Letter to a Co-Founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.64notes.com/dear-co-founder-open-letter-to-your-co-founder/

<comment><USER2> Disregarding the weird tone, the letter makes some interesting points.

      None of us is the best person out there.

This whole notion of someone out there being the best programmer (or person, or whatever) is fallacious. While there are certainly many degrees between "awesome" and "failing", it's important to recognize that either you're indeed awesome at what you're doing right now or it's time to move onto something else. Of course, the definition of "awesome" is completely subjective so you have a lot of room for introspection there.

      That's irrelevant! Because we are best for each other.

This is an important sentiment, certainly one of the most crucial ones in a co-founder relationship.

I have seen what it looks like when it's not working out: we were friends before the startup, we liked to talk about crazy ideas all day. But a while into the startup, all we talked about was money and disappointment. This created an atmosphere of misery and failure, long before the actual failure of the company. If I were to do a startup again today, I would look for this kind of synergy the author is describing. It's important. It's not enough to just be a bunch of dudes hacking away at stuff.

<comment><USER3> "It's important. It's not enough to just be a bunch of dudes hacking away at stuff."

I Disagree. This is the most productive environment for me. The issue is that people set out to start a company and not solve a problem. A bunch of dudes siting around hacking to start a company might not be the best idea but a bunch of dudes sitting around trying to solve a problem is the best way to start.

<comment><USER2> I don't see the point of having cofounders in that case. If it's really just a bunch of guys hacking away at stuff, you might as well just hire them. I admit I'm on the fence about the whole "you have to have a cofounder" thing to begin with - my own experience with having a cofounder hasn't been that great (it's not his fault, or mine, it was just a bad dynamic in general).

> a bunch of dudes sitting around trying to solve a problem is the best way to > start

I totally agree. Without a great and creative team you're screwed. This article isn't about those aspects, though, isn't it? It's about _what else_ a cofounder should bring to the table that moves the company forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let this be a lesson: never write a letter to a co-founder while drunk or high!!

</comment><comment><USER5> If anyone were to send me this I would be forced to spend the next two nights trawling through their commits to find out just what it was they screwed up - and then I would look for a new gig.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great letter, if your aim was to bed your co-founder. Honestly, as a co- founder of a tech company myself, receiving something like this would freak me out. No hate to anyone homosexual or otherwise, but lay off the cheese, please? King-sidharth, are you rather a 'Queen'?

</comment><comment><USER7> I am not sure if i would really want to be sentimental with my co-founder. It's not a (romantic) relationship we are in. I know making such a letter with "brogramming" attitude would be quiet opposite of this but I believe any such letter should be a balance of "feelings" and get-things-done ("brograming") attitude. This seems to lean a bit on the "feelings" side.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminded me of Max Levchin's talk at the last Startup School. It has some really funny anecdotes and thoughts about co-founders - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JBWjuXO6kY>

</comment><comment><USER9> In the words of Señor Chang. GAYYYY! Seriously, the letter is a GREAT idea but the gushing and sensuality will make MY co-founder think i'm in love with him or something. Tone it down a bit and it will be perfect and much needed too.

<comment><USER10> Really?! It's almost 2012 and you're still using 'GAY' as a derogatory term.

<comment><USER9> its from the TV show, Community. I was hoping the Senor Chang preface was enough of a clue that it was a pop/geek culture reference...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> lols, were you high when you wrote this? how on earth does this make front page on HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because your's is not the only point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well...that was different.

<comment><USER13> That's an emerging new genre - the startup fan fiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can't fix a typo is very directly related to how you run a startup. Not eating a burger 'properly' is not.

</comment><comment><USER15> The take-aways are:

0\. no one is perfect.

1\. co-founders keep each other on task.

2\. relationships and perspectives matter.

I'm grateful for my co-founder too, however I'll be sending him this for a laugh which I realize is not oa's intent. But then again, doing so may just build that relationship that much stronger which is the oa's intent. Ironic, no?

</comment><comment><USER16> I struggled, but ultimately succeeded in not throwing up in my mouth whilst reading this.</comment>


Ask HN: What distinguishes a computer programmer from a software engineer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> If you ask me both titles are outdated.

If you google around you get pages like this:

[https://www.electronicproducts.com/Education/Career/Software...](https://www.electronicproducts.com/Education/Career/Software_engineer_vs_computer_programmer_what_s_the_difference.aspx)

> Computer programmers receive specifications from software engineers and turn > the program design into written instruction codes that the computers will > follow.

In 2020, this is a load of baloney.

It sounds like it was like a term to distinguish senior and junior developers.

A modern developer is concerned with the whole process start to finish, and owns the maintenance and design of the software. A senior developer will know more about how to architect a complex application but otherwise the role is the same.

I wouldn't worry about it. I've worked at companies that have called me a DevOps Engineer, SRE, Linux Systems Engineer, and these were all identical roles. Titles are just about ignorable, it's more important to look at what skills are needed, what the day to day job looks like, and of course, compensation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your response.

From my perspective a programmer is just able to write code, i.e. turn the business requirements into instructions.

A software engineer is rather able to design/architect a system, let it be a single web page or a container cluster.

Then the question is how people learn "how to architect a complex application"?

<comment><USER3> It's hard for me to explain why I don't like that distinction.

Once you can write code you _can_ architect a system. There's nothing stopping you. The information is out there.

Perhaps the real question is whether your company trusts you enough to make something from scratch. Or whether your solution is good enough to handle large amounts of customers, traffic, or usage.

People learn to do so with a combination of experience and just general learning (documentation, tutorials, references, talks, conferences, etc) over time.

I think a modern company would simply call both roles "software developer" and apply different levels of seniority (e.g. junior, senior, staff, or they could use numerical levels).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are multiple possible answers to that question. My answer would be - these two have basically nothing in common.

I am working in the area where software quality is important, so we do have a very clear distinction between the roles (and also between maturity levels). We have (among others) people who do a formal description of the customer's problem (requirements engineers), others who convert it to a product specification (architects), third who manage the implementation (project managers) and the implementers (programmers).

Every level has its own requirements and skill sets. For example, only the programmers are working with code, so their job is to be experts in the language, frameworks, hardware interfaces and the like (we also have hardware engineers to design the hardware). Architects are working with models - <USER2> job is to derive the proper constraints and project structure from the requirements, to ensure its correctness and to provide a way to prove it. Managers and requirements engineers are working with people. Of course, there are architects or managers who have been programmer before, but in general it's not really necessary and sometimes even benefitial to not have a programming background.

If you heard about "separation of concerns" or "single responsibility principle" in software, well we're using it also in our development process.

But I'm quite sure it's not "modern".

</comment><comment><USER5> We have a lot of weird titles in our industry. tbh none of them make a heck of a whole lot of sense. A "developer" is a person who builds residential buildings, "engineers" have to get certifications and they are liable for the work that they do, Architects? lol.

I basically just run with it at this point. It's hard to explain to my parents that I can train a CNN to identify them from a video camera and at the same time I might have to spend an hour to get the right look and feel for a button on a web page.

On the flip side, I really do wish we had some sort of title/ merit system that made sense to the rest of the world (aside from working for FAANG cos). The technical sophistication of individuals in our industry blows away the capabilities of other industries...</comment>


Ask HN: Will the US Dollar collapse in 2018? - <AUTHOR> Somewhere between Charlie Lee's "one huge unexpected surprise" and me thinking of diversifying more into crypto, I came across the following interview (Feb 2017) that says the USD dollar will collapse within 12-24 months (by the end of 2018.)
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/06/were-going-to-have-a-dollar-collapse-like-the-1980s-analyst-says.html
I read more about what needs to happen for a collapse, but I don't fully understand all the forces at play. So I thought I'd ask HN's economics experts. Will the USD collapse? <comment><USER2> There is currently a huge bubble propping up the stock market. It's bound to crash. Maybe at the end of 2018. Invest in Gold, it maintains its value when the market crashes.

