Actually, Marty Didn't Go Back to the Future: Graphing the Train Scene of BTTF3 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.francoismaillet.com/marty-didnt-go-back-to-the-future <comment><USER2> Well I saw the movie, and Marty did make it back to 1985. The problem is that the analysis assumes that every second in the film corresponds to a second in real life. That's not true, the shots overlap in real life but are shown after one another in a sequence to make showing what happened (possibly at the same time) more practical. This overlapping is often used in dramatic representations of real events in movies.

One hint is when the author notes that acceleration happens much more quickly during the few short shots when the speedometer is visible, i.e. the acceleration is much quicker compared to the assumed linear acceleration in- between those shots.

It would be an interesting project to analyse the sequence of shots and figure out which ones overlapped by how much, to make the time/distances/accelerations work out. [Edit: copyediting]

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

You're probably right it's not all real time. I figured it wasn't completely unreasonable to treat it as such because when you watch it, most of it does feel RT and we pretty much see everything that happens in an uninterrupted way.

But for the sake of argument, even if the analysis is skewed a bit, it does suggests they were missing a _lot_ of tracks. So if some of the sequence can be considered RT and some of it not, for them to reach the 88 mph in under 3 miles, probably a lot of it would need to be non-RT, which didn't feel right to me based on the way it's presented in the movie.

Totally agree it would be awesome to be able to figure out what overlaps. Thanks for the comment!

<comment><USER2> ;) A classic example that exaggerates the different passing of time of movie vs real time happens in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: [https://youtu.be/DPXG4pdPj4w?t=20s](https://youtu.be/DPXG4pdPj4w?t=20s)

<comment><USER3> Went to school for video/film production and time compression was the subject of a couple of fun projects. In TV and movies, you rarely see things in "real time" unless it's specifically done for an effect (like the gimmick of "24" or to create some level of tension).

Normally, you compress time to a greater or lesser degree because you just don't need to see every single action that someone takes in the course of a given hour or event. Like you point out in the Python clip, you wouldn't normally shoot the entirety of a guy running across a long field. You'd show him start running, cut to a closer shot with him making progress, cut to the person/place he's running toward for reaction or to re-establish the destination, and then cut back to the guy as he's getting there.

When you drag these kinds of things out, it can be a good gag because it's almost like a bad storyteller who includes every irrelevant detail. It makes us uncomfortable and throws off timing. In a more tense scene, time is often screwy because maybe you want to drag things out and show all of the characters' reactions to create anxiety and the feeling that "they'll never make it".

Anyway, thanks for the reminder about the Python bit. Always makes me smile :)

<comment><USER4> This is also something used in fight scenes, where a person will say, throw a punch, then the camera angle shifts, and the person will be seen to throw the punch again - "The Asian Cut" [0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I've grown with people who spend their after-cinema time analyzing how realistic the film was, and do acknowledge it can be fun to some extent, it's just refitting the art into a whole another game and that's by definition completely unfair. It's like writing a car review of the new Toyota Yaris and complaining it doesn't handle well on a race track.

The art of cinema is to pull people inside in a story that is generally mostly fiction. It's like deception by definition: you only offer the viewer enough pieces of an alternate reality to help his imagination get started and do the rest. The point of that exercise is to tell a story, and pulling the viewer into the reality of the film is just a tool in presenting that story. There is no point making the film's reality more realistic other than to be able to suggest it to the majority of viewers as a plausible setting for the story.

The train scene is a typical timed action scene. It's enough to repeatedly show an increasing velocity reading, similarly to how you might show a countdown timer in a bomb-defusing scene. The point of flashing those gauges or numbers every now and then during the scene is to increase excitement and tension, which I'm sure the original author well understands. Assuming the movie is in wallclock time _could turn out to be_ a fun exercise but in this case it did not because the timing analysis just ended up pointing out an irrelevant detail in the movie that was never even designed to be coherent. So, the discovery is not fun in itself, it doesn't add anything to the movie experience, and thus wouldn't really be worth much attention.

<comment><USER6> Is anyone really criticizing the movie for this? Did anyone really expect these minor details to be realistic and accurate?

I don't think anyone is upset over this. It's just a fun exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Actually, there is no way Sierra No. 3 could take a curve at 88 mph as shown. It's not a power problem. 19th century 4-6-0 designs are unbalanced and prone to derailment. There's a solution to that involving a complex suspension, but that came later.

More than you ever wanted to know about locomotive suspensions.[1]

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=1A4iiGAz628C&pg=PA62#v=one...](https://books.google.com/books?id=1A4iiGAz628C&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a fun exercise, but...

> we assume events occur in real-time

this is completely unwarranted and invalidates the rest of the analysis.

<comment><AUTHOR> I address this in answer to ant6n's comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ...but considering that they only need to fall from an height of 258.88 feet to reach 88 miles per hours Marty most likely did made it to the future! Unfortunately he then died instantly by hitting the the bottom of the ravine once he arrived to 1985. :(

<comment><USER10> But because of the rotation of the Earth and in fact the whole Galaxy in the meantime, the vertical component of the ravine became the horizontal component of the road :)

<comment><USER11> If we assume time travel is possible which is quite a leap already, why do people fixate on things things having to keep their fixed point in space relative to... well.. relative to what? Frames of reference can really complicate this.

Perhaps time and gravity are related in a manner that means as an object travels through time it maintains position relative to gravitational influences (and local ones affect it far more than others due to the inverse- square relationship) and maybe the effect is strong enough on each part of the travelling body that it maintains orientation relative to those gravitation influences too (so the car not only stays on the road but conveniently wheels- down as well).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This analysis doesn't address the fact that the flux capacitor on board twisted the rules of physics locally :)

</comment><comment><USER12> There is also no way he could have met himself in the future.

Edit: Unless the time machine was capable of visiting parallel universes.

<comment><USER13> Why not?

1\. Marty leaves timeline to go to 2015 2\. Marty meets Marty-F in the 2015 3\. Marty returns to 1985 and grows up to be Marty-F.

Of course this means that he knew, but that's okay.

<comment><USER14> The problem is that once he leaves 1985 to go to 2015, from everyone else's perspective he would have effectively disappeared. He (and Jennifer) wouldn't be around anymore to grow up and have a family, so there'd be no future Marty or Jennifer to visit. At most, Marty could visit his parents, who would have continued to exist the whole time and would be pretty shocked to see him after he went missing for 30 years.

In order for Marty to go to the future and see himself, he'd need to continue to exist in 1985 somehow. I'm not sure how to reconcile him getting into the DeLorean with Doc and yet simultaneously going back into his house to live the rest of his life normally.

A parallel universe seems like the only way for this to work, despite adding a bunch of extra complexity. It also conveniently allows old Marty to be unaware (to some extent) of young Marty's visit, because old Marty would have lived a life where he didn't take that trip.

<comment><USER15> > In order for Marty to go to the future and see himself, he'd need to > continue to exist in 1985 somehow. I'm not sure how to reconcile him getting > into the DeLorean with Doc and yet simultaneously going back into his house > to live the rest of his life normally.

This is something I've mentally struggled with since the second film came out. His leaving 1985 temporally is an exit event; he ceases to exist in his own timeline. The only explanation I could come up with is that he does indeed visit an alternate timeline where Doc never created the time machine and therefore Marty never goes back in time to "fix" his father's resolve. There are hints about that; Old Marty is still unsure of himself and allows his boss to run all over him, his son took on his and his father's bad traits, etc. The only way this works is if Doc is unable to visit the same timeline going forward, and can only do so going backwards. The problem becomes, if every forward time travel event leads to an alternate timeline (as is necessary for existential reasons), and any changes made to his own past timeline also cause a new timeline to branch off, why is Doc so worried about fixing the past in order to fix the future? They aren't _his_ past and future anymore, just ones he created by traveling through time in the first place.

<comment><USER16> _" why is Doc so worried about fixing the past in order to fix the future? They aren't his past and future anymore, just ones he created by traveling through time in the first place."_

Is it possible that an inventor brilliant enough to have built a time machine doesn't subscribe to the parallel-realities hypothesis, and is unaware of how his invention really works? We'd need to answer this question to get to why Doc Brown cares so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > it's a shame Doc didn't equip the Delorean with Tesla electric motors when > he visited 2015. That would have made things easier considering the Delorean > was equipped with a working Mr. Fusion generator in 1885

He put flying car parts into it. Why the hell would he want some lousy electric motors?

<comment><USER17> Was it working? I always thought Mr Fusion was damaged along with the time circuits when the Delorean was struck by lightning.

<comment><USER18> The Doc specifically mentions that Mr Fusion only powers the time circuits, not the rest of the car. So to get Back to the Present it would have had to have been functional, given the plutonium system was removed between BTTF1 and BTTF2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Enough all ready with this 88 mph requirement before the flux capacitor is activated. All they have to do is point the DeLorean east and the rotation of the earth will do the rest. Not to mention the earths orbital speed round the sun, the suns trajectory round the milky way and the milky ways trajectory in relation to the inertial reference frame, that's about 1.3 million miles per hour in the direction of Virgo.

