Evolution's Worst Mistake? How About External Testicles? - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/wilo-lents-human-errors/ <comment><USER2> If you want to talk about external testicles in mammals you should mention elephants. Did you ever see an elephant ball sack? Yes? Then you're a liar, 'cause they don't have one.

Elephants have internal testicles, which seems proof enough that any utilitarian explanation about why it's necessary or useful is flawed. Many, or most evolution features are just accidents. Anything that "kind of works" is good enough for evolution.

Truest part of the article:

> _Far too often we repeat refrains like "Well, it must do something important > or natural selection would have eliminated it," or "Living things are > perfectly suited for their habitats," or "Evolution doesn't tolerate > inefficiency." We haven't really moved on from the creationist mindset that > expects to see perfection in nature._

</comment><comment><USER3> External testicles are interesting because they do seem like pretty terrible "design" by evolution. However, as any man can tell you, the pain associated with getting hit in these all-important reproductive organs is so severe that he will go to great lengths to avoid it and protect them. This makes sense evolutionarily: men protect their fragile but crucial external organs. It's a lesson they only have to learn once!

Also interestingly, it seems that sperm really needs to be cool to operate well. Some of the first advice fertility doctors will give to a man is to wear loose underwear, i.e. let the testicles hang and stay cooler than the rest of your body. Apparently none of our ancestors had success making sperm at body temperature, so we're stuck with these external organs that are optimized to stay cool at the price of being vulnerable.

<comment><USER4> Definitely appreciate that you put design in quotes - we aren't really designed in the way that most people think about the word.

My understanding is more like things are tried until something sticks. Maybe internal testicles would have been optimal, but external ones were first and simply good enough to stick around.

<comment><USER5> to make a bad CS analogy, imagine 4.5 billion years of grad student code. Each generation does juuust enough work to graduate, makes liberal use of chicken wire and duct tape, JB weld if you're lucky. Source control is for suckers. Mutation is a great design pattern. Globals are obviously the best. Goto is fine. Dependency management is for lesser beings. The code was hard to write, so it should be hard to read. There are no comments and if there were they would lie.

<comment><USER6> And meta programming. Lots of meta programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll leave the technicalities to the better informed posters and post some related thoughts.

Whenever I watch lions on one of the nature channels, I think a male lion looks so majestic and powerful front on but looks as ugly and vulnerable from the back due to its testicles sticking out. When male lions fight, I get this skin crawling fear of lions ending up with torn testicles. Instinctively I cup my own like football players in the wall do.

That said, I think on bipedal animals like humans (but not stooped over primates), external testicles are not only relatively safer, they are also aesthetically good. I mean, imagine a penis sticking out of the abdomen without the testicles like a hook nose. Picture the famous Greek naked statues this way and you shall see how odd and ugly it would have been. (One might argue that humans might have been conditioned to consider this rather cropped anatomy aesthetic but that's a debate not worth having.) I often wonder if this external pair of testicles is analogous to a pair of breasts, acting like a natural jewellery that attracts mates.

There are several 'feature wish list' I have for humans. Such as. Similar to eyelids, having earlids would have helped against loud noise but I guess noise pollution was not rampant during humonoid 1.0. Same with noselids. I would have loved to have regenerating cartilage, at least, if not regenerating organs (liver is a bit odd but not fully so), but I guess humans didn't live long enough to have lifestyle issues due to joint wear and tear. As for external testicles, if not the way things are, the entire unit, including penis, should have been retractable into a pouch but I guess there weren't pool tables during ver 1.0.

This sentence form the article is gold.

> We are evolved to survive and reproduce, but not necessarily to be healthy, > comfortable, or happy

<comment><USER8> > We are evolved to survive and reproduce, but not necessarily to be healthy, > comfortable, or happy

This. Unless, we interfere with the fcking evolution and make necessary alterations ourselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ha. Compared to evolution's treatment of human female reproduction, you have to be kidding. Giving birth is extremely dangerous and painful. Being pregnant itself takes 9 months and generally to have one only one child who takes 20 years (in modern culture, younger naturally) to be independent. Compare this to other mammals such as dogs/cats, who are pregnant for shorter, have multiple children, they mature within a year, and birth is way more effortless.

<comment><USER10> The author doesn't actually think this is the worst mistake evolution made. The articles in this series elaborate on ideas that _didn 't_ make it into a final book. The author has some gripes with external testicles, but didn't find them important enough or interesting enough to fit the discussion about them into his book, Human Errors.

</comment></comment><comment> crooked-v The breathing hole and the eating hole being connected is pretty bad, too.

<comment><USER11> Why? A good part of how something tastes is actually based on the smell. And I f you want to avoid a food that was poisonous, you want as much input as possible. How better to manage that than by forcing air though the same passageway that has the food?

So even if it increases the risk for choking, you reduce the risk for eating something hazardous.

At least, that's one possible explanation.

<comment><USER12> A better way would be to put your nasal receptors in the mouth, separate from breathing.

<comment><USER13> Have you ever watched a cat walk up to something and smell it? They purse their lips to use the smell receptors in their mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To call any evolutionary adaptation a mistake is to assert a natural teleology of evolution (which is being violated in this case by dangling testicles).

Usually, this makes biologists uneasy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I understand it's for a laugh but finding proof in the existence or non- existence for the the super natural in nature has always seemed dissatisfying to me.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's not like evolution evolves towards the ideal, it just evolves away from the deadly. So unless you can show where external testicles will cause a group of people to die off, there's no reason to believe it should have been absorbed into the body. Plus for the species to continue, you don't really need that many males, anyway, so sub-optimal oddities involving men's bodies are likely to be more prevalent as it won't likely kill-off the species.

</comment><comment><USER16> The initial part of this article sounded a bit handwavy to me: "Evolution could have simply tweaked the parameters of sperm development so the ideal temperature of its enzymatic and cellular processes was the same as the rest of the body's processes. [...] The fact is that there is no good reason that sperm development has to work best at lower temperatures."

Do we understand enough of the sperm development process to be able to affirm that a higher temperature variant of the process could work better, and that the only reason for the lower temperature one to have won is path dependence?

</comment><comment><USER17> External testicles in domesticated animals are essential. Easy to snip off. Ever tried ploughing a field with oxen that haven't been gelded? Not fun. It's also a very convenient way to manage the breeding of livestock, ensuring some control of who breeds with whom.

(It's also convenient to have external easy-to-remove testicles when one wishes to form certain choirs.)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm always puzzled why similar topics always end up as a fight between so- called scientists who advocate evolution; and religious folk who believe in an "intelligent designer." The thing is, the "intelligent designer" doesn't have to be the creator of everything, that is, "The God." No. Consider a modern Airbus. It was definitely created by some "intelligent designers." But not necessarily God. If future archeologists find "fossils" of planes from the remains of Wright Brothers' planes up to the modern Airbus, the evolutionists of the time would claim that "planes evolved from bicycles." Implying that no intelligent agents were involved. It all happened on its own. Religious folks, on the other hand, would argue that there is intelligent design therefore planes must be created by an all-powerful God! But the truth is that some intermediary, earthly, intelligent agents, called humans, developed the planes. The same is true for human body. We should be asking who are those creators?

<comment><USER8> Interesting points! In Ancient Aliens documentary, they claim these "intelligent creators" are the so-called ETs (aliens). But regardless of whether that's true or not, one could ask "ok, who created those ETs?" and again, you'd go one level back and should try to find some older intelligent beings who designed our creators, etc., etc.

But this has to stop at some point, because the universe - to the best of my knowledge - is only (!) 13.8 billion years old, thus, some intelligent beings must have appeared some where in the universe long time ago. The question is: "how did THAT happen?" It could be that mere _chance_ resulted in a very early development of intelligent life on a planet in a galaxy far far away. The same process could have helped shape life on the earth too.

Or, maybe there really was an intelligent _being_ in charge of things that designed the whole universe such that exactly a few billion years after the Big Bang, in a specific galaxy and on a specific planet, some certain type of life would appear which would later create other forms of life, and maybe we are created by those people, thus, indirectly, created by that "intelligent being". You may call that "intelligent being" God.

<comment><USER18> > But this has to stop at some point...