</comment><comment><USER3> No expert here. Since last year I seen a lot of news about consumption being down in a lot of areas.</comment>


Google AdSense leak? - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h <comment><USER2> Let's think about this logically. Google takes 32% of every adsense click [1], so assuming an account makes $5,000/month, Google is making $2,352/month from that account. So by banning the account, they are making $5,000 one-time, and losing $2,352/month forever. No company is stupid enough to do that.

However, considering a site making $5,000 or $10,000/month is generating quite a few clicks, I think it makes perfect sense for any account reaching these thresholds to be manually reviewed to ensure they are valid sites. The quality of Google's clicks is one of its main selling points, and by cutting out spammy sites at the source it both improves the quality of its own program and at the same time removes a lot of the financial incentive to run a scummy site.

So my guess is these policies (or similar policies that involve manual reviews of sites) make perfect sense, are not illegal in any way, and this whole posting is as bogus as it looks.

1: [https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en)

<comment><USER3> If all this just false accusation then do you care to explain why google dont have any human interaction with their adsense publishers if the account is banned or suspended while their employees go around licking the asses of people using adwords as advertisers? I had my adsense account blocked for no reason and all the appeal went in vain without any human seeing my appeal. Now I am a major adwords advertiser for an ecommerce site and I have google representative just a call away!! thats just taking advantage of the monopoly they have created.

<comment><USER4> _If all this just false accusation then do you care to explain why google dont have any human interaction with their adsense publishers if the account is banned or suspended while their employees go around licking the asses of people using adwords as advertisers?_

According to the story this only started in 2009, when as far as I know they never had any human interaction with publishers, so that doesn't sound like a good sign of its veracity.

The most likely explanation is simply "because publishers don't pay them".

<comment><USER5> I can't speak for 2009, but by 2012 large publishers definitely had account managers.

<comment><USER6> Large publishers have had account managers since 2008 and earlier. But you have to be pretty large.

<comment><USER3> being a small publisher, never knew this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everything about this post strikes me as a conspiracy-laden fake, from the typos to wrong terminology to untrue policies to the lack of specific names of people. I passed this pastebin to the ads side to confirm for sure, but I would treat this as completely untrue.

Added: Yup, I'm hearing back from multiple people on the ads side that this is pretty much untrue from start to finish.

Also notice that the "rmujica" account that submitted this item has never submitted any other story or written any other comment on Hacker News before today.

<comment><USER8> I hate to break out the tinfoil, but do you have any reason to expect the Ads team would admit to you if any of this were true?

Secondly, I'd be impressed if after the China incident, you still had access to Ads mailing lists given that you work in Search, so it at least seems unsurprising that your searches would reveal nothing.

<comment><USER7> hosay123, I've worked with the people this post talks about since 2005. Even though I'm the head of the webspam team, I'm familiar with how AdSense deals with fraud.

For example, I often see disgruntled publishers complaining on the web, and from time to time I've followed up on specific blog posts to get the other side of the story. In addition, the group that manually fights webspam at Google is a sibling organization to the group that fights adspam.

Finally, I passed these claims directly to the ads side and so far I've gotten three (now four) different "this is fake" responses from people I trust and have worked with in different capacities for years, including an engineer that I worked with in search quality who later went to work in ads.

<comment><USER9> I agree with Matt, the pastebin wreaks of someone wanting to be another Snowden but it's anonymous and has no documented proof to back it up. As such it has to be dismissed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It reads like some disgruntled AdSense publishers theory as to why they were banned. Now it is true that in 2009, when the Great Recession hit, Google went through its processes and identified places where controls were lax. And its true that there has always been a lot of abuse of AdSense (it is after all the first thing a neophyte ad-fraud wannabe does, which is create a page, put AdSense ads on it, and then pay a bot-net to click on them. It almost seems like some sort of starter project or tutorial it was so common)

I would be surprised though if anyone actually sought out to 'screw' the legitimate advertisers. It is after all Google's bread and butter.

<comment><USER11> > It is after all Google's bread and butter.

Is it? How much do Google make from the adsense publisher network vs advertising directly on Google properties?

<comment><USER12> [http://investor.google.com/pdf/2014Q1_google_earnings_slides...](http://investor.google.com/pdf/2014Q1_google_earnings_slides.pdf) (slide 3)

(revenue) $3.4B network $10.5B Google properties $1.5B other

<comment><USER13> [http://investor.google.com/pdf/2010Q1_google_earnings_slides...](http://investor.google.com/pdf/2010Q1_google_earnings_slides.pdf)

Check out that dip in '09\. Interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are going to sit around and "see what happens" for 3 years, you talk to a lawyer. You gather evidence. Emails, text chats, etc. You audio record meetings and conversations with people (subject to lawyer advice). You collect enough information over a long enough period of time so that an investigator can trivially search a dumped archive of email to verify your claims.

But we are supposed to believe someone who offers effectively no evidence from the duration of their claimed tenure, and who pushes it off as "I stayed because I had a family to support, and secondly I wanted to see how far they would go." and identity protection at the level of "such as waiting for the appropriate employee turn around"

So... no Hardy Boys level of investigation was performed, no evidence was gathered, no voices were recorded, no text messages were saved, no emails were forwarded, not a single byte was smuggled out on a flash drive nestled in the poster's pocket. Nothing was done to offer even the slightest bit of recording of anything.

The poster is either the most pathetic excuse for a whistle blower that I've ever heard, or it's a poor-quality April fool's joke that is 28 days too late.

<comment><USER15> There is obviously no proof one way or the other, questioning the veracity of the source does not change that. My guess is that new evidence will emerge sooner or later. A graph of cancellation dates would be an interesting start.

<comment><USER14> In cases of whistle blowing, which this is purporting to be, evidence is one of the most important things that you can gather and report on. Yet we have literally none from the OP.

What we have instead is a compelling story written anonymously, but for which there is no supporting evidence provided. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, yet there is none.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668230) brings up the most important point to this entire thread, which is that the premise under which the OP claims that Google steals money from people through cancellation falls on its face when you look at the economics of a cancellation. It's just not economically viable for Google to do that - it's like eating your leg because you're hungry. And of all the things that Google is, it's not stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a large publisher, we have witnessed both the $10,000 and $5,000 thresholds. It's simply true. We are now using other networks and directly working with advertisers, and our AdSense revenue is $4,500 (total ad revenue is $25,000+/mo). We also quite presciently considered making a PR stink after the first AdSense ban (we were re-instated later), but decided this could tarnish the image of our company and of our product for our clients- AdSense revenue was not important enough.

Even though after the initial ban (when we overshot $10,000/mo) we were OK'ed by a contact in their Policy Team and re-instated (a contact we found after a lot of work), EVERY time when we bounced back to $10,000 and then to $5,000 after scaling down, we would have new vague and inane threats from AdSense about our perfectly NORMAL UGC ,as if the initial conversation with their Policy has never taken place.

We basically migrated away from AdSense, but if their are ANY SERIOUS LAWYERS here interested in a class action, we have a WEALTH of DETAILED documentation. ANAL, but it's definitely interesting: we have never encountered such a SHITTY treatment by any other company, and we have about 1,500 corporate clients. Once again, we never did anything shady or different than some other publishers that are apparently Green-listed by Google.

<comment><USER17> Had an Adsense account banned in January with $15k credit taken days before payout date (After 8 months of $2k-$12k earnings history per month) and extremely low RPM&CTR. No answer to appeals, no explanation other than the vague phrase 'for policy violations'. :/

<comment><USER18> Did you sue them for your money? If not, why not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Funny; back in 2010 this exact thing happened to a company I worked at. The day before payout (for the _previous month_ ) our AdSense account was banned. So we lost 2 months worth of ad revenue. They completely ignored all of our emails and we had to move to another ad provider immediately.

<comment><USER20> that happened to me , now i dont know if there is a wide scale scam or it was just a "bug" but they banned me for no reason and of course no way to appeal.And they owed me quite a lot.I moved to some other ad service,it pays less but i still get my money.

