Introducing Anonymous Login and an Updated Facebook Login - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/04/f8-introducing-anonymous-login-and-an-updated-facebook-login/ <comment><USER2> You're an idiot if you implement this. On iOS, use the device token and implement truly anonymous login without having to deal with anyone else brokering your users' data; I'm not sure what the Android equivalent is, but it can't be much more difficult.

Remember, Facebook is the same company that cuts deals with shady data brokers like the Datalogix (the company that buys your grocery store discount card data and re-sells it, among other things) to build a comprehensive profile of everything you do. Using them for this pseudo-anonymous "anonymous login" helps them a lot more than it will ever help you, as a standalone developer.

I can't wait for Facebook to trademark the term "Anonymous Login," just to complete the irony. Remember, if it was actually anonymous, you wouldn't need Facebook's help to implement it.

<comment><USER3> "On iOS, use the device token and implement truly anonymous login"

* What about the web?

* What about cross-platform?

* What about when the device token changes? (for example, after restoring the phone from a backup image)

My take: Facebook Login solves a real problem well and this 'Anonymous' option is a good improvement. The name is no worse than other industry uses of terms "Incognito", "Private", and "Cloaked".

<comment><USER2> On the web? There's this great new innovation called cookies that allow for site-based identity!

As for cross-platform and token changes -- well, you can't deal with those situations when you're implementing something that's actually anonymous. You're going to have to implement some sort of persistent identity. At that point, you might as well offer a multitude of options, of which Facebook would be one.

This login creates an unnecessary point of friction for all anonymous applications. Just use an existing token (cookie, device token, etc), allow your user to immediately begin using your app (that's what they expect anyhow), and "ease your user in" to a point of giving you identifying information if you need it.

<comment><USER4> How would cookies solve it considering that they are temporary?

Even if the cookie expiration was set for 100 years, it's going to disappear the moment someone switches their browser, gets a new computer, clears their cookies, etc.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention that this does nothing for having the same login for phone and browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Over the years, Facebook has dabbled with a bunch of different ways of apps requesting/handling user permissions and data.

This is not, actually, the first time Facebook has enabled this level of granularity, as far as users being able to grant permissions piecemeal.

It used to be (not sure if it still is) that an app could request one permission here, one permission there, at various points in its application flow. But with each request (in which you could bundle a bunch of different permissions) it was either an "all or none" decision for the user.

This new approach just makes things a little easier, because you can present all of the permissions and data request up front and let the user pick and choose what should be granted.

I think this Facebook thing is really going to take off one day.

<comment><USER7> I really liked their last iteration, where posting to Facebook was walled off from the rest of the permissions, and separately prompted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I never use Facebook Login for sites/apps, not because I don't trust the sites/apps with my FB data but because I don't trust FB with my app usage data.

Now, if I could log into Facebook without giving them access to my data, that would be a killer feature.

<comment><USER9> If a website loads the javascript facebook API on their site, and you're logged into facebook in general, they know who you are and what page you were on when the script was loaded whether you give the site permission or not.

When the http request is made to facebook, they get their domain cookie back which has your user info in it. On top of that, when their javascript runs they get full access to all the data of the window that made the request meaning they get the other site's cookie as well absolutely everything else.

If you don't want to be tracked by facebook online, you only have a few options. Disable cookies, disable javascript, or only login to facebook in an incognito window. Otherwise, they can track exactly who you are and where you go on any site that makes any request to facebook. Even still, if any request is made to facebook, they can still anonymously track you even if you aren't logged in.

As for apps, I don't think the facebook api would be able to find out the specific usage of the app unless the app purposefully gave it up, although they would know when you login.

<comment><USER10> There is also Disconnect.me and Ghostery if you want to block facebook and other trackers without disabling JS

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a developer and user, I love this. For many small apps, it just doesn't make sense to ask people to create a username/password, but I still want a way of authenticating them. This move gives me a way to leverage Facebook for that without users giving up any privacy. A total win/win.

<comment><USER12> Actually at least for me, the concerns are the opposite. I do not want Facebook to know what I am doing. I do not mind you getting my name (though I would consider it rude not not accept a pseudonym of my choice).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The most important thing FB can do is win universal login. And the #1 thing it can do to promote that is restore some faith in its privacy commitment. This is a very smart move.

Of course let's see how they implement it. If the process is too complex, it won't work for users. Given their reputation on privacy - it will be hard to recover. But (almost) no other company has as good a shot at this opportunity.

<comment><USER14> Why should one company control identity and authentication on the web?

What we really need is a decentralized identity platform.

<comment><USER15> I'm working on this problem right now at blockauth.com. Launch is still months away but its an interesting mix of Blockchain publishing, ICANN style franchising, and paranoid levels of verification. The end result will be a federation of OpenID providers that all vouch for a user to confirm that they are a real unique person all while not giving any personal details about them unless they approve.

Basically its what Facebook is proposing but we do background checks on the accounts to ensure they aren't bots. Our privacy policy will be a lot more serious too. No marketing or targeted advertising.

<comment><USER14> Why do you need all that? Just curious.

I am the author of [http://platform.qbix.com](http://platform.qbix.com), and it includes decentralized identity. Each app can run on its own machine/cluster, and communicate with other apps. Each app is itself a user in Q.

When a person using a user-agent authenticates with an app, they can either do it natively (providing, say, their email address) or they can select an external app that they already logged into. The user-agent stores the domain of that app, and it's a simple matter of doing oAuth with that app. Except, of course, the user id isn't given out by the user's "home server" but instead a different "xid" (stands of external id) is given to each consumer app.

In short, an app can start life as a consumer of identity and eventually offer to provide identity. The identity provider doesn't just support oAuth, but ideally would allow the user to publish streams that others can subscribe to and view, import contacts and manage access control (privacy) based on those contacts and labels. Finally, they should be able to connect endpoints (such as their mobile phone, email, facebook account etc.) to receive notifications sent to their account by some apps they've authenticated with.

Whenever an app would need to display personal information back to a user, they could do it without ever knowing their personal info: [http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b](http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b)

What do you think?

In the future we might also encrypt this stuff so governments and others can't get it by simply breaking into the database. I don't have any expertise in this last part, so if anyone does I'd be curious to learn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm bouncing between thinking this is great and this is awful. Ultimately I'm very curious how developers will use it.

The main risk seems to be what happens if Facebook decides to remove Anonymous login. You may have many accounts on your site that had logged in anonymously and participated, but now no longer have a way back in. This seems like an awful scenario, and yet a very possible one -- Facebook is quick to change and remove features on Platform.

<comment><USER17> You have to register your app with facebook, thus this feature could be removed from all new apps while still preserving existing functionality for apps registered before the feature gets removed (if it ever does get removed).

<comment><USER16> Fair point, and hopefully this qualifies under Facebook's pledge to maintain backwards compatibility for 2 years.

But of course there's also the issue that this becomes something that developers themselves can't easily remove once they add it to their app. Or worse, if Facebook decides to block a developer's app from platform. At least with regular Facebook login, most developers requested Email so users could always request that a password be sent to them as an alternate login mechanism.

Developers should be mindful that Facebook explicitly prohibits using Platform to build "competing social networks" (An unfortunately broad category): [http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/24/my-precious-social- graph/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/24/my-precious-social-graph/) And they have a history of enforcing this with the bans of Yandex, Wonder, Vine, and Voxer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't the issue that we don't want to share information with Facebook?

<comment><USER19> For you, perhaps, but not for most people. There have been several occasions where I've wanted to try an app that use only FB login, but it asked for too much information, so I decided not to. Anon login would give me the ability to try these things out, and possibly give me the confidence to allow a real login. (For the record, if an app supports traditional username/email+password login, I'll prefer that, but some support only FB, and understandably so: user account management is hard.)

I'm getting a little tired with how out of touch people on HN seem, especially with regard to things like Facebook. Guess what: the majority of FB's user base does not care about privacy as much as you do. Even people who do care to an extent, and don't implicitly trust FB, are at least comfortable with some level of interaction and sharing on the platform. Anon login is targeted at people who are comfortable with what they share with FB, but are wary of giving their personal info to some random app they want to try.

<comment><USER18> Not sure how few people we're talking about. Within a couple of minutes of posting this comment it had 10+ upvotes.

I'd disagree too, I know many non-HN people who would be happy to switch to something else but Facebook is the incumbent.

I don't disagree with the idea of a "Anon Login" whatsoever, that is a good idea.

<comment><USER20> Comment hating on Facebook gets upvote? Stop the presses.

Maybe I'm misreading you, but it sounds like you believe that upvotes on HN allow you to infer something meaningful about what real, normal people believe. Don't make that mistake. You'll be in for a rude awakening if you do.

<comment><USER18> It's one of many signals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A win for new sites that are starting up and can leverage the FB sign-in framework.

An example: I've wanted to try out [https://giveit100.com/](https://giveit100.com/) since launch, but have been waiting for an alternative sign-in.

Thanks FB!

<comment><USER22> Corrective upvote applied. But maybe don't put a comment to your downvoter in your comments? Downvotes get fixed, and anybody can check your profile to find out whether you are associated.

<comment><USER21> Fair 'nuf! Will nuke the edit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is likely to get traction because generally:

\- people have already signed up with Facebook

\- people don't trust app developers with their FB data, and don't trust app devs not to post crap to their timelines

\- people hate signing up for another service again with email and password (you have to give out your email, you have to create/reuse and remember a password)

The more open question is if it will cannibalize FB logins or get incremental people to sign up with FB (people want to do this anonymously but didn't have the option and gave up).

