We're in the Worst Talent Shortage Since 2007 - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/michael-schneider/80-percent-of-execs-say-entire-interviewing-experience-is-crucial-to-winning-top-talent-3-ways-to-build-it-out.html <comment><USER2>
        40 percent of the more than 42,000 employers surveyed indicated they were having a difficult time filling positions

...

        top reasons driving the frustration included:
          Seeking more pay than is offered

CAPITALISM MOTHERFUCKERS, DO YOU SPEAK IT?

</comment><comment><USER3> By Michael Schneider. Human capital specialist, Astroturfer

<comment><AUTHOR> great point</comment></comment>


Updated MacBook Pros - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/ <comment><USER2> I'm seriously wondering what my upgrade path is supposed to be.

I have an ancient 2011 15" MBP, which was also the last user-upgradeable Apple laptop ever, but I remain hesitant to buy a new model. There is just not enough storage in the new ones, or in models that come close to my old one (1TB+) it's prohibitively expensive.

At some point soon, my old MBP will probably disintegrate or get stolen, and it has features I'm not going to get back. I'm used to having my music, my ebooks, my documents, my photos, and my code with me at all times. It's really convenient.

<comment><USER3> Stop being a packrat and move cold data to an external drive.

Bonus: now you have your data around even if your laptop breaks.

Once I learned to live with a 64GB macbook air, I realized that 90% of the data I was keeping around was not useful.

It's very liberating.

Yes, I realize 64GB of data is huge, but not for modern machines.

<comment><USER2> _> Stop being a packrat and move cold data to an external drive._

How does lugging around an extra piece of equipment that is inconvenient to handle equate to being _less_ of a packrat? No. Inventing time-consuming and frustrating coping strategies just because newer tech is more limited than the old stuff? That's not a path I'm going to embark on. There is nothing liberating about it.

The restrictions Apple currently imposes on us do not exist because they believe we should throw away our data as a matter of Zen. They exist because SSDs have not caught up yet, though at some point they will.

 _> Bonus: now you have your data around even if your laptop breaks._

What does breakage even mean in this context? My laptop right now has an SSD for fast system things and an HDD for bulk data. If one of them breaks, the laptop will still be usable and I just put in a spare part. If the laptop is completely destroyed, chances are an external HDD in my backpack will also be.

It's not like carrying an external backup HDD is impossible just because my laptop has adequate onboard storage - it's obviously a false dichotomy.

 _> It's very liberating._

I absolutely get that shedding ballast is a liberating experience, but it pertains to physical things. I have gotten rid of many, many things in my life that didn't have any real value anymore - including almost all of my books, CDs, and DVDs. The books and CDs are still with me in digital form, which is kind of the point here (the DVDs are, too, but on my home server).

The neat thing about digital possessions is that they can scale very well without encumbering you.

<comment><USER4> "cold data" from OP was probably a key factor.

They're responding to a different philosophy.

Take music: The main case is generally "I want to listen to music that I like" or "I want to listen to (specific) music from (artist)" of some sort. I have 150GB of music, but neither of those cases require most of it as most of it is only accessed very rarely. The music file storage can stay somewhere else, for occasional reference if I want to pull something esoteric from the collection. "Cloud" or an external drive are great for this.

Wash, rinse, repeat for photos, movies, old software, etc.

And when it "breaks", i.e. that single-point-of-failure HDD fails, as they do often catastrophically without warning, the files aren't lost. It's like keeping your will, the deed to your house, baby photos, etc. in the briefcase/backpack you carry around all day. Fine way to protect them until something happens to that briefcase.

It's liberating dropping 3 pounds from your shoulder, as well.

<comment><USER5> > Take music: The main case is generally "I want to listen to music that I > like"

Sure, but that's not the same every day. I don't want to shuffle my music collection around constantly; I'd rather just have it, so if on a trip I'm reminded of $bandname and want to listen to an album, I don't have to futz with downloading it on hotel wifi. To me the cognitive overhead of manually operating some kind of caching scheme, where I purge rarely used files to the archive and then have to page-fault them back in again, is not worth it.

<comment><USER4> I'd be willing to put money on the general person never needing more than a small portion of their library but for the rare exception, at which point a free Scroble-ing service or YouTube suffice. If you reflect, are you really going back to the depths of your music library to find track 11 off that one less-popular (insert band name) album?

It's simply the philosophy that most of the stuff we keep with us on our TB hard drive laptops isn't actually stuff we need to keep with us.

Obviously Apple considers your philosophy to be an edge case to their intended business model and would rather not offer you moderately priced options to upgrade, which is certainly a shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those wondering, they've upped the base specs and dropped the prices slightly. Nothing completely 'new', per se.

<comment><USER7> Additionally the only model with a discrete GPU now base cost $2500

<comment><USER8> For some reason $2499 == €2499 in Europe :/

<comment><USER9> US doesn't include VAT on their price tags if I'm correct.

<comment><USER8> Fair point but ($2499 * 1.2) == ~2250 Euros

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why doesn't Apple ship MacBooks with optional anti-glare display anymore? Is a third party anti-glare matte screen protector useful?

I would like to use the notebook outside too. Using the iPad outside on a sunny day strains the eyes.

<comment><USER11> > _Why doesn 't Apple ship MacBooks with optional anti-glare display anymore? > Is a third party anti-glare matte screen protector useful?_

Because it was not of very high demand, plus it's awful for color accuracy and deep blacks, not to mention that it destroys a lot of the niceties of having a retina screen -- it's literary adding a diffusion material over your screen, that besides reducing glare also makes it more blurry.

Plus, the solution to glare is quite easy: turn the display away from a light source. It being a portable computer, that's quite easy.

<comment><USER10> > turn the display away from a light source

Working outside in nature (country side) or on a train/bus (next to a window), a glare display doesn't work well.

I like to work outside under the shadow of trees and the wind constantly blows through the leaves and shake them around.

A business notebook with mate display works fine in such conditions and the colors are good and not blurry at all (one can always attach a high quality monitor).

<comment><USER11> > _I like to work outside under the shadow of trees and the wind constantly > blows through the leaves and shake them around._

I don't think that describes much of the population. But if it does describe you, just avoid having the sun on your screen. Either find a shade around noon, or keep the display against the sun at other times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For those of you who choose Pros over Airs; why does a Pro serve you better than an Air? Is it because it's your only machine, and you need the hardware to be beefy?

<comment><USER13> Retina. Once you stop seeing pixels, it's painful to start seeing them again.

<comment><USER14> Ì'm waiting for the retina iMac/display, because working without external mouse and keyboard never worked for me (and 15" is probably too small for the desktop)

<comment><USER13> Pity, apple has the best trackpad. My wife is also waiting for the iMac UHD, though I'm tempted to buy a samsung 28" UHD myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The best time to buy a Mac is when you need one; if you wait forever you'll never end up buying one. My work machine died less than a month ago; a little bit annoying that this happened but there's _always_ going to be a better, faster, cheaper Mac in the future.