That's my point. We don't need to get into infinite recursion because we cannot know as humans the ultimate origin of anything. The best we can do is to try to find out the local and natural intelligent creators acting in nature within the laws of nature. Those are the things we can know. So, for instance, we can ask those questions, as you mention, Did someone come from another world? Is the creator smaller in scale than human body? Is the creator larger in size than the human body? And let's not forget that the human body is a symbiotic organism. It's a combination of different organisms living as symbionts. Which means that they were independent life forms in the infinite depths of time. These are the interesting questions for me. Trying to explain transformations with the word "evolution" explains nothing. It's like saying "sleeping pill will put you to sleep." Nothing is explained.

But I understand that this is a very sensitive topic for many people. These are just my own opinions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have developed a personal theory that evolution is basically horrible software that has been tested so long it works reliably. It might even be literal when you consider DNA.

</comment><comment><USER19> And yet, here you are.

</comment><comment><USER20> Writes someone who has obviously never menstruated</comment>


Why being a specialist is better than being a generalist for getting a job - <AUTHOR> https://www.hireart.com/blog/sharp-focus-how-to-tame-your-inner-generalist/

<comment><USER2> Narratives are important.

While it's true that companies often look to hire for a particular skill set and therefore eat up the narrative of a specialist, the skill set of a generalist is a lot more useful in a small startup or if you decide to try to form your own company. (Likewise the skill set of a specialist is often more appropriate for contracts or permanent roles in _large_ companies.)

Either way, the article is right in saying that for a manager trying to hire to fulfill a specific role, the narrative of a specialist will often win. However, I personally despise this idea of "taming your inner generalist" as it is natural and human to be so. There are companies that will filter you out because your experience is too broad and they are at least being helpful in removing themselves from your market. I would not wish to work for a company in which employees of hiring capacity treat people as fungible resources that perform set roles. The companies that are left which look for individual potential, perspiration and personality in whatever form it comes, show, as far as I am concerned, a far deeper understanding of where innovation comes from; criss-crossing domains[0] gives a huge amount of idea optionality.

Additionally, the advantage of being a generalist is in de-risking yourself against the movement of the employment market.

[0] [http://www.fastcompany.com/3009649/leadership-now/steve- jobs...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3009649/leadership-now/steve-jobs-nate- silver-and-pablo-picasso-why-the-most-creative-people-are-gen)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm conflicted.. I, personally, would hire the well-rounded "generalist" individual every time. Yet, I know that as a job applicant, most hiring managers don't have much vision when it comes to developing a well-rounded team.

<comment><USER4> That's why hiring managers should have little say in the final hiring decision. Their job is to attract interested applicants and weed out the clearly unfitting among them (e.g. those who fake their credentials).

The rest of interviewing should be done by actual engineers, peers and colleagues of a prospect employee.

<comment><USER5> Be warned: many people, especially engineers, are inexperienced and/or poor interviewers. So quality candidates who are savvy enough to look at the interview as a two-way street might very well rule _you_ out as an employer if you're not thoughtful and strategic about who you put in front of them.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't have said it better myself.

The best engineering teams I've encountered are ones that have an Engineering Manager. The hierarchy is Project/Program Manager -> Engineering Manager -> Engineers. The engineering manager (of technical background) cultivates the engineering team, instills best practices and makes final decisions, without having to sit in endless meetings with the business side (the program manager's job). The engineering manager is usually the hiring manager for more engineers.

It's not a sexy, flat organization, but day-to-day operations are less like herding cats and more about promoting technical excellence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This advice isn't really universal. It really depends on what type of job you're looking for. If you want to work at a startup, being a specialist ain't going to get you much attention. What's important is that you've had a broad range of experiences and can adapt quickly in any situation.

If you're a founder or early employee at a fast-growing startup, you'll have to make the choice to either remain a generalist (i.e., C-suite), or join the majority of other employees and focus in on something specific. Either way, being a generalist in the beginning of a company's lifecycle can only help you.

<comment><USER7> > If you want to work at a startup, being a specialist ain't going to get you > much attention.

At the same time, few startups I've encountered will hire developers who have never used their technology stack.

I recall, during a conference call with one startup, explaining my background in both Ruby and C# only to have one of the co-founders exclaim "you _know_ we use Node and not Rails here, right?" \-- I replied that yes, I do. But I've only ever dabbled in Node and you asked about my experience in web development. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in your product and wouldn't be willing to work on my Javascript... They seemed to lose interest after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Generalists work really well at startups or very small companies, but the paradox is that as they grow, generalists have to become specialists or they'll find themselves increasingly irrelevant in the general scheme of things. Its a hard one to realize but its a very important lesson to learn to avoid hard conversations.

But yeah, if you're applying at a bigger company (say 30+ people) focus on a specific skill but don't shy away from calling attention to your versatility as a secondary step in putting your resume together

<comment><USER9> Yeah, unless they grow into team/project leads (where having a functional and working knowledge of every piece has value).

<comment><USER10> ditto.. and unless its your company :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tech changes so fast that "specialists" in a language or platform can become jobless in a matter of a few years. It's an adapt to survive scheme. In the case of programming languages, the most important thing is to understand the underlying concepts. They always repeat, with different syntax and maybe some incremental innovations, but the basic thinking behind them changes way slower than the languages themselves. As some of you have pointed, I'd always hire a generalist when given the choice.

<comment><USER12> I like your speech. I mean, I totally agree with you. Unfortunately only a minor portion of job offers asks for generalists. Most companies don't understand the potential of a trait such as curiosity that is found in a generalist personality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think the article is arguing against _being_ a generalist. It's arguing against _selling yourself_ as a generalist. Being a generalist is fine. But when you're applying to a particular job, emphasize the specific skills that you have which would be applicable to that job.

The advantage of being a generalist, of course, is that you have lots of specific skills that apply to lots of different jobs. You just shouldn't list them all on your resume all the time.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's good advice:

Build a focused narrative around why you're a great fit for a job you're interested in.

My company is building a product to help you do exactly this: Build a tight, _anonymous_ narrative about why you'd be a great fit for the role you want. Employers browse these profiles and request to interview you if they think you're a fit. The anonymity is important to protect the currently employed.

We're working hard to both automate the creation process for these profiles and remove the burden of answering "What do employers want to see?" for you, the user.

Check us out—[https://www.mightyspring.com](https://www.mightyspring.com). We're in private beta, but live track invite requests and will expedite to HN folks.

</comment><comment><USER15> But you have to be a generalist to be able to grow in a company.

</comment><comment><USER16> to me this is wrong in my circumstance.

\- i live in a smaller city in Australia

as a generalist i can pretty much always get a job (developing, sys admin etc)

i've seen friends specialize in particular technologies and have to move interstate to work in that area or fly in/fly out.

</comment><comment><USER17> This prioritizes the T candidate over the O candidate through institutional logic (McKinsey). It also ignores the XY Problem tendency in hiring people where they think a certain set of skills is necessary and try to target that, rather than have a conversation about the actual problem and see how the candidate can satisfy it. In this way, it's valorizing the Ninja Rockstar (see also: Big Data, "we're changing the world of X," etc.).</comment>


Don't put all your eggs in one basket: Amazon terminated jeviz.com account - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ceyhunkazel/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket-amazon-terminated-my-account-without-any-valid-reason-4c0a27ed0fb4 <comment><USER2> Business model that exists at the whim of a closed platform discovers the existential risk isn't theoretical. News at eleven.

<comment><AUTHOR> nothing to say, right!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Amazon's search function sucks hard if you're looking for anything other than a top seller (aka, a cheap knockoff of something) in a common category. I'm glad to see someone tried to fix this issue, even if Amazon was too short sighted to take advantage of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Amazon has lots issues and I think some of them on purpose. I revealed some hidden search features that might be the reason for termination because the reason they put on me is nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry to see jeviz go. I used the search to find good prices on items. I've had a few amazon affiliate sites before and never had any problem with the TOS though. In my "glory days", I was only making $100 a month off of amazon affiliates... so it is probably hard to compare to how much you were making I'm sure.

Relying on one system for getting revenue from your site is always risky. In my case, the problem is that Amazon was the only affiliate that would convert. People trust buying from Amazon. So essentially in my case, I only relied on one affiliate to generate revenue also. Again, sorry to see it go. :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the all good words! I was planning a chatbot that easier to use then jeviz.com now this happened I canceled the project because Amazon seems too risky now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am also an Amazon affiliate. Still raking in >$10k/month even after their paycut.