<comment><USER24> App developers have never been responsible for a leak. I literally cannot find a reference in the Google to an app company leaking user data they were authorized by FB to hold.

You know what I _can_ find? Facebook having leaky permissions for a year and a half.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> HELL HAS FROZEN OVER

<comment><USER26> When are we going to hear the news?

> In a move to bolster its new 'Anonymous' strategy, Facebook has acquired > 4chan for $30 billion in an all-cash deal

> "It's been an incredible journey", said 4chan founder Christopher Poole at a > press conference in Menlo Park, CA. "Our anonymous users have been the > driving force behind 4chan, and we look forward to bringing that experience > to Facebook"

<comment><USER25> That may in fact be the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the exact opposite of the product I want. The group I least want in control of my data is Facebook and their ever changing security/privacy policies.

<comment><USER28> Then don't use facebook login? How is this an interesting point to make at all on this topic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> tl;dr: App gets no data and Facebook still gets the same data. Total win for Facebook.

<comment><USER30> Total win for the user though. Short of using their javascript to spy on the webpage you're on they don't really get any usage data anyway?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is what happens when users are screaming "I want my privacy back" and you are stuck between corporate goals of monetizing users and user experience.

<comment><USER32> Which is a refreshing change compared to how Google has been in recent years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I suppose it still tells that service that I have a FB account. Better than telling them everything about me, I guess?

<comment><USER34> Additionally, Facebook knows _which_ apps you are using anonymously, which could have problematic implications when incorporated with Graph Search.

<comment><USER35> this is exactly what it is. They can still target ads and understand your preferences and behaviour.

<comment><USER36> The horror!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Facebook keeps framing thier role in providing OAUTH as one where they are protecting their users from all the bad guys on the outside. I thought it was clever marketing when I first saw them take this position but it seemed obvious to me that anybody who implemented Facebook login was giving Facebook the upper hand. One party gets free advertising and the other gets a scary looking permissions page that makes them look like an identity thief. In the process, the first party transmutes their bad press into the appreance of good will in countering the second party's apparent bad intentions.

Everybody must have caught on to Facebook's bad will psych game by now so why would anyone keep using Facebook Login?This latest change just moves the bad will to your login page. Every time someone moves to log in they will be reminded who Facebook thinks should be trusted and it's never going to be you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow, it seems like they finally got rid of the minimum e-mail, profile, friends and all that jazz. Just finished reading the dev docs and it seems we can finally limit the minimum scope. Facebook can now just be used as a standard login.

Though they now need to educate users so that they don't still feel that their privacy is being violated.

</comment><comment><USER14> The only benefit of anonymous facebook login over a native session is the supposed "cost" of creating too many accounts, and enabling things like a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack)

Actually I would like to ask if anyone here knows of more good solutions for making creating accounts expensive. Captchas ain't it anymore.

The best one I know is Phone Verification. [http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/making- money/59699...](http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/making- money/596992-way-bypass-craigslist-phone-verification.html)

Buying a cellphone in order to get an account is expensive enough. But is there something better?

</comment><comment><USER39> Nice one. I've been using a Chrome extension called fPrivacy to do this presently on the web, since very few websites actually check to see if they've got all the extraneous information they requested. But it sometimes breaks the login process, so it'll be nice to get rid of it.

Next top feature Facebook should introduce: Automatically generate a new anonymous email address for each app. I can then go into Facebook settings later and prevent any of those addresses from forwarding to my personal address if that app starts spamming or gets hacked. They did have an anonymous email feature at some point, but it wasn't fully ready yet.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is a horrible idea for app developers. If someone wants to sign up for my app, but doesn't want to create a real user account with an email address and personally identifiable information, then I don't have a real customer relationship or anything of value. So, why even make them log in?

I guess I just don't see the point of requiring a user account if it isn't adding value to either the user or the app creator.

One more reason not to use Facebook as a login mechanism I guess.

<comment><USER41> Because, it's a lot easier to just sign up using your Facebook account rather than trying to remember yet another password. But I don't want every little site to know my personal information. It's none of their business. I just want to log in quickly.

Logging in to a site provides more value than just sharing personal information. For me, I rarely, if ever, want a site to know my personal information. That's why I rarely use Facebook login service. Now I will.

<comment><USER42> Agreed, however, there are a few pieces of information that I find useful for Facebook to share. Namely my profile picture and sometimes my friends list. Though gravitar somewhat solves the profile picture problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If anybody else is wondering what the hell "f8" is:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_f8](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_f8)

<comment><USER44> It's like their annual conference for developers. Like Apple's WWDC. Or Microsoft's... (not sure what it's called).

I love the name F8. It's a great play on words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> another idea, but thinking the following:

1\. anyone who wants to use a site has to create an account with a fb "anonymous" login. there would be no more "free" access" because then you can start to tie free user behavior to actual conversion.

2\. Once the user wants to pay, this is tied to giving more information--at least name and email address.

Will be interesting to see the details, because tying free behavior to conversion is a holy grail for marketers.

</comment><comment><USER46> This seems like a fairly natural step for Facebook, as increasing app dependency on Facebook for account authorization is a step towards building a platform.

</comment><comment><USER14> So basically fb gives each app a unique uid for that user so they can't be tracked across apps right? And returns no info for them?

Has anyone actually tried using this?

</comment><comment><USER45> Will developers be able to reject customers who insist on anonymity? If not, I'm inclined to lean away from offering Facebook login.

</comment><comment><USER47> It's a great idea in theory, but a pile of shit in reality. What's the point in using third-party authentication if you get zero data from it? Unlike Facebook, my goal is not to sell user data to the highest bidder, it's to have the user skip the steps where they enter their real name and confirm their email address.

<comment><USER6> While it certainly seems like it does _you_ no good, I can definitely see a legitimate use case for it.

Suppose you're creating a site -- let's call it Hacker News -- that requires a user to log in, and _all you care about_ is the part where they enter their username and password.

From there, you're able to assign the user a unique ID and persist their preferences (e.g. header color) across sessions.

It's not exactly a difficult project to roll your own login system, but Anonymous Login gives you the added advantage of being able to "upsell" users into providing more information, if they feel comfortable sharing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is one case where Facebook is really showing Google how it's done. I mean, Google is failing to get Google Plus accepted as a social layer for Google's _own_ pages, while Facebook is working on getting Facebook accepted as a social layer for _every other site on the Internet_.

</comment><comment><USER49> We seem to start to really fail making distinction between anonymity and pseudonymity.

"Anonymous login" means you provide no identity information whatsoever. If you're "person #123456789" or "f93f9211-9f49-4bad-ad34-e00f8c536b0f" or whatever - you're not anonymous.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is great. As an iOS developer this lowers the barrier of entry for people to try out your app.

</comment><comment><USER51> What is the point of this? I don't want to have to login with facebook at all. If some site has facebook login requirements I simply don't use that site anymore.

If you use facebook login for your site then you are shooting yourself in the foot if you care about users.

<comment><USER52> "If you use facebook login for your site then you are shooting yourself in the foot if you care about users." The vast majority of Internet users would disagree with you here. From the user's point of view, FB login lets you sign up to things in 2 clicks instead of having to fill out forms, most users would consider that a blessing.

<comment><USER51> Then use one of the other implementations. The problem is it being facebook, not the concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How long until Facebook releases a photo app with Anonymous Login as its central feature?

</comment><comment><USER53> If you want truly anonymous login, might I recommend [https://launchkey.com](https://launchkey.com)

Obviously there's nothing truly anonymous about this service if Facebook knows everything about you...

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned SQRL for truly anonymous identification and authentication yet [https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm)

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't know if this is silly, but...

what happens when people blindly trust a button and someone decides to exploit that by making a fake one open a phishing pop up requesting your Facebook credentials? Has this been done?

</comment><comment><USER56> By the way, Facebook already knows you're using an app _before_ you log in, when the app pings Facebook to check the login status. This only prevents usage information leaking back to the app itself.

</comment><comment><USER57> I've used a sudonym for years. FB depresses me? I guess because I see my friends ageing. I did reserve my real name; in case I ever really liked FB, but I am still using a civil war veterans name.

</comment><comment><USER58> Seems like an interesting choice for a demo video to showcase Flipboard (i.e. regarding their own stake in this realm of products, Paper). Granted this isn't about that, but that was fun to think about.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wish this went farther and Facebook only did the "this guy exists" exchange, otherwise not keeping a record that the request ever happened.

</comment><comment><USER60> Does an ad-free, data-collection free and paid subscription based version of Facebook has any chance in the market?

</comment><comment><USER61> I'd like to know why "Anonymous Login" is not the default and single login option.

</comment><comment><USER62> So when are anonymous logins a part of Facebook's privacy plan?

</comment><comment><USER63> Anyone knows when the changes become effective?

</comment><comment><USER64> Too late. Users don't trust facebook no matter what scopes you [don't] ask for and tell people "we never post on your wall".

</comment><comment><USER65> This isn't anonymous login. Facebook still knows what you're logging into. LaunchKey is true anonymous authentication.

</comment><comment><USER66> Anonymity on Internet is a myth.

</comment><comment><USER67> "People tell us"

People don't tell you anything, they don't have a way to do it. Facebook just does whatever it wants without caring about the users, lets cut the BS.