Besides why didn't old-doc just post a letter to future-doc and get him to bury some plutonium in the desert in the past. Then old doc goes and collects the plutonium and goes-back-to-the-future and collects the letter and goes back to 1785 and burys some plutonium in the desert, then goes-back-to-the future .. my brain hurts ...

<comment><USER2> Well, relativity tells us there are no preferred reference frames. But I believe relativity also tells us that time travel is not possible.

<comment><USER19> There are more plausible depictions of travelling through time out there than using a DeLorean travelling at 88 mph. Take Primer for instance:

"Primer (2004)" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/)</comment></comment></comment>


Boston Hacker News Meetup. Sunday 8:30pm, Miracle of Science Bar - <AUTHOR>

The Boston Hacker News meetup is still on.
When: 8:30pm, Sunday Nov. 4th
Where: Miracle of Science Bar
http://decenturl.com/maps.google/miracle-of-science-bar
From the Central Square Red-Line subway: http://decenturl.com/maps.google/central-sq-to-bar
Top 3 Reasons to Attend The Hacker News Meetup:

1. Beer.
2. Celebrate/mope the result of your YC interview.
3. Talk to other Hacker News readers, founders, and hackers. <comment><USER2> Shoot...totally forgot about this. Anyone going to Web innovators this week?

</comment><comment><USER3> I will probably go. That bar looks incredibly cool.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't be on this one, but I can on Dec. 1st.

</comment><comment><USER5> See you guys there

</comment><comment><USER6> We are in!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm in!

</comment><comment><USER8> hey, we'll be there</comment>


How Google is pushing you to vote for Bernie Sanders - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/09/how-google-is-pushing-you-to-vote-for-bernie-sanders/ <comment> kuro-kuris The way they measure positive and negative politicians is flawed. Republican candidates seem more controversial due to a different political culture compared to Democrats (there is no one as divisive as Trump for example).</comment>


Twitter's odd use of the word 'followed' - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2013/05/twitters-odd-use-of-word-followed.html

<comment><USER3> _I suspect that Twitter is keeping a list of people I followed in the past [..]_

Being a mere sentence fragment makes "followed by X"'s meaning ambiguous. Twitter can have their cake and eat it too, as "followed by" could be either present or past tense, despite what we'd pragmatically _expect_ it to mean in this case. I agree it's a bit weird, although it seems like one of those instances where Twitter wouldn't care since it probably provides users with some benefit anyway.

 _So, I'm not sure why Twitter thought @plan28 would care who @jgrahamc follows_

I've noticed Twitter doing some interesting things in this regard. I create new Twitter accounts in a separate "clean" browser to avoid logging out and I often get myself suggested as a follow. They must be assuming people within either the same IP range or who are geolocated to a similar location would be interested in each other.

<comment><USER4> I think it would be simpler than that - I have not checked but I expect I follow both @jgc and @plan28 and if there are enough then somewhere a k-value will be high enough that suggesting a follower of one should follow t'other will work.

The geolocation idea is a nice one though - I will try and add it to my bag of tricks CMS - <USER2>

<comment><USER5> Geolocation used that way exposes something like a location ("is nearby") without those users even having a choice or being aware. I'm not saying that's what Twitter does, but if it did, I wouldn't find that nice at all.

<comment><USER4> The death of privacy is not nice. But it is still dead, but the corpse is warm so hard to notice.

Wait till governments notice what they thought was secrecy was actually privacy. Total freak out time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who's done a fair bit of translation on Twitter's crowdsourced translation dealio (<https://translate.twitter.com/>), I can say that Twitter's deliberately ambiguous use of language (for various reasons, e.g., as here, avoiding any explicit specification of tense, as well as of gender, number, &c.) can be very difficult to parse in a precise and accurate manner, especially without enough context.

<comment><USER7> I was wondering ... what exactly motivated you to dedicate time and effort towards improving the service of a $US10 billion valuated company for free? I'm not trying to be sparky or anything, it just baffles me. Is there any reward structure in place or interactions with other translators?

<comment><USER8> Translation is one of those things where crowdsourcing makes sense - there's not always a 'right' way to translate a particular phrase, so a consensus between multiple people helps.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Although in my experience it can go badly wrong... [http://opensignal.com/blog/2013/04/26/an-apology-to-our- kore...](http://opensignal.com/blog/2013/04/26/an-apology-to-our-korean- users/)

<comment><USER10> Wow, some people are really immature.

Although this seems like a good example of why, when crowdsourcing translations, you want to get multiple people doing the same language so you can compare their results.

<comment><USER11> > _Wow, some people are really immature._

One man's immature is another man's hilarious. In this case I side with you, but I'm pretty sure if they'd come up with something wittier than "All Koreans are stupid" I could find myself laughing at it.

<comment><USER10> I think that, regardless of what they write, intentionally defacing someone else's site, especially in a way that they're unlikely to be able to easily detect, is rather immature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"Because of this it's worth thinking of things you do on the Internet as public and irrevocable."_

It is prudent to assume that collected data is immutable and not time stamped. Not time stamping data creates value.

My niece has visited my house. Saturday junk mail arrived addressed to my niece "or current resident". A local business paid for that unique lead and for the cost of a stamp. I knew it was junk from afar.

The company selling my niece as a datapoint can probably point to a plausible chain of reasoning showing that my niece once, however briefly, dwelled here. Social networks, smartphone apps, etc. all indicate it.

Twitter's utility for users is a by-product of its purpose. Its purpose is to hit the sweet spot between activity and ruthless monetization. [edit] example: If jgc once clicked on a tweeted link to an article from Time Magazine, then it is plausibly legitemate to say he "followed on Twitter".

</comment><comment><USER13> I was at a talk which explained that twitter has recorded every user event since it was launched e.g. Follow, Tweet, Unfollow. They calculate their metrics by processing every event in bulk from start to present. So yeah - they never throw any information away.

</comment><comment><USER14> _Because of this it's worth thinking of things you do on the Internet as public and irrevocable._

It's worth knowing that things you do on the Internet are public and irrevocable.

<comment> qu4z-2 It's worth knowing that things you do are irrevocable. And often more public than you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It doesn't seem very mysterious. I guess the UI requires that something is in that box, and to satisfy the edge cases where the user doesn't follow anyone, they fill it with other criteria, and use the 'followed' label a bit loosely.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just Semantics. Twitter is technically correct by terming "followed by," instead of "follows." As we all know (and many celebrities and gov officials) with Twitter, a delete button doesn't really exist.

</comment><comment><USER17> The guy didn't delete his account, and is super surprised they keep old data. What did he expect?</comment>


Oracle says 'Google wants to throw its licensees and users under the bus' - <AUTHOR> http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/02/oracle-says-google-now-wants-to-throw.html

<comment><USER2> To summarize: Google is asking Oracle to provide evidence of specific devices that are infringing on Oracle's patents/copyrights. Oracle suggests, and author agrees, that this constitutes Google throwing its partners under a bus. Author goes on to make somewhat questionable claims that this might eventually cause Oracle to sue popular app makers.

 _"Instead of holding Google responsible for the downstream, Oracle might then have to enforce its rights against device makers, telcos, app developers, or users. I doubt Oracle would sue every app developer or user out there, but developers of wildly successful apps could be at risk, and it wouldn't be a comfortable situation for corporate users that have thousands of Android devices in operation."_

<comment><USER3> I made it clear that it's both a burden-of-proof question and a liability question. If Google refuses to accept liability for the downstream, then Oracle may feel forced to go after the downstream directly. Any better idea for how to interpret Oracle's claim that Google 'wants to throw its licensees and users under the bus'?

<comment><USER2> Your interpretation of Oracle's claim is spot on. I am just questioning the validity of the said claim. As you note, both parties are trying to make the current case more costly for the other. The burden-of-proof question does very little to alter the basic cost/benefit calculus of suing Android partners for Oracle.

The liability question (Google offering patent indemnification to Android trademark licensees) is a different issue. While in an ideal world, Google would be able to provide such protection to its licensees, it is simply more expedient for Google to vigorously fight Oracle's claims in court and provide protection to its partners indirectly.

<comment><USER3> I see we agree on large parts of this.

Concerning cost/benefit ratio, Oracle wouldn't have to sue them all. It could contact many of them and some would pay. Some would refuse to pay, and then Oracle would single out one or two or more of them and sue. Just the fact that they make good on their threat to sue would get some others to pay. And if they prevail over only one, they will get everyone to pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Oracle's argument essentially "Google is throwing its partners under a bus because we're going to sue them if we don't get what we want"? How is Google throwing people that _Oracle_ is suing under a bus? Is anyone else reminded of the RIAA's decision to sue people who pirate music? Either:

1) Oracle is bluffing or

2) Oracle really is stupid enough to sue Google's users.

