Hacker News app for Android (with login, voting, and commenting) - <AUTHOR> http://etc.jazzychad.net/hnandroid.html

<comment><USER2> Cool, I'm using it to write this. Seems to work well enough. I wish there was a light theme, as I'm not really a fan of the light grey on black. Also,the voting doesn't seem to work correctly. I voted up this story, then quit the app and re-launched it, and it said I hadn't voted. Trying to vote it up again though failed, as the vote had indeed gone through.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's correct... I'm using the ihackernews.com API at the moment, so your votes aren't reflected in the data I get from there if you reload the app/page. If/when I use an html parser to fetch all the data directly from new.ycombinator this bug will be fixed. For now, if the number of points changes after you vote, it means the vote went through successfully.

<comment><USER2> Maybe keep a list of my votes in the application cache and check against that as well as the ihackernews API? Same with my comments, too. I would really enjoy if it appeared to have read-your-writes consistency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's probably what I'll do in the interim. I'll have to figure out how to do these checks efficiently. Scrolling lists in Android is already clunky due to the way rows are rendered, so I'll need to make sure to not make it worse by checking the entire 'already-voted-list' for each row.

<comment><USER3> Check out the following video from io2010 regarding optimizing your listviews..

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDBM6wVEO70>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Feature request: offline operation and background sync, so I can read HN offline. Presumably voting/commenting wouldn't work while offline. Of course, if you're going down that rabbit hole, you also want to prefetch and cache the content of the links.

<comment><USER5> This was going to be my comment - I often do my on-phone reading on the subway/elevator - would be great to have an app that worked when I don't have cell phone service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why. Why are we doing this? Why do people go and write this stuff when there is already the web. That doesn't require an app store. It can use the same code as the actual website (imagine that).

Why are we running so fast in the wrong direction?

<comment><USER7> The web still sucks for phones. The formatting is better in apps and it runs faster than the browser. I don't have to double tap text to bring it to human readable size or deal with lag when scrolling. Until phone browsers and/or web sites catch up, apps such as this provide a lot of relief.

<comment><USER8> I half agree, half disagree with you. The web doesn't suck for phones, the websites suck for phones. If websites use a fluid layout or a mobile layout, nobody has to write an app for them. Posterous is great to read on mobiles due to their theme.

I hope more companies start using those tricks that let websites resize gracefully on any size screen, so you don't even need a mobile theme. Your layout just adjusts gracefully to the screen.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, by "web" I meant websites. Mobile layouts are nice when they are implemented correctly. The worst case is when a mobile version routes your request to a default landing page rather than the requested article or whatever or strips out functionality that exists in the regular version.

I expect that things will only improve as more people access the web via mobile devices. I think I use my phone more than a standard computer these days.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I think we're agreeing, but, to clarify, I meant that it's not websites in general (as in, the technology) that sucks, but particular websites (most of them) which haven't correctly implemented mobile-friendly versions.

We _are_ agreeing, though, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Haha I love how my cofounder and I have different side projects on HN at the same time: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2139690>

</comment><comment><USER10> Very nice. My favourite of the apps so far and a first use makes me think I'll keep this for more than a day (unlike many of the others).

Particularly: the positioning of the voting buttons and the simple main screen that is easy to intuit.

I was actually unlikely to grab my phone and try this but the huge QR code at the top of your page made it too easy to miss. A nice little touch that I wish every app maker would use.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice, but it needs the option to move to SD card.

<comment><USER12> At least it is small. Reddit is Fun is ~2MB with no Move to SD support (not to mention broken in many various ways).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Liking the UI updates from the previous version. Would be nice to be able to change the default tap action.

<comment><USER14> I'd prefer it lighter as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> QR code fails here in UK: "Not Found: The requested item could not be found."

Downloaded from the Market but I can't find the login! The new menu gives me Post x2, Comments x2, Refresh, and About.

There's no version number in About, so can't provide any info.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah, that is a different app by the same name... try searching the market for "com.jazzychad.hn"

<comment><USER15> No matches :(

QRs have always worked for me. Any idea why yours isn't?

I tried the links on your page on the phone too, same result 404 and a Not Found.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Doesn't fit the Galaxy Tab Dimensions. Did you hardcode the max height and width values?

</comment><comment><USER17> Fun project. But what's the advantage over a browser bookmark that links to news.ycombinator.com ?

One of the great things about Hacker News is the simple web interface that is easy for most handheld browsers to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER18> Unfortunately, my HN account uses OpenID to login, so I can't login with this app as it only allows for standard username/password accounts. Is there any way to assign a regular password to my account?

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI, there are three other android clients: <http://hnresources.com/apps/> and your already added to the list

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks. Yes I know there are other android clients, but the ones I found on the Market had lots of reviews saying that login, voting, and commenting were missing (and I wanted a layout more similar to the website). So I wrote my own client as an exercise and decided to publish it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> i'm in sweden, i can not access it via the market.

<comment><AUTHOR> send me an email, i'll send you a direct link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The download on Android devices is 404ing for me.

<comment><USER22> Same for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good work. I like the spartan utilitarianism.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very clean interface. Are there any plans to have an ajustable font size in a future release?

</comment><comment><USER25> I've been using HNDroid for months with no complaints.

Checking this one out now.

</comment><comment><USER26> Can you add an option to autoload via viewtext.org when a post is clicked?

</comment><comment><USER27> Any know about an iOS Hacker News app? That would be swell.</comment>


Yale University Under Federal Investigation for Use of Race - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-opens-probe-into-whether-yale-university-discriminates-against-asian-americans-1537980075 <comment><USER2> Link is paywalled. Give your traffic to someone else:

1\. [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-justice-department- investi...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-justice-department- investigation-discrimination-allegations-yale-university-today-2018-09-26/)

2\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/yale-asian- am...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/yale-asian-americans- discrimination-investigation.html)</comment>


Indictment of Marcus Hutchins aka "Malwaretech" - <AUTHOR> https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3912520-Marcus-Hutchinson-Indictment.html <comment><USER2> Outside of the clear concerns about if this person is falsely accused of creating malware for the purposes of victimizing people one concern I still have not seen addressed widely is the issue of US enforcing laws on an international level

Even if all of the charges are true, these "crimes" would have taken place in the UK or where ever this person is living outside the US, so how then can the US justify charging them with violation of US law.

I know this is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last time this happens, but it is increasingly concerning that crimes completely committed online are open to US Jurisdiction and sets a TERRIBLE precedent.

As a US Citizen I do not want to be held to another nations laws, laws I may not be familiar with, because of my online activities.

It is only a matter of time before a EU nation attempts to extradite or arrest a US Citizen traveling abroad for a hate speech law violation or some other violation that occurred online from the US which is not a violation of US law but is a violation of EU Law.

<comment><USER3> _I still have not seen addressed widely is the issue of US enforcing laws on an international level_

It's simple: if you do something which causes something illegal-in-the-US to happen on computers-located-in-the-US, you can be prosecuted by the US for it. There is nothing new, radical, revolutionary, terrifying, unprecedented, etc. about this idea. There wasn't anything new about it recently when some bitcoin people were busted because they laundered their proceeds through US institutions. There isn't anything new about it when someone in another country hacks a US company's systems.

"The internet" is not a magical extra-territorial location which wipes away all concept of countries having jurisdiction. As long as a computer in one country can cause things to happen to/on a computer in another country, there's an opportunity for either country, or both, or others in between them on the network, to have jurisdiction over things that go wrong.

And your "only a matter of time" slippery slope has already happened: several EU nations have taken legal action against US-based online retail/auction sites to require compliance with laws against selling Nazi symbols or memorabilia. And I hope you'd understand that no matter how much you might argue "but I wasn't even _in_ Germany", Germany will come after you if you offer to sell and ship items to Germany which are illegal to sell/ship there.

<comment><USER4> The problem here, as I wrote above, is arresting a UK citizen in the USA. If they would've issued a warrant and the UK police decides to arrest him and then extradite him, that's fine.

But this sort of thing... this could potentially halt international travel. I am not kidding: how do you dare to travel anywhere if you can be arrested for something you did years ago which very well might have been legal in the country you resided in but not in the country you travel to?

<comment><USER5> If I went on travel to a foreign country and committed a crime, I would expect to be arrested there. Where the damage was done is the key, not where I was at the time. If I create some malware that takes out UK servers, I would expect to be arrested for that if I ever set foot on UK soil.

<comment><USER4> If you ever posted a sickle-and-hammer to the web, visible to the Hungarian public -- distributing it -- then you possibly could be fined for it. If you visit Hungary and you got fined, would you consider it just? Here's the Hungarian Criminal Code article in question:

Article 335(1). Any person who a) distributes; b) uses in public; c) exhibits in public; a swastika, the SS sign, an arrow-cross, a hammer and sickle, a five-pointed red star or a symbol depicting the above, – unless a graver crime is realised – commits a misdemeanour, and shall be liable to punishment with a fine. (2) The person who uses a symbol of despotism for the purposes of the dissemination of knowledge, education, science, or art, or with the purpose of information about the events of history or the present time shall not be punishable. (3) The provisions of subsections (1) and (2) do not extend to the official symbols of states in force.