<comment><USER16> No the best time to buy one is immediately after they release a refresh.

<comment><USER17> That is assuming that being on the cutting edge matters to you. If you just need a machine spec'd to accomplish the tasks that you perform on a daily basis, you buy when your old machine can no longer get that job done (and the smart money might even be on an older model at a discount if it suits those needs).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice but my next laptop will be some Chromebook + ElementaryOS rooted - if all you use is terminal/sublime and browser - Mac is a waste of money.

<comment><USER19> I understand the appeal of a more or less throwaway computer, but I have to add the Retina screen is outstanding, the OS is good enough and the machines are incredibly well built.

My wife was in a car crash about two years ago and, while the car was totalled, her MBP survived with exactly one scratch.

<comment><USER20> That's kind of a weird thing to support that - not that I disagree, I love the build of my MBP... but a) it takes very little to consider a car totaled, and b) as a firefighter/paramedic, the very large majority of the time, even the most serious of car accidents don't result in the vehicle being crushed to the point where a laptop sitting on a seat is destroyed.

<comment><USER19> Most of the back of the car was crushed into the rear seat area. The laptop was in the trunk, inside a briefcase that ruptured in the crash - the small scratch/dent on the corner of the laptop was probably from a shock against a metal object at that moment.

The fact my wife left the vehicle angry but without even a scratch is a testament to the engineers who designed all cabin safety features. As for the poor laptop in the trunk, well... That's entirely thanks to Apple's design and engineering team. That thing is indestructible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> wow, I bought one less then a week ago for £2200 and now it costs £1999 and has more stuff... did I just gifted them £200 or if I complain I might at least get the new model?

EDIT: thanks all, yes I remember asking the return policy is 14 days. I will do that.

<comment><USER22> [http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple)

<comment><USER21> Want to know even a funnier thing? I don't like Apple at all, the last product I bought was an iPhone 3G because I didn't like their business practice but I gave in to the mbp because it's a nice machine and I wanted to expand myself instead of keep developing only on Windows. Guess I was right when I decided to ditch Apple.

<comment><USER11> > _Guess I was right when I decided to ditch Apple._

You came to the conclusion that you "were right when you decided to ditch Apple" because they just put out newer, better models that the one you just bought?

Sure makes sense...

<comment><USER23> Of course it makes sense. Other manufacturers don't release new products until their current line-up is thoroughly obsolete.

The way they achieve that is by releasing stuff that's already obsolete on day of launch, but you can't argue with the ethics!

<comment><USER24> I've been living in the future with my Surface Pro for a while now.

Apple won't catch up to that until they can lock down the supply chain.

<comment><USER11> > _I 've been living in the future with my Surface Pro for a while now._

So Philip K Dick was right after all, the future is a dystopia?

<comment><USER24> I guess one man's dystopia is another's utopia? Because I'm in the latter ;)

I think Apple has brought us closer to dystopia than anyone with their hardware + software lockin monoculture. At least I can move to other hardware vendors if I don't like Microsoft's hardware. If I want to run OSX I have to buy Apple's hardware (and I do when I have to, but I certainly don't enjoy it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In the "mine is older than yours" category, I still program on a mid-2007 15" MBP! I recently upgraded it to 6GB RAM (I don't know why I waited so long), but I now have those vertical lines on the display that are from the internal connector (or something similar). Drat! Now I feel dumb for upgrading the RAM. The machine isn't bad, but replacing the screen is a no-go given that I could buy one on ebay for the price of a replacement screen. And I agree re: new ones' not being upgradable. I'd rather have a relatively bulkier form factor that's hackable, but Apple disagrees. Also, $2K is a lot for me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Am I right in thinking you need to buy the top ($2500) model if you want to do any CUDA work? Or am I misreading the table and all the MBP models have both the Intel and nvidia GPUs?

<comment><USER13> For CUDA HPC work, you really need a desktop/server Linux machine that you can use remotely from your laptop. Only the highest end MBP has a discrete nvidia GPU.

<comment><USER27> Yes to the more reasonable px/performance of a desktop/server Linux backend for HPC. OTOH, if you were doing OpenCL instead of CUDA, the i5 would happily run that as an OpenCL target (albeit more slowly), so that you could do compilation/test dev on any newish laptop.

<comment><USER13> The intel integrated GPUs also support Opencl, though I'm not sure how useful that is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is the difference of the high end models compared to the release last fall?

Only thing I can see is a faster cpu, is there anything else?

<comment><USER29> Slightly faster CPUs, more RAM for some models and somewhat lower prices.

The real update has to wait because Intel's Broadwell CPUs are delayed until 2015, so they're releasing a minor spec dump today to keep customers happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now base 15" model has 16 gigs of RAM, that's actually pretty sweet improvement

</comment><comment><USER31> Compared to my 2011 MBP I Like the Retina, 16GB is nice as a standard but I have that now (and honestly I don't foresee needing more soon). But man would I trade that 256GB SSD for a 2 or 4 TB HDD in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER32> Just add an external HDD if you need the storage. Booting and running your OS off an SSD is a major speed improvement over HDD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I currently have a 2012 MBP/r, but considering getting the Asus NX500. After 2 years of seriously using a mac... I still can't stand it. I feel much more productive in Mint or Windows.

/opinion

<comment><USER34> Thanks for mentioning the NX500 -- I have the 2012 as well, and I have been looking for months for something that could be a better Windows laptop than the rMBP -- I've come up with nothing. I like OSX when I'm a user, but not for working.

The NX500 looks like it might be the one -- but I'm probably filling in the information gaps with hopes and dreams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> summary of changes from macrumors.com:

 _The new notebooks feature faster versions of Intel 's Haswell processors, as all 13-inch models now come with 8GB of RAM standard while all 15-inch models now feature 16GB of RAM. The high end 15-inch model also received a $100 price cut, going from $2599 to $2499._

and this analysis:

 _Today 's minor refresh is primarily a stopgap measure until Apple can launch a more significant update to its Retina MacBook Pro line once Intel's next- generation Broadwell processors hit the market._

<comment><USER36> From what I have read, the Broadwell processors will only be ready by Q1 2015 and not the holiday season 2014?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'll upgrade when I start seeing 32 GB RAM options.

<comment><USER38> Why do you need 32 GB RAM in a laptop? (not criticizing, just asking) I've found with the speed of these SSDs, memory swap is almost unnoticeable anyway.