Due to the revenue I generate, I take their ToS very seriously. I have studied it in detail and discussed it with people who also had their account banned.

The reason they banned you is this:

You can't use what they call 'special links'. As an example, they tell you that you can't link to the Amazon site using 'shoes'. And by Amazon site, they probably mean '[https://www.amazon.com'](https://www.amazon.com').

Your search tool is nice. But upon clicking the 'Search Amazon.com' button, it simply opens an Amazon search page.

And since your visitors are able to enter anything into the search boxes, you've got yourself a link saying 'Search Amazon.com' that points to the search page for every product under the sun.

This is the reason they banned you.

You were probably not aware of the fact that you violated their ToS. But Amazon doesn't care about that. With them it's "one strike and you're out".

However, people have in fact had their associates accounts reopened. These success stories are hard to find, but they are there. One guy even contacted Jeff Bezos directly.

In order to be in compliance with the ToS, you will have to modify your button so that its text reads what it is that the user is about to perform a search for.

They expect _you_ to figure out why you were breaking the ToS and then remedy the situation. They aren't looking to wipe their associates' butts. You have to learn about their ToS yourself and make sure you apply it well.

Once you've demonstrated that, you _might_ get back into the program.

They will _not_ appreciate it if you post on medium that they didn't give you a valid reason.

They did. You just didn't know how to interpret it.

It's just bitching and whining and shows you haven't understood the ToS.

And that's precisely what they _do_ want you to do.

If you can't get back in, then I recommend the following:

\- forward jeviz.com to another domain which has a copy of the site, which _does_ adhere to the ToS

\- register a new business for use with a new Amazon Associates account

\- use separate laptop with vpn for logging into your new account, because they'll know your old IP

\- send traffic from the new domain to Amazon and keep cashing

I know people that have restored their lost incomes like this. And they didn't even forward their sites to new domains. They're still banking hard today.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Also, I have a list of things you need to keep in mind if you want to be in compliance with the Amazon ToS:

\- Incorrect product descriptions.

\- Incorrect price information.

\- Incorrect product image.

\- Incorrect review count.

\- Incorrect review rating.

\- Usage of selfmade/customized Amazon buy buttons.

\- Link cloaking.

\- Cookie stuffing (aka session tagging).

\- Lying about relationship with Amazon (no promising discounts for readers of your website, etc.).

\- Leaving out the Amazon Associates disclaimer.

\- Copy pasting reviews for use on own site.

\- Lying about price, such as 'best price', 'discount price', 'lowest price', etc. Because this might not be true.

\- Statically, hard-writing (non-API) anything about a product that might not be true at a later time, due to the changing nature of a product's related information.

\- Usage of copyrighted images from Amazon.com without linking back to them.

\- Use associates links in emails, books, or anywhere offline.

\- Encourage people to bookmark affiliate links.

You're welcome.

And best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the huge answer. Good hints to follow but there is no logic with their statements. Amazon encourages with their own tools to general search you need to carefully examine associates tools. Amazon conflicts itself as I explained in the story with update part:

[https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one- basket-...](https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket- amazon-terminated-my-account-without-any-valid-reason-4c0a27ed0fb4)

<comment><USER5> I gave you the answer my friend. Do with it as you please.

It's a choice between your ego and your income. Looks like the former is winning.</comment></comment></comment>


Ison: The comet of the century - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25052236 <comment><USER2> I'd like to recommend this article by Phil Plait aka Bad Astronomer. If there's any worthy astronomical event, he has it covered. And covered well.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/11/21/comet_is...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/11/21/comet_ison_12_cool_facts.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Calling Ison the comet of the century is not very helpful, it creates great expectations for a comet which so far has been very disappointing. So far it has been very underwhelming vs. earlier predictions. Hopefully on the other side of the sun it will do something great, if it survives, but I don't think very many astronomers think that's terribly likely.

<comment><USER4> Although I entirely see your point. I am not sure what expectations you have of an astronomical artefact, I mean it hasn't been particularly spectacular to us in an aesthetic sense, but it's certainly been interesting to see it's interactions, if only as data points.

I think the wider point I mean is that comets don't give a shit about how pretty they look to us, so it's a tad absurd to consider them disappointing.

<comment><USER3> I actually quite enjoy looking at it, along with Lovejoy which doesn't get as much press but also is quite visible to the naked eye at a really dark location. Both of the commets are great, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am.

However, I only meant to point out that it could really dissuade beginners from every trying astronomy again, if such a "spectacular" once in a lifetime thing is just a little smudge which they can barely see through a telescope, so faint so far in fact that it would be very difficult for them to even find. Unlike truly spectacular commets, which are plainly visible to the naked eye, and for which hitting the tail is easy and following it to the nucleus is easy enough (and exciting) even for a beginner. I'm afraid a lot of people are buying telescopes just for this and may be disappointed that they can't even find it. Hopefully they aren't too disappointed and can eventually make good use of their scopes.

PS: too see a really spectacular commet, check out pictures of commet Mcnaught from just a few years ago. Absolutely incredible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been tracking this story for six months.

Comets are notoriously fickle, and many astronomers are doubtful about ISON living up to its billing, but here's hoping ISON lives up to its "Comet of the Century" billing. Would make for an awesome display. Perhaps even daylight visible. Way cool.

</comment><comment><USER6> Aside from the possible beautiful tail, this comet is on a hyperbolic trajectory and will never return.

Speed & Distance: [http://www.cometison2013.co.uk/perihelion-and- distance/](http://www.cometison2013.co.uk/perihelion-and-distance/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I still remember Halley's comet and Hale-Bopp's. Both were exciting sight which reminded me in what type of environment we live in. That there's more to 'this' than what we see and concentrate on in our daily lives.

</comment><comment><USER8> Comet of the century will be the one which is on a retrograde orbit and has a small chance of hitting Mars. If it hits Mars. Mostly because I'd love to see what a couple million tons of gas and water ice suddenly appearing on Mars would do.

<[http://www.space.com/20060-comet-mars-2014-collision- explain...](http://www.space.com/20060-comet-mars-2014-collision- explained.html>)

Sadly it probably won't happen.

</comment><comment><USER9> I like to think the Voyager bumped into it on its way out of the solar system, or perhaps the aliens in the Ooort cloud sending us a gift in exchange :-)

Cool comet though. So far I've only been able to see it once with my Mead ETX90 mostly because the damn Bay Area has a lot of clouds / fog in the morning. Hoping to have a setup for Thanksgiving morning the family can see it with. Lets keep our fingers cross for a clear night.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure this comet deserves the title of "comet of the century" just yet, but it is still an interesting exercise to observe the comet.

(Shameless Plug) If you need help to observe the comet, my Android app [1] just recently added support for comets. What sets the app apart is that, if you have a telescope, it can guide you with a single alignment of your telescope to a nearby star.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.sk...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeyepro)

</comment><comment><USER11> >northern hemisphere

Every god damn time.

<comment><USER10> Wasn't comet McNaught a nice spectacle from southernly latitudes? I don't recall exactly when (before or after perihelion), but I remember hearing some talk about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe someone knows--How to best see this commet? Face east/west/north? Straight above?

<comment><USER13> In the article, caption to the large figure at the bottom: "Northern Hemisphere, Looking East-Southeast"</comment></comment>


Oracle and Sun - <AUTHOR> http://www.oracle.com/us/sun/index.htm

<comment><USER2> An "Overview and Frequently Asked Questions for the Developer Community"

Short, fact filled and to the point. Also doesn't appear to be sugarcoating things, e.g. " _Project Kenai, however, will be discontinued for public use. Oracle will continue to use it internally and look for ways that our customers can take advantage of it. The timeline for users to migrate their data and projects...._ "

(Note that this makes sense, there's no need for Snoracle to run their own public project hosting site.)</comment>


SpaceX submits paperwork for 30k more Starlink satellites - <AUTHOR> https://spacenews.com/spacex-submits-paperwork-for-30000-more-starlink-satellites/ <comment><USER2> >Filings trigger a seven-year deadline whereby the satellite operator, in this case SpaceX, must launch at least one satellite with its requested frequencies and operate it for 90 days. Once spectrum rights have been assigned through this "bring into use" procedure, other ventures must design their systems to avoid interference with the newly minted incumbent operator. > >The ITU is expected to change its bring into use rules during the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference, which takes place from Oct. 28 to Nov. 22 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Regulators intend to set more stringent rules for megaconstellation ventures, requiring them to launch percentages of their total constellation by to-be-determined deadlines in order to keep their priority spectrum rights.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if this will turn out to be as revolutionary as it appears it should. And whatever happened to Google's "whitespace" tech anyway?