If Oracle really does decide to sue the users of Android, it isn't _Google_ that's going to end up looking bad. People are going to blame the company that's suing them. It would be about the dumbest PR move they could possibly make and would destroy any goodwill they have left in the developer and open source communities. Either way, I think Google should call Oracle's bluff.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seven patents. Seven. The most intellectually dishonest thing Oracle (and Mueller) are doing is pretending that the seven patents involved are somehow evidence that Android ecosystem is reasonably the property of Oracle. Even if the patents are ruled valid, they still represent a tiny fraction of the IP involved.

<comment><USER6> Only takes one patent. I don't know the details, so maybe its some corner that can easily just be cut off. But the quantity of patents brought is generally not evidence of anything, except how long the trial might take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy is the epitome of concern trolling.

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this the liar that had to walk java source code showing up in android claims _way_ back just last month?

edit: to be clear: not grellas, for whom I have the highest respect, but the fosspatents dude

<comment><USER3> Hi earl, I was informed of you calling me a "liar" here and I understand words like that are used in online discussions without being meant personally. Anyway, I had provided links to where the code could be found -- in the public repositories of Android 2.2 and 2.3 (i.e., the currently most relevant versions for smartphones).

And in addition to the general repository, the code could also be found in various source availability packages published by Motorola, LG and Samsung: [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-device- maker...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-device-makers- distribute-oracle.html) Dell and HTC left those files out.

Most of the confusion resulted from a very aggressive blog post by Ed Burnette, who runs a ZDNet blog that officially covers all sorts of software development topics but is overwhelmingly about Android evangelism. I'm an Android user, too; my blog is hosted by Google, and I use other Google services (even Buzz, really). But I'm skeptical of the IP situation concerning Android (and WebM, to be honest).

<comment><USER8> I just reread your original post [1]. I'd like to apologize -- I just skimmed your article and those by Burnette [2] and ars [3]. I came away with a very wrong impression.

The relevant quote is "I have discovered additional material that Oracle might present to the court as examples of copyright-infringing material in the Android codebase" [1]. Which is indeed true. The other articles draw a distinction between code in the repo under unit tests and code that is built and deployed onto devices. Which is helpful to Google, but still much worse than there simply being no Oracle owned code in the repo.

So, my apologies.

It would probably have been better if your original article more clearly distinguished between code in the repo and code that becomes a binary and is deployed onto the android devices, but it was also my responsibility as a reader to pick up on that.

[1] [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-evidence- support...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-evidence-supports- oracles-case.html)

[2] [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java- code-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java-code-or- weapons-of-mass-destruction-found-in-android/2162)

[3] [http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new- alleged-...](http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new-alleged- evidence-of-android-infringement-isnt-a-smoking-gun.ars)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Groklaw's take:

<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110209012513344>

<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110206222954641></comment>


Business model:  improve OSS and ask for payment to release result as open source - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It doesn't work very well. Virtualmin was originally developed in this manner. We made about $10000 total over the span of about a year...and a big part of that was due to my existing relationships with ISPs and hosting providers that desperately wanted a non-cPanel solution to the problem. Very little of it came from people I wasn't already doing thousands of dollars a year in business with.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would this make sense? You make whatever improvements to OSS that you like and then you ask people to pay you so to release your improvements as open source.

You could also release binaries to try to convince people that paying to open source your improvements would be worth it.

<comment><USER3> It's called ransomware.

Fabrice Bellard (<http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr>), who is not your average hacker, tried this model with kqemu and as far as I know, despite the great quality of his work, it didn't work (he finally decided to release the thing under the GPL).

Stephen King tried a similar system for a novel and it didn't work either (he quit writing it).

John Carmack has a model that works: initially release the thing under a proprietary license, make money with it and then release it as open source software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it's big enough, release the software but make people pay for the documentation. That's how NumPy and VTK do it, currently.

<comment><USER2> I know the developer of NumPy. He has a real job (working predominantly on NumPy and SciPy). Documentation sales provide pocket change.

And the VTK folks provide services, and I'm certain it's a much larger source of revenue than documentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> People have tried it, and it doesn't seem to work very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> The advantage is that you would have complete freedom in what you do. It's not like you are working for anyone.

<comment><USER2> "The advantage is that you would have complete freedom in what you do."

Unless what you want the freedom to do is make a reasonable amount of money. I'm not saying don't do it, if you want to be able to work a bit more on projects you love--I've done it several times, and don't regret the time spent or the low figures earned.

"It's not like you are working for anyone."

Here you're wrong. You're working for everyone that sends you a dime, and they will let you know it, too. Open Source users who've been asked to pay are among the most entitled software users on the planet--more even than Open Source users, in general--I'm a (happy) Open Source developer of 8 years, and I've done several ransomware projects and I think it's a great way to get things done...but don't imagine that your users will be particularly nice when you ignore them.

So, by the definitions of many of the folks here at news.yc, it's not a viable business model. Actually, by almost anyones definition, it's not a viable business model. But, it is a fun way to work on projects and make a little pocket money. If you can make the project profitable in other ways simultaneously, like writing a book about it, writing articles for magazines or a popular blog, providing high end services to deep-pocketed corporate customers, etc. you can make a living...I know many people who've done just that, including myself for several years. But you won't get rich and you won't be without a boss--you'll have dozens of bosses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ask payment to who exactly? The 'community'?

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone can contribute to the payment. When it's high enough for you, you would release your code as open source.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Salaries for non-engineering roles? - <AUTHOR> I work for a fairly large tech company that is known to make people work 60 hrs.
I have 10 yrs of software development  (9 years as hands on) experience. Last month I moved from Software Engineer to Technical Program Manager role.
I am wondering what are the salaries for non-engineering/non-developer role?
I am looking for salaries for following roles
TPM (technical program manager)
Product Manager
Analytics Manager
Data Engineering lead (not a software engineer)
How much goog/fb/amazon/apple/Netflix pay for these roles?
You can share anonymously it you want.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> This site: [http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Technical_Program_Ma...](http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Technical_Program_Manager_\(TPM\)/Salary)

has helped me to get a bit around with salaries, but as I do not have much work experience and don't work in the US I cant answer how many you should get paid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Look at Glassdoor, I'm not in US but I believe those roles are paid more than plain engineering roles. People in those roles you mentioned take more responsibilities and direct impact on company growth and earnings.

</comment><comment><USER4> From what I know of people who do those (TPMs anyway) it varies wildly based on perceived contribution and skill set.

Also, what do you mean by "data engineering lead (not a software engineer)?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Data engineering lead is new name what used to be called Sr. ETL developer. People in these roles don't do front end development or api development per se. They work on sql, hadoop, hive, data cleaning operations etc.</comment></comment>


Show HN: done.sh — My first side project, a to-do list for hackers - <AUTHOR> http://done.sh

<comment><USER3> Pretty sweet first pet project! Limited in scope and good at what it does. Awesome job.

Just wanted to drop by and share with my fellow hackers my favorite to-do app I use for balancing a day job, freelance work and family affairs.

<http://www.asana.com>

Check it out! It's free for a group of up to 30 people, imagine that - <USER2> small business would benefit tremendously from this.

Disclaimer: I do not work for Asana.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a really cool idea (and works anywhere with a net connection). But what stops someone from entering my name and wiping out my entire task list?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You're right, currently there is no authentication beyond a simple 'What's your name?'. If I had the skills, I'd like to implement something like ssh's public-key system where the server recognizes you/your machine by some kind of fingerprint.</comment></comment>


Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/15/exclusive-google-nexus-4g-detailed-720p-display-4g-lte-android-4-0/

<comment><USER2> Higher-res screen than a net book, comprable CPU, always-on high speed internet and it fits in your pocket... The future is impressive.

<comment><USER3> If the battery lasts longer than 5 minutes. Sure, you could underclock the device to save battery, but what's the use of all that power in a mobile device if you can't use that power while mobile?

This is becoming a huge problem for the smartphone market. The phones are getting more and more powerful, but the batteries aren't keeping up. iPhones last about a day, maybe 2 with moderate use, and Android devices are all over the place, with some lasting for quite a while, but others lasting only a handful of hours before needing a charge.

<comment><USER4> I haven't really found a correlation between power and battery usage though: battery life hasn't really improved for a few years, but phones have gotten massively more powerful in that time. They only really need to last through the day.

<comment><USER5> Also, i think it's more the display, UMTS and WLAN chips that draw most power.

<comment><USER6> In my current experience (EVO) the GPS and cellular data radios are absolute beasts at drawing power.

-If only my cellular phone radio is turned on I get several days out of a full charge.

-If cellular data and GPS are enabled, my battery life tends to drop down to hours and the phone becomes physically hot (about three hours).

-Cellular data by itself probably cuts my battery life by half or more if left on constantly (about a day and a half).

