Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/a-civilization-without-war-1595540812 <comment><USER2> No. Neither did the Mayans.

There has always been a strain of utopianism in the study of ancient history that tries desperately to fit radically implausible social critiques into areas we are ignorant of.

It is the sociological or anthropological equivalent of the "God of the gaps" approach in the hard sciences, which disingenuously begs the question "Does God exist?" by insisting that anything we can't positively and fairly certainly explain by physical causes must be due to the Big Guy in the Sky.

In the case of magically peaceful civilizations, the most extreme instance was the Maya, who up until the last quarter of the 20th century were presumed to have "solved the problem of war", unlike we nasty brutish and short moderns. Then we learned to read their writing, and discovered they were incredibly violent and war-prone, just like every other human civilization: [http://articles.sun- sentinel.com/1986-05-27/news/8601310832_...](http://articles.sun- sentinel.com/1986-05-27/news/8601310832_1_temple-walls-torture-new-history)

The similarity between the article's claims about the Harappan civilization to the myths about the Maya are so striking that I've got to say the author and editor are both pretty far out of their depth to have not mentioned it.

So my prediction is that contrary to the article's closing complex question, we won't ever find out how the Harappan civilization avoided war, because they didn't. When their writing is eventually translated there will be the "surprising" revelation that their highly ordered civilization was heavily regulated by highly organized violence at all scales, just like every other one we know anything detailed about.

As a river civilization, state control of irrigation may have played a significant role in social control, but violence underpinned it, and warfare was the largest-scale expression of that violence. Lack of evidence of sacked cities is evidence that they didn't sack cities, not that they didn't engage in war. Maybe they simply killed all the inhabitants in a more organized way. They were, after all, highly organized.

In general, it is more likely that the gaps are filled with things similar to well-studied cases than completely and entirely at odds with them. These mysterious people are deeply fascinating and were clearly extremely accomplished, but the odds are they had basic sociological similarities to everyone else.

<comment><USER3> > which disingenuously begs the question "Does God exist?" by insisting that > anything we can't positively and fairly certainly explain by physical causes > must be due to the Big Guy in the Sky.

I agree with your position, but in my view your summary of some well- considered theological positions undermines your on-topic points. To be sure, there are people with shallow appreciation of the metaphysical implications of the exploration of nature, but people with more rich views are easy to find and the typical viewpoint is probably more reasonable than you give credit to.

I hope you would consider being more measured and even-handed in your critiques of other viewpoints, especially when any responses would be off- topic.

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> For some reason I can't reply to your longer comment below, where you say:

> I thought tjradcliffe might consider phrasing his comments more courteously > next time.

That actually _was_ my more courteous phrasing :-)

But I appreciate your civility, and in retrospect I should have left out "disingenously", which is needlessly inflamatory and distracting. I'll edit the comment to remove it. [Edit: unfortunately I guess there is a time-limit on the editability of comments, which has passed, so it'll have to stand as a permanent monument to my inherent irritability.]

However, I do believe "the God of the Gaps" is an instance of question- begging: people who use it attempt to build the assumption "anything that cannot be explained by current physics must be assigned to God" into the mutually accepted context of the argument. They assume--and ask their opponent to assume--what they are setting out to prove, which is what "question begging" is.

This is very much the mode of argument used by people promoting peaceful ancient civilizations, which _only_ crop up in areas of ignorance, and which have a tendency to be proven false when more information becomes available-- the Maya are not unique in this regard, but merely the most prominent example. This makes the point relevant to the article under discussion.

I'll plug my book here as you sound like the kind of reader I was aiming for: [http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Theorem-TJ-Radcliffe- ebook/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Theorem-TJ-Radcliffe- ebook/dp/B00KBH5O8K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416339457&sr=8-1&keywords=darwin%27s+theorem) , which as well as engaging in some egregiously speculative biology was written in part as a (hopefully) respectful attempt to engage intelligent and humane believers with alternative viewpoints on the relationship between science, religion, scripture and God (which was a struggle for me... I'm not an inherently respectful person, and clearly have more work yet to do.)

<comment><USER3> Fair enough.

I'll forgo rebutting except to say that "science or it doesn't exist" (not that you believe it) only works if you have a fully materialist viewpoint, which is another form of begging the question. It also precludes the possibility that the Creator likes internally his physical reality internally consistent.

I mention that to say that I think a bit of humility about the limits of our "proof" helps us treat each other better. Which has to happen if we're going to have productive conversation.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

P.S. You might know where the term God of the Gaps came from: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps#Criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps#Criticism)

<comment><USER4> How is a fully materialist perspective question-begging?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Every city was surrounded by a wall

This by itself indicates warfare. City walls are huge, costly infrastructure projects that require serious justification for both construction and maintenance. For instance, in contemporary Mesopotamia cities only began to build walls with the emergence of serious warfare at the beginning of the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2900 BC).

> scientists find no layers of ash that would suggest the city had been burned > down, and no signs of mass destruction

As the main evidence in the article this is unimpressive. Warfare does not usually result in the mass destruction of cities. E.g. Medieval England had endemic warfare for centuries but London, Bristol etc. didn't get burned down. Factors such as siege methods and building materials also make a big difference in how cities are affected by warfare.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, the article just casually mentioned city walls without countering the obvious that city walls are normally built in an environment with warfare. City walls is something you do not build unless you really have to. We stopped building them once they stopped being cost effective.

<comment><USER7> I didn't read this article, but they were mentioned in the Geo magazine some years ago.

The walls were thought to be for protection from the river flow.

<comment><USER8> To those who have seen the remains of structures exposed to floodwater, this will seem unlikely. The way to deal with floods, if you must live on the floodplain, is to build levees, berms, dikes, etc. Huge piles of rock and dirt, miles long and scores of yards wide, stacked and compacted by hordes of zero-skill labor. Not tiny little stone walls, crafted by masons who would have been among the most skilled artisans a Stone-Age society could have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an Indian I can only add that I simultaneously feel a sense of pride (at how advanced the Indus Valley civilization was) and shame (at the fact that modern India is _still_ rediscovering concepts like well-planned cities and sewage/water supply 2000 years later).

I live in a fairly well-off suburb of south Bangalore that has NO municipal sewage or water supply. Mine isn't an isolated case either as large parts of Bangalore have neither. Also, large parts of Gurgaon, arguably India's largest new city.

So how do we make by? Apartment communities have their own sewage & waste water treatment plants; rain-water harvesting; private garbage disposal (we segregate into multiple categories); drinking water brought in by water tankers that pump ground water (which the law doesn't really protect).

<comment><USER10> 4500 years later, not 2000 years.

But India is not alone. Europe also experienced civilization reversion. As did East Asia. As did the Americas.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, my bad.

Can you explain "civilization reversion"?

<comment><USER11> The Fall of Rome, I'd imagine.

<comment><USER12> The Bronze Age collapse as well.

<comment><USER13> The one between the "Heroic" age of Mycenae and Troy and the later "Classical" Grrece?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Poor research produces a poor article, below the standard we should expect here on Hacker News. In one example, the article author writes, "It's also during this time that we begin to see markings that look like writing on pottery. Over a period of just a couple of centuries, these crude marks evolved quickly into an alphabet that we still can't decipher." First of all, "alphabet" is surely the wrong word, as that refers to a specific kind of writing system that the Harappan script most likely was not. Indeed, there is considerable controversy over whether the Harrapan script is writing at all, that is a representation of language, rather than proto-writing, for example markings of ruling families or the like. (Those are stages of development of not-yet-writing attested in other centers of ancient civilization.) As the article correctly notes, there is no evidence of a successor civilization to the Indus Valley civilization, so at the very least we have no sure evidence of any linguistic affiliations of any use of Harappan script for writing. The attested later historical development of writing in India (which flourished at the time of the emperor Ashoka) is based on script forms from the ancient Near East.

