Hungary Internet tax cancelled after mass protests - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29846285 <comment><USER2> Cancelled, well not really. The PM Orban's reaction was the following:

\- the tax cannot be introduced given the current reactions.

\- people question the rationale behind this whole thing

\- the whole argument went off track

He also said that they'll start a "national consultation" about the topic. Now a "national consultation" (invented by them a few years ago) means that they send out a paper via snail mail to every citizen who is eligible for voting (around 8 million out of 10). The questions are phrased manipulatively. We won't see a clear question like "Would you like to pay this tax YES/NO" option. It is usually it is phrased in a form like "Some people think this thing is good because blblablabla, while others think this is not that good because blablabla". Now it is always phrased in a very manipulative way and contains biased arguments. I mean arguments (i.e. campaigning) on the questionnaire itself.

Then of course no one controls or oversees the processing of the collected questionnaires. So it looks like a referendum but it's a plot device, a persuasion device to show fake support. The result can (and will) be manipulated, interpreted at will by the government.

The guy in charge of the 'consultation' is Tamas Deutsch, who previously called the protesters stinky bugs (while he also didn't agree with the idea of the tax). Also, FIDESZ (Orban's party) regularly and outrageously censor their FB page. They delete opposing but polite comments, ban users.

This happened to me after the first protest when their reaction was that they are open to arguments and discussion but reject vandalism (two windows of their empty HQ were broken by 5 people). I made a try. Posted 2 comments, got banned (comments deleted).

(edit: formatting)

So while it is a major result for the people in Hungary, it by no means is a final victory.

</comment><comment><USER3> For most people who were protesting this proposal was the last straw and what you can't see from these posts that people were saying "Orban get lost!" and "Down with the corrupt government!" during those events. People started talking about a much needed referendum to get rid of Orban and his corrupt retinue so after the first protest this started to be about much more than the internet tax. This momentum is broken now since we got what we wanted __initially __. We 'll see what happens next.

<comment><USER4> Do you have any articles you would point to that describe the governmental machinations? You pose this as a part of a larger arc, and I'd love to see more effort done to make it clear what that arc is, what this is a part of.

I did a little digging around for articles on the 27th (as that wonderful picture of the protests made the round, [https://twitter.com/RyanHeathWriter/status/52740681179280588...](https://twitter.com/RyanHeathWriter/status/527406811792805888)). I ran into _Slow and Steady: Hungary 's Media Clampdown_ which seemed a reasonable enough job at illustrating that this isn't just a vie against the internet or a vie for revenue, it's part of a longer programme very deliberately creating _Soft Censorship,_ and installing new undemocratic ways for the politicos to grab onto power.

[https://www.ifex.org/hungary/2014/07/28/slow_steady/](https://www.ifex.org/hungary/2014/07/28/slow_steady/)

<comment><USER5> Krugman has reposted several entire articles on his blog by Kim Lane Scheppele on the rising authoritarianism in Hungary: [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=hungary&_r=0](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=hungary&_r=0)

<comment><USER6> Is it me or we entering a new golden age of authoritarianism?

Unlike in the last century, this time around it's not under the guise of nationalism or communism, but in representative democracies where the executive branches consumes greater and greater power, while weakening the well-vetted and centuries old safe-guards that were in place to prevent power- abuse.

Whenever the states sky-rocketing growth in power is questioned by the media or the citizenry the leaders can point to the fact that - hey it's still a democracy, you voted us in. So the populous is placated and ignorant to the fact the democratic process has been made impotent.

<comment><USER7> I disagree.

Many democracies around the world are admittedly flawed, but regardless, a larger portion of humanity today lives in democratic countries than anytime in history.

<comment><USER8> Large, powerful, democracy. Pick two.

You can have a powerful democracy with a small number of constituents because then an individual has a realistic capacity to rally his neighbors and make change when something sour is going on.

You can have a large democracy when the government's power is strictly limited to a small well-defined area of influence, because then most constituents can realistically remain informed about that specific area of influence.

You cannot have a large, powerful democracy. A large democracy with many powers can't resemble a direct democracy because constituents can't realistically remain informed on so many issues. But it also can't resemble a republic because that forces voters to choose between e.g. the party that promotes censorship and the party that promotes police militarization, without sufficient influence to affect the position of either party.

The problem is that more and more of the things people describe as "democracies" are large and powerful.

<comment><USER9> Thinking about it, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition) would probably be better than democracy in this case, though even that is not free of problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why do taxes always have to be so artificial?

The reason to have income tax is to have people who can afford it contribute to society. I can see how that is a good thing.

The reason to introduce an internet tax is what? To only have people who make enough money use the internet? What kind of nonsense is that?

Please, let us agree that whenever a new tax is introduced, it is justified.

And perhaps lawmakers should ask system/OS programmers for help, because they actually can come up with good and fair rules to make complex interacting systems work as they should.

<comment><USER11> There is nothing natural about an income tax. However, personal income is a relatively _easy_ thing to tax. Land-value or real-estate-value is also easy to tax, because it happens in the open.

I think taxes are an infringement on freedom; but society needs taxes in order to fund the essential features of government that secures freedom, so I tolerate them.

To that end, "total taxes are too high" is an entirely separate argument from "we are taxing (and therefore discouraging) the wrong things."

Something has to be taxed. As people communicating online we are biased to think taxes on internet traffic are wrong, but dispassionately I don't see much of a difference between taxing traffic and taxing gas (and boy do drivers hate gas taxes). You can argue that gas taxes fund the roads that are being used, but the internet is not entirely self-funded by private enterprise.

<comment><USER12> Why did you not address a key point of the comment you were replying to, which was that income taxes allow taxation to correlate with how well one is able to carry the burden? It would be nice (and helpful to the overall signal-to-noise ratio) if we all here talked _to_ each other rather than _at_ each other.

Two points on the topic of gas taxes: (1) While it is perhaps still true that the internet is not entirely privately funded (is it?), I'd be interested in actual numbers. Most likely, the public spending on cables is ridiculously tiny compared to the public spending on roads. (2) In some (many?) countries, gas taxes are also justified by environmental and sustainability concerns: they provide an economic incentive to reduce fuel consumption. I don't see a similar concern with mere bandwidth usage. An environmentalist may bring up the power consumption of data centres, but that is a slightly different issue: bandwidth used does not always correlate with compute power used, and so it is still no justification for an _internet_ tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Last time the proposed tax was posted [1], a lot of people thought it was a distraction from Hungary's international relationships -- specifically its increasing reliance on Russia.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8491882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8491882)

<comment><USER14> It doesn't seem wise to give people against you a reason to rise, gather, be visible and reward the protest with a decision reversal. Now you can expect similar demostrations whenever you step the line.

<comment><USER15> Or people feel satisfied with the cancelled tax and the energy for protest is safely released.

<comment><USER16> Most of the protesters were civilized and informed. A few aggressors threw hardware at the windows, but I wouldn't say the overall tension against the Hungarian government has diminished.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm Hungarian and I can assure that this move is a beautiful temporization from our government. They proposed this tax to herd the attention from the 'banning scandal'.[1] And now from one moment to the other, they are heroes. [1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-usa-hungary- idUSKCN0I921220141020)

</comment><comment><USER18> An internet tax? That sounds like something that the Australian government would conjure up [1].

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political- news/secret...](http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secret- government-briefing-admits-metadata-law-cost-and-warns-of-internet-tax- campaign-20141030-11e1v8.html)

<comment><USER19> That's not an internet tax as much as full surveillance over the internet. I'd take a tax over that any day.

<comment><USER18> It's actually both - surveillance and we will have to pay for it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> USA law is the Patriot Act which EFF dot org says is used mostly for 'low level' drug caes and not the intended targets. Cyprus. redacted

Hungary needs a reason to monitor and peek at you. So, a small tax. Famous USA gangster Al Capone never convicted for murder, but he was convicted for evasion of tax laws.

Allegedly some say the laws were passed just for the famous gangster.

Why did the USA invade in the middle east? Supposedly the 'internet forgery' Italian letter, which would be taxed by the HUNGARY INTERNET TAX.

Technical question: What happens if there is a DNS hijacking on the country level like before? Or some high bandwidth sent from the botnets to YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER?

Pay up Hungary because that RUSSIAN 'assistant sofware' makes for high bandwidth. The video cassete manufacturers will make sure that HUNGARY NETFLIX dies an early death.

Pay up Hungary!

</comment><comment><USER21> What were the politicians thinking when they decided to tax the Internet?

<comment><USER16> To distract the public opinion from talking about high priority officers being forbidden from entering the USA.

<comment><USER22> The technique is known as smoke&mirrors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Something quite interesting in the article is that it was intended to be a telecommunications tax and ended up being perceived as an internet tax.

In some countries there are already telecommunications taxes/duties that would also be 'internet tax'

I guess the phrasing can be a big deal.