-Bluetooth has a almost imperceptible effect on battery life (four or five days).

-Wi-Fi by itself probably drops the life by about a quarter or third (about two days).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting how Google has been removing the hardware buttons in favor of software buttons onscreen. I've always like having at least a home button to always be able to exit an app, even if the UI is frozen.

<comment><USER8> The three extra physical buttons beyond Home are my favorite Android features!

\- Menu: It's nice having a go-to place to find options or additional functions. With the iPhone, it's however the app author decided to design his software. With Android, hit menu, it's probably there.

\- Search: Again, having a context-sensitive search button is a big win. It pulls up the URL Bar in the browser, the Search screen in the Market, and the voice commands on the home screen.

\- Back: This is the really big win. Having a constant way to have the phone go back to wherever you were previously is huge, especially given Android's "intent" system. Twitter -> Browser -> Mail Client -> Incoming SMS, and to get back to Twitter I just hit the back button until I'm there.

I'm not sure I could even use an Android phone at this point that didn't have the hardware back button.

<comment><USER9> I think the idea is that the OS will always have software equivalents of those 4 buttons on the bottom of the screen, so you'll always be able to do the things you mentioned. You won't get nice tactile cues, though, which makes me like the hardware buttons.

<comment><USER10> On phones like the Nexus One and Nexus S, the "hardware keys" are raelly just an extension of the touch screen, so the phone uses "haptic feedback" to vibrate the phone when you trigger those keys. I actually like it even better than the hardware keys on my old G1 or on any of my friends' phones since then.

<comment><USER11> Extension in that they are "smooth", but physically, they are separate pieces of hardware (the light intensity of each can be set independently for instance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Phone names are getting confusing. I have a Nexus S 4G, which is significantly inferior to this Nexus 4G. O_o

</comment><comment><USER13> No mention of NFC? I guess we could assume its going to be in the phone I hope?

<comment><USER14> nfc is already in the nexus s. So i guess it's in.

<comment><USER15> I bought the nexus s in part because of it's nfc hardware. I thought that cool new nfc applications were imminent. Six months later, I still haven't been able to use it for anything interesting. The next google phone may have nfc hardware, but until systems reposing on that hardware are rolled out, it makes sense that neither the OP nor potential consumers should really care.

<comment><USER2> <http://www.google.com/wallet/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish the laptop market was having this amount of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hopefully this will address some of the issues with the Nexus S, particularly:

-No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support

-Lack of MicroSIM

<comment><USER18> How is the lack of MicroSIM an issue? As far as I know there's no functional difference apart from the size.

<comment><USER17> Wooops- meant MicroSD! =S

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No mention of the 1 hour battery life in the article. Features are great but so far Google has a horrible track record of caring about the overall user experience of the phone (toward which battery life is a very significant factor).

I'd like to see Google make a battery life claim that is on par with the iPhone and have it come true.

<comment><USER20> My Nexus S lasts several days with regular use, so I don't know what you're talking about.

You probably installed a bad app on your phone that was draining its battery, and mis-attributed the problem to the device.

<comment><USER19> My experience was with an Evo 4G. I tried closing / uninstalling all the apps, and I mostly just used the standard Google and HTC apps.

I sold the Evo and got an iPhone 4 and now I never have to think about the battery. During the few weeks I had the Evo I was caught a few times with a dead phone when I'd been planning on using the GPS to navigate somewhere at the end of the day. Not fun.

<comment><USER21> Google had very little to do with creating the Evo beyond providing the OS. The hardware (screen, battery, etc.) were all HTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Kind of disappointing it's not Tegra 3, but at least I hope it's the dual core Qualcomm Krait at 1.5 Ghz built on 28nm process and Adreno 300, rather than OMAP 4.

Everything else about it is exactly what I've been hoping for: HD resolution, 4.5" screen, no buttons, 4G.

<comment><USER23> 4.5" seems a tad excessive to me. I'll follow you to 4.0", and you can probably talk me into 4.3... but 4.5? Getting a little to close to Dell Streak territory in my opinion.

<comment><USER24> If they follow the HTC Evo design (basically non-existant borders) and drop the dedicated button area I could see them being able to squeeze a 4.5" screen into an almost the same sized package. It's thicker than an iPhone but the surface area really isn't much more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'll be in my bunk.</comment>


Apple's Smart Bike - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662066/apples-smart-bike-could-squash-all-other-bike-tech?partner=homepage_newsletter

<comment><USER2> Ironically, the UCI is pushing to get rid of radios, so the communication side of it is probably here nor there in pro cycling.

I suspect, though, that regular punters will be quite keen. I certainly carry my iPhone when out riding; having one device to map, monitor speed and make phone calls is nice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> iPad/iPod on my handlebars? Yes please!

<comment><USER3> I made a little mount for my ipod on my bike handlebars. It shook the ipod to pieces in short order. When I used to ride a lot, I had trouble finding a watch that would survive on my wrist for the same reason.

I carry my ipod in my pocket. I can't poke at it there while riding but its life is much improved.

I'd be the first in the market for a product that cushions the ipod from the worst jolts of being on the bars and still lets me access it. (This is where everyone responds with fabulous links to products I've never heard of...)</comment></comment>


Political Buzzword Correlations - <AUTHOR> http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/obamas-sotu-clintonian-in-good-way.html

<comment><USER2> This is probably too political to be on HN, but the analysis is very interesting. It makes me wonder whether speech writers take things this into account when writing the speech. It is interesting how Obama matches up with first-term Clinton.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I thought the analysis was interesting enough to stand on its own. Hopefully people will discard the political aspect and focus on the linguistics analysis angle.</comment></comment>


Hackers Breach Medicare/Medicaid Services Portal, Get Data on 75,000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/19/healthcare-gov-breach/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18260628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18260628)

<comment><AUTHOR> searched for the previous version of the title and couldn't find it. clear now.</comment></comment>


An Alternative Theory of Startups - <AUTHOR>

Over the past six months or so, I have developed an alternative theory of startups, in contrast to the Paul Graham/Y Combinator theory. Please feel free to critique (so long as you have evidence). Important points:<p>- The idea that people in small and mobile organizations, who get paid directly for their performance, can be far more productive than people in huge, bureaucratic organizations is not new; it is called "capitalism". Many people get confused on this point, because of all the politics surrounding the word, but the essence of Adam Smithian capitalism is <i>not</i> a few big companies with an oligopoly. It's small, individual businessmen and entrepreneurs competing amongst themselves, in an open and dynamic market where the best minds win. Capitalism allows people, through ownership of businesses that they found, to benefit when they make better and cheaper products, and that's why it's been so successful.<p>- Capitalism came into existence (roughly) during the seventeenth century in Britain, and later on in America and Western Europe. However, in the panic after the Depression, national governments began to seize unprecedented amounts of power, and pass tax laws that favored existing large companies over new entrepreneurs. Hence, we started to see large chain stores, restaurants, etc. replacing individual and family-owned shops. In 1900, it was extremely common for people to own their own businesses; I don't have hard numbers, but I would guess that maybe 10-20% of the population did. By 1960, it was more like 2-3%.<p>- During the 70s and 80s, the government passed numerous laws which started to favor individual entrepreneurs over large businesses again; eg., the lower capital gains tax, the breakup of state-owned monopolies like Ma Bell, deregulation, etc. Hence, we started to see a revival in capitalism, especially in the technology sector. The computer boom had already begun by that time, but what changed is that it was dominated by small companies like Apple and Microsoft, instead of large companies like IBM and Xerox, which in many cases actually did a lot of the technology development work but didn't follow up.<p>- What made the technology boom different from, say, the textiles boom or the automobile boom, was the extremely low capital cost required to enter the market. If you want to build a factory and sell cars, or textiles, or alarm clocks, you need millions of dollars in capital. However, many startups (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Dell) were started with very little in the way of money. This allowed for extremely rapid progress in the technology sector, as competence in business became a more important factor, relative to doing good deals with investors.<p>- In the post-Bubble era, computer technology has largely become a mature market. In any industry, shortly after the industry begins, there is a feverish wave of entrepreneurship and innovation. Shortly afterwards, the number of competing companies gets smaller and smaller through buyouts, mergers and failures, and eventually, after many decades, you have an effective oligopoly. For instance, shortly after the automobile was developed, there were a huge number of American car manufacturers, while by 1980 there were only three left. My guess is that the computer technology industry has now reached the stage where we'll see very few new big companies (Apples, Googles, Microsofts), and most startups will be smaller and will cash out by getting bought, instead of going public. There were at least a dozen billionaires created by technology companies founded from 1975-1985, and another dozen created by companies founded from 1995-2000, but only one that I know of after 2000 (Mark Zuckerberg). Most of "Web 2.0" has been absorbed into larger conglomerates, especially Google, rather than forming new conglomerates.<p>- Computer technology, because it is such an efficient and well-run industry, will always remain a relatively small percentage of the economy. This may sound counterintuitive, but the reasoning behind it is pretty simple. The average consumer wants some basket of goods, [A, B, C, D, ... ]. As he gets more and more of A for a cheaper and cheaper price, his desire for A starts to be satisfied, and he'll respond by spending less money on A and more on B. For instance, most of us nowadays spend very little money on spices, even though in 1500 spices were an extremely prized commodity, because our desire for tasty, spicy food has effectively been satiated and we see little need to buy more. We have seen this pattern many times before. For instance, over the past two centuries, agriculture became extremely efficient, with the result that it is now a tiny percentage of the economy (2-3%), because our desire for food has been satisfied. The clothing industry also became extremely efficient, with the result that it's now a small (< 5%) percentage of the economy, because our desires have mostly been satisfied. On the other hand, health care and education, which are renowned for their inefficiency due to bloated government bureaucracies and politicization, have grown very rapidly as a percentage of the economy. <comment><USER2> Though I haven't read Adam Smith, it is my understanding that 'capitalism' itself does not dictate or theorize about the size of businesses, but is focused on the efficiencies of capital. A few of your points regarding goverments favouring large companies seems slightly mis-guided (though it may be more chicken vs. egg), but I believe it was the power of lobbyists to sway politicians which gave big business these benefits. However I personally believe that the lobbyist power exists due to a lack of organization on the part of individuals. I understand the concern individuals have when businesses get too much power, but lets not forget that the more powerful businesses are most often made up of a large number of people (employees, shareholders, etc), or are influenced by large numbers of people (customers, partners). Therefore political organization should be able to alleviate many of these issues.