AFTER EDIT: As usual, I would be happy to hear a rationale for the disagreement that is evidently being expressed regarding this comment. Please show your capacity to teach me (and onlookers) something. I'll mention here that I have studied a variety of other languages (those are disclosed in my Hacker News user profile), including Chinese, and I have made specialized study of the origins of writing around the world. That's my basis for judging the plausibility of various claims about the ancient Harappan inscriptions. A book on that topic I highly recommend, because it is written by very knowledgeable historical linguists, is _The World 's Writing Systems_, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. There has been a little bit of new work on Harappan inscriptions since that book was published, with several claims and counterclaims by competing scholars, but no settled demonstration that the Harappan inscriptions are writing at all, and certainly no settled demonstration of what they are writing about, if anything (as the article submitted here acknowledges).

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Writing-Systems-Peter- Daniels/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Writing-Systems-Peter- Daniels/dp/0195079930)

<comment><USER15> I had the same thoughts as you while reading the article and I can only imagine you are being downvoted by nationalists who aren't happy at the suggestion that the Harappans weren't writing Sanskrit epics on their pots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Almost certainly not. Stephen Pinker has a whole book discussing not only why not, but why some people are willing to ignore both evidence and reason in order to believe it anyway: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature ([http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern- Denial/dp/01420...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern- Denial/dp/0142003344))

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately Pinker is as guilty of just-so stories and easy essentialism as those he criticizes. What fraction of modern Americans are dying in wars again? Be wary of 'human nature'. [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/11/25/what-comes- natu...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/11/25/what-comes-naturally-2)

<comment><USER16> Wow, that's one of the most egregious and intricately constructed straw man attacks I've ever seen. It's above and beyond the New Yorker's ordinary standard of belittlement and misrepresentation. Thank you. <Edit>Heh. I just noticed the other commenter who added a link to a description of the tu quoque falacy, which is brilliant. I agree that Pinker can often be a bit facile, and he does tend to caricaturize his opponents (although invariably using their own words to do it). But this takedown piece attributes ideas and attitudes to Pinker that are not only not in evidence, but which are frankly and directly contradicted in the actual text of the book.</edit>

<comment><USER17> Care to elaborate, or are we just going to trade claims of logical fallacies all day (please kill me first)? Pinker is the prime exponent of a field (evolutionary psychology) widely regarded by other scientists as a pseudo- science. When I had him as a lecturer, his own TAs would ridicule the shoddy claims he made in lecture behind his back (e.g. that old one about how men prefer blondes because it reminds them of the savannah, I kid you not) and encouraged us to think critically about them.

Pinker is a great writer, and he's exposed a lot of people to new ideas. Many of those ideas are extremely bad and have little basis in evidence. He's also in dangerous territory alongside assholes like Charles Murray and the Thornhills.

<comment><USER16> "To say that music is the product of a gene for "art-making," naturally selected to impress potential mates—which is one of the things Pinker believes." No, it's not. "Pinker doesn't care much for art, though." Assumes facts not in evidence. "It's O.K. to rewire people's "natural" sense of a just price or the movement of a subatomic particle, in other words, but it's a waste of time to tinker with their untutored notions of gender difference." Snidely misrepresents Pinker's thesis, which is simply that gender differences are real, are a product of evolution, and that an assumption that gender differences are social constructs is dangerous and wrong. "He argues, for example, that democracy, the rule of law, and women's reproductive freedom are all products of evolution." No, he doesn't. Would anyone? That's all in just a few lines. I don't really have the time or intestinal fortitude to give you a whole line-by-line refutation. Maybe just read what Pinker wrote, instead of this hatchet job?

A final note, as I think we're both growing bored with this, but if you find accusations of logical fallacy so tedious, perhaps avoid making statements like "He's also in dangerous territory alongside assholes like Charles Murray and the Thornhills."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really dislike those "Did X do Y?" article titles. It's like they're saying, "If you even assume the answer could be Yes, you're the idiot we're looking for". I know not every article with such a title is written with that attitude, but it still sucks.

<comment><USER19> In case you're not already familiar with it, Betteridge's Law of Headlines is one I reference often [1]. "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I take slight issue with this quotation -

> Though the idea of a street grid seems perfectly ordinary to city-dwellers > today, it was unusual at the time. Most great cities in Mesopotamia, for > example, had curving streets and a more organic-looking layout.

Maybe a street grid seems ordinary if you live in a large city in the US, but most European cities don't have gridded streets (and I don't think it's the norm in many other places in the world either).

<comment><USER21> Except when some monarch built one for fun.

Like Mannheim [0]. Can't get more gridded than that.

[0]: [https://encrypted.google.com/maps/place/Mannheim,+Deutschlan...](https://encrypted.google.com/maps/place/Mannheim,+email@example.com,8.4649963,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x4797cc24518e3f45:0xb1e4fe7aa406e687)

<comment><USER22> Meanwhile, in Karlsruhe:

[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Karlsruhe,+email@example.com...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Karlsruhe,+firstname.lastname@example.com,8.4076456,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47970648a2e07809:0xb6fc55734cb7ee7f)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just to state the obvious, which might not be so obvious to everybody: looking at the big picture, over billions of lives and thousands of years? War is not such a bad thing.

I'm not trying to just be randomly contrarian. I'm serious.

When I look at all the Europeans went through, starting with Greece and ending with the takeover of the New World, it was conflict after conflict. Terrible time to live. But through all of that experience the Europeans learned to have something resembling "competitive improvement", where folks could have huge egos, dogmatic religions, a quest for progress, and seek to make a difference in the world -- without war. Took a lot of war to figure that out, and we're still working on parts of it, but the lesson is clear: a certain level of creative destructive chaos is something to be demanded and never surrendered. Peaceful harmony is the way of plants, not mankind. We're here to challenge each other to move forward (without war, of course, but it we have to keeping failing to figure out where the boundaries are)

<comment><USER24> "Peaceful harmony is the way of plants, not mankind."

Bwuh? Plants do not live in peaceful harmony. They just fight in ways that are not immediately obvious to the naked human eye, mostly involving things that we humans would consider serious violations of the Geneva convention. But they are as vicious as any animal, just differently.

<comment><USER25> Indeed, anyone who would make that claim must be utterly ignorant of horticulture.

I frequently have to rip out bindweed (which has killed many of my plants) and tormentil (which has taken over much of my lawn). That's just the stuff that _is_ immediately obvious.

<comment><USER26> Then there are the plants that will 'poison' the ground around them so other plants can't grow there.

<comment><USER27> And then, there are carnivorous plants too.

<comment><USER26> True, though I was thinking of plants making war on each other rather than eating animals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A more interesting and relevant thing to study would be how modern Switzerland managed to avoid war in the bloodiest century the world had ever seen.

It's like the miracle no one wants to notice.

<comment><USER29> Is it really? Finance the most likely aggressor (Germany), don't fight for them. Then be of no strategic importance for any other invading army. No one wants to march their army over the alps to get somewhere.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget "be armed to the teeth and express a willingness to violently respond to any intrusion into your territory". It's pretty much standard lex talionis strategy, which has been around as long as humans have formed groups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This might be a stupid question, but surely basing their theory on simply studying the buried bodily remains would be somewhat pointless if the Harappans burnt their dead?

<comment><USER31> I'd imagine that there would be evidence of cremation

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If i remember my history, most historians agree that the harappans were wiped out by the Aryans from Central Asia. the Harappans were farmers, where as the Aryans were hunters and soldiers. The south-asian subcontinent was then ruled by the Aryans who laid the foundation of modern day Indians

<comment><USER33> That is largely discredited theory. It was devised by British, and it is well accepted that they were rather looking for a way to explain how 'India' always had outsiders.

