Do you have 30k CHF pocket money? - <AUTHOR> https://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/28/News%20Articles/2030047?ln=en <comment><USER5> This might in fact turn out to be one of the biggest, most expensive blunders by the company in question. Years later the tale is recalled - <USER2> misguided legal department sends a C&D to one of the greatest projects in human civilization. Internet responds by hackers pooling in time and resources to build an alternative, superior, free solution that becomes the benchmark effectively putting the aforementioned vendor out of business. Poetic justice.

<comment><USER6> I suspect (but should stress that I don't _know_ , my suspicions are based purely on name and the fact that it's listed on the CERN Engineering Software DB) that the software in question is Allegro AMS Simulator: [http://www.cadence.com/products/pcb/ams_simulator/pages/defa...](http://www.cadence.com/products/pcb/ams_simulator/pages/default.aspx).

Let's get building!

<comment><USER7> In my university we used COMSOL Multiphysics ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMSOL_Multiphysics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMSOL_Multiphysics)). It is 'AllSIM' software and in coincidence was used for very similar case as in the article.

<comment><USER8> "CERN purchases multi-user licenses for COMSOL Multiphysics"

[https://www.comsol.com/press/news/article/821/](https://www.comsol.com/press/news/article/821/)

"Another factor that was attractive was the fact that a single network license allows CERN to run a COMSOL job on any number of cores or a compute cluster."

And their "Floating Network License" allows use across an entire network, but not off that network: [https://uk.comsol.com/products/licensing](https://uk.comsol.com/products/licensing)

<comment><USER6> True, that could well be the software they're refering to. The reason I suspected that it may be Allegro AMS Simulator was a combination of it being listed on the CERN Engineering Software DB[1] and the product name.

[1] [http://information- technology.web.cern.ch/services/software](http://information- technology.web.cern.ch/services/software)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I would imagine CERN uses a _lot_ of different packages. Indeed, they'd probably be mad not to run serious simulations across multiple systems to sanity check.. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So much fail here. If someone is aware of the vendor's name please publish it here so that I can avoid doing business with them.

The software company was within it's rights, but there's a big difference between what you're legally allowed to do when you detect a licence violation by a big customer and what you should do. You _should_ attempt to preserve your company's good name at CERN and get the licensing situation fixed (by removing the extra copy or relicensing it). You _should not_ try to go after a poor CERN student for 30k because he/she installed your software on the wrong computer despite having a valid license.

<comment><USER10> Catalog of licenced software products used at CERN: [http://information- technology.web.cern.ch/services/software](http://information- technology.web.cern.ch/services/software)

For what its worth, as a developer, I agree that the vendor should be able to enforce their product licencing. They have to make a living. But their actions here are heavy-handed, and those of CERN and the university are cowardly. Given what CERN does, and that the person in question was a student, its not like anyone _profited_ from the licence infringement.

A more mature response would be to arrange for the student to do a modest amount of unpaid work for the software vendor to symbolically make amends and understand each others point of view.

<comment><USER11> Why are the actions of CERN and the University cowardly? Neither institution decided to use unlicensed software, the student did. He, as an adult, should be held accountable for his choices and his actions. I do agree that "AllSIM" are being heavy handed...

<comment><USER10> The student made a bad choice and I agree that they should take responsibility for their actions. I described a way to do that. The software vendor has a right to make a living from selling licences.

But. Students are usually young, relatively inexperienced, and have limited resources. A $31k fine would probably end their academic career and have a long-term effect on their life. And to what end? Why do this to someone at the start of their adult life?

CERN and the university - without agreeing with the student's actions - <USER3> recognise the power imbalance between the student and the software vendor, and the absence of any _real_ damage caused, and they should look after their people. That doesn't mean siding with the student, just using their position as respected institutions to bring about a just settlement. Their failure to do that makes them cowards.

<comment><USER12> The student is likely judgment-proof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, this post makes me angry and I don't know at whom. Is it the student's fault, who wanted to use the software he had legally licensed, but couldn't because of stupid licensing terms, or the company's fault for wanting to get paid for their software?

I'm inclined to side with the student, I think. When I pay for stuff, I want to be free to use it in a reasonable manner, and restricting usage of the software on the specific computers the company likes is not reasonable.

<comment><USER11> He hadn't legally licensed the software. The student is entirely at fault.

<comment><USER14> But not for 30k. I doubt a court would award this much in damages if he was sued. Even before that, I don't think CERN is justified in releasing his identity (edit: I mean, the identity of the student to the software vendor for them to sue).

<comment><USER12> CERN did a grown-up negotiation with the vendor to come to an agreement. The student then violated that agreement.

If I get caught taking a $5 item from a store in my pocket, should I just be able to pay the $5 and say "hey, we're all even now."?

<comment><USER15> 1) CERN also did a grown-up negotiation to have the person work for them, and therefore carry out his function as the legal entity "CERN", not as himself. Any action he did in his function, is legally executed by CERN, not by the employee. That of course includes installing software he needs for his job, and certainly covers installing any software CERN directed him to install.

This works both ways : if he invents/builds/... something and CERN sells the fruits of his labor (or otherwise profits from it), he doesn't have a claim to single cent of that profit. If he does something as part of his job that damages CERN, the most he can lose is his job. If he unintentionally blows up CERN headquarters, CERN quite literally has to pay him his wages for doing so, medical expenses, ... the company would even have to replace his cell phone if it broke during the explosion and pay to have his pants cleaned afterwards. The unintentional part is only required because, if intentional, it would be a criminal act (and this intent needs to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, not merely indicated). Even if he failed to follow safety procedures while doing so, it was the company's responsibility to correct him, and the consequences for failing to do so are theirs.

2) stealing is a criminal act, and governed by an ENTIRELY different part of the law. The two cannot be compared. This case would be governed by employment law and commercial law, stealing is covered by criminal law.

But your example has another flaw: if you can even vaguely reasonably claim you took the item by accident, yes you should be able to pay the $5 and be even. No criminal court judge is going to convict anyone who non-violently took a $5 item, and offered to pay the damage in full the second he was confronted. This would not be reasonable.

<comment><USER16> IANAL but your company is not shielding you from legal responsibility of the illegal actions you take, even if you are required by your employee to engage in those activities.

That is a warning to be careful I heard was given to sysadmin. Even if their boss require them to steal personal information or "find" software, they are legally responsible for doing it.

There is a point area somewhere between murder and failure to protect confidential information at which the company takes over responsibility, but that's not a blanket protection as financial obligations.

<comment><USER15> Depends what you mean by "illegal", there are over two dozen main kinds of illegal. As a massive simplification anything not found in the "criminal law" or "employment law" books your employer covers while you're working (and in some states while you're doing things you're only doing because you work, e.g. drive to work).

So, very generally speaking, anything you can't get arrested for is covered by your employer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The thing that angers me about this, is that the user could legally access this software from his Laptop, albeit over an inferior third-party interface.

His choice was between accessing the software over a display proxy, and accessing the software locally. The provided functionality was essentially the same either way.

I don't understand how this minor technical distinction should be worth 30 kCHF.

<comment><USER12> CERN had the option to negotiate for a traveling license and declined to do so.

The fact that there was a technically inferior workaround means jack shit. Yes, it's technically inferior, that's why you should pay for the real thing.

"A workaround to your licensing deal existed so I wasn't violating your licensing deal!" is nonsense.

<comment><USER17> In which case, the remote desktop approach should not be allowed either.

If you're going to have arbitrary "You can't use the software except at this location" clauses, then they should be applied consistently

<comment><USER12> It's not "arbitrary." The contract didn't allow it. CERN didn't buy it.

And even if it were "abritrary," the time to discuss that is when you are negotiating the software license with your vendor. This isn't shrinkwrap software being sold at ElBo under a clickwrap license. It's a sophisticated buyer who has a staff member dedicated to the job.

You can tell "roaming license" was valuable because this student went to a warez site to get around it. The vendor likely charges more for it, and CERN didn't want to pay it, so CERN voluntarily left that functionality off the table. Then the student decided to overrule CERN's negotiating and the rules CERN had explicitly set out[1]. Oops.

I don't get to decide the GPL is stupid and release modified software without source.

[1] [https://cern.ch//security/rules/en/index.shtml](https://cern.ch//security/rules/en/index.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am the only one who thinks CERN should ask AllSIM to fuck off?

<comment><USER19> For real. This is something a single call to their AllSIM account manager should be able to fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find the behavior of the software manufacturer rude and unacceptable. CERN is certainly not the type of company that screws you over or produces counterfeit copies for their own profit; 30kCHF is an outrageous claim.

