TSA will require separate screenings for electronics larger than a cell phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/26/16034694/tsa-xray-screening-electronics-tablets-laptops-game <comment><USER2> > In standard screening lanes, TSA agents will be stationed in front of X-ray > machines to verbally assist passengers with the new screening procedures.

Is "verbally assist" a new euphemism for "yell at"?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I think it is.

I somewhat recently had a TSA agent bark _conflicting_ instructions at me: "Please remove all metal and electronics before the metal detector." Okay, simple enough. But when I started executing her directive, "you can leave your watch on." "It's a smart watch — it's an electronic with metal." She didn't seem to understand that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Of course, those enrolled in the TSA's Precheck program will not have to remove their oversized electronics, due to their willingness to trade their fingerprints (and $85) for speedier screening. The TSA notes that Precheck is now available at 200 airports nationwide, up from 180 at the start of the year.

Despite the snark, precheck is worth the money if you're a regular domestic traveler as are the trusted traveler programs [1] if you travel abroad. Some airlines seem to flag a trusted traveler as precheck although it's not terribly consistent, so I wouldn't rely on that.

[1] [https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler- programs](https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs)

<comment><USER5> To whom does the $85 for TSA pre-check go? Seems like a racket that, like most other things in this country, is aimed mainly at the poor. Pay more, get through. Can't pay? Fuck you.

<comment><USER6> Well, pre-check does actually require a human being to do something with your application and work to happen on the part of the government. I'd rather the folks requesting the service pay for that than the taxpayers as a whole. Don't ascribe to classist malice what is simply a fee for service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Their own separate bin? I'm interpreting this to mean, electronics in their own bin, together, is fine. One bin for each laptop, tablet, phone, etc would be madness.

However, I don't think a laptop and an iPad will fit into one bin without overlapping each other.

So now we are at probably four bins per person including their carry-on bag as a "bin." This is really ridiculous and will lead to even longer, more chaotic lines.

<comment><USER3> > _One bin for each laptop, tablet, phone, etc would be madness._

The current case, in every airport I've traversed, was each laptop in a _separate_ bin.

I believe I stumbled through an airport "piloting" this program (BOS) as we had to remove tablets, too. We were not told "everything larger than a phone", we were told "laptops and tablets" — all in separate bins. _It took five bins_ to get through.

"Piloting" new security regulations, to the passenger, appears as if TSA has no idea what their own rules are. Every airport I visit seems to have its own inconsistent idea as to what I need to take off, what needs to go in a bin, etc.

In my experience, the baggage X-ray is the bottleneck at the checkpoint; I don't see how this is going to help.

Also, does this include cameras? Who's the judge as to whether a camera is larger than a cell phone? (And just what I want, to advertise even more loudly the valuables I'm traveling with.)

<comment><USER6> Do you think it would be any faster if you had to "check" your carry on at check-in, they were all scanned asynchronously from you actually going through security, and you pick up the bag on the other side in a mini baggage claim scenario? I know baggage claim proper is generally a madhouse, but if it's just literally going through a wall to allow the actual security screening to happen faster, I think it could be faster overall.

Would definitely need some infrastructure changes in the airports themselves, which is probably a pretty big negative.

<comment><USER8> Considering I trust the average TSA employee about as much as a junky I found on a street corner, no way am I letting my electronics out of my sight. I already take them all on as carry on specifically to keep the TSA from stealing them, moving to a system like this would mean I couldn't travel with electronics (other than the exempted cell phone) anymore since there's like a 25% chance that the TSA will decide to swipe it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've never been to the US. I'd love to visit though, so many beautiful places to see! I had this idea to rent an RV on the west coast and spend a few months visiting bunch of places.

But lately I've been deterred by all this TSA crap and the political 'developments'. I just no longer feel comfortable about traveling there. Don't get me wrong, my home country is far from peachy. But everything I read about US these days screams - don't come here. I'm sure their tourism industry wont fall apart because of one person, but I'm also pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels like this.

Seems like I'll just go somewhere warm for the winter to chill out (Canary Islands, anyone?)

<comment><USER10> It really is not as big of a deal as everyone acts like it is. Take your stuff out, take off your shoes, and your belt. Walk through, get on your plane. Enjoy the US. This place is HUGE.

<comment><USER11> Get detained in a tiny cell at Houston airport for 12 hours with no explanation (happened to my father). Get your entry denied and have your vacation plans + all the money you spent on hotels/rentals/etc go to waste (happened to a friend of mine).

Speak to any foreigner that has had prolonged contact with US immigration/border agencies (particularly if they are from a poorer country - doubly so if it's a muslim country) and you will hear plenty of stories like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty sure this has been happening for a while. The last few times I've traveled, people were told to put laptops and tablets in separate bins as well.

Makes sense... we shouldn't discriminate laptops at the security lines!

All large electronics in separate bins!

<comment><USER13> The article says they've been trialing so I suppose you've been using pilot airports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had to do this at DTW, I was carrying 3 laptops and 2 tablets. I also had my carry on searched because I had 12 cans of sardines which look funny in the x-ray.

<comment><USER15> Okay, I'll bite - why did you have 12 cans of sardines in carry on?

<comment><USER16> Just to mess with the agents.

I'm surprised that he didn't get required to throw them out. (They contain liquid)

<comment><USER17> Not cool. The agents are just trying to do their jobs. The fact that the system is fubar is not their fault.

On the other hand, people like you hold up the line for everyone.

<comment><USER14> The guy in front of me had 4 cans of soda which he had to throw out. My sardines just had to be scanned for explosives or whatever the scanner thing is, but it seemed like they were fine to bring.

At least they didn't see the supplement powder I packed in their own separate plastic baggies :)

<comment><USER18> Your supplement powder has different density than explosive, hence different color on their screens. They saw it for sure.

<comment><USER14> I wasn't worried about that, I was worried they would think it was drugs, since I had three snack bags full of white powder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's amazing the immediate, _viscerally angry_ , reaction I have the moment I see "TSA" in an article headline.

I can't think of any other organization that evokes that near-rage quite as fast or as strong. Even Immigration doesn't seem as hateful.

<comment><USER20> Me too. It's not just fact that TSA has the job to make travel more inconvenient and annoying and expensive, but that there seems to be _no limit_ to how much extra expense and annoyance we're willing to let them inflict on us. And the fact that all this security theater clearly makes us _less_ safe - killing extra people in car crashes and destroying economic productivity that could have saved far more lives.