<comment><USER34> It has not been discredited, yet. It has been challenged. You should see the latest paper on this subject that used gneetics - Characterizing the genetic differences between two distinct migrant groups from Indo-European and Dravidian speaking populations in India[1]

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4120727/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4120727/)

<comment><USER35> No. It's been challenged, and the characterized genetic differences between the two populations, while existing, does not point to any recent history signifying a cultural divide. This intermingling between the so called ANI ("Aryans"), and ASI ("Dravidians") genetic markers between the two population is not a recent phenomenon, and in fact at this point the two populations do not in any way point to a cultural difference as the time frame for the intermingling of these genetic traits predates much of the cultural connotations that "aryan", and "dravidian" denote, not to mention the very concepts are genetically irrelevant today, because of the intermingling that began around 4200 years ago making the two groups sharing a common genetic make up. [1]

The India of today is fundamentally uniform, and shares a common shared genetic makeup throughout all the tribes, castes, and geographies. So the idea that somehow these genetic differences point to a cultural divide is bunk, because fundamentally the cultural divid postdates the genetic intermingling. Furthermore that common shared genetic makeup is not a recent phenomenon, because the genetics of India has for the past 60,000 years been relatively the same. So whatever genetics that exists in India today, whether that's isolated, or mixed, has for the past 60,000 years been relatively the same. [2]

The R1a1a gene that's commonly referred to in these instances that drive the Aryan, and the Dravidian divide theory is a gene marker that points to a population that many argue proves the idea of Aryan invasion, or at least migration, as the R1a1a is a common genetic marker in Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, and other Eastern European genetics, and not in India. That alone is a weak argument, as the question then is who had the gene first, and who migrated where. A closer, and higher resolution look at genetics gives a different picture. The Europeans carrier of the R1a1a gene have a further M458 mutation of the R1a1a gene that's virtually nonexistent in Asia. Since the M458 mutation is estimated to have occurred at least 8000 years ago it seems that something happened to divide the populations that carried the common R1a1a gene, but the reason of that divide is yet to be empirically established.

Thus this genetic marker explains at best a shared ancestry between Europeans, and Indians, not some Aryan invasion theory. The R1a1a genetic marker is not a common genetic trait among Europeans, west Iranians, or throughout central Asia, but found commonly in South Asia. [3]

So no. The Aryan invasion theory is thoroughly debunked as Imperial bias to subjugate, and justify their economic plunder over a people.

[1] [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Aryan-Dravidian- div...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Aryan-Dravidian-divide-a- myth-Study/articleshow/5053274.cms)

[2] [http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-new-research-debunks- ar...](http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-new-research-debunks-aryan- invasion-theory-1623744)

[3] [http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n4/full/ejhg2009194a....](http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n4/full/ejhg2009194a.html)

<comment><USER34> Thanks! This, along with the other replies, was very helpful.

So, basically the whole concept of North Vs South India divide with Southern Indians holding on to this information is incorrect since Indian subcontinent is pretty uniform for about 60,000 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Being a resident of South Asia, it makes me sad that we aren't taking any care of these historical locations.

</comment><comment><USER37> That was an interesting and well written article. I also found the comments interesting and like how the author interacted with the commenters. Unfortunately I can not provide any significant constructive criticism to improve it, as it is extremely good.

Could we talk about presentation?

On the good side, no 90s era re-imagining of the splash screen that has to be ignored and scrolled past to see the text... I like that. Another good side is no scroll bar hijacking where click hold the scroll bar in the lower half of the article makes the page flip downwards unusably, I hate sites that do that and will go out of my way to avoid them.

On the bad side, lets look at the first 5 seconds of user experience. The site renders with 3 pixs, a large artists interpretation of the Harappan (cool), a smaller strange landscape with a only slightly tinier headline "Imagine What It Looked Like Before the Collapse" (to save you time, it has nothing to do with the Harappan although that headline would be a cool follow up story) and, I kid you not, "The Origin of the Speculum Is Just As Creepy As You Imagined". I would suggest fine tuning that a little bit. Especially the last bit. Unless there's a Harappan connection to the speculum (which I guess is possible?)</comment>


Opera Mini For Windows - <AUTHOR> http://my.opera.com/Lawand87/blog/opera-mini-for-windows

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the only way I know of to surf the web by having some cloud server doing "client side" Javascript. I need an intermediary service that would allow me to see the pages which are otherwise "visible only with Javascript on."

Anybody knows another one which functions equivalently to Opera's servers for Opera Mini?</comment>


OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too  - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/04/okcupid-ceo-donate-anti-gay-firefox <comment><USER2> TLDR (from article): "OkCupid's co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan once donated to an anti-gay candidate. (Yagan is also CEO of Match.com.) Specifically, Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in 2004, reports Uncrunched. During his time as congressman from 1997 to 2009, Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and for prohibition of gay adoptions."

So donating to a campaign for a constitutional ammendment prohibiting gay marriage is the same as donating to a politician with a broad array of other policies? Anti-republicanism aside, how is this even remotely the same thing?

<comment><USER3> It's remotely the same thing because it's about him supporting politics that many sharply disagree with.

It shows the hypocrisy of grabbing pitchforks and torches and pushing out a brilliant mind just because you disagree with his views on marriage which are the same as 51% of all of California.

My proposal: put down the pitchforks, pick up the coffee cups and talk and reason instead of pressure and bully.

<comment><USER2> > It's remotely the same thing because it's about him supporting politics that > many sharply disagree with.

You're talking about a nation with a blanket two party system, the world's largest economy, and an extreme tendency to involve itself with global affairs.

I have an extreme aversion to voting for Republicans just due to the socially conservative views, but when the democratic candidates vocally support total global surveillance there's just no other choice. Supporting a candidate _does not_ mean you support their every vote and as in all things with life, you just have to make compromises.

<comment><USER4> > Supporting a candidate does not mean you support their every vote and as in > all things with life, you just have to make compromises.

Funny how this works for candidates that you vote for but not for CEOS of products you use.

<comment><USER2> What are you talking about?

It worked for the CEO of Mozilla too. Their community just made different compromises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Correction: he donated to an anti-gay _candidate_. Also, people care more about your current position than what you believed half a decade ago. Obviously OkCupid's CEO has come around on this position (if indeed he ever was anti-gay). Or he is putting on the public appearance of having come around, which for activism's purpose is sufficient.

If Eich had come out in support of gay people during this fiasco (for example, saying something as simple as, "I was wrong, I'm sorry, if I had it to do again, I would not donate to that campaign"), I'm willing to bet that the calls to remove him would have dropped in volume by a _substantial_ margin. This isn't apples to apples, and it's not even apples to oranges. It's apples to pick up trucks.

<comment><USER6> Seriously. Eich not only failed to apologize in any meaningful manner (which I get is being spun by people as Integrity, Bro), but seemed to fail to even realize that the viewpoint he endorsed was so widely reviled by Mozilla's supporters.

The public is more than willing to forgive and understand if people are willing to explain their point of view, but he wouldn't even stoop to that.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely nothing good could come out of him trying to explain his views or his donation. It is _good_ that he hasn't apologized out of pressure. He should only apologize if/when he actually has a change of heart on his position; not because an Internet mob holds him at gun point.

<comment><USER6> Whether or not you agree with it, this is the exact opposite of how an actually appropriate CEO appointee would behave.

<comment><USER7> I'll take an inappropriate CEO over an appropriate CEO that is willing to lie to the public just to pacify them and to keep his job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He donated to an anti-gay candidate, not to a campaign specifically against gays. This is akin to saying somebody an Iraq war supporter for paying US taxes.

Still, Cannon sounds like a reprehensible person, and I would be interested to hear Yagan's reason for helping to re-elect him.

