Bidding Adieu to Amtrak? - <AUTHOR> http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/amtrak-privatize-john-mica-bill-shuster <comment><USER2> I say go for it... it can't get much worse...

For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right?

After half a dozen attempts, she finally gave up trying to take the train... It was expensive, unreliable, and slow.

What if I wanted to take the train down to NYC for the weekend? It's $80 for a train down on Friday afternoon, and there aren't any trains back on Sunday. Megabus, on the other hand, is $80 round trip (without using any of the readily available promo codes to bring it down even further), and the scheduled trip time is an hour shorter.

Despite being someone who _wants_ to take the train (I find it a very comfortable way to travel), I can't find a single scenario in which it makes sense for me to do so.

<comment><USER3> _> For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right?_

As I understand, no. There's too much traffic (mostly freight) between Albany and Buffalo for the two tracks that are owned by CSX and shared with Amtrak. As a result, things can move pretty slowly along there. They've been talking about adding track for a little while now, but I'm sure funding is a big issue.

My experience with trains upstate has been lousy west of Albany, but south of Albany, I've only seen and heard good things. That said, there are generally more cost-effective ways to travel, like the discount bus services and often, sadly, just driving.

<comment><USER4> In Europe, train traffic is passengers-first in daytime and freight-first at night. But then, distances and rail networks are better suited for passenger transportation in Europe than in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn Private interests don't have the greatest record when it comes to public transportation: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal)

We should always be skeptical of the motives of people who propose selling public services to private companies.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought my tickets way ahead of time for cheap, brought my own food, and did it because I wanted to see the country. I'd recommend everyone give it a try just once, it is certainly much better than my Greyhound experiences.

That said, there are glaring problems in the system. In El Paso, they forced everyone off the train and onto cramped shuttle buses all the way till San Antonio, less comfortable than Greyhound buses, asides the lack of crack smoke that is. And why? For track maintenance. Yet, they didn't inform anyone ahead of time that this was going to happen. This is in addition to the numerous stops of hours at a time where we would just sit, and of course not be informed why we were just sitting. In each case that I could determine, it would be because we were waiting on a freight train to pass. Amtrak has three major problems. One, they play second priority to freight rail, and thus trips become inconveniently long. Two, they are horribly mismanaged, which leads to the conductors not knowing what is going on. Three, the employees I have met at Amtrak have generally sucked in terms of customer service. I'm not surprised given they are working a dead-end job with poor management, but it's certainly one place that unionized, government subsidized labor hasn't led to stellar results.

</comment><comment><USER6> Commercial high-speed rail is almost 50 years old.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen>

I really don't understand why the US hasn't built at least one route in that time.

<comment><USER7> In the areas it makes sense, nobody has the political will to say "this new dedicated high-speed right-of-way is going in your backyard whether you like it or not."

<comment><USER6> The problem doesn't get any easier to solve. 50 years ago there were less than 200 million Americans. Now there are over 300 million people. In other words, a lot more backyards. If we wait 20-30 more years?

The places were it makes the most sense are exactly the densely populated areas of the North East and in California. People need to start thinking about what's best for the country instead of themselves.

<comment><USER8> I hope that you will realize that, when I say this that I am not being a cynic: Your suggestion that people start thinking about what's what for the country instead of themselves is naive in the extreme.

It's quite possible that the people who would need to sacrifice in order to serve the common good are already among the less well off. Who has railroad track in their back yards now? Who is going to have more railroad track in their back yards after we build more track, presumably near the existing track. From a property value perspective, there's no _right_ side of the tracks when you're a hundred feet from the tracks.

And who is going to benefit from enhanced rail service in the Northeast Corridor? Well, indirectly, all of us, but more directly, it's going to be rich people and upper middle class people who are shuttling between Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and DC. (Baltimore too, I suppose.)

Someone (taxpayers, railroad companies?) really should compensate the people who will be getting screwed when new track gets laid, especially given that the immediate beneficiaries are _not_ going to be the people who are in the crappy position of being asked to set aside their own interests and take one for the team.

More generally, it's not clear to me what "what's best for the country" means. That's what the political process exists to figure out. If the result of the political process isn't what you'd prefer, feel free to call it "unjust," but short of becoming a dictator and deciding what's best for people, the political process is going to be an unsatisfying experience for pretty much everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just notice one important point : in Europe, cargo train is moribund. Virtually everything is moved around by millions of trucks. In the US, it's the other way around, most stuff is moved across the continent by train. They need to be very careful not to sacrifice it for high speed passenger rail.

<comment><USER10> <http://www.economist.com/node/16636101> ... outside Germany and Switzerland, Europe's freight rail services are a fragmented, lossmaking mess. Repeated attempts to remove the technical and bureaucratic hurdles at national frontiers have come to nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rail is the US is a nightmare. It impossible for a private entity profitably operate passenger transit because the government subsidizes road transit to the tune of trillions of dollars.

<comment><USER12> Somewhat of a different case, but urban light rail networks were actively destroyed by car companies who didn't want the competion.

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

It would seem monied interests want to keep us in cars sucking oil instead of whizzing along tracks. I see this as being a big impediment to the creation of viable nationwide rail networks.

<comment><USER13> This is true, but note that streetcars _also_ got shut down in cities where the car companies didn't play these games.

<comment> mkr-hn The common use of street cars probably kept prices on maintenance (and upgrades) down. A smaller town or city wouldn't be able to afford them once prices went too high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My big problem with these type of articles is the worry about oversight. I do wonder what kind of oversight a federally run program actually has. The TSA has federal oversight, yet it is a model for doing it wrong. You can get away with serious customer service breeches in the government because the possible recourses are so few and costly. Look at the Department of Interior "oversight" of grazing land owned by Native Americans. Heck, on a current affairs note, read up on the Army Corps of Engineers.

Private companies have problems, but the government hasn't proved itself any better. If rail cannot make it in that corridor, how can it work anywhere else? Heck, would the people of the area be better served by just paving the rails over and making them private bus routes?

</comment><comment><USER15> I think I missed the part of the article where they discussed a good reason not to privatize Amtrak. If government subsidy made it better than private sector alternatives, that would be something. But the argument here is what, that we should preserve a system that even with heavy subsidies can't manage to do better than the variety of profitable alternatives? Who does that help? It sounds like a decisive lose-lose.

The only argument in favor of preserving the status quo is to protect the jobs of Amtrak workers. But if that's the concern, it would actually be cheaper to let the market lay some of them off and just cut a giant, multi-year severance check to each of the affected workers.

</comment><comment><USER16> This comes on the heels of a private rail ownership caused derailment, [http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter- derailme...](http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailment)

</comment><comment><USER17> Europe is going to a model where the infrastructure is owned by some arm of the government (quangos like Railtrack in the UK or national rail administrations), because the initial outlay on infrastructure is too big to make private investment or even private-public partnerships profitable for the private actors everywhere except the most densely populated areas. It seems to me that the scheme is somewhat similar here? I don't know whether it would work in the US though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maintaining a rail network is pretty expensive compared to other transportation infrastructure. They work well in Europe since there are many population clusters at relatively short intervals. Maybe the population topography of the US is less well-suited for passenger trains than in Europe?

</comment><comment><USER18> _In a place with oodles of people treading distances that aren't plane-worthy, why aren't trains doing better?_

I can't speak for others, but I sat on an Amtrak train for about 30 continuous hours last fall, and it was probably the worst mass-transit experience I've ever had. At least riding a packed, loud bus across Thailand -- jostled awake regularly in the night as the lead-footed driver braked to avoid a head-on collision while passing mid-curve -- was exciting.

I'm glad they can intelligently accommodate bicycles (unlike, say, CalTrain), and the local station had a very friendly staff, but everything else about Amtrak appalled me.

<comment><USER19> These are all problems with the current implementation -- not problems with trains themselves.

Trains are wonderful; amtrak is rotten.