There seems to be nobody willing to push back against the idiocy that is the TSA. In paying their salaries we are almost literally paying for rope to hang ourselves. If we can't eliminate or cut back programs _this dumb_ and _this destructive_ , is there any hope for technological progress at all? Or are all efforts to improve the human condition similarly doomed to be hamstrung by rent-seekers and grandstanders and paranoid muckrakers?

Every time I have to stand in that line I get a little bit _more_ furious that we can't get rid of these idiots and their counterproductive procedures and just _walk over to the gate and get on a plane_ like a civilized person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Putting a device on its own tray means that an algorithm can apply heuristics to it to determine if it should receive a wipe test or additional human screening.

By placing the items onto a tray, the orientation of the device is more likely to be consistent and not obscured by other objects in the line of sight of the scanner, making algorithmic object recognition easier when a 2D scanner is used or if the bag contained items that make the data harder to process.

Imagine if your goal was to get a weapon through security, what would you do?

\- Enclose it in a fluid or gel-filled case that appeared similar to a rechargeable battery pack on the scanner.

\- Enclose it in an appropriately sized shielded sub-enclosure of a common device, so that it appeared similar to the unaltered device on the scanner.

For some reason laptops were identified as a likely device for this sort of use-case, hence the ban on laptops for flights originating from some places.

So after the ban the adversaries likely decided to try using a boombox or a SLR camera to house a weapon, and maybe even tried an electronic drum pad or other less common device.

Consider what kind of information the scanner obtains about the objects being scanned. Some is 2D but newer ones area increasingly 3D. So you have a 3D capture of the various relative densities and thicknesses of materials used to construct a device. Chances are machine learning algorithms are very good at determining which scan is an unaltered electronic device and which has been altered (additional wires, components, materials included).

It's also necessary to train the system, so asking travelers to place their digicams, drum pads, etc., in a separate bin allows the scans to be used as training data for unaltered device characteristics, and help officials learn how to train the algorithms to detect subtle modification or alteration of devices.

Chances are the same kind of highly advanced machine learning is being applied to the live video of passengers lining up for screening, with face, vital sign, and body carriage recognition algorithms designed to detect anxiety, deception, etc. For example, if you are rocking back and forth with a clenched chin and elevated heart rate that might be a small data point which (if combined with a laptop that has a >10% probability of having been altered) might result in a human screening and pat down.

When filmed at high frame rate, heart beats are detectable via blood vessel coloration changes. Animals (like humans) are very easy to analyze this way with the right hardware and algorithms.

<comment><USER22> It's strange to me that we screen for weapons at all, other than explosives. The cabin is sealed. There is a marshal on the plane to limit gun/box-cutter level damage. At that point the plane itself is no more dangerous (actually considerably less dangerous) than an ordinary subway car.

With explosives, I've always thought an internal smuggle would work the best. I mean, you're going to suicide anyway, so why not stick C4 up your ass? Or if you're really serious, have some surgically installed into you.

One threat would be a small shaped charge to open the cabin, but that seems very unlikely. Last but not least, the WMD threat of biological weapon, 12 Monkeys style, which is a) not specific to planes and b) impossible to guard against, once the weapon is lost.

<comment><USER21> I agree. I think that the threat posed by weapons was already fully mitigated on the day of 9/11 when the passengers on the last aircraft tackled the hijackers in spite of the box cutters. All this with no marshal, no sealed cabin door, etc.

The airport screening stuff has been a fiasco that is far more political and psychological than based on actual risk reduction, and the additional cost and time it takes to go through security has cost the economy _billions_ in lost productivity.

I think that the big target at present is actually explosives. I think that C4 resembles the contents of a typical LiIon cell when viewed on a scanner, or could be made to appear quite similar if prepared by someone moderately skilled who had access to (or knowledge of) the scanner and the physics behind it.

Your point about a subway is interesting because we've seen no attacks on subways in the US since 9/11 and even a failed, low-budget attack would result in massive subway line closures and military presence in the subway for months, making it an effective fear-creation attack that would cost a city hundreds of millions of dollars, and potentially much more in lost productivity and mental anguish.

I think the reason we haven't seen those attacks is because so few people would actually want to do them. A can of gas brought into a subway car in a backpack and ignited while the door was closed, combined with an armed shooter using a handgun would cost < $500 and would easily result in widespread closures. If two individuals did this same attack on two separate lines on the same morning, the financial damage would multiply substantially, even if nobody was killed. Suddenly there would be TSA scanners in all subway entries and it would take an extra few hours to ride a few stops.

But on a plane, even a small explosive charge can take the aircraft out of the sky, so I think there is still motive for attackers to try this vector, but if the goal is to make airplanes crash it would be far more effective to use a high powered rifle near an airport and actually shoot at the aircraft. Some airports offer geographical features where this attack would be particularly effective.

That we haven't seen anyone do this also suggests strongly that there is virtually nobody who wants to harm American citizens living in the US, or perhaps that all those who do have extremely grandiose ideas for attacks that are very unlikely to succeed.

The 9/11 attacks were a brilliant way to weaponize aircraft, but after that was used once it becomes a lot harder to use it again. My guess is that if there ever is another large attack it will be something completely different. The first WTC bombing failed, but (similar to 9/11) relied on a very open loophole (fertilizer + van + parking garage under skyscraper). So I think authorities should be focusing on identifying the attack vectors that we are still vulnerable to that haven't been tried.

<comment><USER8> I honestly don't understand what the motive for the TSA is. I mean, yes it's security theater and political "we must do something" in action, but it doesn't seem like that's enough to justify the continued stupidly of that organization. The best guess I have at this point is that the combination of a convenient jobs program that isn't republican kryptonite, plus convenient pork projects (hello body scanners), with the added bonus of a perpetual excuse to eliminate personal freedoms and drum up the boogeyman man of terrorism whenever it's convenient is just too tempting to let go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was hoping to never hear the term "phablet" again.

</comment><comment><USER24> As long as I can take the laptop / camera on the plane and don't have to fret over it being stolen by the baggage handlers who look in bags.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think I remember reading that Israel found laptop bomb batteries. Or some country found them.

<comment><USER26> You remember the president of the USA disclosing code-word level classified intelligence, gathered by Israeli agents in Egypt, about ISIS planning laptop bombs, to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, without going through the necessary internal approval channels or getting permission from Israel.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/17/pres...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/17/president- trump-intelligence-leak-homeland-security-russians-laptop-bombs/101802538/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The people who complain about heightened security never have a better proposal. This article is pure pandering with no balanced opinion of the fact that there could be credible motivations to ask for this.

<comment><USER28> The TSA has stopped zero terrorists. It's security theater. It's just dumb. No other country requires people to take off their shoes. No other country will feel you up if you fail the millimeter wave scan. Their false positive rate is so high it's pretty much random chance.