<comment><USER68> A supervisor is a person.

<comment><USER69> Companies are people too.</comment></comment></comment>


Australian Company Calls WiMax a Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/australian-comp.html <comment><USER2> I wonder if the problems he speaks of stem from physical limitations of that particular radio frequency and encoding scheme, or from poor quality equipment?</comment>


Cloudflare: Is anyone else seeing DNS outages? - <AUTHOR> Seems that all our domains on Cloudflare are down. They can't be resolved and we can't even access www.cloudflare.com from several locations worldwide. <comment><USER2> Looks like a thread is starting here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875692)

</comment><comment><USER3>
      $ dig @184.108.40.206 google.com

      ; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P4-5.1+deb10u1-Raspbian <<>> @22.214.171.124 google.com
      ; (1 server found)
      ;; global options: +cmd
      ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

      $ dig @220.127.116.11 google.com

      ; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P4-5.1+deb10u1-Raspbian <<>> @184.108.40.206 google.com
      ; (1 server found)
      ;; global options: +cmd
      ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

<comment><USER4> Both the primary and the secondary going down is a killer. It's enough to make me switch out the secondary to a non-cloudflare DNS.

Even when the secondary works the performance is pretty miserable. Adds about a 1s latency to each DNS resolution while it wait's for the primary to fail.

<comment><USER3> Yep. I quickly logged into my home Pi-hole and unchecked both IPv4 Cloudflare DNS servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just had a sales call w/them the other day and expressed concern about sending domain authority over to them- this doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.

</comment><comment><USER6> Aside from this one issue, is switching to 184.108.40.206 a good idea in your guys experience? Right now I just realized I hvae the DNS for my ISP which is probably how they inject bullshit 404 pages full of ads. What is the fastest/best public DNS in your guys experience?

<comment><USER7> CloudFlare DNS (184.108.40.206 and 188.8.131.52) and Google's DNS (126.96.36.199 and 188.8.131.52) usually have the best latency everywhere. However, if you suspect your ISP is injecting stuff, a VPN service + their DNS might be more useful to improve your internet privacy.

<comment><USER8> Using Firefox and DNS over HTTPS (DoH) will also bypass crappy ISP DNS monitoring / injecting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> yes and funny enough, downdetector is down. started doubting my network until all the same outages confirmed on my mobile link, and mxtoolbox couldn't get a response either.

</comment><comment><USER10> Example: dig +trace boards.4chan.org

            ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> +trace boards.4chan.org
            ;; global options: +cmd
            .   85596 IN NS f.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS b.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS k.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS i.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS l.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS d.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS c.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS m.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS j.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS h.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS a.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS e.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN NS g.root-servers.net.
            .   85596 IN RRSIG NS 8 0 518400 20200730200000 20200717190000 46594 . XHNID5n3ki/LmJxN+XGoIrGMzylmRWBBubInleBI5RBeCTExgAmM4Obw FKtCW970Ured+UFYauKv/l574dMGsv03Jg6/1RAApSZU7GFVsWfffmc9 DRDGijEY6THNV65usIA8rryMSWN0aFqyRxwl3gBQKdglSq6GYm55Pe3T HW9vgHNUJ9ecQOaO3w848VKz7Pznsdw/A+cxCbaBrm1DlvPeaWJPUBIP Xt4ABZaWFQTe/yDK/ZpL1pt1A1iMbZvSpo24Dg1gRCI46N39ZTcYnFf7 48WgcrFCrjA0ay0lKvjGd1Mckgb8ikG2pe+O/FFWVpNuSHuylY8cDEqg gX7ogQ==
            ;; Received 525 bytes from 192.168.1.254#53(192.168.1.254) in 10 ms

            org.   172800 IN NS a0.org.afilias-nst.info.
            org.   172800 IN NS a2.org.afilias-nst.info.
            org.   172800 IN NS b0.org.afilias-nst.org.
            org.   172800 IN NS b2.org.afilias-nst.org.
            org.   172800 IN NS c0.org.afilias-nst.info.
            org.   172800 IN NS d0.org.afilias-nst.org.
            org.   86400 IN DS 17883 7 1 38C5CF93B369C7557E0515FAAA57060F1BFB12C1
            org.   86400 IN DS 17883 7 2 D889CAD790F01979E860D6627B58F85AB554E0E491FE06515F35548D 1EB4E6EE
            org.   86400 IN RRSIG DS 8 1 86400 20200730200000 20200717190000 46594 . buDGmVukWJCS28Ty/Ka/0Qe7Y+ChPRLNRfRNJDim2wPJXxSQR1Ic94pB +YcIZLK9M5jUIZel5aDKwOPdZEZktoWyxkI9993NFPyb9IMo0r4ISQfi PgeiBN8AOB2hjQ1y6owQFVhWQgdURd8yImHrU2seMd5kmYZkoJOL8Xt2 2L+QUxNfcIu5lNbyepaH7G8qkxyiLyWL/dDWNrknFWlQ4VQFxvo7WzlY sthJ3zADAEYRQo3M/Qr6SheiMkGVlM9Ol5W4ZHakJSPnAJsRxTdnthUx 6jPtLfCJ9ALUo4BjxeMCeYzb5Qx1W51dvmY147kRDt0M4DQ02uwKzi0c f/tCVg==
            ;; Received 818 bytes from 22.214.171.124#53(h.root-servers.net) in 24 ms

            4chan.org.  86400 IN NS rita.ns.cloudflare.com.
            4chan.org.  86400 IN NS rick.ns.cloudflare.com.
            4chan.org.  86400 IN DS 2371 13 2 6A733A066EC854DA185286CCFA57A32D5DB8C5423DDA19AE45C8DF62 7E6B3616
            4chan.org.  86400 IN RRSIG DS 7 2 86400 20200807152700 20200717142700 27353 org. NVLL4jjoUlqQGE01bwZmMLUx8KHG+gwMnYgXGdRX1ea782pva0Db2IlU ENiH3NsJhM2poEYltL6ighTX3CBr7T973ZzUJA/kIoRObgIrHJ/B0TiR pNGVodVQWsHKkDNpujwvFgzQYgLvmyKcCw9rIV5HGNxU5QbjcENGs6b7 nq8=
            couldn't get address for 'rita.ns.cloudflare.com': not found

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm realizing how bad the experience is when my computer starts falling back to the "secondary" DNS. It adds a little over 1s latency to resolutions (very noticable).

I wish my computer was smart enough to "healthcheck" the primary and secondary, and fallback to using the secondary as the primary until it becomes healthy again.

</comment><comment><USER11> So I just noticed that my mtr session that I started originally just changed paths and is now going to a different POP and now 126.96.36.199 is back up for me. No clue if the issue is fixed or they just sent a BGP update withdrawing the advertised route for 220.127.116.11 for the impacted POP.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well I just rebooted my modem, but modem + router checked out (I know the IPs). Rebooted the Pi-Hole, seems to be back up now. Cloudflare is the only DNS my Pi-Hole forwards to. I think I will add another, now..

<comment><USER13> Which ones are you going to add? Just curious. :)

<comment><USER14> I've used 126.96.36.199 extensively in the past, and never had any issues. 126.96.36.199 through 184.108.40.206 are run by Level 3

<comment><USER13> Oh, I've heard about it, but I don't like to use it because it returns a search page filled with ads for nonexistent domains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes, can confirm I am seeing the same behavior. Other members on my team in other regions are able to resolve addresses - seems to be hit or miss to a degree based on location.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/) seems like this page is out of date.

</comment><comment><USER17> I can't access my own VPS nor Digital Ocean (which takes care of DNS). Good to know I'm not the only one with issues, at least.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yep. Say [http://npmjs.com/](http://npmjs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> We are. We suddenly can't pull up any of our properties that use cloudflare DNS.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm getting some. 188.8.131.52 isn't responding to any DNS requests for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm seeing this too, I can't even load the Cloudflare website.

</comment><comment><USER22> We are experiencing issues with DNS, Discord seems effected as well

</comment><comment><USER16> Same here DNS is not resolving for several domains and subdomains.

</comment><comment><USER23> Our AppBeat monitoring is reporting Cloudflare issues too.

</comment><comment><USER24> My websites are down. I noticed when some CDNs were down.

</comment><comment><USER25> 18.104.22.168 and 220.127.116.11 are down for me for providing DNS.

</comment><comment><USER16> Same here, DNS domains and subdomains not resolving.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yep, github actions failing because of this too.

<comment><USER27> All my tests passed. The only explanation must be because Github Actions is being affected. My tests would never pass otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yes, experiencing the same issue from the UK.

<comment><USER29> And me. (UK)

<comment><USER30> Same (UK) some sites work, some others not. Thought it was just me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yep, all my sites went down for a bit.

</comment><comment><USER32> AppVeyor has experienced DNS hiccup.

</comment><comment><USER33> using dig with 22.214.171.124 for discord.com and downdetector.com, I'm not seeing answer sections?

</comment><comment><USER34> First twitter and now this....

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't get to chess.com.

<comment><USER36> Lichess is up (and also better)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> downdetector is down. Discord is down. Cloudflare is down.

Looks like a major DNS attack.

<comment><USER38> Hanlon's razor applies here.