<comment><USER4> If I remember correctly I watched an interview with Google engineer working on whitespaces technology and he indicated it was internally killed due to potential fear of competing with android clients (cellular carriers)</comment></comment>


The Mystery of the Slow Downloads - <AUTHOR> https://panic.com/blog/mystery-of-the-slow-downloads/ <comment><USER2> As a lifelong sysadmin and former ISP person, I would have never thought that I would be impressed with Comcast. However, after I lost a sweet free colo deal (company I used to work for, got sold) a few years ago, I decided to move my main system back to the house. I signed up for Comcast Business, because AT&T's only "business" option with static IPs involved 1:1 NAT through their crappy 2Wire-brand gateway.

Anyway, years later - I'd give Comcast Biz a score of 95/100\. When I called to get PTR records added for my five static IPs, I ended up on the phone with the guy who was typing them in. For the very few times I've had to call them (less than once a year), I've never had a tech try to run me through a "script", or argue that I didn't know what I was talking about when I tell them I've already done all the debugging and the problem was on their end.

Had upstream issues once (even to their own speedtest server, so it wasn't going outside of the Comcast network), and after a couple of calls I woke up one Saturday morning to two techs and a manager on my front porch. "We brought an unlocked modem and everything we might need, not leaving until this is fixed." They were at my place for about an hour, then went down the road to fix something on a junction box, and I had full speeds back.

Couldn't get them to leave that uncapped modem, though...

<comment><USER3> Comcast Business Tier support had been decent. However, now they threaten a $99 service call charge if they can't replicate the issue or it goes away by the time the tech shows up. Response time is usually within a day but for something up the network a bit they'll just throw blame at the customer and bill them.

Otherwise, I will say that lately their commitment to keeping equipment up on the east coast has been admirable. My house has been without power since Friday but they threw generators on all the fiber nodes' power supplies to keep things up. pic: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXjUdljXUAElsRX.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXjUdljXUAElsRX.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Is a power supply required for cable based internet? If not, then they certainly would need to do that in order to maintain a level of feature parity.

It would be pretty annoying to have a generator running at home, but no internet (although it certainly still happens with downed wires). Or worse, you have power, but the fiber box doesn't.

<comment><USER3> So that magical box on the pole has batteries inside. Depending on how they have it set up, you get around 24-48 hours of battery power before the fiber node converting optical to coaxial goes dead. They often have a LED on the outside showing red or green depending on status of the node.

A mini generator solves the issue of powering the node if your power utility is worthless and can't restore things after a few days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a similar issue - very slow download - with my ADSL access provided by SFR in France.

I did similar tests, by downloading the same file from servers hosted at different providers, and the bandwidth was always very slow, except when I changed the HTTP port from 80 (the standard) to an arbitrary chosen number! This change alone made me able to use the full bandwidth provided by my physical link! It was the proof that my ISP was running some kind of traffic shaping, which is a shame.

More information if you read French: [https://twitter.com/ngrilly/status/756453318113783809?s=19](https://twitter.com/ngrilly/status/756453318113783809?s=19)

<comment><USER6> No such issue over here (SFR FTTH), bandwidth is extremely stable and through the roof.

 _Free SAS_ is absolutely _terrible_ in that regard. I ran a few experiments (at home - when I was still a customer - and at friends') over the years similar to that blog post, and starting 17:00 things get throttled down to death due to clogged pipes. It's almost on the clock. The behaviour is immediately obvious to anyone having some background in network engineering, and support is tone deaf to the issue.

<comment><USER7> Same conclusion from me.

Free _will_ throttle everything from 17:00 to 00:00 and during the week ends these last few weeks.

On the other hand I don't know any other provider who just gives a fixed IP.

<comment><USER6> > On the other hand I don't know any other provider who just gives a fixed IP.

SFR does (at least on FTTH) and you also get native IPv6 (not 6rd) and (IIRC) a /48\. That is, unless you're subscribed via RED (which I currently am) in which case the IPv6 feature is disabled on the remote end (you can enable it on the NB6 router but it just sits there waiting for the prefix to be announced). On cable the router is different but they're on DOCSIS 3.0 mostly by now and I hear at least some people do get IPv6.

Orange still leases dynamic IPv4, dunno if they enable IPv6 by default now or if it's getting tiered like SFR.

<comment><USER8> >Orange still leases dynamic IPv4, dunno if they enable IPv6 by default now or if it's getting tiered like SFR.

AFAIK it is now enabled by default -- but maybe only on new boxes.

But they leases dynamic ipv6.

Exactly like static v4 if you want a static v6, you have to pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > sends the user to run the same script on the control server, which we chose > to host with Linode

Just went through a 3 month long issue with Linode, slow download speeds at peak hours on Cox cable. They said to call Cox, Cox escalated me to a guy who did not understand mtr tool. On Linode's end, they would not acknowledge any issue & burned up many hours of time trying to convince me there was no issue.

Ended up switching to Digital Ocean since Linode refused to call Cox on my behalf after I failed to get through. We also had the slowness issue with Linode with users in Dallas, where our servers were located. I suspect this will only get worse as net neutrality is repealed. I'm not saying these ISPs are slowing things on purpose, but if they do so accidentally, then imagine if they have green light to do so on purpose.

Linode also uses Cogent, FYI.

</comment><comment><USER10> To any of my fellow network engineers:

Although you very well might be, do not be tempted to stop reading after you get to the sentence, " _The Panic web servers have a single connection to the internet via Cogent._ "

Believe it or not, it's not (just) Cogent this time. It's Comcast, too. Or, more specifically, saturated peering links between them.

To the others: this will likely not come as a surprise to any neteng who has had to deal with either of them.

</comment><comment><USER11> Deutsche Telekom is actually doing this on purpose here in Germany in order to extract money from service providers. Hetzner has documented this here: [https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Double_Paid_Traffic/en](https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Double_Paid_Traffic/en)

</comment><comment><USER12> That was interesting. I do believe that's the first time I've heard a positive story about Comcast. It's amazing how much cooperation has to happen to make the Internet work.

<comment><USER13> I know it's completely anecdotal, but I've been with Comcast for two years now and I've always had a good customer service experience with them. That said, I'm in an area with a fair amount of ISP competition, so it's possible they're more careful here.

<comment><USER14> Same here... All my friends complain about Comcast all the time and I'm thinking there must be something wrong with me cause all my interactions with them have been positive, and my service and price are decent.

(I promise I'm not a paid comcast shill...)

<comment><USER15> My experience with Comcast has been decidedly split. I know a few people who work on the engineering side at Comcast and they—to an individual—have been great. Comcast also has sponsored engineering meet ups in Philadelphia. The three or four people who have come out to work on issues with my service have likewise been great.

At the same time, every one of my tens of interactions with customer service at Comcast have been a disaster. Unfortunately, the customer service experience can be the one that overshadows the rest, and I'm sure there are plenty of customers who don't have the positive in-person experiences to balance out the poor customer service experiences. Tough to keep it all in perspective. Also important to note that I haven't been using Comcast since early 2017, so things could have changed in the interim.

<comment><USER16> Since Comcast offshored its support call centers, every single contact I've had with anybody there (including "supervisors") has been excruciatingly, um, unhelpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The Panic web servers have a single connection to the internet via Cogent.

Say no more. Hope this company gives their NetOps department the requested budget next time. Would have been extra credit if they started monitoring their download servers for TCP retransmits and grouping it by netblock to look for trends (or just move it to the cloud where it's someone else's problem)

<comment><USER18> Panic has something like 20 employees; I would be mildly surprised if there's _anyone_ dedicated to this area full-time.

<comment><USER19> That's a shame. They should have picked up someone for this around employee number 8-10.