Sure, people using your software without a valid license is not cool. On the other hand, AllSIM didn't suffer any damages.

Also, there are probably not that many potential customers in the world for AllSIM(TM). Maybe CERN should have used their power to make clear that this was the act of a naive student, and that a ridiculous fine could seriously impede the future business relation with CERN...

<comment><USER21> > I find the behavior of the software manufacturer rude and unacceptable.

I've seen many photographers who ended up with the exact same behaviour because any other is a good way to get steamrolled. Infringement = infringement invoice, period, end of the story.

> 30kCHF is an outrageous claim.

Depending how the original license cost (for a _roaming_ license too) is, not necessarily. An infringement invoice must be significantly higher than a regular license or there's no point to getting a license, you can just wait to be caught. Considering the kind of products we're talking about, licenses are probably in the 5k~10k range. A 3~5x infringement surcharge isn't outrageous.

> On the other hand, AllSIM didn't suffer any damages.

Somebody used their product unlicensed in a way not allowed by the licenses they had access to, that sounds like damages.

> Also, there are probably not that many potential customers in the world for > AllSIM(TM).

On the other hand, there probably aren't that many potential replacements in the world for AllSIM.

> Maybe CERN should have used their power to make clear that this was the act > of a naive student, and that a ridiculous fine could seriously impede the > future business relation with CERN…

Why? CERN suffered no damages, they forwarded the invoice to the student.

<comment><USER22> > CERN suffered no damages

Well their own blog post will damage their reputation quite a lot.

<comment><USER21> With whom? Certainly not software vendors, probably not students or researchers either. Frontend web developers? Now I'm sure that will be a great great bother for them.

<comment><USER22> Students and researchers. They don't care about copyright or software free or otherwise. They care that their institution is seen to be on their side and prepared to look out for them. CERN clearly is not in this case.

<comment><USER12> > Students and researchers. They don't care about copyright or software free > or otherwise

[citation needed]

<comment><USER22> Personal experience. In the physical sciences this really doesn't need a citation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1\. CERN is not doing the right thing. 2\. Bragging about this in their blog should make CERN be fucking ashamed.

<comment><USER23> It's not bragging, but warning others, I would guess.

<comment><USER18> Warning about not to work when they are on holidays?

<comment><USER18> Why you need facts, when you have a great imagination like me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yes the student fucked up, but CERN does have the 30k to spare, where as this student probably does not. Sure this is a good lesson to share, but also this is someone's life. They could have let the student go but still paid for it. Its the human thing to do

<comment><USER7> Even though CERN's budget is probably humongous, it does not mean it can spend 30k CHF (27.5k €, 30.5k $) left and right. As it is huge amount of cash.

The best way to do is explain and negotiate with AllSIM. As I understood the student used pirated software for a very short period of time. If AllSIM are human, they will not charge CERN, or charge low fine (<1k €).

Rules are rules, without obeying them, student compromised reputation of whole CERN, then his/hers university and finally himself. Probably CERN will not hire him and will not recommend to anybody else.

<comment><USER25> "Rules are rules, without obeying them, student compromised reputation of whole CERN"

An uncompromising "rules are rules" attitude for non life-threatening policy violations in an organization comprised of human beings is asinine.

It is not the student who is damaging the reputation of CERN in this situation, it is CERN.

<comment><USER7> You don't need to break 'life-threatening' rule to compromise your reputation.

It's just about who is trustworthy and reliable, and who is not, especially in an organisation where people are very educated and probably with high morality standards.

<comment><USER22> Nope you just have to prove to be an officious pompous organisation which bullies it's people. Which CERN certainly has here. Go CERN.

<comment><USER11> You really are going too far. CERN haven't 'bullied' anyone. The individual broke the law, why should CERN pay?

<comment><USER22> As has already been established repeatedly on this thread quite possibly no one should pay. If I send you an invoice for $30000 it does not mean that you owe it to me merely that I am demanding it.

<comment><USER11> So the bully is AllSIM; CERN are merely passing the invoice on to the relevant party...

<comment><USER22> No the bullies are AllSIM, CERN and the University.

CERN or possibly the University employed the student. They are the relevant party.

AllSIM are almost ridiculous with this speculative invoice.

<comment><USER11> Right, I'm going to try and put this in very simple terms. The student is the one who broke the law. HE deserves to be punished. CERN are not the employer, the University are. HE was seconded to CERN _by_ the University. However, the actions HE took were done on HIS own. Had HE been directed to pirate the software by either CERN or the Univerity, then you may have a point. As it stands you do not. Pointless. I'm sure you are going to suggest draconian licensing terms, blah, blah, blah... The fact remains that the terms exist and, as a professional scientist, HE should have behaved _ethically_ and operated within the confines of the license. End of discussion.

<comment><USER22> I will put this even more simply.

You are a copyright maximalist. I have a different view where I believe that creators should be paid but not to exclusion of the rest of society and not to the exclusion of the rule of law. This colours both of our views of the facts and we will never agree. We both think that the other is sadly misinformed and a foolish with a politically motivated viewpoint.

Goodbye.

<comment><USER11> Nope, wrong again. You are anti-intellectual property, but that has little bearing on the facts of this story.

I believe that if you have made an agreement, you keep it and if your employer has agreements with third parties, that you honour those too. If you, or this indivudual, have moral objections to said agreements, the choices are simple, leave their employ.

Taking and using the software without permission or regard for agreements made in _legally binding contracts_ is not an option, and it is not morally or ethically anyware close to doing the right thing. You seem to have lost sight of this because your views are politically motivated. It has nothing to do with your views of how the world should work.

Since you are so concerned with the 'the rule of law' (due process doesn't exist in UK law, we have natural justice, but that's by-the-by), the students actions were in direct contravention of established laws and policies. You seem to think that HE is above censure because 'capitalism is bad, man'. Well I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you but, it's actually about ethics. This individual has none, and clearly neither do you.

QED.

<comment><USER22> Everything here is totally wrong.

I am certainly not an anti-capitalist. Although I don't regard such a comment as a slur.

I do think that creators should be paid.

I don't think that companies should slam arbitrary egregious charges on people -- and I know that courts don't always uphold these speculative invoices and indeed have been known to punish the people making the demand and their legal representation quite strongly.

I do know that most people in the real world would find this utterly outrageous given that the student had the right to use the software in question in the setting in which it was detected.

I personally would not do what he did -- all software that I use is either free (as in speech) or properly licensed.

Oh and you are a copyright troll apologist.

<comment><USER11> The only thing that is wrong is the twisted interpretation the story! The charge isn't arbitrary!

The student didn't have the right to use the software! It was only licensed to be used _at CERN_. HE downloaded it from an illegal site that provided a cracked version of the software on his own laptop so that HE could travel and not be at CERN, where he _was_ entitled to use the software![0] He was even allowed to access the software using terminal services, but, in caps so it's easy for you to understand, CHOSE TO PIRATE THE SOFTWARE FOR HIS OWN CONVENIENCE!!! If you had read and understood the article, as you claim, you would know this. You even aknowledge that the software was improperly licensed!!!

To your ad hominem, I will respond in kind; you are an idiot.

[0] From the second paragraph of the fucking article: " _But our student failed to download AllSIM from DFS onto his office PC, since that wasn't where he wanted to use it. He wanted to install it on his laptop so that he could work on his simulation while travelling. However, the CERN AllSIM installation would not allow for this, as roaming usage is not covered by CERN 's AllSIM licence. The student had a need and was not willing to compromise i.e. by using the Windows Terminal Service. Instead, he used Google and quickly found AllSIM for free on a dubious website. Three clicks later, he was ready to go._"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> In case anyone was also wondering, that's the Swiss Franc, and not a Chinese currency, and converts to about 30,800 US dollars.

> As he was affiliated with a university, CERN passed all costs to them who, > in turn, passed them on to the student.

At first I thought that the software vendor was being unjustifiable. But if you think about it, the student was not just part of CERN, he was also (using the s/w) to work on a CERN project - so it does kind of all fall back into CERN's lap. Yet CERN passed the cost to the university, which passed the fine to the student?

<comment><USER21> > Yet they passed the cost to the university, which passed the fine to the > student?

CERN had a license pool available which the student didn't use, and the student most likely broke CERN's rules wrt licensed software. Why would CERN pay for a student's breach of their rules?

<comment><USER26> The way I look at it is that the licensing agreement, and penalty clauses, is totally between CERN and the software vendor, and not the particular student.

Did the student sign some type of a indemnification agreement with CERN?