Sure security is bad in other countries. I've had to remove everything from my bag in several airports, but America is still somehow the worst in spite of that. Fuck the TSA. When I do leave the US, I take a train to Canada and fly from there. Their security is mostly the same, but at least I feel like I can't complain since it's not my country.

<comment><USER29> They both have an insane false-positive rate as well as an insane false- negative rate (95%, as other people have pointed out).</comment></comment></comment>


Zombies Must Be Dualists: Zombies and Our Philosophy of Mind - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/37/currents/zombies-must-be-dualists <comment><USER3> I think the author is confusing two different issues: the problem of disproving solipsism and the problem of proving or disproving dualism. It is not true that we must think of zombies as being absolutely identical to "real people" in order for them to be useful in thinking about dualism. They do not have to do exactly what real people do in a given situation. For example, a civilization of zombies might have speech, might even have philosophy, but would probably not talk about consciousness in any form. The author is right that you can't think of zombies as acting exactly the same as the corresponding human and yet not being conscious, because consciousness is surely a cause as well as an effect (else we wouldn't talk about it, for example). He's wrong that you need to think of them that way in order to bear fruit for dualism.

I can postulate a universe in which my molecules and everyone else's have been precisely duplicated from this universe in physical terms. I can postulate that in that universe there is no such thing as conscious experience; no qualia or whatnot. I can imagine that universe continuing from the moment of duplication onward, proceeding as dictated by the laws of physics. My duplicate in that universe would probably not act exactly as I will, but will certainly act in some way.

Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. The zombie universe doesn't have to be identical in behavior, only identical physically. Because what you've now done is to recognize that a universe in which physical objects and laws are the only elements is a universe in which mental (experiential) phenomena are unaccounted for. You can imagine that those mental phenomena magically, mysteriously re-emerge from the physical, but have given absolutely no reason why they should. Therefore you can equally imagine that they _don 't_ re-emerge. So whether zombies behave identically with real people or are merely constituted identically with real people, their conceived existence is enough to show that the mental universe—so to speak—is conceptually detached from the physical and therefore a separate domain.

<comment><USER4> Rationally I feel like we have to accept a Daniel Dennett view: with what we know about the brain, all human behaviour is consistent with the laws of physics, and changing the brain very much changes "what it's like" to be - <USER2> doesn't take very many experiences with drugs, even alcohol, to realize this. Consciousness, then, has no explanatory power whatsoever. A lot of people argue at this point, but they have nothing substantial to stand on. Maybe they just want to believe that Free Will is something special.

However, I think the Hard Problem is a knot that can never go away. I notice physicists are willing to explain much of the properties of the universe (like time having a direction) just by saying there was a very specific initial condition, a very low entropy state that (by definition) is extraordinarily unlikely. So what about saying there's another constraint on conditions of the universe, where we have physical laws that create consciousness. Is this just an anthropic principle of some sort?

I was listening to Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture" audiobook. He argues that I can't really be sure I'm not a p-zombie. But I think I can: I'm with Descartes on this one - it's the one thing I actually _can_ be sure of. I'm sure I have an inner experience (that explains nothing scientifically to anyone else) but I can easily imagine not having it, with no change to the laws of physics.

Does anyone know of a good read that isn't full of jargon that fleshes out these ideas some more?

<comment><USER5> Did Dennett back off from his intentional stance? Consciousness seems important to explain and predict behavior in practice.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't clear, it's vitally important to predict behaviour in practice at a poetic naturalism level, but there seems to be no reason to adopt strong emergence: consciousness doesn't introduce any new explanatory power that couldn't, in principle, be explained by physics, or even chemistry, biology and so forth.

See Dennett's interview with Bob Wright starting at about 30 minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM)

I'm just not ready to stop there, despite this all being true, I think it seems not parsimonious to believe there is nothing fundamentally mysterious about how I feel like something subjectively.

<comment><USER5> It's been a while, but...

Biology doesn't introduce any explanatory power that couldn't, in principle, be done by chemistry. Likewise, chemistry and physics. But they ain't nobody as is gonna work out the mating behavior of tree frogs from quantum mechanical first principles. That was, I thought, the point of the intentional stance: if you assume consciousness, you get a good model to understand behavior; if you don't, you may, in principle, be able to get a good model but you have a much greater distance to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've long been what the author calls as "poetic naturalist" simply due to the argument that if we are talking about qualia, then qualia must have an effect on the physical world.

If there are elements of consciousness that are completely separate from the physical world (in that they have no effect on it), we cannot talk about them, nor even think about them.

I do find that trying to conceptualize p-zombies is a useful tool try to pull apart the strength of the effects of these qualia.

To take let's say we somehow duplicate the universe at the very instant I started writing this post, but with the potential for qualia removed. Since my brain had already done the processing, I would continue to write about an experience I would no longer have. I suspect everyone would continue to talk about qualia for quite a long time.

However, if the potential for qualia were removed prior to the formation of the earth, I think we have to image we would not be talking about it now. (Because otherwise we are talking about nothing.) I personally suspect that things would have developed very differently and the human race would have been far less successful.

My suspect that we tend to over attribute consciousness to others and to ourselves. I suspect we spend a fair amount of our lives in p-zombie mode and then project the experience of consciousness backwards onto our memories of those time.

<comment><USER4> > If there are elements of consciousness that are completely separate from the > physical world (in that they have no effect on it), we cannot talk about > them, nor even think about them.

Yet here we are, doing both, talking as well as thinking, right? If I talk about a universe where you'd never "woken up" as a subjective individual, and the present time was just like (to both of us) the previous 13.7 billion years, you know exactly the concept I mean, whether it's expressible in terms that have meaning beyond a single reader who knows (in the Cartesian sense) that their (subjective) existence is something special that only they can observe.

<comment><USER6> My speaking about my cartesian knowledge of my own subject experience is proof (to me) that my subject experience has physical effects.

If there are any properties that do not have physical effects, that makes them unspeakable, unknowable, and unthinkable. We can have a conceptual category for these properties, but we can't place anything in that category, not even from our own subjective experiences.

Type A Categories (that we can place things in):

Physical Causes & Effects: Our reality.

No Physical Causes but Physical Effect: True randomness

Type B Categories (that we can talk about but not place anything in):

Physical Causes but no Physical Effects: The Afterlife, The Future, Non- physical Elements of Consciousness

Neither Physical Causes nor Physical Effects: Completely separate realities

If we say that anything from Type B categories exists, then existence becomes a meaninglessly broad category. We can be wrong about whether something is Type B (say if we discover time travel), but nothing that is Type B exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A very useful link for more on this subject is at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1], which is a fantastic resource for overviews of philosophical subjects.