<comment><USER20> Panic's business is making apps that run on your local machine. Most of their functionality isn't cloud-based. There's no way a full-time server admin should be one of the first ten employees; it's not even obvious that they have enough work to keep a sysadmin busy full-time doing stuff that isn't contributing directly to the development of their apps. When you only have ten employees, you don't pay one of them to spend all day watching log files.

<comment><USER21> After learning what they do I am even surprised the author did extra mile to fix the issue this way. I would probably just go with some CDN.

<comment><USER22> But why increase operating cost if you can try to get it resolved otherwise?

<comment><USER21> All right, once resolved it wouldn't make much gain. My lazy attitude excludes human route usually but it paid off to the author. Lesson for me here: to give a try with people more often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> See lots of posts in here about Comcast customer service issues. Here's a link to the executive escalation form:

[http://customer.xfinity.com/help-and-support/vp-contact- form](http://customer.xfinity.com/help-and-support/vp-contact-form)

In my experience, the people responding to those tickets get shit done.

<comment><USER24> Thanks!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been fighting dreadful peering between CenturyLink and a variety of endpoints. I can saturate my gigabit connection on speedtest.net with a directly-peered test host, but YouTube videos at peak times of day buffer at 720p, and downloading from any USA OpenBSD mirror (of which there are only a few, and none in Seattle) nets me about 4mbps, compared to 450mbps or so I can get on a Comcast connection.

What's funny is that using a VPN or tunnel to which CL has a good connection resolves the issue, because the VPN/tunnel host has better peering than CL does.

The difference between Panic's anecdote and mine, is that CenturyLink support won't even acknowledge the issue exists.

<comment><USER26> I live in Seattle and use Centurylink and experience none of this. My children watch youtube all evening with no degradation of quality, even while my wife and I watch netflix. I have never experienced slowness with centurylink -- I wonder if there is some bad hop that the vpn is avoiding?

<comment><USER25> I notice some videos play fine at 1080p60, while others auto-throttle down to 360p. I wonder if this indicates that YouTube videos can be stored on a variety of datacenters (with a variety of paths between them and CenturyLink). Google's video quality report also rates CenturyLink in Seattle as "standard definition" [1]. I don't have Netflix, but I just scored 910 Mbps on fast.com (Netflix's speed test), so I think their connection to Netflix must be good.

A quick Google search reveals a thread of similar stories: [https://www.reddit.com/r/centurylink/comments/5y1jzy/does_ce...](https://www.reddit.com/r/centurylink/comments/5y1jzy/does_centurylink_have_peering_issues_with/)

[1] [https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/](https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/)

<comment><USER27> I don't have an in to Google, but a bit of fairly simple logic would suggest that while YouTube presumably puts the short tail of popular videos on all nodes, the long tail will be much more distributed and less replicated; the costs inevitably force them that way. I can't prove it but as a long-tail consumer myself I believe I've witnessed some videos getting pulled in from some slow long-term storage before, things like conference videos from five years ago in the low hundreds of views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The real takeaway is that Cogent over-promises and under-delivers. If you want reliable transit, switch providers.

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure that's something that you can take away from the article, Cogent was performing well on other ISPs, Comcast was not providing enough bandwidth for Cogent due to a disput external to Panic.

While we can't know I'd be willing to be the "unspecified" traffic re- engineering was to prioritize Cogent's Panic traffic specifically. Comcast is still the bad guy.

<comment><USER30> Working in the field of networking I can say it's highly unlikely that Cogent is performing traffic shaping specific to Panic traffic. That's a ton of changes to a ton of hardware with a risk for screwing things up that just isn't worth it. Cogent isn't going to go to those lengths for a client that has a single connection and hosts a small / moderate site. Beyond that: the connection that Panic has to Cogent is most likely through the data center they're colocating with, not a direct connection to Panic equipment. That's not for certain, it's entirely possible that Panic paid for a drop from Cogent; however I'm guessing that's not the case.

What I find odd is that they would colocate their hardware in a DC with only a single provider. The company I work for has four transit providers so as to ensure uptime / reliability (don't get me started on how often we experience unplanned maintenances from our upstream providers). Seems like Panic may want to consider a different host for their colocation or examine (provided they're dealing with Cogent directly) a secondary ISP.

<comment><USER31> >What I find odd is that they would colocate their hardware in a DC with only a single provider.

I think it's extremely unlikely the provider only has cogent. More likely is the fact that the link between the provider and comcast preferred cogent - which panic would have no way to change.

<comment><USER32> That's not true. panic.com has an A record (and www is a CNAME to @) that points to an IP address that's not PI and advertised only as part of 184.108.40.206/8, obviously, only from Cogent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> FTA:

> We colocate our own servers, rather than using AWS or any other PaaS, and we > also don't currently use a CDN or any other cloud distribution platform.

I wonder if Panic would never have encountered this slow download problem if they did use AWS or another PaaS.

<comment><USER34> Their bandwidth costs would skyrocket. AWS and other cloud providers overcharge considerably on outbound transfer.

<comment><USER33> >Their bandwidth costs would skyrocket.

I don't think they would. Or at least, the costs would still be tiny.

Like Panic, my company mostly sells desktop apps. We're smaller than Panic, but we still have a considerable quantity of downloads each day. We use AWS S3 + AWS CloudFront to host our app downloads, and the cost is so small as to be irrelevant to my business.

<comment><USER34> It's possible I'm over exaggerating. Some of the AWS service price gouging grinds my gears.

S3 and Fastly (or some other very inexpensive CDN) would be fine.

<comment><USER35> You're not really.

My costs: $799 dedicated on 1gbps connection (overkill)

AWS Costs: $6000+

AWS is simply impossible for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The TLDR as video (have not watched it; at work) is a great idea :)

</comment><comment><USER37> I read 'Cogent' and knew it was going to be a peering issue. They are 'special'.

</comment><comment><USER38> You should really use a cdn, your users abroad will have extremely poor speeds connecting to cogent overseas from their residential connections.

It's almost mandatory unless you have 3-4 POPs strategically placed geographically.

</comment><comment><USER39> _> And then, the craziest thing happened… They wrote back quickly._

Now they are responsive, because of the whole Net Neutrality repeal backlash. They are scared to provide factual evidence of foul play - it will help the courts to blast FCC for their decision.

But if they win in courts, Comcast and other crooks will definitely double down on starving peering, as expected to extort money. And obviously, they won't ever write back on this topic or will write that there is nothing wrong on their side.

The only way to prevent that peering extortion by Comcast and the like, is to have explicit rules that forbid it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Isn't Cogent a "low tier" bandwidth provider?

<comment><USER19> They are, but even the larger players get into peering disputes with eyeball networks. Level3 and Comcast had a huge peering spat a few years ago (via Netflix). Everyone's ports run hot with China Telecom and China Unicom.

It's almost always political (revenue) problems and rarely technical.

That said, I wouldn't pick up Cogent with their negative attitudes towards IPv6.

<comment><USER41> >I wouldn't pick up Cogent with their negative attitudes towards IPv6.

Ignoring and not adopting IPv6 is bad enough, but being negative about it? What did they say?

Sometimes I think we're never going to fully adopt IPv6. It'll just be layers of CGNAT.

<comment><USER19> Google offered all free IPv6 peering to all major transit carriers. Cogent turned them down and said, no, you need to pay Cogent for this. They were the only carrier to do this. So Cogent uses other transit carriers to reach Google. If you're on Cogent, you don't have a direct peering connection to Google. They probably did this to balance out their ratios with other carriers, but it's bad from a customer perspective.

You're better off using another tier 1 carrier than Cogent if you use a fair amount of Google.

<comment><USER42> I'm not seeing _any_ connectivity between Cogent and Google. Try Cogent's Looking Glass[1] and test connectivity to www.google.com, for example. ("Destination unreachable: No route")

[1] [http://www.cogentco.com/en/network/looking- glass](http://www.cogentco.com/en/network/looking-glass)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > why me? Why was I able to get this corrected with an e-mail when Cogent > couldn't?

Because Panic doesn't compete with Xfinity.

</comment><comment><USER44> Speaking of slow downloads, when I save a webpage in Chromium, it seems as if it downloads the page byte by byte, reporting progress after every byte. And another quirky thing is that if I close the tab during a download, then the download is cancelled. Did anyone else notice this?