<comment><USER24> Hungary already has a separate telecommunication tax paid after every minute of phone calls and every sent message (SMS or MMS). The telco providers (T-Mobile, Telenor and Vodafon are the three major players here) were supposed to pay this from their own profit without making the customers pay for it, but that is of course not how the market works. The current proposed internet tax would be based on the amount of data transfer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Tax the things that have an associated social cost, like fast/low nutrition food.

<comment><USER26> This already exists in Hungary: [http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2011/06/22/hungary-to- ta...](http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2011/06/22/hungary-to-tax-foods-it- thinks-unhealthy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am surprised that US government has not got this tax idea before Hungary. After all only rich people use Internet more while the poor and welfare dependent people dont use much of internet.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of the very few times that protesting was effective.</comment>


Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer Tweets Out a Bitcoin String - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/trumps-press-secretary-tweets-out-a-bitcoin-string/ <comment><USER2> Seems that somebody wrote it in bitsig _after_ the tweet; probably just to archive the gibberish Spicer sent out. Incidentally, though, the funds moved into larger addresses, both on the day after Merkel's visit (to a German address), and yesterday..</comment>


Millennials Are Poorer Than Their Parents, Investigation Finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/read/its-not-your-imagination-millennials-are-poorer-than-old-people-vgtrn <comment><USER2> This is a blogspam wrapper for the original Guardian article: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-yea...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-year- economic-betrayal-dragging-down-generation-y-income)

<comment><USER3> It's in a wrapper to avoid being flagged as a repost: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11238360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11238360)

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know it was a repost, I missed that one. Not sure I'm really too keen on the headline used on that, seems needlessly combative.

<comment><USER4> As a generation Y person myself, I feel like older generations are combative against newer generations. Whether it was willful neglect or negligence, I am not sure, but the reality is that I am getting a pretty raw deal when compared to my parents and grandparents. Considering the societal or moral obligations parents have (or should have) to their children, I wouldn't say "betrayal" is too far off the mark. Apparently the sense of obligation from an older generation to a newer one doesn't extend very well when viewed in aggregate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I can agree that there's some palpable friction at play. I'm not sure it was betrayal as much as pure, unadulterated selfishness. Generationally speaking, even the parents (Baby Boomers) and their parents (Greatest Generation) are currently in pretty bad shape as well - all except for the X% who were doing the fleecing rather than getting taken along for the ride. It's not really hyperbole to look at the trillions in outstanding debt (not just Federal - have a look at the Muni market) and conclude that the Generation Y and Z will essentially be debt slaves based on decisions of the deceased. It's pretty disturbing on a fundamental level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of course they are.

(1) College is mandatory for a lot more jobs, and college costs a lot more than it used to.

(2) Houses cost a lot more than they used to, so more people are renting, thus locking them out of that route of asset building.

(3) Jobs are harder to come by, and pay worse.

(4) Maybe you consider it unnecessary, but there are a lot more monthly expenses (internet, cellular phone) than there used to be.

So expenses are up, incomes are down, and wealth building is blocked off. I don't see how the conclusion would be anything else, with merely a moment's thought.

<comment><USER6> I'd add to this that millennials are getting married later than any previous generation, and marriage allows one to share resources with a partner and therefore reduce expenses.

<comment><USER7> And we're getting married later because 'adulthood' starts later. It used to be the case that you could support a family with a job you get at 18.

If you did go to university, it was easy to pay for and generally not too hard to graduate in 4 years. A bachelor's degree was valuable. Today, good luck graduating in 4 years. Not to mention, a bachelor's degree is worth far less, graduate degrees or dual degrees are the thing now.

By the time you go through university (5-8 years), work your (probably unpaid) internship, and get a job that gives you so much as a hope of a decent, middle class life, you're probably 25-28 years old. And unless you found your future spouse in university, then there's at least a year of dating, a year or two of engagement (since wedding venues are damn near impossible to find), and you're getting married at 30+.

Anyhow of course that's above the average, plenty get married young, but then again, plenty are poor too. Poor people can get married younger by skipping the whole university thing, but then that does diminish their income potential for their lives. This is what I did, then went to university. Now I'm still 30+, albeit married, but no kids yet.

Anyhow, the point is, marriage generally comes as a result of financial stability, not the other way around, though you're right that it does reduce expenses, if both spouses work. But because of cultural constructs, stability needs to exist before people couple up.

<comment><USER8> If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do people pursue them as if they are mandatory? Intertia? Stigmatization of not having a degree by society/government? I ask in all seriousness, as a large percentage of the most successful (and therefore best compensated) people I work with in tech don't have degrees.

<comment><USER7> > If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do > people pursue them as if they are mandatory?

A degree is the new high school diploma. It's game theory really. If no one has a degree, it's super valuable, so whoever gets one will have a huge advantage. So everyone gets one because it's the best individual decision. Today, since everyone has one, if you're one of the few that don't, you're at a massive disadvantage. So you still get one for fear of being left behind, even if the relative worth is far less.

Tech (rather programming) is kind of an exception because it's easier to show what you're capable of, which allows you to bypass the requirement. There are plenty of trades and 'artistic' fields which allow for this as well. But for most fields, a degree is a sort of 'guarantee' of a minimum level of knowledge, dedication and even financial means. There's no Github for business people.

<comment><USER9> > There's no Github for business people.

Is that the sound of opportunity knocking?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Other than my Dad giving me the strong advice from personal experience that "Making a living as a musician is not a pleasant or steady lifestyle choice" the one thing I've been glad to have heard long ago was "You'll probably never have the same standard of living as we've had in this home."

Little did he know that a few years after that, and once I was on my own two feet, his employer of 30+ years would dump his pension on the US taxpayers and gut his benefits. Even he wasn't able to achieve the retirement peace of mind he worked for all those years. In hindisight, his statement plus what I witnessed happen doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out an 'entitlement' but rather a general suspiciousness the working world is rigged.

<comment><USER10> Who did he work for?

<comment><AUTHOR> A US commercial airline. Several have done the same kind of maneuver so I feel it's at least somewhat obfuscated the particular one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know there's a myriad of causes, but friends - avoid debt, even if your peers, parents, media, whatever encourage you that it's "okay" for college, nice house, etc.

It just boggles me that friends would borrow huge tuition and dorm costs for private college out of state, to get something like a Communications Degree with low income prospects. Even if they are passionate about the subject, they could've easily gotten it cheaper at a local state school and living at home. Or, taken their first few years at community college, etc. Willingness to borrow is at least one of the factors for rising costs.

Debt is slavery and steals from your future.

<comment><USER12> Debt is great if used appropriately. Most people don't use it correctly.

Debt is supposed to match the life of the asset. If you have a house that lasts 25 years or longer, then a mortgage of 25 years is OK. If you have a car that has value for 5 years, then a matching loan is 5 years is OK. If you go on vacation, there is no lasting asset, therefore should be paid in cash (ie. saved up for). Same with that expensive meal.

<comment><USER13> I don't even understand what you're trying to get at.

Homes increase in value while vehicles decrease in value over time. But you're using the same metric to figure out if you should borrow against them both..? A lot of people view homes as an investment and vehicles as a sunk cost.

I also don't get the whole concept of a vehicle going from "value" to "no value" after exactly 5 years. Vehicles don't depreciate like that, they constantly lose value at a somewhat static rate (aside from sudden damage).

<comment><USER12> The point is to match the debt to the asset.

As the car depreciates at a static rate, it is OK to pay off car debt at a static rate too (ie. monthly loan payments).

A house actually depreciates in value just like a car, at a static rate, but over a longer period (say 25 years). So it is OK to pay the mortgage off with a monthly payment for 25 years.

I think labeling homes as an investment and vehicles as a sunk costs is a problem that the general public has. Houses need to be maintain and upgraded to keep (or improve) its value. House values definitely don't always go up - as seen in the subprime mortgage crisis.

Sorry if I implied that the car goes from 100% to 0% value instantly. If it did, then I should pay off the loan in the same fashion. In fact, lets say a new car loses 25% of its value immediately once you drive off the dealership lot. Then you should have a car loan only for the 75% of value remaining and should have paid 25% upfront... match the debt to asset.

Vehicles can be considered an investment if it generates income (eg. taxis, commercial airplanes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hasn't this also been true for "Generation X"? As if the stupid name weren't bad enough...

<comment><USER15> Oddly enough, in the majority of these articles (and related discussions), I don't see much mention of Gen X. It's like nobody was born between the late 60s and early 80s.

<comment><USER16> They are neither up-and-coming struggling young people, nor retiring, in-power older people.

So they don't matter as much regarding this for now... in 10-15 years though, when baby boomers will be gone...

<comment><USER14> This might be a bit optimistic. Boomers have been arriving early and overstaying their welcome in any and every situation for the entirety of their existence. With our luck, the great biotech transition will take place just in time for us to be stuck with them forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This will only get worse, since millennials will also be saddled with paying their parent's generation's pensions. Inflation is the obvious answer, I just wonder if it will come without a major upheaval first.