<comment><USER39> While I can't speak for someone else, I find myself in the same place: I have 16GB in my mid 2010 MacBook and it's not enough when you develop with Xcode (incrementally eats memory up to and over 1GB), have an IntelliJ (~1.5GB) up while having one or two ubuntu VMs running (each 4 GB). Add to that the fact that Chrome eats a terrible amount of memory and all these developer tools running at the same time (kaleidoscope, sourcetree, db browser, xemacs, sublimetext, etc) have their demands as well, and I find myself running out of memory all the time. Fast paging doesn't do the trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just got a Mac Book Air for similar price two days ago. Should I refund it and get these? Will apple refund it? When will these start shipping?

<comment><USER19> You can return it and get a new model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looks like you can get the 13" at close to the specs of the 15" now. Seriously considering downsizing on my next one.

<comment><USER42> Lack of quad core is the only serious issue I have with the 13" now. Hopefully Broadwell will let Apple put a quad core into the 13".

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Does anybody have an estimate for when Airs will get their next refresh?

<comment><USER44> You can reference mac buyersguide [http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Air](http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Air)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Sigh... I'd still like to see real graphics on the 13".

</comment><comment><USER46> £200 more for 128 -> 256GB SSD on the 13" stings a bit

</comment><comment><USER47> Does anyone know what the previous prices were?

<comment><USER48> Archive.org does: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140722172840/http://www.apple....](https://web.archive.org/web/20140722172840/http://www.apple.com/macbook- pro/specs-retina/)

The new base model has double the RAM and a .2ghz bump for the same price.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, a small bump, but still nice. It was already rumored that we wouldn't see a new gen of processors until next year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I hope they will release 12" Macbook Air this year.

</comment><comment><USER50> battery life isn't improved?

<comment><USER51> This is only a minor iteration; they've bumped the processors, but left them at the same TDP, and bumped the RAM. That's about it. Battery life changes will happen when Broadwell Macs show up, late this year or early next depending on how Intel's schedule works out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> if only they could serve warfare tested windows drivers.

I can't believe when people tell me my macbook pro 2009 with 2GB of ram is a "little too cheap" for mavericks or xcode 5. I can't even install windows on it because the superdrive is busted. I managed to install ubuntu, but there's ALWAYS a wifi/touchpad/heating issue.

Not to mention the hardship getting some C++ project working on xcode. (like ogre for instance). Making games on it seems to be a pain since you need to find a way to move around the displaylink.

I won't try to get a mac again. If a computer cannot be nice enough to build C++ projects with, I won't use it. You all are working on web based apps, but I'm clearly not a customer of this.

preference:

1\. windows laptop 2\. linux laptop 3\. mac laptop

It's a shame because the hardware is great, but since apple force feeds you with itunes and doesn't really want you using windows, I'll pass. Their hardware is dedicated to their OSX thingy, and I don't want it.

<comment><USER53> Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE. Xcode is for developing in the Apple ecosystem, but there are plenty of other options on OSX if that's not your target. Nearly every C++ toolchain and editor available to you in linux is available in OSX as well through brew/macports(/fink).

Also windows can be installed from USB nearly as easily as ubuntu.

<comment><USER52> > Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE.

if the native IDE is not adequate, I don't think I'll find anything else. Most native apple things are cocoa-centric.

also the last version of Ogre3D engine is not even available, because of XCode and how apple builds its stuff. I hate hacking through galaxies of makefiles. I've lost patience :) It's just exhausting to rebuild everything everytime there's a xcode or OSX upgrade. I'm done. Microsoft supports backward compatility much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is the same; there's nothing new; the whole laptop market is dead. There's not a single machine I would buy -- the combination of decent keyboard, screen and user replaceable components is nonexistent now. ThinkPads had good keyboards and replaceable components and (unless you want to go back to T60 times) shitty screens. Now they have shitty keyboard, many don't have replaceable components but the screen is good. The Apple trajectory is not better.

</comment><comment><USER55> I needed to buy a MacBook Pro 2013 13" retina for live music performances. The 1000$ soundcard has optimized OSX core audio drivers and Win7 drivers.

Danger: Cynical, heavy stereotyping and biasing comment following...

I can work with OSX, _nix and Win boxes, no problem, but OSX ' interface isn't optimized for simple tasks like cutting and pasting various folders form one to another, where some of them will be overwritten, as there is no merge option and no CTRL+X short cut. Are they nuts? Yeah, I can write a shell script to do it, or I can install XtraFinder and also have Folders on top of Files in lists. But wtf? Is that system designed for idiots and grandmothers? Oh yeah and I love to pay a sh_tload of money for kinda outdated hardware components... Still some things are cool on OSX. It's snappy, fast and it has a decent shell. The retina display is even usable, when installing the 5$ pupil.io to natively switch resolutions for non-idiots (Actually seeing the resolution as xxx X xxx value instead of Small, Middle, Large)

Enough OS bashing for today.

PS.: Windows sux and *nix as well.

<comment><USER55> And I love the fact that the "upgrade path" of Mac users is kind of "buy it, use it until the next gen comes, throw it away". Thats super cool and totally fits into the common starbucks customer, wearing neon colored running shoes while listening music on beats head phones.

<comment><USER56> Except for the fact that macs maintain their value, so selling your last-gen Mac and upgrading to the new one is pretty cheap, all things considered.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What awesome stuff have you come across lately? - <AUTHOR> Digital, physical,.... metaphysical? Whatever it is, feel free to share it here. <comment><USER2> I read about this guy who interviews World War II veterans and his goal is to interview/document as many of them as possible. Many of them may be dead soon and their memories and legacies will be lost and he is trying to preserve it all. The guy is in his 20s.

[https://www.heroesofthesecondworldwar.org/](https://www.heroesofthesecondworldwar.org/)

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRikw4uCjS8ck3O9Mj-N35Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRikw4uCjS8ck3O9Mj-N35Q)

<comment><USER3> You think the creator would at least put a really obvious link to the youtube on his front page.

<comment><USER2> haha yea I realized that and hence I added the youtube link as well. He is still pretty young and I think he is doing an amazing job so I would cut him some slack :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been acquiring some early, 19th century British Printed Patents and using the very large flatbed scanner at the Cleveland Public Library to scan in the giant drawings. Ex: [https://aaronnewcomer.smugmug.com/Cartridges/Pinfire- Manufac...](https://aaronnewcomer.smugmug.com/Cartridges/Pinfire- Manufacturers/Pauly/1816-Patent/n-dc6CWn/)

<comment><USER5> Do you know wow were these technical drawings made? It's hard to imagine nowadays.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography)

I am not an expert on this, but, if my understanding is correct, They would get the original drawings from the patentee's manuscript and redraw them using a Lithographic method.

This method is basically drawing it on metal/stone plate with a wax and then douse an acid over the plate which would essentially make a reverse-etching of the drawing. They then wash off the wax and have the drawing raised in relation to the rest of the plate.