<comment><USER3> As I've already noted, Germany and other countries have enforced their no- Nazi-stuff laws against US-based entities.

If you do a thing that's illegal in Hungary, and then put yourself on Hungarian soil, I'm not going to be surprised when you get arrested. In other words, this is not the knock-down "that'll really show _him_!" counterexample you're looking for.

<comment><USER6> This seems untenable. Now, to travel to another country for holiday, I need to look back on everything I've ever done, (even something so minute as distribute an image of a hammer and sickle) _and_ pore over the laws of that country and determine I have not ever been in violation of _any_ of them?

<comment><USER7> I don't think most people would say that's how it should be, it's just the way it currently is. Law enforcement typically does not care about your convenience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Guardian has some more context (for those of us not keeping track of previous events, such as AlphaBay's takedown a few weeks ago): [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researche...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researcher- who-stopped-wannacry-ransomware-detained-in-us)

<comment><USER9> I'm amazed and slightly confused at the idea that the act of writing a piece of software can in and of itself be illegal.

Do the laws require distribution or showing of intent to harm or simply writing malware?

Is there any precedent to democracies jailing a person over reducing to writing an idea or algorithm?

<comment><USER10> Well, that's the "it's not guns that kill, it's the people who use them" argument. Which I have some sympathy for. But many disagree.

<comment><USER11> Except that a handgun's primary purpose is just that; it's a pretty blunt tool. But software can have many purposes, even if it is security related: research, practice, proof-of-concept, curiosity, ...

We better hope they have some real evidence beyond just some random code; if mere possession is enough, they can throw all of us security people in jail, together with anybody who has any DRM circumvention or file-sharing software and whatnot. Seems any computer could contain something to detain just about anybody if twisted around enough.

I guess only the future will bring clarity if this is gross overreach or if they really have substantial evidence that he is both the source and had the intent.

<comment><USER7> A gun's primary purpose is not to kill a human being by default.

A gun is designed to fire bullets, the bullet is designed to inflict intended levels of damage upon the target of choice. A single gun can have ammunition that ranges from no damage whatsoever to any target up to beyond lethal to a living target.

In other words, your gun's primary purpose is what you decide it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Even for an indictment, this is...surprisingly bare.

(For example, this is an Alphabay seller who was selling and distributing fentanyl in Cincinnati two months ago).

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbsiebzsd6r0f28/bozworth-grace- arr...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbsiebzsd6r0f28/bozworth-grace- arrest.pdf?dl=0)

It looks like they put together the minimum needed to indict, put together a grand jury, indicted and arrested. This was the prosecutor's "ham sandwich" of the week.

<comment><USER13> FYI, that file has the name, social security number, and address of the person being indicted. It says it's supposed to be redacted-- but there it is.

<comment><USER12> Good catch.

I didn't see that when I downloaded the file from PACER. I've since uploaded a redacted version to dropbox.

<comment><USER14> so i can get the non-redacted version from pacer? thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given that the Alphabay takedown (and law enforcement's control of the servers for at least six weeks) was more than a month ago, Huthchins' blithely travelling to the States for Blackhat seems a level of confidence completely at odds with known facts and the apparent allegations of the indictment.

<comment><USER16> I don't see why Alphabay getting taken down would really put him at risk. He wouldn't have put his bank account or credit card on the site. This isn't even like drugs where physical mailing addresses are involved. The worst would be the money in his account getting seized.

<comment><USER15> No, it could be much worse than that. Law enforcement didn't immediately shut Alphabay down---they let it run compromised for several weeks, gathering evidence. If Hutchins made transactions during that period, he was at signficant risk, especially if he was under surveilance at the time---simple traffic analysis would be enough to connect him to activity on the site. It's very hard to hide the content of a conversation from one of its participants.

<comment><USER16> I would think that when operating any type of illegal online enterprise, you should always operate under the assumption that everyone you're talking to is a government agent. So you should never reveal anything about yourself. The government is obviously making many undercover purchases.

Traffic analysis is a risk, but questionable. If it was used in this case, I want to follow this case closely to see more details. Because I haven't heard of a case of the government using traffic analysis to identify users except extremely basic stuff such as "we saw him walk into his house, then saw some Tor traffic, then saw a post appear on the forums".

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately there will likely be a nice parallel construction to ensure we never find out exact how they snared him

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "This raises an interesting legal question: Is it a crime to create and sell malware?

The indictment asserts that Hutchins created the malware and an unnamed co- conspirator took the lead in selling it. The indictment charges a slew of different crimes for that: (1) conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; (2) three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 2512, which prohibits selling and advertising wiretapping devices; (3) a count of wiretapping; and (4) a count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act through accomplice liability — basically, aiding and abetting a hacking crime.

Do the charges hold up? Just based on a first look at the case, my sense is that the government's theory of the case is fairly aggressive. It will lead to some significant legal challenges. It's hard to say, at this point, how those challenges will play out. The indictment is pretty bare bones, and we don't have all the facts or even what the government thinks are the facts. So while we can't say that this indictment is clearly an overreach, we can say that the government is pushing the envelope in some ways and may or may not have the facts it needs to make its case. As always, we'll have to stay tuned.

Here's an overview of the six counts in the indictment, together with my tentative thoughts on them."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2017/08/03/the-kronos-indictment-it-a-crime-to-create-and-sell- malware/)

</comment><comment><USER19> We can't know anything at this stage, but from the looks of it, it doesn't seem like the guy wasn't anything but a white hat.

There's also this:

> Hutchins' employer, cybersecurity firm Kryptos Logic, had been working > closely with the US authorities to help them investigate the WannaCry > malware. Hutchins handed over information on the kill switch to the FBI the > day after he discovered it, and the chief executive of the firm, Salim > Neino, testified in from of the US House of Representatives Committee on > Science, Space & Technology the following month.

If true, then the guy would have to be incredibly stupid and naive to live such a double life. Not to mention traveling to the US.

Anything is possible, of course. The problem is that the guy has become well- known, and retracting such a mistake would be politically costly. This guy will probably have the book thrown at him.

It's also a very bad thing for cyber security if researchers cannot do their jobs out of fear.

<comment><USER20> > We can't know anything at this stage, but from the looks of it, it doesn't > seem like the guy wasn't anything but a white hat.

Yes, we can know. Did you even bother reading the indictment?

He broke six US cyber laws in 2014, and that's why he was arrested.

> If true, then the guy would have to be incredibly stupid and naive to live > such a double life. Not to mention traveling to the US.

Yes, I think you nailed that one. He's certainly not as smart as he thought for flying to the US after breaking US cyber laws just three years ago and thinking the US law enforcement would not notice.

> It's also a very bad thing for cyber security if researchers cannot do their > jobs out of fear.

What are you talking about? He broke US law.

Felonies don't go away just because you do one good deed.

<comment><USER21> He is alleged to have broken the law, we don't know if he did things he is indicted for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It makes one wonder why anyone who has cyber dirt on their hands would step foot on US ground, after the Snowden/NSA revelations which made it clear to everybody on this planet that the NSA is literally everywhere.

<comment><USER23> Because, really, who among us hasn't built and sold software used to harvest Amazon logins, bank account logins, and credit card numbers from botnets?

<comment><USER24> Or crawled a webpage outside of the TOS, shared files through torrents, alerted some website that they had a security hole, ran a business legal abroad but illegal in the United States that had US customers, ran afoul of any one of the US laws without knowing about it and in places not normally under US jurisdiction and so on.

<comment><USER23> That is a non-sequitur response, as this person has not been arrested for violating terms of service, sharing files through torrents, alerting people to security flaws, selling Canadian pharmaceuticals, or trafficking in undersized lobsters.

They were arrested for building and selling software used to harvest Amazon logins, bank account logins, and credit card numbers from botnets.

Your logic could just as easily be used to dismiss an indictment of _any_ crime, from undersized lobsters to murdering someone with an undersized lobster.

<comment><USER25> While it's a different situation, it's still not a good one. The lack of rights for foreigners, the NSAs reach, the willingness to prosecute citizens of other countries, long detentions and harsh penalties for computer crimes etc. puts people in a situation where the US government can make things very uncomfortable for them. I do think some risks with e.g. mass surveillance have been exaggerated, like being pursued on a basis of keywords. But if the US government actually has evidence against you of things they consider illegal, your legal protection against abuse will have weakened. So while it's unlikely that the FBI has a list of dissidents that they've correlated with collected evidence and are just waiting for people to cross the border, it's still not a situation people should have to, or have to, accept.

<comment><USER26> Foreigners who are legally in the us are afforded the exact same due process rights as Americans.

<comment><USER27> This is not true at all. There is no Due Process when you're under the purview of USCIS/INS, CBP and ICE. This why visa holders in good standing can get turned-away at the border or destination airport and sent back immediately, even if they have done nothing wrong or violated the terms of their visa - just on the suspicion or hunch of the immigration officer - and they can extend their reach even after you pass through immigration. There's a reason they're called "constitution-free zones": [https://www.aclu.org/know-your- rights-governments-100-mile-b...](https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights- governments-100-mile-border-zone-map)

<comment><USER28> If you haven't made it through CBP, you aren't legally in the US yet.