Great read though. You've got a great writing style.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why don't you have a blog? I'd love to read more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do, but it was just launched a few days ago and it's not on Google yet: <http://www.rationalfuturist.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I understood your reasoning until the last point.

"because our desire for food has been satisfied."

what?

Similarly with clothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I meant was, if you can buy 3,000 calories of food a day, you're not really going to buy much more no matter how cheap it is, because there's no point: your desire has effectively been satiated. Same thing with clothing: few people with a hundred outfits would go out and buy a hundred-and-first even if it was really cheap, because they already have all they want. I was arguing that many aspects of the Web are already like this: sure, you can make them better, but people are already satisfied enough that they won't pay all that much more for a better version. Eg., suppose you spend four hours a day on Reddit. Is a super-hyper-Reddit going to make you spend twelve hours a day, or even eight hours a day? Probably not, because your desire for Reddit-ness has already been satisfied with four hours a day.

<comment><USER5> > _... few people with a hundred outfits would go out and buy a hundred-and- > first even if it was really cheap, because they already have all they want._

Aren't you assuming rationality from economic actors? Some people really enjoy shopping. (Whether "some" is more than "few" I can't answer.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's not exactly new, that's mostly conventional wisdom in economics/business theory.

Larry Ellison also believes software is a mature industry.

However, I think you and he are both wrong in that respect. Yes consumer websites that allow you to communicate is mature, there's not much innovation that can happen there.

However, information filtering, which is what google (search,adsense) and amazon (recommendations) do is certainly not complete. They use data and machine learning to do their work, but it's possible for a whole lot of people to come along and get big niches in their space by human-designed mathematical models.

An industry where this has already happened is in stock trading. 1- At first there human stock pickers (yahoo directory), 2- then came along automated machine learning, which they call statistical arbitrage (google), 3- and now only human created mathematical models give a consistent edge.

If you look at coming industries like robotics and bioengineering, they're just coming into the google-like machine learning stage (and there are opportunities for software startups), and haven't even started the math model stage.

So yes, if your only skill is building web applications, you're chances of stardom are less than a decade ago, but incorporate more math into your software and there are a lot of opportunities.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you stand using Sublime Text? - <AUTHOR> Whenever I try to watch a tutorial I see the "expert" coder working with either Sublime Text, Atom, Brackets, etc...
I find all these fine text editors for markup or config files or very-simple quick code fixes.
What I don't understand is how people are using them to code?
I come from a background of Eclipse, Netbeans, VisualStudio, etc... Where an IDE is there to help you all the way and un-complicate your life as much as it can, and I might be missing something but I just don't understand how and why people use text editors to code? <comment><USER2> I will preface this with I used to lean heavily to using IDEs. I still think there is a place for them in development, depending on the language/framework you are developing in.

With that said I almost entirely use Sublime these days. Out of the box Sublime doesn't have an enormous feature load. However, you can easily find/add packages to make it your own. You can essentially turn Sublime into your own custom IDE with only the features you personally need and want without all the bloat of a fully-loaded IDE.

Again though, I think it really depends on the language and framework you are developing in. I think it also depends on skill levels. I don't mean that in a rude or condescending manner. I just think IDEs are most often the first entry point into coding for many people. They either become so comfortable with using them (was my case for a long time) that they don't bother, or don't want, to look outside the box for other development environments. This can often lead to relying on the environment for helping with writing the code. Where if the individual does switch to something like vim or Sublime they struggle without the crutch provided by an IDE environment. I don't claim to be some expert coder by any means, and find myself constantly referring to books and Google, but I can honestly say that my skill levels increased when I stopped solely using an IDE and moved to Sublime.

Why did I switch? For a couple reasons. First, I wanted to try something new (I used to use DreamWeaver and Eclipse mainly). Second, I saw more and more people using Sublime and wanted to see what all the hype was about. I still use Eclipse for some mobile stuff, but beyond that I am entirely Sublime.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot depends on the language, for the most part if it is statically type or not.

In Java, for instance, an IDE can do useful things easily because of static typing. It knows what type is expected in what situation, so it can do a good job of autocomplete, automated refactoring, etc.

Now there has been a lot of work on brilliant compilers for dynamically typed languages that can infer types and produce very fast output code, and in theory some of that could be applied to IDEs, but it has not really happened yet.

Often an "IDE" for a dynamic language turns out to be syntax highlighting, a visual debugger that works sometimes, and a button to press to restart your web server. If that is what you run into, particularly on Linux where any distro is going to put some deliberate errors in the GUI such as making the scrollbars weird, you are going to think an IDE a big waste of time. For instance, Eclipse almost works for Java (use IntelliJ!), but all of the Eclipse plugins for other languages are awful.

The exception that proves the rule is LISP, for which all kinds of smart editors have existed for a long time -- however I did a raft of work lately with Clojure and Light Table and I was unimpressed. I thought about trying emacs, but I switched from emacs to vi long ago and don't really want to go back.

</comment><comment><USER4> For me, all I really need are decent syntax highlighting, in file autocomplete, fast global search, and a quick file open by name (CMD-t on a Mac) to be productive.

But, I've been doing 90% ruby for the last 7 years. I might feel different on a large Java application, but even then the speed of navigating around sublime without moving my hands off the keyboard would probably drive me to sublime for most work in that environment.

If you are used to relying on the IDE to do things like extract interface, refactor, auto generate getters/setters, rename methods, etc then sublime is going to be hard to get used to.

As an anecdote, one of my coworkers uses ruby mine and is always using his mouse to open menus and "go to definition" type things but watching him I always think how cumbersome that is and how much simpler and faster a cmd-t then cmd-f is.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find IDEs cumbersome and bloated. It really depends what language you're writing, though. I don't know _any_ Java programmers who can live outside their IDEs, and I don't know _many_ C programmers who prefer anything other than a text editor and some terminal tools.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use vim, IDE is sometimes heavy. and you want to write code and run it from the terminal, instead of IDE, it's an habit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes IDEs are memory hogs.

But assume that I have the newest laptop ever with the best config and I don't have to worry about that. Why would I use anything else?

PS: I use vim/nano/ne daily when SSH'ing into servers.

<comment><USER6> it's your choice, Use what you like, your code will be written in any case (:</comment></comment></comment>


Got 500+ emails in few mins from Airbnb - <AUTHOR> I reset my password for an old account on Airbnb, server error-ed in HTTP 405 error. After that I could login to Airbnb. But on my email, started getting 100+ emails and currently the number is 500+. Airbnb is seriously getting hacked. <comment><USER2> I'm an eng at Airbnb. What is the subject line of these emails? Can you DM me your userid at BMorearty on Twitter?

<comment><AUTHOR> cool. messaged you on twitter.

<comment><USER2> Following up on this: there have been hundreds of incidents of attempted fraudulent access to this user's account. All were successfully blocked by our security systems, which worked as designed.

But we had a bug that sent him a bunch of emails today (one per prior blocked attempt) when he changed his password. That bug is now fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't they have a few summer interns?</comment>


Show HN: Scroll – Search or share articles with clean view - <AUTHOR> https://getscroll.com <comment><USER2> Seems not very legal...

I am sure this is illegal in Europe. There are strict rules for how much one can use from another website (limited number of words plus max size one image).

Google News complies to these rules (without adding its own ads) and still many publishers are battling it... Google News has stopped in Spain last week because it has to pay the publishers starting Jan 1st.