<comment><USER18> Absolutely, and I _love_ riding the train in Japan! I'm just saying that the reason ridership has been stagnant is probably because Amtrak itself kind of sucks.

I would be all for privatization (which I'm normally not for), since they've done such a miserable job on all fronts.</comment></comment></comment>


Macmillan CEO defends Library eBook embargo as boycotts mount - <AUTHOR> https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/macmillan-ceo-defends-library-ebook-embargo-as-boycotts-mount <comment><USER2> It's a pure and simple money grab. There is no possible rationale for publishers charging libraries more for ebook than the actual physical book nor any rational for restricting purchases of the ebooks.</comment>


Rio 2016 Logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.iconglobe.net/blog/2011/01/02/rio-2016-logo/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty. Then it turns into a nipple (like on a baby bottle).</comment>


Show HN: Is there an earthquake near me? - <AUTHOR> http://isthereanearthquakenearme.herokuapp.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure I understand the purpose of the app. I would have to actually check the app during an earthquake to have it tell me yes? Well, in that case I would already know that there is an earthquake near me.

Maybe a better title would be "Was there an earthquake near me?" and you could show nearby earthquakes in the past hour, day, etc. However, there are already a lot of sites that do something like that such as [http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/index.php](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/index.php), so I'm not quite sure what additional value you could add.</comment>


Q&A: Meet the 15-year-old who just sold his tech startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/rewind-meet-15yearold-sold-tech-startup

<comment><USER3> My parents always thought I was wasting time on the computer and berated me at every opportunity about it. They still do, even though I make all of my money at this point using one and am 24. Back then they criticized me for not being involved in sports or at least chess club; they didn't give out trophies for computer programming at my school so I never received one. Sure, I played games, but I was learning new skills and programming all the time. When I was injured from skateboarding I made a GBA game in C. The next time I injured myself I learned PHP and started using it to connect to databases on my websites. I just wish I could understand programming then like I do now - <USER2> concepts make sense now but I don't have the free time I used to.

<comment><USER4> > Back then they criticized me for not being involved in sports or at least > chess club; they didn't give out trophies for computer programming at my > school so I never received one.

This is why programs like the FIRST robotics competition (<http://usfirst.org/>) are so important: they give engineering/programming some of the competitiveness and glitz traditionally reserved for high school sports.

I drove my high school's robot for 3 years at FIRST competitions around the country -- _way_ more exciting/educational/fun/memorable than playing for my school's soccer team (my other extracurricular).

<comment><USER3> Oh yeah, I did do that. My team got an award for having the least amount of engineers per students - only one! I was asked to come to the competition for free (the other students had to pay something over $100) because I was the only one who had any idea how to program the robot. I wasted most of my time working on a 3d animation in 3dsMax because I didn't expect to go at first, so our robot only had basic movement controls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm always jealous of people who were introduced to computing early. I'm 19 now and have done well, but I didn't get access to the internet until 14 and never had anyone to show me about things. I feel as if I had been introduced much earlier there were much greater opportunities, 5 years ago this sort of thing would have been unheard of but now it's become more and more common; anyone of any age can start something and be successful. Imagining knowing what I know now when I was 15...

It's awesome and a great change, now age is as insignificant as it should be. Well done Daniil!

<comment><USER6> Same here. I was born 10 years too early. When I look back at all the stuff I _produced_ as a kid (I still have them in boxes), I have no doubt I would've been able to make the next Facebook if only I was introduced to computers earlier and the internet was more mainstream than it was. Kids have so much free time...

<comment><USER7> You mean, you would've had the programming chops, or you would've had the desire to make an online network at a time when Myspace existed? I knew plenty of guys at that time who were very good programmers...but none of them were at the right place at the right time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actively hire people that don't have a CS degree. If you can build cool things, that's all I care about.

<comment><USER9> If the readership of HN is anything like me, you just got a ton of pageviews at your "We're hiring" page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of the comments seem to talk about missed opportunities. Maybe I'm the odd one here. While I love to program, I wouldn't want to exchange my games- and-books-filled childhood with a programming-filled one. I can spend my lifetime programming, but I couldn't be playing in the streets when I'm 30, and I did love playing.

EDIT: That said, I did make a web page when I was 11 (1999), but could never figure out how to get info from the HTML forms. The kid is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER11> Couldn't find a link in the story, so here ya' go...

<http://www.phenona.com/>

<comment><USER12> I enjoyed reading the blog and how clearly he talks about his business and sells the benefits (not just features). I know MBAs who are not able to so clearly articulate their pricing and business models <http://www.phenona.com/blog/phenona-business-model/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This kid started when he was 7. So not only does he already have 8 YEARS experience, he learned when his mind was most able to absorb the knowledge. He has an immeasurable head start in life and that, combined with this exit on his résumé tells me we haven't heard the last from Mr. Kulchenko.

<comment><USER14> I read this and immediately started freaking out, until I took the mental steps to calculate that he had 8 years of experience writing Perl. By the time I hit 8 years experience hopefully I'll have an exit in the works as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an inspirational story and great stuff, but I can't help but have creeping "bubble 2.0" chills creeping down my spine. Maybe it's not actual hysteria on my mind, but the obligatory need to talk about the bubble in every single discussion thread on HN.

</comment><comment><USER16> Awesome, congrats. My first language was Perl too around 13 an now I'm 25. I work as a professional dev now, but I look at some of my code from back then and sometimes it's better than my code now!

</comment><comment><USER17> He focused on his idea for 3 full years before selling.

He is the youngest perlmonk I've heard of.

I feel I was born too late, not too early. Funny stuff.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like that kid will be going far :) Congrats to him.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome reading articles like this. A constant reminder that the quickest way to freedom for young people these days is programming and the internet.</comment>


Drugs based on Resveratrol 'could help humans live until they are 150' - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2291254/New-drug-developed-using-compound-red-wine-help-humans-live-150.html

<comment><USER2> it's resveratrol!

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 fixed</comment></comment>


IPad is no proxy for MacBook Air - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20004984-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

<comment><USER2> I once owned an Air [1], I now own an iPad, and this article is completely correct: The iPad is great, but it is not an Air, and it would be a shame to lose the Air. The Air a great machine for what it is: A full-fledged computer with a big screen, a real keyboard and low weight.

\---

[1] I only sold the Air because work bought me a Macbook Pro. Which is nice, provided you rarely carry it any farther than thirty feet. I tend to regret the loss of the Air whenever I travel.</comment>


Scientists See Promise in Deep-Learning Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/science/scientists-see-advances-in-deep-learning-a-part-of-artificial-intelligence.html

<comment><USER2> I don't know if I missed it, but what exactly is "deep-learning"? The article doesn't really indicate how it's different from earlier machine learning techniques.

<comment><USER3> here is a reading list: <http://deeplearning.net/reading-list/>, and also a brief intro into the whole thing: [http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pift6266/H10/notes/deepintro.ht...](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pift6266/H10/notes/deepintro.html)</comment></comment>


I started two startups and this is my journey. - <AUTHOR> http://siliconvalleystartupjournal.blogspot.com/ <comment><USER2> _'... going for the Holy Grail of Software Engineering and developing an algorithm engine (deemed impossible) that will generate 1M + algorithms per second on a supercomputer or cluster of PS3s in (any) programming language. The other half of the problem is creating a visual 3D and manageable structure for software. Solving this problem has involved all of my brainpower ...'_

Hey blake what's the problem your solving? Ah found it. Better still I read this article ~ <http://myblog.rsynnott.com/2007/05/perils-of-outsourcing.html>

_'... My name is Blake Southwood and I'm the founder of Brontosaurus Software. I have recruited smart MBAs and 2 lawyers to work on the business plan and right now I'm in the midst of trying in vein to recruit lisp programmers for a software project to create high level machine thinking. ... The Catch-22 is that we can't pay programmers till we get funding ...'_

Can you code? Ahh then I found this article ~ <http://www.alu.org/pipermail/uk-lispers/2006q4/000169.html>

_'... now has hit a seemingly insurmountable roadblock which is the lack of demonstrateable software ...'_

A demo? ...