<comment><USER21> One way to appeal- file a lawsuit. :)

<comment><USER20> While the money they owed me was significant it would have been difficult(and expensive) to sue google at that time. It would be very different today.I had to write it off.And they had the audacity to send me a 50$ voucher for adsense just after that...

<comment><USER21> That is certainly a challenge. It really irks me when there is such a power imbalance and people take advantage of it. When I have to use the courts, I generally use small claims court and represent myself when I can, and I've had good luck with that, even though the time and cost for legal filings is not insignificant. The amount they owed you was likely more than the max in your state for small claims, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "The new policy was officially called AdSense Quality Control Color Codes (commonly called AQ3C by employees)."

You know, you'd think that if Google had a 2-years-running official policy, some other bit of leakage about it would have occurred by now. Two years is a long time for an official policy on a giant company's largest product to have never even been whispered, in accident, on the Internet before.

Let me do a quick search... [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22adsense+quality+control+c...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22adsense+quality+control+color+codes%22)

Nope. Just three instances of Pastebin (Hm, wonder why three?).

Oh, I know what I did wrong. I'm using the wrong search engine!

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22adsense+quality+control+colo...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22adsense+quality+control+color+codes%22)

Hm, nope, only one result there too.

Curious.

<comment><USER7> There you go bringing reason to a conspiracy discussion. :) For what it's worth, I immediately searched for "aq3c" within Google and within my email--no matches found there either. In my estimation, this post is absolutely fake.

<comment><USER23> In whole explaination it seems like you ae defending Google. :). and why will anyone comeup with his original identity. The Leaker:P is also smart guy SIR. :)

<comment> nevi-me Who else should defend his employer? Someone external who doesn't have any resources to follow?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This doesn't surprise me at all.

My account was banned for "invalid activity" in the timeframe mentioned. The automated emails said they wouldn't even tell me what I supposedly did wrong. I tried appealing and only got an automated email telling me my appeal was denied. I was never able to talk to anyone or get any actual details on wrongdoing. A quick search and you'll quickly realize this happened to a lot of people.

I had something like $200 sitting in my account, which was obviously forfeited. Before this even happened, I removed ads from my blog (which is where the revenue was earned) because it wasn't performing well enough to justify having ads there anyway.

In the end, I didn't really care so much about my forfeited balance - hell, I even volunteered to forfeit it during the appeal if it was in any way associated with invalid activity among other things. The big issue is that this seems to be a lifetime/universal ban. BEFORE WE EVER RAN ADS, an AdSense account with an unrelated corporate tax ID was also banned for "Invalid Activity". The only reason I can conceivably come up with on the ban is that this was also associated with a Google Apps account that I have.

I'm a longtime Google shareholder and supporter, but it's times like this when you realize you can't trust "Don't Be Evil" any more. Ironically, I've spent way more in Google Apps + AdWords than I ever earned with AdSense.

</comment><comment><USER25> If this is such a slam dunk, why not just go directly to the FBI or IRS? I'm sure there are tons of people in those orgs who would LOVE to smash google if they really were behaving in such an illegal manner.

It seems a bit more realistic than hoping that they see this pastebin text, and decide to follow up on it, track you down, and get your statements on the record.

<comment><USER26> Reaching out to the authorities may take much longer or even be ignored, and causing a PR stink may be a much more effective approach. As an example, the SEC was contacted with regards to Bernard Madoff likely running a ponzy scheme as early as 1999, yet went largely ignored for a decade.

Just because you contact authorities doesn't necessarily mean they believe you or even care, regardless of how much actual evidence you have (of which the OP has presented _none_ , by the way.) Causing a PR stink raises the profile of the issue, and could be a much more effective approach to getting the authorities attention.

That said, I don't believe OP's story for a second, for many of the same reasons other have cited. If this was a true case of whistle blowing, there would be tangible evidence but the OP has presented none.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As a developer, I have had, and friends have had thier Adsense accounts banned right before payout for legitimate earnings. It hurts so bad to have that happen, and Google gives you little recourse. I cannot speak to the legitimacy of this pastebin, but reading it, it sounds completely plausible. If it walks like a duck...

</comment><comment><USER28> Making this kind of statements and then not providing any kind of proof is just pointless. No one has any reason to believe any of this and this can't therefore be considered a leak because it carries absolutely no value.

</comment><comment><USER29> The link went from being #3 on the frontpage to below #20 in a matter of minutes.

<comment><USER30> How dare anyone on HN attack Google.

<comment><USER7> It's a fake. It's an anonymous post on pastebin, submitted by a one-time account. The terminology is wrong. The policies are wrong. The post is full of typos. The post has almost no specifics, and the one specific thing they mentioned ("AQ3C") isn't real.

If this story isn't getting traction, then HN is doing the right thing here.

<comment><USER31> I do see a decent number of people posting they've had issues with cancellations that match what the pastebin describes.

Why aren't you replying to any of them if you're acting as the voice of reason here?

<comment><USER32> > Why aren't you replying to any of them if you're acting as the voice of > reason here?

Exactly because the fraudulent bans are actually a widespread phenomenon, but that goes against what Matt's been telling us here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I somehow doubt this is true, but Google has done its fair share to give rise to such rumours.

Mostly they have been very opaque on the reasons of account bans, they haven't payed out the remaining balances of banned accounts (even when they presented no proof of any fraud), and finally they haven't provided a working way to appeal any bans.

I can understand their decisions, but they do come with the risk of bad PR.

</comment><comment><USER34> Whilst I've never used adSense much, this does corroborate with chatter in SEO/webmaster forums, especially around 2012.

The paragraph on G analytics is also very interesting, it never seems to line up with other tracking tools like Piwik.

<comment> at-fates-hands This is one the thing that I found curious as well.

I worked at a company who used WebTrends. Some of the their customers installed Google Analytics alongside Webtrends and then would complain that the numbers didn't match up between the two. Sometimes it wasn't close (+/\- 10%) other times it was closer, but there was always a discrepancy between the two. Of course it looked since we used WebTrends, we were inflating the numbers, when in reality, it was the exact opposite.

When I read this part of the post, I could totally see them tweaking the GA numbers so they were lower.

<comment><USER35> The reason for this would be that GA filters out bot traffic differently than other vendors. That includes legitimate bots like search engine crawlers. Web analytics are just not that accurate. The number quoted by the Xoogler in an analytics manual I recently went though is an expectation of ~10%+ wiggle.

GA is always going to show 'lower' numbers than straight logs in particular because of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I found this part interesting. So the only way to even find out the reason for your account being banned is to hire a lawyer.

> A reason has to be internally attached to the account ban. The problem was > that notifying the publisher for the reason is not a requirement, even if > the publisher asks. The exception: The exact reason must be provided if a > legal representative contacts Google on behalf of the account holder.

</comment><comment><USER37> I am an adsense publisher, never experienced a ban before, however I did get my account deactivated once for a violation.

It was like extracting teeth, they would not tell me what it was! It took me 5 days to notice that in an area of my site if hovered over with the mouse an ad would be fractionally covered at the corner (I know, so evil).

I addressed the issue and emailed them back to ask if that was the issue sorted now, they thanked me and said it was now sorted, and sent me screenshots of the problem from the past.

Google, we are not little stringed puppets, realistically all they had to do was tell me what the problem was (with screenshots they had), and it would've been fixed in under 5 minutes.

No, Google apparently doesn't work like the other 99.9% of the population. Are the workers all just sitting around on some massive ego trip? Wondering when daddy is going to bring in a candy floss machine.

Put it this way, if Google were seen as a good company these stories would get no attention at all, I think secretly deep down we all think your eViL and we honestly wouldn't put it past you to do something like this.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hm... something does not compute:

> Having signed many documents such as NDA's and non-competes, there are many > repercussions for me, especially in the form of legal retribution from > Google.