[1] [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Ahh, qualia is such an useless concept!

Here I am, a philosophical zombie. I don't have any subjective experiences, as far as I can tell. I challenge anybody to show that I am not!</comment>


Ask HN: A week of SF - <AUTHOR>

I'll be in SF for a week, 10-17 Oct and wondering how to best use my time while there. Thanks! <comment><USER2> What are you hoping to get out of your time here? That will help people suggest activities.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd enjoy the tall buildings there. They offer an amazing view of the city.

</comment><comment><USER4> Walk up Bernal Hill and around it.</comment>


China condemns decision by Google to lift censorship  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8582233.stm

<comment><USER2> This was particularly strong wording on China's part. Anyone want to bet what actions follow up the words?

I don't believe that China doesn't care about Google leaving. I think, despite the party line, they are reluctant to ban access to Google outright because of the symbolism it would bear to the Chinese technorati. But then again, I've never been to China so what do I know.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Chinese government is the most vocal voice when it comes to the independence of Internet from America to UN. But it has unbelievable censorship on its own Netzens.

Communism wants the world to only understand its ideologies and get criticized for not being communists. Its like "heads" I win and tails you "loose".</comment>


AI: Foundations of Computational Agents, Second Edition - <AUTHOR> https://artint.info <comment><USER2> I read this recently and found it to be helpful to frame my (very shallow) understanding of AI. It felt like less of a firehose than AIMA.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Artificial Intelligence has a coherent, formal theory

Is the author referring to the "Intelligent agent" paradigm?

Wikipedia has a list of competing theories:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Approa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Approaches)</comment>


Ask HN: Any Literature on History of Database? - <AUTHOR> There seem to be a lot of texts on history of computing, internet/web and OS. Are there any counterparts in database? <comment><USER2> Chris Date's book "An Introduction to Database Systems" is a good place to start. It focuses on relational databases, which reflects the dominance of relational database systems for decades now.

Wikipedia has a decent article with history:

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

Before relational database systems we had a lot of proprietary setups based on disk files. There were the variants of the hashing-based Pick database. There was CODASYL, and IBM's IMS. Relational databases pretty much replaced all of those, though Pick-style systems are still running here and there.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Date's seems more like a first-course textbook rather than a historical account.</comment></comment>


Show HN: We wrote TLDR versions of 400 tech articles for developers - <AUTHOR> http://Www.Insnippets.appsmith.com/ <comment><USER2> The correct url is [https://insnippets.appsmith.com/](https://insnippets.appsmith.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ironically, that did not take long to read, as the page does not load.

</comment><comment><USER4> The link doesn't work

<comment><USER5> This</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What revenue sources exist for content based sites? - <AUTHOR>

I have read the techcrunch teardown (http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/10/teardown-13-ways-10-million-revenues/) and I understand ad-supported sites are very tough to execute. However, if one were contemplating running  a content site, what sources of revenues exist ? How do you go about it ? Any ad network and affiliate network you would recommend ? <comment><AUTHOR> So if the minimum revenue expectation from a website is $10k ( with salary and other operating costs), how much traffic is needed to sustain that using the revenue source ? How many daily/monthly unique visitors would one need? do ad networks even consider you when you are starting out ?</comment>


Brain Cells Share Information with Virus-Like Capsules - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/brain-cells-can-share-information-using-a-gene-that-came-from-viruses/550403/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Never underestimate the bandwidth of a virus full of RNA.

<comment><USER3> I guess this is the biological equivalent of mailing hard disk.

<comment><USER2> Yup. For the benefit of anyone who didn't hear of the original quote yet: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" (Andrew Tannenbaum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This gets towards an answer to the question I've always posed to computer scientists seeking to emulate brain function in a program: what is the basic unit of memory?

When you drill down to the fundamentals of computer science you get to the bit; all complex data is essentially a representation on top of bits. I've always wondered what the quantum of human memory is though. What's the smallest thing that you can remember?

I always think about this because my living memories are rich-media with sound and sight and smell and feel. I suppose facts can be a smaller bit of memory, but how is that actually encoded? Maybe we'll know in our lifetimes, maybe not.

<comment><USER5> How do you define memory?

If you mean, "knowledge of the past" then even the simple neural nets of today exhibit memory when they can recognize your face.

So where does this face recognizing neural net store information about eyes, ears, noses, etc? That information is part of the neural net but it's distributed across all the neurons.

This type of memory system is much closer to how memory in the real brain works.

<comment><USER6> But what if that's only one mechanism? What if some information is stored in DNA or RNA? And what if that can be copied and stored in other cells too? What if each neuron could store even kilobits of data in it's DNA? Capacity per neuron goes up by a few orders of magnitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lynn Margulis was a huge proponent of the idea that speciation happens mostly via symbiogenesis and cross-species gene transfer as opposed to natural selection. This virus-like cell, while admittedly still not well understood, seems like the kind of thing she would point to as an example of different forms of life merging to create new higher-level lifeforms.

</comment><comment><USER8> disclaimer: only read the abstract. The original paper, linked in the article mentions the mRNA messaging. Intuitively that roughly makes sense -- other cells might have the luxury of being able to directly talk to each other, through physical contact or proximity, but with neurons that is made more difficult due to the possibility of extending electric signals. So carrying information through mRNA might work, but I wonder why mRNA? Why not skip the middle man and go straight for proteins? What's the use of doing it this way? ik I'm anthropomorphizing but it seems to make more sense to just send out proteins to communicate? Or maybe mRNA allows for more finetuning on the other end, and is a more efficient mechanism, since it can be read dozens of times, instead of just being a handful of proteins.....

<comment><USER9> it's easy to encapsulate any sequence of mRNA; unless it contains extensive tertiary, while any random sequence of protein is going to fold into an irregular shape and probably also have some catalytic capability (such as proteoltyic) which would degrade the protein coat.

That said, GroEL does that (encapsulates various proteins and refolds them).

<comment><USER10> And a capsid might be able to store a few proteins, or a few mRNAs. But a few mRNAs deposited into a cell could produce many thousand protiens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find biology to be endlessly fascinating. I know this is terribly off-topic but, if you enjoy learning about this kind of information, I'd highly recommend 'The Gene: An Intimate History.' It's a lovely read that brings you from before Mendel up to the brink of modern genetics.

I'd like to hear any other book recommendations people may have related to this topic.