<comment><USER6> Ranlon's Hazor</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: International payroll services - <AUTHOR> Hi!
As a fairly distributed open source project, our team is spread all across the European Union, some in the US, and some in Canada. So far, most of our team work as contractors/freelancers, but we are investigating employment options.
It looks like what we want is an international payroll service, but that market turns out to be quite annoying to research.
At this point, our team is small but highly distributed. Specifically, we would want to potentially hire one developer per country, in France, Italy, Spain, and the US.
Our company is based in Germany.
HN, do you have recommendations? <comment><USER2> It is a tough problem because of the overhead in crossing borders; tougher still because you are a small company and that overhead is divided by few workers.

I would think financial integration in the EU should lead to it being easier to provide a service that works in the EU; the "passporting" regulation means that a bank anywhere in the EU can provide services anywhere else and that simplifies life so much.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it even worth doing this? You are generally better off self employed (because one can deduct various expenses) than as an employee, IF you're being compensated correctly (meaning, you're essentially paid "cost to the company" and take care of everything yourself, instead of being paid your gross wage as self employed)</comment>


Dot-brand explosion will shell-shock lazy coders - ICANN - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/01/dev_support_for_gtld/ <comment><USER2> What an incredibly misleading and unjustified title.

"shell-shock lazy coders". Hardly.

String comparisons = cheap.

Pattern matching = more expensive, and is prime to getting it wrong!

A more correct title would be,

> "Profit driven ICANNs new extension breaks developers best practices".</comment>


Tardigrades are now on the moon thanks to a crashed Israeli spacecraft? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/tardigrades-are-now-on-moon-thanks-to-crashed-israeli-spacecraft-water-bears/ <comment><USER2> Is there are global policy to introducing foreign life to other planets? Can anyone do anything terraforming or specified introduction they want? It is very likely we can introduce single cell organisms to at least a few planets or moons in the solar system and they would take, if not at the surface but maybe underground.

<comment><USER3> The moon is a category II body, with the only requirement being potential contamination must be documented. This is an area that has been covered by international treaties since the late 60s.

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

<comment><USER4> Huh? The Wikipedia article you linked puts the moon into

> Unrestricted Category V: "Earth-return missions from bodies deemed by > scientific opinion to have no indigenous life forms."

<comment><USER5> According that Wikipedia page, COSPAR defined two categorization systems, one for missions, one for celestial bodies.

In their 'wisdom', they decided to use Roman numerals I through V for both.

Missions to the moon fall in mission category II, but the moon itself falls in target category V (more precisely _unrestricted_ category V)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Freaking CNET....battling my ad-blockers, not giving up though. I don't even want to see that mess in console. The whole site is just a disaster, slowing to a crawl, as it tries to inject every freaking script known to man on the page.

<comment><USER7> Looks pretty great to me with javascript disabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It wouldn't surprise me if some day we discover they were there before us, anyway.

<comment><USER9> There probably was alot of things in alot of places before us...

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now any finding of life on the moon is subject to confusion over whether it was actually from this crash.

<comment><USER11> Yea, well there's also a few dozen bags of astronaut poop on the moon. Might be some bugs in that, too.

[https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2019/3/22/18236125/ap...](https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2019/3/22/18236125/apollo-moon-poop-mars-science)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminder: Beresheet means In The Beginning and is the title of the book of Genesis in Hebrew.

</comment><comment><USER13> Haven't they ever watched Jurassic Park? Life finds a way. Hehehe.</comment>


Xkcd #1412 Ninja Turtles logo generator - <AUTHOR> http://glench.com/tmnt/ <comment><AUTHOR> Edit: link to comic: [http://xkcd.com/1412/](http://xkcd.com/1412/)

Author here. Some fun things to do with this tool:

Extend the syllable pattern in the comic: [http://glench.com/tmnt/#super_duper_pooper_scooper](http://glench.com/tmnt/#super_duper_pooper_scooper)

Mess with other corporate slogans: [http://glench.com/tmnt/#I'm_lovin'_it_McDonald's](http://glench.com/tmnt/#I'm_lovin'_it_McDonald's) [http://glench.com/tmnt/#just_do_it_nike](http://glench.com/tmnt/#just_do_it_nike)

Terrible historic speeches: [http://glench.com/tmnt/#I_have_a_dream](http://glench.com/tmnt/#I_have_a_dream) [http://glench.com/tmnt/#four_score_and_seven_years_ago](http://glench.com/tmnt/#four_score_and_seven_years_ago)

<comment><USER2> That's fun to play around with. One thing that could make it better: Use a text marker (say, the pipe symbol '|') to allow indicating the appropriate split point for the text. There's many non-four-word examples that don't split particularly well as it stands.</comment></comment>


The music you listen to impacts your creativity - <AUTHOR> http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/2013/06/songs-to-design-by-vol-9-step-by-step/

<comment><USER2> Spam masquerading as an article. Flagged.</comment>


Live From Amazon's Phone Event - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/amazon-phone-live-blog/ <comment><USER2> As a computer vision researcher, I am impressed that Amazon has made the most computer-vision-centric mobile device seen to date. I have no idea if it will catch on, but having a dedicated physical button for object recognition is huge insofar as it means they actually intend for people to be using this all the time, so they'll only be devoting more and more energy to recognizing everything in the world. Sure, it's mostly so you can then buy those things from Amazon, but I have to think there will be other useful applications given the provided recognition SDK.

I'm also curious if developers will have direct access to the four corner cameras on the front, and if the head-tracking it uses for 3D visual effects includes detailed eye/pupil-tracking -- if it doesn't yet, you can be sure that's planned for the future.

Edit: So the dedicated recognition button will already pull up wikipedia entries for recognized works of art. I wonder if they'll ever let third party developers hook into the hardware button so that third party plant- recognition, insect-recognition, action-figure recognition (etc) app results can be called up with that single button push in case Amazon doesn't recognize a purchasable item.

<comment><USER3> 6 cameras total. Sounding like a razor...

<comment><USER4> Although it seems like the only reason for four on the front is so that you can block two with your hand and still have two left for distance finding.

<comment><USER5> Correct. The four front-facing cameras are low res, b&w, low framerate.

ETA: I worked on this feature for lab126.

<comment><USER3> Any chance apps can use raw imagery from those cameras? can imagine some pretty nifty uses (say, true live 3d videophone: use cameras to construct 3d model from low res data, then map color image onto model, just have to transmit already-sent video feed plus modest model data).

<comment><USER5> The API is open as of today, and I suspect you only get information on the events (looked [direction]; peeked [direction]), not raw data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This phone is exclusive to AT&T. Not sure why this late in the game they would want to sell only through one carrier and that too AT&T!

<comment><USER7> They probably get ads and displays in the retail stores. I think it'd be hard to launch a new phone brand without a retail presences even for Amazon.

<comment><USER8> I thought this was a good point until I realized the traffic Amazon has to it's home page and how many of it's devices are Top 5 sellers in major categories. Still, you could be right that they wanted even _more_ than just Amazon alone could do for the phone.

<comment><USER7> Google has a pretty popular homepage too, but I bet having the phones available in stores led to more sales.

(Well, OK, and they were also really cheap or sometimes free with a new plan.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am looking at this from a media consumption perspective. While Apple, Google, and Microsoft (and OEMS) try to out do each other in the spec race. Amazon has always catered to users consumer habits. From their early beginning selling books to their entrance (dominance) with digital books, Amazon has always focused on facilitating content/media/physical goods consumption. The Kindle Fire tablets have led up to this phone. This phone will succeed in facilitating users to purchase from Amazon and Amazon alone.

<comment><USER10> How is this any different than what, say, Apple does? Even Google is onboard the closed "experience" these days.

<comment><USER9> Apple is not facilitating the "purchase" of goods either digital or physical with one button on the iPhone. Bezos did outline the phone's specs, but the goal was to show the audience how the phone can "see" the world around itself. The phone is the first consumer product to be aware of its surroundings. It uses the data to ease purchases for the user. MY Nexus 5 makes search easy with google now, voice commands, and chrome. But this phone will make buying easy, in theory. Like I mentioned above, I am not looking at this from the perspective of the smartphone market. As in will it do well or will tech bloggers like it. But, as in will the end user find it easier to purchase goods using the physical world as intent triggers.

<comment><USER11> The iPhone is very cleverly designed to facilitate purchases in the iTunes and iOS App stores. You need to register the device with an account and credit card just to use it. If that's not a seamless consumer experience, I don't know what is.

<comment><USER12> This phone allows you to point your device to basically anything "media" and buy it. Pointing the phone at the television, identifying the actor on TV and buying some movie is a very powerful feature for people interested in consuming media...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Surprisingly high price, even on contract! I was thinking they would pull another Prime tie-in (say $49 as long as you are on prime and do not cancel).

Also in this day and age, being AT&T exclusive is a real puzzler. What does Amazon hope to gain by this?

Jeff is usually lauded for his OOTB thinking but here we see all the hall marks of following the very beaten path...

Edit: And there it is! Includes a year of prime with the price of the phone (as revealed at the end)

<comment><USER8> " And there it is! Includes a year of prime with the price of the phone (as revealed at the end)"

\- That seems different though to your initial point that the phone itself would be cheap hardware as long as you're tied to a service subscription (Prime) This is the other way around.

<comment><USER4> Since the year of Prime can be used by existing Prime customers, it seems about the same. If you have Prime already, and plan to renew, buying this phone would only cost you $99 more than not buying it.

<comment><USER14> Dont forget the contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> $200 price point is silly for a device that seems to be fine-tuned to make you buy things. They should be selling it at a loss, not charging the same as an iPhone.