> No one on the outside knows it, if they did, the FBI and possibly IRS would > immediately launch an investigation, because what they are doing is so > inherently illegal and they are flying completely under the radar.

Wait, what legal repercussions? If what they're doing is illegal, (1) they probably wouldn't win the lawsuit against you, and (2) more importantly, NDAs don't apply (IANAL, but AFAIK contracts are overruled by law), and he could and should report the crime directly to the police.

Unless, of course, s/he has too much to loose from bullying, or if s/he fears Google bought politicians.

<comment><USER39> That's correct, an NDA is completely irrelevant in terms of keeping someone from disclosing a crime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The risk/reward here doesn't add up. Taking an extra few thousand a month from publishers isn't worth risking the billions in revenue they make per year.

</comment><comment><USER41> I got banned from Google Adsense as a teenager (7 years ago). Still regret my stupid decision to try and hack Google Adsense clicks. My account was never restored :(.

<comment><USER42> Most murderers get out in a few years. Google has no sense of due process whatsoever. You should be allowed back in after a while -- especially if you were very young.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is aligned with what I've heard from people working in Adsense department.

</comment><comment><USER44> Happened to someone I know back in 2005 I think, he lost 2 months of payment, and it was a lot of money. But he had some erotic videos on his website so... mostly his fault.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why would they take all of your earnings for one month instead of 1/3rd to infinity?

That's just dumb.

That said, I have noticed AdSense policy enforcement ratcheted up, but protecting the advertisers is in everybody's best long term interests.

My experience with AdSense policy enforcers was fair.

I preferred having ad units that encouraged unintentional clicking, I made more money like that, but I understand why they made me change it.

Having made my ads less blended to the site, I have had no issues since.

</comment><comment><USER46> reocities.com got banned for no reason that I can think of, never bothered to try to engage google on this because it is as good as pointless. Google just simply doesn't care, as long as more people are signing up than they are cancelling they can keep the ship afloat. On the off-chance that you're trying to social engineer them they apparently can't take the risk to re-enable an account.

So, I've taken the attitude that google adsense is to be avoided like the plague for anything approaching a business. It's found money if you can get it, and if you can't that shouldn't be a factor in your business plan at all.

</comment><comment><USER47> Regardless of whether this is true or not, I'd say it's a good rule of thumb when dealing with a Monolith (Google) to expect better treatment when paying them money (AdWords) than when they pay you money (AdSense).

</comment><comment><USER48> The whole click bombing argument is undoubtedly true, I've seen it happen too many times. Additionally, from my experience, Google will wait until immediately before the payout period to ban. I had $750 waiting to be paid out one month then poof! Three days before the payout my account was banned.

I don't know if this guy is telling the truth, but his arguments have truth in them.

</comment><comment><USER49> If it's an anonymous leak, exposing overt fraud, why would the poster not name names, unless this leak was a fake?

> "...fuck the rest" (those words were actually said by a Google AdSense exec)

> there was a "sit-down" from the AdSense division higher ups to talk about > new emerging issues

</comment><comment><USER50> I had my AdSense account and site blocked just before i got to the $5000/month mark.

I followed every consideration in the official AdSense blog, ensured that every content policy was met. Appealed with a strong case and got revoked.

No official explanation was given even by Google employees I contacted.

I see tons of sites with shit content and link building monetize with adsense while ours is loved by 1,000,000 users who spend 12 minutes average and a bounce rate below 6%.

Everything on the leak makes total sense to me and we spent so many days implementing stuff to get Google's approval (like image fingerprinting, spam database, porn detection, overseas moderators) to get a shitty robot response with no real explanation.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm inclined to believe this, but I'm skeptical of Google Analytics numbers being deflated. Wouldn't people notice the data not being consistent with other tools or their own web server logs?

<comment><USER52> It's funny you mentioned this. I was researching Piwiks as an analytics tool today. In a few of the articles, they gave reason to use Piwiks because it shows more traffic than Google Analytics does, with graphs to demonstrate. These were articles from over the past few years. DDG or google search "piwiks analytics better than" and you'll likely see the same articles.

I've also seen on many SEO forums that people have complained about the same things in regards to getting banned days before their payout.

Most website advertiser types are the kind of people who are recalcitrant to file a lawsuit. I know I am myself. So really, it's a good business decision in this regard.

I can't accuse Google of anything though. On the other hand, automating account bans past a certain earning threshold unless they're high profile people seems easy to implement, with a massive earning when done on the multi- billion-dollar [0] ad revenue scale that Google oversees.

[0] [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-finally- crosses...](http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-finally- crosses-50-billion-annual-revenue-mark-146710)

<comment><USER53> "... automating account bans past a certain earning threshold ... seems easy to implement, with a massive earning"

More earnings than not banning them and letting them continue to make money for Google?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Though the adsense is best possible option for monetizing, it seems that they have some UNANSWERED question raising every time.

I am an old adsense publisher and serving adsense ads on my sites since last three years but it is becoming a bit difficult to cope with their Terms and services.

They have disabled ad serving on my few real MONEY MAKING sites only because my site was having one Google trademarked WORD in URL. ( I don't know how do they understand this as violation of TOS after three years of ad serving.)

If we look in to this policy of adsense which says do not use Google trademarked WORD in URL then almost all possible site that is dedicated to TECH news is violating this rule because they all writes news about Google, Youtube, Adsense, Gmail, Google Drive, Blogspot etc and all of them are registered trademarks of Google. These tech news sites DO HAVE GOOGLE RELATED WORDS IN THERE URL and violating this rule.

Google does not disables such huge site only because they are so called AUTHORITIES????

This thing is really getting suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER55> I did enough ad buying from AdWords and dealt with the changeover to "Quality Score" to know that Google cares a lot about raising their ad rates, but not having the perception of doing so.

The same goes with things relating to SEO and since AdSense sits at the intersection between SEO and AdWords, it is not at all surprising that some managers at Google would use the guise of "quality" to juice their numbers.

I don't know if it's true or not, but the story certainly lines up with my experiences with Google over the years unfortunately.

They deal with a lot of spammers and scammers, which is a legitimately difficult job, but they also are a giant megacorp out to make a buck, and that doesn't always mean they do the right thing.

Mostly I bet this gets swept under the rug and isn't investigated, which is a shame.

</comment><comment><USER56> As a security researcher I can confirm the existence of bullet-proof AdSense accounts mentioned in the leak.

There are some big accounts which can break TOS not being banned.

For example, localmoxie.com, a high traffic[1] malware[2] site uses AdSence [3].

1: [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/localmoxie.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/localmoxie.com)

2: [https://www.google.com/search?num=100&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&safe...](https://www.google.com/search?num=100&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&safe=off&filter=0&q=localmoxie.com)

3\. Jan 2014 [http://archive.today/jsfNy](http://archive.today/jsfNy) Apr 2014 [http://archive.today/AkpoO](http://archive.today/AkpoO)

</comment><comment><USER57> Former Adsense PM here. It sounds implausible but there were certainly lots of shady accounts from emerging markets. I could see them ratcheting up enforcement on questionable sites from those markets surely but not at this level of randomness cited here.

</comment><comment><USER58> Is someone shorting Google Stock to make some cash?

</comment><comment><USER59> Plausible sci-fi.

The scheme described would have leaked immediately. Too obvious and too many people.

<comment><USER60> Wouldn't that make it _not_ plausible?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> "Don't be evil"

It is a beautiful peace of rhetoric. Yet I wonder, about its effectiveness/achievement inside Google in last 5 years since its inception.

Perhaps its because, don't be evil translates to, a middle ground always. Its almost like trying to keep your company on 0-loss/0-profit. That is not a great place to be, because you fall from grace easily.

"Be more good than evil" anyone?