Excerpt of Terms of Service of nytimes.com (just as an example, every publisher has something similar):

2.2 The Services and Contents are protected by copyright pursuant to U.S. and international copyright laws. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of these Terms of Service), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Services (including software) in whole or in part.

2.3 You may download or copy the Content and other downloadable items displayed on the Services for personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein. Copying or storing of any Content for other than personal use is expressly prohibited without prior written permission from The New York Times Rights and Permissions Department, or the copyright holder identified in the copyright notice contained in the Content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the direction. I'll go into more detail about it immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I just launched an online service called Scroll.

      * Scroll can turn news website into a clean HTML view.
      * You don't have to share a URL with fullscreen ads anymore. You can share the readable article URL by Scroll.
      * You can search articles. Every link is clutter-free just before you read. Your battery will thank you.
      * It's mobile optimized.
      * No Sign Up required.

I would love any and all feedback. Be harsh, be helpful. I really appreciate any help you can provide.

<comment><USER3> I clicked on random link ( [https://getscroll.com/r/vl25i](https://getscroll.com/r/vl25i) ), got this [http://i.imgur.com/PwpUs0y.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/PwpUs0y.jpg) (notice formatting)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll take a look. Would you please tell me what web browser are you using? eg. Chrome, IE, or firefox ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firstly, copying the articles and displaying them is very likely to be illegal, although some websites do release their content under Creative Commons or similar licenses.

And secondly, there's two design things that bug me: 1\. The title links on the front page are tiny (Chrome 39, Windows 7, 12 inch laptop screen), and are very hard to read. 2\. Why is the design of the article pages so different to that of the front page? The brown background and serif font makes it look very 1998. Keep the design consistent if possible.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love it. What I'm about to say will not likely win me any popularity contests here, but I would love to see this constantly copying all articles from the most trafficked 10k news outlets. Then we can read and comment on what comes out of the media without putting up with garbage like taboola. Run it as a hidden service. Or just post your code and let someone else do it. There is no way you will be able to run this as a business, for reasons other commenters have discussed.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tried this article as a test, only got a portion of it:

[http://us.cnn.com/2014/12/27/world/asia/north-korea-the- inte...](http://us.cnn.com/2014/12/27/world/asia/north-korea-the-interview- reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I Just figure out a possible reason and will fix soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow ! what an amazing app.

You should make it into a chrome/firefox plugin which allows me to keep a blacklist of sites that will be redirected from your site whenever I go to them. ( like the economist,bbc,forbes,vice,atlantic,etc )

Again, great work !

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the great suggestion. Blacklist is a good idea. And we can even build a new BBC homepage which 'optimized' for reader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I also think you're going to run into legal issues with this. Certainly can't just copy/paste whole articles on your server like that. Good luck with everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. I should researching any possible legal issue before I start building a public product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Font size is looking pretty small on landing page. Chrome / Windows

</comment><comment><USER10> great work, very clean

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad that you like my early stage product.</comment></comment>


Programming error invalidates US Diversity Visa lottery results - <AUTHOR> http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/

<comment><USER2> Q: Why was it necessary to invalidate the names that were selected?

U.S. law requires that Diversity Immigrant visas be made available through a strictly random process. A computer programming error resulted in a selection that was not truly random.

They maybe should be careful with their wording, since "not truly random" would basically disqualify any code based random generator.

Overview of PRNG, TRNG for reading if you're unfamiliar: <http://www.random.org/randomness/>

<comment><USER3> I doubt PRNG is the issue. PRNGs satisfy the criteria for equal likelihood of being selected which I believe is what they want. A truly stochastic process is not necessary.

<comment><USER2> I wasn't suggesting that it was the issue. I was pointing out their QnA section uses the phrase "truly random" to explain why that specific set wasn't valid. Which semantically, "truly random" disqualifies all of their previous sets and not just this one. Their QnA section probably should have been more along the lines of "not appearing random enough".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Posted results have been rescinded and the lottery is being redone. state.gov site links to video with more info: [http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1857622883?b...](http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1857622883?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAGWqYgE~,KxHPzbPALrFGi6o0QhQY9IxyliWBJ3Vq&bctid=942119090001)

<comment><USER4> Important bit that's in the video but not on the page:

>"...[a programming error had caused] more than 90% of the selectees to come from the first two days of the registration period ..."

The registration period was 30 days, and had "many" entries each day. That's... _shockingly_ bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be much more interesting if we knew _how_ the results wound up nonrandom.

<comment><USER6> Maybe something like the following?

      randWinnerID = (int) Math.random();

<comment><USER7> It was much worse, all the "winners" were the people who submitted their applications in the first 2 or 3 days.

<comment><USER8> Do you have a reference? That would be really messed up...

<comment><USER9> It says that in the video message posted: [http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1857622883?b...](http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1857622883?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAGWqYgE~,KxHPzbPALrFGi6o0QhQY9IxyliWBJ3Vq&bctid=942119090001)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _The results were not valid because they did not represent a fair, random > selection of entrants, as required by U.S. law._

How does one get so bad at using random numbers? Surely selecting random entries from a list isn't hard. `entries[rand*entries.count]`

<comment><USER10> If "rand" is generated by a computer and not from a stochastic process, it's not technically random.

<comment><USER4> I'm fairly sure other, accepted government tasks have used PRNGs. So there would be precedence for doing so.

If not, I'd roll a 10,000 sided die, and type it in by hand. (edit: or cow pie bingo. That has a long tradition of unbiased results.)

<comment><USER11> Rolling a die isn't truly random either. Given the same environmental conditions and the same force vectors, you will always get the same result.

I think their definition of true randomness is flawed. It does not matter whether it's truly random, rather it should about whether it's random to a point where it's out of the operator's control and ability to predict.

<comment><USER4> Given absolutely identical conditions, yes. Ignoring quantum effects. But rolling a die is definitely in the realm of chaotic behavior, especially when any reasonable force is applied, so _extremely minor_ changes cause massive, unpredictable end results.

In practice, such precise conditions are _completely_ impossible, and the end result is unpredictable as long as it tumbles enough times. Shake it around in a cup to randomize the starting location, and you're as good as you can get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good: I got rejected, I get a second shot.

Bad: How can the State Department be so incompetent as to fuck this up? Also, why does it take months to generate this? I could do it with 15min and a simple script. Granted, any code generator is never truly random (Newtonian laws of physics pretty much forbid randomness,) but for all intents and purposes they're more than capable of handling a simple lottery.

<comment><USER3> Uhh, Newtonian laws have really nothing to do with this. Its more information theory, you can't get more entropy from what you put in. Also, it is clear now that the Newtonian model is not an accurate view of the universe, and that there are fairly random events such as radioactive decay.

<comment><USER11> There's an interesting article on random.org that talks about just that. <http://www.random.org/randomness/>

This is dwelling into philosophy, but some argue that the universe is deterministic. With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe, you could predict the entire course of everything that would happen in the future.

The key is not to find _true_ true randomness, which can reasonably be argued not to exist, but rather to find a system that is chaotic enough to be beyond control or predictability, and use that to generate random numbers. Weather systems, radioactivity, etc. are examples of this.

Now I don't know much about quantum physics, and I hear that that might be an alternative to that—but my point is that I don't think it matters. A generator doesn't have to be truly random, it should just be random enough.

<comment><USER12> _With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe..._

That's not possible, as stated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The more you know about a particle's position, the less you know about its momentum, and vice-versa. This property is largely agreed upon to be an inherent property of the universe, and not just a technical limitation.

<comment><USER13> You need to look even deeper. Waaaay deeper, beyond the science, more into the realm of philosophy. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is about the here and now, but when you go deeper, with more dimensions, then you're looking past that.

At that point, you're seeing the mechanics that makes the HUP work, the formulas that govern everything, the forumulas that make things un- formulable... Basically, beyond comprehension :)

<comment><USER12> I've read your comment several times, but each time I am unable to attribute any meaning to your words.

<comment><USER14> It sounds like a very poor description of hidden variable theory[1]. Hidden variable theory hasn't been in favor in a very long time, nor is it "beyond comprehension." In fact, I really hate the phrase "beyond comprehension" applied to almost anything because it has a tendency to mystify science, which can always be comprehended and expressed in the language of mathematics.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> According to dutch teletext, the error was a very simple one: not all applicants were entered into the draw. It does not give further details.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why will it take two months to randomly select entries from a list?

<comment><USER17> They probably want to make extra sure that there are no errors this time.

<comment><USER18> That's the problem with randomness, you can never be sure.

<comment><USER19> <http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-10-25/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have they used the same software in prior years also, or is this because of a new software?

</comment><comment><USER21> My bet is that the problem was much worse and more subtle than the other commenter's have noted. They posit a slight imbalance to due to rounding or PRNG characteristics.