<comment><USER3> No - the point is not "Let's hear Yagan's reason for donating" \- the point is: why are we making political opinions an issue for tech CEOs?

Do we really want a world where where CEOs' personal political donations (from years past!) are sifted through to find the latest faux pas so we can pressure them to answer for themselves?

<comment><USER9> Not "political opinions," but "active participation in political movements."

And do you think tech is somehow exempt from this? It's hardly uncommon for CEOs to be subject to pressure because of their political views; doubly so in situations like this where they perform a significant non-commercial role.

So I'm actually pretty happy that CEOs are subject to public scrutiny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Totally exactly the same thing. Candidate whom is anti-gay === targeted anti- gay legislation

<comment><USER11> Candidate was broadly anti gay. Prop 8 was a single specific marriage question. So no, not the same. Candidate was worse.

<comment><USER9> Does not follow. It's Utah, so his opponent could have been much worse…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The whole thing is so stupid to begin with, many of the people complaining about Eich are avid Obama supporters, someone who in 2008 was also campaigning against gay marriage, citing the exact same bigoted faith.

Everyone has a great hair splitting reason for why Eich is a horrible motherfucker for donating $1000 to prop 8, while Obama and Yagan are national heros for doing something ever so slightly different.

<comment><USER8> Obama didn't campaign against gay marriage. In fact, he stated his opposition to Proposition 8. [http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Obama-opposes-proposed- ban-...](http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Obama-opposes-proposed-ban-on-gay- marriage-3278328.php)

His opponent was a supporter of Proposition 8, making Obama clearly the lesser evil on that issue. [http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/06/27...](http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/06/27/mccain- supports-efforts-to-ban-gay-marriage)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a disingenuous headline - Yagan donated to a candidate who was anti- gay (anti everything, really!) and NOT to a specific campaign designed to strip rights from people. There's a difference here.

This was obviously a PR stunt, in the sense that OKCupid would not have participated if they thought it would bring about negative reactions. But let's be realistic - at least 50% of anybody who's ever donated to a politician's campaign in the US has "donated to an anti gay campaign once", if that's the qualifier. And it's much harder to point a finger and say "you are demonstrably opposed to gay rights" when Yagan's company is making a public statement in support thereof - however hypocritical you perceive that to be.

</comment><comment><USER4> This outlines the absurdity of what happens when you have to take down leaders just because their entire world view doesn't outline with yours.

Is it hypocritical of Yagan? Sure. Does it mean he's unqualified to do his job? Probably not.

This post from Arrington's original article is on point

> 5\. Is it absurd to judge Yagan as a person based on a single donation, > years ago, to a politician well known for waging war on gays? Yup. But that > is precisely what Yagan and OkCupid did to Eich...How can a man orchestrate > and support a boycott of Mozilla over Eich and yet donate to a hateful > politician like Chris Cannon? How do you square that?

<comment><USER13> There are much better reasons not to use OKCupid than this silly fiasco. I'll let the post by OKCupid that they later removed explain:

[http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online- dat...](http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating.html)

<comment><USER4> If you think this is about just OKCupid, you're mistaken.

It's about what happens when you start applying micro-judgments arbitrarily that have no discernible relation to their qualifications that that have measured impacts on their livelihoods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the original post unearthing this from Uncrunched - [http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam- yagan-...](http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan- okcupid)

</comment><comment><USER14> For progressive libertarians, hasn't Chris Cannon has been on the wrong side of many social issues, and on the right side of many privacy and internet issues?

<comment><USER15> Like Brendan Eich, you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The point is not whether the act of supporting an anti gay marriage ballot measure is equivalent to voting for an anti-gay candidate - it isn't.

Rather, if Eich's small silent contribution to Prop 8 was such an unspeakable transgression that Yagan felt compelled to freaking mobilize a mass corporate boycott, then how in good conscience could he ever have elected a man with much more explicitly hateful views to represent him in Congress?

<comment><USER12> Actually two candidates against gay marriage, he also gave to Obama.

So what we should be saying is that Yagan only supports candidates who oppose gay marriage.

Seriously though, why not take a swing at eharmony's CEO? That guy makes Eich look like a bear.

<comment><USER4> Because he didn't come out & have an opinion on this debate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given that Americans live under a (generally) two-party system, which forces us to make a lot of "lesser of two evils" type choices, I don't think it's fair to hold anyone to all of the beliefs of political candidates that they support.

Edit: Also, we may not know about all of the political actions of those candidates, rather offering support based on their stances on a the few issues we currently think are most important.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not terribly shocking to learn that OkCupid's obvious publicity stunt against Brendan Eich was merely a publicity stunt.

</comment><comment><USER19> Despite the differences in what happened this is still very disappointing. I hope he handles the situation better than Eich did whatever his politics are.

</comment><comment><USER20> "There's a sucker born every minute"

You have just been pwnd by Barry Diller and Sam Yagan.</comment>


Bringing Rails-Like Migrations to JavaScript with Knex.js - <AUTHOR> https://spin.atomicobject.com/2016/12/27/database-migrations-javascript-knex-js/#.WGKJPROP0aM.hackernews <comment><USER2> We've only recently started writing migrations using knex because we know the future of our platform is not Rails, as its past has been.

I would like better abstraction for the up and down, as Rails has provided. Additionally, the documentation is fairly weak around explaining topics like changing charset, chaining methods together, etc. In its current state, knex requires users to have a fairly strong understanding of the database being used for the sake of raw queries. Lastly, the debugging process in knex has consistently proven difficult due to the various scopes, objects, and templating within the library.

Despite my critiques, I still recommend knex because once you get going, you can overcome them with little to moderate effort.</comment>


Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles - <AUTHOR> http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-your-dotfiles.html <comment><USER2> _but many /most dotfiles reside at the top-level of your home directory, where it wouldn't be a good idea to initialize a VCS repository_

I totally disagree. I love having much of my home directory in git. I have a .gitiignore for the stuff I don't want in there, but the rest. Ahhhhh, so nice to be able to clone somewhere else and use.

<comment><USER3> I also keep my whole homedir in git, and it's great. My approach isn't to .gitignore, because I want to ignore almost everything -- I just add and commit things when I want to track them. One of my many git aliases[1] is 'git sn' for showing status without untracked files; this helps when dealing with my homedir:

      status --short --branch --untracked=no

[1] [https://github.com/cespare/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig#L...](https://github.com/cespare/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig#L14)

<comment><USER4> I have my homedir in git too and also ignore just about everything. I ended up using gitignore as a whitelist instead of a blacklist, e.g.:

        /*
        !/.gitignore
        !/.gitmodules
        !/.gitconfig
        !/.zshrc
        !/.zshenv
        !/.zsh
        !/.tmux.conf
        !/.vimrc
        !/.vim

<comment><USER5> I have a close setup. It just needs a little trick to add subdirectories :

      /*
      !/.emacs
      !/.emacs.d/
      /.emacs.d/*
      !/.emacs.d/themes/
      !/.emacs.d/functions/

You can check my .gitignore here [0].

[0] [https://raw.github.com/dgellow/home/master/.gitignore](https://raw.github.com/dgellow/home/master/.gitignore)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm very proud of my server's top-level[1] for the past fifteen years:

      $ ls -A
      .gitconfig@  .hushlogin  .local/  .notes/  .ssh/  www@  .zshrc@

All other dotfiles are configured to be picked up from somewhere inside .local either using environment variables or aliases.

[1] On the other hand, the laptop -- where I run X and gnome -- is a disaster.

</comment><comment><USER7> If I may, a small plug for my solution to this problem:

[https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dotstuff](https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dotstuff)

I settled on copying rather than symlinking, which has the benefit that the source files can be passed through a simple preprocessor to do some customization for different systems. Also you can get a diff between your current files and the state that you just synced.