<comment><USER8> I don't mean this in an Apple snarky way but maybe they'll pull an Apple and price it high for a short period of time and then drop the price after the early adopters. That way you can sort of have your cake and eat it too. Buyer's of the phone don't feel 'bad' carrying it around based on it being "of that's that cheap Amazon phone" Avoid the problem the 5C seemed to run into.

<comment><USER16> Classic price discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So far there's nothing all that new or earth shattering. (although those no tangle earbuds look nice) I felt like this phone was going to be super tied in to payments but so far no. I wonder if it's a smartphone aimed at the 'rest of us' who are intimidated by iPhone and Android?

<comment><USER3> Numerous cameras used to track user's viewpoint, allowing fake (but good) 3D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's $199 with a 2 year contract with AT&T, meaning it's a $649 phone (now confirmed). It's priced with other 'premium' phones like the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S5 (both $199 with a 2 year contract, $649 off contract at AT&T). Unfortunately, Amazon's other products like the Kindle Fire are anything but premium hardware and software-wise. On the software side this is partially due to the Amazon-first mentality for all media and partially due to the extremely clunky Amazon UI and app store. Then again, I wouldn't consider Samsung a 'premium' phone software-wise either due to my poor experience with the Galaxy S4's clunky setup after coming form 'pure' Android. It's still far better than the Kindle Fire, though.

</comment><comment><USER18> No word on the battery. Will this be yet another phone I have to strategically place chargers in my car, office, and home for because it's down to 15% by 2PM?

<comment><USER19> thank you. who cares about 3D lock screens if it's not even going to make it through a day on a single charge.

Look at all these amazing features....you will need to turn off in case you want to actually use this as a phone....

<comment><USER18> My thoughts as well. I despise that every new phone can't last a whole day of heavy use without a charge. It is the pits when I'm at a music festival or some other event and my phone starts to die midday. I just need access to my favorite apps and an OK camera, I'd give up almost every feature other than those for stellar battery life. Other features are great but let's focus on battery life.

<comment><USER4> If it's just an occasional problem, I'd suggest getting one of those USB battery packs. You can get something that will recharge your phone 3 or 4 times for $40.

Buyer's guide: [http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-usb-battery-pack- trave...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-usb-battery-pack-travel/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't decide whether Amazon should be credited for trying out new things and pushing technology forward or criticized for their stupid attempts at locking you in to their infrastructure.

Fire TV was the same way. Cool device except that everything that wasn't Amazon was a second class citizen.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ouch exclusive to AT&T + $199, 2 year contract. Anyone think this is going to sell?

<comment><USER22> I think it'll do better than the Facebook HTC One, but I otherwise expect that it's going to seriously struggle. Even an uneducated consumer will rapidly realize that they don't have access to Google's apps, or Apple's apps, or even many common third-party apps that they're used to having, and the contract price puts it on par with an iPhone 5S/Samsung S5—i.e., it's got premium pricing, despite its inferior ecosystem.

That said, I have to admit that being able to give my parents a smart phone with 10-second delays to talk to a human is tempting. I've thought of giving them a Fire tablet for the same reason.

<comment><USER11> What does it say about their UX, that Amazon need to have human assistants one click away? The iPad is so intuitive that toddlers, grandparents, and everyone in between can figure it out in minutes.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps it says that "we're so confident that the UI is easy to use that we're going to put our money where our mouth is and give you incredibly easy to use live support".

It doesn't take very many minutes in support calls to completely eat any profit Amazon has on a phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Everyone thought Amazon would undercut, but it makes sense that Amazon is targeting high-end flagship phones with the device. They're definitely not messing around. The 3d features are obviously unique, and the camera makes it a serious contender for the 1-device crowd. The Android base gives it an instant familiarity. It remains to be seen whether FireOS is going to be easy to adopt.

I'm disappointed by the AT&T exclusivity, but I actually see good reasons behind it. Amazon is new at phones, and they've had limited success with advertising campaigns. AT&T is still big enough to throw money around, but they're haemorrhaging users shockingly fast. AT&T has an incentive to market Amazon's product, and they should be willing to given the success the iPhone brought them. Amazon has something AT&T wants, and they'll pay for it once with the contract and twice for advertising. AT&T will basically offer Amazon a strong market foothold.

The announcement said the screen was 720p and the product page says 1080p. Was this just a mistake from Bezos?

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's a link to the Amazon detail page for the Fire Phone: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EOE0WKQ](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EOE0WKQ)

</comment><comment><USER26> "Unlimited Free Photo Storage" is huge.

I would estimate that 80% of my current DropBox capacity is photos alone.

I hope Amazon nails this and forces Apple & DropBox to respond.

<comment><USER22> EDIT: Nope, I'm wrong; as pointed at below, Apple charges $1/month for unlimited service, whereas Amazon's offering it free.

INCORRECT FORMER COMMENT: Apple has already thrown unlimited photo storage into iOS 8 ([http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/photos/](http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/photos/)), so I'd say they've responded preemptively. :)

<comment><USER27> I thought the same thing and almost posted your exact comment, but if you click the second slide, it says:

"iCloud Photo Library helps you make the most of the space available on your iOS device, so you can spend more time shooting pictures and less time managing them. It can automatically keep the original high-resolution photos and videos in iCloud and leave behind lightweight versions that are perfectly sized for each device. You get 5GB of iCloud storage free, and other storage plans will start at $0.99 per month."

So it would appear that Apple is making a more seamless way to store and view all your photos on iCloud rather than on device, but is still charging you if you exceed 5GB worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am eager to see the tangle free design for earphones via flat cables. I hope it is not a PR stunt.

Context - [http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/img_4425...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/img_4425.jpg?w=680)

<comment><USER29> You can wrap arbitrary headphones using your hands into a tangle-free design without the aid of a billionaire. It unfolds very easily:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaXcNzxAB00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaXcNzxAB00)

I don't bother tying them off (I stop around 0:45), and just bunch it up and stuff it in my pocket. When I pull out my headphones they are never, ever tangled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The head tracking controlled perspective changes in 3D games seems like it'll be awesome.

<comment><USER31> Do you swing your head or phone about while you play video games? Why do you expect to?

<comment><USER30> The phone mostly.....

The one mobile game which I have poured a lot of time into is Real Racing 3. Tilting the phone like a steering wheel for analogue driving input is awesome.

Combine that with head tracking to allow analogue acceleration and breaking control by tilting the phone forwards and backwards would be excellent.

On the other axis I can image controlling the view point slightly to allow looking to your left and right, even just checking wing mirrors.

And those thoughts are just about a game which already exists. I can also start to dream about game mechanics which haven't been possible until head tracking......

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not sure why they would only want to sell this in the US. This exclusive deal with ATT ruins any chance of this being successful in this age of contract free phones and the cheap Nexus line.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would have ordered it instantly at up to $199 carrier-free.

$199 with a 2-year ATT contract? Pfft. No way (and I'm a long-time Prime customer with a FireTV and multiple Kindles).

<comment><USER4> But you are talking about a $199 phone vs. a $650 phone. The features on those phones are going to be wildly different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Video predictive caching? I would assume this isn't on the phone, unless they got a sweetheart bandwidth deal with AT&T.

<comment><USER35> They could cache over wifi (eg sequential tv episodes for binge watchers) and actually decrease use of cellular bandwidth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Anyone wonders why on earth they (Amazon) don't live stream it? I see only benefits in doing it...

</comment><comment><USER37> What does $27/month mean? Surely no one would pay $27/month instead of $199 up front.

<comment><USER38> The $27/month via AT&T Next doesn't lock you into a 2-year service contract.

Actually, the current AT&T Next offering isn't bad, they simply take the full price of the phone and divide by 20 or 24 months.

If you cancel service before the end of the period, you owe the balance of the price of the phone. It's essentially a 0% loan for the phone.

(BTW, the $27/month installment price means the Fire Phone's real price is ~$650)

<comment><USER4> And the second important thing is that if you are on a 10 GB or higher Mobile Share Value plan, an off-contract smart phone costs you $15 instead of $40.

[https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data- plans.html](https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html)

So, on Next, you pay $27 per month for the phone, but $25 less for the plan, so $2 more a month or a total of $48. And you need to pay sales tax on the phone, so that's another $50 or so. But the contract plan had to pay $199 up front. So you come out about $100 ahead over the life of the contract.</comment></comment></comment>


How Social Media Exploits Our Moral Emotions - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/how-social-media-exploits-our-moral-emotions <comment><USER2> While social networks should make improvements to facilitate healthier communication, mean comments and pitchforking is not exclusive to social networks in any way.

If you were on a forum and said a racist comment like the one in the article, if people didn't like it you would probably be put on blast and have ruined your reputation on that forum as well. Difference is that it's not your face. If you feel like it's okay to say racist things, you probably are not going to realize your mistake unless called out by someone.

So to me it seems like social media is just piggybacking on the proclivity of people's desire to be seen and heard.

<comment><USER3> I'm honestly sick of people wanted to be heard. Almost nobody has anything interesting to say. It's all noise for attention. Just like my post here I guess.