<comment><USER12> I find everything not made by humans to be completely random. Given unlimited space and eternal time everything is possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe this is one reason we haven't become more resistant to viruses? Because we actually need to use them, or something like them, to learn?

<comment><USER14> What I read from the ya thatvwe inherited certain processes from viruses which they use to infiltrate us, hundreds of millions of years later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just to note, this has nothing to do with Hintons Capsule Networks

</comment><comment><USER16> Is the mechanism of 'Arc' gene related to the dynamic routing process of Capsule networks [1, 2]?

[1] [https://kndrck.co/posts/capsule_networks_explained/](https://kndrck.co/posts/capsule_networks_explained/)

[2] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829](https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829)

<comment><USER17> It has the same word in it, that's about it. Come on, use your brain a bit</comment></comment>


Ask YC: What's the most hacker-friendly keyboard? - <AUTHOR>

I'm using a Logitech Internet Navigator Keyboard that I got for $6.99 over 5 years ago. Since then I've tried a lot of other keyboards (including some really expensive Microsoft and Logitech models) and found that the flashier they are the less coder-friendly they become and always came back to the same basic keyboard...<p>Which keyboards do YC members use? What's a good keyboard for someone coding/typing 18 hours a day, from a purely tactile-feedback, key-layout POV? <comment><USER2> Beware, fellow hackers. Many of us will suffer serious wrist problems. I did, after 15 years of hacking on various keyboards. What finally got me was 2 years of working on a tiny laptop keyboard (a Japanese 12" laptop).

Sit down in front of your keyboard, place your hands on it like you usually do when you type. Are your wrists bent? If they aren't perfectly straight, you're heading for trouble. How much trouble exactly depends on your genes, but trouble it is.

I found that once you are in pain you very quickly determine which keyboard is healthy. It's the one you can type on with the least amount of pain. My personal ranking:

1\. Fingerworks TouchStream. Those aren't produced anymore, Apple bought Fingerworks and turned their technology into multi-touch screens. They sell for ungodly amounts on eBay, and for good reasons. Once you get used to the gestures, you never feel at home on any other keyboard.

2\. Microsoft Natural and variants thereof. Any keyboard that is split in the middle is way healthier than any straight keyboard.

3\. Any other keyboard that is wide enough so that you can keep your wrists relatively straight.

The keyboard on a MacBook Pro is what I'd consider the limit as to width -- go any narrower, and you're certain to hurt yourself.

Be careful, people. If only I could go back in time and tell myself to use healthy keyboards...

<comment><USER3> In my personal experience, it's the mouse that does the most damage. If you use Emacs but switch Caps Lock and Ctrl, you'll be much better off than using a normal IDE and the mouse.

If you must use the mouse, try using your non-dominant hand. To start with, it feels strange, but only for a few days.

<comment><USER4> I tend to mouse with my left hand (I'm pretty ambidextrous but more right handed than left), but my problem is that nobody makes mice for left handed mousers. Every single one of my logitech mice, especially the one I love (mx revolution)? For right handed people. Logitech makes like all of one lefty mouse (not counting the equally lame ambidextrous mice), and it's an old model I'm not interested in. All the other manufacturers are the same.

The only exceptions are touchpads (obviously), which I switch hands for, and Razer gaming mice which are nice but not as nice as using an mx revolution for everyday mousing needs.

<comment><USER5> I put a large trackball in the middle of my keyboard, or on the left side. Works great.

<comment><USER4> I've had a couple trackballs throughout the years and they just give me finger strain to control accurately (thanks, tremors).

What I would dig a lot is some sort of multitouch touchpad like the one on my laptop, except bigger. I have a 6x11 Wacom tablet that's great but it's not the same.

Of course, I would love a multitouch display, but those are far off into the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You know, the new apple keyboards are NOT bad (expensive, but very very nice feedback on the keys)

[http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB110LL/A?fnode=home/shop_...](http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB110LL/A?fnode=home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/mice_keyboards&mco=MTQ0OTA)

<comment><USER4> For some very odd reason, I find myself typing as much as 20-30 wpm faster (so something like 150wpm-ish with 98+% accuracy, or so the typing tests say) on the low profile Apple keyboards (I have the bluetooth one, and my MacBook's keyboard) than on any other keyboard I've used. It makes a noticeable dent in the time it takes to reply to emails and to get my point across in IM and IRC.

Maybe it's the lesser effort required to press the key. The same effect happens when I'm playing the piano on certain pianos like that..just so much easier to play faster.

<comment><USER7> I noticed the same once I finally became a laptop warrior some years back. Afterwards I switched from clickety keyboards to slimlines on all of the desktops that I work on. I really do think that the shorter finger distance makes a difference. Additionally not having a keypad means I can get the mouse closer to the keyboard, which reduces strain for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> IMHO the Kinesis Advantage is the Rolls Royce of keyboards. After having used it for over a year, I can't imagine going back to anything else.

<http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/contoured_usb.htm>

<comment><USER9> Yep, the Advantage Pro. The ultimate emacs power tool.

<comment><USER10> I noticed I don't usually use the Emacs key bindings for navigation (C-f,b,n,p) when using my Kinesis keyboard. I use the arrow keys most of the time since they are located in such a convenient place. I really wish someone would make a laptop with a similar keyboard layout (even if it's not contoured, at least keep the split and put the useful keys within thumb reach).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> IBM Model M

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_Keyboard>

<comment><USER12> Seconded. I'm still using a 15 year old buckling spring keyboard, they're robust and they have great tactile feedback. Although if I were working in open plan, I'm sure the noise would drive everyone else spare.

You can get new keyboards from here: <http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html>

<comment><USER13> +1

Orig PS2 is what I'm typing on right now. I started out on orig XT/AT keyboards, which have an even stiffer click, but I had to quit using them because they're missing F11-F12 keys.

IMO, the orig IBM keyboards are still the best keyboards ever made. Lots of PS2 keyboards on eBay for a reasonable price, but AT keyboards are going for 150-200 bucks! 20 years pass and computer items start becoming collectible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I carry a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite with me wherever I'll be for longer than a day.

[http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item- det...](http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item- details.asp?EdpNo=443120)

Not the new crappy ones, but the old ones (I've got about 4 and they are all turning a nice yellow patina).

<comment><USER4> Ohh, I never got used to the split keyboards. I got one Microsoft keyboard (I believe it was called the ComfortCurve?) that was something between a regular keyboard and a split keyboard but wasn't split. It was fairly comfortable and cheap.