Also these particular ones are neat because these really early ones are actually a linen paper. Some of the slightly later ones I have are regular paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://weboas.is/](https://weboas.is/) is my most favorite new tab page replacement yet. the jank just adds to the cyberpunk feel

<comment><USER7> Nice find. I'd love to just get the matrix background to put on my default browser home page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This guys retro futurist artwork: [https://www.simonstalenhag.se/](https://www.simonstalenhag.se/)

<comment><USER9> I've been a fan for some time. It's really great work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A science paper on a potential molecular mechanism for age-related memory loss: RbAp48 Protein Is a Critical Component of GPR158/OCN Signaling and Ameliorates Age-Related Memory Loss

[https://www.cell.com/cell- reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)315...](https://www.cell.com/cell- reports/fulltext/S2211-1247\(18\)31537-7)

</comment><comment><USER11> 3Blue1Brown and 2 Minute Papers YouTube channels. Very high signal-to-noise ratio on these.

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://xmasify.me/](https://xmasify.me/)

e.g. [https://xmasify.me/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgoalkicker.com%2F](https://xmasify.me/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgoalkicker.com%2F)

</comment><comment><USER13> John Michael Godier is a futurist and scifi author. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI8-W79IsU8LSAiRbDg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI8-W79IsU8LSAiRbDg)

He also has a podcast called Event Horizon. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw)

</comment><comment><USER14> I had never realized how little I know about the RFID tech that I use every day to get into my building. A little Googling and it seems there's quite a bit to learn...

[https://www.getkisi.com/blog/copy-clone-prox-hid-id- card](https://www.getkisi.com/blog/copy-clone-prox-hid-id-card)

</comment><comment><USER15> The Elm web programming language / framework / ecosystem.

What I like:

Pure functional programming - easy to reason about what any piece of code is doing. Works like Lego.

Complete statements. No null reference exceptions. Actually no exceptions at all. Everything is checked at compile time.

Excellent compiler errors. The most helpful I've seen.

Culture of beginner friendliness. So packages have good documentation. Getting started is "elm init". Works well on Windows too. Even had an MSI installer, as well as an npm one.

Seems to produce performing code.

The Elm Architecture which is like React but much better because you don't have to think about immutability. You cannot mutate a reference to begin with. Mutation means new reference in Elm.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.2dimensions.com/a/castor/files/nima/robot#](https://www.2dimensions.com/a/castor/files/nima/robot#)

This webtool to make aftereffects like animation

</comment><comment><USER17> Not lately but I've found this site really enjoyable. It's fascinating the weird stuff that was being engineered a hundred years ago; its essentially the rapid startup culture of today but with steam.

[http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm](http://www.douglas- self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm)

[http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm](http://www.douglas- self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm)

</comment><comment><USER18> * 10th century 7 point mind training [https://www.steamboatbuddhistcenter.org/the-seven-points-of-...](https://www.steamboatbuddhistcenter.org/the-seven-points-of-mind-training/) [http://www.rinpoche.com/teachings/sevenpoints.htm](http://www.rinpoche.com/teachings/sevenpoints.htm)

* Bernardo Kastrup's view on the mind-body problem [https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html](https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html)

* Apache Kafka [https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/insights/2...](https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/insights/2018/twitters-kafka-adoption-story.html) [https://www.confluent.io/blog/real-time-financial-alerts-rab...](https://www.confluent.io/blog/real-time-financial-alerts-rabobank-apache-kafkas-streams-api/)

* Apache Airflow [https://bostata.com/post/built-to-scale-running-highly-concu...](https://bostata.com/post/built-to-scale-running-highly-concurrent-etl-with-apache-airflow/) [https://github.com/etsy/boundary-layer](https://github.com/etsy/boundary-layer) [https://github.com/unruly/terraform-aws-airflow](https://github.com/unruly/terraform-aws-airflow)

* Gaia Project game tooling [http://gaia-project.hol.es/](http://gaia-project.hol.es/) [http://totoman.online/](http://totoman.online/) [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=12186...](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1218649750) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220308/gaia-project/foru...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220308/gaia-project/forums/0)

* Phil Eklund's Neanderthal [http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2018/01/16/kickstarter-...](http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2018/01/16/kickstarter-alert-interview-with-phil-eklund-on-neanderthal-and-greenland-his-deeply-immersive-science-games/)

* DAG projects like HashGraph and ByteBall [https://hashgraph.org/](https://hashgraph.org/) [https://byteball.org/](https://byteball.org/)

<comment><USER19> Can you tell me more about the 10th century 7 point mind training

<comment><USER18> It's not about enhancing memory or attention, although it might be a side- effect. Meditation is better for that. Lojong is a Mahayana Buddhist practice aimed to re-orient your basic outlook, intentions and attitudes in life and prepare you. It consists of 59 aphorisms which are attitudes in themselves with various explanations spanning pages throughout the centuries (like bible verses). They are grouped in 7 categories or factors. A few of them you probably know already.

Slogan 13. Be grateful to everyone. Slogan 22. If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained. Slogan 29. Abandon poisonous food. Slogan 35. Don't try to be the fastest -- Don't compete with others. Slogan 36. Don't act with a twist -- Do good deeds without scheming about benefiting yourself. Slogan 37. Don't turn gods into demons -- Don't use these slogans or your spirituality to increase your self-absorption Slogan 56. Don't wallow in self- pity. Slogan 57. Don't be jealous. Slogan 59. Don't expect applause. etc.

Supposedly it took the one writing it down more then a decade to master them all. You can read more about them in the links I provided or the wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ketosis

<comment><USER21> unhealthy

<comment><USER22> say more please

<comment><USER21> I wrote some things that made me reconsider keto diet here [https://github.com/qnsi/open_source_guides/blob/master/ketos...](https://github.com/qnsi/open_source_guides/blob/master/ketosis.md)

I think if your goal is rapid weight loss it might work fine, but I think for long-term more vegetarian diet might be better.

<comment><USER23> Any suggestions on a weight loss diet other than keto? I've heard mostly praise about the diet, but personally I don't think I could go full vegetarian.

<comment><USER21> Please note that I am by no means an expert, just writing what works for me.

I think you pretty much have to do calories counting, at least at the start, until you get to know how much calorie something is. Probably not suitable for long-term, as it gets tedious. But good to cut on snacking etc. Don't overdo your calorie deficit, as it can slow your metabolism too much.

One thing that kinda works for me, is eating food high on satiety index.

I drink this smoothie everyday [https://www.foundmyfitness.com/reports/micronutrient- smoothi...](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/reports/micronutrient- smoothie.pdf), but you have to drink it slowly and best to use a straw not to destroy your teeth. I prefer smoothie form because I wouldn't be able to eat that many greens otherwise. (Also numbers she gave is for 2 smoothies) It's about 500kcal and pretty satiating. Without fruits, you could fit it into keto just barely and you can skip the apple and banana, but I would stay with blueberries as they are super good food.