I suspect that is it like the problem of choosing values randomly from a sparse hash table. Choosing a random slot and scanning forward to the next empty slot results in a bias where closely spaced entries have a much lower chance of selection than entries preceded by a wider gap.

It is easy to make that same mistake when trying to pick a random record number when record numbers have been assigned in chunks (like social security numbers).

</comment><comment><USER8> I participated, and things looked bad enough when I saw that IE7 _or lower_ was requiered... The Vista boot option, which I never use, alas did not help.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was one of those picked and am really pissed. This is so screwed up! Does your employer ask you to pay the extra monthly salary back when they made a mistake in their system? "NO!". They should have made the exception to re-draw "randomly(!)" among the non winners and give them another chance. But do not take away what you promised because of your inaptitude!

</comment><comment><USER23> uh, imagine if you are one of the winners :/

</comment><comment><USER24> More importantly, for how many years has the selection process not been "truly random"? if it was really fucked up it could even mean some people could never be selected given their name and DoB.

</comment><comment><USER25> They should have gave to those who were selected despite of non-random. Cmon they must be freaking depressed now!

</comment><comment><USER9> BTW, if you win, you have to pay the Diversity Visa Lottery fee $440/person

<comment><USER26> If that's true, it would be a small price to pay for a green card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The Visa Lottery is infuriating. It's almost as stupid as the family sponsorship driving our visa allocations.

The purpose of an immigration policy is to serve the citizenry. Only the most useful and "profitable" people should be let in, period.

<comment><USER28> So much for "All men are created equal," eh?

Over ten million people each year apply through this program for only 50,000 green cards. In a nation of 300 million people, I think we can manage this.

<comment><USER27> Stop and think about how absurd this is. Ten million people apply and we pick randomly, rather than take the cream.

Is this not plainly insane?

<comment><USER29> Given the values that the United States was founded on, in the purest sense,

Why?

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure what founding values you're talking about. A cursory reading of the founders plainly reveals they viewed America as a nation of and for Europeans. Immigration policy for most of American history explicitly excluded non-whites, and often sought to exclude southern and eastern europeans.

I'm not advocating a racist immigration policy, as the US was founded on, just one that serves the people living here. After all the purpose of the constitution is to "secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity". That means the country is for citizens and their bloodlines, not foreigners.

<comment><USER29> I suppose I more mean "all men created equal". And the "American Dream" of coming to this country from nothing and making it big. A meritocratic process, or a process that has a likelihood of being gamed/manipulated/bought, would seem to detract from that possibility.

I suppose, technically, that's not what this country's Constitution has written on it; but, perhaps I'm an idealist and would like to think that, in the hearts and minds of the founders, they were intending to create a confederacy of freedom, and of equal opportunity. Why would the bar for entry into the country be any different?

[edit: finished my thought, then changed wording slightly]</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators - <AUTHOR> https://scholar.harvard.edu/bolotnyy/publications/why-do-women-earn-less-men-evidence-bus-and-train-operators-job-market-paper <comment><USER2> So, it seems like one could just as easily use this evidence to say, "any gender differential in income greater than 11%, is likely due to discrimination against women". I don't doubt there are many fields where the differential is more than that...

<comment><USER3> The data doesn't support such a conclusion. It says that when you fully control for individual choices, the difference disappears. In a different profession or industry there may be different effect sizes of those choices.</comment></comment>


Delta to start scanning faces at airport check-in - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/20/delta-to-start-scanning-faces-at-airport-check-in/ <comment><USER2> More scary: They are just using the information that identifies you, that they already have, and are tying it to your face in a 100% verified way. By which I mean that they now have a database of people's IDs along with what is most certainly a scan of their face.

Now other companies will offer large amounts of money for this data because they can identify you when you enter stores, walk by things, have your picture online, etc.

This is different to let's say Facebook because the scans are made at a booth with professional scanning equipment, not some person's crappy holiday picture with too much backlight.

Also, there is no doubt about who is scanned while on social media you might get on someone's pictures and Facebook will ask "is this James?" Ehm maybe. Not with delta though.

In a few years you will get extorted for this info bacausenif you don't let your face get scanned, you can't fly. Complete distopia.

<comment><USER3> How do you imagine they aren't scanning your passport and driver's license photos, which you _also_ need to fly/drive, and are also "100% verified" — because they _are_ people's IDs — already _anyway_?

EDIT: Re: the "quality" of those photos: Because "they" _already_ have the original image that was printed on your license or passport. Images really don't need to be that big or high quality to identifiably determine your facial features.

<comment><USER4> This is Delta which do not have a copy or scan of your passport - just your textual info..., different to customs which do have this.

Also note that quality of Delta's photo booth will be much better than a copy of your passport.

<comment><USER5> This system was designed by CBP, not Delta. So yes, it has access to the passport database. (See my other post here for details.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice to know that we're just barreling ahead towards a cyberpunk future. I've been meaning to get a mohawk anyways. Shame about neon lights dying off though.

More seriously, the amount of security theater going on at airports is getting out of hand. It's obvious that this is intended to start off optional, gradually warm people up to the new norm and then ramp up the data collection.

<comment><USER7> The airline isn't learning anything from this that it doesn't already know. Flight reservations are decidedly not anonymous, and the TSA already checks photo ID.

<comment><USER8> Yes, and I fully trust Delta to properly secure my facial recognition data such that the odds of any malicious actor getting such data are negligible. Large old "we are not a tech company" corporations and government agencies are just amazing at that :P

<comment><USER9> Don't worry, I'm sure they outsourced it to a 'we are totally a tech company', son-of-a-friend-of-a-guy-on-the-board's shiny new 'cyber' startup.

<comment><USER10> Nah just Indian outsourcing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Title is slightly misleading. This is only for for international departures, since it's tied to the passport + immigration databases. It's not for _all_ Delta flights, since domestic flights are excluded.

It's a CBP-operated system called Biometric Exit, and from what I've heard is being rolled out at other airports, including Boston [1], San Jose [2], and Orlando [3]. So it's not exclusive to Delta or ATL... though this might be the largest deployment so far.

[1]: [https://www.airportfacescans.com/](https://www.airportfacescans.com/)

[2]: [https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/san-jose-airport- show...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/san-jose-airport-shows-facial- recognition-international-flights-google-apple/)

[3]: [https://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2018/08/five- examples...](https://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2018/08/five-examples-of- biometrics-in-action-at-us-airports/)

<comment><USER11> "Biometric exit"

As if in the past this wasn't done by handling back the I94/I94W to the airline or done automatically through passport numbers in more recent times.

<comment><USER12> It is the law of the land since shortly after 9/11 that CBP is required to have _biometric_ evidence that the person has exited the country. In some airports, the I94 dropbox was literally just a dropbox in the secure area, and there was nothing stopping you from leaving as many I94s as you wanted to there, or even just dropping in yours and leaving.

The fact that CBP is just now bothering to comply with the law should be more alarming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just rode regional Air China flight, they were kind enough to announce at the start of the flight "Please notice, we consider airplanes to be a public space, and for security purposes we may record audio and video during the flight."

Interestingly enough, that same announcement wasn't made on the China -> USA leg of the flight. I don't know about airplanes being a public space, but it's definitely private property and companies can and do record on their property for all manner of reasons, marketing will be the primary driver I awesome.

What would audio analysis tell an airline about additional products / services they could be selling customers that are currently untapped?

I for one tend to complain about my seat, mainly mumbling to myself, but if I had a offer to move to any open seat for a $20 fee. I'd take it in heart beat.

<comment><USER14> >if I had a offer to move to any open seat for a $20 fee. I'd take it in heart beat.

That's free. Just move once the plane is in the air. You are free to do so on any plane I've ever been on.

<comment><USER11> As long as it's in the same class as you bought and not a "premium seat"

But yes, it's usually not a problem

<comment><USER15> it's a problem if it affects another passenger (such as moving to an aisle seat that blocked the "free" access to the aisle from a window seat).

Otherwise, of course there's no issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't remember where I saw this burn apparently there is a group of people in the US who called themselves Juggalos or something similar and they where clown make up as they go about their businesses.

It's common for them to paint their chins black and this affects the ML which assesses your facial proportions throwing it off the scent.

I wonder if it'd be possible to design makeup that's subtle enough to fool the naked eye but that would alter your facial structure when viewed by a camera? Maybe some type of reflexive make up that might make your irises look much further apart?

<comment><USER17> Yep:

[https://cvdazzle.com/](https://cvdazzle.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm wanting to express a slightly different view from most of the other comments:

My face is not a secret. The photons that bounce off my face in all forward directions are not my property. _Anybody_ is welcome to capture these photons if they come into that person's possession, whether it's a camera on the street of a facial recognition system in an airport.

I'm very concerned about security and expression in our world, but I think we need to notice which things are _naturally_ public (such as the likeness of our face) and which aren't.