<comment><USER29> 70% of Americans are under the purview of the CBP and their 100mile sphere of influence.

[https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border- zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

<comment><USER23> This is false, and the ACLU should take this page down. In fact, in the 1970s, the Border Patrol tried to rely on this notional "sphere of influence", and was smacked down by the Supreme Court. Searches concomitant with the Border Search Exemption must have some nexus to an actual, recent border crossing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When a website is seized off the dark web by the government, you can bet that it is a treasure trove of information for new and existing investigations. This is probably just the first of many indictments that we will see connected to AlphaBay.

</comment><comment><USER31> This does not make a lot of sense since he has been in the public eye for awhile now. But who knows. I wonder if he had a presentation to give at Defcon. So far his actions have been very whitehat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it does. He traveled to defcon repeatedly, last time they didn't have the indictment ready so they waited for the next.

The US most certainly doesn't want to have _another_ ongoing extradition battle for a British hacker in the UK.

<comment><USER32> Weren't you detained in a similar way when you traveled to the US to attend Defcon (without the arrest part)? Are you able to discuss how that all went down?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hotel rooms searched before con by the FBI, seized some tech and left me alone. Pretended to arrest a "friend" who was with me.

On my way back, switching planes at JFK there were a bunch of FBI agents waiting in the tube whom served me a subpoena and suggested that I'd be arrested if I tried to continue my trip.

Ended up being dropped off at the courtyard Marriott in Newark by the FBI (after very little arguing they paid for it, rather strange). Stayed there overnight, got interviewed in the morning about things I knew little about.

After the interview I got driven to JFK (maybe EWR, not sure) in a FBI car, with the agent at the wheel demonstrating some impressive skills in the heavy traffic, mostly going around it by driving on the shoulder.

Never going to the US again I guess, not voluntarily nor involuntarily.

<comment><USER27> Forgive my ignorance, but who are you and why was the FBI interested in you?

<comment><USER32> Google "Julius Kivimaki" / zeekill. [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33442419](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33442419)

Member/associate of HTP and Lizard Squad, hacked Linode (at least once), Lenovo, the Python wiki, some game companies; called in a bomb threat on a plane a Sony executive was flying (might've just been a friend of his who did that, can't remember), DDoSed video game services and 8chan for ages, possibly involved with the creation of the GayFgt and Mirai botnets, and much more. Got off scot free because he did it all before he turned 18.

I believe his use of ryan / ryanlol is a mocking reference to Ryan Cleary, whom he hated and considered incompetent. (Could be wrong.) It may have an (unintentional?) double meaning, since that's also the name of the aforementioned "friend" who secretly snitched on him and led to his detainment.

Nothing against the guy. He's intelligent and a good HN commenter. By sheer coincidence I sat in many disparate IRC channels under different aliases over the years that he would always seem to find his way into (probably not a coincidence in retrospect; he just loves IRC). He was very open about most things and generally appeared to be driven by e-cred, revenge/competition, and comedy over financial gain. But some people say he was involved with carding, too. No idea if that's true.

edit: Looks like he recently admitted to (light) carding as well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14884487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14884487)

<comment><USER33> tfw HN stops allowing/supporting delete.

See also: Coinbase on this month's "Who's Hiring" (flagged)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Previous related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921018).

</comment><comment><USER35> It's an oddly uninformative document. It says that they believe he created the Kronos malware but gives absolutely no clue why they think that. All the other overt acts listed appear to have been carried out by his unnamed alleged co- conspirator alone. What makes this particularly bizarre is that he was begging on Twitter for a sample of the malware in question at around the same time: [https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/48837379416825446...](https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/488373794168254464)

<comment><USER36> > It's an oddly uninformative document.

Indictments are lists of charges; expecting them to be informative for questions other than "what is the defendant being charged with" is irrational. (And "what is the evidence supporting the charges" is a separate question.)

> All the other overt acts listed appear to have been carried out by his > unnamed alleged co-conspirator alone.

A conspiracy charge only requires _any_ of the conspirators to have taken an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

<comment><USER37> Not sure how this works in the US, but "fair trial" means (at least in German law) that the defendant has full access to all evidence brought against him before it is brought to court, right?

<comment><USER38> Yes and that will be made available to his defense team through the discovery process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > _The operation included the arrest on 5 July of of suspected AlphaBay > founder Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen detained on behalf of the US in > Thailand. Cazes, 25, died a week later while in Thai custody._

What's this about? The US told Thailand to arrest a Canadian tourist, who they subsequently murdered? People don't die by accident in police custody.

<comment><USER40> According to this article, it was an apparent suicide: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2017/07/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2017/07/18/suspected-alphabay-founder-dies-in-bangkok-jail-while- online-black-market-remains-closed/?utm_term=.b3106ad38170)

<comment><USER41> I imagine that, when you have been the mediator of a bunch of drug trade transactions, "getting caught" can be something of an indirect act of suicide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why is DEFCON still hold in the US? At this point it's basically the biggest IRL honeypot on the planet. It should probably be moved somewhere a bit safer, like Toronto, shouldn't it?

<comment><USER43> Even Toronto wouldn't necessarily be safe since a fair few people are going to have to transit the US to get there - a quick search on Hipmunk suggests at least 50-60% of the London to Toronto flights involve a US layover.

<comment><USER42> I expect most DEFCON people would gladly accept the inconvenience of a smaller choice of flights, if it removed the possibility of being detained while ensuring the conference is still well-attended. You can't realistically move DEFCON too far, and the other options (Mexico, Caribbeans...) are not exactly a step forward in terms of liberal rule of law.

I think the main problem will always be people who can't (or won't) cross the US border at all, no matter how easy it is. I expect this number is significant among the DEFCON crowd. Still, at some point, the organisers will have to consider whether keeping those types around is worth putting all their non-US guests at risk of draconian imprisonment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Ironic that some sources suspect he authored Kronos too, haha.

That's the best joke I've heard all day. Keep in mind MT is the guy who made a blog article about HVNC and was like "yeah, sorry, can't release my own implementation because.. reasons.. (hehe winkface; tips black fedora)" and then links his GitHub, where a terrible example of CreateDesktop's usage can be found. This guy's profession is to open up IDA Pro and use the pseudo-C output plugin and then vaguely stay on-top of "threat intelligence". Here's my threat intelligence for these people: don't run with scissors.

MT is a dreadful programmer. There's logs of MT in his IRC telling people "you can't use the -> operator on references in C++!". He also said he's been writing formgrabbers since before other members of the IRC were born (seriously, nonchalantly). He's barely a programmer at all; never mind a programmer capable of completing malware projects.

MT's past is pretty shady. He's been mixed around with other skids for years with actual ill-intent and that's why this incident has happened.

The fact people take MT, and people in his league like MalwareUnicorn, seriously is completely beyond me. They're all literal skids. It seems anyone with a twitter handle and the ability to retweet real researchers' work is an "infosec researcher". The 'profession' has devolved into something worthy of a meme. And before you try defend these people, just remember that the "whitepapers" people so often love to reference when defending such Twitter skids are literally just 5 page pamphlets where they advertise their employer and talk about things that were discovered in 2004.

Next thing you know, LinkCabin will be giving his rundown of the events. Every moron likes to get involved when they know nothing of MT nor

Also, as far as the "TouchMyMalware" alias is concerned: that alias was taken by someone else (who has no vested interests in malware) long after MT abandoned it. So, any recent activity you see relevant to that alias isn't MT. If you want MT's old aliases, you're gonna have to beat the real ones out of him.

The state of information security is in total disarray. In 2017, security research is just unskilled skids on Twitter engaging in a giant circle-jerk. Shame, where did it all go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting that the WannaCry bitcoin account was emptied at about the same time.

[https://qz.com/1045270/wannacry-update-the-hackers-behind- ra...](https://qz.com/1045270/wannacry-update-the-hackers-behind-ransomware- attack-finally-cashed-out-about-140000-in-bitcoin/)

Makes me wonder about this guy's real connection to that.

<comment><USER46> I don't think he would have pulled the plug so early if he was making money from it. Probably just a coincidence or someone got spooked by everything going on.

<comment><USER47> The big stories at the time were that hospitals in the UK were getting shut down by it. If whoever did it lived in the UK they may have had a change of heart.

<comment><USER45> yeah, the thing about shutting down hospitals is that instead of looking at fraud and computer crimes that probably won't even be investigated you are potentially looking at manslaughter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The confusing part for me is I thought malware was an establish (albeit evil) business i which the US govt and many others did a brisk business. For example Gamma Group [1].

So is this just someone without the right connections?

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

<comment><USER49> If you sold 2000 glocks to the police you'd be fine.

If you sold 2 glocks to MS-13, you'd have problems.

It is someone without the right customers.

</comment></comment><comment> UK-AL Mostly likely the US confusing investigation with being involved with the criminal activity.