</comment><comment><USER18> The study seems to be looking at the relative distribution of wealth, in which case the conclusion is just another way of saying that more and more income is being captured by the wealthy. Older people in any generation are going to tend to be in the higher percentiles of wealth, so a general trend in wealth distribution from the poor to the rich will tend to favor them and disfavor the young. No need for rationalizing based on millenials' character, or even their micro-economics. The simple mathematical fact is that capitalism, absent some correctional force like progressive taxation, trends inevitably toward greater wealth and income disparity between rich and poor. It's built into the system; not a bug, but a feature.

</comment><comment><USER19> Next up, water is wet

</comment><comment><USER20> What i realised is, that the millennial generation (im gen y) has spawned a yolo (you only live once) or better to say, yoln (you only live now) attitude. They dont have much hope in their future, so they tend to live now. Not tomorrow. They dont safe money, they spend money, they max out their borrowing, they max out consumption. From their perspective, its perfectly logic to do so. And even some of my old friends, the kids from the 80s, have started to live with the "yoln" live style.

</comment><comment><USER21> Employee pay is stagnant, prices for all things are rising, and personal debt for the average person is largely out of control.

We are all wage slaves now.

</comment><comment><USER22> Many are poor due to their own choices.

I know many millennials that spend way too much on the newest gadgets/cell phones (I spend $30/month and get a cheap phone as opposed to the hundreds of dollars many pay on a plan and a new phone).

Jobs are also an issue. Millennials have more education than their parents, but many choose not to use it. I know at least 5 millennials that either quit a well-paying job or just refuse to work at any company that isn't "changing the world".

I attribute it to entitlement. They feel they are owed a satisfying and well- paying job, when in reality, you need to earn it over many years.

More proof of this is in their voting habits. Sanders is tje entitlement president and is supported, by far, by millennials.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find this to be more than a little disingenuous. While it is true that millennials are poorer, the reasoning isn't so cut-and-dried.

I fully place the blame on the attitude of entitlement. There is the expectation that everything will be handed to anyone who just follows the pre- set path of college-->office job-->retirement, without the acknowledgement of all the behind-the-scenes effort that it takes.

College is more expensive, but it's not impossible. Some non-college careers are now more profitable because of this also. No matter what some people say, just showing up is not going to cut it. You need to do your job well and advocate for yourself to get raises/promotions/opportunities.

This is not to say that it's easy to get ahead. But making the "right" choices and having a little temporary discomfort or making the "wrong" choices and committing to a life of debt is pretty standard throughout history. We just have a much larger group of people with access to mass marketing tools than before, so we get to hear about it more often.

<comment><AUTHOR> And to whom would you lay the blame of creating the atmosphere of entitlement? Is it a construct that Millenials decided to work up through their Elementary, Junior, and High School educations? It doesn't seem rational to point out 'entitlement' without context as to where such a trend came from. Would you agree the Baby Boomer "Me Generation" set up the stage for what we're seeing today?

<comment><USER23> But who set the stage for the Baby Boomers? Do we blame the previous generation for that?

At some point, you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Even if the situation that you're in isn't your fault, it IS up to you what you do to get out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you do agree there's context that is important? To answer your question, yes, absolutely look through history for understanding how "The Greatest Generation" could breed the "Me Generation" and now here we are.

To put it another way, the US political and economic system is a giant game of Jenga, and by the time Millenials have showed up, the tower is rife with holes, wobbly, and on the brink of failure - these weren't the actions of the Millenials, but yet claims like yours seem to pass the buck in a blase fashion.

<comment><USER23> My argument is that the context is irrelevant. You have to do what you can with the hand you're dealt, but ultimately, if you're not willing to work for things, you will be poorer than someone who is.

I also find it ironic that you use the term "pass the buck".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flutter tutorial for beginners - <AUTHOR> https://milapneupane.com.np/2020/05/01/the-ultimate-flutter-tutorial-for-beginners <comment><USER2> From a design standpoint I don't see effort from Flutter to look and feel native to iOS. Hamburger menus and details like the sharing icon might be great on Android, but it's unclear if they're familiar to iOS users. Personally I tried Flutter's demo app associated with their announcement, and basics like scrolling stuttered on the latest iPhone hardware.

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017-802/?time=1...](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017-802/?time=1521)

<comment><USER3> I think developers worry far too much about platform native look and feel. Users don't care, nice design, ease of use, ease of learning with intuitive obvious paths to functionality that solves their needs, is all they care about. Even developers as users don't care, as proven by the success of VSCode.

<comment><USER4> Is Flutter what Google uses for their iOS apps?

Every time I try to use Drive or Sheets on iOS, I get frustrated that nothing works right, and after 2 minutes I give up and make a mental note to view/edit the file when I get home. Then a month later, I think "It couldn't have been _that_ bad...", and I repeat the process.

Intuitive and obvious _means_ behaving like all their other apps I already have. That's how you achieve ease of learning. If they acted right but looked a little off, that might be fine. These apps are the opposite -- they look mostly correct, but act different -- which is the worst of both worlds.

<comment><USER5> I believe the Stadia app is the only mainstream Google iOS app that is written in Flutter. The rest are native apps (Swift/Objective C) but specifically implements Material design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone starting out, would it be beneficial to learn flutter or go the kotlin way?

<comment><USER7> What are you starting out on? Kotlin has more web presence, but is pretty much Android-only on the mobile app side. Flutter is theoretically crossplatform with relatively low serverside mindshare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please do the proof-read, it contains typos and code errors which fails flutter app.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thought it was about wing aeroelasticity at first.

<comment><USER10> You were wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is Flutter better or worse than React Native??</comment>


USB Killer 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.usbkill.com/ <comment><USER2> I don't quite get it. Site mentions that device "prevents data theft via 'juice-jacking'"; what do they mean? If I borrow someone's charger, and it has a chip that steals transmitted data somehow? Wouldn't better solution for this be charge from outlet, rather than nuking USB controller in your laptop?

      Hardware designers of public machines…
      …with exposed USB ports should ensure that their systems resist electrical attacks.

What's the attack, is it DOS via destroying a machine. If so, you better buy Hammer Kill 1.0 and test agains that.

<comment><USER3> Your first point is in reference to the 'USB Kill Tester Shield', not the 'USB Killer'.

Quote from the front page: "If you use a charger or USB port that is not your own - the device can steal your data while you are charging. Using a USB Kill Shield will prevent devices from having access to your data."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like patcheudor's comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12467176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12467176)

<comment><USER5> Counter-example that isn't _too_ contrived: if you've got security gates controlled by a PC which are designed to fail open, I can see this being a very useful addition to a physical pen-test.

<comment><USER6> No USB host stack opens itself up just because the transmission circuits have been destroyed.

This isn't the case of a gate that fails open. This is the case of a gate that gets hit by a rocket launcher, which blows the gate open and destroys the datacenter behind it.

<comment><USER5> > No USB host stack opens itself up just because the transmission circuits > have been destroyed.

I'm not talking about the host, I'm talking about the gates. I've seen a laptop bricked because it got the wrong voltage on the USB pins (I've still got it; motherboard SMT fuse blew and I've not got round to replacing it). From a fire safety perspective, it makes _perfect sense_ for gates to fail open (or undriven, so you can push them open manually) when their controller dies. If you can get to the USB port, that's a perfectly feasible route in.

<comment><USER7> I think the author's point is that if you have exposed USB ports then there is nothing one can do. i.e. no matter how hardened they are, you can just keep on increasing the voltage (relatively easily vs hardening) and you will kill the PC. so one can just as easily pentest by removing the power from the PC without any fatally destructive behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the part where they said it's made for penetration testers and security auditors...You can literally threaten someone with a usb stick now.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow. A small taser with an USB connector.

What's next. A taser with an HDMI connector?

<comment><USER10> You've struck gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They haven't performed any testing with the USB Kill connected to a USB to Apple lightning adapter or to a USB-to-micro-USB adapter. I think that the device with a micro USB adapter would function identically, as it's just a pin mapping. But a Lightning adapter has a Lightning controller onboard.

Something like this (or even a USB to Lightning charger cable):

[https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH®-Adapter-Lightning-Female- iPh...](https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH®-Adapter-Lightning-Female- iPhone/dp/B01HEWL8PM)

Would this destroy the Lightning controller in the adapter/cable, or would it work to destroy the iPhone?

</comment><comment><USER11> But why?

<comment><USER12> To test your USB-ports. For consumers, this isn't overly useful. This is what they write:

"Hardware designers of public machines should have a USB Kill to test their products: photo booths, copy machines, airline entertainment systems, ticket terminals, etc - anything with exposed USB ports should ensure that their systems resist electrical attacks."