 _'... In the end all startups morph their business plan ( I know that I did) and they go through lots of engineers and deal with management. But with a common goal and a collective brainpower it would be advantageous for foes (potential fledgling competitors) to become comrads and cooperate together for a common good. ... They would also immediately have more engineers on board (which is always good) ...'_

But this ones my favourite ~ <http://startupsmeetandmerge.blogspot.com> .. Blake your a bloomin comedian. Your talent is wasted ... couldn't dream this stuff up even if I tried.

Hmm, reads like a troll, smells like a troll ...

<comment><AUTHOR> None of the lisp programmers that I recruited was brave enough to try; thus I'm learning lisp and coding it myself. Yes I can code. Even Franz chickened out. At least I have the courage to try.

<comment><USER2> _'... At least I have the courage to try ...'_

it's not the courage bit that I'm skeptical about. Its the scope. It's fine to have a BHAG but try a smaller problem and solve it. This particular problem is someones academic career. Is it a a product someone would buy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unless I figured out how it would work. I realize that I need to work on it in stages and get each puzzle piece working. At the same time with funding what would take me 20 years working alone could be accomplished in 2 years with say at least 20 programmers and some office space. In regards to whether it would be a product someone would buy it would be for companies that have programmers. The whole point is speeding up software development. It would make it possible to develop software in months rather than in years. I think that the empitus for the idea first occurred to me when I had to make a symbolic link at Schwab and no one at Schwab knew how Schwab wrote symoblic links except for one guy and he was in vacation in Lousiana. I decided that there needed to be a better way of 'talking to the machine" with a smarter programming language. It would definitely make money. You could do a month's worth or programming in a day. What's not to like?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My first company (Big Bear) found a way of programming VCRs and DVDRs from a computer through USB, Ethernet or Wireless. It's possible to manage and program any number of video receivers in a house. It's sort of like Tivo with no subscription and it works with any brand.

My second company (Brontosaurus Software) is solving is streamlining software engineering with the algorithm engine so that programmers can write code by describing what the algorithm does and not how it works. So let's say on a good day you can write say 50 algorithms, what if you could write 1,000 instead and then the code that's generated is readable.

So the first problem is being able to write code based on human thinking as opposed to machine thinking. The second problem is generating readable code. The third problem is that the code that's generated is composed of reusable code. The fourth problem is creating structure for software so that managing the complexity is easier.

I eventually decided that only Lisp could so what I want to make it work.

The point is that the algorithm engine will make it possible for programmers to write code once and not spend time optimizing their code and fixing bugs. Fixing bugs and looking for them consumes too much time.

I was reading about the software bugs that cost billions and years of snags in the F-22 jet so I decided that I'd "discover" a way to solve the problem of writing code faster, making code more manageable, and making (most of all) source code readable and reusable.</comment>


Hacker News Meetup (Boston) - Feb 6th - 6PM - <AUTHOR>

Meetup at Meadhall near the Kendall/MIT stop.
6:00 PM
The Meadhall 4 Cambridge Center Cambridge MA 02142 617-714-4372 http://themeadhall.com/
http://www.meetup.com/hn-boston/members/
or RSVP at: http://www.meetup.com/hn-boston/events/101696052/ <comment><USER2> I'll be there too. Should be a nice change from going to Reddit meetups.

</comment><comment><USER3> Look forward to seeing everybody there. Get in touch if any questions.</comment>


Sexism and PHP - <AUTHOR> http://blog.calevans.com/2013/02/22/sexism-and-php/

<comment><USER2> So what? It's a penis joke? What is so bad about that if it's the case? Honestly, the only thing this (the article) accomplishes is making it appear that women have no humor...

If people are offended by this, I simply would not care. I mean, there is nothing more I'd love than to have more women in the programming world, but having people with no humor? Nah, I'd rather pass that then.

(If this comes off as sexist or anything, it isn't, it's not a thing against gender, it's a thing against peoples attitude)

<comment><USER3> I must be getting old, or it's late here but I didn't get the "penis" joke till you mentioned it.

<comment><USER2> Well, considering the phrasing is a bit like what you might see in a viagra add, and the fact that if you say it out loud the Pness part in PHPness is almost literally pronounced penis.

Either way, I would have given it any second thought if it weren't for the article, so I know what you mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this mildly juvenile t-shirt is the worst to come out of the PHP community, then I would say it's not doing too badly. The t-shirts themselves are not that bad, they just shouldn't have been distributed by a sponsor at a conference.

I am surprised however it hasn't been dealt with on the spot. It's not like PHP hasn't had it's share of incidents similar to other communities before, but the prominent role of women in PHP usually ensures that for instance speakers using sexist imagery in slides will be torn a new one on the spot instead of it becoming a blogosphere and twitter drama afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER5> I tried to find a picture, and came up with something that was clearly some previous t-shirt; an additional five minutes of scavaging around, and I'm still not finding it (although webandphp.com seems to have some iPhone- specific website which may be blocking me). Given that the premise of "Google juice" is flawed (what happened to rel="nofollow"?), would someone mind providing the context for this (as in, the shirt)?

<comment><USER6> I think this is the shirt the OP is talking about: <https://twitter.com/webandphp/status/261241003204300801>

<comment><USER7> I didn't get any relation at all between this pic and the article until reading some comments.. Ok, some juveniles might interpret it in a funny way, but I mean, in the same manner half of real surnames can be made into crude puns.

<comment><USER8> Could someone explain it, please? I don't know if I should read "PHPness" in a different way, or is there some context missing? I just don't get what's wrong with that text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure this is the kind of article that is doing a lot more harm than good to the female gender by shifting the focus from real issues (pay inequality, harassment and such) to trivial and harmless puns.

I sometime wonder if these people (like the author) are just trolls waiting for a good useless polemic to arise in order to shove down our throat how well behaved they are. Pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER10> TIL making a joke about a male body part is misogyny.

</comment><comment><USER11> The t-shirt is neither sexist or offensive, nor particularly funny. People, please spend your moral outrage on real issues. Honestly, PHP as a language is way more offensive than the shirt is.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is utterly ridiculous. In reality there is street harassment FGM, pay gap, domestic violence, rape, politicians attacking bodily autonomy...but god forbid someone makes a dick joke.

It's bullshit like this that means more and more people are a) not taking feminism seriously any more (women included), and b) leaving the damn movement (my girlfriend and I used to be fairly hardcore feminist activists, but we're so sick of all this shit that our interest is waning. Which is awful, as we genuinely care about equality and smashing the gender divide, but the movement is so plagued by pointless bickering and crap like this, it's an uphill battle).

</comment><comment><USER13> If you're interested in constructively changing things rather than just looking good for yourself, it's worth contacting people directly before you shout to the internet at large.

</comment><comment><USER14> Storm in a teacup IMHO

</comment><comment><USER15> Oh hey look, another dick joke on a t-shirt promoting programming to the masses. How funny, right? Hur, hur, hur.

At this point, I don't know what's more of a joke, this type of marketing or the joke itself.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's fair so say that those girls are authors of that t-shirt. It was they idea. And they are not dumb at all - they are editors of Webandphp.

</comment><comment><USER17> Would it be more acceptable if there was a "female version" of this shirt? I'm glad we're examining this at a meta level more often, and I can see how this is exclusive, certainly. Would it become (more) inclusive or even _"ok"_ if there was some other jokey concept for women as well?</comment>


Show HN: Efficient Redis Go Client - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pascaldekloe/redis <comment><USER2> How does this compare to go-redis ([https://github.com/go- redis/redis](https://github.com/go-redis/redis))?

<comment><AUTHOR> Both have a type safe API. Go-redis supports more commands. This client is significantly faster, especially with concurrent use.</comment></comment>


Giant Squid Babies Found for the First Time - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/giant-squid-babies-found-in-japan-for-the-first-time <comment><USER2> This is a terrific notice. Deep sea squids are really interesting creatures, and now that we are culling the fishes much more common that most people thing.