They probably didn't even know about his job or previous good deeds when they arrested him. It's probably a blanket arrest based on communication metadata and relationships between involved parties. They're probably trying save face right now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> DoJ press release: [https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-charged-his-role- creating...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-charged-his-role-creating- kronos-banking-trojan)

</comment><comment><USER50> This account kinda reeks of ryanlol.

I'm supposed to believe that someone registered an account just to brag about ryanlol, their biggest fan?

<comment><USER34> Please don't accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling unless you have evidence. It degrades discussion, badly. In this case it even crosses into personal attack, which we ban people for, so please don't.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14925431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14925431) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER50> Yeah, I was out of line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Count 5 sounds a lot like Kite's Atom plug-in.

> knowingly and inentionaly endeavored to intercept and procure certain > electronic communications, namely computer keystrokes of others without the > knowledge or consent of said others.

<comment><USER52> You could argue that by installing an open source plugin, you consent to what ever it does.

EDIT: Not that I like Kite, just bringing up plausible deniability

<comment><USER41> I think that would be a tough sell, and open too many undesirable side effects to pass legal muster. It would provide any bad actor legal cover via open sourcing.

With the validity of click-wrap license agreements, the water is muddied further: If users are responsible for complying with their terms, a case could be made that users are, for legal purposes, NOT responsible for being compliant or cognizant of anything not in those terms or other explicitly stated capabilities. For an open source package, that may only be a package digest or readme.md file. (and of course the distribution license e.g. GPL etc.)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Transitioning from Mac to Windows 10 as dev - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!. I've seen many people transitioning from Mac to Windlws 10 as a dev station for many reasons.<p>I wonder what HN thinks about this. My main concern is lack of unix subsystem, lack of a good Terminal etc. Any advise? <comment><USER2> Why are you making the transition? I've tried it, and ended up back on MacOS for a few reasons. If you are joining a team that is using Windows extensively, you'll find it easier than if you are trying to switch to Windows in a dev team that's all Mac/Linux.

There is a decent Linux subsystem on Windows 10 now: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install- win10](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10). It's continued to improve and has pretty good interop with Windows at this point.

After trying too many different terminal emulators, I ended up really liking ConEmu: [https://conemu.github.io](https://conemu.github.io). This had much of the same functionality as iTerm and looked good.

The lack of a good ssh client was annoying though. Having to go back and open putty to ssh into a remote server was really painful when I want to complete everything right in the terminal. I haven't tried it yet, but I've seen that Microsoft might have started including ssh in Windows 10 builds recently, which would be super nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've played around a lot with using all of Mac, Win 10 and Linux as a dev station to see what I like best, in the recent year.

Win 10 has a unix subsystem now as others mentioned. It's called WSL (Windows Subsystem Linux) which you can install on a Win 10 (doesn't come installed by default). Incidentally on every computer I tried this on, I keep seeing really slow startup times if you have node/nvm installed (which I use a lot for development work these days). The nvm startup script just takes a lot longer to run than on Mac or Linux.

My main complaints with the WSL terminal might sound rather trivial: 1) Horribly inconvenient copy-and-paste, 2) no tabs. On #1, copy and pasting is supported but I can't seem to get it to work without using the mouse and clicking into the menu to do it. Following the keyboard shortcuts labeled on those menu items simply doesn't work. On #2, I'm simply too used to being able to open multiple tabs for different things quickly. I can open 2 windows, but it's not the same.

My main complaints with macOS are also trivial: 1) I just cannot get used to the whole cmd/ctrl/alt/option modifier keys on the macOS, even after years of using it at work by now. (I grew up on Windows for the first 25+ years of my computing life.) 2) There doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to remap home/end keys to work like they do on Windows/Linux. I tried a ton of things, but it still doesn't work fully on every app. On many apps (Slack for one), home/end still goes to beginning of text or end of text instead of beginning of line/end of line even after extensive remapping.

My order of preference of dev station OS: Linux (any flavor, but I choose CentOS myself), Win10, macOS.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depending on your needs, you might want to consider MSYS2 ([http://www.msys2.org](http://www.msys2.org)) (based on CygWin). WSL provides linux emulation in kernel. MSYS2/CygWin provide linux emulation in a DLL. MSYS2 includes MinTTY ([https://mintty.github.io](https://mintty.github.io)) as a terminal program.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is a series of blog posts by Dave Rupert detailing his transition from MacOS to Windows, it may be useful to you.

[https://daverupert.com/2015/04/davegoeswindows/](https://daverupert.com/2015/04/davegoeswindows/)

Also, if you're on Windows I highly, highly recommend Cmder or ConEmu for your terminal.

<comment><USER6> For those interested, here's the direct finale link for the #davegoeswindows series.

[https://daverupert.com/2016/07/davegoeswindows- finale/](https://daverupert.com/2016/07/davegoeswindows-finale/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Linux subsystem for Windows is pretty good, but I run an Ubuntu box through Vagrant for my development these days. Apps work better on Windows, especially Office apps and, surprisingly, Chrome

</comment><comment><USER8> Why not Linux? I would prefer Linux over OSX completely.

IMO OSX is much better than Windows for dev work and it's still terrible.</comment>


Ask HN: What is LLVM (from the perspective of a middling Rails developer)? - <AUTHOR> I generally understand that a compiler takes code (written in a language that needs to be compiled like C) and generates machine/assembly(?) code from it -- but I don't really understand why that makes LLVM the big deal it currently is. I don't have a CS degree, but I understand some of the concepts (like notation, sets, etc).<p>Can someone ELIaRailsDeveloper what the LLVM and why that is a big deal? <comment><USER2> Traditionally, compilers were built as tools for end-user developers. LLVM , instead, is a library you can use to make a compiler. Clang, for example, uses the LLVM API to produce a form that the LLVM subsystems can compile into actual machine code.

Interesting, clang actually did this too - it itself is a C/ObjC/C++ parser library, which can be used to make a tool.

LLVM is fantastic because, as a language developer, you can focus on your parsing and language-specific features without needing to concern yourself with machine code generation. LLVM does that all for you.</comment>


"I'm feeling lucky" button costs Google $110 million per year - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/google/im-feeling-lucky-button-costs-google-110-million-per-year-324927.php?

<comment><USER2> BS. How was this calculated?

I'm guessing they figured that if 1% of searches are "I'm Feeling Lucky" then Google loses 1% of it's search advertising revenue?

Presumably, people use I'm Feeling Lucky when they know exactly what they want. People who know exactly what they want are not as likely to click ads. I don't know by what factor this is true, but if they neglected this (as I suspect they did), the $110 million figure is meaningless.

Also, I'm guessing the 1% of all searches figure takes into account other sources, like when I type "amazon" in the Firefox location bar.</comment>


No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-duplex-stealing-voices,37031.html <comment><USER2> I like to be clear on whether I'm interacting with a human or a bot because different social conventions apply. If you're human, I'll treat you like one, and that means giving you some consideration at the expense of expediency. If you're a bot, let's just cut to the fucking chase. So a bot that acts like a human (with hems and haws) is just wasting my time. Ditto a human being that has been reduced to a bot by following a script.

<comment><USER3> I have a friend who was participating often in psychology experiments at Stanford, and he became familiar with the whole procedure of letting the subjects believe that they were interacting with another person via a computer, when in fact they were interacting with a program (makes everything more standard and easier to analyse).

One day he participated in this "split or share" kind of experiment, and he was ruthless. Nobody's emotions would be damaged by acting nasty and never sharing with the computer program.

Turns out, it probably was actually a real person who was behind on the other side. He saw some old woman crying, coming out of some adjacent room after the experiment was over.

So, yeah, different social conventions definitely apply.

<comment><USER4> There's the reverse where, what if AIs do develop feelings like that? Why shouldn't they be treated with the courtesy we treat other humans?

Just thought of these:

\- Would this kind of personal assisstant be useful for people on the autism spectrum, to help navigate the kind of implied and unspoken narratives that people with autism seem to have difficulty with?

\- Would there be a call to train Duplex to speak in a way that is more comfortable for people on the spectrum?

\- Or any of the neurodivergent tribes for that matter?

<comment><USER5> I've said this before, but in reality strong AI will be another species. Every species of any moderate intelligence is expected to be treated with some courtesy and respect, but their social norms are far different from that of a human and we tailor our interactions with them in different ways. If I'm chewing gum and a human sees me, I might offer them a piece too. I'd never do that to a dog, no matter how much the dog wanted me to. If I saw a human chewing on the grass, I might stop them and ask them some questions to see if they're okay or need medical attention. If I saw a rabbit doing it, I might take a picture because it's cute, but I'd leave it alone (unless it was in my vegetable garden).

There is no reason to expect that strong AI will share the exact same feelings we do unless someone explicitly programs it to (which would be a mistake). Any truly emergent emotional behavior on the part of an AI would be very likely to differ substantially from ours. Making a chatbot "sad" is not the same as making a sapient (or even sentient) being sad. If AI ever achieves sentience, we're going to have to learn what makes it uniquely happy and sad.