<comment><USER12> +1. I don't support or defend the student's actions one bit, but the 30K was negotiated between CERN and the vendor. Fire him with a "not eligible for rehire note" in his HR file: fine. Make him the subject of orientation studies: great. Trying to get him to pay CERN's fine: sketchy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My opinion of CERN has gone done a few notches after reading this bitchy blog post, this is some poor sap's life they have ruined for taking initiative around silly restrictions to get shit done.

They should have contacted the software company in question and settled this, now both CERN and Allsim have a bad reputation and a student is deep in debt

<comment><USER12> "Hey, I was just trying to get work done, that's why I downloaded warez to bring into the secure computing facility."

There's a lot of businesses where someone downloading and running shitware they find on the Internet can be a _lot_ more expensive than 30K.

<comment><USER27> The keyword here is CAN, no harm was done to CERN in this case that we know of.

It makes for a toxic workplace once employees/students in a facility feel like they can be thrown under a bus by management, or worse purposefully made an example of.

The whole approach here is destructive and makes me think that someone at CERN went on a power trip and is a real arsehole to work for.

<comment><USER12> > no harm was done to CERN

Yes it was. CERN's negotiated contracts were broken, triggering a 30K damage award. Just because it's "on paper" doesn't mean the damage isn't real. He could have done the same kind of damage if he had sexually harassed an underling.[1]

I can say with very high confidence that "don't pirate software" is a key part of orientation at CERN, the same way as at most large companies.

The student might not have known about the specifics of the contract (and he shouldn't pay the 30K), but it's not the company's responsibility to tell each and every idiot "here is why you obey our policies." It's the company's responsibility to tell each idiot "these rules are important to obey."

[1] of course the student likely didn't have any reports

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> WTF?

The student was wrong. He had access to a legal copy through CERN, but instead, he used a pirated copy. Not only is that legally wrong, it is bizarre.

The company was wrong. They are not a law enforcement agency. They have no right to demand a fine of CHF30000 be paid. At best, they can send a cease and desist. If they believe significant damages have occurred, they can sue.

CERN was wrong to pay the fine and pass it on to the student. For one, they had a site license. For another, after investigating, they found it to be the stupid act of a naive student who, I am sure, has learned his lesson by now. However, it was no skin off their back to pay up and pass it on. They should have refused to pay the fine and participated in coming to an amicable settlement between all parties involved.

<comment><USER21> > The company was wrong. […] They have no right to demand a fine of CHF30000 > be paid.

The company has every right to send a speculative or infringement invoice, the infringing party also has every right to ignore said invoice and try their chance in court.

> For one, they had a site license.

Which didn't cover the student's usage.

> For another, after investigating, they found it to be the stupid act of a > naive student who

had likely breached CERN policy and was possibly a hazard to CERN's computer systems.

<comment><USER28> _The company has every right to send an infringement invoice, the infringing party also has every right to ignore said invoice and try their chance in court._

They have every right to send a notice as I said, myself. It is the fine that I believe is unreasonable regardless of whether it is explicitly part of CERN's contract with the company.

 _Which didn 't cover the student's usage._

No, but then, it wasn't CERN who downloaded and used a pirated copy, was it?

 _had likely breached CERN policy and was possibly a hazard to CERN 's computer systems._

They said flat out that he violated their computing policy, so they can take away his computing privileges, but paying a CHF30K "fine" and sending him the bill?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> CERN should try to mediate between the software company and the student.

The high fine of 30k was probably set because the company thought CERN was violating their licensing. For an institution or large company the size of CERN, 30k might be a justifiable fine.

If the company knew the infringement was done by a single student, they probably would not have set such a high fine.

Also, I doubt 30k would hold up in court as a reasonable fine, given that the student had access to the software anyway. Although him downloading the software illegaly shows some criminal energy.

But maybe I'm wrong and the company knowingly fined 30k for the single person's license infringement and CERN tried to avert that. Would be nice to know some more details.

</comment><comment><USER30> Lessons to learn from this:

1 CERN will fuck you over, do not count on them, and definitely do not go above and beyond to finish a job assigned by them

2 Use outbound firewall when using pirated software. Download said pirated software only from connections that cant be traced back to you. Learn about output files watermarking (for example IDA Pro watermarks everything).

Good job CERN, prime blog post there, people skills so stronk!

</comment><comment><USER31> This bulletin is obviously aimed at scaring others who were thinking of doing something similar. Still, it's a bit heavy handed, isn't it? No one was hurt, no damage was done, CERN responded immediately when notified, and it turned out to be a dumb student who fucked up. Give the dude a slap on the wrist, and let it go.

</comment><comment><USER32> "the student has not only placed the Organization's reputation at risk" Not nearly as much as posting about it on a publicly-accessible blog.

</comment><comment><USER33> CERN should have told AllSIM to go pound sand on "indemnity"; just pay the difference between the license they have and the one they need, even just in kind (losing a couple of users). This under threat of losing CERN forever as a customer. I bet AllSIM would have relented: 30k CHF won't pay three weeks of lawyer fees, nor will they make up for years of CERN business.

That was the right thing to do, not washing their hands of it and crucifixing a kid. Unfortunate things happen all the time in business, real men deal with it with fairness. This is despicable behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER34> You don't take a binary blob from a dubious website and install it onto a company machine, and if it was his own laptop, then you don't use such a blob to produce another blob and install that on your company's machine. That's such a damn stupid thing to to in so many ways. The IT security department has all the reasons to be angry, much worse could have happened than triggering some company's license monitoring system.

Having said that, I hope they are going to let go on the student with that 30k.

</comment><comment><USER35> Was the company in question legally right? Probably (I'm not a lawyer). Was this a dick move? Totally. Did this move makes them any long term benefit? I don't think so. I think they lose this short term 30k CHF in long term by harmed reputation. So in the end everybody loses.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm confused. If CERN has the licenses, and the student is covered under that usage case, why wouldn't their license rights apply to the software that the student was using (regardless of where they got the the binary installation or whether it had a crack). The software has still been paid for, so why wouldn't the software company allow it? It sounds like the software company is exploiting a technicality in their licensing terms, for no real reason other than greed?

<comment><USER12> So my neighbor has a book in his house I want to read. He didn't want the book out of his house. So we both got legal counsel and negotiated a contract that I paid him an amount of money and I could read the book inside his house. He also put a damages clause in the contract because for some reason people have violated his stupid rule.

Well, pretty soon I wanted to read the book outside. Oh, but the rule. But wait, I had him outsmarted! I put the book on table in the house next to a window, and then I could read the book while outside.

Wait, this is stupid. Why am I reading a book through the window? I'll just pull the book out through the window and read it there.

WTF, my neighbor now says I violated the contract? I've triggered the damages clause of the contract I vountarily agreed to? All I did was move a book three feet through a window! I had a contract that I could read it!! I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sure, Switzerland isn't in the EU but can companies really issue huge fines to other people there? Here in the UK I believe fines/penalties in civil situations can be restricted to the actual damage caused (?).

I hope this ends up in court if Switzerland has similar rules. It seems like one of those situations where a company might _legally_ be able to do something, but the ethics are uneasy.

<comment><USER37> This is not a 'fine' in the legal sense, it's a (most likely) contractually agreed penalty for non-compliance with the licence terms, or otherwise a settlement proposal. This is most likely a no brainer, from a legal point of view (it's how pretty much all specialty licence deals are constructed) - <USER4> I'm sure CERN's in-house councel has advised.

There is a reason this sort of thing is covered during orientation training. Sure, many people (especially those new to the real world like students) roll their eyes at it and think it's all just a bunch of mumbo jumbo; and OK, usually in practice it's not as strict as it seems at first, but that doesn't mean it's any less real.

<comment><USER22> In many European countries many software licenses are worthless. Similarly such penalty clauses have no legal weight. This is likely to be far from a legal "no brainer".

<comment><USER37> Pray tell in what country whatsoftware licenses are 'worthless'. Because they're contracts like any other, and parties are free to contract anything they want (bar illegal things, which a penalty clause certainly isn't) anywhere in Europe.

And yes I do have a law degree.

<comment><USER8> I'm in the UK which is only one part of Europe, and while "penalty clauses" are not _illegal_ here, they are unenforceable. Liquidated damage clauses that impose reparations of a genuine pre-estimate of probable loss are fine, however. Whether $30000 is such is a matter for debate. If the software would cost $30000 for licensing on a single laptop, maybe it would be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord I don't mean to be zealous, but I'll be honest. Why don't research organizations and international conventions have strict policies of using only free (as in freedom) software? I think this is a cautionary tale right here of why it's important. The licensing pitfalls of violating proprietary terms are so much higher stake.