I find it impossible to type a lot of things I want to, not only because some of my fingers are slower than others, but also because I usually do keyboard shortcuts with one hand, even if it's ctrl+alt+del. It's not easy to do on keyboards like those :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use a TypeMatrix 2030 and I love it! Legacy aside, non-staggered keys makes so much more sense. It only took about 2 days to get used to it. The keyboard is small and thin so you can have the mouse close and you don't break your wrists.

I did have to remap some keys because the default layout is horrendous. First, I use Dvorak but from the OS, not the keyboard itself so I never use the dvorak built-in to the keyboard. And here are my remappings, in logical-key --> labelled-key format (compare with [http://www.typematrix.com/images/newpics/new2030us_640x266.j...](http://www.typematrix.com/images/newpics/new2030us_640x266.jpg)):

      Left Ctrl --> Bottom Shift
     Shift --> Pg Dn
     Alt --> Pg Up
     AltGr --> Left Alt
     Pg Up --> Right Alt
     Pg Dn --> Right Ctrl
     Right Shift --> F32

I use emacs so I use Ctrl extensively, it's great to have it where I put it because 1. it's very convenient to reach and 2. I don't have to alternate left and right Ctrl, I always use the same key. Point #2 also applies to having the shift on the equivalent position of the right hand, this way I can write in UPPERCASE without having to use caps lock! Having Right Shift as F32 means I can map it as a normal key in emacs. I write lisp (a programming language (with (lots of ((parentheses))))) a lot so I told emacs to generate two parentheses then put the cursor between them when I press F32. Similarly for double quotes and CTRL-F32. Previously I needed to press 3 (well, 4 if you count the modifier) keys for that...

<comment><USER16> this is a great keyboard... i wish i could get one retrofitted onto my laptop... i stopped using it b/c switching back and forth between it and my laptop keyboard was costing about 15 wpm in errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The happy hacking lite 2. I use a mouse & graphics tablet, so the small width helps a lot. I wish it had a separate fn key row, however.

<http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeylit1.html> (With default viaweb store ugliness! :)

<comment><USER18> I couldn't agree more. I use the professional version with the blank keys.

The Happy Hacking keyboards have a great feel (the keys are weighted individually) and give a good boost to typing speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use a Happy Hacking Lite Keyboard. I like the key action on it a lot; but I do find myself missing function keys and a number pad.

However, the benefit of not having a number pad really shows up if you end up having to mouse + type a lot - you barely have to move your hand at all.

</comment><comment><USER20> In the 20-plus years I've been coding, I never really gave a crap about what keyboard I worked on.

Currently mostly happen to use the new Apple keyboard that came with the iMac. Expected to want to replace it when I first saw it, but it's surprisingly pleasant.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been a fan of Microsoft's ergonomic models for many years now. I don't see that changing any time soon, unless something revolutionary comes along.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a couple of IBM small form factor keyboards (model SK-8809) from several years back. It is no longer manufactured, and the replacement model has laptop style keys which I don't find as satisfying. It's a full 104 key keyboard, with full-sized keys and all function keys and a numpad, but it's about 2 inches shorter than standard full-sized keyboards...it brings esc closer to home (I use vim). Pretty much everything is just closer together, and so reaching for delete, pg up/down, etc. is nicer. Likewise for the mouse.

And it's an IBM, and though it's not the Model M style of tactile feel, it has a nice feel. Not too much resistance but not smooshy, either, the way MS and Logitech keyboards feel.

</comment><comment><USER23> SafeType vertical keyboard. The MS Natural Elite was giving me RSI until I switched.

<http://safetype.com/>

</comment><comment><USER24> GrandTec Virtually Indestructible Keyboard. I happen to use the glow model: <http://www.grandtec.com/products/video/vik_glow.html>

It took a little while to get used to it, but now i am quite happy with it.

Also check out: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126360>

<comment><USER19> Are those the flexible rubber mat keyboards? I checked one out previously and thought it took an extraordinary amount of force to depress the keys reliably.

<comment><USER24> Yeah. It is that way when you first start out, but when you get used to it, not so much. At this point, I don't really make any mistakes and am not pressing that hard. And it is really quiet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I use a variety of Apple keyboards, an IBM Model M (wonderful original PS2 model), and an IBM ThinkPad keyboard, depending on which machine I'm using at any given time. All excellent, especially with the Caps Lock key set to Control. All non-Apple and non-ThinkPad laptop keyboards I've seen are horrific, as are all cheap "included with hardware" keyboards from Dell and the like. Stay far away.

PS: Heed the advice above about keeping your wrists straight as you type. Avoid the mouse "flick," where you move your right hand to the mouse on the right (left) of your keyboard and thus flex your wrist slightly to the right (left). In addition, try ordinary and reverse wrist curls with very light dumbbells (<20 lbs each), and do them regularly. Will do wonders to keep RSI at bay.

<comment><USER26> gc: excellent advice on the curls. other wrist strengtheners

<http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/giftsunder50/6a4b/>

(they need to check how many "Gifts Under $50" cost $59.99

and PowerWeb thing (you need one if you've hired Django or Rails devs!) <http://www.fitter1.com/Catalog/Category/35/HandWrist.aspx>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I got the Microsoft Natural Ergo 4000(did they start with 1?).

I bought that after my wrists started hurting from being bent on a regular keyboard. It takes about a day to get used to it and about 3 for your fingers to get used to the new key placement. But overall, its very comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Das Keyboard.

<http://www.daskeyboard.com/>

<comment><USER19> Do you actually use one of these regularly? I see a lot of people recommending them, but very few people using them as their daily keyboard.

<comment><USER28> I use one every day and am typing this on one right now. I actually like it so much, I bought 2 more. One for work and one for home plus and extra on in my closet in case the company goes out of business.

The blank aspect is kinda cool but I really like the feel and sound of the thing. I don't know if I type any faster with it and finding some characters like % and ^ can be difficult at first.

I also know of several former co-workers that use them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The good old Keytronic KT800 <http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/dsss/docs/kb_kt1.jpg>

Tough if you're looking for something more new the Logitech Ultra-Flat keyboards is good to.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have a Goldtouch and it's worth every penny. You have total control over the splay and pronation, and it doesn't have a number pad on the right. This was the main thing I was looking for in the first place. I wanted the hand on my mouse to be as close to center as possible.

[http://www.keyovation.com/pc-64-2-goldtouch-adjustable- keybo...](http://www.keyovation.com/pc-64-2-goldtouch-adjustable-keyboard- black.aspx)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone used a DiNovo Edge? I hear it has great tactile feedback, but haven't had the chance to try it out yet.