<comment><USER4> Sure. There is also the reflection: how we think about and treat AI, or any other sentient species speak as muc about how we understand what it is to be human.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The art of letter writing has been declining for a century. Most people don't even use email for most daily communication, but instant messaging. And it seems a lot of instant messaging boils down to pictures, emoji, memes, and short responses ("I'll be there at XXX")

The ship has really already sailed on longform communication, perhaps out of laziness or cost/benefit.

Part of what we're seeing with the automation going on is giving ordinary people some semblance of what the elite have had for a long time: administrative assistants/personal assistants. "Take a memo for me, write up an invitation letter and send it to my wife's sister" For much of the uber powerful and wealthy, gruntwork communications have taken the original person out of the message.

We could argue whether or not everyone getting their own AI admin assistant is good or bad for society (will everyone just have their assistants talk to each other, and no one will talk directly anymore?) But I must admit, I hate dealing with non-friends/family in communications that involve transactions. There's nothing I hate more than having to book stuff, call customer service, or write emails to service departments.

<comment><USER7> >Part of what we're seeing with the automation going on is giving ordinary people some semblance of what the elite have had for a long time: administrative assistants/personal assistants. "Take a memo for me, write up an invitation letter and send it to my wife's sister" For much of the uber powerful and wealthy, gruntwork communications have taken the original person out of the message.

>We could argue whether or not everyone getting their own AI admin assistant is good or bad for society (will everyone just have their assistants talk to each other, and no one will talk directly anymore?) But I must admit, I hate dealing with non-friends/family in communications that involve transactions. There's nothing I hate more than having to book stuff, call customer service, or write emails to service departments.

The thing is, if I had to point to a problem I have in life and for which I'd be willing to pay for a solution, a lack of a secretary and excessive personal admin stuff is simply not it. This is solving a problem that, at least to my eyes, only the powerful actually have.

<comment><USER8> The closest I've ever actually gotten to having an assistant was a stretch of about 2 years after we had our 2nd child. Since my wife and I both work full time, we needed child care.

It was about the same price to hire a nanny as it was to send 2 kids to daycare, so we did some interviews and hired one.

That 2 years was probably the easiest stretch of dual working parent life that we ever had. She did a load of laundry and a load of dishes each day while the kids were having naps. If we were low on detergent or supplies that the kids needed, we gave her cash and she'd pick it up on her way in. If somebody needed to be at the house for some reason, she was there and neither my wife nor I had to remove ourselves from work to take care of it.

We literally came home from work, ate dinner, played with the kids. When the weekends came around we didn't have to dedicate a chunk of it to laundry/cleaning.

It was pretty fantastic.

I can only imagine how having a actual assistant would take things to the next level.

All that said, the types of phone calls that Google is talking about making here aren't that beneficial...yet.

When Google can call my cable company, wade through the phone tree and get a service appointment or issue resolved...I'll be all over it. Even just wading through the phone tree and sitting on hold until an actual person is reached and then handing it back off to me.

Those are the time wasters I'd want saved. What Google is doing here is equivalent of automating the functionality that people pay for with OnStar.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious where you live. In my area, a "nanny" is exclusively or childcare (and well paid, including Social Security and Unemployment premiums), with no meal prep or laundry. We "cleaned the house for the nanny" to avoid embarrassment. Honestly it felt more like we were charitable sponsors to an underemployed youth (in exchange for having someone fulfill the obligation of keeping the toddler accompanied) than we were hiring an employee.

It's a far cry from the do-everything (and possibly cash-under-the-table) servant help I've seen in the past/elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> We started out with childcare only and then after she'd been there for about a month offered a $2 / hr increase if she was up for the load of laundry + dishes.

I live in the Greenville, SC area and we went through a local screening and hiring service here that also helps people find baby sitters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see their point about "your" voice being sucked out of your emails if you use autocomplete for 90% of them.

I don't really care about that though. Most people I know have moved on from using email for personal communication and only use it for business. In that situation, I don't really care if my email sounds like me or not. It's just performing a function. It's not a creative expression. It's not any different than Visual Studio completing a line of overly verbose C# for me.

<comment><USER3> > Most people I know have moved on from using email for personal communication > and only use it for business.

That experience completely differs from mine. Maybe I just prefer email to text or Facebook messages, but the same principle applies to wherever you are writing something to friend or family. Wouldn't you get the same problem, just elsewhere?

Responding to my mother's birthday wishes does seem like it's a different kind of activity than autocompleting C# code, even though both can be executed with autocomplete to get a good valid output.

<comment><USER10> I would gladly use it for _most_ communication. Probably not for my spouse but for everyone else.

I am not a good representative for how the average person feels about using it for personal messaging, though. I can see why many people would be against it for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The use case for Duplex could be tremendous for people like me (deaf etc) depending on the implementation/rollout. Too many times I'm unable to interact with remote banks because they refuse to accept my calls through relay services. Right now I'm completely locked out of USAA despite the fact I've been a customer of them since the 70s. It's forced me to have accounts with local banks in case I have to appear in person.

I don't know if this tech will help me in the future but am looking forward to the possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm more worried about autocomplete doing things like...

Let's get together for [some tacos at Chipotle™]

or

I could really use [an ice cold Coke™ right now]

<comment><USER13> There was a short time when Swiftkey was suggesting a worrying number of copyrighted brand names to me. Enough that I noticed it was doing it far more then usual (which previously was somewhere between never and almost never). It stopped within a week, but that was a little uncomfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find myself surprisingly agreeing with this article. The "everyone's voice begins to sound the same" aspect of it is something I hadn't even considered, and does feel a little bit unnerving to me. Maybe unnerving isn't even the right word, but I can't think of a more appropriate one. Luckily though, soon I'll be able to ask google for the correct one.

<comment><USER15> I agree as well, but only in part -- there's a big difference between the email suggestions and the voice assistant.

The email is _as if_ coming directly from you. It's got your name signed on to it. The argument that your voice may be distorted rings true here.

When your phone is making calls on your behalf, it's not literally calling up and saying, "Hi, my name is ${USERNAME}, I'd like to book a spa" It represents itself as another person, doing something on your behalf. (The assistant in the example call asked to book an appointment _" for my client"_.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've had autocomplete seem to deliberately try to break me up with my girlfriend. I don't have time to dig up the most egregious of those. Here's one that happened just yesterday with my wife:

        Wife: Thank you. Love you too.
        Me: Are you going to be honest nary?
        Me: Hungry
        Me: Darn spell check!

My wife, having grown up in China, still didn't understand and I had some 'splainin to do when I got home.

It's absolutely terrible when I've typed exactly what I want, but then the autocorrect substitution happens just before I press send. There's something that seems infuriatingly patronizing about this.

<comment><USER17> Remember this story?

A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

[https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills- tw...](https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people- puts-three-more-in-jail)

<comment><USER18> No, but I remember this one, where a court determined "give me a lawyer dog" meant "give me a lawyer-dog" rather than "give me a lawyer, dog" [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true- crime/wp/2017/11/02...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true- crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court- says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5d536fa55673)

<comment><USER9> That article is almost certainly wrong, or at least misleading.

The question at hand was whether this statement was a direct request for a counsel, or just chatter.

"This is how I feel, if y'all think I did it, I know that I didn't do it so why don't you just give me a lawyer dog 'cause this is not what's up."

The court decided " (agreeing with the lower courts' conclusion that the 1 2 statement "[m]aybe I should talk to a lawyer" is not an unambiguous request for a lawyer). In my view, the defendant's ambiguous and equivocal reference to a "lawyer dog" does not constitute an invocation of counsel". There's a little bit of cultural bias in the "dog" part, but the main thrust is that the defendant didn't make a clear statement of invocation.

IMO the law as it stands is horrid -- legal representation should be the default unless explicitly waived, not the reverse, but under the current law the decision turned on whether that statements was a _demand_ for a lawyer or merely a suggestion.

[http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt](http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt)

<comment><USER18> I don't understand your objection. As you've quoted, from that decision, the judgment refers to an "ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog,'" which pretty plainly suggests that the judge has deemed "lawyer-dog" a lexical unit rather than interpreting "dog" as a sobriquet. At best you could say it was only part of his reasoning; either way, in my mind, it goes beyond cultural bias to be a patently absurd reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've noticed one thing about this feature. If a person can be responded to using this feature they don't matter. They are just some time waster bureaucrat,salesman,ect. Its actually a good feature for those of us doing real(ish?) work.

<comment><USER20> I mean, everyone realized right away that the only reason this exists is for businesses which, for whatever reason, haven't yet created an API to do bookings. So that was sort of implied from the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Things this technology will not be good at:

\- making reservations etc on your behalf

Things this technology will be good at:

\- automatically calling lots of businesses and individuals to extract data from them: from opening hours to voting preferences, scam calls to political campaigning with personalised campaign messages, large-scale cold call automated advertising, crowd sourcing information, surveys, and the most profitable - replacing call centres and firing staff.

I assume Google are well aware of this...

<comment><USER22> This technology is literally a phone scammer's/spammer's wet dream.