<comment><USER21> > Why don't research organizations and international conventions have strict > policies of using only free (as in freedom) software?

What are they to do when no such "free software" package exists? Stop research? Spend years trying to build one when there's a known industrial package available off the shelf?

<comment> vezzy-fnord Isn't that already the reality for plenty of commercial enterprises, where certain licenses are avoided like the plague? Licensing is an unfortunate form of yak shaving that everyone must get around.

Considering the alternative is conducting research on top of intrinsically obscurantist proprietary software, the trade-off might well be worth it.

<comment><USER12> There are adults who want to get their job done and don't care about your feelings about free software. 30K is chump change as far as CERN's software budget is concerned and is not going to make them give up on commercial software.

Also, because I can anticipate the response: just because 30K is not worth giving up on commercial software, it doesn't mean they shouldn't try to fix the user fuckup that cost them 30K.

<comment> vezzy-fnord The only one invoking "feelings" here is you alone, and it implies to me you're the one who is most susceptible to them here. If you have some vendetta against free software, then leave it out for now.

The question of how one reconciles obscurantist practices with the scientific method remains open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> this is somebody's life, screw licensing.

</comment><comment><USER39> This happens frequently at large corporations, where a design engineer uses either an educational or personal license on a corporate machine (or vice versa), either out of ignorance or simply because they want to work more flexibly than they'd otherwise be allowed. IT departments don't adequately educate about it, imho, and software companies are too heavy-handed in enforcement, but regardless of all this, the student was in the wrong here and absolutely knew better than to use a pirated license.

</comment><comment><USER40> The so-called freedom that software authors have to choose a software license is in reality not a freedom, but a controlling power over other people – the users of said software.

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or- power.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html)</comment>


Stats on your Facebook (not a scam...seriously) - <AUTHOR> https://apps.facebook.com/friend-watch/

<comment><USER2> Also, it would be much better if this led to a blog post describing the application. Stats on fb. Right. What kind of stats? Stats regarding what?

For the record, the first screen after the "allow" one is an advertisement. The application is supposed to show a graph with the number of your friends against the average number of friends the fb population has (it didn't work for me) and a pie chart with the gender of my friends. There is a menu bar, a rather easy-to-spot DONATE button and advertisements every time you navigate from a menu item to another. Yeah, definitely not a scam. :D

First time I wish I could downvote.

<comment><AUTHOR> You did pickup on a known bug, if the worker processes are very busy they can takes around 30 seconds to display your stats the first time. If you re-visit the app your stats should be there.

Sorry for that. Also please see the blog post we created yesterday, didnt think to post that here. That is a good suggestion. <http://bitchasscode.com/?p=111>

<comment><USER2> Upvoted your submission just because you show you care. :)

How do you get the global data for the averages?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :-)

The averages are calculated based on the users of the app, so the average is actually the "Average of other people who use the app". The first time i ran this app, the average sat at around 400 while the min was around 30 and max well over 2k.

I actually have a basic URL i've setup which shows the performance stats of how the app is running, its an interesting watch.

[http://mouseofdoom.com/wimf_v3/admin.php?graph=engagement...](http://mouseofdoom.com/wimf_v3/admin.php?graph=engagement&version=3)

If you hit the URL for the old version of this app ( [http://mouseofdoom.com/wimf_v3/admin.php?graph=engagement...](http://mouseofdoom.com/wimf_v3/admin.php?graph=engagement&version=2) ) you can see that the number of new subscribers sits at around 10% of the current base.

Fun times :-) Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw "Post to my wall", and closed the tab. Why is this necessary? And why do you want my email address?

<comment><AUTHOR> Email address is used to send you a daily report of changes (if there are changes) they're not stored or used for any other means.

Post to your wall is how the app spreads, but you can disable that if you do not like it :-) There is an option in settings once in the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> obviously a scam when you say its not.

<comment><AUTHOR> lol...i wrote it, its not a scam its just an app. Few $ here and there from adsense and thats all i get out of it :-)

Post to your wall is optional (as is sending you an email), it can be disabled in the settings.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh also...

<http://bitchasscode.com/?p=111>

there is a blog post, but i didnt show it in the origional post. Sorry!</comment></comment></comment>


Covectors Are Different Than Vectors, Usually - <AUTHOR> http://infohost.nmt.edu/~parendt/Phys509/notes/2diracnot/node4.html <comment><USER2> > _(Fortunately, when a space of covectors is considered to be a vector space > of its own, their covectors are members of the original vector space, so we > never have too many vector spaces to worry about at one time.)_

Bad news. This is only valid in many interesting cases, but not in all cases. For example if you take

* "c_0" = the space of all sequences which converge to 0, with the supreme norm

* "l^1" = the space of all the sequences with and absolute sum

* "l^∞" = the space of all the bounded sequences

then the dual of c_0 is l^1 and the dual of l^1 is l^∞. An important general result is that the original space is included in the double dual, in this case c_0 is included in l^∞.</comment>


Show HN: Work on code challenges and see how others solve them - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeproj.com

<comment><USER2> Could use IDE integration, maybe via Cloud9 Ace editor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh good idea. That looks useful. Thanks.</comment></comment>


FunnyJunk's lawyer isn't afraid of the Oatmeal - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/06/15/funnyjunk-lawyer-charles-carreon-isnt-afraid-of-the-oatmeal/ Charles Carreon seems to be less of an "Internet lawyer" and more of an relic, parading out his outdated work on the sex.com case. He seems to have succeeded in impressing the non-technical masses but has no actual expertise with regards to how the Internet works nowadays. <comment><USER2> > but he's certain he can find some legal recourse for what's going on right > now – "California code is just so long, but there's something in there about > this," he says.

Hypothesis: If I dig long enough I'll reach china.

He's forgetting a few layers of the earth; at least.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like the "I'm sure I can find SOMETHING to throw at him". Also, isn't he basically engaging in slander by accusing Matthew of orchestrating these attacks? Everything I've seen the only thing he orchestrated was charity.

</comment><comment><USER4> > I've got the energy, and I've got the time.

I'm reading this as "I've lost all of my other clients because I'm clearly not very bright, so I have plenty of time to focus on this fight that I can't possibly win."

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok, I thought the story was silly at first - but come on. Let the story die.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit > _he didn't seem the least bit fazed by all the negative attention he's been > getting throughout the internets_

What is he gonna say? "OMG I'm crapping in my pants over this" Of course he's gonna say he isn't fazed. Lawyers need to have a good poker face or they stand to lose what ever ground they may think they have.

</comment><comment><USER6>
       In his 20 years as a lawyer, he says, he's written hundreds
       of letters like the one he sent Inman, but the response to
       this one was unique.

Yeah, I hate it when there's pushback to extortion too. But watch yourself, internets: Charles Carreon doesn't afraid of anything</comment>


First-person video from a radio-controlled airplane - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2237947353453839215&q=rc+plane+vr+goggles&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

<comment><USER2> Very cool, although I could do without the music.

I guess that's one drawback to hacking on software instead of hardware: you can't make a cool video your family and friends could watch about coding modular interpreters in Haskell with monads. :/

</comment><comment><USER3> This would certainly enhance this startup idea:

[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.models.rc.air/browse_frm/...](http://groups.google.com/group/rec.models.rc.air/browse_frm/thread/370ab19a29339553?scoring=d)

</comment><comment><USER4> I find it incredible that a group presumably at the cutting edge of creativity is incapable of recognizing that this video reveals the extraordinary possibility of being a bird with a human brain and flying without the danger of dying. Where is your imagination, up your keyboard?

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle>

The military uses them and they use real pilots (who have gone through full pilot training) to fly them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've flown a real plane. Boring after 2 minutes. Just like that video.

<comment><USER7> yes, but an unmanned plane must be more fun since you can do crazy things without fear of death:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Spectacular idea. Just a bit late to get one for this Christmas.</comment>


First look inside Tesla's gigafactory - <AUTHOR> http://www.rgj.com/story/money/business/2016/03/18/get-sneek-peak-inside-teslas-reno-area-gigafactory/81978520/ <comment><USER2> More like a first look _outside_ Tesla's gigafactory. With one or two photos of a generic shelf of boxes inside.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are two reasons for home batteries that I can think of. One is battery backup for power outages. How much market is there for that? It can't be large enough to justify Musk's humongous investment.

So that leaves the purpose of buffering solar energy collection. This dovetails with his cousin's Solar City outfit, which is growing like crazy.