<comment><USER31> I have one of those for my home computer, and I think it's great. The short throws on the keys feel nice, and overall it is quite solid. I wouldn't want one at work though, as it lacks a proper numpad. Also, chicks dig it; it's a sexy keyboard. [http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRI...](http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2166,CONTENTID=10717)

<comment><USER4> I'm a chick and I dig the way it looks, but there is noooooo way in hell I'd be paying that much for a keyboard :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> i'm not that picky about keyboards, as long as it's not the white/clear plastic Apple PoS. i do like the matias mac models, besides the cheap wired Logitech and Kensingtons:

<http://matias.ca/products/index.php>

</comment><comment><USER32> Any OmniKey Ultra from Northgate Computer Systems. Try eBay. Company no longer exists...

</comment><comment><USER33> Surprised no one is mentioning these

<http://www.cherry.de/english/products/keyboards_g81-3000.htm>

Simple, timeless, cheap.

<comment><USER34> I like this variant: [http://www.cherry.de/english/products/keyboards_g83-6188_lin...](http://www.cherry.de/english/products/keyboards_g83-6188_linux.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Kensington SlimType; thin like a laptop keyboard, clicky and fast (unlike new imac keyboards):

<http://us.kensington.com/html/5463.html>

<comment><USER36> i have one of these keyboards for my living room pc, it has the same spacing as a laptop keyboard, however mine has some strange & tiny backspace, for which i tend to hit the \ key instead. i highly recommend it, but maybe not for hacking. even for gaming its a bit off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Surprised nobody mentioned this: <http://datahand.com/products/proii.htm>

Never seen one, but heard crazy stories...

</comment><comment><USER38> Macbook, or the new Apple wireless keyboard is really nice.

</comment><comment><USER39> I really miss a pointing stick keyboard.

<comment><USER40> The best keyboard I've every used is my ThinkPad keyboard -- great feedback, everything within easy reach including both pointing devices.

If I ever went back to using a desktop again, I would probably buy one of these, which is a pretty awesome way to get a TrackPoint for your desktop:

[http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...](http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:item.detail?GroupID=38&Code=31P9490&current- category-id=E6710B8C5A5F44239217E34D281CCDD9)

<comment><USER34> I recently saw one of those being used in a store at a POS box of some sort. They had _removed_ the trackpoint cap!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> does anyone use one of these?

[http://www.amazon.com/C51-A04031-Laser-Virtual- Keyboard/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/C51-A04031-Laser-Virtual- Keyboard/dp/B000ALZMJS)

<comment><USER36> i wish there was a mouse technology based on that. it would be sooooo cool to have your laptop just sense your movement to the left and right of it, as if you had two mice. but, what am i , thinking that would require someone to do something totally unique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not a bloomberg keyboard - those are terrible.

</comment><comment><USER42> apple laptop keyboard, kinesis ergo, happy hacking.

</comment><comment><USER43> Sun Type 6.

</comment><comment><USER44> this is the shit, for less that $1,600 you get lcd's on your buttons :) customizable with Shakespeare on the space bar! Now that is pimp. <http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/></comment>


Password pain looks set to ease - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7234499.stm

<comment><USER2> Now that I think about it, OpenID is as dangerous as it is helpful. Less passwords for you to remember also means less passwords for a scammer to have to guess if you end up falling for some lame phishing scam....of course having 1 password that you memorize is still better than having to write down a bunch of passwords in a little book that has the potential to be stolen. Still...

<comment><USER3> I think most people, myself included, already use a same password on multiple sites. Not saying it's particularly security-conscious, just that it's already what a lot of people do.

Also, they said you can use multiple openID accounts if you want, so you could still have different password for each site if you so choose.

So, I think your point is moot.</comment></comment>


The verdict is in: The Pownce API kicks Twitter's ass  - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/01/theVerdictIsInThePownceApi.html <comment><USER2> I am sorry it kicks its ass because it lets you post a picture?

Do you use twitter?

Posting a picture to twitter goes against what twitter is. Granted it looks good but pownce is designed to share this sort of stuff and twitter is not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dave is off-base here. The Twitter API is designed well for what Twitter does. His beef is against core Twitter features, not their API.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Pownce API is well written and impressive. My only problem with it now is that Dave Winer likes it. Aside from that, very well done but it's hard to design around Dave. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I twitter, but I have to agree, the Pownce API is brilliant. I already blog, and I stopped tumbl-ogging because of twitter, but I might just start to use pownce in lieu of twitter...

Sure twitter is designed for something different than pownce, but I dont have unlimited time in a day to update like 5 different sites. Not to mention my facebook status! ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> Yet more NIH syndrome, both twitter and pownce.</comment>


Show HN: MailDrop, throwaway e-mail addresses, built with Scala and Akka - <AUTHOR> http://maildrop.cc <comment><AUTHOR> Dev here. Thanks to everyone for the comments, suggestions, and support. MailDrop is one of those nights-and-weekends projects that came together as a bit of an experiment.

Here's a few responses. The design at a wider width is, okay, let's call it suboptimal. Send me a pull request with a fix for 1600px screens and I'll gladly put it in. Testing was originally done on a non-maximized desktop, along with an iPad and iPhone. (If something looks strange on Android, send me a pull request for that fix, too.)

MailDrop was designed to be a friendly clone of Mailinator, with a little different architecture. It isn't going to approach the speed of Mailinator, but I'd like to think the extra functionality makes up for it. You can point any CNAME or MX toward MailDrop and it will accept messages; the system doesn't care about the recipient domain at all.

If you don't want to browse through the (poorly-formatted; what's up with that?) source, here's a quick roundup of the architecture. MailDrop runs in two JVMs and uses Redis as its datastore. One JVM runs the SMTP server (written in Scala, using the SubEthaSMTP Java library and a collection of custom Akka actors) and one JVM runs the webserver (written in Scala/Play).

Performance should always be IO bound; the Akka actors use very little CPU overhead. If you're finding that you're running into bottlenecks, spinning up another JVM is pretty easy. Right now, maildrop.cc is running on one small EC2 instance for everything; if it explodes, I'd probably just add another instance for another SMTP server.

You'll notice that there's no way to actually send mail from MailDrop. That's by design-- the moment you can send e-mail from a service without authentication, spammers are all over it. Hence, no forwarding messages, no forwarding inboxes, etc. MailDrop is designed to help fight spam.

Thanks again for the responses!

</comment><comment><USER2> It's not the amount of text it's the 100% width that's giving it that "giant wall of text" look. The text is all over the place.