Seems like a form of hardware pentesting to me, so for security experts and hardware designers, this looks like a pretty useful tool. :)

<comment><USER13> Sadly as with all forms of pentesting there is the flip side: Unprotected systems are vulnerable to attacks. Imagine one attacker distracting the victim in a café and the other attacker quickly inserting the Kill stick. Sort of a hardware Denial of Service.

I am going to research for lockable USB dongles you can insert and remove only with a key.

<comment><USER4> > Imagine one attacker distracting the victim in a café and the other attacker > quickly inserting the Kill stick. Sort of a hardware Denial of Service.

You're in a coffee shop. Wouldn't the attackers just "accidentally" spill coffee on your laptop? Some laptops cope well with water from the top (over the keyboard) but not in the air vents.

<comment><USER14> > Wouldn't the attackers just "accidentally" spill coffee on your laptop?

The difference is deniability, you can always see that someone killed your laptop with coffee or smashed it with a hammer, with this you wouldn't know until you can examine the circuits.

<comment><USER10> And even then, power surges do happen. Circuitry get fried from time to time. There is still a level of plausible deniability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why not just crack usb socket with a knife? Or put super glue in there?

<comment><USER16> The attack involves taking down a high-value system via low-value, readily accessible USB port.

I imagine that the USB PHY of a well designed system exposed to this attack will not survive, but the entire system won't be so easily nerfed either.

<comment><USER17> Except the PCH usually contains the USB PHY and when the PHY dies it takes the PCH with it.</comment></comment></comment>


Guns for sale at Walmart - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-16/wal-mart-guns-and-santa-claus-it-s-christmastime-in-america <comment><USER2> the graphs show tax paid by gun manufacturer's sales. This is interesting. unless they don't pay tax for gov/military sales or they report it differently, the jump from 1.5B to 5B in christmas says that the gun business is mostly consumer entertainment.

that throws a completely new light on gun control debate for me.

<comment><USER3> I suspect a LOT of products follow that same trend, even things that you may not consider discretionary (food, cars, clothing, etc). It may just be funds availability coupled with consumer sentiment near the holidays.</comment></comment>


Bay Area News Group Hammered by More Layoffs, Resignations - <AUTHOR> http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2018/02/09/bay-area-news-group-hammered-by-more-layoffs-resignations/ <comment><USER2> The reporter who covered Campbell for The Mercury News was included in the cuts; I just saw her public tweet about it when finding out.</comment>


Rosewood massacre - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre <comment><USER2> I'll see your atrocity and raise you another.

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

<comment> King-Aaron I see your other atrocity, and raise you the complete and utter annihilation of the native people in Tasmania:

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


Tampa Bay's coming storm - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/health/environment/tampa-bay-climate-change/?utm_term=.46562afa5dae <comment><USER2> Tampa Bay resident here (Brandon suburb really, but close enough).

The reason this happens is simple: other people's money is subsidizing the losses.

First, Florida is extremely fiscally conservative. Taxes for anything are a hard sell. Without additional taxes, our infrastructure will continue to lag, causing far more damage than would've been had we ponied up the taxes in the first place. Also, infrastructure is not prioritized over glitzy marketing. St Petersburg is in dire need of a waste water treatment plant upgrade, but it's mayor is going to spend the money on a development project instead ("The Pier").

Second, insurance: the state has a high risk pool that you can join as an insurer of last resort, and they'll insure you across multiple losses. As long as we continue to issue insurance (taxpayer sponsored!) for properties that are subject to repeated losses or sea level rise, we'll continue to throw good money after bad.

<comment><USER3> Switzerland is fiscally conservative. Florida is just low-tax.

<comment><USER4> the word conservative is not really a synonym for the word responsible.

<comment><USER5> As there is a political industry devoted to promoting the idea that it means exactly that, that's just another reason for replacing it, or at least challenging its use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am amazed by the use of the word "conservative" in the interviews, used to describe the most reckless behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember reading this, and now this becoming a reality.

</comment><comment><USER8> Demonstrably not a question of "if", but "when".

</comment><comment><USER9> First line: "The area is due for a major hurricane, ..."

Hurricanes aren't like earthquakes where something builds up over time to make an event more likely if there has not been one recently. It's like saying "The roulette wheel is due to hit number 2."

<comment><USER10> I am ignorant in these matters but do earthquakes likely occurrences somehow build up over time ?

<comment><USER11> moonka is describing a theory called the 'elastic rebound theory' that has been the dominant theory of earthquake mechanics since it was proposed by Harry Reid in 1910 after studying the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It basically states that the earth's upper crust is an elastic material, and (as they said) stress builds as the different sides of the fault move with respect to one another, but the fault remains 'locked', i.e. it's not slipping, usually from the surface to 10-20 km depth.

This produces both shear stress (i.e. stress that promotes sliding on the fault) and normal stress (i.e. stress that resist sliding on the fault due to friction).

One common manifestation of the elastic rebound theory says that there is some relatively fixed stress ratio at which the shear stress overcomes the frictional resistance to slip and the fault slides rapidly in an earthquake. The basic assumption (which is supported by data for some well-studied faults such as the San Andreas) is that the rates of strain accumulation are generally constant through time, and therefore earthquakes on a fault are quasiperiodic in time and have more or less similar magnitudes. These are called 'characteristic earthquakes'.

In this situation, then the likelihood of an earthquake on a given part of a fault does increase with time since the last earthquake. I wrote a blog post quantifying this for the southern San Andreas Fault [1], using data from the geologic record and only a few assumptions (basically just that the geologic record contains all of the earthquakes).

However, though very few researchers disagree with the fundamental principles of elastic rebound theory, there is an ongoing scientific debate over whether earthquakes are periodic and characteristic, or more or less random. Many statistical seismologists believe that they are the common form of 'random', i.e. that the likelihood of an earthquake doesn't change with time since the last earthquake. Some faults (and especially larger fault systems) seem to behave in this fashion, but for an individual fault this implies very different earthquake physics. There are huge fights in places like California between senior scientists over this topic when doing seismic hazard modeling. Additionally there are other statistical distributions than either characteristic/quasiperiodic and random (Poissonian) that produce different behavior [2,3]--with some models, the longer it's been since the last earthquake, the longer it will be until the next, and with others after some time for stress to renew on the fault, it becomes basically random.

For storms, floods, etc. the likelihood of a big event happening in a given year is more or less equal every year and therefore 'random' with the exception of some multiyear cycles such as El Niño. However, over shorter timescales, they aren't. Big storms are more likely to occur during rainy seasons rather than dry seasons, and big floods are more likely soon after previous big floods (i.e. days to weeks) because the meterological conditions that generate them may be persistent and the groundwater is still high, which means that it takes less rain to get the same river levels.

[1]: [http://rocksandwater.net/blog/2016/07/wrightwood- recurrence/](http://rocksandwater.net/blog/2016/07/wrightwood-recurrence/) [2]: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3071/de51c5abc4f770b0b11ede...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3071/de51c5abc4f770b0b11ede9f3b4d204c16aa.pdf) [3]: [http://windofweef.jp/library/o_m/disaster_prevention/img/10....](http://windofweef.jp/library/o_m/disaster_prevention/img/10.1.1.133.9909.pdf)

<comment><USER9> How one can talk about earthquakes without mentioning plate tectonics [1] is baffling to me. It is a completely coherent theory on how geology works and the last real paradigm shift in the sciences. On the order of Newton with his laws of motion for physics. Or the atomic theory of matter for understanding chemistry.

In brief and simplifying:

Relative to each other, the Pacific plate is moving to the northeast and the North American plate to the southwest (absolute motion is a bit different) and a fairly constant rate of about 25cm per year. Being solid rock these plates don't slide past each other continuously (except in a few rare places) but build up stress over time near the contact between the two plates (fault). When the stress is high enough, the fault breaks loose at a single location and propagates a distance from there. How far the break propagates and how much the plates move relative to each other determines the size of the earthquake.

How plates move on the large scale relative to each other changes on the million year timescale, so on the 10,000 yr timescale, where you will have about 50-100 ~7.5 to 8.0 magnitude earthquakes on the San Andreas under San Francisco, the mean frequency and standard deviation of earthquakes won't change much. Geologist can determine when large past earthquakes occurred by digging trenches through faults and looking at the physical displacement of sediments [2].

How to predict earthquakes by better than 30% chance in the next 30 years (this is the current best estimate for the Hayward fault near where I live) is on-going and with no success so far. Looking at changes in ground conductivity some weeks and days before an earthquake is the most promising path at the moment, but has not yet been proven to work.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics) [2] [https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/safz- paleo/](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/safz-paleo/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: The Disconnect – a web magazine that forces you offline - <AUTHOR> https://thedisconnect.co/one/ <comment><AUTHOR> déjà vu? last summer someone (not me!) posted my very simple demo of this concept (i called it "offline only"). based on the feedback i got here and other places, i decided to build a full magazine, with the help of a lot of other people.

this isn't another rant about internet addiction. it's an experiment with the current state of the internet and our society. over a dozen writers, poets, and artists contributed to this issue. we hope you like it, or at least find it mildly entertaining.