Apart from the smoothie, I eat some kind of meat + veggies for lunch, and I stick to the eggs for dinner + I finish my smoothie (I drink 2/3 for breakfast). So I am not following a vegetarian diet, but I added a lot of veggies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Beefalo: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefalo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefalo)

</comment><comment><USER25> this bloag

[https://aeolipera.wordpress.com/](https://aeolipera.wordpress.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Polyethylene oxide, or PolyOx powder, used as the lubricant on shavers and also as an ingredient in cosmetics, relatively harmless. Not alkaline like soaps, good lubricant, gelling agent, kid's slime. Whip up a batch and add the wicks from flourescent yellow highlighters to soak out the dye, use a $10 UV- LED flashlight in a dark room.

UV-LED 100 LED flashlights from China, Alibaba like 1/3rd the price compared to Amazon, detect urine stains around toliet and pets on carpet, detect scorpions, detect fake money, underwater reefs light up like psychodelic when night diving, amaze your friends.

24 oz. CO2 Paintball tanks for $20, plus screw valve blaster kit for $20. Turn upside down and blast dry ice powder to freeze / cool off anything without dangerous flourocarbon related gases which can destroy the ozone layer. Cheaper than flourocarbons also at $4 a fill. We all breathe out CO2 every breath, so don't go off on me about adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it's a natural, just stop burning fossil fuels and plant more trees (or fertilize the oceans)

<comment><USER27> Ok you win the award for "Best Tangent Rant" for the CO2 bit at the end

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> BBC's "Life" documentary is absolutely mind-blowing. The footage they managed to get is unbelievable. It's on Netflix and I could not recommend it enough.

<comment><USER29> I watch them to fall asleep. At this point David Attenborough has become my Dad</comment></comment>


Who is to Blame? Can Ayn Rand Survive the Economic Crisis? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/173514/page/1 <comment><USER2> Cue the "Ayn Rand can never fail us, it is we who failed her.", Chorus.</comment>


The Simple Example of the Double Tetris Lamp - <AUTHOR> https://barronwasteland.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/527/

<comment><USER2> Hey, original Tetris proof guy here. Glad to see it works with two lamps! However, since the 'one of each colour' property is a necessary property for a rectangular arrangement to exist, not a sufficient one, simply having the 'same number of colours' doesn't mean that such an arrangement definitely exists. (It's pretty easy to think of an example of a set of pieces where one doesn't, but the property is satisfied).

The fact that an arrangement does exist in the two lamp case is neat though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh certainly. I thought I'd explained my thought process but what I meant was that "Since the same number of colors exists then a arrangement may exist" and given that it may a brute-force type approach was taken to confirm that one indeed does</comment></comment>


Barbie Fucks It Up Again - <AUTHOR> http://pamiedotcom.tumblr.com/post/102960377050/barbie-fucks-it-up-again

<comment><USER3> Disappointing book and disappointing voting that saw both submissions of this post buried so quickly - this one was on the front page #30 when I got up for a stretch and buried among weekend posts at #147 when I got back.

I expect this sort of thing is hard for lots of people - those without kids - to empathize with. I doubt I spent much time thinking about such things prior to having a child.

Now though, it has become really clear to me how common stereotypes about gender, race and the like are among things aimed at children.

It's not that this one book is going to ruin someone or that any of the silliness it presents is so awful or dangerous.

It's that those ideas are pervasive, that even if you're filtering what you provide directly to your kids they're still indirectly affected by it - <USER2> ever present cloud of nudges and judgments about everything from choice of colors, toys, aspirations and even now how to use computer.

It's ridiculous and wasteful.

<comment><USER4> I think the reason the other post got killed was because the site it linked to went down. This one links to a mirror on tumblr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625092)

</comment><comment><USER6> Great article, the book is face-palming-with-a-log-of-wood-stupid. Groan.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is certainly frustrating. I can't believe how close the author got to providing some positive reinforcement before missing the point entirely.

</comment><comment><USER8> Completely worth the time to read. Thank you.</comment>


AWS and EU Safe Harbor - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.aws.amazon.com/security/post/Tx3QAALRNBIK9K1/Customer-Update-AWS-and-EU-Safe-Harbor <comment><USER2> Attempt at layman's terms:

The EU requires that data processors (like AWS) comply with certain privacy practices in order to transfer data between the EU and non-EU countries.

Much like HIPAA, the mechanism the EU uses is the requirement of a private contract. Here, it's called a Data Processing Addendum. In HIPAA, it's called a Business Associate Agreement.

Source: CEO of a private HIPAA PaaS on AWS, running EU customers w/ this Data Processing Agreement in place

<comment><USER3> Perhaps with your level of familiarity with HIPAA, this is layman's terms, but for people who might not even know what HIPAA is about, this is far out from layman's terms.

The first sentence kinda made sense, but the second one just made it far less clear in my opinion. Why should a layman care what it's _called_ (or what the equivalent name might be in another form of regulation?). They're trying to understand what it's _about_. No?

For the record, I do know what HIPAA is (broadly), but unfortunately still don't think this explanation makes it easier for me to understand. If I was being cynical, I would say that the entire reason you posted the comment was to self-promote your HIPAA PaaS on AWS. I didn't downvote it to give you the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER4> > If I was being cynical, I would say that the entire reason you posted the > comment was to self-promote your HIPAA PaaS on AWS.

Haha that seems harsh. He didn't name the service after all.

<comment><USER3> > Haha that seems harsh. He didn't name the service after all.

It's only a click away to find out, and I'm not against self-promotion and plugging your service when it makes sense (although I find it better when it's acknowledged as such).

As I also said, I do want to give the benefit of the doubt, but I felt that the comment can easily be interpreted as empty self-promotion without much substance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How can this work?

If the point of the law and recent court decisions is that data must not be available to US intelligence, then obviously the AWS US datacenters should not be a suitable choice, and the non-US ones probably shouldn't be either (since there is no way to prevent the US employees from covertly accessing them).

Are there loopholes in the law/court decisions?

<comment><USER6> If "company X" (a customer of Amazon) is sharing EU citizens data through amazon AWS to the US, who is sharing the data? Amazon or "company x" ?

Amazon has approval from EU data protection authorities, but "company X" apparently doesn't need approval?

<comment><USER7> I don't have a concrete answer to that, but my experience in the online advertising industry and the associated laws tells me that it is the end-user facing company that is going to get the blame in case something goes wrong. They might get away with it in case they really, really did their due diligence and were unable to be aware of any wrongdoing, but that's going to be hard to prove.

For example, if a publisher decides to make money using some shady ad network, and that ad network distributes malware / violates privacy rules / whatever, the publisher is the one that's going to hang for it, not the ad network. This will mean that publishers are naturally incentived to get really good guarantees that the ad network (or, more relevant to this point, the hosting company) isn't violating any laws. I suppose there will be some standardized compliancy test that these hosting companies will be doing to give their clients some assurance that it's safe to host their data with them.