</comment><comment><USER8> The primary complaint of the article is tools that manage the files in git and symlink things into place have lots of dependencies.

ghar, a project I wrote, is a single standalone python file: [https://github.com/philips/ghar](https://github.com/philips/ghar)

<comment><USER9> Python is still a pretty large dependency in itself.

<comment><USER10> Not really. I've yet to see a distro in the past 10 years without it.

<comment><USER11> Arch Linux, for one.

<comment><USER9> Also Mac, Windows.

<comment><USER12> OS X has python preinstalled. Not bleeding edge though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use a similar method, but structured around a single Makefile: [https://github.com/staticshock/seashell](https://github.com/staticshock/seashell)

This lets me perform any necessary initialization (e.g. cloning submodules) via `make` and installing the actual symlinks into $HOME via `make install`.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use the homegit alias trick to manage my top level home directory stuff in a Git repo that doesn't reside at ~/: [http://chneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2013/01/a-grab-bag- of-g...](http://chneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2013/01/a-grab-bag-of-git- tricks.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I would really like to have a dotfile strategy. But I have another goal beyond synchronization: I would like to be able to organize my dotfiles in a modular fashion.

For example, I would like to construct my bashrc using something like run- parts. This system would take bash/★.bashrc, this-machine/local-env.bashrc, and special-app/proxy-env.bashrc and compile them into a single ~/.bashrc. I would also like to be able to build a ~/.nanorc that only includes features supported by the installed version of nano. Some dotfiles include both public and private data -- I'd like to publish my git aliases, but not my GitHub authentication token.

So I basically want a dotfile manager that's a combination of PHP, run-parts, and stow: dotfiles constructed through in-line Perl code (in my nanorc or ssh_config) with assembly of multiple pieces (in my bashrc or gitconfig) and installed into the right place in my home directory.

As far as I can tell there's nothing out there that can do this. (Although I also insist it be written in something classic that I can find anywhere, like Python 2.4 or Perl or something like that. So I didn't look at any of the many dotfile managers written in Ruby or Node.)

        <? @NANO_VER = `nano -V` =~ m/version (\d+)\.(\d+)/ ?>
        set const
        set cut
        <? if ( $NANO_VER[0] > 2 || $NANO_VER[1] >= 1 ) { # Assume nano 1.x isn't still an issue
        ?>
        bind M-f nextword main
        bind M-b prevword main
        <? }
        print "include \"$_\"\n" foreach </usr/share/nano/*.nanorc>;
        # Maybe I'll have to write this myself....
        ?>

<comment><USER7> Hi,

My dotstuff script can do most of that, with a little bit of work. With the current features, you'd put all your bashrc content into a single ~/dotstuff/bashrc file, marked off with preprocessor directives that turned on and off certain sections depending on the content of the "environment" (a simple key-value file).

Adding the ability to query the version of installed software would be easy to add. Adding the ability to concatenate multiple files would be fairly easy too. Although I think an "include" directive might make more sense than run- parts style, since many dotfiles have hierarchical structure.

It's written in 2.4-compatible Python and I'm happy to accept contributions.

[https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dotstuff](https://bitbucket.org/davidn/dotstuff)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> also see GitMinutes #13: Richard Hartmann on Managing Your Homedir with vcsh:

[http://episodes.gitminutes.com/2013/06/gitminutes-13-richard...](http://episodes.gitminutes.com/2013/06/gitminutes-13-richard- hartmann-on.html)

[https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh](https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh)

</comment><comment><USER17> I've taken a different approach and store all my dotfiles on Dropbox and then symlinked them the local system. I get synchronisation between machine almost instantaneously and can move between around half a dozen boxes Including Linux, OSX and cygwin with little problem. Dropbox provide some version control which is useful If I really break something and I have a single script which can bootstrap a new machine. A few things don't liked to be symlinked (namely ssh keys) but other than that this had worked great for several years.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wasn't clear to me from the article alone how GNU Stow decides where to put the files. Looking it up in the manfile stow uses the parent directory of the "stow directory" by default.

You can change this behaviour using the --target and --dir options, where setting --dir will set the target dir to the parent of what you set for --dir.

I don't think it's possible to configure a target in the package itself, as far as I can see from reading the man page.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone else use RCS [1] for this?

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/](https://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/)

<comment><USER20> WAT. Are you trolling us, or are you that uninformed about VCS history? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, just learn and use git[1]. Yes, there are things about the UI that suck. But the underlying machinery and power it provides is unparalleled.

RCS, in short, is that horrible feet-killing pair of boots that made you think you _hated_ <insert sport here>, when in fact it was just frustration with sub-par equipment.

[1] If you need to learn git, check out Scott Chacon's excellent Pro Git, available for free online at: [http://www.git-scm.com/book](http://www.git- scm.com/book)

<comment><USER19> Ha! Fair enough. No, I didn't intend to troll. I've found RCS useful for ad hoc versioning of configuration files on systems without git or other version control systems. Wondering whether anyone still finds it useful. I reckon not!

<comment><USER21> RCS is a lot less complexity and remembering commands than a full-on VCS for a few stray config files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've made my own similar solution. I have all mine on Github, so I git clone the repo, and run my bootstrap script, which initializes the submodules, Vundle's all my vim plugins, and symlinks all the files.

[https://github.com/Aaronneyer/dotfiles](https://github.com/Aaronneyer/dotfiles)

<comment><USER23> isn't that sort of info kinda _sensitive_ [https://github.com/Aaronneyer/dotfiles/blob/master/sshconfig](https://github.com/Aaronneyer/dotfiles/blob/master/sshconfig) ? I can see hosts and usernames...

<comment><USER22> Ya, that's actually something I've been meaning to pull out, although I don't think it really matters all that much if people know what hosts/usernames I have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I use Vcsh. It allows for more than one repository. It's a Shell script, uses Git and it doesn't symlink.

</comment><comment><USER25> > I've come across various programs which aim to manage this for you by > keeping all the files in a subdirectory and then installing or linking them > into their appropriate places. None of those programs ever really appealed > to me. They would require a ton of dependencies (like Ruby and a ton of > libraries for it) or they would require me to remember how to use them, > which is difficult when really for such a task you rarely use the program.

Ever heard of shell scripts? This is what I use: [https://code.google.com/p/aram- dotfiles/source/browse/make.u...](https://code.google.com/p/aram- dotfiles/source/browse/make.unix)

</comment><comment><USER26> I keep all my dotfiles in a directory called "~/dotfiles" and symlink just my .bashrc. everything else gets reconfigured via aliases.

eg.

         alias vim='vim -u /home/derf/dotfiles/vim/vimrc'
         alias tmux='tmux -f /home/derf/dotfiles/tmux/tmux.conf'

[http://github.com/fredsmith/dotfiles](http://github.com/fredsmith/dotfiles)

<comment><USER27> Isn't that a lot of work? And I doubt it will work for everything. Some programs don't give you an option to get configuration from non-standard location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article says the author doesn't want to depend on something like Ruby. Ruby (or Python) seem a lot more likely to be on a base install than GNU Stow, though.

<comment><USER29> Or just write a shell script. This is a pretty trivial task in Bash, let alone zsh

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I gotta ask - what's with the tiny columns on this website? I'm reading on an iPhone and there's more white space than area that displays actual text!

</comment><comment><USER31> Back to the old "dotfiles with git Best Practices".

My favorite is just to alias it all to a different name.

        alias dg='git --git-dir=/Users/dragonfax/.dotfiles --work-tree=/Users/dragonfax'

now regular git doesn't overlap with my dotfiles git, and I never have to worry about mis-executing the wrong git

</comment><comment><USER32> I use the thoughtbot/dotfiles setup. [https://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles](https://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles)

Pretty good customizations by default with an elegant approach for adding local settings. The install.sh script automatically symlinks appropriate files as well as downloads vim bundles.