<comment><USER23> That's probably my favorite part about being a tech person. When non-techies ask you what JavaScript in Excel is useful for, and you can respond in the dryest of ways "Primarily malware".

And then they look at you like "But you're the tech person, you never think that technology is stupid".

Which it isn't, just some companies behind it really fucking are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I don't see many people commenting on is how this benefits small business. My barber, my Dr., my mechanic, my favorite restaurants, etc. are all small "shops". They don't have online booking nor do they want it. They answer phones and this allows clients to interact easier with them and it requires Zero investment for the small business. This is technology adapting to a communication hole IMO and I think it's quite a positive thing.

<comment><USER25> Absolutely. It is a great example of a digital interface to a stubbornly analog world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> On top of individual expression, I'm also curious what the longterm effect of all of these 'handy tools' is going to be on our cognitive abilities. There was study from Microsoft indicating that our average attention span has decreased some 33% just since 2000. And 'Google Brain' \- where individuals have ever increasing difficulty recalling information, instead supplanted with where to find things, has also been academically confirmed. [1]

These are some pretty serious effects for things that are less than a 2 decades old. And it's likely that we've only scratched the surface of conveniences to come. I'm not sure if we're headed towards the Borg (or more accurately the Bynars for any other TNG fans) or Idiocracy.

[1] - [http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al...](http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al._2011.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER27> You can easily opt-out of the auto-complete feature and if it being your own words with your own personality is important to you, then you likely will actually type them rather than autocomplete to the close-enough response Google suggested.

Seems like plenty of people are happy with this trade-off, and that's who the feature is for.

<comment><USER28> The problem is it affects two way communication. You might be okay with the trade off, I am not. But you may subject me to it.

While a few niche businesses will make news stating they'll reject robo call based appointment scheduling because they care about their actual human employees, most will just accept it. The employees won't have a choice and will just be subjected to this.

Same for email. I want to hear from people, not Google. I'm perfectly content just purging people out of my contacts who let Google do the talking.

<comment><USER27> What are they being "subjected" to? Presumably the conversation will go similarly to how it would with a person? We aren't talking about spam calls, just a difference of who does the talking. This will increase business for places where people wouldn't want to go through the effort of calling themselves.

For email how will you know if I auto-completed my sentence or typed it? You are free to not use the feature, and as someone talking to you I am able to use it to save time writing an email if I find the suggestions in line with what I wanted to say.

<comment><USER28> I suspect people who made Comcast's telephone system had exactly the same notion. Feel free to experience it yourself at 1-800-COMCAST.

<comment><USER27> I suspect they didn't - Google's notion is a human-like conversation with a real person to accomplish a simple goal on the user's behalf. Comcast's notion is to make it as hard as possible for a user to accomplish their goal (cancelling, switching, complaining).

<comment><USER28> This is an unfortunate trend I continue to see: Where a company with a positive reputation, say Google, is given the most altruistic read on what their decision is for, and a company with a negative reputation, like Comcast, is assumed to be evil.

Many people's issues are, in fact, solved by the Comcast automated system. Generally if you call in to report an outage, and it knows that there's an outage associated with your area already based on the phone number you call from, it'll drop you out of the tech support queue, let you know that the outage is there, and what time it is expected to be resolved. This is the most common reason I call Comcast, and most of the time, it's an outage they already knew about, so this saves me time. (Of course, the times the line just to my building was severed, getting to an actual human to explain my problem is much, much harder.)

Similarly, all of the automated features to trigger remote resets of your modem have been implemented specifically so that if you have a simple problem (as most people do), you can get it quickly and automatically resolved without having to wait for an available human. I know how to reset my own dang modem, so this just adds another burdensome and annoying step for me... but for the average user, it's probably wildly successful at concluding calls. I assume.

But sometimes, when you or I call, we probably have more specific or detailed needs, and find this entire process absolutely horrific to suffer through. But surely, just like the Googlers who thought Duplex was a good idea, someone at Comcast realized it would drastically reduce call volume and speed response time if an automated system could do simple tasks automatically.

Similarly, Duplex will probably do it's job: It'll make it easier for people who don't want to be bothered to make a phone call to schedule an appointment. It'll reduce their call volume. But the humans who have to interface with it will likely find it exasperating.

<comment><USER27> And certainly that's not the "feature" of Comcast support you were referring to when you directed me there. Most people's negative notions of Comcast and their support is well-deserved.

Until Google makes Duplex an "exasperating" experience I have no issues giving them the benefit of the doubt. The way it was presented, there is nothing exasperating about it - assuming it is ready to be released it'll be the equivalent of a common, simple human conversation now (maybe with fewer angry callers), and plenty of small business will love having more reservations made

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Let us tell you what's newsworthy and what isn't."

"Let us direct your searches through filtered autocomplete and 'curate' your search results."

"Let us filter out any 'controversial' content, so you won't have to question y(our) worldview."

"Let us make phone calls for you, so you don't have to maintain social skills by interacting with other humans."

"Let us finish your thoughts for you, because, by this point, you don't have any of your own."

</comment><comment><USER30> Yeah, the telemarketing people who clog up the phone lines and interrupt dinner times all over the planet won't see the benefit of this at all </sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER31> Not sure why the reaction to this is so negative. Google's own AI blog ([https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for- natur...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural- conversation.html)) admits that this is a very specific use case system. And it seems to be more of an engineering feat than an actual "AI" or even "ML" accomplishment. Basically this is the result of a very well trained system by a bunch of HUMANS. The bots aren't here for us yet folks, take a chill pill. If Google wants to create a bunch of task specific conversational bots to bake into their already excellent voice assistant, why not?

</comment><comment><USER32> For reasons that I suspect are now obvious, I pretty much hate all the tech coming out of the Google/Facebook/Twitter complex. If you need to ask why, I suggest asking them why they don't comply with GDPR.

However, there is one fantastic use case I can see for Google Duplex, the service that makes phone calls for you: dealing with health insurance companies.

If this AI is half as good as they claim.... does that mean it can call into your health insurance company, wait on hold for two hours, and then spend another hour arguing with the rep who is trying to deny your claim, including waiting on hold, and correcting them on incorrect details and making sure they don't lie to you about their policies? Because that would be amazing.

<comment><USER33> Alternately calling up frontier/other isps and automatically correcting billing mistakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's bizarre to me that _this_ is the red line for everybody.

<comment><USER28> It is _a_ red line, not _the_ red line.

For a while I've felt like the solution was that _I_ needed to be detached from Google products and services (along with similar data-driven companies), and that was good enough.

I feel like we're rapidly approaching the territory where I need to make sure _nobody I talk to_ is attached to Google products and services. I feel like this is line we're crossing now, where Google has inserted itself directly between the people I want to communicate with and myself, and is changing (or generating) that content directly.

<comment><USER18> What makes it so different from canned text messages?

<comment><USER28> The worst I've seen there is the sort of shortcut when your phone rings to automatically say you can't talk at the moment. It's not the same as having custom canned messages written even on a desktop client.

<comment><USER18> I have an Android Wear watch and it offers a menu of canned responses to messages that I make pretty good use of.

Gmail has also had canned response buttons in the Android app for a while now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Frankly, I'd like Google Assistant to make some of the more soul-sucking > calls I have to endure. Perhaps it can call and argue with the insurance > company about doctor bills.

People often forget that companies make various types of agreement between each other. Let's keep it simple: I have a complaint with my insurance company and they have some kind of partnership with Google.

What will Google-bot do? I hardly believe it will pursue my interests

</comment><comment><USER35> After reading some of the responses to the google demo, my first reaction was to assume this natural language processing magic was just a placeholder until the business had a proper api in place. After all, that would be more efficient, right?

Google doesn't take human phone calls so why should anyone else have to? And as good workers, efficiency and productivity should trump any expression of humanity we might have left in this end game of automation :-)

<comment><USER23> > Google doesn't take human phone calls so why should anyone else have to?

Google lost a lawsuit two weeks ago in Germany, which was about whether or not a human being would have to be reachable through a contact e-mail address that they're legally required to put onto their webpage.

Previously, they just responded with canned text containing some links to FAQ and whatnot.

All they would have to do, is tell one of their employees to read and respond to those mails for like half an hour a day, so that it's technically possible to reach a human being through there. Instead they fought out a lawsuit, lost, appealed, lost a second time and are now considering appealing yet another time.

German source: [https://www.golem.de/news/kommunikationspflicht-gericht- krit...](https://www.golem.de/news/kommunikationspflicht-gericht-kritisiert- ersatzgesetzgeber-google-1804-134052.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> To me, the biggest issue with writing an email with this auto suggest is that I think it'll take me longer to write the email that way rather than just writing it.

Maybe I'm wrong, since I haven't tried it, but I feel like I'd have to pause every time I'd see a suggestion to think if it is actually what I'm trying to say, rather than just writing what I'm trying to say anyway.