</comment><comment><USER62> This makes me think of the HN link yesterday about identifying businesses that are doomed to fail because the only way they can sustain themselves is moving into new markets. If Google keeps on banning publishers from hosting AdSense ads in order to keep the AdSense money, that's the same dangerous behavior that's indicative of an unsustainable business. The question becomes can they sustain the growth and movement? Are there enough new publishers for Google to sign up to replace the ones they arbitrarily ban or will they eventually start having a hard time finding publishers and web properties?

</comment><comment><USER63> People should really stop using pastebin to post leaks, I'm pretty sure there's still a timing-based SQL injection to get at least the user's IP

</comment><comment><USER64> There's no name given of anyone involved, so nobody can be held accountable for this whether it's true or not.

</comment><comment><USER65> I have no reason to not believe this, but I also have no reason to believe this.

It does not sound too far fetched though.

</comment><comment><USER66> I know the mass ban affected a lot of my friends in 2012, and they all had legitimate websites.

</comment><comment><USER67> what about this part [http://pastebin.com/cGGV3kpE](http://pastebin.com/cGGV3kpE)

</comment><comment><USER68> Holy shit, if this is true....

</comment><comment><USER69> Is this real?

<comment><USER70> It would be completely unsurprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> GOOG around 520 for day of the leak: [http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GOOG+Interactive#symbol=G...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GOOG+Interactive#symbol=GOOG;range=1m)

Lets wait how market will react.

<comment><USER72> Nothing will happen because of some unsubstantiated pastebin.</comment></comment>


Why Is Python So Popular, If It's So Darn Slow? - happy-go-lucky http://pythonforengineers.com/why-is-python-so-popular-if-its-so-darn-slow/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think of Python like a Swiss Army Knife of programming.

Like a swiss army knife, it is no replacement for a butcher knife however it's convenient, easy and for most cases it gets the job done.</comment>


IPV6 is coming (yeah, right) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2011/03/ipv6-is-coming-yeah-right/ <comment><USER2> _I'm told that Verizon, for example, has two /16 blocks (128K addresses in all) that are external addresses assigned to internal nodes like printers. Those could all be recovered since they are being misused, or Verizon could sell them for close to $2 million, following Microsoft's act of price discovery._

Not really, assigning globally routable IP's to internal nodes isn't misuse at all and is done widely in for example university networks. This is what IP was originally intended for anyway, and there's no real reason to stop.

Verizon is one of the only major corporations that takes IPv6 seriously, having it in a production environment and requiring support on their 4G network. All their 4G devices have public IPv6 addresses.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish I could have bought (not rented) a static IP address for $12.50.</comment>


Ask HN: What tools/webapps/software would you use to create a paperless office ? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to create an entirely paperless office.  From my current research, it seems like the ScanScap is the way to go on the hardware side.  Do you have any suggestions on the software side of things? <comment><USER2> First: umm, why? Paper is a great technology, and often the most appropriate tool for the job.

Anyway: The bulk of the volume of paper I deal with in my office are invoices coming in. Presumably, you'd need to negotiate with all of your vendors to invoice you electronically; I don't imagine this would be easy. I scan the invoices, and forward them to my accountant, and then file them.

My accountant does all my outgoing invoicing for me, so that paper I never see.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is anyone using Evernote to do this?</comment>


Surveillance and the Internet of Things - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/the_eyes_and_ea.html <comment><USER2> I think it is up to us to figure out how to make this brave new world work.

As Bruce says, the real issue now is not surveillance or even information, but power. Who gets to watch whom, and (of course) who watches the watchers?

I see four strategies for coping with the issue of power --

1) Default - maintain current trajectory - this is what most of us will do.

2) Withdraw - lower one's profile. This seems to be Bruce's plan.

3) Expose - bring buried secrets to light, and the watchers under surveillance. Expect harsh repercussions. The US govt has been increasingly secretive. It has been removing whistleblower protections for some years now. It has been punishing exposures of information more harshly than in the past (though I suppose the exposure of Valerie Plame might pass as an exception, unless your name is Scooter Libby.)

4) Disrupt -- frustrate the collection of information through jamming, feeding false info, deletion. But info seems to be cheap enough that bad info doesn't really hurt those using it.

<comment><USER3> There is a fifth option, which is to construct through the democratic process a new set of civil rights and policies designed to confront and limit these new powers.

For example: we can seek to make it illegal for certain information to be tracked; we can require that any information collected be disclosed to the individual at risk of being tracked; we can expand fourth-amendment protections explicitly, forcing a warrant to be issued to collect any of the information made available through these systems, even if the data is stored on a corporate server (doing away with national security letters and administrative subpoenas, and prohibiting disclosure without a warrant); and we can impose criminal penalties on government and corporate officials that violate these rights.

And more: we can make exposure of all but the most sensitive government "secrets" mandatory by law, rather than relying on legally questionable whistle-blowing for disclosures; we can ensure that encryption technologies (and other self-protection techniques) always remain legal, and remove any requirement that backdoors be added to new communication technology; we can work to decentralize corporate power in telecom by aggressively enforcing anti-trust laws; we can improve transparency and oversight of telecom services by explicitly encouraging that high-speed data service be provided as a local public utility.

And we can reduce the incentive that exists at every level of law enforcement to undermine privacy and civil liberties (and in turn further centralize power) by making fewer things illegal--most importantly, drugs.

<comment><USER4> While I'd love for those things to come to pass, it's alarming that you elide methods and obstacles entirely. The democratic process has been purchased by the entities you're proposing to regulate, and the entities that you propose enforce these new rules, are beneficiaries of the current arrangement and would be greatly inconvenienced by the changes you propose. The beneficiaries of the current arrangement will resist changes to that arrangement with utmost vigor, so it doesn't speak well of your proposal that it supposes that they will cooperate with changes that are against their interests by handwaved methods and tactics.

How are you going to get from here to there?

<comment><USER3> I think the first step towards change is to envision the world that you want, and find people that agree with that vision. And if you can't agree on everything, find that subset of policies and objectives that people can passionately agree on, and forget everything else. Then, get organized.

Start by going door to door; find people who care enough about the issue to help out; have in-person meetings and events and build connections; give people the tools--online and offline--to recruit participants and stage their own meetings; orient people towards a focused set of objectives, and ask them for money to help you broadcast those ideas with counter-propoganda; ask people to contribute time and money to candidates that support those objectives; always keep everything above board, to avoid being attacked; rinse and repeat. If enough people care, you can win; if not, then maybe "money in politics" wasn't the real hurdle to reform--maybe it's just that the voters didn't want the reform you were preaching.

Democracy today _seems_ broken, like it doesn't work any more, but it's _always_ been "broken," it's never "worked". The progressive movement and the labor movement of a century ago both fought an uphill battle against big money in politics. It took decades before they experienced lasting success. When voters want changes in government that cost profitable businesses money, a lot of those businesses will spend at least as much money as they stand to loose to prevent that change from happening. It was as true one hundred years ago as it is today.

The fact is, though, that absent massive violence or election fraud (which itself is only possible when the polls are tight) with all the money in the world you still need people--individual people--to vote your way. Money in US politics has influence only insofar as it can be used to convince the masses of voters to vote a certain way. The thing is that money and propaganda have limits, especially if a message of reform resonates. That's what social movements are all about--coalescing around a message of reform that makes propaganda sound unconvincing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Speaking of feeling like science fiction, I wish everyone had read David Brin's The Transparent Society in 1998. Such a prescient book.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society>

<comment><USER5> Some replied with this (somewhat old) response by Bruce Schneier to the Transparent Society:

[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma...](http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306)

It is an interesting response, although I don't think I agree with his argument. I'm not sure why they deleted it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> from one of the comments:

> Bruce, it is getting depressing to read your posts. You don't prescribe any > kind of resolution such as calling your congressperson.

(I _hope_ they were being facetious with this remark)

<comment><USER7> Why? Calling members of Congress is incredibly effective, especially in large volumes. Organizing politically has always been the way to create real, durable change in the law. It's how the U.S. got labor, civil rights, and environmental protections enshrined in the law despite well-funded opposition.