This is probably, also another symptom of the hidden war for the deep-sea fisheries.

The idea that people could be eating those babies by mistake is strange. I can brag that I touched a giant squid some years ago (yup, the damned thing, literally), and the ammonia smell was in my hands for a week. Nasty and persistent. I wonder how someone could eat one of these without to puke. Long and complex previous manipulation at least I suppose.

Another interesting question is why those youngs have not been found before (never, ever, as long as I remember) as prey of cetaceans or sharks.

<comment><USER3> How long had the one you touched been dead? Also, is it possible they get stinkier as they get older?

<comment><USER2> Not to much. The problem is that, most species of mesopelagic squids accumulate ammonia in the flesh for buoyancy. Thus, they can rest floating at a desired deep level instead spending precious energy constantly to avoid sinking or surfacing.

The white flesh have a strong odour and, as ammonia is poisonous, they are inedible for humans (unless you find a way to eliminate the excess of ammonia first). I did a quick drawn and take some measures in a piece of paper. After years, this paper still smells a little.

> Is it possible they get stinkier as they get older?

Yes but only in the first months of live. Ammonia is a mean to lower the muscle density just upon water density, so there is a limit to the amount of ammonia that a older squid can have per Kg. More ammonia and they will tend to surface.

The problem is that giant squids can not cope well with "hot" water. Their blood cells are tuned to work in cold waters (richer in dissolved oxygen). The models predict that in the sea surface they just can not breath faster enough to fit their needs, will become sluggish and die. They probably migrate to upper levels at night to hunt, but not surfacing. This is great for us because the probability of an Architeuthis stalking and snatching humans swimming in open sea is zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article links to another about footage from a dive in 2013. As far as I can tell this is part of it [0] – it's really quite beautiful.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCWop491Q9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCWop491Q9Y)

<comment><USER5> There's also this TED talk which is interesting

[http://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_how_we_found_the_giant...](http://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_how_we_found_the_giant_squid)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Catching one giant squid in your lifetime is lucky, catching 4 has got to be talent.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, _medium_ squid, then?</comment>


Eating Jell-O with Chopsticks - <AUTHOR> https://granolashotgun.com/2019/05/27/eating-jell-o-with-chopsticks/ <comment><AUTHOR> I see this as hacking the overbearing regulation of the built environment.

More about the "stealth triplex": [https://granolashotgun.com/2017/07/17/the- stealth-triplex/](https://granolashotgun.com/2017/07/17/the-stealth-triplex/)

Building an outdoor kitchen setup: [https://granolashotgun.com/2018/05/08/the- mangiapocalypse/](https://granolashotgun.com/2018/05/08/the-mangiapocalypse/)

>A garden hose attached to a spigot and a galvanized bucket work wonders as an outdoor sink. Camp soap made for outdoor use is garden friendly and nontoxic so waste water can be used to irrigate fruit trees. I hasten to mention that an outdoor sink plumbed with a pipe would have set off a cascade of government regulations and prohibitions. But a garden hose and a bucket? No problem. Why ask for trouble with the authorities?

Building a backyard cottage: [https://granolashotgun.com/2017/06/14/the- bitter-suite/](https://granolashotgun.com/2017/06/14/the-bitter-suite/)

>I attempted to build a granny cottage in the back half acre behind the main house. I hired a local architect who walked me through the legal parameters. Then I decided to do the rational thing instead. Nothing. The numbers didn't add up. It wasn't even close. So I reverse engineered what was legal as-of- right without permits, fees, or inspections. 120 square feet, no more than 12 feet tall, no electricity or plumbing. Full stop.

<comment><USER3> I know a guy who worked a purchasing project for garden hoses. They're made out of so much low grade regrind I would never use them for drinking/cooking...

Also, they breed bacteria like crazy when left in the sun.

<comment><USER4> As a kid growing up in the 1970s drinking out of the garden hose was considered normal. We survived.

<comment><USER5> Ditto, but late 1990s instead of 1970s. I survived (so far) as well :)

<comment><USER6> Same here, early 90's. I actually liked the taste of the hose water from my childhood home more than any other water I've ever drank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an interesting post. I don't think the title does it justice, I wouldn't have opened it if I wasn't sitting on the toilet and the all the other links were purple at the time.

<comment><USER8> You're right about the title, but when a substantive post like this one has a whimsical title, we prefer to leave it intact. By whimsical I mean indirect and playful and not using any obvious internet tricks. Leaving it is respectful to the author, and I think it's good for the HN front page not to reveal itself completely without a bit of effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm currently in construction on the lower level of my house in Oakland, which will be split in half and include an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) that we'll be able to rent out.

There are two ways of doing this in Oakland, and presumably most places - <USER2> Legal proper way, and the not-legal way. Most seem to be the latter.

But we wanted to do things right. Oakland has a housing shortage and we have more square feet than we need, and we were renovating the house anyway. And according to the city, they're trying to encourage ADU's to help with that housing shortage, so we went that way.

But that means we're subject to a whole new set of zoning and construction regulations. Originally I wanted to keep a (locking) interior door between the main house and the ADU so we had the flexibility of having it as a guest room or literal mother-in-law suite if we weren't renting it. Zoning shot that down - ADU is required to be completely separate space.

Oh and that 'separate space' is quite literal. Separate HVAC, separate electrical, separate sewer plumbing to the lateral with separate cleanout, and 1-hour fire rated separation on shared walls and ceilings.

Some of that makes sense and I'd want to do anyway, but it means a simple 400sq. ft. 1 bedroom ADU in an existing building is about a $100k buildout.

The previous owner rented the downstairs space as it was - not legal, no real separation from the main house, shared everything. That was pretty much free for her.

I wonder if there's a middle ground somewhere. A 'legal' way to dense up our housing but without the great expense of rebuilding it from the inside out first. This seems like something that we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future, but I can't imagine most people will want to spend what I'm spending to do it 'legally'.

<comment><USER10> I don't understand how you Californians put up with so much government. It's not even good government. It's not like you can point to great public services and whatnot to make up for it.

<comment><USER11> If you are renting to a roommate and the guy knocks over a candle or falls asleep smoking in his bedroom you notice straightaway and can escape or try and put out the fire. But if you live next to a studio apartment and the fellow sets his kitchen on fire you may not notice until it's too late for you. Proper fireproofing is absolutely essential in multitenant units. There is nothing wrong with Oakland insisting on proper code, especially after that warehouse fire a few years back.

NYC seems a bit more permissive towards not-so-legal landlords, and every few months the NY Post reports a building fire with really avoidable casualties. From circumstances you suspect out-of-code rentals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For my old house, the previous owner had built out the basement unit beautifully, with a full bath, large full bedroom, and large living room, and 9' feet ceiling that made it look like a normal living space. When I bought the place, I was thrived. It's like a separate unit. But I checked the city's plan, the build-out was not in the plan, so it was built illegally.

Years later when I sold it, I decided to go through the process to bring it up to code. It was a painful and onerous process. Dealing with the city planning department and to be compliant with the regular building code plus the city's own petty codes made me wish I didn't start the process. At various stages of the process, I was at the point of fuck-it and just gave up. Finally got it done after 9 months and extra money. I can certainly understand why people just do it without following the regulation.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not quite following the article. Why can't people build a duplex like that today? Which part of it is illegal? I think it has something to do with a zoning law, but I'm not very familiar with the concept. (I live in Tokyo.)

<comment><USER14> Zoning restrictions are far more restrictive in the United States than in a city like Tokyo, where the government has largely only enacted laws preventing specific cases that would be considered very harmful (opening a heavy industrial businesses in a residential neighborhood for instance).

In most of the US most land in smaller cities are zoned for single family housing only. This often means you can only build a house for one family (no duplexes) with arbitrary restrictions on a variety of other things (minimum lot sizes, maximum house sizes relative to lot size, required setbacks from property lines to the house, etc).