<comment><USER4> That and people being enraged by just about everything. There's a lot in the world to be troubled by, but to always have visceral reactions towards things happening around the world must be taxing on one's health. I don't think a day goes by where I don't see a post by someone making a banal statement about some issue... and I'm supposed to "like" that they've managed to think the same things millions of average Joes and Janes already believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great TED talk on the original twitter kerfuffle referenced in the article:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI)

CGP Grey's take on how outrage is used to exploit us through social media: (Yes, I link this often, because the message is valuable.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)

</comment><comment><USER6> A good rule for using social media responsibly: When you wish to express yourself, consider if your self-expression is of value to the people who hear it. If you are encouraging other people to be angry, it probably isn't.

<comment><USER7> I would agree with one caveat: focusing anger at causes of human suffering is A-OK.

Although, maybe it's too hard to efectively generalize social media usage like that.

Is it possible to design a system that can ONLY be used responsibly? At lease in matters of expression?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Many social media companies now appear to agree with Brady and are making > efforts to address some of the concerns that research like his raises. > Twitter, for example, recently announced an open call for proposals on how > to improve "conversational health" on its platform. And last October, Reddit > rolled out a more robust policy for actively monitoring its discussion > boards.

Those initiatives weren't designed to lessen the "exploitation of moral emotions", they were designed to give preference towards the extreme moral emotions of a particular world view.</comment>


Library Internals Do Not Exist - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fagnerbrack/library-internals-do-not-exist-1ff50a30e3b0 <comment><USER2> I'm glad that JavaScript crowd starts to discover concepts well-known dozen years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually most experienced people already know it, it is more about the small portion that doesn't.</comment></comment>


Reminder: Post Startup School Distributed Open House Happening Now - <AUTHOR> http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=215628409610962086871.0004b0279e5085205064a&msa=0&ll=37.653383,-122.242126&spn=0.935042,1.562805 Come visit any of us in the SF-Bay area!
Addmired 555 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto.
Aerofs 639 High St, Palo Alto.
Airbnb 99 Rhode Island St, Second Floor, San Francisco.
Comprehend Systems 235 Alma St, Palo Alto.
Dropbox 760 Market St, Suite 1150, San Francisco.
Greplin 300 Brannan St, Suite 501, San Francisco.
Heyzap 251 Kearney St, Third Floor, San Francisco.
Justin.tv/TwitchTV 23 Geary St, Suite 800, San Francisco.
Scribd 539 Bryant St, San Francisco.
Stripe 522 Ramona St, Palo Alto.
WePay 455 Portage Ave, Suite B, Palo Alto. <comment><USER2> I'm just leaving to visit some of the startups in Palo Alto.

<comment><USER3> You were at Stripe so briefly that we couldn't even get over to that side of the room before you left! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And after the DOH, have some drinks and meat at Hacker House at 354 Poe St in Palo Alto! <https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=309750265707523></comment>


Tell HN: Weird footage of oil spill on CNN.  - <AUTHOR>

There is a video posted on CNN here: http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2010/06/08/vo.new.oil.spill.high.resolution.bp.html<p>If you watch the top right corner of the video just beyond the pipe, you`ll see a door open at 37 seconds in. What's up with that? <comment><USER2> It was filmed from the inside of a submarine, and the door is in the reflection of the glass. Maybe someone came in from another compartment of the sub during filming?</comment>


With Hi-Gear Closing, Here's my contact with the CTO - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/1549079

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclosure: before the whole completely ignoring me after these brief tests to show that I'm qualified thing; Dan Gailey was a very nice person and the reason I view HackerNews daily.</comment>


The C standard formalized in Coq - <AUTHOR> http://robbertkrebbers.nl/thesis.html <comment><USER2> Note that this formalization is substantially incomplete: check page 195. CH2O does not formalize variadic function, float, bit field, setjmp/longjmp. All of them are formalized in KCC.

[https://github.com/kframework/c-semantics](https://github.com/kframework/c-semantics)

<comment><USER3> That's true. The immediate-term impact is probably minimal, for the reasons you mention. However, this is a _major_ accomplishment. As this work is built upon, its longer-term impact has the potential to be very significant.

<comment><USER2> I agree it is a major accomplishment. I have doubts about its impact, because I am unsure whether it will be built upon.

CH2O's main innovation is C standard (as opposed to C implementation) formalized in general purpose prover (as opposed to custom system). KCC formalized C standard, but not in general purpose prover. CompCert formalized in general purpose prover, but formalized implementation instead of standard.

Formalizing in general purpose prover is useful because you can use all of math to prove runtime invariants. But if you want to prove runtime invariants, you usually want to prove with respect to concrete implementation, not to prove abstractly to standard. For time when you want to prove abstractly to standard, this doesn't seem better than KCC.

In short, this feels like Not Invented Here against KCC. Probably unfair characterization, but that's what it feels to me.

<comment><USER4> So, you say they did a KCC-like thing in a theorem prover that could do more than KCC. Then, that it's just NIH syndrome against KCC? Seems contradictory. If anything, one would just have to tweak it on a per compiler basis to get it more toward how each implements that behavior. Then it becomes closer to what CompCert did but more flexible.

That's where I'd go. Extending KCC to do what a theorem prover could seems more challenging.

<comment><USER5> That seems to be what he says, but after the first part he disregards that as not useful. Another comment points out following the standard is good for portabilities sake. Somehow, that all seems obvious to me.

<comment><USER4> That was the build up. It led to the following statement and conclusion:

"For time when you want to prove abstractly to standard, this doesn't seem better than KCC. In short, this feels like Not Invented Here against KCC. Probably unfair characterization, but that's what it feels to me."

The obvious interpretation is commenter thinking KCC is better and (see NIH) the OP should've maybe done something with it instead...?

" Another comment points out following the standard is good for portabilities sake. Somehow, that all seems obvious to me."

You can follow the standard and be portable if you keep certain parts as options subject to interpretation/choice of the implementers. That's the so- called undefined behavior mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One issue with this is that the text of the C standard isn't actually enough to unambiguously determine what the committee (and compiler vendors) intend for the language to mean in practice.

The official standards mailing lists for C and C++ are constantly filled with issues regarding inconsistencies in the ISO standards, and for C++ at least people often resort to trying a code sample in multiple major compilers to decide what it's "supposed to do" when the standard is unclear.

It might be a bit better with C, but I once tried to start implementing a toy C++ compiler by following the text of the standard literally and it became impossible pretty quickly. There are so many pieces where you are just expected to know what they intend and what inconsistencies can be ignored because you're already familiar with the language that it would be difficult to call any one person's interpretation a formalization of the standard itself.

<comment><USER7> > the text of the C standard isn't actually enough to unambiguously determine > what the committee (and compiler vendors) intend for the language to mean in > practice.

Interesting! If the standard is under-specified, then presumably this student must have had to fill in some of the holes themselves, or found a way to represent multiple interpretations simultaneously.

> issues regarding inconsistencies in the ISO standards

If the standards are inconsistent (in a logical sense), and this formalization is sufficiently complete, it should uncover those inconsistencies since they would amount to type errors in Coq. I wonder if the author had any of those difficulties.

> trying a code sample in multiple major compilers to decide what it's > "supposed to do" when the standard is unclear

One of the effects a project like this could have is to make this (at least theoretically) unnecessary to do.

> implementing a toy C++ compiler by following the text of the standard > literally and it became impossible pretty quickly

Fortunately C is a much smaller and simpler language than C++. Isn't the C++ standard almost 1000 pages? I'm not sure what the C standard is but it must be quite a bit smaller.

Regardless, it's a PhD thesis so the difficulty of the task isn't a reason not to attempt it :)

<comment><USER8> > Fortunately C is a much smaller and simpler language than C++. Isn't the C++ > standard almost 1000 pages?

The language specification itself is only about ~450 pages, the rest is library. It of course inherits all of the insanity of C on top of that (~170 pages of C language spec), which I'd argue brings a disproportionately large share of the pain.

Alex's point is that the standard doesn't really begin to give you an idea how hard it is to write an implementation, or make decisions about everything that's unspecified or ambiguous.

<comment><USER9> The C standard doesn't exactly "inherit" the 170 pages of the C language spec. As far as I know, the core C++ language (excluding the library) is defined entirely by the C++ standard, without reference to the C standard. It was certainly based on C, but the description doesn't depend on it.

The C standard _library_ is incorporated by reference (with a few tweaks) into the C++ standard. Of course the C++ standard library also includes a lot of material that isn't in the C standard library.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Heh. CH2O = _formal_ dehyde

</comment><comment><USER11> I would strongly encourage anyone interested in formal methods (and formal proofs in particular) but may be intimidated by dependent types, which serve as the basis for Coq (and are foreign not only to software developers but to most mathematicians as well) to give TLA+[1] a look. It is a decade younger than Coq (16 vs. 26), but simpler to use, much more gradual, and has had industry adoption pretty much since its inception.

Instead of dependent types (in fact, TLA+ is untyped[2]) It is based on simple ZF set theory and logic, and should be immediately familiar to anyone who's taken even one logic (or discrete math) course in college. In addition to a proof assistant it has a good model checker, comes bundled in a nice (relatively speaking) IDE, and is easy to learn (with a thorough tutorial written by Leslie Lamport himself).

TLA+ is also more widely used in the industry -- both hardware and software -- perhaps most notably in the software industry by Amazon, who use TLA+ to specify many of their AWS services. TLA+ is a formal specification (and verification) tool designed for engineers and used by engineers. Although, to be fair, neither tool is used by a large portion of the industry.

EDIT: Removed potentially incendiary Lamport quote.