I know it's very cool these days in Internet-land to consider the system too broken to engage, but that seems to me to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER8> It's effective on an individual level, but just telling people "call your congressperson" doesn't scale. Most people are too busy to individually monitor each bill, vet it on privacy, and decide whether or not a call is needed. So to really effect change you need an organized movement or interest group that can pool the voices and resources of all those people together into something so big it can't be ignored.

Currently the only group like that I know of on technology & privacy is the EFF, but so many corporate giants have an interest in eroding your privacy that you'd need to bulk up their funding base considerably to make them able to take those giants on directly. (Or go the other direction, people-power rather than money-power, and develop a base of activists who are willing to march for privacy.)

<comment><USER9> I think you are right, but organized movements only work with grassroots efforts. It's up to organized movements to mobilize a grassroots base to effect change. We've seen how successful this is in political campaigns (the Republics were hurt in numerous elections by their lack of "ground game"). Additionally, and I mention this elsewhere, this is really a social problem, not technological. If the government (or corporation or powerful individual) wants to get me (via surveillance or anything else) the only thing that's stopping them from doing so is social norms and the laws those norms reflect. Without those, no amount of technology will keep me safe. With them, we can hope for a normal existence with all its requisite benefits (i.e. technology).

The only way for us to protect ourselves is through political and social action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We don't _have to use_ Google, nor Facebook, and we can still buy prepaid mobile phones with cash, and it's up to us just how much information we share online.

Maybe I'm a hermit, but I'm online every day and images associated with my name are quite scarce.

Add to that the fact that there are literally dozens of Americans who share my exact name, my privacy worries are negligle within the context proposed by the author.

That said, I do agree with the premise that surveillance is growing increasingly intrusive, thus my habits outlined above.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why does he always have to be such a pessimistic grandpa? Privacy as he knows it doesn't exist anymore because majority have made a choice to give it up in exchange of new value created by new technology. I'm unsure of what Bruce Schneier has added of any value to the society lately except his rampant skepticism. To me he's turning into a Richard Stallman of security/privacy.

<comment><USER12> The majority have made a choice, but not a conscious choice. Not only do many people still chase the latest shiny thing or hand over their details willy- billy without thinking of the consequences, but it's quickly becoming the default to do so, making it even less of a choice, and more just what you do in everyday life!

There are plenty of things I've found worth trading my privacy for, but it's been a conscious choice every time.

<comment><USER13> Funny you say that. A lot of retail chains in the UK, ask for your postcode as you make a purchase, and basically identify you. I'm never comfortable with that arrangement, but hand out the data anyway, basically because I don't want to make a scene in public.

I like the way you've phrased it: not a conscious choice. I wouldn't say that ignorance is an active part in choice making. But it certainly feels less complicated.

<comment><USER14> This practice is relatively common in the US as well, and it's never turned into scene if I refused. I've also been asked for (and refused without making a scene) my phone number and email address. I just say I'd prefer not to give it out, and they go on with the process. Obviously can't vouch for the UK, but I'd say at least try it once.

<comment><USER13> You are right of course, I doubt there would be a scene, only me embarrassing myself by probably dragging out some kind of justification of not wanting to hand over my details. Perhaps it's down to being schooled in implicit compliance, and it feels a little weird!

It drags you down though. Every supermarket you go to asks for your loyalty card - which I refused to opt-in to for years, but you still are confronted with the question everytime - it gets tiresome.

I do my shopping by proxy, through a partners' loyalty card, and I've been pretty surprised at how sophisticated these systems have become.

There's a desperate battle between outlets now for custom. Loyalty cards now lead to offers (coupons) on items from the weekly shop, and our shopping basket is quite anormal I'd say. We are actually recouping some worthwhile savings, for once. Rather than being offered some promotional discount on something I have no interest in. I feel a little wrong about it, but I no longer can resist the enticement.

<comment><USER15> Not to single you out specifically, but you guys sound like a bunch of pansies. Make up a few fake people with names and addresses and use those. It's more fun to do so on the spot.

Ted Billson. There...use that. His email address is firstname.lastname@example.com if you get asked. ;)

<comment><USER16> His email address should really be firstname.lastname@example.com.

Another 'fuck you money' project: a set of domains with an open SMTP server that does nothing but flip the headers around and re-send the message back to the sender.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vanishing middle class at 4M....down from 12M in 2000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nypost.com/seven/07112009/business/the_vanishing_class_178755.htm

<comment><USER2> Class is a lot more than income. It's a value system, participation in different institutions of civil society, behavioral norms, language used, dietary preferences, and more. Maybe it's different in the US but here in the UK, working class with money is still working class (I don't mean this in a perjorative sense, e.g. a working class man who makes his fortune won't suddenly start eating foie gras and going foxhunting), upper class is still upper class in poverty (e.g. an artistocrat who loses her estate won't suddenly start drinking pints of bitter and going on holiday to Ibiza). It's not 'til grandchildren that a family's class really changes. Even if the middle class becomes poorer, it won't lose its values (e.g. belief in education) that created it in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks to be mostly is about the following thing from Demos: [http://www.demos.org/publication.cfm?currentpublicationID=8D...](http://www.demos.org/publication.cfm?currentpublicationID=8D77E1CE-3FF4-6C82-5B3673F5E01CA1E2)

... which seems to be all about the state of the US middle class in 2006. (I see no sign of anything based on more recent figures, though I could have missed something. The NY Post article says the 4M figure is from Demos in 2008, but I don't know where they found it.)

The 12M and 4M figures are not for the total size of the middle class, but for the portion of it deemed to be "secure" in the middle class -- i.e., at little risk of falling out of the middle class. That's supposedly on the order of 1/3 of the whole middle class.

Curiously, the Demos document and the NY Post article are both about the alleged scarily large fraction of the US middle class that's in danger of dropping out of the middle class, which has supposedly got scarily larger over recent years; but neither sees fit to say what's actually happened to the size of the middle class. I'd have thought that if lots of middle-class people, and increasingly many at that, are at serious risk of ceasing to be middle-class, then that ought to show up as attrition in the number of middle-class people.

There's also no definition of "middle-class" offered. It seems to me so vague a term that anything said about "the middle class" is useless without some indication of just what notion of "middle class" is being used.

<comment><USER4> > There's also no definition of "middle-class" offered. It seems to me so > vague a term that anything said about "the middle class" is useless without > some indication of just what notion of "middle class" is being used.

Yup, that's a huge problem.

The US population is roughly 300M. It's unclear how "middle" can be defined in a way that leads to less than 100M or so people. (An absolute definition is absurd, because it leads to no middle class 50 years ago and everyone "upper class" in another 50. A relative definition will be roughly stable in population, regardless of circumstance.)

There's probably a "the middle class is in a different economic situation" argument to be made, but that's not nearly as much "fun" for a journalist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title of this post is misleading. Even the article states that there are 31 million _families_ in the middle class. It further states that while 12mm families were "solidly middle class" (whatever that means) in 2000, only 8mm families were so in 2006. It then states that 4mm more families _are in danger of sliding into poverty_ based on 2008 estimates.

</comment><comment><USER6> The plutocrats don't seem to realize that in gutting the economy, they will also eventually gut themselves. Goldman Sachs, I am looking at you.

Gordon Gekko was supposed to be a satire, not an exemplar of how to live.</comment>


Python 3.7's new builtin breakpoint – a quick tour - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@anthonypjshaw/python-3-7s-new-builtin-breakpoint-a-quick-tour-4f1aebc444c <comment><USER2> I just use IPython interactive shell at any point I want to explore. It has access to local variables.

<comment><USER3> There's also

        import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace()

which drops you into ipython debugger shell which is largely superior to the default pdb, e.g. due to code completion (I'm not sure that's what you meant).