In the event you are able to build a du/triplex it's rare you'd be able to convert any part of it for business use unless the land was already zoned for multi-use, where they allow mixing of residential and commercial uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find the author's dismissiveness towards kitchen space interesting. Granted I cook a lot, but are there really so many people that cook so little that they would have no problem not having a stove at all?

<comment><USER16> With the pervasiveness of Uber Eats, Door Dash, et al, I'm starting to think there should be an AWS for food.

Imagine some sort of central, industrial-scale kitchen that makes dirt-cheap prepared meals and uses the aforementioned services delivers them to your house, hot, at meal time.

Could economies of scale drive the cost below $5/meal? $2?

If we can obviate server rooms in office buildings around the world, what would it do to make the kitchen an extravagance rather than a necessity?

Or maybe the laundry room is the right target for obsolescence. Most cities already have industrial scale laundries for hotels. Could Uber and Lyft partner with them to eliminate those two giant appliances in our homes, and let us have the space back for our ham radios and stamp collections?

<comment><USER15> There are already a handful of laundry services operating in the bay area. They're all roughly an order of magnitude more expensive than doing it myself even as a renter.

Likewise, the overwhelming cost of food delivery services is in the "service" part. Even if you could make the meal for $2, I would still end up paying $10 for a $2 meal, and while it definitely possible to make a nutritious and reasonably palatable meal for $2, it's never going to compare to the $10 meal I can get just by walking down the block to my local taqueria, much less what I can make myself.

<comment><USER17> When I was living alone as a bachelor, I crunched the numbers and decided it was kind of stupid to do my own laundry rather than drop it off at the laundromat for their wash-and-fold service.

Doing a load of laundry coin-op would cost me about $2/$3 a load. Plus the cost of detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. And the aggravation of going to a grungy, depressing laundromat, waiting around for the washer to run, running the dryer several times because things wouldn't get dry, and then folding it all and lugging my baskets home.

When I was in an apartment that did have hookups, but no laundry machines, buying a basic washer and dryer ran about $1000, unless I found some ticking time bomb of a used set on Craigslist. And then there is the water and electricity costs. Not to mention the hassle of either abandoning them or having to drag them off somewhere else when I moved.

In contrast, I could drop off a huge barracks bag full of laundry at the laundromat once every two weeks, and they would weigh it up, charge me a dollar a pound, then I'd go off to work and pick it up at the end of the day, perfectly washed and expertly folded. Just in the amount of time saved at drudgery, it was worth it, besides the fact that they did a far, far better job than I would do myself.

<comment><USER18> The difference between you (and me) and an unfortunately large number of people is that they don't have the luxury to trade money for time, even for seemingly trivial things. Spending $3 and two hours at a laundromat might be the only option, as $5-$10 for a service can often be out of reach.

<comment><USER19> That's $3/load+drying. When I worked as a mechanic that is what it cost me to wash work clothes (didn't want them in my washing machine). I did the same thing--it would cost me ~$20 and 2 hours sitting at the laundromat, wash and fold service was 28. Even for someone making minimum wage, $4/hour is pretty poor value for time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The zoning laws are just ridiculous. It shouldn't be illegal to live in a tiny house, or to have mixed-use dwellings, or build more dense, efficient spaces that cost less. There's a good reason why these laws came into practice, but there's also good reason to make exceptions. But it's also impossible to change them without a couple million dollars and an army of lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER21> This kind of zoning is pretty much unenforceable. There is no good way to tell the difference between guests and customers. Some people have noisy guests that bother their neighbors. Some people make loud noises cutting wood and doing personal projects with heavy machinery in their garage. Money exchanging hands is not the problem.

<comment><USER22> >Some people make loud noises cutting wood and doing personal projects with heavy machinery in their garage. Money exchanging hands is not the problem.

I assure you there are plenty of people who think that loud noises, odors and "unsightly projects" are an issue even if no money changes hands. These people have far less leverage over tenants than they do over property owners so they seek to ban tenants

The zoning you speak of is enforceable enough. It doesn't need to be enforceable 100%, just enough to make the risk/reward not worth it. Remember, a large part of the busybodies motivation is "neighborhood character" (or some other shit like that). They don't care if you break the rules so long as you do so in a way they find agreeable. They want the power of arbitrary enforcement so they can screw you if you have tenants that throw loud parties (or whatever). It just so happens that it's easier to get draconian punishments attached to the zoning code than it is to get them attached to the petty crap the busybodies care about so they get rough proxies for the stuff they care about prohibited via the zoning code.

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure that was the point he was trying to make. The excuse often made for why rental properties aren't allowed is that tenants are often noisy or cause other problems. He was just pointing out that that can be a problem for owners as well, so whether it's a tenant or a owner that's being noisy is immaterial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Abolish single family zoning.

It's terrible for the planet, terrible for economic and racial equity, and terrible for our mental health.

<comment><USER25> > and terrible for our mental health.

If I had to live in a multi family home I would completely go insane. I don't know about you, but I need space in order to function.

People are not livestock, to be packed in as tightly as possible.

That said, the types of multi family houses in this article are fine by me - they have lots of space around them.

<comment><USER26> Generally, the change would allow single-family homes. But it would not REQUIRE single-family homes.

A typical development pattern might be something like... \- all single family homes to start \- area gets popular (property value goes up), a few SFH are replaced with duplex or small apartments \- area gets more popular, more SFH removed, mid-rise apartments begin to appear, small-scale retail appears

Etc.

Of course, this requires that NIBMYs aren't allowed to control other people's property. And the zoning and codes that do exist are enforced so you don't end up with a SFH next to a gas station.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This must be really specific to NH, because I don't find any of the laws or problems he talks about familiar.

<comment><USER28> I have experience with half a dozen cities around Canada, and they all have similar zoning issues to those described.</comment></comment>


Kicking ass together: How to improve coding skills as a group - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/062-practicing-programming-group.html

<comment><USER2> good article.

this is valuable information, as it comes from THE FUTURE:

"2012-01-16 18:00, written by Gregory Brown"

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahahahah, I suppose I should fix that :)</comment></comment>


Netflix's DVD Subscription Is Still Great - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-brothers-geek/netflixs-dvd-subscription-is-still-great-dammit-7048912cb690 <comment><USER2> Count me as one of the continuing users of this service. And it basically boils down to the fact that almost anything I want to see is available on disc, which is not the case for any legal streaming service. And the turnaround on the mailers tends to be pretty quick.

</comment><comment><USER3> _And yet when I wanted to rent Doctor Strange from Google Play the other day (see, I know how to use the new-fangled gizmos too!) but it was only available for purchase. That's a new release from the biggest studio in the world!_

I found this part funny, since Doctor Strange is available via Netflix streaming right now.

<comment><USER4> Suprisingly good movie, I skipped it in theaters because the ad campaign was just heavy cgi Inception ripoff scenes and no real plot. Glad it came to Netflix, totally worth seeing.

<comment><USER5> Fantastic movie with some really imaginative CG, the whole 'fractal'-like effect had me fascinated every time it was shown and was pretty much the entire reason I watched it to begin with. The fact that it was a decent movie was a nice bonus too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm tempted to try this. Netflix in the UK is laughable when it comes to movies. The only reason we keep it is because of the exclusives (I guess that explains why they do them). We have about 6 streaming services and I have to use JustWatch every time we want to watch something as I have no idea which service something is on :-D This is very solidly a "first world problem" but still a bizarre one given it's all software.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a fan of the DVD service. The large library is great since I like all kinds of odd stuff. But since I don't actually watch a lot of video, I have something like 300+ DVDs backlog in my netflix queue. So there is always a new disc showing up to watch and no need for streaming. Hopefully 2 years ago me made good choices.

</comment><comment><USER8> We use our local library for watching DVDs, they have a great collection of both new and old releases and it is free.

<comment><USER9> They don't carry BluRays, though. I know, choosing beggar and all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The only thing that can make it better: Drone pick-up and delivery.