(on the tech side, it also uses a lot of newer web features, so it will not be kind to older browsers. sorry! there's only so much time in a life)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> and if you're interested in the actual mechanics of detecting online / offline connection, look into navigator.onLine and "online" and "offline" events. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/NavigatorOn...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/NavigatorOnLine/Online_and_offline_events)

(We also use polling as a backup for browsers that don't support the above features)</comment>


Ask HN: what happened to Offers? - <AUTHOR>

??? <comment><USER2> The offers page was a temporary addition to the server, so it was lost on restart.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh :( thought was a nice addition.</comment></comment>


How I Personally Saved the Global Economy and Why I Blog - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/12/how-i-personally-saved-the-global-economy-and-why-i-blog/

<comment><USER2> Wow. You're laying out some powerful and candid stuff here, and in a very casual fashion.

What the fuck. TGIF.

Thanks for saving the economy, by the way.</comment>


Refurbished iPad price lowered... time for new ones - <AUTHOR> http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad?mco=MTM3NTc1Njc <comment><USER2> History is history, and with Apples iPhone track record I'd say the 99% bet is April.

Also... "The DigiTimes reports that Apple has notified Foxconn that they will ship the iPad 2 within the next 100 days"

</comment><comment><USER3> Or just in time for Christmas!

Come on, we all know iPad 2 won't be coming til next year....right, right? (crosses fingers for EARLY 2011...)

<comment><USER4> I wish!, but sadly I believe we are much too late for Christmas. I have recently decided that I do _need_ an iPad, so with the new ones coming out I'm hoping not to have to wait too long into 2011 to purchase.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The first keyboard with haptic feedback for iOS (iPhone 7) - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1231761863?pt=118002380&ct=hackernews&mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> With the brilliant new Taptic Engine in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus we decided to make use of it by adding haptic feedback to the keyboard! This is only the first release and we've got big plans for where to go from here but we wanted to start getting some feedback.

Here are some free promo codes for those early enough to the party :)

3MAEH4PEHJ3K 37MPEJEY9EHR EFLALFK49XA7 (they appear to have all been used up now)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just wanted to stress that this app is only for iPhone 7 and 7 plus (if the title and description in the app store isn't enough) as they are currently the only devices that have the Taptic Engine. If you have an older device, it will not work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Why does it need full access? It seems to work even without it

<comment><AUTHOR> You get haptic feedback without full access? That shouldn't be possible. The engine is only available to the keyboard if full access is enabled.</comment></comment>


Which is the most important feature for an business email account - <AUTHOR> http://www.poll-maker.com/poll959000x7A884047-40 <comment><USER2> I can't decide between "Advacend sieve filter setup" and "Email attachmens size".</comment>


Ask HN: What exotic hobby do you have? - <AUTHOR> Doesn't need to be related to tech, but ideally has to be unique. "Gardening" or "flying drones" are okay if you elaborate what you're doing that makes it unique. Interested to see if anyone has used any of the technology they use at work to improve their enjoyment of any particular hobby (I know lots of people love getting Raspberry Pis to water their plants, etc.)<p>Tell HN what you do that's cool! <comment><USER2> My long-term hobby is building a home museum with a tri-fold emphasis on natural history, the history of mankind, and pop culture. I try to avoid the obvious artifacts and look for specific and obscure objects that highlight thought-provoking moments in life & history.

A few examples: Fulgurite, Manhattan project glass, Japanese Pesos, Nazi- Occupied Polish stamps, 1996 Olympic medal, bone records, DEA task force patches.

Also plenty of fossils, meteorites, international currency, memorabilia, etc. Inspired by a childhood spent exploring museums and, in recent years, Mini Museum on Kickstarter.

Edit: (Also many other less cool hobbies with tech & art)</comment>


Bitreserve Launches – Creating an Egalitarian World with Digital Money - <AUTHOR> https://bitreserve.org/en/blog/posts/about-bitreserve/creating-an-egalitarian-world-with-digital-money

<comment><USER2> If you read the press around BR, it seems like they are really focused on making BTC a reality for remittances --- is anyone doing this right now?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great news. It truly sets the bar and changes the paradigm in the crypto space.</comment>


James Damore and David Gudeman Class Action Complaint Against Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6p02fijxrd7c6m/20180108%20Damore%20-%20Complaint_fs.pdf?dl=0 <comment><USER2> Almost all of the discussion about this focuses on what Damore did/said.

This is an interesting document because the lawsuit will be mostly about what Google did and said. This document this tells one side of that story.

Importantly, this doesn't just vaguely talk about "discrimination", but lists many specific instances of it. It's worth a read.

Also, twenty pages of memes...

<comment><USER3> Well, it is what Damore claims google did.

<comment><USER4> They mention complaints to HR and dismissive responses - you'd think they wouldn't lie about such things. It's pretty obvious to me that "bash white men" was an acceptable thing to say at Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems pretty obvious that he and his fellow complainant were fired for the quality/content of their ideas, not their class.

To me, there is a large difference between discriminating against someone because of their beliefs vs. their skin color.

Would it make sense that a pharmaceutical company needs to keep working with a scientist that only believes in homeopathic treatments? Does a construction company need to keep working with a engineer that the believes the earth is flat?

<comment><USER5> > To me, there is a large difference between discriminating against someone > because of their beliefs vs. their skin color.

So discriminating against Muslims is okay?</comment></comment>


Online Database Application Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.viravis.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Viravis is a platform that helps tech-savvy users to develop online database applications easily without programming.</comment>


10 hidden features of Snow Leopard you probably don't know about - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5928950/top-10-secret-features-of-os-x-mountain-lion

<comment><USER2> Mountain Lion, not SL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call. My bad.</comment></comment>


When Futurism Led to Fascism–and Why It Could Happen Again (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/italy-futurist-movement-techno-utopians/ <comment><USER2> One of the reason futurism led to fascism was that it explicitly considered war as a cleansing of the human race.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the futurists had more in common with ideological purists mainly. Nationalism however often evokes the past and history which often conflicts with the purist. Communism is probably closer to modernism in that way.</comment>


Adobe demos "photoshop for audio," lets you edit speech as easily as text - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2016/11/adobe-voco-photoshop-for-audio-speech-editing/ <comment><USER2> Quick Facts: > Needs a decent set of audio data to work with, 30 minutes of audio book will do > They are working on watermarking the waveform some how try and hamper it being used to impersonate people in a illegal way.

Obviously bringing this tech to the masses is an interesting development. In a post Donald Trump world, anything we can do to get people to use critical thinking is great, perhaps eventually we will all develop a photoshop radar for audio too. Its still pretty crazy to me what we will be able to produce with audio and visual manipulations on the fly, as well as advanced AI.</comment>


Apple Design Awards 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just want to point out 5/12 of the design award goes to puzzle/game apps and they were showcased as the first apps. It could mean something or it could mean nothing.</comment>


Abomonation: terrifying serialization - <AUTHOR> http://www.frankmcsherry.org/serialization/2015/05/04/unsafe-at-any-speed.html

<comment><USER2> Sometimes you gaze into the abyss, and the abyss goes "yeah, that seems fine."

<comment><USER3> I think this is more of a "You're mine now, but I'll eat you... _later_."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Rehydrate!" -> [https://books.google.com/books?id=QxbFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA106&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=QxbFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=rehydrate+three+body+problem&source=bl&ots=eOVSy1Q1oM&sig=MlvmWkrzGcOMaCxo_065cC1cmT4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BxRIVZ2EJu3_sAT91YCYBw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=rehydrate%20three%20body%20problem&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER5> Might need to account for byte order?

<comment><USER6> yeah, totally. there's now a method `embalm(&mut self)` run just before the binary data gets written. That and `exhume` would be great places to go to and from little-endian.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to become a better at writing? - <AUTHOR> Can someone suggest a good starting point (on-line courses, books,blog etc...) to improve my writing skills.
I am mainly interested in technical writing ( research papers, blog post, source code comments and documentation), but i would also like to be able to construct a narrative text around a string of arguments when i need to debate/convince someone by text. Random questions : I am an avid reader, are there ways i can use my reading to improve my writing? (maybe getting into the habit or writing a review/summary of books i read? ) Is there an on-line community where i can post text i wrote and get some constructive feedback ? <comment><USER2> Former professional writer for the Wall Street Journal here. The dirty little secret of writing is that it never gets easy. It might look like other writers can bust out beautiful seamless prose without breaking a sweat, but what you don't see are the hundreds of little revisions and rewrites that happen, sometimes just inside their brain. Writing is hard, and stays that way.