There's also a %pdb magic which works in notebooks somewhat well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is `pdb.set_trace()` is how the breakpoints are implemented in Visual Studio?</comment>


115, the Newest Element on the Periodic Table - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130828-science-chemistry-115-element-ununpentium-periodic-table/ <comment><USER2> The accompanying graphic of the Periodic Table has several errors: Lithium (Li) has an atomic number of 3, Protactinium (Pa) has an atomic number of 91, Lawrencium (at least they have Lr and not Lw) has an atomic number 103.

<comment><USER3> I thought I didn't have enough coffee! I had a double take at that too: H(1), He(2), Li(2), Be(4). Didn't even notice the other errors until you pointed them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish more articles were written like this: start reading, ask yourself x questions, only to see them answered while you keep reading, in a nice concise way, no more no less.

</comment><comment><USER5> Any benefit for expanding the periodic table given these are "man-made" (which I believe could exist elsewhere in the universe...)?

<comment><USER6> > (which I believe could exist elsewhere in the universe...)

They are unlikely to exist elsewhere except for a few moments (not even a second) after a supernova. A regular star will not make them, and they decay extremely fast.

<comment><USER7> Some of them seem to last much longer than that, or are hypothesized to. If an element has a half-life of a million years, then it probably exists in large quantities throughout the universe. The solar system is a relatively closed system, though, so the elements we see around us have generally been in the solar system for its entire lifetime. So an element would have to last 5+ billion years to exist on earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wished the Swedish scientists played more video games. Elerium is a way cooler name than Ununpentium.

<comment><USER9> The name will be decided by an international vote.

Ununpentium just means "115th element".

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

<comment><USER10> So it probably will be Colbertium.

See e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert#COLBERT_Treadmi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert#COLBERT_Treadmill)

<comment><USER11> That would be terrible. It's one thing to name as fleeting as a treadmill after someone like Colbert, but I cringe at the thought of future science teachers in 2025 having to explain how an element is named after an entertainer they've never heard of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh, so they name those not yet discovered/synthesised by their number, as Ununtrium (113), Ununpentium (115), Ununseptium (117), Ununoctium (118). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#Layout](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#Layout)

</comment><comment><USER13> It needs a nice name. Hacknium.

<comment><USER14> Sadly, to the general public, hacknium sounds a lot like rapeium.

<comment><USER15> i can't imagine that the general public features in the calculus for naming elements whatsoever with names like Yttrium and Dysprosium</comment></comment></comment>


SwiftTools: Find well maintained swift libraries - <AUTHOR> https://swifttools.dev/ <comment><AUTHOR> SwiftTools.dev helps you to find well maintained swift libraries for your next iOS/macOS/tvOS project.

Just like the [https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/](https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/) but for swift.</comment>


Ask HN: Will php being out of memory caused by increasing memory leak? - <AUTHOR> Hey, be confused about php memory management.
Will php being out of memory caused by increasing memory leak of php itself ?
If not, and zend_gc = On ...
Why we can face out of memory siutation when running phpunit ? <comment><USER2> PHPUnit is greedy with RAM.

I believe the default PHP memory limit is often only 128Mb, have you tried increasing this, or setting it to -1 to remove the limit?

In php.ini, you need to change: memory_limit = 128M ;</comment>


Winston: Take Back Control of Your Online Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winstonprivacy/winston-the-worlds-most-advanced-online-privacy-device?ref=dc05nt&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=04.06.2019+TCF+Ads+V1+Lookalikes&fbclid=IwAR0JYrVz07TPsmr1HMrWyntIyhCjS6YitM_h7ktJiUPIM0GD88ClRUpYgSM <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how different this is from a custom router box running something like pi-hole ...</comment>


FBI director warns Facebook could become platform of 'child pornographers' - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-security/fbi-director-warns-facebook-could-become-platform-of-child-pornographers-idUSKBN1WJ1NQ <comment><USER2> This statement is just hysteria, an attempt at whipping up a Moral Panic ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)) in order to generate a rhetorical fog and attack the FBI's enemies.

Media need to quit repeating things word-for-word, especially coming from those who are in positions of authority, and those claiming a principled stand. Historically, while not always rubbish, such claims from people in authority tend to reinforce the authority, and nothing more. Such claims coming as a "principled stand" seem to often be used not to get folks to conform to the principles, but just to get media to amplify whatever claim goes along with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Once could come to the same conclusion with all social media. Youtube is already known to have a pedo problem.

<comment><USER4> And a fascist problem.

<comment><USER5> And an ad problem.

<comment><USER4> Let's be honest. The whole goddamn world has an ad problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Call for a Temporary Moratorium on "The DAO" - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/10kTyCmGPhvZy94F7VWyS-dQ4lsBacR2dUgGTtV98C40/mobilebasic <comment><USER2> Oddly enough, this has been the single most useful piece for me in understanding what the folks who created the DAO sought to achieve. It also points out some problems that, no doubt, can be rectified in a future instance.

<comment><USER3> The folks who created it (slock.it) are planning to be the first proposal voted on. Now you might understand why the incentives are so incredibly slanted towards yes votes (and even more so on the first vote, given the extraPremium or whatever the pyramid aspect of the initial price is called).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the people behind a DAO elect to commit some illegal act, who's responsible?

The DAO itself is a dumb object, incapable of moral or ethical reasoning, while the people behind it are not.

However, the people behind the DAO are effectively anonymized, are they not? The entity which commits the act is culpable, but the law usually goes after accomplices or enablers as well.

Unless I'm thinking about this all wrongly, this opens up a really messy can of worms and we now live in a world where you have to watch your back at every turn.

Which isn't to say it wasn't already like that, but it's been turned up to eleven now.

As an example:

DAO[A] is created by individuals for the purpose of doxxing one of the founders of slock.it. DAO[B] answer the call and gather the information providing it to DAO[A] who contracts with DAO[C1] to publish the information on a server paid for by DAO[C2], who then does so.

The founder and/or his family (all the founders of slock.it are male, apparently) are now potentially exposed to harm.

Is this a likely scenario? Do we now have to have a Rule 35 that says if there's a thing that can be done, a DAO will exist for it?

<comment><USER3> The people in the DAO partnership are responsible. Just like they would be in a partnership that doesn't have a DAO managing their money.

<comment><USER5> when you're a shareholder of a company which commits an illegal act, you're not responsible (limited liability or something?) - why would it be any different with DAO?

<comment><USER3> First: if you vote to do something illegal as a shareholder, then you can be held responsible. Even in a limited liability corporation. [0]

Second: it's not a company: it's a partnership, by my interpretation. By law (in all countries I know of) partnerships by default do not have limited liability. If you want limited liability, you're going to need to set up a proper corporation/LLP, file the proper paperwork, adhere to various laws, keep books, etc. Otherwise, in the US you are probably jointly and severally liable.[1]

The defense "The DAO did it" wouldn't work, since people are voluntary members of the DAO, and presumably voted/stayed in when it got to the point of criminal acts.

The legal system is not a machine you can bypass with magical internet code. (As opposed to a legal system as a Smart Contract running on Ethereum, perhaps.)

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe the first two investment proposals of the DAO will be:

1\. A company comprised of lawyers and coders to review the legitimacy, legality, enforceability of DAO smart contracts; and

2\. An insurance company to insure all DAO contracts for the instances the contracts are faulty and breached.

<comment><USER7> Pretty close; there's already a $1.5M proposal around securing The DAO: [https://blog.slock.it/dao-security-a-proposal-to- guarantee-t...](https://blog.slock.it/dao-security-a-proposal-to-guarantee- the-integrity-of-the-dao-3473899ace9d)

<comment><USER6> It seems as though some of the principles involved with the creation of the DAO are asking for investment to build a security framework on top of the DAO to secure it from some types of known potential attacks.

Clearly I don't understand the scope of the proposal but my gut thinks either this group should have built security into the system from these known potential attacks before raising $150M.