Unfortunately by then even 4k Blu-rays will be on the way out.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone have experience outsourcing plastics design/manufacturing? - <AUTHOR> Like many of us software types, I don't know where to go to have physical objects made (in this case, specialty plastic containers with latches/moving parts).  Anyone have experience with hiring freelance designers to make the CAD files, and then contracting with a manufacturer?  Recommendations? <comment><USER2> I've made my own molds for vacuum formed plastic parts, and you can make an homemade machine to do simple parts that way. This is a pretty inexpensive route to go but it's also limited in what you can make. If you're creative you can build a decent prototype with vacuum form plastic and machined plastic parts. This can be a good route to go during the proof of design phase of a product.

Nowadays, for a demo product you can also look into 3-D printers for prototypes and small runs of your designs and this is probably what you should do before going into production.

For production volumes you need to find a "injection mold company". Google the term and you'll get a list.

I'd talk to matt_the_bass first if I were you though. He's in the biz and took the time to respond.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm heavily involved with production at my company including mechanical design and electronic fabrication.

In what quantities are you planning to order? How long do you plan to support this product? Are you cost sensitive?</comment>


Show HN: Repuso – Social testimonial widgets - <AUTHOR> https://repuso.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I've been working on Repuso the last few months after a similar service closed down. After their closing down notice i whiped up an MVP in a weekend and started testing it with some users of the old service.

The last few months it grew into a mature service which lets you showcase social media testimonials with a single line javascript widget. All Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Zendesk and Delighed user feedback can be displayed on your most important pages to increase the conversion of your website.</comment>


It will never be easy - <AUTHOR> http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/11/07/it-will-never-be/

<comment><USER2> I found that little list surprisingly refreshing and inspiring. It's really easy to beat yourself for not being "there" yet. This list is a good way to keep yourself grounded, thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is possibly the best thing I've read all day. An acceptance of the imperfection of our everyday lives, and a realization that we can't use that as an excuse.

</comment><comment><USER4> As the mighty Greg LeMond once said of bicycle racing, "It never gets easier, you just go faster".</comment>


Proof The Better Business Bureau Is A Sham (20/20 Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> The only proof I ever needed was when I attempted to file complaints with them.

I had let go of a house keeping company after the first .com bust - and 2 years later they attempted to sue me for $175 - which was completely fraudulent (they basically printed an excel table and dated it 2 years prior and stated it was for unpaid services, we went to small claims court in Los Gatos, I ended up winning - but Los Gatos ended up keeping my money they had me pay into escrow).

I filed a complaint against the BBB who argued to me that they were a company "in good standing" and "gold member" or some such.

The bailiff at the LG court told me the company was suing all their previous clients for small amounts as their "M.O." in an effort to make money because of the down-turn...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Should they be a Government run organization?

<comment><USER3> A lot of consumers seem to think they are already -- and that they have some sort of authority to take action against "bad" businesses.

Whether this means that they _should_ be is another matter, of course.</comment></comment>


IBM faces shareholder lawsuit over cooperation with NSA - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57615663-92/ibm-faces-shareholder-lawsuit-over-cooperation-with-nsa/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title <comment><USER2> Whether this case has merit or not, I hope it makes it's way to the evening news. Americans may not care about privacy, but they care about their jobs and a prosperous economy.

<comment><USER3> It probably does not. It is perfectly legal to damage anyone if you do not violate any laws. Given that IBM can probably show a court order, if necessary a retroactive one from the NSA.

In order to get a conviction, shareholders would have to prove : 1) that such cooperation existed 2) that it violated existing laws 3) that they personally suffered losses as a result.

3 looks to me hard to prove by itself, but the real problem is of course condition 2. An action that was the result of directly following a court order is not illegal, not even if it violates laws (that's the whole point of court orders, after all).

I would be interested in what would happen if they did get a conviction. This would be a weird situation. Shareholders own IBM, after all. So any damages paid would effectively be a transfer from one part of their ownership to another, effectively a zero-worth transaction.

<comment><USER4> Shareholder litigation is typically brought under federal securities laws. In this case IBM misled the market by failing to disclose material adverse information which caused the stock price to fall. To prove you suffered losses you only have to show that you bought stock during the time period affected, and lost money as a result of the information coming to light.

This is interesting. Investors have a right to all material information about a company, and public companies are obligated to provide that information, and SEC regulations require that they do so. But, in this case, that information was classified, so IBM would be breaking the law by revealing it. Conflicting laws.

If the shareholders win, who knows, we may see more lawsuits like this. Maybe that would compel these companies to stand up to the government.

<comment><USER3> > Conflicting laws

All modern law systems have methods to resolve conflicts between differing law interpretations. Every law falls somewhere on a priority list. At the top (in the US) is the constitution and it's amendments (with the amendments higher than the constitution). Then federal laws. Then federal executive orders. Then ... This is a very complex topic with dozens of exceptions and weird cases (for example court orders have higher precedence than federal laws, except if ...).

But the end result is very simple : if 2 laws conflict one is more important than the other, and you get to ignore one of them. To further qualify this principle you have to build in perspective : it only matters what you see personally, not "the truth", only how the situation appeared to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad it hasn't happened to AT&T (and other carriers), too. AT&T especially has been pretty dismissive to shareholders caring about its relationship with the NSA:

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131208/00473825498/att- te...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131208/00473825498/att-tells- shareholders-to-mind-their-own-business-concerning-its-relationship-with- nsa.shtml)

<comment><USER6> Does AT&T have international business? It seems like a key point of the suit is that the Chinese government cancelled IBM contracts due to these worries, which translates to actual shareholder damages. I don't see any indication AT&T has lost business as a result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And IBM just lost a $600M CIA deal to Amazon ([http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57610011-92/ibm-bows-out- of...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57610011-92/ibm-bows-out-of-fight- with-amazon-for-$600m-cia-deal/)).

</comment><comment><USER8> Could a company avoid NSA's do-not-discolse agreements by making all customers employees or part-owners in the terms of service?

<comment><USER9> Why would it be expected that do-not-disclose agreements cover all employees or owners? Most top secret information is handled on a need-to-know basis; it is only given to people who are deemed to need to know it. Even within IBM (or any other large company that was involved in PRISM or other NSA programs), most people in the company wouldn't know about it. In general, there are only a few people within the company, who have a secret or top secret clearance, who get to know about what's going on.

Furthermore, owners don't know everything about a company either; shareholders in a public company have no greater insight into the company than the general public.

<comment><USER8> It's not the fact that they don't know everything, but is it illegal for them to know everything relating to their company?</comment></comment></comment>


Example of Lisp Macros - <AUTHOR> http://p-cos.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-point-of-macros.html <comment><USER2> This is not startup news. We need downmods for this purpose. (I love Lisp, but this is not a Lisp forum.)

<comment><USER3> Language choice and thusly features of given languages are pretty pertinent to hackers trying to start startups.

Just don't upmod it. If you're lucky it will go away.

<comment><USER2> It seems to me that these are separate pursuits. I suppose that if the community is smart, they will pick reasonable programming articles as well, and the two can overlap harmlessly; my worry is that smart programming communities if not given an explicit focus (e.g. Lisp, Haskell) quickly deteriorate into non-smart programming communities (witness programming reddit). This may be true for startup news communities as well, but I haven't witnessed it yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not a bad explanation of macros. I'm not experienced enough here to really judge how good, but I grokked it at least. It does seem though that you an approach this type of power with some of the dynamic features of Python. Am I wrong here? I think it's likely I'm missing the subtlety of macros.

<comment><USER4> I'm rusty on my Python, but I'd have to guess that no, Python's dynamic features don't get you the kind of power that Pascal's talking about. The key thing to realize is that any particular feature that your language has doesn't necessarily matter. For example, Python may happend to have a built-in way of doing

(with-input-file (in "myfile.txt") (do-something in))

In Python, this might look like

withInputFile in "myfile.txt": doSomething(in)

(hey, I told you I was rusty on my Python...especially my totally made up Python!)