In the end, I think this is good for EU citizens, and sucks for the people who have to deal with the laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ...and now the advantage is political, not technical. This is a bad road to follow, EU bureaucracy is a destructive force.

<comment><USER9> _> EU bureaucracy is a destructive force._

It's a defensive force in this case.

Have people suddenly forgotten what happens with data in the US?

<comment><USER10> > Have people suddenly forgotten what happens with data in the US?

I am afraid that this EU law will not protect your data against those who made the laws.

<comment><USER11> It's not all about the US government, though.

US companies act fast a loose with personal data even when the US government is nowhere to be seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can anyone explain in layman's terms how Amazon have managed to exempt themselves from this regulation?

<comment><USER13> Model Clauses/Contracts ([https://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/Model- Contracts/38.htm](https://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/Model-Contracts/38.htm)) are an alternative method of satisfying EU data protection requirements in dealing with overseas data transfers. Amazon, like Google and many other multinational technology companies, have adopted these in years past.

What this posting means is that __* from Amazon 's perspective __* they are compliant with Directive 95 /46/EC ([http://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...](http://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:en:HTML)), which established (for the EU) these regulations.

What it doesn't mean is that customers of Amazon are also compliant, because Amazon has no clue what types of data they are processing, what they are doing with it, and where they are putting it. They are wisely advised to consult counsel to ascertain this fact.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure they still comply for the UK Data Protection Act. According to the Information Commisioner Office [https://ico.org.uk/for- organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...](https://ico.org.uk/for- organisations/guide-to-data-protection/principle-8-international/) :

> A company in the UK uses a centralised human resources system in the United > States belonging to its parent company to store information about its > employees.

or

> A travel agent sends a customer's details to a hotel in Australia where they > will be staying while on holiday.

> If you intend information on the website to be accessed outside the EEA, > then this is a transfer.

This means if your data can be accessed outside the EEA e.g. you access your on-premise CRM on your African holiday, you are likely to void the Principle 8.

<comment><USER11> The ICO is a member of the Article 29 Working Party (the WP is made up of a representative from each of the 28 EU Member States + the European Commission and EU bodies dealing with data protection, as detailed in Article 29 of the Data Protection Directive).

The WP is designed to make sure that Member States' Data Protection Authorities apply the DPD in a roughly uniform manner.

Of course, if the ICO deviates from the DPD then any party is able to appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal, the Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal who may then refer any questions of EU law to the ECJ in a similar way to Schrems' case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean that Amazon can transfer customer data (their AWS customer) outside the EU (like address and email ets.), but it does not mean that AWS customers can move their customers data outside the EU?

Comments here seem to mixed things up.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure I understand the announcement, my head is spinning a bit from the bureaucrat-speak but...does it in essence read

1) Amazon is compliant because they have a special (political!) deal in place

"""AWS has already obtained approval from EU data protection authorities (known as the Article 29 Working Party)"""

2) Amazon (or AWS customers) can still transfer EU data to the US

""" [...] can continue to use AWS to transfer their customer content from the EEA to the US, without altering workloads, and in compliance with EU law.?"""

+

"""[...] to enable transfer of personal data outside Europe, including to the US with our EU-approved Data Processing Addendum and Model Clauses."""

If so I'm worried.

<comment><USER17> I bet (EU citizen here) that agreement is some oind of official "certification" which a storage firm can acquire via a (probably long and winding) bureucratic process.

Lots of those here.

Kind of "civil blessing".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Location of YC Companies? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know of a list of where each YCombinator company is located?  Or even better, a map?  I ask because I am job hunting and would like to see what's going on in the south bay. <comment><USER2> <http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies.php>

Locations aren't there for all the companies. However, if you click on the Crunchbase link for each company, it will usually have their wear-abouts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you looking specifically just for YC companies? Which position?</comment>


Homeland Security Was Destined to Become a Secret Police Force - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-dhs-was-destined-to-become-a-secret-police-force <comment><USER2> Related to these mysterious federal agents in unmarked cars, I've often wondered how private citizens are supposed to protect themselves against someone impersonating law enforcement.

In this case, the 'officers' were not even dressed as law enforcement, and either way, it is not very difficult to produce a reasonably convincing replica of a uniform. How can you make sure that you are dealing with actual law enforcement, when you submit yourself to them, they cuff you, take your stuff, drive you away, etc.?

"Can I see your badge?" doesn't seem very effective, given that a badge can easily be faked, but more importantly you'd probably, for good reason, be too afraid to even ask. Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to submit to anyone in a uniform? And does this not seem ripe for abuse to everyone else?

<comment><USER3> > Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to > submit to anyone in a uniform? And does this not seem ripe for abuse to > everyone else?

The snarky answer is: if people with guns come up to you and tell you to come with them, you should probably comply, especially if they aren't cops. But really you raise a good point, one that the ACLU's lawsuit explicitly brings up.

I recall a case (I think in Myrtle Beach) where some police officers broke conducted a no-knock warrant to arrest someone, but they did so in plain clothes and did not announce that they were officers and that the person was under arrest. The person, fearing for his safety, came out of his bedroom with a gun and the officers shot him multiple times. He later sued. I remember the opinion from the judges was absolutely scathing. They held that the officers would be personally liable for damages (i.e. the would have to pay this guy out of their own pockets, not just the city). I recall listening to oral arguments and at one point the defense rhetorically said something to the effect of "he had a gun, were the officers supposed to just stand there and get shot?" And the judges essentially responded "yes".

Now part of that conclusion rested on the fact that he has a right to defend his home, and there's some specific case law there ( I believe Heller calls out defending your home specifically). But I wouldn't be surprised if it was perfectly legal to refuse to go with someone who does not identify themselves, and even to respond with force if they assault you. But it's probably not the wisest thing to do. Best thing to do would probably be to record them and take legal action. I think the craziest thing about this is that the people getting arrested by these weird federal agents are all being released within hours without charges, because these arrests violate all normal procedures. Actually I kind of wish they would try to prosecute these protesters. Because you have the right to face your accuser, and during discovery all of the information about who these people are and who ordered them to do what would come to light.

<comment><USER4> If I were a malicious government I might start off by grabbing people off the street then releasing them, to get people used to the idea that "it's not so bad" and "don't struggle, they'll let you go without charge". After that narrative has had time to sink in (days? weeks?), I'd redirect the people I'd grabbed somewhere they weren't going to be released from instead. Not all at once, mind, because if most, or at least some, or maybe one or two are still getting released like before, there'll be confusion about what's actually going on and violent resistance won't crystalise. Especially if it's random, and there's no way to tell if someone's lost and hasn't turned up after release, or if they've been vanished.