<comment><USER19> Are photo databases naturally public, e.g. can anyone create a photo database and _publish_ it like wikipedia? How about storing for private use against a public facial recognition cloud service? Do citizens have a right to be forgotten in such a database? Do different countries legal systems, precedent case law and constitutions have the same answers to these questions?

<comment><USER3> > _e.g. can anyone create a photo database and publish it like wikipedia?_

I believe there's a site somewhere on the internet that was originally premised on being "a book of faces"...

<comment><USER19> They usually depend on users to upload photos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some people don't realize what terrible things are done "in the name of security". I learned about a couple of environmental projects in my country that caused fatal pollution for residents, + ones in the making. And what is the number one official excuse to build them all in such sensitive areas? For security reasons.

Many people blinded by "security". Should be aware of this phenomenon.

<comment><USER15> > Many people blinded by "security"

it's because the authorities prey on fear. It stops people from thinking rationally.

Security is always a trade off, but what is getting traded off for having some security is never clearly laid out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is extremely common in Australia already. It is required when you check in through customs. I assume they'll use similar vendors.

<comment><USER19> Do Australians have the same laws and rights as Americans?

<comment><USER22> No country in the world has the same level of rights as America.

<comment><USER23> Not even remotely true. America is ahead of some countries in some aspects and behind in several others.

<comment><USER24> You're not saying a different thing here.. even though the parent comment can be read to _imply_ that America has the highest level, they didn't explicitly say so.. </nitpick>

<comment><USER22> Sorry, correction: The USA guarantees its citizens more rights and to a higher standard than any other country on earth.

<comment><USER23> My original reply to you is just as relevant. This isn't true.

<comment><USER22> It absolutely is true. The US has the strongest free speech and freedom of association laws in the world. There is no country in the world that has anything that even comes close to the protection offered by the Bill of Rights. The copyright law Europe passed last week would require a constitutional amendment to be legal in the US.

<comment><USER25> That is a very American comment. I, as a European, really have to disagree completely. I have yet to see any cases in which anywhere in Europe free speech is limited. Or association, in fact there is party litterally called The Party that got elected last time around into the European Parliament. That party is an off-shoot of a German satirical magazine. And the last time a political party was prohibited in Germany was the communist party in the 50s.

<comment><USER26> Racist speech that is legal in America is prohibited in Germany.

Additionally, many video games have had to release versions with reduced blood and gore in Germany, due to laws prohibiting the uncensored original versions.

[http://www.dorkly.com/post/80945/germany- censorship](http://www.dorkly.com/post/80945/germany-censorship)

There are lots of examples of the German government restricting free expression.

<comment><USER25> Holocaust denial is probibited for, rather obvious, historical reasons. Same for Austria by the way, for agin the same reasons.

Freedom of speech and art was, indeed, circumvented for games in Germany, but not Austria.

And whether it is such a great thing to allow racist speech without consequences is everybody's guess.

<comment><USER26> > _I have yet to see any cases in which anywhere in Europe free speech is > limited_

I gave you several cases. Now you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How does the technology, false negative and false positive rare compare to Apple Face ID? How quickly will the system hardware, firmware and software be upgraded in response to vulnerability testing and reports? Will there be security bounties and legal shields for white hats who can perform security tests?

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe I've been asleep for the past few decades, but when did it become vogue to implement corporate Stasi-like surveillance infrastructure?

I keep seeing the sentiment pop-up that as long as it isn't the government building the dossier directly, everything is a-ok.

 _Regardless of the fact that most nations have begun ignoring any claim of privacy being at stake by mere virtue of doing business with someone else._

The lack of follow-thru on the sentiment, and the danger it poses to far more fundamental societal building blocks (good treatment of guests and strangers, trust, forgiveness, willingness to live and let live on an individual basis).

Seems like someone's driving out on some pretty thin ice with one heavily laden forklift.

Nevermind the behavior grossly violating classic human social norms. If I went to someone's door, and started rifling through their house and person to build up a dossier on them, before even bothering to say "hello", I'd likely be shot (not that I would blame them). Same thing if I made the presumption I could do it in a public space for my own self-enrichment (again, would not blame them).

I'm a bit of a stickler for privacy in that regard. If you want info for your own edification, that's fine. If you start sharing it without my informed consent, free of such compulsions as "every actor in this sphere is doing it", I've got issues with that. Especially if a State actor is one of the beneficiaries, directly or indirectly. It's a really bad door to open that I'd prefer stayed where it belongs. In the history books.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hyderabad (India) Airport is also going to start this soon: [https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/rgia-to-go- fo...](https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/rgia-to-go-for- biometrics-do-away-with-check-in/article19927362.ece)

</comment><comment><USER29> >Delta said that travelers who don't want their faces will be given several opportunities to opt-out, Delta spokesperson Kathryn Steele told TechCrunch, and can continue to "proceed normally" through security.

>CBP spokesperson Jennifer Gabris said that only US citizens can opt out, and will have their documents checked manually.

>Homeland Security, which oversees border security, struck a different tone when last year it said that anyone who wanted to opt out of having their faces scanned should "refrain from traveling."

Found the different responses interesting.

</comment><comment><USER30> To one-up themselves, perhaps Delta could also scan faces immediately upon arrival, with a focus on sentiment analysis to get an idea as to how satisfied their customers are at the end of the trip?

<comment><USER31> Then you're dealing with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of sentiment analysis in face-scanning: person may have been pretty happy, until they noticed you face-scanning the people ahead in line.

<comment><USER32> s/Heisenberg uncertainty principle/observer effect/

<comment><USER31> Appreciate the correction!

Always glad for an assist from a Heisenberg compensator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Aside from the privacy concerns, what happens when it doesn't work — when it doesn't identify my face due to problems in the sw or my face is too similar to someone else. What happens?

</comment><comment><USER34> > CBP spokesperson Jennifer Gabris said that only US citizens can opt out, and > will have their documents checked manually.

Why do I need my documents check to _leave_ the country?

</comment><comment><USER35> They do this in Copenhagen airport already, it's pretty scary.

<comment><USER36> I've been through face scanning for several years in CDG, AMS and LAX, during the immigration check. Not sure what's new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Damn. They don't do this in China unless you are leaving/entering the country. At that point they take your photo and fingerprints.

If America is starting to do this, then for sure China will at some point.

<comment><USER38> They've just (last year or so) started doing this for chinese citizens when boarding trains. They place their ID card and ticket on a scanner thing and look into the camera to let them into the terminal. When you check into a hotel, get a visa within china, or make some larger purchases like residential internet, they also take your picture. I've also seen it being used for smaller payments (ie at institution canteens or through alipay at KFC), but that's still not too widespread or mandatory.

As another posted noted they're also running facial recognition on security cameras for "public safety" and there's some propaganda about them finding a wanted criminal in the crowd at a concert and arresting him there using this tech. But I think a lot of the time there's too much bureaucracy to get this system to run efficiently unless the scope is within a certain, limited area (like Xinjiang) or a major crime was committed.

<comment><USER24> That.. is horrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What are the use cases of such feature?

</comment><comment><USER40> So when are they selling our information to the highest bidder?</comment>


NC Startup Statsheet.com announces 30 MLB websites with over 2B stats - <AUTHOR> http://statsheet.com/blog/announcing-mlb-on-statsheet <comment><AUTHOR> Two of the 30 sites that launched today: <http://oaktownbaseball.com/> and <http://friscofan.com/></comment>


Full Disclosure – RCEs in nbox recorder - <AUTHOR> http://carnal0wnage.attackresearch.com/2016/08/got-any-rces.html <comment><USER2> That timeline is insane.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is bad, but all of those vulnerabilities required already authenticated requests. The examples here all rely on the default credentials still working.

A RCE via a malicious packet would be a lot more interesting.

<comment><USER4> It's still amazingly easy to exploit through phishing, etc. Sending an email with a link to a controlled page, etc could easily get an authorized user to send the web request.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh wow, these bugs are absolutely incredible. Bugs like this weren't acceptable even in the 90s.</comment>


Ask YC: New Branding For MIT EF. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mitefbranding.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> hey guys,

im pretty involved with mit enterprise forum. (cto in florida + member in silicon valley). New branding was launched a couple of months ago. Really great job by designers in Toronto. What are your thoughts? Any good suggestions for design integration?

<comment><USER2> Well the text of the logo isn't very crisp, the alignment of links in the menu bar appears to be overly skewed toward the top of the bar, and the paragraph of text isn't centered?

On the whole though I appreciate it when any site makes a move towards minimalism, thats something we should all get behind.

<comment><USER3> Not only the logo text, the whole logo is grainy. JPEG doesn't handle sharp diagonal lines very well.

There is something interesting going on with the logo - each page refers to a different copy of the logo, so it is re-loaded for each new page the user views. Not strictly related to the branding, but something that is not too hard to fix and would save you a bit of bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> MIT's logo is really retro. It looks like something you'd see on East German TV circa 1987.</comment>