Because writing, at its most fundamental level, is the art of making your own ideas more clear to yourself. So how do you become a better writer? Become a more clear thinker. And yes, that is hard. Ironically, continuing to write is one of the best ways to do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> this really resonate with me. Even through school, i got some compliment on my writing from time to time, but i think i assume i was/doing something wrong because it never seemed to become easier or more natural. Maybe i just need to keep at it. Any idea where i can contructive feedback on what i write ?

"Because writing, at its most fundamental level, is the art of making your own ideas more clear to yourself" : this is quotable :)

Beside writing, any other though on becoming a better thinker ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Five steps: 1) Read good writing, especially in the genre in which you want to write.

2) Write first drafts. I prefer to think of it as vomiting words to a page.

3) Edit. Ultimately, this is what will make the writing good.

4) Get good feedback. Have a small group of people you work well with give you constructive feedback. They have to be invested enough to care and closely read one or more drafts.

5) Talk with people about the technical topics. This can help you clarify your thinking.

</comment><comment><USER4> An application: Grammarly, a course [https://www.coursera.org/learn/communication-in-the- workplac...](https://www.coursera.org/learn/communication-in-the-workplace)

I think you should have a fixed position (perhaps you are eclectic) and try to convince someone, then try to change the position and think otherwise. To convince someone is to know about what they expect, some psychology required.

The best thing is to have something interesting to say. Why do you want people to read you? Do you have something interesting to say? Are you going to write a book?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link; To answer your question as to why i want to write, first i love beautiful text. I read almost exclusively non fiction books and on a pretty wide variety of subjects. So by beauty here i am not so much referring to the aesthetic style, but more to the way some authors seems to have such a clear flow/structure in the way they present their material, that it almost make me feel smart to read them. It happens very often that i would reread a page or a section of a book, simply because while i remember the point made and the arguments used, the flow between the arguments was so natural that it's a joy to read.So part of wanting to write is just me trying to understand that mechanic.

Secondly i think there is level of insight that one can only reach by writing consistently on subject. So i want to write first to refine my own thinking and also write well enough so other people want to read and criticize/engage my ideas. I want to use writing as a way to develop my ability to communicate complex ideas better, and also to synthesise new perspective from a related web of ideas (booth of which i think are what make a good author/writer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You'll have to pardon the lack of links. It's past midnight over here and I logged in real quick from my phone.

There is a course on grammar that just started last week on edx, so far seems to be good. There is another one which i can't recall neither the name nor if it's on edx or coursera nor if it started already or when it begins on writing essays or something along those lines.

What mindcrime and nsheth17 said is basically the jist of it. You gotta right to become good at it, everyday, like anything else in life. Practice, practice, practice. Read, read, read. And in this case, write every day.

</comment><comment><USER6> You won't go far wrong following the rules from George Orwell's Politics and the English language:

1.) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2.) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3.) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4.) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5.) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6.) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are some useful tips to become a good writer. In my school days I was not able to complete academic writing tasks. The problem was I know about the topic very well but I was not able to express my ideas in English. One of my friend suggested [http://essaysorigin.com/](http://essaysorigin.com/) which help me to solve my writing problems by providing inexpensive and best quality essays.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are some useful tips to become a good writer. In my school days I was not able to complete academic writing tasks. The problem was I know about the topic very well but I was not able to express my ideas in English. One of my friend suggested [http://essaysorigin.com/](http://essaysorigin.com/) which help me to solve my writing problems by providing inexpensive and best quality essays.

</comment><comment><USER8> Stephen King said something like "To become a better writer, write a lot and read a lot". Here's a couple of articles that discuss that idea more:

[http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/dreamgates/2011/06/read-...](http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/dreamgates/2011/06/read- a-lot-write-a-lot-dream-a-lot-stephen-king-on-writing.html)

[http://writetodone.com/how-to-use-reading-to-become-a- better...](http://writetodone.com/how-to-use-reading-to-become-a-better- writer/)

Beyond that, there are, of course, tons of books for writers, including some specifically for tech writers. A lot of what you'll find on the shelf at, say, Barnes & Noble is about fiction writing, but then again, to some extent you could say that good writing is good writing regardless of whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I don't claim to be a great writer, but I can share a few titles from my own bookshelf on writing:

1\. _The Elements of Style_ \- Strunk & White

2\. _On Writing Well_ \- William Zinsser

3\. _NLP For Writers_ \- Bekki Hill

4\. _A Certain 'Je Ne Sais Quoi'_ \- Chloe Rhodes

5\. _A Manual For Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations_ \- Kate L. Turabian

6\. _The Elements of Technical Writing_ \- Gary Blake & Robert W. Bly

7\. _The Art of Scientific Writing_ \- Ebel, Bliefert, Russey

8\. _Writers Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing_ \- Michelle Rubert (ed.)

9\. _On Writing_ \- Stephen King

10\. _Zen In The Art of Writing_ \- Ray Bradbury

11\. _Eats, Shoots & Leaves_ \- Lynne Truss

12\. _Where Do You Get Your Ideas_ \- Fred White

13\. _The Complete Guide to Article Writing_ \- Naveed Saleh

14\. _HBR Guide To Better Business Writing_ \- Bryan A. Garner

15\. _Make A Scene_ \- Jordan E. Rosenfeld

16\. _Beginnings, Middles, & Ends_ \- Nancy Kress

I'm also a big believer in having a strong vocabulary, even though I don't try to write in a pretentious, sesquipedalian fashion very often. But sometimes it helps to have that "just right" word available. To that end, I recommend:

17\. _Big Words You Should Know_ \- David Olsen, Michelle Bevilacqua and Justin Cord Hayes

18\. _The Words You Should Know To Sound Smart_ \- Robert W. Bly

19\. _The Dictionary of Difficult Words_ \- John Ayto

20\. _Rogets Thesaurus of Words For Intellectuals_ \- David Olsen, Michelle Bevilacqua, and Justin Cord Hayes

21\. _The Thinker 's Thesaurus_ \- Peter E. Meltzer

22\. _Fiske Word Power_ \- Fiske, Mallison, Mandell

23\. _The Well Spoken Thesaurus_ \- Tom Heehler

24\. _They Have A Word For It_ \- Howard Rheingold

and remember, as Aldous Huxley said " _The proper study of mankind is books_ ". And on that note, may I recommend keeping a couple of books of quotations around. A good quote can be quite useful.

25\. _Mark My Words - Great Quotations and the Stories Behind Them_ \- Nigel Rees

26\. _The Giant Book of American Quotations_ \- Carruth & Ehrlich

as for websites and blogs and what-not, there is a technical writing subreddit:

[http://technicalwriting.reddit.com](http://technicalwriting.reddit.com)

and [https://writing.reddit.com](https://writing.reddit.com)

and

[https://writinghub.reddit.com](https://writinghub.reddit.com)

You also can't go wrong studying the essays of George Orwell

[http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/index_en](http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/index_en)

And I think that's about all I have to contribute, except to reiterate "write a lot, read a lot".

Source: I have no particular distinction as a writer, but I have managed to get a few articles published at InfoWorld: [http://www.infoworld.com/author/Phil- Rhodes/](http://www.infoworld.com/author/Phil-Rhodes/) and I've written quite a few blog posts for my full-time employer, like: [http://mammothdata.com/big- data-open-source-risk-managment/](http://mammothdata.com/big-data-open-source- risk-managment/) and I have written most of the content on the Fogbeam company blog: [http://fogbeam.blogspot.com](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com) I like to think that if I keep reading and writing, I might actually acquire some skill at it some day.

HTH, YMMV, IANAL, WTFBBQ, ETC.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks ! i am going trough the amazon reviews to try to pick some of those books. Do you have a top 5 for a beginner ?

<comment><USER8> 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9 from the list above would probably be a good starting place.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best affiliate program for a tech blogger - <AUTHOR> Do you know developer tools with a generous affiliate program?<p>Programs you are part of or programs you know are successful amongst the dev community. <comment><USER2> What type of tech? There are tons of programs for consumer tech and even B2B tech. You have to pick based on what 'tech' niche your content is addressing.

Besides that, many technical sites and even apps/services leverage Carbon Ads network - I know that is not an affiliate recommendation, but something to look at if you are open to Ads (and if they accept your application)

</comment><comment><USER3> The affiliate program for [https://divjoy.com](https://divjoy.com) pays out 50% and converts really well if you've got React devs in your audience. Feel free to reach out if you'd like an invite. email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> have you looked at job ads to put on your site?</comment>


Ask HN: Should I quit my job to pursue a degree or join the "dropout league"? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently 23 and have been studying software development and computer science since I was about 14. I'm now working at one of the most wanted "startups" in my country, one that's worth more than $1 billion — an "unicorn" — and have a very nice salary, colleagues and feel recognized for my work there.
What makes me feel insecure is the fact that I have no college degree. I'm planning to start a undergrad next year, but I know beforehand that I won't be able to get through the end of the course unless I quit my current job, specially when the course reaches more advanced subjects I'm less familiar with, like Compilers and Physics.
I've self-taught myself in some theoretical subjects, like Linear Algebra, Discrete Optimization, Type Theory, Algo Complexity and such, but since I have no degree, I have no way to "prove" I'm not just a "bootcamp coder" and I fear this may impact my job prospects in the future. On the other hand, I also fear that working hard to get the full diploma may not payoff the effort — the old saying that things you learn in college have little to no application in most jobs. I also have no interest in pursuing an academic career.
Should I get that degree? <comment><USER2> If possible, I would explore going part-time or even full time if you can make the schedule work with the current job. I am finishing a full-time masters program and working full time, and it is hard but perfectly doable.