<comment><USER5> IMO the catch and release is because they're fishing for the ones they can make the strongest legal case for federal jurisdiction. Out of staters, social media posts, cell location history, some other connection with the courthouse, etc. Once they get some favorable precedents, they'll ramp it up.

<comment> no-s >>IMO the catch and release is because they're fishing for the ones they can make the strongest legal case for federal jurisdiction.

or maybe its just a subterfuge. maybe the catch and release was to disguise interaction with confidential informants or undercover agents...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

-Martin Luther King Jr.

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution)

<comment><USER8> ... And? Did you post this in the wrong thread, or do you want to imply something about the French Revolution's relevance to the above quote but can't be bothered to explain your point? The French Revolution began as a bloodbath and ended in Napoleon rampaging across Europe, so it would seem like a case in point. Is that what you meant?

<comment><USER7> French Revolution is a perfect counter example nullifying MLK point. Yes, a lot of violence and chopped heads can in fact establish better future for all.

<comment><USER9> ...the French revolution led to Napoleon though, and several more wars after. Did they cause the better future? Was the substantial violence and ethnic cleansing _following_ WW2 part of that future? I am far from an expert on the subject but I've yet to hear the argument you are presenting. Curious to hear a more substantive version of it.

<comment><USER7> French were already war happy without Napoleon. 30 year war, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, then we get to French and Indian War and American Revolution. If anything Napoleonic Wars brought peace and introduced never seen before liberties. Obviously being a Pole makes me strongly biased. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Warsaw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Warsaw)

<comment><USER10> > _If anything Napoleonic Wars brought peace_

I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not.

<comment><USER7> You'd know if you were Spanish, British or French.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is speculation [1] that the federal officers deployed to Portland include not only government employees, but also private security contractors. This seems reminiscent of "Pinkerton's National Detective Agency". If accurate, this undermines the legitimacy of the deployment, and perhaps explains why official identification for many of the officers is not provided.

[1] [https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency- respondi...](https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency-responding- to-protesters-in-portland-employs-thousands-of-private-db137349f8b0)

<comment><USER12> In such a case, shouldn't this be a good application for facial recognition software?

These federal police should show up in databases confirming their identities, whether that's a federal db or a relatives FB page.

Maybe we should be using ClearView AI to keep the police honest.

<comment><USER13> The police cover their faces, and make face coverings illegal. In the past, this has worked very well; the main change now is that we have a social expectation that law-abiding folks will wear face coverings, and in even more of an inversion, folks without face coverings are suspect.

In neither situation would facial recognition systems make things better for the populace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The key point this writer is making

> we are watching the perfect and perhaps inevitable combination of a > domestic-security superagency and a President who rejects all mechanisms of > accountability, including the Senate confirmation process.

Accountability appears to be broken with a two party system.

Combined with a President who's willing to push boundaries and a federal agency built to act more swiftly with broader powers, we could see a lot more civil strife before this term is up.

<comment><USER15> I think the presidential system is also a factor; it makes it a little too obvious and immutable where the blame lies. In a parliamentary system, there's much more scope for the ruling party to resolve this sort of thing by, say, quietly sacrificing the minister for justice, without much blame attaching to the PM (even if it's their fault to begin with). In a presidential system it's harder to do this without criticising dear leader. I can't imagine many republican leaders are actually very happy about this whole mess, but very few of them are willing to publicly break ranks and they have limited ability to check the executive even if they do.

<comment><USER16> >I can't imagine many republican leaders are actually very happy about this whole mess, but very few of them are willing to publicly break ranks

I think this is one of the most fundamental factors in the breakdown at higher levels of discourse. Most liberals I personally know used to put a strong emphasis on benefit of the doubt and pragmatism when it came to judging Republican leadership - there was always plenty of strong criticism, but there was also a lot of "well, in such-and-such case, they are just doing what they honestly think is best for the country". But that attitude is now utterly gone, because of the silence of such leaders on the incredibly overt hatred and unreasonableness of Trump and other proponents of spite-motivated authoritarianism. They still have plenty of good faith for _Republicans_ , but what's changed is that they now have absolutely zero for Republican _leaders_. What's happening is awful.

<comment><USER15> That has, looking from the outside, been one of the weirdest aspects of the whole Trump thing to me. Traditionally, prime ministers in parliamentary systems are _terrified_ of their own parties; it's their own party who can most conveniently get rid of them, and even very popular leaders will be conscious of this. I understand that it's less so in the US system (as it's much harder for the party to get rid of the president) but even still, the level of support for Trump by republican leadership seems bizarre.

Like, there _have_ to be quite a few of them who have misgivings about this (either on a 'this is wrong' basis, or, more cynically, on a 'we will suffer for this electorally' basis), but practically none have voiced any.

<comment><USER17> The President of the US is elected by the people, not his party. The only thing the party can do to the president is to sabotage the next election and give it to the opposite party. While Democrats probably think its a rational thing for Republicans to do, some Republicans might disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm confused. Did people attack federal buildings or not? If they did, is it expected that local police should intervene? If local police should but didn't, is it lawful that federal agents moved in? There are streams of videos that showed there were two groups: those who held peaceful protest before 1:00am or so, and those who rioted after 1:00am. Are those video telling the truth? Or are they edited out to mislead us? When did the federal agents move in? Did DHS director tell the truth in DHS' public debriefing? Did the video about riots played by Kayleigh McEnany tell the truth?

Or all I saw are a bunch of alt-right propaganda? Or violence is the voice of unheard so by asking these questions I'm a disgusting evil person? And no, those are not rhetorical questions. I honestly don't have answers. For one, the so-called "arson" in front of the courthouse looked so small. It looks just a bunch of people burning cardboard for fun or for protesting. Probably still illegal, but I wouldn't call it violent or arson.

<comment><USER19> It certainly doesn't help that the right wing of the twitter-verse keeps posting videos and images of riots in other decades and countries and attributing them to Portland. It's such a bizarre mindfuck seeing repurposed videos from Ukraine or South America presented as the north west.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, especially when trustworthy news and facts are all the more important now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A particularly nasty case of nominative determinism; giving it such an obviously sinister name was never going to work out well.

</comment><comment><USER20> Of course it was. I've even referred to it as the "Department of Motherland Security" since its inception.

</comment><comment><USER21> > The creation of the D.H.S. marked a shift in the way that Americans think > and talk about the country, and about people.

Oh, please.

We went from being "these United States" to being "the United States" after the Civil War, and not without reason.

A century back, under Wilson, we brought in 16A, 17A & the Federal Reserve.

If there is substantial interest in redistributing power, not wealth, via Washington D.C., then we need [https://conventionofstates.com/](https://conventionofstates.com/)

Anything less is so much Mary Kay on the swine herd.

</comment><comment><USER22> Every so often, I look at a headline and think to myself before clicking:

To VPN, or not VPN: that is the question.