I have a Solar City installation. I have no need for a battery because California makes my power company take excess juice I produce and give it back to me when I need it. The power company is effectively a big battery.

So batteries are only needed in states that don't make power companies do this. There has been a trend of states, like Nevada itself, taking back these laws. This is because it is considered a tax on homeowners who don't have solar.

Is Musk betting on the long-term demise of these laws?

<comment><USER4> I'd agree that utilities ought to handle most of the energy storage problem, if only to realize economies of scale. But, two points:

1\. Battery backup for homes could actually be a huge market. If you're looking at two homes, one is $500,000 and the other is $503,500 and outage- proof, which one would you buy? It's a nice feature at a relatively small price.

2\. At the launch event Musk stressed the benefits of grid independence for the 3rd world. He drew an analogy with cell phones, where cell phone proliferation basically leapfrogged and obsoleted landline deployment. So in places where there is poor or no electrical grid they might jump straight to solar and batteries. (I don't know if he actually expects the 3rd world to be a significant customer base, but that's what he said.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 30 potential trackers on a single page and even the video player is a tracker.

<comment><USER6> It is a newspaper, those things which so fear being killed by the web have become some of the worst actors on the web. Sad really. Definitely gives the privacy badger something to play with while visiting the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That wasn't much of a tour. That is a large box in the middle of nowhere with some people walking about, cheesy backing track added. Why do people bother with such piffle!

<comment><USER8> > _Why do people bother with such piffle!_

The Model 3 is to be unveiled at the end of the month, so Tesla is ramping up the buzz. It's their way of saying, 'See? Everything is on track!" I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image.

It's funny that people think the company spends no money on marketing. They're just good at modern marketing.

<comment><USER9> > I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image

Forget your "/s"? They're going to have a running Model 3 at the announcement.

<comment><USER8> > _They 're going to have a running Model 3 at the announcement._

I guess we will see. The battery swap was also a "running" demonstration.

<comment><USER10> Yes? And then they built a swap station and it's in operation right now. They haven't rolled out any more because demand isn't there. Superchargers are good enough for most. But if you're implying that they hacked together a demo but don't have it actually working, that's not so

<comment><USER11> Demand? They haven't even rolled out a sensible businessmodel for the swapping stations that includes what happens if you receive a faulty or just old battery with less capacity.

<comment><USER10> Why would they be stocking old or faulty batteries?

It's not something where you share with other people. You stop in and get a charged battery from Tesla. On your way back home, you stop again and get your original battery back, now charged.

<comment><USER12> The usual argument that predicts problems with the quality of the batteries is based on Gresham's Law.

<comment><USER10> How would that apply here?

<comment><USER12> If batteries gradually lose their capacity over time, it would be in the interest of customers to look for an opportunity to swap an old battery for a new one, and never swap back. Even if Tesla operates the battery swap system fairly, there's a cost associated with this because they end up holding the bad/old batteries.

Typically, though, the argument is that both customers and dealers will hang on to valuable good "money" (batteries) and thus the batteries likely to be exchanged will be of low quality.

So the model you describe is one in which each customer just alternates between a few batteries that essentially belong to them. It should address the quality problem, but at the expense of complicating the business of the battery depot. Treating batteries as a non-fungible commodity is a big step.

<comment><USER10> I see why this would happen in a hypothetical scenario where batteries are shared freely and people just pick new ones up at will, but that's not what we're discussing.

The only potential for trouble I see with Tesla's actual setup is people abusing the loaner batteries during their trip. And the batteries are so difficult to abuse I don't think it's a real problem.

<comment><USER12> "What we're discussing" is a system which is not in the end being rolled out, but Tesla, at an early stage, did mention precisely the issues I brought up.

There was to be the option to keep a newer battery received in a swap (for a fee) but also, somehow, always the possibility of getting your original battery back. How that would actually work if the original battery is in someone else's car half way across the country is left as an exercise!

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/06/21/tesla-90...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/06/21/tesla-90-second- battery-swap-tech-coming-this-year/)

<comment><USER10> They mentioned them in the context of how they're solved, though.

Gresham's Law is about things which are fungible in some contexts but not others. If Tesla charges you a fee to keep your borrowed battery then they're never fungible so it doesn't apply.

How it works to always get your original battery back seems obvious to me: they don't put it in other people's cars, they hold on to it for you. If you decide to keep the newer battery, then your original is no longer yours, and you can't get it back anymore.

This whole thing seems like a lot of fuss about problems which are pretty easily solved, and are solved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it was very smart of them to switch to a more modular plan. The original idea of just building it all at once seemed really crazy to me, not only would it lock down a bunch of capital, it takes time to develop the organizational skill to build stuff like this. Looking at Google's first data center and their later ones, so much learning in there.

The other question is how much was this "strategic threat" and how much actual plan. Something I still wonder about but if they actually start making batteries there it will answer that question too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Glad the newspaper photographers figured out how to cooperate with Tesla instead of trespassing and assaulting[1] them.

[1] [http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/10/29/misdemeanor- charges...](http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/10/29/misdemeanor-charges- filed-against-journalists-tesla-altercation/74848080/)

</comment><comment><USER14> It looks like a typical factory.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Imagine the Model S autosteering around the factory and showing you around :D ! The future is already here.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you donate to an anti SOPA/PIPA 527 PAC? - <AUTHOR>

I have a lot of experience in high-level politics/elections and would love to create and manage this to put some pressure on these people. <comment><USER2> My understanding is that it's illegal for foreigners to donate to US PACs. Is that correct?</comment>


Top Myths of Popular Psychology - <AUTHOR> http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-09-01/#feature <comment><USER2> 10% of the brain is one of my favorites. It was perpetuated by someone selling a book that supposedly taught people how to use the "other" part of their brain ;-) And, it also appeals to people who think with a little trick they can massively expand their mental capacity. Everyone loves to think there is a genius sleeping inside of them. All it takes is a magic trick to wake that genius up.

Self-esteems is a dangerous one. Trying to somehow artificially increase someone's self esteem I think could be dangerous. It could create an emotional and cognitive dissonance, something like: "My parents and teachers tell me I am so awesome, but I know I cannot do things as well as my peers" or "I am supposed to feel awesome even though I scored in the bottom 30% percent on the test" from my own experience I have seen kids get disillusioned with their parents or teachers and basically stop trusting their opinions, or, even worse, the delusion gets maintained all through adulthood. They grow up arrogant, they continue to under-perform professionally or academically, yet they never consider their own lack of skills or smarts as the reason for the failure, somehow they blame it on others or on circumstances.

<comment><USER3> Coincidentally, brain scans often show around 10% activation (random google eg. [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2009/impaired-brain- act...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2009/impaired-brain-activity- underlies-impulsive-behaviors-in-women-with-bulimia.shtml))

Only a fraction of a CPU is active during a given time period (eg if no floating point arithmetic is needed); and we don't use all the muscles in our body most of the time either. That's a bit different from what the pop-psy authors meant though.

<comment><USER4> In a untrained person, at maximum effort you can activate about 30% of the fibres in a muscle. Not the same 30% every time obviously, that's just what your nervous system has the power to drive. In a trained athlete that goes up to around 50%. Now that's intriguing; if an untrained person could achieve full activation (say in a moment of dire need) they could more than triple their strength...

<comment><USER5> > Now that's intriguing; if an untrained person could achieve full activation > (say in a moment of dire need) they could more than triple their strength...

That one can and does happen. There are recorded instances of seemingly heroic strength where, for example, parents have lifted a car to rescue a child who was trapped underneath.

<comment><USER6> My research has led me to believe that only an adrenaline surge can produce this.

The thing to note about this is that it essentially impossible to not seriously hurt yourself when you do this. You will tear the muscles. They are operating at their highest power before the wheels start flying off, and you'll tear a lot of fibers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Myth #2: It's Better to Express Anger Than to Hold it in_

I think this is less binary than the article suggests. In addition to expression and repression of anger, there is also "letting things go." When you can forget about something that made you mad, you get the satisfaction of knowing you didn't let it phase you (arguably better than catharsis) without all the problems associated with revenge and obsession.

I really like this paragraph from <http://paulgraham.com/top.html>:

 _Turning the other cheek turns out to have selfish advantages. Someone who does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by taking up your time afterward thinking about it. If you learn to ignore injuries you can at least avoid the second half. I've found I can to some extent avoid thinking about nasty things people have done to me by telling myself: this doesn't deserve space in my head. I'm always delighted to find I've forgotten the details of disputes, because that means I hadn't been thinking about them. My wife thinks I'm more forgiving than she is, but my motives are purely selfish._

<comment><USER3> [You probably won't believe me but] you misspelled _faze_ <http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/faze> <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phase>

<comment><USER8> I've always wondered why the correct spelling of 'faze' seems to be gradually disappearing, considering that the right spelling is actually easier than the most common misspelling (phase).