Having at least a bachelors will open doors. My employer excludes many candidates without a degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Having at least a bachelors will open doors. My employer excludes many > candidates without a degree. Yep, that's my biggest concern.

However, I can't work part-time here, they don't have part-time positions for developers. I would have to quit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you work half time? I worked half time during the university, and it is possible. The drawback is that you will need a few more years to get the degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, no. My company doesn't have part-time positions for software engineers right now. I would have to quit my current job anyway. And I don't want to quit, since it's a big opportunity and I know working there not only enriches my résumé, but also because I'm learning a lot every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are you working as a software developer at your current job? If not, do you want to work as a software developer?

Degrees are for people who can't do what they want to do with their current education/training. If you're not one of those people, you should not get a degree.

If you want to change something about your career, get a degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm a software developer. I'm currently a Developer III — which they rate as "Senior", but there are higher ranks like IV, V and even VI, which goes as "Specialists".

But I know no Spec-rated developer there that don't have a degree. If I recall correctly, almost all of them have at least a Masters.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, because that's what they needed to get a job. You didn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Betrayed by LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://developer.linkedin.com/forum/retrieve-all-positions-profile-including-past-ones#comment-20856

<comment><USER2> Suppose I owned a shoe store and the only supplier I chose to work with was Nike. I built my store on top of Nike's product, became an expert at it, had lots of customers and knew the market well. One day, Nike sees how many orders I've been making lately and decides to cut off my supply and open a Nike Store in my town. No contract with Nike, I'm SOL. I start wishing I had diversified my supply a little more.

In traditional business, there is a known threat to nearly all companies called "supplier power". If the power your suppliers have on you is strong, you're in a weak position and should try and increase your power over the supplier. I don't know if this is unavoidable or it's simply neglected within the tech community, but I'm never shocked when APIs get restricted or shut down by their parent company when others are monieizing it.

There have been enough high-profile examples over the past year or two that any business relying on a data pipe from another company needs to be on top of the relationship. The business itself should also be figuring out ways to protect itself should the pipe become clogged or shut off all the way.

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is a great analogy in this instance.

Change the analogy to, you are opening a Nike store (not yet open), and your business relies on Nike having shoes with Nike+ built into them.

And then Nike decides to discontinue Nike+.

Nike didn't betray the not-yet-open store owner in that case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get this drupal error.

\-- PDOException: SQLSTATE[40001]: Serialization failure: 1213 Deadlock found when trying to get lock; try restarting transaction: DELETE FROM {semaphore} WHERE (name = :db_condition_placeholder_0) AND (value = :db_condition_placeholder_1) AND (expire <= :db_condition_placeholder_2) ; Array ( [:db_condition_placeholder_0] => variable_init [:db_condition_placeholder_1] => 112720946350f00b3f105ad8.99608950 [:db_condition_placeholder_2] => 1357908800.0644 ) in lock_may_be_available() (line 181 of /export/content/data/dlc/shared/www/developer/includes/lock.inc). \--

Why would somebody spit the SQL exceptions on the browser instead of the log file?

<comment><USER5> Clearly they don't understand how to configure drupal.

<comment><USER6> It's a big club.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yet another flawed business model based entirely upon the goodwill and co- operation of a bigger fish in the pond.

Don't they know that bigger fish can swim away any time they want? Oh, and they might just turn around and swallow you.

To further mix my metaphors - we have had "Cathedrals" and "bazaars" and now we have shacks leant against the city walls.

<comment><USER8> Of course, the "swallow you" option is what lots of these types of start ups both expect, and want.

"Hey we built this feature on your site, it's really cool. So, erm, want to buy us?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A business model based 100% on a 3rd party social graph API is not a business model.

I hope they can pivot the work they've done to something more standalone.

<comment><USER10> Why do you think this? It's certainly riskier but there have been many successful companies that start out relying heavily on a 3rd party APIs.

<comment><USER11> If you rely on a 3rd party for your business, then the 3rd party is in control of your company future.

In that regard, its not about risk. Yes, using 3rd party API for your business model is risky, but thats a secondary effect. The major issue is than the future of the company, and any promises and investments done is completely dependent on that third-partys' whims. To some degree, your even in less control than if you were employed for the 3rd party company, as there are employment laws to protect employees, but no laws in place to protect you against changes by the 3rd party to the API.

<comment><USER12> I just started reading "the signal and the noise" [0], and he talks about the difference between "risk" and "uncertainty": "Risk" is a known factor, something you can calculate with. Something might be risky (50% chance of failure) but at least you can calculate and reason about it. "Uncertainty" is "worse" because you can't easily reason about it. We often assign numbers to uncertain events anyway, but they might be off by several orders of magnitude.

He goes on to say something like: _Risk fuels capitalism and the marked, uncertainty grinds it to a halt_

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver#Book>

Edit: I forgot to tie this in to what we where talking about :) As I see it, relying on someone else (with out _any_ guarantees) is not just risky but uncertain. You can't really know how likely it is that they will change down the road. Doesn't mean it can't work out though..

<comment><USER12> Found a blog-post with that quote in its context:

<http://unreasonable.is/opinion/entrepreneurs-are-scientists/> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042525>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the risk of building your business on somebody else's platform; there's always a degree of sharecropping involved, and in this realm, landowners are not bound to any law.

I wonder how many "big" startups will offer APIs from now on. Many API- friendly services (delicious, twitter) have changed their stance, and Google didn't even want to release an API for G+. Many "new" APIs are basically useless, as companies are scared to death by piggybackers.

<comment><USER14> The "tale" of many of the big startups you mentioned is that they still can't figure out how to effectively monetize their platforms. For instance, if you look at Twitter, they made a huge push to get the developer ecosystem to fill in holes Twitter itself couldn't cover; the end result being a growing community and revenue streams Twitter got nothing from. Seeing this, I think Twitter came to the belief they needed to completely control their platform in order to monetize it, so they severely curtailed the development ecosystem and tried to inject themselves into as many revenue streams as possible. I think the end result will be companies that view themselves as content companies will issue severely restricted APIs and companies that view themselves more as data companies (i.e. Factual <http://www.factual.com/> Standard I don't work there but like what they're doing disclaimer applies here) will push APIs out the door because they want to be the data provider whose integrated into every application possible.

<comment><USER13> I don't understand why the likes of Twitter can't simply have set prices, ala AWS: X token activations + Y requests = $ Zk p/month developers have to pay. Clear, easy, fair, progressive. Surely there's a way to keep everyone in business.

<comment><USER14> I started writing a reply and realized your question was harder than it first looked when it comes to companies like Twitter versus a service like AWS.

Short Answer: AWS provides a agnostic service focused on utilization with no specific purposes in mind, hence a metered system makes perfect sense. Twitter only exists with user driven content and needs a constant pipeline of the stuff to survive, and because the web application is free in order to eliminate barrier to entry, implementing a metered system for developers would remove incentives to build new applications because they're having to pay to compete with something people can get for free.

Long Answer: You can easily explain why a metered system works for a company like AWS because you're renting a agnostic hardware platform you can do anything on from building the next Twitter to serving cat videos to grandmom's mobile device. In this case, they can consider all usage and bits equal and charge accordingly. It gets murkier when you look at companies like Twitter or Facebook that are trying to be content companies and global platforms at the same time. These kinds of companies make money by getting users to post content to their service, letting them sell targeted ads, compiling user profiles they can sell / reuse, and by selling content to third-parties who can analyze (i.e. Salesforce purchasing access to the entire Twitter firehose). Subsequently, most consumer oriented development on these platforms focuses on the posting and accessing of content and, in many cases, consists of standalone applications ranging from open source to paid for with a couple SaSS platforms thrown in for good measure. Monetizing this ecosystem poses two separate challenges. First, the external applications hide user data from the content company. Coming through an application, the app can send the bare minimum necessary for an HTTPS connection to the API and the company won't know if the user's on a mobile device or computer, what O/S and version they're running, the actual time of the interaction (for instance, sending a delayed tweet) and a whole host of other user metrics. This decrease in information hurts Twitter's ability to build user profiles and vector the user to things they might pay for. By tightening their grip on the third-party ecosystem, Twitter ensures the flow of information necessary to keep building these profiles.