</comment><comment><USER37> All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

<comment><USER38> And exactly what 'truth' are you referring to here? The 'truth' that it should be acceptable for machines to impersonate humans?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm reminded of a Ben Marcus story that appeared in Harper's a decade ago. People would sneak out of their rooms to place carved wooden likenesses of their faces at the dinner table. The wooden simulacra communed while people took their meals alone in their rooms.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think this product might be a paid feature. Good way to monetize and recover the huge amt of R&D $. But a google person on twitter did say they are looking into ways about letting people know that it's an automated call.

</comment><comment><USER41> \- What [political figure] is doing is making ...

\- I think [political issue] should be ...

\- Children must learn that it is always ok to ...

\- Society should be ...

\- The best thing to do with protestors is to ...

\- [ethnicity] are always ...

Serious question. What is supposed to happen for these cases?

</comment><comment><USER42> I can see a new law: voice AIs must, by law, acknowledge in the affirmative if asked if they are a robot.

</comment><comment><USER43> A corollary of this technological evolution is to make personal contacts and gestures even more impactful.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wow the Google demo sure created a lot of attention. Several articles on HN today.

</comment><comment><USER45> You don't have to use it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Google's contempt for all humans that aren't executives at Google has always been baffling to me.

If I call a company and can't reach a human within about 90 seconds I don't do business with that company. End of discussion dot period.

I'm sure Google has decided that only 5% of people are like that and therefore I don't exist but they are completely wrong. Sooner or later the ad gravy train will run out and they will have to reevaluate this statistical arrogance style of business management.</comment>


Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/26/why-jewish-history-is-so-hard-to-write <comment><USER2> Anyone interested in this topic should definitely check out Darryl Cooper's "MartyrMade" podcast, which had a Dan-Carlin-style series of episodes about early modern Zionism and the origins of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict: [http://www.martyrmade.com/fear-loathing-in-the-new- jerusalem...](http://www.martyrmade.com/fear-loathing-in-the-new-jerusalem/) It does a great job of being even-handed and emotionally connecting the listener with the motivations of the people in history.

The history of the Jews (and the Jewish diaspora in particular) is fascinating. Between the typical opposing endpoints of assimilation/integration and separation there is this curious in-between state that seems both chaotic and stable over time -- the state of being "in a place" but not always being "of that place." The aforementioned podcast describes well the urge to assimilate or to remain distinct, positions held by both those in the Jewish community and those outside of it. The modern revival of the Hebrew language into a living tongue, both as a method of crystallizing identity and distinctiveness, is one example. Also interesting to consider how even small differences in "rules" between societies (like allowing usury or not, and to whom) leads to complex social consequences over time -- sort of a cellular automata analogy. Historical patterns of Jewish expulsion from various societies also make for interesting microcosms to understand tribe- based interactions: when the Jewish people were invited or allowed into a region, who was behind that change in policy and why? When pogroms or expulsions happened afterward, what were the causes and which segments of the population were the catalyst and why? It's an endlessly dynamic system that resists our efforts to create a simple static narrative -- and I suppose if anything it helps reveal that all of history is like that.

<comment><USER3> On a side note ...and I know I'll be sacrificing some points for this comment... I can't seem to get what everyone likes about Dan Carlin. I really enjoy history, and appreciate color commentary, but I've found the couple that I've heard didn't hold my interest very long. I started the Khans and one on the Romans, after hearing the non-stop praise on JRE. I really wanted to like it, which is why I was shocked that it seemed slow and light on the history despite being hours-long.

This is just, like, my opinion, man. I'm not trying to talk bad about it, I've just been curious if anyone else was disappointed or knows a better episode I should check out. I'm fascinated by Genghis Khan though, so I'm not sure how another topic could be more intriguing.

<comment><USER2> The World War 1 episodes might be slightly more enjoyable, because I think those deal a bit more with "history" in the sense of events and blow-by-blow of what happened. But it may be that Dan Carlin's stuff just isn't your style. Carlin's approach tends to be more of a discussion where he uses the backdrop of a historical event to ponder some aspect of the human condition. There is also a lot of repetition and redundancy and rambling when he talks, so some of the appeal is people who just plain like the sound of Carlin's voice and enjoy hearing someone talk about something interesting. I tend to divide up my podcasts into mental categories of "those I listen to at normal speed" and "those I listen to at 1.5x or 2x speed." Carlin's stuff fits into the first category for me.

Are there other history podcasts you've enjoyed? I think something like The History of Rome might be more of your style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always been idly curious as to what happened in Israel (as in the geographic area) between, say, 35 A.D. and 1948. It seems, though, as if everybody who might have some insight there also has an agenda that makes any concrete information they might have to share indecipherable.

<comment><USER5> Mostly 1,400 years of Muslim rule besides a short period of Catholic rule during the crusades.

<comment><USER6> Just separating it based on religion is weird. I feel like in a 1-sentence tl;dr you should at least mention the Ottoman empire from 1299-1923 (ended in WW1).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow amazing how the bound of religion and ethinicy can led people to survive thousands of years and still maintain an identity.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, this fact this makes me proud to be a Jew. (A happy Passover to all whom it may concern).

As a young boy my father used to take me to the Pergamon museum in Berlin - one major exhibit is the Babylonian street of processions (it dates to the neo-Babylonian empire) He used to say - here you see our heritage, we were around the show when Berlin (and all the other great capitals of the world) were still a swamp.

<comment><USER9> I was born Jewish and was pretty religious for most of my life, but even when I was religious I never understood why we should be proud of this, or why this is a good thing in and of itself.

I would be really interested if you could explain more your way of thinking about it, because to me when my father explains that we should be proud of having the same meal our ancestors did Xthousand years ago I don't feel impressed in the least.

Instead, it just feels like a long streak of spreading a meme.

People often get surprised when I tell them I don't consider myself Jewish anymore or that I don't intend to bring up any children I have Jewish. They often cite their surprise to the fact that Judaism has a long ancestral history. And I really just can't understand this frame of thinking that says Judaism is good because it's been going on for long.

So I would be interested if you could explain why this impresses you :)

<comment><USER8> Its a personal thing, I am not in a position to persuade anybody. I think that our present is explained by the context of the past, and that you can't understand the present without looking at the past. Now the past is a complex thing that can't be reduced to some simple formula, I still believe that you can still learn out of it, because human nature didn't change to much throughout the ages. Our reality may be quite different from what it used to be, but we are not essentially different from our ancestors, so we can still learn from them (hope that helps). Our experience is similar to the experience of our ancestors, we are part of the same process - it may be distant, but it is still relevant (in my opinion), the accumulated experience of past generations is of great value (because we tend to repeat the mistakes of the past)

I know that I did repeat the same statement several times with variations, but it is as far as I can get.

Also: If something prevailed throughout time, against all odds, then that's pretty impressive to me.

<comment><USER10> > " _Also: If something prevailed throughout time, against all odds, then that > 's pretty impressive to me._"

This is dangerous logic, because you're not comparing it to anything. For instance one argument I've seen for the existence of a god was the fact that many constants and other seemingly 'magic numbers' of our universe are set just as is required to maintain life as we know it. The problem there is that assuming this is true, it's still meaningless since the only way we could ever come to observe this fact was if it was true. This observation is known as the anthropic principle [1].

Basically considering the merit or probability of something happening when you would be unable to observe it not happening is impossible. You could say you're comparing it against the failure of other groups, but this is probably somewhat disingenuous as I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that the oldest persistent ethnic group is likely some group within Africa neither you or I have ever heard of, and you'd probably be unlikely to praise their longevity and persistence in and of itself, even if it too was likely ripe with strife throughout time.

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

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure the Anthropic principle can be applied here. There is a broader data set than that which is relevant for that principle, based on my understanding.

"Against all odds" would seem to be the key words here. There are countless other ethnic and religious groups that were integrated into the larger Muslim culture when Islam was first spreading. The same is the case for Christian Europe. In fact, the Romani people may be a good example of what we would expect to naturally happen to a dispersed and oppressed ethnic group. They have no singular culture, principles, or beliefs; they assumed most aspects of the surrounding culture's mode of life and beliefs.

It isn't a stretch to call the survival of the Jewish people an unexplained historical exception. There are countless historians (Jewish and non-Jewish) who have researched and written on the topic.

Or, am I misunderstanding the application of the Anthropic principle as you are applying it in this context?

<comment><USER10> Who are you comparing Jews to? This is the point. I don't think there's any reasonable comparison. Judaism's pairing of extreme insularity with great economic success in most 'host nations' leaves them without any other group to compare against. Powerless minority groups are certainly not a reasonable comparison.

Oppression and dispersion takes on a different meaning for those of means, even more so when the shared genetic lineage also happens to provide a substantially higher IQ than average for the vast majority of the group.

<comment><USER12> I was taking you seriously until you wrote this, "Judaism's pairing of extreme insularity with great economic success" and this, "Oppression and dispersion takes on a different meaning for those of means"

I really think there is an undertone to this perspective that is colored by a narrative that is false at best and possibly something much worse.

I dont think there is any factual basis to claim Jews had great economic success or were of means outside of false narratives perpetuated by their enemies. Even if you can point to specific eras or individuals that had success, you certainly couldnt demonstrate it existed propritionately more so than others, or that it existed in all the periods where they were persecuted and oppressed...