So maybe the feature came built-in to Python, in which case you're lucky-- Guido happened to decide to implement this feature. But what if he hadn't? Well, just write your own abstraction. Obviously, Python can open files and do stuff with the file's contents. So it seems logical that you should be able to create an abstraction which saves you from writing the same boilerplate that you do every time you open an input file. Unfortunately, there are some abstractions that *you just can't write* in most languages (including Python). This file open example is a good one. Here's another example, in the form of a programming challenge:

In Python, create an abstraction called "debugExpr" that consumes an expression E, and then does two things: 1) prints "Expression E = V", where E is the given expression, and V is the value E evaluates to. 2) returns the value V.

For example,

%python% 6 * debugExpr(2+3)

Expression 2+3 = 5

30

I'm betting you can't implement debugExpr in Python. So assuming Guido didn't extend the language to implement this feature, you're pretty much SOL. It's a shame because debugExpr, I think, is pretty darn useful. It means that you can take any expression in your code and "inspect it", without worrying about adjusting the structure of your program, and without affecting its semantics. Without debugExpr, I'd have to change my example code to be something like this to get the same result:

print "Expression 2+3 ="

tmp = 2+3

print tmp

6 * tmp

YUCK!

<comment><USER5> Well actually Python does have an eval() that can be called on expressions in the form of strings. The problem is that any potential macro anything would be nowhere near as seamless as it in Lisp, since the parse tree isn't right there for everything. But with enough effort (and closing your eyes to avoid how horrible it would look), you could maybe make something.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure. I think scoping would screw you up. First off, there's a small reason right away why it wouldn't work. You'd have to quote your argument to debugExpr, as in, say, debugExpr('2 times 3'). I did a little test at the Python prompt and the results didn't look good for faking this macro with eval:

def foo(x): return 2 times (x + 3)

> foo(1)

8

(not a full version of debugExpr, but enough to test:)

def debugExpr(expr): print "Expr is " + expr return eval(expr)

def bar(x): return 2 times debugExpr('x + 3')

> bar(1)

Expr is x + 3

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "", line 1, in ?

File "", line 2, in bar

File "", line 3, in debugExpr

File "", line 0, in ?

NameError: name 'x' is not defined

PS: I couldn't use the asterisk symbol in the post, so I used 'times' instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe this submission is a bit off topic, but I'd love to see more Lisp code for clever hacks of pratical applications.

</comment><comment><USER7> None of these examples demonstrate something that can't be done procedurally. He never actually answers the question "What is the point of macros?"

<comment><USER2> You CAN do it procedurally; in fact, you can do it in Brainfuck, since Brainfuck is Turing-complete. The point is, macros let you stop repetitively writing the same boilerplate code, and let you get down to the point.</comment></comment>


Compromised supply chain within a supply chain poses new risks - <AUTHOR> https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/microsoftsecure/2018/07/26/attack-inception-compromised-supply-chain-within-a-supply-chain-poses-new-risks/ <comment><USER2> In compiled/installed software, the concept of "supply chain risk" is at least a thing that companies are aware of. However, when it comes to web software, I have not heard many companies really conceptualize their "supply chain" exposure from the myriad of scripts/dependencies injected via tag managers and other software.

And it's not just tag managers (GTM/DTM, etc) - React create app command builds a boilerplate with hundreds of packages as dependency.

Has anyone employed any kind of automated scanning to try and catch known malicious code in these?

On the tag manager front, I'm afraid the very premise of letting non-technical people manage code is what makes these a built-in vulnerability. Educating those in control as to risks seems to be the only option, in addition to normal malware scanning you have to do if you run ads.

<comment><USER3> The article also stated that the malware being a part of an installation utility gave it basically the Windows equivalent of riot access. Why does any normal app need root access?

<comment><USER4> The installer needs administrative privileges, the same way that make install needs root to write into /usr/bin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Supply chain attacks are one of my personal nightmares.

However, on the bright side, cryptominers are continuing to perform a public service by providing non-destructive whole-lifecycle penetration testing on a contingent-fee basis.

<comment><USER6> Which components/stack/supplychain is used by most crypto-miners?

<comment><USER7> I like bitcoin, but the GIGO makes these supply blockchains useless. The enormous costs(slow and expensive) of blockchain makes me think blockchain shouldnt be used for dApps or logistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another supply chain I worry about is package management. Maven, NPM, NuGet, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> > The app vendor's systems were unaffected.

The vendor doesn't test their software in its entirety?

<comment><USER10> The packages served to the vendor could be legit, but packages served to everyone else is compromised. The vendor would never know there was a problem.

<comment><USER11> One could use hash signatures to detect a problem.

<comment><USER12> The hash comes from the source of the package, and in this attack that source was compromised. The malicious code was signed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> adobe?

<comment><USER3> The article said it was "alternate" PDF reader.</comment></comment>


How Russia Recruited Elite Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/europe/how-russia-recruited-elite-hackers-for-its-cyberwar.html <comment><USER2> This was an informative article and not filled with hysteria. I thought it was strange that the convict chose to go to prison rather than work for the FSB; it seems irrational to make that choice. Maybe it's hard to stop working for the FSB; can someone add context?

I see Russian computer network exploitation talent being recruited with far better methods than in the U.S., which is hamstrung by strict security clearance requirements, such as criminal records and drug abuse.

From what I speculate from the article, the Russian FSB and GRU manage to use the risky hires by using government contractors as intermediaries, and there compartmentalize information to a degree that the risky hires only know about the operation they perform. It appears that these hackers have a lot of latitude in their operations.

To contrast this with the U.S. model, the only way a person who isn't eligible for clearance to help is to sell their exploit to a broker and the DoD/CIA/FBI eventually buy it. This means only exploit developers even have the opportunity. Computer crime ex-convicts have to join a consultancy for business clients instead, despite having a good skill set.

</comment><comment><USER3> As the article says, every country's security services need to deal with IT security and need skilled professionals to do it, so everyone recruits. They all recruit naval engineers too.

The Russian gov't reputedly recruiting criminals is a story, but only a small part of this one. The Russian government's aggressive recruiting tactics are somewhat of a story, but probably not specific to this segment of the labor market.

<comment><USER4> I think the article would have been more interesting if it probed into why Russia so far appears to be winning at both recruiting talent and utilizing that talent.

If Arab Spring is the type of offensive cyberthreat that the U.S. has created, it doesn't seem nearly as effective as the fake hacktivist cyberthreat that Russia has established. But maybe that's just because I have an overly US- centric view.

<comment><USER2> I appreciated the limited scope of this article.

As far as winning the talent wars, I'm not sure if that is what is happening. (Russia has been making use of its talent to fantastic success, however!) Russian efforts have been bolder and focused on political and military objectives. U.S. efforts so far have been for intelligence gathering and the "Stuxnet" Iranian centrifuge sabotage.

The recent email phishing hacks required very little technical talent. More impressive Russian activities would be government and corporate network intrusions, which are not detected frequently. That is probably the best comparison with most of U.S. computer network exploitation activity.

Involvement in the Arab Spring didn't involve an offensive cyber threat; I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe some NGOs that were CIA-funded were behind some of the Twitter and Facebook posts (I haven't come across any compelling evidence to suggest they were, but I will allow for the possibility), but I wouldn't consider that an offensive cyber threat.

<comment><USER4> [http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism- in-...](http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism-in-the- middle-east/)

I guess the Arab Spring hacktivism didn't really amount to much, and the links to the U.S. on it are extremely tenuous, so I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it.

But if those attempts were backed in some way by the U.S., they were definitely a pathetic attempt compared to what Russia has been doing.

That said, you are likely right about America having the capability, but up to this point simply haven't had the desire or boldness to go as far as the Russians. Will be interesting to see if we do sink to their level, probably be a whole lot of leaked emails and internal memos if so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder about the skill levels of the people working for these organizations. On some level it's still a government job and I can't imagine the govt to be able to attract the best of the best.