<comment><USER45> It's common. Is it because of the protocols the website/connection is using? If it is like stream, the total size won't be known until the end.

<comment><USER46> Usually a missing Content-Length in the response header.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'd love a service that gave me the right contact for the right problem in all the businesses possible. Finding the right person while googling seems like a matter of luck.

</comment><comment><USER48> Surprising to see an ISP listening to its clients for once.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've worked with Comcast for quite a few years though Contingent Technology Solutions, and I have noticed a change in their quality lately. It's almost like they care a little bit more. Don't quote me on that, though.

</comment><comment><USER50> It is still a mystery after watching that.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd be surprised if it was an issue related to real capacity as opposed to traffic shaping. This reads like the exact kind of thing that net neutrality is meant to prevent.

<comment><USER52> There's no reason to use traffic shaping to get the before situation, when you can simply not upgrade peering connections.

The real question is why Comcast decided to upgrade the connections? Not upgrading Cogent peering is a pretty defensible position [1], although maybe they didn't want to look that much worse than their competition.

[1] See the previous results of Cogent peering disputes, which is about half of all the highly publicized peering disputes.</comment></comment>


Traffic Ghost Hunting (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us//issue/71/flow/why-a-traffic-flow-suddenly-turns-into-a-traffic-jam <comment><USER2> ...and here's how to break up those jams.

[https://www.livescience.com/61862-why-phantom-traffic- jams-h...](https://www.livescience.com/61862-why-phantom-traffic-jams- happen.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> All this talk of the sudden braking causing all the problems.. i think the cause is earlier..

it is the excessive rate of accelleration bcausing the need to brake heavily causing the problem

</comment><comment><USER4> Waves of slow traffic occur naturally, sure, but that doesn't mean the majority of traffic jams aren't caused by some asshole doing 20 under in the fast lane.

<comment><USER5> After twenty years of observation, I'm convinced that much of Seattle's traffic problems are self-inflicted. California's problems are often just too damned many cars. Seattle's problems are often poor lane discipline and an inability to merge at a speed that matches the flow of traffic.</comment></comment>


F-Secure Hack Can Unlock Millions of Hotel Rooms with Handheld Device - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/internet/268263-f-secure-hack-unlocks-millions-of-hotel-rooms-with-handheld-device <comment><USER2> In a large hotel/resort, there are literally hundreds of people with access to your hotel room at any given time. There's a reason hotel room doors have deadbolts and chains in addition to the keycard - they've never been considered 'secure'...

<comment><USER3> Physical access dynamics area always interesting. I used to visit data centers with high security to work on some equipment. I almost always had more access to more areas than the local employees. I had the magic hand that could open all doors. Many server guys couldn't physically access the data center floor, but I could, and I didn't even work for the company.

The only guys who had more access than I did.... their $15 an hour security guys and ... the janitors. Every room had a garbage can somewhere, someone had to get it... funny how that works.

<comment><USER4> At one company I worked at we had to take our garbage cans outside the room if we wanted them emptied because the janitor did not have access to our office.

<comment><USER3> That seems like a better thought out policy.

<comment><USER5> until you work in a unionized shop that is over-serious about it. i made the mistake of moving the trashcan outside the door, and then had to sit through a union lecture about doing someone else's job. didn't work for that company any longer than it took to find a new job

<comment><USER6> I was on a flight recently (I think on United), and noticed that the trash can in one of the washrooms was full and, judging by the paper towels around, had been full for some time.

I told one of the attendants when I went to get a snack. She told me they couldn't empty the trash can. I didn't push, but it seemed strange that they were willing to leave a full trash can in one of a very limited number of washrooms on a full plane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My main problem with publications like this is that they are often sensationalized. This type of technology has been around for years and years, same with Casino machine hacks. People who figured this out and developed the devices for it often only use them lowkey, because that's the smart thing to do. Then you have someone who finds out and pushes a news story about it, spinning it to be some massive breakthrough in the hacking world and we're all no longer safe behind hotel keycard locks. There was a documentary I watched a few years ago, maybe it was on netflix but I don't think so, but it was about a guy who figured out how to hack certain Hotel door locks and he abused that to his advantage for upwards of a decade. Why was he able to do this for so long? Because he didn't go running to the press when he figured it out, and to a larger extent because its extremely costly to replace the technology in an entire hotel(same as why companies get hit with malware that exploit bugs that should've been patch months/years prior).

That's not to discredit this team, I'm sure they are full of great people doing honest work.

<comment><USER8> So you advocate for stealth exploitation instead of disclosure?

<comment><USER7> Entirely missed my point, but other comments here summarize it way better than I did. The point is that this is nothing new, these types of attack vectors have been actively exploited for a very long time. If you are a thief, undercover agent, assassin, etc, you aren't going to disclose your methods. The people who know how, and do hack security measures like this keep it under wraps. I'm all for responsible disclosure, but that term only exists in the realm of ethical security. People who use these methods for malicious reasons are under no obligation to disclose what they do. So in turn, while the article makes it out to seem like this one company has hit a groundbreaking discovery, it's really not. Props to the guys at F-secure, but they are late to the game compared to the unethical realm of physical security hacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure the work that F-Secure did was very technically impressive, but I don't think this demonstrates that "these electronic locks may not be very secure" as the article states.

I'd imagine that there are very few commercial technologies that couldn't be hacked if you can get research on a working copy and throw "several thousand total man hours" of highly qualified researchers at it, including building a custom device. And the hack has already been patched!

And then the end payout is that you can get into hotel rooms, which are regularly accessed by low-paid hotel employees and generally considered not a secure place to leave valuables—there's a reason for the safes in the closet of every hotel room.

<comment><USER10> > there's a reason for the safes.

... which all have backdoors by neccessity.

<comment><USER9> Yep! My only point was that it apparently took a ton of work to find a way to hack into a place which is already considered fairly insecure. Basically I don't think there's any reason to panic or be surprised by this story, or for Assa Abloy to be terribly embarrassed.

With the equivalent of a budget of several hundred thousand dollars and custom hardware, any commercially available equipment can probably be hacked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> The team began this investigation more than a decade ago, when an F-Secure employee had a laptop stolen from a hotel room. Some of the staff began to wonder how easy it would be to hack the keycard locks_

This seems like a very breezy assumption they're making about how that laptop got stolen.

People who run conference events (and who manage hotels) know that things like this are the deeds of hotel staff, not masked bandits picking the lock on your door.

<comment><USER12> I read that as being the motivation, not necessarily that they thought that's how the laptop was stolen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They disclosed to the vendor, but they're not releasing the hack details to the public.

After getting lots of good PR about their prowess, does all that PR really mean the tech is "for sale to the right buyers?"

</comment><comment><USER14> My predictions:

1) College cyber-security clubs will spend less time dealing with bureaucracy in order to get 24/7 access to their facilities.

2) Someone will procuction-ize this and sell it to cops at 9001% markup. (I don't mean beat cops executing legit warrants here, I'm thinking more along the lines of drug units and "well your honor we didn't need a warrant because the accused failed to ensure his door latched behind him.")

3) This will go mostly ignored by everyone else.

I know this stuff existed before but this is a massive drop in barrier to entry so adoption will increase.

<comment><USER15> Security forces have already been hacking hotel door locks for years. For example, Mossad agents were caught on camera in 2010 cracking the lock on Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh's room before assassinating him: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al- Ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh)

I remember reading a related article (sorry, can't find the source now) about the assassination that claimed the agents had tools to break into a large variety of electronic lock companies, so it's unlikely that F-Secure's hack is a one-off discovery.

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bag_operation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bag_operation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think one of the main worries from a security perspective, as the article mentions, is the fact that despite a patch being released, one has to rely on the hotels to be aware of the issue AND to decide to patch the devices. Would not be surprised if that happens at a glacial pace.</comment>


Trump is going after California's clean car mandate - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/23/trump-is-going-after-californias-clean-car-mandate/ <comment><USER2> In wickard vs filburn the govt made the case that a wheat farmer that grew wheat only for himself was subject to the interstate commerce clause. The reasoning was that he impacted markets by not having to buy wheat and therefore he should be fined for violating farming restrictions. The supreme court ruled in favor of the US govt.

This expansion of the commerce clause could lead to trump being able to get something like this through. Be wary of expansions of federal power predicated on reinterpretation of the constitution.