<comment><USER9> I think it has to do with our tendency to overcorrect spelling rather than use the simpler ones (at least when the native speakers comment here). I believe it's exploited in etymology - i.e. even literally authors made errors in spelling but these are thought to come mostly from trying to be more correct than neccessary

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Yet as astronomer George Abell noted, a mosquito sitting on your arm would exert a more powerful gravitational force on your body than would the moon.

No it won't. The moon's gravitational force on you is roughly G * m * 5.68 * 10^5 N[1]. (G is the gravitational constant, m is your mass.) A mosquito weighing 2 mg[1] would have to be within two micrometres of your brain to have that effect[3].

[1] [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28mass+of+the+moon%29+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28mass+of+the+moon%29+%2F+%28%28distance+to+moon+in+metres%29^2%29)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28mass%29#10-6_to_one_kg)

[3] [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2*10^-6+%2F+x^2+%3E%3D+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2*10^-6+%2F+x^2+%3E%3D+5.68*10^5)

<comment><USER11> I think it is easier to fix the argument (change the mosquito for a dog, or if needed change it for your car) than to fix the preconception that the moon really affect us so much.

Now, if we simply observe the changes that the menstrual cycle inflicts on women's mood, then this is something real and with a correlation (depending on a different phase of the moon for each women), but it is not because of the moon, it is because of hormones.

In every case, the myth is busted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Myth #6: The Polygraph Test is an Accurate Means of Detecting Lies_

On Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" show they did an episode about this. One of the more disturbing things I learned is that, despite internal research that showed no effectiveness whatsoever, Sandia National Laboratories went ahead with the decision to require random polygraph testing. Also, apparently you can use your anal sphincter muscles to outwit a polygraph test.

<comment><USER2> Actually polygraph tests kind of work but not for the reasons people think they work. They work only if those administering the polygraph tests manage to convince those taking the test that the polygraph tests work.

Security agencies, when their administer the polygraph, will ask the subject how well they are familiar with how polygraphs work. Sometimes they will drop some polygraph test jargons words into the conversation to see if the subject reacts to them. Knowing the truth about the polygraph test usually renders the polygraph test ineffective. Such subjects usually "fail" the test because of attempt to use "counter-measures".

As for sphincter muscles, the pin in the shoe, some basic breathing tricks -- those are easily detectable by "expert" polygraph administrators.

The danger of polygraph tests is that they actually prevent people who are too honest to pass, but they will let sociopaths or those who lie slightly to pass easier.

<comment><USER13> I really, relly like the urban myth about polygraphs.

There was this man, and he was not confessing. Thus, creative police officers got a lettuce sieve, attached it with some wires to a copier and put a paper reading "He lied" on the copier.

Given this, they put the sieve on his head and whenever he said something they had a slight doubt about, they pushed the lie detector button and the lie was "detected". Eventually the man confessed.

Its an urban legend, but it illustrates the point quite nicely in my opinion.

<comment><USER14> There was a scene depicting this in "The Wire". They simply put the suspects hand on the copier surface, he had never seen a copier before, and the lights freaked him out.

I don't know if the show took inspiration from the urban legend or if maybe the legend can be traced back to the show. Either way, I highly recommend the Wire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Self-esteem is one of the most useless abstractions I know of. Its currency is tied together with this nonsensical emphasis on "feeling good about yourself" prevalent today. I really would like to know how popular psychology concretely became so enamored with ceaseless optimism as a guiding principle in life. I'm dead serious about this because it's clearly not scientifically discovered nor is it historically enduring (Aristotle lists such optimism as dangerous and medieval Christianity would've listed it as pride). Moreover it presupposes consciousness has some sort of exhaustive mastery over the psyche, such that it can just pull itself up from the bootstraps were it wished. This leads to a lot of bad decisions, dangerous decisions, being made and I genuinely think it would be a contribution to our well-being when we finally throw it out the window.

</comment><comment><USER16> Economic mobility != Social mobility

</comment><comment><USER17> Self-esteem is a tricky thing. Doubts, fears and a state of anxiety are linked together and are causing and amplifying each other.

It is not so simple. There could be a genetic predisposition for an anxiety, and doubts and fears (conscious or not) will be the consequence - an attempt to avoid unpleasant state, while there is no reason for it.

Doubts lowers self-esteem, low self-esteem produce doubts and fears, and so on.

<comment><USER13> Realizing that fear of failure lowers self esteem and increases the chance to fail is a very strong step.

<comment><USER17> Fear is just a virus - unwanted process which consuming your oxygen and utilizing your nervous system. Of course, it is here for a purpose, so the trick is to accept it, analyze the situation (why it arisen?) and just stay calm and awake.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Would Europe's Largest OSS Convention Identify With a Shrivelled Brain? - <AUTHOR> http://i.liketightpants.net/and/why-would-europes-largest-open-source-convention-identify-itself-with-a-large-shrivelled-brain

<comment><USER2> What exactly is the op criticizing?</comment>


Tell HN: I just made my first sale - <AUTHOR> For the past year, I've been working on a side project called Outpan. Basically it's an app store for web apps (apps written in JS/HTML/CSS).
The whole project started out as a simple directory but a few days ago I finally finished the payment/store functionality and released it without any fanfare. To my surprise, one of the developers found out about the new feature and added a paid app priced at $5 (https://www.outpan.com/app/d0b0885a8d/voice-music), I genuinely thought the price was waaaaaay too high and there weren't any proper screenshots (I think the developer was just testing the waters) but the very same day a user actually bought the app!!!!
Even though it's only $5 and the user seems to not have liked the app (I reached out to them and offered to issue a refund but they refused!) this is still a crazy milestone for me as all this happened without a shred of marketing and totally organically! I've already put a ton of work into this project but now that I know that there seem to be people willing to transact on my platform I'm super focused on improving the entire buying and payment experience to perfection.
Anyways, a really small amount of money but a giant amount of excitement lol Please ask any question you might have about my experience, would be happy to answer. <comment><USER2> Congrats! Hopefully single-sales days will soon be commonplace. However, be prepared for droughts as well -- I sell at app that sells 2-3+ copies per day on average, but sometimes I go 2 weeks without a sale and some times I get 20 in a day. There's little correlation between sales so what matters is long- term trends.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing your experience. Someone on reddit brought this up too, so I'm sure I need to prepare for the same :)

<comment><USER3> Hi. Maybe offer yearly or multi-year plans, possibly with a discount, to mitigate seasonality and make your revenue more predictable, so you can forecast and make decisions.

Maybe you can also have a feature that allows someone with purchase power to buy an app for multiple users at once, so you increase the average amount of a "buy decision".

Maybe a feature with a cart-like experience: I want to buy app A, app B, app C for user a, user b, user c.

Maybe a feature with bundles and packs that are geared towards a particular function. Similar to a LAMP/WAMP stack for web development, you can have (App A + App Z + App D) for $n.

Maybe a feature to transfer access rights for an application to someone else. I buy an app that I don't like anymore, can I barter? I give you that app, and you give me something else, like access to another app.

Maybe a feature for "App of the day". I connect and I have ephemeral access to an app for that day. It'll help discovery. If I don't like it, I just "stop" the app, and it'll give me access to another app that I can use for the remainder of the day. It exposes me to more applications and increases the likelihood of a collision?

You could then get data on apps I like and recommend to me applications I might like, with something completely different from time to time to pop the bubble.

Also, congrats!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. Many of us underestimate but on HN also appreciate how much effort it takes to take to ship something, so keep going at it. Respect!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. That's very kind of you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome and congrats! - Can I ask - How do you (intend to) deal with tax from sales generated overseas? Would you outsource this, or manage it yourself? I intend to release also, but I'm not quite at the release stage. My mind is full of these non-software related questions...thanks in advance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com? I'm interested to see if I can solve this problem in a general way for developers :)

<comment><USER6> With sale of my own apps I would go with Merchant of Record or reseller solution. However in your case as you are reseller/marketplace not sure how that would go. I would be happy to read about your solution. Do you own a blog?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well done, and incase you don't know about it I recommend talking about this on IndieHackers.com for more exposure and helpful advice.