<comment><USER6> Note that the cyber warfare programs mentioned in the article seem to be military programs, so a better comparison would be comparing skill levels of people working in comparable elite branches of the military.

The existence of highly trained and highly skilled special forces units in various forms (e.g. GRU Spetsnaz[1]) in various countries implies that with enough political willpower and funding the skill levels of at least a small subset of people working for these organizations should be somewhat formidable.

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

<comment><USER5> What's the market rate for a guy in spetznaz? I don't think he has one.

<comment><USER2> It's kind of a non-sequitur to compare a great software developer or vulnerability researcher to Spetznaz.

A guy in Spetznaz has a high market value to private military companies. Companies like Blackwater/XE and Triple Canopy hire ex-special forces operators to perform private security and military advisor services.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Common Lisp Quick Reference - <AUTHOR> http://clqr.boundp.org/

<comment><USER2> It's good to have a quick reference and this is the best one available for CL.

For a CL hacker, it's also invaluable to learn how to parse the full CL spec.

<comment><USER3> When you say "the full CL spec", which one are you using? The $30 PDF from ANSI (I've heard it's just a poor scan of a printout!), or the submitted drafts of it floating around, or the Hyperspec, or Guy Steele's book?

From what I've seen, they all have essentially the same content. Each has its strengths (there's no hyperlinks to "click" on the paper pages of CLTL2, while the Hyperspec is missing Steele's humorous examples), and some have minor mistakes that others don't, but I can't recall any case where I've been unable to figure something out from just reading one of them.

<comment><USER2> I primarily use the HyperSpec.

CLtL2 is more amusing but less rigorous. Since the prose is more fun, and since it's a physical book, it's easier to read cover-to-cover, but I would not recommend it as a reference.

I'd love to make a new physical book from the ANSI draft sources, but I don't think that will happen any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is helpful and a nice awesome effort as well, well done!

</comment><comment><USER5> When I was using Common Lisp, I printed this out and referred to it all the the time. It is quite useful once you get used to it.

</comment><comment><USER6> thank you! i'm going through practical common lisp and i've been missing exactly this. as i've been reading through i wish practical common lisp had a reference on each function so we don't have to go back to the chapter where it's defined to remember the function's signature. now i'll print this.

<comment><USER7> When using slime+emacs, the function signatures are printed to the message area as you code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The statistics show a typical HN-effect. Traffic is up from an average of 15 unique visitiors to 1419.

</comment><comment><USER9> (however{Fu} (look{Fu} _this_ :like-a (adj{M} _resource_ _compact_ '( _good_ :for (noun-form{M} (remember{Fu} (prep{M} _idiosyncrasies_ :of _common-lisp_ )))))) (ask{M} (can{Fu} we :at-least (drop{Fu} (the{sO} (adj{M} (noun-and{M} {M}s {Fu}s {sO}s) _distracting_ )) :from (the{sO} _text_ )))))</comment>


Ask HN: How to you prefer to log in to websites? - <AUTHOR>

For a web based hobby project I want to allow users to log in and save  data in their own accounts. I want to make this as simple as possible (both in terms of development and user experience) but I don't want to force users to use (for example) Facebook connect.
Here are a few pros and cons I've considered:
* Email+password. Pro: does not require users to have an account elsewhere. Cons: requires users to create yet another account; also requires me to write a lot of boilerplate code ('confirm password' functionality, 'forgot my password', etc.).
* Login with Facebook/Twitter. Con: forces visitors to have one of those accounts. Pros: most people have one of those; it allows login/signup with just a few clicks.
* OpenID. Pro: most people have this. Con: I'm not sure if the average internet user knows what it is (i.e. requires explaining that a Gmail-address is also an OpenID).
* Mozilla's BrowserID. Pro: seems easy to implement and easy to use. Con: I doubt that this is widely known and used.
What are your opinions as users? How do you prefer to log in? Any feedback is highly appreciated! <comment><USER2> Email+password. As a user with a password manager (LastPass), I can log in with one click, use a unique password everywhere, and never forget a password. Can't beat it in terms of usability.

From the developer's perspective, there's a bit of boilerplate to be done, but it's nice to own the data and not rely on third party platforms.

I think there's an unfulfilled need for identity management by password managers. Why do I have to enter the same information everywhere? It would be nice to be able to click a "Create Account" button on a website and have it get my name, email, and new password from the LastPass plugin over a standard protocol.

<comment><USER3> I agree - I don't use a password manager, but I find this to be the best option. I would suggest using email vs having the user create a username (email is always unique, but when you have a common name and your username is sometimes taken, you have to choose a secondary or tertiary username, which can get confusing).

I don't have any problems wit Facebook/Twitter logins, but I would suggest holding back on the permissions requests. If I see that a website wants to have the ability to post as me or invite friends as me, etc., I will think twice about accepting. If they just want to access my name/email for auth reasons, I'm usually happy to do so.

I like OpenID, but am not sure if it is as widespread among the average user (especially vs Facebook or Twitter) an having that as the only login option may shy people away a bit.

Haven't used BrowserID, so personally I wouldn't use it. I don't know the numbers on this one, but you may get a specific demographic of users if you go with this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I kinda like how easy facebook/twitter makes logging in to new sites, but I find it annoying when they request for permissions they do not really need.

Then again I like when a site allows me to create new account for the site, because this does not share my social data to the site, but the registration process is annoying, because I of course want to use the site right away.

OpenID is pretty cool system, but I do not use it, because I do not use any of the OpenID services like Google anymore.

Never before heard of Mozilla's BrowserID, so can not say much about it.

These days I have been thinking about system where log in form asks for email address and password. Then the client will send this email address to the server and the server will check if the address already exists in the database.

If the email does not exist then the server will reply to the client and the client will send the password to the server and the server will register new account and authenticate the user right away. Then the user can do whatever they need to do on the site.

If the email does exist then the server will reply to the client and the client will send somekind of hash generated to the server to authenticate the user. The hash function will use the user password as the secret key. Once the server receives this hash it will authenticate the account if the email and password were correct.

I think this kind of system would simplify the registration process. If you need the email address verified you can send the verification email on the registration process, but do not require the email to be verified right away, because it's damn annoying to go to your email to click the damn link to verify your email address which usually opens new tab in your browser when you already most likely have the site in open tab.

</comment><comment><USER5> I might be a part of the minority, but generally I would rather give up my (Facebook|Twitter|GitHub) account than create a new account, for a few reasons.

1\. My email is more important. I generally don't want you to have it if I feel like you might bug me. I can disable your access to my info on Facebook (and usually do), but with email you can still send me things I don't want.

2\. I don't want to have to sign in. With Facebook logins I can usually click 1-2 buttons and I'm in. That's what I want. Unless my interest is particularly piqued, I will probably just Cmd+W you out of my life. :)

That being said I would never do something like this for say, my online banking account. But for social/online services? I would definitely take this route.

</comment><comment><USER6> mathijs, you might want to look into remoteStorage. It's an open protocol for per-user data storage. As it also has identification & authorization, the log in is inherent. It's kind of like OpenID + Storage, except that we don't use OpenID (but rather Webfinger, OAuth, CORS and Get put delete on a key value store). For a developer, you just put in the remoteStorage.js client-side library and that enables everyone to log in to your app with their remoteStorage.

Check it out at <http://unhosted.org> and <http://www.w3.org/community/unhosted/wiki/RemoteStorage> There is also an IRC channel, #unhosted on freenode.

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. OpenID

2\. Email+Password

999999\. Twitter / Facebook.

haven't used BrowserID enough to comment.

</comment><comment><USER8> Email and password with option to connect via Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER9> Usually I rather create new account instead of giving my facebook info for the site I do not trust.

We went with approach A and B for our site <http://jackpotbuddy.com>. We kept the Email+password signup to just 4 fields (Name, email, password and confirm password)

</comment><comment><USER10> I give my users an option of email + password or Facebook.

Only about 1 in 3 choose the Facebook option.</comment>