</comment><comment><USER33> Can Stow do hardlinks? The reason I ask is that IIRC systemd shits a brick if your service files are symlinks.

Conversely, I have a script that does this:

[https://github.com/radiosilence/dotfiles/blob/master/relink](https://github.com/radiosilence/dotfiles/blob/master/relink)

All I have to do is maintain a MANIFEST file.

<comment><USER34> uAs I ubderstood, systemd only uses symlinks. Any time you enable a service, systemd executes ln -s ..systemd.. ...service ...

<comment><USER33> Yeah but the services systemd links to cannot be symlinks.

<comment><USER35> On Fedora 18 it most certainly can. I did it yesterday with some service files under /usr/lib/systemd/system for some service files I created

<comment><USER33> Neat! Perhaps it's been updated then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I did not know about GNU Stow. I want to try to use this for my dotfiles along with a simple Makefile to automate calling stow on all of the directories. This will also be a nice way to manage the differences between my home configuration and work configuration. One make rule per environment. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER37> You might also enjoy xstow, a reimplementation in c++ -- in case you might want to use stow without having perl:

[http://xstow.sourceforge.net/](http://xstow.sourceforge.net/)

edit: I use xstow for managing ~/opt -- putting stuff like ~/opt/xstow/golang- git, with symlinks to ~/opt/{bin,lib,man} -- making it easy to add the relevant folders to PATH, MANPATH etc in .bashrc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't see dfm mentioned, curious if anyone has used that? I haven't, but may be interested in trying it out. [https://github.com/justone/dfm](https://github.com/justone/dfm)

</comment><comment><USER39> I use a shell script [0]. It also includes some gconf configuration etc.

[0] [https://github.com/qznc/dot/blob/master/install.sh](https://github.com/qznc/dot/blob/master/install.sh)

</comment><comment><USER27> Pretty neat. I may try it. I just wish there were a way for the dot files themselves to not be actual dot files while in the dofiles directory, but then become dot files when symlinked by stow.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you add more features, like store the settings in a sqlite, universal config r/w interface, and live config change notification to apps, you'll come up with a system like Registry.

<comment><USER13> The difference is that dotfiles are simple, text based, and human readable.

When you re-install a Windows system, do you overwrite the registery with a backup you had? I doubt it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> just for completeness sake and because no one mentioned it yet: [https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick](https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick)

yes, you need ruby for it but I dont really see that as a problem. Its a bit confusing at first (could be just me, but I still dont get why you have basically 2 repos, one managed by homesick and the one you checked out yourself) but it works fairly well. Takes care of symlinking, updating and whatever you want.

</comment><comment><USER42> some files i symlink, some i copy, but i prefer to use the language's import/include/source/load command if the dot file is actually a program rather than a conf file. that way, i can add machine-specific configuration. to anyone who makes tools like gnu stow or those mentioned in the comments:

consider adding support to modify existing dot files as well as replace them.

</comment><comment><USER43> ln -s ~/dotfiles/.bashrc ~/.bashrc

<comment><USER44> I keep the dotfiles in my dotfiles directory without the dots, as there's no need for them to be hidden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm using a bash script [0] too, it is bit complicated because of I've have three different workplaces and some conf files that have account information (such as email passwords) should be hidden.

[0] [https://github.com/seletskiy/dotfiles/blob/master/dotfiles.s...](https://github.com/seletskiy/dotfiles/blob/master/dotfiles.sh)

<comment><USER46> I "solved" that problem by having two repositories: dotfiles & dotfiles- private.

The public repository has .bashrc, etc in it. The private repository has ~/.mutt/work-muttrc, etc in it.</comment></comment>


Follow the CAPEX: Separating the Clowns from the Clouds - <AUTHOR> http://www.platformonomics.com/2018/05/follow-the-capex-separating-the-clowns-from-the-clouds/ <comment><USER2> > But they're way behind, need to spend tens of billions to have a competitive > global cloud infrastructure, and have a much more severe customer problem > than IBM: their customers hate them

Had a good, long laugh at that one. Jesus, is there anyone on this planet that _doesn 't_ regard Oracle as the corporate equivalent of a slimy, violent mob boss?

<comment><USER3> Overall a great read. There's a bunch of funny lines. I like this one:

> You may not get fired for buying IBM, as the old saying goes, but it is > increasingly likely your employer will go out of business if you're in an > industry where technology matters.

<comment><USER4> Talking of great lines...

* "Amazon, Google, and Microsoft each spent more on CAPEX in 2017 than Oracle has in its entire history."

* "That red line you may mistake for the x-axis is Oracle's CAPEX spending"

* "Maybe they are reconciled to sitting at the children's table of cloud, but the problem for both IBM and Oracle is cloud is eating their existing businesses. It has eaten the server business and now starting to feast in earnest on software infrastructure, including the database, which is the profitable heart of these companies."

* "Both companies have acquired a number of SaaS applications, which will bolster their sense of self-worth and belonging in the cloud, but there is little to no platform leverage associated with these apps (and platform leverage = profits!!!)."

* "Watson which is in serious contention to be the biggest "overpromise and underdeliver" in tech industry history, now blockchain as they try to save humanity from our looming existential tomato provenance crisis"

* "And their (IBM's) customer problem is who their customers are at this point: the disrupted. You may not get fired for buying IBM, as the old saying goes, but it is increasingly likely your employer will go out of business if you're in an industry where technology matters."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the more pointless arguments I've gotten into on reddit was one where a guy in an investing subreddit was absolutely positive that as soon as oracle and ibm decided to take cloud seriously, aws would collapse as IT managers around the world would switch to what they know and love.

As if AWS was a mere experiment, and any day now the big boys would come in and show how it's done.

<comment><USER6> Careful not to go too far in the other direction, and under-estimate the power of an entrenched relationship with enterprise IT customers.

Microsoft has become the de facto number two cloud provider, and Azure is now AWS's main competitor. That is in great part because IT managers (and behind them, CIOs and procurement) are familiar with Microsoft products.

<comment><USER7> It's because Microsoft took this shit seriously and built a credible competitor. They are very wisely leveraging their popular enterprise software like Office 365 and Active Directory and branding them as Azure services. Then selling everything under the same enterprise licensing umbrella. Not to mention all the retail companies that are in direct competition with Amazon and would gladly send their money elsewhere. I've switched from AWS to Azure recently and haven't missed a beat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oracle is basically a law firm for their computers. Write contracts, fail to deliver, sue for fees.

</comment><comment><USER8> My question is: what happens to all the small cloud infrastructure startups?

Surely Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr etc don't have the resources to invest in these massive facilities.

Yet, they have customers, and provide options.

How are the big three (AWS, GCP, MS) able to sell on such a scale?

<comment><USER9> The cloud providers provide a lot more than the VPS providers:

\- Arbitrary private network topologies

\- Managed databases

\- Other managed services for the "undifferentiated heavy lifting" of infrastructure like source control, CI/CD, monitoring, log aggregation, alerting, load balancing, encryption, directory services, etc.

As such, they're in a different business - providing single servers for hobbyist and small-business websites - rather than seriously competing with on-prem for big-co infrastructure needs. They're making some attempts to catch up but are far behind.

<comment><USER8> Would love to learn more about the difference.

Since this discussion is "old", I might have to craft an Ask HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Both IBM and Oracle make their own hardware. How does that factor in given the typical margins for "server-class" hardware?

<comment><USER11> > the typical margins

Are you implying that they're particularly high? Reference please :)

I wouldn't be surprised if full list price for "brand name" vendors like IBM, HP, and maybe even Dell (presumably Oracle, too) are inflated, but in every case I've heard of, for even modest volumes, the discounts tend to equalize the prices (well, maybe not IBM) and can occasionally be competitive with SuperMicro.