<comment><USER3> I know the case. If he was literally only "growing wheat for himself" as a subsistence farmer, the commerce clause wouldn't apply. The reason it applies is that he was already _operating a business_ that does interstate commerce.

Such a business, when it makes a choice to not execute a sale that it would have had an opportunity to execute, has "mens rea" for that act's effects on interstate commerce—because such companies keep track of such things, and their decisions are driven by such metrics.

It's just like insider trading: _not_ executing a trade that would have otherwise (i.e. given only public knowledge) been in your best interests to execute, where you didn't execute it because of corporate-internal knowledge, is still just as illegal as the reverse. In either case, since it's your job as a trader to be aware of the effects of both executing and not executing trades, either "act" can be said to be the result of an explicit, intentional choice you made.

(Of course, that's different from just not executing a trade that you would have had no particular reason to execute. You can't blame someone for insider trading just because they don't short a stock, if they don't already have a pattern of shorting stocks!)

In all such cases, the guilty party is a more abstract type of actor than an individual (e.g. a corporation; an accredited investor) and their guilt is driven by the fact that such actors behave _predictably_ according to some preference function, such that it's clear where such actors act against that preference function both through explicit action; and through inaction.

Or, as a formalism: when it's 100% of your job, as an agent in a system, to decide whether to make deals, then a lack of a deal, together with evidence that you _considered_ the deal, can be regarded as an explicit choice you've made to not make that deal.

<comment><USER4> > I know the case. If he was literally only "growing wheat for himself" as a > subsistence farmer, the commerce clause wouldn't apply. The reason it > applies is that he was already operating a business that does interstate > commerce.

Are you sure about that? I don't know that much about the law, but I've always heard of this case specifically because the excess wheat he was producing was for his own consumption.

Wiki seems to agree with this, not mentioning anything about his having a business that I see (although I only skimmed the article and may have missed something).

<comment><USER3> Yes, the amount grown in excess of the law was for his own use; but the amount grown conformant to the law was for sale.

There may not have been an incorporated entity beyond just the farmer as farmer; but, sole proprietorship+ or corportation, there was still a separate abstract entity from the _federal government's perspective_ whose function was to trade in wheat (a "trading entity" or "Doing Business As" entity.) The farmer was—again, from the federal government's perspective—the employee and sole shareholder of that entity; and that entity did business selling wheat.

\+ (Sole proprietorships are a "hack" of the public API by which individuals interact with the _tax system_ , allowing them to track their DBA revenue and expenses as part of their individual income and expenses. From the government's perspective, though, when it comes to _trade law_ rather than _tax law_ , there's always _a company_ on both sides of each trade. In the case of sole proprietorships—including the case of, say, two neighbouring farmers bartering—the trade is just being executed by two "companies" whose identities are foreign-keyed to the individual sole shareholders' identities.)

Under this model, the amount grown in excess of the law was, effectively, grown _by a business that sells wheat_ , and then given to the business's sole shareholder in place of pay. _That transaction_ caused _the shareholder_ to not have to buy wheat on the market, which means _the business_ made a choice to make this deal, when _the business_ —as an entity that sells wheat—had a responsibility to know that it was breaking the excess law by doing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is just nonsensical saber-rattling without Congressional action that stands approximately zero chance of taking place.

The relevant portion of the law [1] is pretty clear. The "waiver" granted to California is automatic, with no discretion for the EPA, "if the State determines that the State standards will be, in the aggregate, at least as protective of public health and welfare as applicable Federal standards", unless the standards are "arbitrary and capricious" or not needed for "compelling and extraordinary conditions". If they go to court with the current law, they'll get laughed at and then either give up or get an early 2020s Supreme Court to upend over two hundred years of federalism jurisprudence. Good luck with that.

[1] [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7543](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7543)

<comment><USER6> > or not needed for "compelling and extraordinary conditions".

To clarify, here's the original quote:

> No such waiver shall be granted if the Administrator finds that—

> (B) such State does not need such State standards to meet compelling and > extraordinary conditions

That is, the heightened state standards themselves must be justified by compelling and extraordinary conditions, in the judgement of the EPA administrator. (Your trimmed quote suggests an alternate interpretation where they'd need compelling and extraordinary reasons to _reject_ the state standards, but it's the other way around.)

It doesn't sound hard to me for the EPA administrator to argue that there are no longer "extraordinary" conditions specific to California that justify additional regulation. Apparently, when the language was initially enacted in 1970, it was meant to refer to smog episodes in Los Angeles [1]...

[1] [https://theconversation.com/why-california-gets-to-write- its...](https://theconversation.com/why-california-gets-to-write-its-own-auto- emissions-standards-5-questions-answered-94379)

<comment><USER7> Even today though, Los Angeles is still the smoggiest region in the country [1] [2]. So it's not actually an easy case to say that California doesn't have a need for these restrictions. It's merely technically possible to brush aside a real issue.

[1]: [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bad-air- days-201...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bad-air- days-20171115-story.html)

[2]: [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170619092749.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170619092749.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems odd to me that California gets a pass to make their own rules here. I don't know the law enough, but there does seem to be some minor parallels to the sports betting SCOTUS case that was just ruled on (saying that it was illegal to have special waivers for a single state). Maybe this is different as it was a waiver by the EPA and not a law?

<comment><USER9> To be clear, the exemption has been in place since the 1970's and allows California to pass their own requirements, that meet or exceed federal requirements.

We would not be allowed standards that are below federal standards, we're just allowed to be tougher on ourselves than the fed requires.

<comment><USER10> Getting downvotes for saying this, but why should California be the only state allowed to set stricter emission standards? Why not New York or Rhode Island?

I don't want standards to be rolled back, but it's hard for me to defend the principle of this waiver even if I like the outcome.

<comment><USER11> Because, the argument in the 1970's went, is that if the EPA were to allow every state to set their own, competing standards, then the result would be a mess, requiring a different car models for each state with the worst case scenario being _contradicting_ standards. The EPA then granted California a waiver; LA's pollution was quite bad in the 80's which likely helped California's argument.

Other states were allowed the adoption of adopting the stronger California standard or using the weaker EPA's, but the goal was to avoid a hodgepodge of different laws.

<comment><USER10> I don't believe the EPA granted the waiver, the Clean Air Act itself granted California a perpetual exemption. As such, the EPA can't grant other states the same right.

The history is totally understandable, to avoid a hodgepodge they were granted special powers. Not fair in principle is all, I don't believe any state should have special rights above all others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With plenty of trucks fuming exhaust all over in any way they like + bunch ancient cars clogging the traffic and poisoning an air in front of your nose while being exempted - this begs the question: why shouldn't drivers of a cleaner cars get a tax break for being forced into submission to regulation but also being forced to breathe-in and smell the poisonous exhaust of exempt cars?

There are less problems with standards, more problems with double-standards.

</comment><comment><USER13> states' rights?

<comment><USER14> States have the right to make laws that agree with the ruling party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> At the zoo years ago, my kids and I saw a bunch of monkeys playing in their enclosure — and pissing and shitting wherever they felt like it. Of course, it was the zoo staff who had to clean up the resulting messes.

I think of those monkeys whenever some executives and their political allies complain about the regulations that keep them from making big messes for the taxpayers to clean up.

</comment><comment><USER16> Arnie has been pretty vocal against Trump, respectful but openly defiant. I wonder if this is disciplinary action - turning climate change is very close to Arnie's heart.

<comment><USER17> Exactly this. It's merely a petty move. It doesn't benefit the country, it benefits his fragile, classless ego.

Has he looked or been otherwise briefed on how these mandates have crippled the American automakers? I'll be damned if he knows more than a talking point or two.

Didn't you hear? Those coal miners in West Virginia with black lung disease are losing their jobs because those yuppies in California are buying electric vehicles. He must protect BlockBuster. Hell, subsidize the shovels.

<comment><USER18> Not true--when CA imposes new emissions or efficiency regulations, the automakers are forced to comply to keep access to that huge market. Not wanting to design two different vehicles, they simply comply and pass the cost along to all of the buyers, whether they live in CA or not. The rest of the country has no way to directly affect the CARB's decisions. This exemption, therefore, is very unfair for the rest of us. The administration's policy could have significant impact on the price of vehicles for the rest of us. My diesel truck, for example, has several thousand dollars worth of emissions equipment that my state does not require. It's problematic and I'd love to skip it on my next purchase.