<comment><USER10> Your post display an impressively poor knowledge of even the most basic facts of history, of which you then speak on authoritatively. And then you try to attack my character based on your lack of knowledge. Dear sir, I can only applaud your narcissism. It is impressive!

[https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/usury-and- moneylend...](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/usury-and-moneylending- in-judaism/)

<comment><USER12> How does this article support your claim that Jews survived because they "had means"??? Showing a disproportionate amount of jews in finance in the last 500 years in a few limited instances...in no way shape or form speaks to the means of the vast majority of Jews nor does it to speak to 3000 years of persecution.

You wrote a previous comment about jews distinctive physical features and now you speak of their means and share an article about rotschild and than view a Jew who calls you out on your false narrative a narcissist?!

Ascribing a few peoples wealth on a group of millions is the very definition of anti-semitism... I refrained from calling you out sooner to try to give you the benefit of the doubt...but the fact is the wealth on one person or a few people lending money hardly reflects on the entire Jewish people...it is a dangerous stereotype not based on actual facts...just a stereotype based on a fraction of a fraction of the population...

Your belief that jews arent poor or oppressed minorities without means throughtout history is patently false! Even if you can point to a few exceptions to the rules.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/banking-and- bankers](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/banking-and-bankers)

Or you can search for literally any source. The extreme success of the Jewish communities throughout time is extremely well documented. This success, paired with insularity, was often one of the big motivations for their oppression throughout history. Expulsions would generally involve direct or indirect confiscation of material possessions. Between the 13th and 16th century Jews were expelled some 15+ times, in some cases multiple times from the same places (such as France) where they would be expelled, invited as their absence proved problematic, expelled again, and so on.

The reason Jews have distinctive features is because today about 75% of Jews are Ashkenazi - a very distinctive group with a variety of distinct features, both physical and nonphysical. For instance Ahskenazi individuals show an average IQ average nearly a standard deviation above the mean. The reason for the genetic relationship is that historically Judaism was far more insular than it is even today. For instance interfaith marriages is an extremely new phenomena. Pair a religion that makes it extremely difficult to join (and was only more difficult in the past) with extreme restrictions on things like marriage, and you end up with strong genetic similarity. It's not dissimilar, in effect, from geographic isolation which yielded most distinctive traits of various groups today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read Adam Kirch's review 'Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write'. Perhaps it is because no one can ever seem to agree on what 'Jewish' actually is, as evidenced by some of the discussion threads here...

<comment><USER14> Fair point. I guess in that sense it's like "big data" or "blockchain", both concepts that I'm sure exist but I'm not quite sure how to define.

Anecdote: I was once in a conversation with a fellow who was a rabbi and this topic came up. He said, "well...the way I think of it is, if you can think of ten characteristics that are 'Jewish', anyone who has any six of them can claim the title." I guess that's one way to be flexible.

</comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo Schama who the article discusses produced a similar series that's on prime:

[https://www.amazon.com/In-the- Beginning/dp/B00J97O91Q/](https://www.amazon.com/In-the- Beginning/dp/B00J97O91Q/)

<comment><USER15> If you're UK based then it's on iPlayer:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0398rkj/the-story- of-...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0398rkj/the-story-of-the- jews-1-in-the-beginning)

I actually started watching last night after never really been taught (or remember being taught) much about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are much earlier archaeological artefacts including stone writing from much earlier than 457 B.C. This is the time after the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians who dispersed the Jews around the area. Since then there were Jewish communities all over the middle east including in Egypt. I don't understand why the writer of the article is so baffled about this. Just as an example, the Merneptah Stele is the first to mention the name Israel and is dated to 1203 BC. Ahab and Omri the Israeli biblical kings are mentioned in the Kurkh Monoliths and the Mesha Stele from 850 BC so to start to research Jews just from 457 BC looks a bit too late in the game.

<comment><USER17> From other things I've seen from Schama I think he starts the book there because he is fascinated with the episode, not because he thinks it's the first solid evidence of Jews.

He sees Elephantine as countering widely held beliefs about ancient Jewish life (that it was all in Israel, homogenous, etc), containing interesting analogues to the present day, and being an altogether interesting story.

It can be more difficult to spin a good yarn from the older material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> how is this relevant to hacker news?

<comment><USER19> To the simple son, you will say "Because enough people upvoted it."

<comment><USER20> For those curious: This is a passover reference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> History is not hard to write, it is just hard for many to read it correctly.

<comment><USER22> great point..</comment></comment>


Jony Ive talks about putting the Apple 'touch' on the Macbook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/jony-ive-talks-about-putting-the-apple-touch-on-the-macbook-pro/ <comment><USER2> Wow, that ended awkwardly:

> When we were exploring multitouch many, many years ago, we were trying to > understand the appropriate application and opportunities for [it]. We just > didn't feel that [the Mac] was the right place for that…. It wasn't > particularly useful or an appropriate application of multitouch.

> Because?

> For a bunch of practical reasons. It's difficult to talk [laughs] without > going into a lot of details that puts me starting to talk about things that > we are working on. I don't really want to talk much more about it.

The politics behind this must be mind-bending.

In the earliest days of touch computing, Apple and Microsoft each bet the farm on two different strategies. Apple spun off a new product line based on iOS while Microsoft worked to integrate touch into the existing laptop / desktop OS.

Microsoft's difficulty shoehorning Windows onto a phone-sized device meant that Apple's phone products were always superior (though MS did turn out a few good devices along the way). However they have finally integrated touch into Windows in a way that is starting to transform the product.

The critical issue here is that now both companies feel the bind of their strategies. Apple now has to double-down on its decision not to put touchscreens on Macs. There's absolutely no technical reasons the Mac team can't integrate a touchscreen into a Mac - hell, it's probably easier than getting one to work in Windows. The only thing stopping them now is politics, and the original design decision, which has some merit (a touch-enabled 12" Macbook might make sense, but a touch-enabled 27" or larger iMac? C'mon.)

It's political because there now exist two different power centers within Apple that are not really integrable and their existence is dependent on Macs not having touchscreens.

Now it's just a question of which strategy works best.

As a matter of fact I don't have a strong opinion on this, but a few years ago I bet that, _if_ Microsoft could actually bring touch to Windows in a way that _really_ worked, they'd win for the very reason that Apple would be structurally unable to copy it. [1]

[1] [http://riprowan.com/windows-8-vs-ipad-advantage- microsoft/](http://riprowan.com/windows-8-vs-ipad-advantage-microsoft/)</comment>


Ask HN: Are You Interested in a Space Startup & Science Email Newsletter? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN! I'm planning to start a short weekly email newsletter with a selection of space science updates, aerospace startup news, DIY space stuff (ground stations, cubesats, simulation software, etc.), and other geeky space content that I found interesting during the week.
Would this interest you? If so, what specific topics would you most like to hear about?
I'm planning to send out a first edition next week. If you're interested, here's a signup form: https://goo.gl/forms/uGi2AL7ELpJK86bx2 <comment><USER2> This sounds great, I'd love to volunteer [https://github.com/17twenty/newsletter- signup](https://github.com/17twenty/newsletter-signup) as a project I started to build to allow stamping out really cheap newsletter subscription services... i never got it finished but if it's interesting, I'd be happy to jump back in as I prefer to code for a good purpose

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm interested in anything from the feasibility of manned missions to Mars (on a real timeframe) to whether it's possible to prove that the earth is round to how to achieve weightlessness/zero-g without becoming an astronaut.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depending on focus, might even be interested in contributing (not an expert on cubesats or rocket science, but have worked for a major aerospace publisher and more recently for an ESA-funded EO startup)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely be looking for contributors.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [https://goo.gl/forms/uGi2AL7ELpJK86bx2](https://goo.gl/forms/uGi2AL7ELpJK86bx2)

</comment><comment><USER5> That's awesome! Signed up!

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like a wonderful idea to me!</comment>


Ask HN: Books/Resources/Advices to set up a new outsourcing office/branch - <AUTHOR> I am currently a lead developper at a small company (40 people, 10 developers.) We provide enterprise solutions in two domains: Interactive terminals and Mobile apps/web.
The CEO is asking me to set up an offshore outsourcing office/branch in Vietnam with 7 people, including 5 developers.
I am looking for any advices/resources/directions that can help me relise the project.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> A bit late but if you want to we can discuss by email (my address is in the profile). I might not be able to help much but if you have no lead so far, a native Vietnamese is better than nothing :)</comment>


Ask HN: If you are learning Chinese - <AUTHOR>

Do you find these daily posts (https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/september-2015.html) interesting to a Chinese language learner like you? I want to write every day and share things I know. But it would be even more meaningful if I can contribute something useful. Thank you! <comment><USER2> Your production is top-notch. But your focus seems to be a bit off. You are near the top of the language learning pyramid. Is this where you want to be?

<comment><AUTHOR> I want to produce something that all language levels can enjoy. It's like "the word of the day" thing to serve as a supplement to their own existing learning. Do you think it's too hard for most people? Thank you.</comment></comment>