I'd aregue that the only company that _really_ makes (or at least ultra- customizes/optimizes) their own, to the point of being outside of any "class" of hardware, is Google. I suspect they're the only ones whose capex might be deceptively low because of the cost optimization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do people say CAPEX when they could just say "money"?

<comment><USER13> Because accountants treat it differently to OPEX (operational expenses) when valuing and for taxation, and hence they are separate figures available from companies. Obviously both are important, but growth in customer base isn't forecast by OPEX.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to handle fairness in multi-tenancy system using AWS SQS? - <AUTHOR> I want to ensure fairness in the consumers of SQS, the queue will have messages from multiple tenants, without any prior knowledge of the message frequency and message count from producers.
If The messages are processed in the FIFO order, the resources will be blocked my tenant and my new message my a different tenant will need to wait for the queued messages to be consumed.
I guess it should be a common case in any SAAS system, so I was looking for different approaches to solve this scenario. <comment><USER2> Why not just create a queue per tenant? IIRC, SQS charges per message, not per queue.</comment>


Idea HN: HTML5 Development Environment - <AUTHOR>

I want to start a project to make an HTML5 development environment, similar to the Flash development environment available for desktops. The project would be online, using <canvas> and html. For revenue, it would have a sort of marketplace where developers can swap code and multimedia, perhaps tying in with stock multimedia sites. I would really like being able to also have a font database available to users, since HTML5 allows embedding fonts.
The interface would be capable of vector drawing not unlike Inkscape or the Flash IDE. It would have simple animation support and such. It would also have a basic code editor and some server-side storage for your web pages.
It would be capable of producing an HTML page along with javascript files and folder hierarchy.
This seems a bit complicated, but most of these technologies are either already implemented or straightforward to create.
Would you use it? Do you think it's a worthwhile project? <comment><USER2> I would start with the parts that have perhaps the widest appeal (e.g. fonts, code marketplace) and work your way back to an editor.

The problem with editors is that they have to compete not only on basic features, but compete with every plug-in that ever existed for existing text editors. And on top of that, server-side storage can be a deal breaker (e.g. hobby projects, who won't pay you, may put up with it, but a business would want to keep its own copies of things).

If you can think of a way to package up the server, e.g. so a business could buy the whole thing and run it behind the firewall on their local stuff, you'll be in good shape.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends who you market it to. Seems to me like it would be a great tool for a designer. How do you plan on implementing server side scripts? Hopefully you wouldn't take it as far as needing to install a web server for your editor.

Overall, it's a good idea, but it needs to be done right, or else people will just keep using notepad or eclipse or whathaveyou. You'll need a good plugin engine, preferably one that accepts standard plugins from other editors, as this will further encourage people to use your product. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> I would just do it instead of talking about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like to hear people's feedback so I don't waste my time on something that wouldn't be wanted.</comment></comment>


Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/07/is-your-chip-card-secure-much-depends-on-where-you-bank/ <comment><USER2> So this effectively lets you use chip data to recreate a magnetic stripe, which passes validation when the banks don't check against the right CVV.

Yeah, not great. OTOH I worked on an early EMV implementation almost 20 years ago now, and it was obvious even then that mag stripe was a huge security problem. I'm amazed we're _still_ talking about mag stripes and issuing cards with them in 2020.

They should have been retired over a decade ago.

<comment><USER3> They _were_ retired over a decade ago (in all main use-cases except where connectivity goes down - magstripe is the backup, but thoroughly validated option).. except in the US where there's this idea that implementing chip & pin is a barrier for sales and hurt small business because "upgrading the terminal is expensive" (no it's not - if you can't account for $150 every 10 years on taking payment, you shouldn't be in business - or just use cash).

My guess is lobbying by insurance and reinsurance drove most of that conversation, because the only downside I've seen from chip & pin implementation is that you have to touch the terminal. Paywave and contactless are now mainstream, so this is a non-issue.

<comment><USER4> _upgrading the terminal is expensive_

It's not the terminal upgrade that's the barrier. At many businesses, if you upgrade the terminal you also have to replace the point-of-sale system. Then you have to integrate it with your existing backend sales system, fulfillment system, inventory system, and more. And you're lucky if all of that can then be integrated into your accounting system. Then you have to retrain all of the people who will ever touch any part of the entire process.

You see it as upgrading the terminal because that's all you see. But that is the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

<comment><USER5> Weird how the whole globe managed that, from small city states over third world nations to old established countries. And yet...

<comment><USER6> A lot of the third world leapfrogged to mobile payments and never had widespread credit card adoption. So it's more like 4% of the world hasn't done a thing the 10% of the world that HN perceives as "rest of the world" has done.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, no. Europe and Asia-Pacific all adopted chip and pin just fine (minus China).

<comment><USER6> > Europe and Asia Pacific (minus the majority of Asia Pacific),

so 4% of the world hasn't done something ~15% of the world has done in a situation that isn't even relevant to at least 18% of the world.

<comment><USER3> There was literally nothing stopping the US from following suit apart from culture and lobbying. You're the richest country in the world, it'd be a rounding error.

<comment><USER6> Other commenters have given plenty of reasons. I never understand the obsession Europeans have with getting other parts of the world to be identical to them. Worst part is when we do adopt your practices you start whining about how we copied you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I will never understand why magstripe is still used in the US. Even after EMV became "mandatory" there are still magstripe transactions happening and when you are presented sith a chip reader it's slow and awkward. Why is it such an inferior experience compared to Europe?

<comment><USER8> My understanding for part of it is that magstip readers were much more common in the US, and businesses (a) didn't want to pay to upgrade all their terminals and (b) don't want to turn away a purchase because a customer doesn't have a chip or the chip isn't working.

<comment><USER9> That may have been the case, but pretty much everywhere I go stores have newer EMV capable terminals (e.g Ingenico etc). The only place I really use mag swipe now is a gas station pump (who have no excuse not to switch to contactless EMV).

You'd think with COVID-19, there'd be a rush to move to contactless payments.

<comment><USER10> Lots of gas stations do use the chip, but it's the same process of inserting the card.

<comment><USER9> In New England, I've never seen anything other than a magstripe insert-remove type reader in a gas pump (although I think some do contactless EMV).

FWIW, At least in MA, it's rare to see a gas pump older than 10 years -- I think due to both Federal and MA State UST laws that require fairly recent (e.g. 2019) minimum standards such as double walled, properly cathodized, leak detecting tanks along with subsidies for tank replacement that have resulted in pretty much every gas station around here being totally renovated in the past 5 years or so.

[https://www.mass.gov/guides/massdep-underground-storage- tank...](https://www.mass.gov/guides/massdep-underground-storage-tank-ust- program)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Guessing Visa can "fix" this problem in the same way they fix the fallback to magstripe: make the vendor pay a fee for noncompliance.

[https://www.cardfellow.com/blog/emv-fallback-fees- definition...](https://www.cardfellow.com/blog/emv-fallback-fees-definitions/)

<comment><USER12> They absolutely could, but I was told by folks there that the merchants were pushing back extremely heavily, hence the moving deadline to get rid of stripes.

They were pretty clear that gas pump readers were the biggest issue, as customers dislike centralized outdoor readers or having to go into the establishment, stand in line, and use their counter POS system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hi. I have worked for one of the acquirers (card acceptors) for couple of years, designing and implementing credit card terminals and security infrastructure. I was also security officer.

Basically, credit cards can be very secure. But it also costs. Banks do simple cost/benefit decisions and may in many cases significantly lag behind in technology for various reasons. They get away with this because consumers have absolutely no idea how cards differ and what the options are.

<comment><USER14> But also banks take on all the liability for misuse. Customers aren't liable for fraudulent charges, that's why America has lagged behind Europe on rolling out chip cards, customers don't demand it because they don't pay the price for card fraud.