Disclosure it isn't my site, it's well known / respected on HN though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the tip! I'll post on indiehackers tonight :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The 3 most harmful addictions are cocaine, carbohydrates and a monthly salary" says Nassim Taleb in his book black swan. I guess the first sale from the product you built also goes in the same line but in a positive way!

</comment><comment><USER9> That's a cool idea. And congratulations!

However, I get an error in my console when I navigate to an app:

> Uncaught DOMException: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from > 'Window': Access is denied for this document.

Chrome on macOS

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice, I just published one of my games there, Qubes.

Let me know when you are able to make payments to Brazil.

</comment><comment><USER11> Congrats and nice idea.

I noticed quite a few web-apps already listed. I'm curious what approach you used to reach these developers?

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats! No other feeling like it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Congratulations :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations, it's a good feeling.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congratssss!!

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats :)

</comment><comment><USER18> congrats!</comment>


Cloudflare Package Repository Mirrors - <AUTHOR> https://cloudflaremirrors.com/ <comment><USER2> As much as I'd love to use CloudFlare's uniformly fast network for package update, I'd never use this simply because I already depend on them for too much stuff.

It's not like letting them gather logs on my computers updating would be terrible somehow, but if it's so easy to avoid donating more logs and more dependence on them, why not do it for the sake of preserving diversity?

Growing companies often exhibit a long term pattern that usually seems innocent at first manifestation:

\- Offer something for free

\- Become hugely popular at offering that free thing

\- Alternatives slowly dwindle in popularity and/or begin to die off

\- User 'choice' increasingly becomes concentrated in that single option

\- Company introduces surprising policy change, but users can switch to an alternative if they don't like it

\- Company introduces differentiating functionality setting its option apart from the alternatives.

\- Users grow additional dependence on the new functionality, alternatives look increasingly obsolete

\- Company becomes increasingly aggressive at introducing changes, as they now own the primary alternative

It's hard to imagine CloudFlare are somehow going to monopolize package management :) But nonetheless, free services like this generally signal the beginning of this pattern

At some point I'm sure e.g. DejaNews seemed like an innocent dependency, and that attempting to look far ahead into the future would not have revealed its eventual sale to Google and the loss of the only comprehensive archive of the early Internet community in existence.

<comment><USER3> I think this is still a good service. It is just a mirror. It is a way of giving back to these open source operating systems and cutting their costs. Thus embrace it but be smart about it so that no one is trapped.

Dejanews isn't the same. That was an archive of a dying technology. This isn't the same case. Usenet was a dying technology, ultimately killed by http.

Cloudflaree has always done the free thing to raise it's popularity. You are right that as companies get bigger it can be harder to keep revenue growing and they slowly start to cross lines they didn't before though. If that company has built reliance on it's free tools which have reduced diversity, when they start to cross lines it can be sort of a trap. This usually isn't intentional now but it is just how things work... Years from now revenue growth might require crossing a line...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is anyone from CloudFlare or Canonical reading?

Please parter to make mirrors for Launchpad PPAs. They're so painfully slow around the globe and there is tons of open source projects that depend on PPAs...

<comment><USER5> I recently moved to Vietnam, and I sometimes get awfully slow connection speeds to the mirrors nearby my city, to a point that switching to US mirrors is faster. (ftp.[kr|sg].debian.org)

<comment><USER6> How is Docker hub from Vietnam nowadays? I lived in Cambodia from 2014-2016, and it was nearly impossible to pull Docker images which have large single layers.

Would be great to have a Cloudflare solution for this.

<comment><USER7> Off-topic. I visited Cambodia for 3 weeks in 2017. It's a beautiful country and I enjoyed every minute. My mind has pondered over living there long-term -- it seems so affordable.

How was your experience living there for a while, especially as a developer?

<comment><USER5> I surely miss the developer/tech atmosphere that was there in Berlin, Frankfurt, etc.

The life is quite simple, and the coffee culture is based around chatting with friends for hours, instead of sitting in a cafe and getting work done on a MacBook Pro or a Thinkpad X1 carbon.

If you live like a local, which is not to say any lower living standards, it can be pretty cheap. At around 2x the living cost of a local, one can live comfortably here. I pay around third the rent which was once near Berlin, and now spend about half on food if I eat out.

Internet is cheap but unreliable. I sometimes have to use my 4G mobile hotspot (1GB/day at ~€4 a month).

I was born and raised in an Asian country, so there isn't much of a culture difference to speak of. However, Vietnamese is pretty difficult to learn, and even after six months here, I still cannot get the tones right and speak more than 50 words. Indonesia in that regard is amazing.

If you are thinking to move to south East Asia, I can highly recommend Indonesia. They have countless mountains to climb, a good hiking/riding groups to easily join, similar living cost to Vietnam, and a much easier language to learn. Bahasa Indonesia is understood pretty much everywhere, and quite easy to learn. Internet is censored in both countries to some extent (Reddit doesn't work in Indonesia with a DNS blackhole that you can easily bypass), and has worse Internet in Indonesia in general though.

There are many startups based in Indonesia (such as Gojek, Traveloka, Tiket.com), some of which are owned by SoftBank a few layers up. I feel it's more easier to I best/startup in Indonesia too.

<comment><USER4> Where exactly in Indonesia have you lived? Bali is like two times more expensive compared to Vietnam.

Also internet connection was generally much worse for me in Indonesia due to their island nature I guess. In Vietnam it's super easy to setup two 50-100Mbps FTTB lines for something like $80 / month (just in case one of ISP go down).

<comment><USER5> Yogyakarta, Malang, and Bandung (all on Java).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Pirate-of-SV I ran rankmirrors (from pacman-contrib) on the mirror and the 5 upstream i got on [https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux](https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux)

rankmirrors test the time to download core.db from each mirror. Basically this:

      curl -s -m 1 -w "%{time_total} %{http_code}" -o/dev/null https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux/core/os/x86_64/core.db.tar.gz

The results vary a lot sometimes cloudflare mirrors is the fastest, sometimes it's the slowest. Getting anything between 0.07 and 0.30

      $ rankmirrors -t ./ml
      Querying servers. This may take some time...
         *   *   *   *   *   *
       Servers sorted by time (seconds):
      https://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.113249
      https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.120371
      https://mirror.osbeck.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.127601
      https://archlinux.dynamict.se/$repo/os/$arch : 0.180493
      https://ftp.myrveln.se/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.248406
      https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.302824

      $ rankmirrors -t ./ml
      Querying servers. This may take some time...
         *   *   *   *   *   *
       Servers sorted by time (seconds):
      https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.070069
      https://mirror.osbeck.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.081506
      https://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.098763
      https://archlinux.dynamict.se/$repo/os/$arch : 0.125846
      https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.127948
      https://ftp.myrveln.se/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch : 0.136529

</comment><comment><USER8> How is this supposed to work? (I use Arch BTW) supposed I'm in a country X, does Cloudflare basically caching the request to server that are in country X? But I'm already close to that server and I'm always cautious with mirrors that are in country X, often they were out of date :(

<comment><USER9> This is my issue with it as well - it's basically their geo-sniffing magic routing you towards the closest officially listed mirrors for that country (glorified proxy); it makes the mistake of presuming that all those mirrors listed in the Arch country-mirrorlist are created equal in terms of reliability and performance, but they're not (we have a whole web page just to track out of date mirrors).

<comment><USER10> I'd guess if this gains traction, the caching on Cloudflare's side will usually make up for this, and if it hits the actual mirror behind it, the load on that one should be lower than before. It reads like they will try to proxy multiple local mirrors so time will tell how well they will pick amongst them. I'm switching for now to see how it will perform over a longer period.

<comment><USER9> The difficulty is if the mirror itself is behind, Cloudflare's cache for that specific endpoint will be correct (functional, working) but out of date compared to another mirror.

Example: around the end of June this year the mirrors.kernel.org infra was failing to sync (DNS issues of some sort) the latest content, so your upgrade would appear to have no new packages because the stale content was a valid repo, when in fact there were many updates and other mirrors were in sync.

<comment><USER10> Right that makes sense, so Cloudflare would actually have to make the caching context-aware, not just classic HTTP proxying.

<comment><USER9> I'm not aware of the technical how, but the Arch infrastructure seems to measure this successfully; a hook into this data might be a great way for the two to interoperate (so that Cloudflare always serves the freshest cache/mirrors). [https://www.archlinux.org/mirrors/status/](https://www.archlinux.org/mirrors/status/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The relevant code can be found here I believe: [https://github.com/archlinux/archweb/blob/master/mirrors/man...](https://github.com/archlinux/archweb/blob/master/mirrors/management/commands/mirrorcheck.py)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it me, or it downloads so fast that the progress output doesn't even show in the terminal ? On Archlinux.