Alternatively, what I envisioned with my proposals, the security measures should simply be included within the individual contracts. For example: This very security proposal is asking for 125,000 ETH, the contract should provide for a identifiable review team (say 1 well know coder and 1 well known lawyer) and an insurer for the contract their fees will be built into the contract. If the contract meets its investment goal, before the funds are released the reviewers must approve the contract and provide the investors a summary of the terms. If approved the insurance company will guarantee the investors money is not lost due to either fraud or some bug/error in the code causing a loss.

Edit: Submitted a DAO proposal to fund an insurance company to review and insure smart contracts on the DAO in the instance of bug/error in the code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is game theoretics at its best: A new game with rules that are executed reliably, huge amounts of money, huge numbers of voting participants.

I think that the most reasonable thing will happen over the long run, but in the meantime there will be some drama. Thankfully the community and leaders are well-prepared and well-equipped.

</comment><comment><USER9> The DAO should allow the owners more control of funding. Instead of a single "creation period" with arbitrary fixed rules to fund The DAO, new funding rounds should be possible, that can be voted on as any other proposal.

This would prevent The DAO from running out of funds to support a long term but seemingly viable project midway, either due to splits/withdrawals or because of unexpected additional costs.

It also would allow a group of investors to split from The DAO and form a more private organization. They could decide not to have an initial "creation period", thereby preventing outside investors from getting in and upsetting their shared vision. They could also then have a funding round which guarantees they still own more than 50% of their DAO.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'll just be here with my popcorn as this plays out :-D

</comment><comment><USER11> Here I was, expecting a criticism on Data Access Objects.

<comment><USER12> Data Access Objects really have gone too far when you think about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sorry. Can someone ELI5 how I buy into the DAO in the first place? I know if I can't figure out how to buy in I shouldn't own any, but humor me.

<comment><USER14> Not worth it. Most people are splitting their shares to get out now.

<comment><USER15> I, er, have not successfully found anything about that on google. My apologies, but may I dear lazyweb you for a link or three to that effect?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thank you - this paper is the clearest introduction to what the DAO is and what it is trying to achieve that I have read. I found the official website for the DAO confusing and information light.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can someone ELI5 the DAO for me? This is the first I've heard of it and it sounds important.

<comment><USER18> No. The DAO that can be explained like you're five is not the true DAO.

<comment><USER19> Is this the first verse of the DAO te Ching?

<comment><USER18> That was the idea, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'll be here holding my bitcoin with no worries</comment>


Researchers crack network latency nut with new algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/08/new-protocol-could-enable-real-time-network-latency-data.ars

<comment><USER2> Varghese, a co-author on the ACM paper, wrote _the_ book on high-performance network component design --- "Network Algorithmics":

[http://www.amazon.com/Network-Algorithmics- Interdisciplinary...](http://www.amazon.com/Network-Algorithmics- Interdisciplinary-Designing-Networking/dp/0120884771)

Highly, highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be clear, they've cracked the "measuring network latency" nut, not the "network latency" nut.</comment>


Why some Koreans make $10k a month to eat on camera - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/592710/why-some-koreans-make-10000-a-month-to-eat-on-camera/ <comment><USER3> I didn't think the idea that Koreans were so plugged into the Internet that they were replacing actual human contact with virtual dinners had much weight. I suspect that people watch and donate because they enjoy it. They are entertained.

It's the future of entertainment. We are seeing it in the West with Twitch.tv. People donate to their favourite streamers and companies sponsor them.

I've been getting into watching and following various ARMA3 role play streams. About a dozen streamers out of a couple hundred players will be interacting in the online world with its own rules, laws and codes of behaviour and we as audience get to see into the world through their eyes at the same time, get to see the same event through the eyes of a gamer playing a policeman or a gangster. It's essentially improvisational acting, and there's a huge potential here for some great entertainment. I think that's what's new.

But what makes it the future is that it's interactive, there is a community. The people on the other side of the stream interact back, sometimes directly to you, and you can interact directly with them. This may not be new - <USER2> it's new within this new field of entertainment, and I'm optimistic about it.

<comment><USER4> Do you have a link to the ARMA streams? They sound fascinating.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/ArmA%20III](http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/ArmA%20III)

Usually the top streams in the Arma 3 directory are RP streams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a family member who hates to watch people eat. It's not the social aspect of eating together that she dislikes, it's the actual act of eating that she doesn't like to observe. Therefore, if someone can dislike this act, why can't the opposite be true and there exist people that like to watch people eat?

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like a William Gibson novel! I give it a couple more years before an example of "Idoru" comes along.

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

<comment><USER8> Already happened in 2009 in Japan[0]:

> Hatsune Miku, a virtual singer whose voice is created by a software engine, > performed "live" for the first time on Saturday at the Animelo Summer Live > 2009 Re:bridge concert.

There are a lot of concert videos on YouTube[1].

0: [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-08-23/hatsune- miku...](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-08-23/hatsune-miku-virtual- idol-performs-live-before-25000)

1: [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hatsune+miku+li...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hatsune+miku+live)

<comment><USER9> It's funny to see an account called w1ntermute respond to a real life question about a William Gibson character. Life imitating art commenting on life imitating art :)

<comment><USER8> I was not unaware of that amusing coincidence as I left the comment ;)

<comment><USER9> I suspected as much. So, what are you reading these days?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So Man vs Food webcam style? Or Epic Meal Time? [https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicMealTime/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicMealTime/videos)

What's hard to get about people wanting to see others eat large amounts of food. US had the glutton bowl and that guy who's famous for eating hotdogs.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very interesting article but a bit of a weird ending:

" Which is another way of saying that I object to mukbang on classist grounds, and am hard-wired to do so. There are very few excuses for bad table manners, and being on video certainly isn't one of them."

</comment><comment><USER12> The way it's described in the article, it sounds more like ASMR [1] than anything else. There's an active ASMR community in the West but it's largely not centered around eating food. It doesn't seem out of the question that the Korean ASMR community have developed a following around food.

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

</comment><comment><USER13> As the article points out, Korea has the world's fastest internet. And this is how they use it ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> Answer: because they are cute or in some cases funny.</comment>


I Watched All 629 Episodes of the Simpsons in a Month. Here's What I Learned - <AUTHOR> https://antihumansite.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/i-watched-all-629-episodes-of-the-simpsons-in-a-month-heres-what-i-learned/ <comment><USER2> I stopped reading at "Those of us who grew up loving Golden Age Simpsons didn't love it because of the characters... We loved it because it was funny and that was it."

I got into the simpsons as a kid because it was funny. But I stayed because of the characters and the relationships they have with each other.

That is audience retention 101.

For a more astute analysis, I recommend reading [https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/](https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/) which comprehensively describes the history surrounding and storycrafting of the Simpsons

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that was surreal. The appeal of the Simpsons for me was always the characters, and the fact that they genuinely cared about each other despite their dysfunctional family dynamic. Conventional wisdom says that it's not that the show-runners abandoned humor in favor of character but the other way around, abandoning the core of their characters' identities for cheap laughs, hence the birth of "jerkass Homer."

<comment><USER2> I'd consider the author's arguments seriously if he bothered to buttress them with more sources than one Matt Groening quote, and one link to the Statemen's.

I would speculate that he didn't want to do the research, because his opinion is the opposite of the consensus, and because he didn't even seem to like the "Golden Age" Simpsons that much.

Pretty shallow overall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the beginnings of the show I used to think that Lisa's suffering is a message of hope to other kids with aspirations - you suffer now because you are smart but in the end you will make it, not them. That all changed when she got rewarded with a marriage to Milhouse. I remember it felt unnatural when I saw that scene, needlessly malicious. The author is up to something.

</comment><comment><USER5> 20 episodes a day? How?

<comment><USER6> With 24 minutes per episode you should be able to watch 20 episodes in 8 hours.

Assuming regular 40 hour work weeks it should take you slightly over 6 weeks to watch them all, or slightly over 30 working days. Which you can probably argue still counts as a 'month'.

The difficult part is convincing someone to let you watch the Simpsons full time for 6 weeks.</comment></comment>