoa using Objective-C (get ready for iPhone SDK) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cocoalab.com/?q=becomeanxcoder <comment><USER2> This book seems to have been written for people with no programming experience. If you know any at all (especially C) you can safely skip chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sort of a quick book. It's almost like they spent the whole time explaining the dynamics of programing and forgot to go in-depth with Cocoa. I didn't enjoy it.</comment>


Confusing 0.05 and 5% cost hundreds of millions - <AUTHOR> http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2011/ia-3285.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> "Some Risk Model components sent information to the Optimizer in decimals while other components reported information in percentages; therefore the Optimizer had to convert the decimal information to percentages in order to effectively consider all the information on an equal footing. Because proper scaling did not occur, certain decimal information was not converted to percentages and the Optimizer did not give the intended weight to common factor risks."

And the impact: \-- AXA Rosenberg had to make clients whole for $217 million in losses, plus pay a $25 million penalty. \-- Barr Rosenberg had to pay a $2.5 million penalty and is barred from the securities industry for life. \-- AXA Rosenberg's assets under management fell from $70 billion to $29 billion ([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/business/ex-axa- rosenberg-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/business/ex-axa-rosenberg- executive-settles-sec-case.html))</comment>


How to create dazziling of social media posts - <AUTHOR> https://ghostwriter.ai/2020/05/04/how-to-create-dazzling-of-social-posts-for-free/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! I think in the time we all rushing and want to get results in a snap my last article is useful. It is a complete insight about how to create dozen of social media posts in just 8 minutes. More than 80 posts in 1 hour. Let me have your feedback about :-)</comment>


The World's Best Film School Is Free on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-film-school/ <comment><USER2> Great article, but misleading title. These YouTube videos do a good job of teaching armatures (like myself) small details of movie making, but they don't come close to a film school education (which itself is far away from getting experience making films and working under world-class movie makers)

<comment><USER3> Yea I feel like a lot of these break downs of film overanalyze and make too cerebral the art of movies.. For example when Sam Mendes was filming American Beauty he said he did not realize the film he was making until they got into the editing room. From all of the youtube movie break downs you would believe that everything was intentional and deliberate and you should already know the movie you are going to make out of the gate instead of discovering and pivoting along the way

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While the fast paced editing and tone of these videos are good at seducing the layperson into the looking under the hood of a popular film, they rarely venture beyond the last 30 years of Hollywood film-making.

I'd argue that videos like these could actually be kind of destructive to this new generation of 'content creators', as the narrow and populist gamut of films covered may give the impression that Darren Aronofsky created the jump cut and David Fincher was the first to use low-key lighting. That's perfectly fine for the casual hobbyist who just wants to make their Youtube videos better, but most great cinema is part of a dialogue with film history and you really need to dive a bit deeper and develop a personal relationship with the classics of the form.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just rushed my way through a BFA from NYU Film. Got more valuable theory and guidance in my thinking from YouTube than most classes.

But learning to light a scene on 35mm and other nuanced technical work requires detailed hands on instruction. College also helped me grow thicker skin and a healthy cynicism. That's about it.

<comment><USER6> Any other channels on YouTube you can recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > As of December, Every Frame a Painting is no longer. Ramos and Zhou got busy > with other work, and couldn't figure out how to keep doing what they wanted > within the confines of both their channel and YouTube's systems.

Noooooooo!

</comment><comment><USER8> Watch out for the film _Lumière_ , which is reaching theaters worldwide. It's actually a commented compilation of 108 original reels by the Lumière brothers, but as an experience is so, so good.</comment>