EDIT: Changed an incorrect statement about Coq's use in the industry

[1]: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/tla/tl...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/tla/tla.html)

[2]: See _Should Your Specification Language Be Typed?_ by Lamport and Paulson: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/l...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/lamport-types.pdf)

<comment><USER12> A note for the unitiated: There is a tension between TLA+ and Coq et al. (typified by statements such as "weird computer-science math") that is similar and maybe even rooted in to the sorts of culture wars that sprout up around programming languages (see [2] of parent's post for a perfect example of what I'm talking about...)

The characterization in pron's post is decidedly biased toward TLA+ in a way that I think is unnecessary. A few correctives:

* Coq has seen plenty of industry adoption. To say that type-theoretic theorem provers (or the Coq system specifically) are merely academic toys compared to TLA+ is wrong.

* "Normal" mathematicians (not just "weird Computer Science-type" mathematicians, whatever that means...) have used and extolled the virtues of Coq as a tool as well as its theoretical foundations. See e.g., the univalent foundations project. Regardless, I'm not sure I understand why "Computer Science-type math" is an unreasonable foundations for a _program specification tool_ , which is what TLA+ is. And if the goal is formalized mathematics, you're probably better off with Coq (and it's not even clear that the TLA+ community is interested in that sort of thing, independnet of results useful in the course of a program specification/verification task.)

* If you're familiar with (esp. typed) functional programming, you might find Coq even easier to get into than TLA+. On both sides of the type theory vs sets/axioms divide, people should be careful not to confuse one's predispositions based upon educational background with the actual mental load of learning to use a tool.

There is room for both of these tools (and more!) in the world. I don't understand why they have to be in competition. A formalization of the C standard is a HUGE undertaking, independent of what tool was used. Let's celebrate that achievement!

<comment><USER11> BTW, what is the justification for using dependent type rather than stating assumptions/theorems directly in predicate logic over set theory (as in TLA+)?

Lamport has this to say on the matter:

 _The main virtue of these type theories is precisely that they are constructive. A constructive proof that two arbitrary numbers always have a greatest common divisor provides an algorithm for computing it [Thompson 1991]. Researchers, using tools such as Coq and Nuprl are investigating whether this can lead to a practical method of synthesizing programs._

 _You can perform classical reasoning in a constructive type theory by adding P ∨ ¬P as an axiom. The resulting system will probably be strong enough to handle any specification problem likely to arise. However, it will be no stronger than ZF, and it will be much more cumbersome to use._

In the end, he opted for set theory because it is simpler, more familiar, and more flexible. Are there any advantages to using dependent types? Is the main advantage indeed synthesizing programs from proofs?

<comment><USER12> _> Is the main advantage indeed synthesizing programs from proofs?_

It's one major advantage, yes. And not just for the sake of software verification. Sometimes when proving a non-CS-type-math theorem you still want an efficient implementation of an existence proof.

But code synthesis is a lot harder than merely being constructive, and efficient code synthesis even more so. Use cases for Coq that depend upon code synthesis don't come for free just by avoiding LEM. So although it's fair to say that you can do classical reasoning in Coq, I'm not sure saying you can do synthesis from TLA+ if only you avoid LEM is fair at the moment (I might be wrong).

 _> Are there any advantages to using dependent types?_

Here are a few other reasons for using Coq:

* Proof terms. There are two major disagreements here. The first grounds out in philosophy and the second basically amounts to "you really want to compose the proofs and make sure they are still a proof instead of just throwing away the proof and using the theorem" which has lots of good systems-y justifications

* Specifically wrt TLA+, Modus Operandi matters. If you want a formal proof in the typical sense of the word (rather than a verification of fact based upon model checker output), then Coq userlands's tactics and theorems are useful.

* Lots of people like to disparage the amount of algebra that FPers talk about. But it turns out that if studying those algebraic structures is your day job, the relationships between types and algebraic structures makes type theory convienant.

 _> simpler, more familiar_

This is almost definitionally subjective. Which isn't meant as a criticism, in-so-far as one realizes that other people might have different experiences and so might (just as validly) consider other formalisms more familiar.

 _> and more flexible_

There are (obviously) a lot of people who fundamentally disagree with the concrete arguments Lamport makes in this paper. I wish someone would annotate the paper with references to literature from the type theory community that address some of his concerns.

For the record, I don't disagree with Lamport. I think Lamport is _right_ \-- for some use cases, it certainly makes sense to stick with ZF. But he's also _wrong_ \-- sometimes, the type theoretic approach really is simpler, more familiar, and more flexible. E.g., in the case of this dissertation.

<comment><USER11> > If you want a formal proof in the typical sense of the word (rather than a > verification of fact based upon model checker output), then Coq userlands's > tactics and theorems are useful.

TLA+ has them, too.

> in-so-far as one realizes that other people might have different experiences > and so might (just as validly) consider other formalisms more familiar.

So you think some people are more familiar with type theory than with undergrad-level set theory (ZF)?

> sometimes, the type theoretic approach really is simpler, more familiar, and > more flexible. E.g., in the case of this dissertation

I don't see it (probably because my type theory is very, very basic; I'm an algorithm's guy and the thought that a data-structure of mine might need type theory to be specified makes me shudder), as in I fail to see anything that isn't readily expressible in simple classical logic + temporal logic. Could you explain?

<comment><USER12> _> TLA+ has them, too._

Like I said, modus operandi matters. If I have to perform another model checking routine (possibly on an infinite state space) to slightly generalize a theorem, then in many cases that means I never really had a useful proof of it in the first place.

Also, Coq's mathematics library is extensive and often closely follows the proofs found in graduate mathematics text books. Last I looked into TLA+, it was squarely focused on algorithms and hardware (not even CS-related mathematics more generally -- specifically algorithms and hardware).

 _> So you think some people are more familiar with type theory than with undergrad-level set theory (ZF)?_

Do I think there exists some population of people who are "more familiar" with type theory than with ZF? Yes, starting, for example, with every researcher whose primary area of study is type theory. In fact, I think that anyone who doesn't honestly believe there are such people must have an extremely low opinion of quite a number of very smart people.

(Also, set theory qua set theory gets really disgusting and kludgey really quickly, and is something that almost no undergraduate (or even phd student) is exposed to these days. The "set theory" you see in a discrete math course kind of barely scrapes definitions. I think most people who posit that "set theory" is nice and simple must've never really dove deem into the actual theory of set theory...)

(Also, most real math these days quickly abstracts away from germanely set theoretic constructions. Mathematicians don't work in ZF. They do not. Most will _tell you_ they do not, if they even know what ZF is. Which a lot won't, because their undergrad discrete math course is probably the last time they saw a truly formal derivation. And the mathematicians who do know what ZF is often can't regurgitate an axiomatization of ZF. If you tell a mathematician that all of math is just set theory, most will chuckle and wink and say "why, yes, yes it is", and hopefully you're in on the joke...)

 _> I don't see it... I fail to see anything that isn't readily expressible in simple classical logic + temporal logic. Could you explain?_

Did you read this dissertation's explanation of why separation logic is important?

To the extent that this observation is remotely reasonable, it's only in the sense that you can code up one logic in another. Which, well, all the world's a TM, as they say...

Anyways, I think the argument over whether type theory is a successful foundations for CS research and practice is already a closed issue. It demonstrably is. So is set theory.

<comment><USER11> > If I have to perform another model checking routine

Why model checking? TLA+ is not a model checker. It's a specification and proof language. There _is_ a model checker that can check TLA+ specs, just as there is a proof assistant that can check TLA+ proofs.

> must have an extremely low opinion of quite a number of very smart people.

Why low opinion? Type theory isn't "smarter", it's just more obscure.

> The "set theory" you see in a discrete math course kind of barely scrapes > definitions. I think most people who posit that "set theory" is nice and > simple must've never really dove deem into the actual theory of set > theory...

Thankfully, that basic set theory -- the one that barely scrapes the definition -- is all that's required to specify real-world programs.

> Did you read this dissertation's explanation of why separation logic is > important?

Skimmed it. Unless I'm missing something (which is quite possible) it seems very straightforward to use in TLA+: you just define the operators just as they're defined in the paper. There's no need to "code" the logic in any arcane or non-obvious way; just define it. In fact, this short paper describes doing just that and it seems pretty basic: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.570...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.570.3798&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

> Anyways, I think the argument over whether type theory is a successful > foundations for CS research and practice is already a closed issue. It > demonstrably is.

It never even crossed my mind to make the case that it isn't. That type theory is an interesting topic for research is obvious. I also never implied that dependent-type tools can't do the job; as you say, they demonstrably can. I simply asked if I -- a programmer working in the industry -- had a program I wished to verify, whether there was a reason why I would reach for a dependent-type tool vs. a classical logic tool. So far, I don't see why I should. It seems to basically boil down (at least according to the responses in this thread) to whether I prefer working with direct, classical logic or with dependent types.

<comment><USER12> _> TLA+ is not a model checker. It's a specification and proof language. There is a model checker that can check TLA+ specs, just as there is a proof assistant that can check TLA+ proofs._

For the third (!) time, modus operandi matters.

Coq's huge library of tactics and proofs of facts that TLA+ might just throw at a model checker are, in my experience, very useful starting points for things that can't be model checked.

Ostentibly TLA+ could build up an equivalent library of tactics and proofs.