Secondly, creating a metered usage system for a content company would flip the revenue system, developers would be subsidizing users using the content platform unless they send users a monthly bill for their usage of the app. This would completely destroy any third-party ecosystem since the web app is free. Why pay a monthly bill to use a otherwise free service? Sure, you might see some adoption, but I would argue it'd be microscopic compared to an ecosystem built on a free API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an overly dramatic response. And flagging because the author of the overly dramatic response self-posted this to HN.

Spending a year "and investors money" developing two applications that rely so heavily on being able to pull peoples past job titles that when the policy turns out to be different you have to start all over? That's not a business model.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm getting an error with a really nice description:

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later. Error message

PDOException: SQLSTATE[40001]: Serialization failure: 1213 Deadlock found when trying to get lock; try restarting transaction: DELETE FROM {semaphore} WHERE (name = :db_condition_placeholder_0) AND (value = :db_condition_placeholder_1) AND (expire <= :db_condition_placeholder_2) ; Array ( [:db_condition_placeholder_0] => variable_init [:db_condition_placeholder_1] => 203428328950f00b0bbd0484.53523159 [:db_condition_placeholder_2] => 1357908748.7708 ) in lock_may_be_available() (line 181 of /export/content/data/dlc/shared/www/developer/includes/lock.inc).

</comment><comment><USER16> Linkedin is behaving perfectly reasonably, it makes sense that for privacy reasons you want to restrict access to the work history of connections.

Imagine someone you're connected to using linkedin on a recruiter's website giving them access their linkedin account. That recruiter now has full access to your work history, do you consider that acceptable ?

<comment><USER17> I would agree with you, but given that many LinkedIn profiles are public and discoverable when doing Google searches, with the work history included, I don't think this is an issue privacy, as those people wanted for their profile to be public. Anyway, a simple crawler would do the trick for public profiles.

<comment><USER16> The thread isn't talking about public profiles, rather profiles that your user account is privileged to access.

(Linkedin don't let you access public profiles via the API; but that's a separate issue)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Many Western cultures struggle with the Japanese way of doing business. It's all about slow, face to face, building of relationships. Trust is earned over a long time and once you gain that trust, there is a heavy sense of duty to maintain it.

It's just a lot harder to screw someone over when you have to look them in the eyes to do it.

<comment><USER19> That would mean developers would have to build up a relationship and trust before linkedin would give you an API key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a LinkedIn user, I'm actually relieved that they're considering my privacy. And with regards to the API behaving like the web page, there's a big difference _to me_ between a machine scraping my data and a human looking at my profile (one might just be interested, the other is trying to use me for something).

<comment><USER21> > the other is trying to use me for something

Giving/finding you a job?

<comment><USER22> But at what cost? I get a job today, fine. But then the company that found me the job is pressured to monetize better. Then what do they do? To whom do they sell my data or something based on my data in a way that I do not necessarily approve of?

I generally don't like things tied in to my social networks. This is not because I don't think they are useful, it is because I don't have long-term trust in the companies doing them.

<comment><USER21> Thinking like this and having a profile in LinkedIn seem incompatible, for several reasons. In any case, by closing API access LinkedIn is not making nefarious use of your data impossible, only a bit harder. In fact, it's almost guaranteed that most 3rd party use of your profile data will be nefarious now, since they have to violate the ToS to get it in the first place.

<comment><USER22> I'm not worried about criminals though. I'm worried about legitimate businesses that will do things I object to. The criminals will do what they want, and I have remedies available to me in case I am victimized. But if some over-zealous startup with an API key screws me over, there's nothing I can do about it assuming they didn't violate any of the LinkedIn rules (and almost nothing even if they did, since LinkedIn would be the party that was wronged).

<comment><USER21> For you nothing has changed then. This change doesn't benefit you in the slightest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone have any context? It kind-of seems like they built something following the documentation, and when they launched they found out that the docs weren't correct anymore?

Did LinkedIn change this overnight, without any sort of "deprecated period" ?

Changing important parts of your features or API without even warning your users & partners seems unnecessarily cruel..

</comment><comment><USER23> One time I decided to spruce up my job title on linked in to better reflect what I do.

Well the next day I was hearing from people I hadn't talked to in years congratulating me on my promotion! It turns out Linked in had emailed my connections and said I got a promotion. That was pretty creepy. I need to turn that off somehow I guess.

</comment><comment><USER24> Previously, in companies that I've worked with that based their products on APIs from Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, etc, we would purchase a formal support agreement so that when things changed, we would have the ability to actually get some level of support.

It seems these days that companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc, not only do not have any real forms of support, you can't even purchase a support contract if you wanted. Also, they don't have the professional courtesy to maintain their APIs to ensure backwards compatibility, unlike companies in the past.

I'm not sure why people would invest money and time into integrating with products that don't offer some level of formal support, as well as backwards compatibility. If you have no contracts and no stability with your underlying service provider, you are completely at their mercy. This means that any and all apps based on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc are suspect, and anyone who does business with companies like Twitter and LinkedIn who are notorious for screwing over their developer community by changing things willy nilly, is basically stupid. The only development use case is if their goal is to create a popular app quickly, and then exit quickly. If they intend to create a product/company with a long-term vision, they are completely at the mercy of these companies.

</comment><comment><USER25> Though I personally dislike LinkedIn as a company, I think this is unfair criticism.

They modified their API to be more sensitive to users' privacy concerns. There is nothing inherently wrong with a company respecting its users' privacy.

The complainant is understandably disappointed, but he is wrong in suggesting that an API is a contract that the host company can never change. Changing an API can be part of improving your product, and that seems to be the case here.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's sort of ridiculous how little information you can get from LinkedIn via their API. Case in point, I don't think you can get Twitter handles from even first-tier connections any more. I made the appropriate API calls, waved my hands, and all I got were empty values. The docs do clearly state that you should be able to download every Twitter handle associated with an account, so WTH? It looks like they've revoked this functionality without changing the docs?

More broadly, it would be cool for a developer-oriented company to de-risk their API by adding some guarantees that they won't pull this kind of stuff. Right now developer agreements pretty well only restrict what the developer can do; adding conditions to limit how the interface can change would be a big selling point. The problem is, as long as VCs keep throwing money at companies that exist at the mercy of LinkedIn et al, there's no reason for them to. They get to open up the platform, watch for popular apps, then consume or copy them and lock down the API again to prevent competition.

<comment><USER27> well contact the company and ask for a partnership,you cant get stuffs for free forever.

<comment><USER26> Well put, Albert[1], but the promise of opening up APIs was supposed to be to encourage an ecosystem, which locks users in because all their apps are there. Rather than LinkedIn trying to hoover up every penny that might be generated by their data, the goal is supposed to be:

\- LinkedIn collects a ton of user data, and had some idea to monetize it

\- clever developer has a different idea about the same data, uses the API to achieve it

\- users love developer's app, and they stay on LinkedIn because they love all the ecosystem apps

\- maybe LinkedIn gets jealous and implements their own version. This is fine, if they don't break any laws, or cut off the original service for no real reason

Partnership sounds like some Facebook-Zygna type relationship. That seems like a really high barrier to entry. If you look at a service like Wolfram|Alpha, they're doing it right by putting reasonable restrictions on API use, and saying up front "license this commercially, contact us". This is a win-win: WA makes money, you're a real customer with bargaining power. Throwing a half- assed api out there for anyone to use, whinging about not making any money, then revoking bits piecemeal is not good for anyone.

1\. Your writing seems to lose a certain quality online, maybe stick to prose? L'etranger was very good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Everytime I get excited about using linkedin data/API to build something that could be more than a side project, I see posts lke this and understand that relying _primarily_ on any 3rd party provider can never be a good business model.

</comment><comment><USER29> They have also been betraying their customers. Information that used to be available via common search is now behind the "paywall". If you don't know someone, you basically can see their picture, name, job, company and a little more. Which means, I am putting up my information for friends or people who pay money for my information.

Obviously they have investors and a business to run, but it's just more of the same bs.

Perhaps there should be some soft of NO IPO, NO VC standard moral code page, which basically tells customers, we aren't going to screw you on behalf of the few. I would sign up in a second.

</comment><comment><USER30> It 404's. Here's a cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.linkedin.com%2Fforum%2Fretrieve- all-positions-profile-including-past- ones%23comment-20856&rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS502US502&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.linkedin.com%2Fforum%2Fretrieve- all-positions-profile-including-past- ones%23comment-20856&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.2037&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER31> It is not the first time "betrayed" and "LinkedIn" were used in the posting on HackerNews: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4148915>

When will people learn not to be completely dependent on a third-party, especially one like LinkedIn, whose API was always restrictive? If privacy was a concern for LinkedIn, why do partner companies (aka $$$) have a less restrictive API?

</comment><comment><USER32> There's no reason you wouldn't be betrayed by LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is the digital equivalent of herpes.

</comment><comment><USER33> Response from LinkedIn Dev Rel: <https://developer.linkedin.com/comment/20907#comment-20907></comment>