If they switched to a fixed width it would look a lot better and easier to read and scan through. You can try this in Google Chrome. Right-click on their page and select "inspect element". Then in the developer tools window find the <body> element and click on that. The body {} selector should come up on the right hand pane of the developer tools window, click to the right of the last bracket } and it'll let you add another rule, put in width:1000px; and then margin:auto; now go back and see the changes on the page. (refreshing the page will return it to normal btw). See. Much better.

There's a reason why most websites use a fixed width. People complained about fixed widths in the early 2000s because they used to be only 800px wide and they weren't used to the white bars on the side of their websites. Now that our monitors are about 1600 pixels wide fluid 100% widths are just too stretched out and it's harder to read and scan through text.

You can also use CSS3 media querries to change the width according to window size (I made a site using this [http://timeforzen.com](http://timeforzen.com) (resize the window and watch the layout change))

<comment><USER3> We used the same technique at Slant. Do you think our max width is a little too wide though? [http://www.slant.co/topics/154/~what-s-the-best-jabber- gchat...](http://www.slant.co/topics/154/~what-s-the-best-jabber-gchat-client- for-ios)

<comment><USER2> Naa, it's fine. You do have an alignment problem though. See: [http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up- redesign-o...](http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-of- tap11-com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow it's open source - [https://github.com/m242/maildrop](https://github.com/m242/maildrop)

<comment><USER5> This is a really good move. I've ran into several websites that check against the most popular temporary email services and the domain names that they use.

<comment><USER6> FYI, my understanding is that you can also set up the MX record for a domain you own to point to the Mailinator service if you want to get around this problem.

<comment><USER7> Great tip. But, can we point it at maildrop!?

Maildrop guy, you there?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks neat, but I think I would prefer (or have available as an alternative) a service that lets me create (and possibly manage) "throw away" forwarding addresses to my real address.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely. I'm currently using the paid version of leemail.me for this exact thing. Unfortunately it seems development has stopped and leemail still needs considerable features to make it THE "email forwarding" and "throw away" service. I can't wait for some other company to come in and make it happen.

<comment><USER10> Is there a way to use your own domains with Leemail (or alternative services, if any)? I'd love a way to be able to shut off addresses when a provider's email database gets hacked. Right now I'm just making do with a Google Apps catchall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> cupcake-unicorn I have used Spamgourmet for years, and I'm finding now that even on some of the more obscure domains alternatives that they offer, I'm starting to have websites block mail to them. As in, they don't reject the addresses on the site, but I just do not get any mail.

Forums and websites get lists of throw away email address domains and block them...how are you going to combat this problem? spamgourmet.com still has it, and it dozens to choose from and you only have one...

<comment><USER11> Buy your own private domain and point it at MailDrop. If/when they start blocking on MX IP, install MailDrop on your own cheap VPS somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always used mailinator for this.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell Suggest you update the "We Do Not Track our Visitors." part of your privacy policy to state that whilst you yourself don't track your users, you do allow Google to do so (google-analytics.com)

Also, where you say "the only cookie we use is to keep track of the most recent inbox that you've visited" \- This isn't true. You use Google Analytics, so there is a cookie in use there too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Excellent performance. Can anyone please write on infrastructure and backend? My guess is node & redis :p

<comment><USER14> The source is on GitHub: [https://github.com/m242/maildrop](https://github.com/m242/maildrop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I saw [http://www.otherinbox.com](http://www.otherinbox.com) take care of this a few years ago, was nice in theory, but I never kept up with my account. Bigger issue, your splash page has an enormous amount of text.

</comment><comment><USER16> Did you put a db scientific terms into your random email generator? Seems like every other one has at least one scientific term in it; I approve!

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell XSS: [http://maildrop.cc/inbox/sdvygasdviygadsv/129u](http://maildrop.cc/inbox/sdvygasdviygadsv/129u)

EDIT: Hmm, I probably should have mentioned this before, but if you visit that URL, the XSS that happens will lead to your IP address being displayed on a public page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm conflicted; on one hand, obviously protecting against the HTML sent in an e-mail is a good idea. I seriously considered having all e-mail bodies run through [https://code.google.com/p/owasp-java-html- sanitizer/](https://code.google.com/p/owasp-java-html-sanitizer/) to strip out bad elements. On the other hand, MailDrop obviously isn't meant to be secure-- if you're worried about a truly private, secure inbox, MailDrop is not that application.

Got a good compromise between the two? Send a pull request and I'll get it in.

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell You might find a 100KB email size limit blocks a lot of email. You want to be making it easy for email to get into these temporary email addresses, not difficult.

The thing I like about mailinator is that I know I'll be able to pick up the message that gets sent to it...

</comment><comment><USER14> I love the design of the site!

<comment><USER17> I agree! Though it's a bit too wide with a huge monitor. Perhaps they should consider maybe 80-100em max-width?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a really beautiful solution to an obnoxious problem. If you aren't adverse to the idea I think you should add some share links to get some viral traffic I know plenty of non hners who would use this.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell Why are you greylisting? That just delays the email arriving... It makes sense to greylist normal email accounts, but for a temporary email addresses it doesn't...

</comment><comment><USER17> Very cool stuff, very fast in loading too. I love the concept of the aliases, would be even cooler if you could generate multiple aliases

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems not to work...</comment>


The Sun Will Eventually Engulf Earth -- Maybe - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sun-will-eventually-engulf-earth-maybe

<comment><USER2> The humorist in me wants to say "Now _that_ is undeniable global warming!" but the real point here is that the existence of Earth as a habitable place to live is finite. It would be helpful if more people internalized that as it would put space exploration into a different perspective.</comment>


Show HN: A command-line flat-file note management app in Python 3 - <AUTHOR> http://hawth.bitbucket.io <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing! I'm one of those folks who has a directory of text file notes (they happen to be markdown files). Looking at the site, though, it's not clear why I would want to use this. It demonstrates 4 commands: (edit: not sure why my markdown isn't rendering in this comment)

* `hawth list`: why wouldn't I just use `ls`?

* `hawth show`: this would be `cat`

* `hawth append`: this would be `>>` (e.g. `echo foo >> note.md`)

* `hawth delete`: this would be `rm`, no?

Maybe there's more to it than the site shows, but just wanted to share my feedback at first glance. Hope it's helpful!

<comment><USER3> Not if you target windows as well. After all, python is highly portable.

Besides, having your own command allow you to add goodies such as stats, various formatting and ergonomic tweaks and abstract from the file system. A useful feature if you ever decide to use other backends or make an api.

<comment><USER4> UNIX shells are available on Windows. I use git bash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For Emacs users, if you haven't yet checked out, look at the robust and mature Org mode and Org Capture.</comment>