<comment><USER12> I saw the same. My best initial guess is that this is somehow caused by cloudflare either setting the content-type header to text/plain or not setting the accept-ranges header. Or maybe both?

<comment><USER13> > not setting the accept-ranges header

Mostly that, because it doesn't support resuming partial downloads either (it says http server does not support byte ranges)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't get it to work, packages upgrades show this error. Any ideas?

      error: failed retrieving file 'XXX' from cloudflaremirrors.com : HTTP server doesn't seem to support byte ranges. Cannot resume.

<comment><USER13> Clear your partial downloads using sudo pacman -Scc, another comment says that it doesn't support byte ranges so it can neither display progress, nor resume partial downloads

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be really nice if web proxies supported this as a generic mechanism, which could be applied to Linux packages, ISOs, git commits, docker layers and more. I wrote up a very half-baked proposal for this kind of thing a while back: [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/half-baked-idea- conten...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/half-baked-idea-content- addressable-web-proxy/#content)

Then you could set cloudflare as a proxy (or transparent proxy even?) and it could inject the objects without having to visit the endpoints.

<comment><USER16> Ideally soon repos will be mirrored to ipfs nodes and that will automatically pull the hash-addressed content from the closest proxy, which may or may not be cloudflare. The protocol is already there. Some initial solutions are already there too: [https://github.com/victorb/arch- mirror](https://github.com/victorb/arch-mirror)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Another set of mirrors with decent network infrastructure can be found at: [http://mirror.facebook.net/](http://mirror.facebook.net/)

(Not holding my breath for the kind of responses this comment might get ;))

</comment><comment><USER3> Need Ubuntu and Raspian.

When I saw the title I though they were proxying npmjs or docker hub.

The install process of editing a file is a bit painful. Means few people will do it. Somehow would be nice to have this offered in the is as a built in optional feature.

<comment><USER18> Also Fedora and Centos. Please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I hope this is expanded to other package repositories (Maven, Docker, npm, etc). I'd really like to make it easier for people at edge locations to build my code.

</comment><comment><USER20> Now every time cloudflare has a hickup, not only is half the internet unreachable, you can't even update your server... nice /s

<comment><USER21> At least on Arch Linux you can specify multiple servers, ensuring you don't depend on a single one.

<comment><USER20> I know, but lets be real for a moment: Cloudflaremirror will probably be the fastest. This will cause people to configure it and because people are generally lazy they will not configure other mirrors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There are also other mirrors on cloudflare-ipfs.com.

If you are interested in other mirrors, perhaps you should IPFS pin some yourself. :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Been looking for something like this for a while. We see if more repos get added soon (Ubuntu and fedora would be nice!)

</comment><comment><USER24> Before opening the page I hoped that it would be an npm mirror which can be used in case npm goes down.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand, is Cloudflare hosting their own mirrors or what?

<comment><USER25> I understand they just proxy (and cache). They are still requesting packages from the actual repository if they don't have it cached.

But I agree — don't really see the point. Why not just become an official mirror?

<comment><USER26> Being a proxy and cache is their business. All it takes to set things up that way is then a little bit of configuration that points to the actual origin.

I think if they would be an official mirror there would be a fair amount of more work being involved. Eg you can't just randomly wipe the cache anymore and need to have higher persistence guarantees, since you are not supposed to refetch from other mirrors all the time.</comment></comment></comment>


How Data Can Help Law School Applicants Get into the Program of Their Dream - <AUTHOR> http://insightmine.com/how-data-can-help-law-school-applicants-get-into-the-program-of-their-dream/

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know what you think! Scraping techniques and data transformation methodologies I discuss in this post can really be applied to many use cases, School Admission case is just an example.</comment>


Loot boxes in online games and their effect on consumers [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/652732/IPOL_ATA(2020)652732_EN.pdf <comment><USER2> What amazes me is it's about a dozen years since the concept of a "whale" emerged in gaming, and it keeps coming back to obfuscating transactions so children will blindly spend thousands of dollars. So far Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have _all_ been sued and lost for it, Facebook even called it "friendly fraud". It just never ends in spite of overwhelming evidence of fraud.

[https://money.cnn.com/2014/01/15/technology/apple-ftc- settle...](https://money.cnn.com/2014/01/15/technology/apple-ftc- settlement/index.html)

[https://lifehacker.com/get-a-refund-for-your-kids- unauthoriz...](https://lifehacker.com/get-a-refund-for-your-kids-unauthorized- in-app-google-p-1669810949)

[https://phys.org/news/2016-07-facebook-refunds-in-app- minors...](https://phys.org/news/2016-07-facebook-refunds-in-app-minors.html)

[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/child- spe...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/child- spends-45k-in-microtransactions-parent- wants/aba0c897-9689-4122-93e3-9bac50b203cd)

[https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ftc-sues-amazon-app- pur...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ftc-sues-amazon-app-purchases- blame)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been saying this for awhile, and on top of it you've got microtransaction and loot boxes which are essentially online games of chance which under the lottery rules and regulations aren't even allowed in some states and provinces on top of it they're marketed towards the children. I think in the future when we look back at this time we're going to see gaming companies that have gone bankrupt in order to pay for the gambling addictions and long-term damaging effects that these are on children and or adults. Developing and forming the brain of vulnerable players to become addicted to gambling and who knows what other types of effects I could have on addictions if the brain is developed into becoming addicted to gambling it's such a young age. I really think the parents need to monitor their kids and understand what they're doing just because something is a game does not mean that it's for children for example I don't know how many times there's been kids like 12 years old in online party chats on Playstation with adults and also playing rated r games which I find f __ __ __terrifying and so happy I don 't have kids so if there are parents reading this please don't let your kid have a microphone and be unsupervised and please don't be an enabler to their wanting to get items for a game out of supply drops and and please understand that these are merely the equivalent of scratch off tickets marketed towards children.

<comment><USER4> I have a 7 and an 8 year old and I'm a game developer. We have a hard rule in the family that we never buy virtual currency or virtual items. Not even once for consistency.

I'm not super concerned about them developing a gambling addition, I'm more concerned with buying "virtual" stuff they the don't really own, and only lasts as long as a games server are up.

I don't have a problem with paying for gaming services, we have Apple and Xbox games subscriptions. I also don't have a problem for buying a premium game where there is a once off purchase.

<comment><USER5> You mean like... games themselves?

You virtually purchase them, for platforms whose core servers get turned off so the game no longer works. No physical media, no long term guarantees of operation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "profitable until deemed illegal". These apps are just A/B testing to exploit and drive compulsive behavior and they cause the most damage on those susceptible to addiction and impulse control issues. It's continual experiments to optimize for abusing the weakness of the human psyche. At best people get some excitement from the thrill of a spin, at worst, you're going to turn susceptible people in junkies and cause financial ruin for a few families

<comment><USER5> Not only that, but there are active agents by the game authors working as "fellow" players that actively foment conflict to get players to buy the pay- to-win options.

The social manipulation is far more insidious than what casinos do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Key Finding is "However, there is no consensus on a causal link between loot boxes and harmful behaviour."

<comment><USER7> The key finding, embodied in the sentences immediately before the one you quoted, is that more research is needed because there is not enough firm data to form a consensus.

I suspect the lack of consensus regarding gambling mechanics in games is along the lines of the former 'lack of consensus' surrounding the causal link between smoking and lung disease or the current 'lack of consensus' connecting CO2 emissions and global warming, however. Namely, a manufactured dispute created to defend the indefensible.</comment></comment>


Microsoft has created a quantum computer programming language - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/microsoft-quantum-toolkit/ <comment><USER2> This is great, but how can you run it?</comment>


What Is Holler? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.holler.com/what-is-holler-2011-09 <comment><USER2> Anyone up for hang gliding? <http://holler.to/qGrTYU></comment>


Linux ate my RAM - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxatemyram.com/ <comment><USER2> >> How do I stop Linux from doing this? > You can't disable disk caching

While that's true, you can temporarily stop (1) the cache it with "echo 3 >/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" and enjoy a short and horrible performance degradation. Then you learn to leave it as is.

(1) just tried it. Even with 'sync' I can't seem to free everything. Linux still "eats" my RAM!!! Any explanation?

<comment><USER3> At least one cause I know of is applications creating an anonymous mmap() region. IIRC that's counted by the nr_active_anon field in /proc/vmstat

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It did not eat my RAM, but ext4 had breakfast with production data.

</comment><comment><USER5> This made my monday.</comment>