<comment><USER19> > It's problematic and I'd love to skip it on my next purchase.

I'd like you to go ahead and not pump a crapton of pollution into the air, thanks. Sorry for being so direct, and I would generally prefer to be more civil, but your comment strikes me as incredibly tone deaf and frankly, destructive. You are one inch away from advocating peeing in the swimming pool because it's cheaper than building toilets.

<comment><USER20> Since you probably haven't owned a modern diesel vehicle I'll tell you why owners don't like the equipment on small vehicles. (Cars and light trucks)

It mostly comes down to the diesel particulate filter (DPF) that reduces visible soot. This is not really a problem outside some major cities.

Why don't we like the DPF systems? Consider something like a VW Golf or Jetta TDI. With these systems you're adding hundreds of pounds of extra dead weight, a regen cycle is required which wastes fuel by blowing it into the filter to regenerate. Combined, this wastes around 10-15%. The cherry on top is you cannot run blends of biodiesel higher than 15% or it ruins the DPF since it doesn't volatilize like diesel does. Biodiesel is renewable and already comes with reduced emissions without extra controls.

I do give a bit of a shit about the environment and if given the option I would not have a DPF on a light diesel. I have a hard time seeing how decreased fuel mileage and a restriction on running renewables equals care for the environment.

Keep in mind, we removed sulfur from our on-road fuel in the US back in 2007 (way behind europe). This was a big help in allowing new catalyst controls to work as well as reduce conventional diesel pollution.

But yeah, this is not stuff most people consider or know about until they own a noxwagen after previously owning one of the pre-2007 tdi's, read the bosch whitepapers on the controls, and have a dpf fail just outside federal emissions warranty (VW's motto: If you can program it to cheat, you can program it to fail!)

EDIT: Forgot to mention the cost of just the DPF is usually $4-6k. It's a huge failure component and I can't recommend anyone purchase a lightt vehicle with one for city use as it won't be able to properly regenerate and will fail early. Since the cost is that high the car/truck may be prematurely scrapped.

<comment><USER21> How available is biodiesel in the US? I"ve never seen it here in the UK, so it's not a consideration for me.

The DPF should be self cleaning if you do an occasional high-speed trip (such as on a highway), so it shouldn't be wasting fuel unless you're doing exclusively city driving (in which case I agree; petrol or electric is better in this situation).

Our 2016 Golf Bluemotion gets at least 50mpg in normal driving, usually over 60mpg, and occasionally we crack 70mpg.

<comment><USER20> >How available is biodiesel in the US?

Wholesale its pretty much everywhere. Retail it depends on the state. Most states have a small % (usually 2-5%) blended into standard diesel to replace the lubricity lost from removing sulfur, but to get B20 or higher you'd have to google.

>The DPF should be self cleaning

Key words, 'should be'. Do a quick search of dpf problems. They either plug from not completing (though you get dpf light telling you to go race it for a half hour or so to clear) or having some other issue. This causes obstruction and reduces economy more. That or they crack like mine did and plug the egr with soot. Regen takes some time to run, if your commute is 5mi it will not complete.

>Our 2016 Golf Bluemotion gets at least 50mpg in normal driving, usually over 60mpg, and occasionally we crack 70mpg.

(Casual reminder UK mpg different than US mpg, I will convert my experience to UK mpg)

Consistent with my 98 jetta tdi's mileage. Unfortunately my 2012 golf tdi usually only topped out around 60mpg, I only broke 70mpg in a few extrodinary circumstances. The newer ones have urea injection systems and are a bit lighter.

Also from what I remember UK diesel is usually higher cetane and generally higher quality (also comparing any US/EU spec vehicles, US almost always detuned for emissions and running on poor fuel)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The Trump administration cannot have us breathing clean air, lest it impacts a fraction of some companies bottom line. What's next ? Force us to fire up some coal powered plants ?

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe the EU can adopt the California standards.

<comment><USER24> It's kind of amusing to contrast the comments here vs a thread on the GDPR. Here many of the comments are along the lines of "it's not fair how California can enforce a law outside it's borders" but the GDPR ones were all "How does the EU hope to enforce this on american companies".

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have never lived in CA. but I have been affected by CA's usurpation of the market. Let me explain...

CA wrote extraordinarily strict rules (maybe the Feds will call them "arbitrary and capricious" ?) that unduly penalized diesel engines. As a result, great diesel engines and often the cars that go in them, that are sold in other parts of the world, are not available in the USA.

Since CA is such a large market for cars, a car maker will usually not bother to make or import a car that they can't sell in CA.

So, _I_ am harmed by CA's standards and have no recourse - I can't vote in CA state elections because I don't live in CA.

The BMW 320d, which is sold all over EU etc. and has better performance and better fuel economy than the Toyota Prius? CA won't allow its sale because of their regulations.

Meanwhile, up to 29% of SF Bay Area smog is from China (I found different quoted numbers ranging from 20 to 29%)... which has nothing to do with cars being driven by Americans.

see [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/03/03/518323094...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/03/03/518323094/rise-in-smog-in-western-u-s-is-blamed-on-asias-air- pollution)

<comment><USER26> > So, I am harmed by CA's standards and have no recourse - I can't vote in CA > state elections because I don't live in CA.

You aren't harmed by California's standards by any stretch of the imagination:

You can't show any actual harm by not being able to purchase specific diesel engines.

> Meanwhile, up to 29% of SF Bay Area smog is from China (I found different > quoted numbers ranging from 20 to 29%)... which has nothing to do with cars > being driven by Americans.

Sure, let's sign a bill telling the smog it can't go to LA anymore. That should do the trick. Do you understand the purpose of the regulations are to give Bay-area residents breathable, healthy air, and these regulations are the ones California can actually enact?

But hey, it's a conservative mantra to only think of the individual, so you fit the mold pretty well. Poor guy, can't buy a BMW 320d, and the damn Bay- area residents should get sick and breath horrible air so he can.

<comment><USER25> My point is that people in the other 49 states are harmed by CA's action and have no representation to fix it due to CA's veto power over diesels.

If a 320d is MORE efficient than a Prius, even though it doesn't have batteries, wouldn't you want it to be sold in the USA?

EDIT to add: it seems that the latest gen of the 320d is sold in the USA, as the 328d. The previous generation was not, which is what my comments were based on.

<comment><USER26> > My point is that people in the other 49 states are harmed

I know that's your point. But your point is without merit. You aren't being harmed because you aren't showing harm. California isn't vetoing diesels. They are regulating their environment and businesses are responding by not producing vehicles that meet the smog requirements.

You keep talking about efficiency, it's not about that. It's about pollution. You aren't being harmed, even had you been more informed about the 328d.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> These regulations impose an unfair burden on consumers outside of the state, who must pay for California-spec'ed emissions equipment that they never wanted or were required to have. Non-Californians have litte power in the voting booth to resist California's impositions. By going after the exemption, the administration is making things more fair for the folks in the other 49 states.

<comment><USER27> I have a sense that there's something wrong here. Wrong layer of abstraction? California imposes whatever pollution regulations it wants, then it's up to the car manufacturers how to handle that. They could choose not to sell to CA residents. They could choose to make a separate line of CA-specific cars. But they choose instead to make all their cars up to CA standard because whatever, it's cheaper for them overall, and consumers will pay the extra anyway.

So there is obviously a market solution here. It seems wrong to target the CA regulation layer on this one.

Also, are we sure that it costs more on the margin to manufacture cleaner cars?

Plus, I can't help but think it's not that bad if we accidentally have cleaner cars, but that's not really a principled stance, it just worked out in this case.

<comment><USER28> If you have been in manufacturing, you will know that building 2 differently spec'ed cars is much more expensive than have an assembly line with a same spec'ed car. And California has a large population to be a lucrative market. In essence, that means that car manufacturers have to build to California's emission standards and distribute the costs to all users (even those who aren't in California).

<comment><USER22> I don't want to breathe polluted air because car companies cannot be arsed to manufacture 2 spec cars. It's their problem

<comment><USER28> I am with you on this. I was just trying explain how 1 state's decision can impact other states' too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>