 _> Why low opinion?_

Even supposing type theory is "more obscure", it's pretty hard to believe that someone could study it for 30 years and not understand it better (in some sense) than ZF. That's a pretty extraordinary claim.

 _> basic set theory -- the one that barely scrapes the definition -- is all that's required to specify real-world programs._

Not really -- you often need non-trivial constructions when proving properties about rewrite systems within set theory. Those constructions are _much_ harder to understand than induction on algebraic datatypes, which is why type theoretic approaches have dominated in formalization of programming languages.

 _> Unless I'm missing something..._

I'm disinclined the dismiss separation logic just because you can code up some of its ideas in another logic (in a way that counts as a novel contribution worthy of publication, no less).

The clarity with which separation logic presents the idea and use of the separating conjunction has obviously influenced the paper you cited. I would think this is reason enough to summarily dismiss these "everything's a TM"-style arguments you're making here. The authors of the paper you cited are only not using separation logic in a kind of meaningless sense IMO.

 _> So far, I don't see why I should._

This sentiment kind of reminds me of people who have never typeset mathematics complaining that LaTeX is useless... which is to say, perhaps you simply aren't interested in and so don't care about the use cases where Coq shines? Lots of people -- including me -- have already pointed out a lot of these use- cases in this comment section.

But really, based on the arc of this conversation, I would be enormously surprised if you chose to use Coq to prove X, even if there were a proveX tactic already written in Coq and the TLA+ implementation would take all day ;-)

<comment><USER11> > Coq's huge library of tactics and proofs of facts that TLA+ might just throw > at a model checker are, in my experience, very useful starting points for > things that can't be model checked.

I don't understand what you're saying. What does TLA+ have to do with the model checker? TLA+ is a language, while TLAPS (the proof system) and TLC (a model checker) are two different products (each supporting different subsets of TLA+, BTW). TLAPS comes with its own library of proofs. I don't know how extensive they are.

AFAIK, you can't (and certainly you don't) take a fact verified by the model checker and state it as an axiom of your proof. The interaction between the two -- if any -- is that Lamport encourages you to model check your spec before trying to prove it (assuming you want to prove it, or even model-check it) because proving things that are false may prove hard. However, the result of the model checker play no part in the proof.

When it comes to proofs, TLA+ is intended to be declarative and independent of the proof engines used (by default, TLAPS uses SMT (any of several solvers), Isabelle and another couple of tool, passing every proof step to every tool unless a tactic specifies a particular one).

This is a nice introduction for the design of the TLA+ proof language: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/p...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/proof.pdf) which includes (in the appendix) a few proofs in calculus.

> it's pretty hard to believe that someone could study it for 30 years and not > understand it better (in some sense) than ZF. That's a pretty extraordinary > claim.

I did not mean to claim that type theory researchers don't understand it better than basic college set-theory. I meant that _in general_ , engineers and academics are more familiar with basic set theory.

> just because you can code up some of its ideas in another logic (in a way > that counts as a novel contribution worthy of publication, no less).

That was a technical report that mentioned in passing using an approach similar to separation logic.

> "everything's a TM"-style arguments you're making here

I am not making that argument. My argument is that most engineers and CS academics (except those in PLT) would be more familiar -- and therefore more likely to use -- a tool based on basic math they know well. In addition, I haven't seen anything to suggest that the complexity difference between specifying a system using dependent types and specifying it in TLA+ is significant at all in either direction. Learning Coq, however, requires much more effort, and AFIK, it doesn't support formal verification mechanisms other than proofs (e.g. model checking)

> perhaps you simply aren't interested in and so don't care about the use > cases where Coq shines?

Perhaps. I design data structures (mostly concurrent), and my interests lie in specifying and verifying those as well as distributed systems, and less in verifying compilers. My current TLA+ spec is too complex to be proven anyway (regardless of the tool used) in any feasible amount of time, so I rely on just the spec as well as some model checking.

It is also true that I may be biased. As an "algorithms guy" I feel more at home working with tools and languages designed by other algorithm people (and more importantly _for_ algorithm people) rather than PLT people.

Nevertheless, I'm interested in learning the difference between the two.

> But really, based on the arc of this conversation, I would be enormously > surprised if you chose to use Coq to prove X, even if there were a proveX > tactic already written in Coq and the TLA+ implementation would take all day

Considering that learning Coq would take me much longer than a day, that would be a wise decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Would be nice to use it for Frama-C.

[1] [http://frama-c.com](http://frama-c.com)

</comment><comment><USER14> The font size on this page is very small. My eyes hurt when I read it on my non-retina 13-inch Macbook Pro (on low-resolution external monitor, it looks bigger.). Is it because I am not a native English speaker? Do native English speakers get used to this font size?

Some websites including Hacker News use very small font size. Reddit's font size is bigger. I created a HN web reader ( [http://hackernewsroom.com](http://hackernewsroom.com) ) with bigger font size (for myself and friends) to read titles and comments easily. But I can't change the font size of the original article. (Have to zoom in the page by pressing cmd+=)

<comment><USER15> It might be because the font size is defined in the CSS in pixel units, instead of em, which is a point size (DPI dependent).

[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/syndata.html#length- units](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/syndata.html#length-units)

If you have a problem reading text on the screen, I suggest you use something like Clearly extension that reformats pages with a much more reading-friendly style.

You don't have to sign up to use this extension : [https://evernote.com/clearly/](https://evernote.com/clearly/)

You can also try to print the page into a PDF and read it like that.

<comment><USER16> Note that CSS pixels are not the same as physical pixels. Browsers are free to rescale CSS pixel values. Indeed, it's written in the document you linked to:

> If the pixel density of the output device is very different from that of a > typical computer display, the user agent should rescale pixel values.

So actually 12px font should look about the same on all output devices, regardless of their physical DPI. But I agree that 12px is rather small for copy text.

<comment><USER17> 12px font also could become very small in the future, if typical computer displays end up having high dpi.

I guess a conforming browser should randomly sample computer displays before deciding how big 1px is.

Serious version: I don't think text like that should make it into a standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In a sense, Robbert's thesis can be viewed as a more mathematically stringent (and thus arguably clearer) C11 specification. For instance, page 42 has the following mathematical gem:

> The C11 standard defines the usual arithmetic conversions as a binary > operation on integer types. This definition is complicated and contains some > implicit duplication due to symmetry, which is inconvenient when proving > properties. To improve the situation, we show that the usual arithmetic > conversion of integer types τ_i and σ_i is a least upper bound τ_i ∪ σ_i in > a join semi-lattice.

</comment><comment><USER19> > Surprisingly, correctly describing the set of programs that have undefined > behavior in a formal manner is the hardest part of formalizing C.

Isn't this undecidable?

<comment><USER20> Yes, but that doesn't mean you can't describe it.

The halting problem is undecidable, but it's really easy to describe the set of programs that halt. I just described it right there!

That quote is talking about defining the set, not determining whether a program is a member of the set (which is indeed impossible in the general case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> awesome</comment>


Show HN: Articly – Automated Blog Writing as a Service - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I'm super nervous to share this, but we've been working on beta testing our blog writing service for a while now and we have officially launched. We'd love any feedback you have on the site, pricing, etc.
Articly.me (https://articly.me) - Articly is a blog writing service that is focused on automating the writing of content for startups looking to get started in content marketing. Articly provides you a simple monthly content strategy based on your goals, and then our team of writers sends you a blog post every week to post to your site.
Once again, any feedback is helpful! <comment><USER2> As a startup, I love the idea given that this allows us to scale our team. However, the idea of automation made me think that it was a much lower entry price until I clicked on the site and realized it's actually paying for a customized article.

Does it mean that essentially I am paying $160 for an article? I don't think a monthly subscription would make sense at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the feedback.

Right now most of the site analysis, content recommendations, competitor review is automated, but the writing of articles is not. My co-founder is a former copywriter and we have a strong belief that we're a ways away from writing automation. Even with all the focus on machine learning and AI, it's going to be awhile before we can automate that part of the process.

For pricing, it's actually $160 a month for one article a week, so roughly $40 an article.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Thanks! That makes sense and personally, I'm not into automated content either - I feel that it loses the effectiveness of being personal.

I'd love to engage you guys once we've had sufficient funding.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks good. Bookmarked.

Why you & not another such service? And how can I be sure of continuity of articles when they could be written by a different author each time? I'm imagining a worst-case-scenario where a reader comment requires a reply & I'm unable since I didn't personally write the content.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been looking for someone to grow a blog, but I'm not sure if I'm going to hire a freelance or use a service like this.

Is there a plan where I can choose how long the article would be and the depth of the research made?

Can I share the main points the article should contain and build the content around that?

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. What do you think differentiates you from services like The Hoth or hiring someone from fiverr or upwork?</comment>


International Address Fields in Web Forms  - <AUTHOR> http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000295.php <comment><USER2> Why not just have a text box that says "type in what you want the mailing label to say. if your package is misaddressed, it's your fault."?

<comment><USER3> Because inevitably someone wants a breakdown report of shipments by state, and no matter how many times you try to explain to them that international shipping doesn't have a concept of "states", they refuse to listen, so the company eventually retools and just offers domestic shipping and/or a bad interface. Guh.

I've been told, as part of requirements gathering for collecting retail demographics and order information, that many users don't know what zipcode they are in, what their phone number is, or what US state they are in, and that somehow hand holding the information gathering into separate fields somehow fixes this ignorance of one's own physical presence.</comment></comment>