<comment><USER15> European customers aren't liable for fraudulent charges either, I don't really understand your logic here.

Everyone pays the price of fraud and it's probably one major reason that explains high interchange fees in the US.

<comment><USER16> No, US interchange fees pay for "reward" cards. You charge everybody 5% extra, you give Karen 5% cashback, she thinks you're "rewarding" her and everybody else get screwed, the payment network keeps the difference.

The EU caps the interchange fee, does that mean the networks exit the business because they can't make money? No. Does it mean they've eliminated fraud? No. But it does mean they can't pay Karen 5% "reward" so they don't. There aren't any cards like that in Europe. For everybody else it makes the system cheaper.

<comment><USER17> I can assure you they use part of the interchange fee to cover fraudulent transactions or they offload the risk via insurance covering fraudulent transactions. There's no way the issuing banks or Visa/MC just eat the fraud charges, we all pay for it.

Yes, rewards cards are paid for with interchange fees, but that doesn't mean that's the only thing they pay for. Most people pay more interest than they earn in fees per year anyways _shrug_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> On this topic, if anyone can point me toward a US-based issuer where I can open an account and get a card that supports credit pin (not pin for cash advance on a credit card), I'll happily venmo you a pizza or something. The issuers I have spoken to[1] all tell me it is impossible to get such a card in the US, which seems ridiculous.

[1]: [https://wallethub.com/credit-cards/chip-and- pin/](https://wallethub.com/credit-cards/chip-and-pin/) I discussed each of the cards noted here with the issuers, not one is actually chip+pin credit.

<comment><USER19> I have inquired about this also and found no solution. If I use my US based credit cards abroad where chip and pin is the norm, I end up getting asked to sign a printed receipt.

I imagine the card networks just don't want to spend money to change the infrastructure to support chip and pin because the merchant pays for most the losses in the US?

<comment><USER20> Had many arguments with cashiers in Europe who refused to let me sign receipts and insisted I just enter a pin.

<comment><USER18> Also interesting how there are such specific requirements at grocery stories. None of my US-based cards could be used in several grocery stores in the Netherlands. When the cashier looked at my cards, they immediately knew it was because I didn't support whatever networks they expect.

<comment><USER21> Maestro or VPay they expected, the european old-school debit brands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> OK, so if I grasp this, the problem is that an EMV skimmer gets the card number and an iCVV. The bad guys make a stripe card with that number and the iCVV.

That should not work because banks are supposed to look for the iCVV only on dipped transactions, and look for the CVV on swiped transactions (and the CSC for online/telephone transactions).

Some banks apparently left out the logic of matching the type of code to the transaction method, and so using iCVV in place of CVV works for them.

Even if all banks got this right, though, it seems to me you could still get fraud. The CVV is only three digits. Once you've got the card number just make a stripe card and guess the CVV. If it fails, try another CVV. As long as you don't do too many guesses too close together and cause the bank to lock out the card, you should eventually find the right CVV.

Even if the bank is very trigger happy on fraud lockouts, if your skimmers got several thousand card numbers you are going to have many CVV guesses turn out to be right the first time.

Instead of the stripe on cards that have both EMV and stripe being just a copy of the same card that is in the EMV side of things, shouldn't they be separate? The issuing bank should issue two logical cards for the underlying account, with one being EMV only and one being stripe/online only.

<comment><USER23> I would hope that a card would be flagged as suspicious before a hundred tries. They'd still could get some transactions through, but that would cut the success rate by a couple of orders of magnitude compared to just hoping that the bank won't check.

What really needs to be done is letting go of the magnetic stripe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A Monzo engineer describes nonconformance with specs which might lead some card issuers to be more liberal with what they accept: [https://twitter.com/erincandescent/status/128153445694436147...](https://twitter.com/erincandescent/status/1281534456944361472)

<comment><USER25> That was interesting, thanks for sharing it here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I use my chipped card frequently when going to the grocery store. Pretty much 20% of the time, it won't read the chip, reporting "Chip Malfunction". Even wiping any sort of gunk off the chip contacts doesn't fix it. So you have to go through 3 failed read cycles before it will let you use the mag strip on the back.

Going back to the store a few days later and the same machine will work, I wonder how often the machine's readers are cleaned.

<comment><USER27> A cashier gave me a tip once. Try pushing on the face of the card so the chip end is levered up against the machine tighter. It seems like there is something wrong with the contacts in the reader and do not make appropriate contact with the chip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What if you sidestepped all the chip cleverness and just put cameras to capture the name, CC number, expiration and 3 digits? You'd still need a billing address I guess, but you might be able to get that by looking up the name and disambiguating using the location of the terminal.

<comment><USER29> > What if you sidestepped all the chip cleverness and just put cameras to > capture the name, CC number, expiration and 3 digits?

Apple Cards have just the name on them, which is a nice step in the right direction. (No contactless, though, which is weird.)

<comment><USER2> Why would you need it, you've got an iPhone right?

(semi serious here - I'm sure they want you to use Apple Pay)

<comment><USER30> There is a little thing called COVID. All my main payment cards are contactless now. I am not an Apple card customer.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but if you have an Apple card you're going to have an Apple phone, most probably, and that can do the contactless bit for you. Not sure if apple cards and android phones work, but android-pay is the other option for most cards.

Both are more secure than using the card directly with contactless - you have verified to your phone that it is you using it, by logging in with face ID, touch ID, passcode, PIN, whatever. It's a form of cardholder verification that is missing when you use the card.

That was my (slightly snarky) point - you don't need contactless on the card when you have a smart device that does it better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hold on. PIN is not secure either. With the card reader, you can verify the pin locally: You don't need anything but the card and a card reader. No internet, no nothing.

Since the verification can be done on the client side entirely it's subject to hacking. You can freeze the chip, slowing it down so you can actually see it run under a microscope. You can make it read-only (so the pin miss is not recorded on the chip, aso aso).

There are recorded cases where the card also held a digital wallet and students made it read only so they had an infinite wallet for small expenses ...

<comment><USER32> Most credit card fraud happens by cloning an existing card because the victim will stay unaware of the crime. If you physically steal a card it will be frozen by its owner who will also pay close attention to suspicious transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone have a good detailed article on the crypto behind iCVV/dynamic CVV? This article summarizes how it works, but I haven't found a good detailed article after much googling

<comment><USER34> I found this from a public FirstData document:

"Codes written on the track with equivalent data stored on the chip to prevent fraud. All chip cards are issued with the card security code on the track data stored on the magnetic stripe and chip card security code stored on the chip. Calculated with the same DES key but with a '999' service code"

[https://www.firstdata.com/downloads/marketing- merchant/EMV-A...](https://www.firstdata.com/downloads/marketing-merchant/EMV- A-toZ.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hard to read this site when it's not responsive and the one time I want chrome to offer reader mode, it doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can we link to the actual research instead of this people-doxing clown's article?

Source: [https://geminiadvisory.io/cybercriminals-deploy-emv- bypass-c...](https://geminiadvisory.io/cybercriminals-deploy-emv-bypass- cloning/)</comment>


Collection of Contradictory Advice for Founders - <AUTHOR> https://knowledgeartist.org/articles/747efd5b-ab1d-492f-8dfb-d56aba761617 <comment><AUTHOR> As a founder, I have been quite overwhelmed by the conflicting advice I constantly hear.

Put together the different perspectives side by side, so that it's easier to break out of a single dominant narrative.

I intend to use this for reference to help make sense of all the inputs. Hope other fellow founders find this useful as well!</comment>


American chestnut poised for return to America's forests - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170306092247.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fplants_animals%2Finvasive_species+%28Invasive+Species+News+--+ScienceDaily%29 <comment><USER2> I might be willing to buy a few acres in the countryside just to plant a few hundred chestnuts.</comment>