<comment><USER23> I imagine that for such a threat model as you imply, a VPN would do rather little.

<comment><USER24> Depends on the country the VPN provider is based out of.

While there are many soft power actions like blocking payments etc to outright hacking American LEA can do to extract data from other countries orgs but legally there are no tools like NSL and FISA courts to get it .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The premise of the article has almost nothing to do with current events.

One can dislike how/why DHS was created and also believe that order needs to be restored the area by the feds.

As for the "unmarked cars" picking people up, what is actually happening to these people? Is it catch and release? It seems pretty tame to me.

Should they just let the protesters/rioters burn down the courthouse?

As to whether they are protesters or rioters, ask whether you think Peter Schiff could do what he did during occupy and stroll into the crowd attempting to debate and defend capitalism with the folk (which I think he failed to do at all, but more just the fact he was able to try it there is significant)? The answer is of course not; he'd probably be beaten or severely injured.

<comment><USER6> >As for the "unmarked cars" picking people up, what is actually happening to these people? Is it catch and release? It seems pretty tame to me.

Its illegal to detain people for no reason. How will you feel when it happens to you?

> Should they just let the protesters/rioters burn down the courthouse?

That is an interesting perspective. And its one that a lot of people currently hold toward the police. Does one (or even a few) bad apple spoil the bunch?

Do you think that protesters like the Navy Vet, Naked Athena, the Wall of Moms, and even the Mayor of Portland really want to burn down a Federal building?

<comment><USER25> > Its illegal to detain people for no reason.

I agree and I find these events troubling. But I also want to put them in perspective.

> Does one (or even a few) bad apple spoil the bunch?

I don't understand the point you're making here.

> Do you think that protesters like the Navy Vet, Naked Athena, the Wall of > Moms, and even the Mayor of Portland really want to burn down a Federal > building?

As another commenter said, there are about 3 different groups with different adgendas operating in the area.

<comment><USER6> Who exactly is calling for the the courthouse to burn? That is my point, while there may be some troublemakers the vast majority are not. While some find calls to defund the police offensive, others find the call to stop people from exercising their rights offensive.

<comment><USER25> > Who exactly is calling for the the courthouse to burn?

The point of a mob is that having diffuse boundaries there is no central leader, planning, or accountability

<comment><USER6> > there is no central leader, planning, or accountability

So the response should be police with no identification, planning, or accountability? And assault everyone?

<comment><USER25> > police with no identification

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feds-unmarked-vans- portlan...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feds-unmarked-vans-portland/)

If this happened at all, there have only been 2 _possible_ cases, and given that extent, we are not talking about a widespread phenomenon. The scope of the discussion and ramifications should account for that.

> police with no.. planning, or accountability?

Yes, I think an institution has a lot more of those things than a mob does. And just because that is true doesn't mean police need to be reformed. But i'm responding to your direct coments.

> And assault everyone?

Are they 'assaulting everyone?" I don't know what events you're talking about anymore.

<comment><USER6> You admit that there are possible cases where human rights were violated and yet you see no problem with that - that goes directly against our constitution and our natural rights as humans. So far there has been no accountability for the Feds.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/26/leaf- blower...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/26/leaf-blower-wars- how-portland-protesters-are-fighting-back-against-tear-gas-forming-walls- veterans-lawyers-nurses/)

"Typically, police fire the agent once or twice to clear crowds and encourage people to move away from an area, said Michelle Heisler, the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights. But in Portland, federal agents have been unleashing the chemicals repeatedly for hours. This sustained cascade makes it difficult for peaceful demonstrators to avoid being hit and runs the risk of ensnaring bystanders in the area, she said."

I find it sad that you hold the symbolism of a building over the lives and fair treatment of your countrymen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are really 2, 3 or 4 protests.

There's the BLM daylight protestors... There's the "moms" in the evening... Then there's the anarchists/antifa at 2am.

Before you judge what the DHS is doing, watch the videos from 2am. I think many people are watching the peaceful daytime videos and seeing DHS as overreacting. Which it would be.

I don't think it's overreacting to people setting the court house on fire, hitting police in the head with hammers or destroying businesses. You can find videos of this easily even though the "protestors" tend to beat up and eject "unofficial" camera people.

And they've been doing this for 2 MONTHS, way before DHS arrived with a mission to protect federal property, which we all pay for.

<comment><USER27> Truly crimes worthy of being wounded, maimed, and killed without either indictment or trial.

<comment><USER28> Portland lost their injunction in front of a judge yesterday. I'm assuming they put forward their best evidence and the judge said they "provided no evidence these _allegedly_ illegal seizures are a widespread practice".

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/645981db-2a88-3304-ae89-094ca25...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/645981db-2a88-3304-ae89-094ca2527aac/oregon- loses-request-for.html)

<comment><USER29> Federal judiciary can be maddening unwilling to hold executive security apparatus to account. I'm reminded of the NSA surveillance lawsuit, that was shrugged away with the same "lack of standing". And the same question lingering -- then, your honor, who exactly _does_ have standing?

<comment><USER30> It creates a catch-22-enhanced version of Who's On First[1][2], except it's Who Has Legal Standing? It results in judges being hesitant to rule as they ought due to intentional muddying of the jurisdictional hierarchy of bureaucracy and who is able to claim standing and harm. It's a shell game designed to disempower everyone in the courtroom to the boon of those who can never or will never be brought inside one.

What if change through the courts is impossible because it would take longer than any one person's life to acquire standing to sue, and have the case heard?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_on_First%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_on_First%3F)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV- fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Watch streams from the night time in Portland, then come back. Rioters try to stop anyone from filming but stuff still comes out.

<comment><USER32> The people not protesting peacefully are confined to ~3 blocks, and there are not large numbers.

The Portland police declare a riot each night (regardless of the state of the crowd) and start crowd control procedures, where they force people out of areas with noxious gas and other violent methods.

<comment><USER10> They may be fewer people, and they may be confined area, but they are literally the reason federal officers are there.

Peaceful protests are not a problem to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For another view, can read the comments of Disqus user JLM at the blog

[https://continuations.com/post/624305968188145664/help- stop-...](https://continuations.com/post/624305968188145664/help-stop-fascism)

There the relevant law is quoted and explained.

So, in short, the DHS has the FPS (Federal Protective Service), and their job is

> "... safeguarding Federal owned and leased facilities and has been since > 1790.

The FPS is part of the DHS.

...

The Customs and Border Protection unit is legally supporting the Federal Protective Service because the particular unit -- the Border Patrol Tactical Unit -- BORTAC -- is highly trained in riot control operations."

There are lots more details by JLM there including quotes of the relevant laws, e.g., 40 USC 1315.

So, the FPS was in Portland to protect Federal property as in 40 USC 1315.

In simplest terms, the Federal work there in Portland was protecting Federal property. Policing Portland in general was not part of the work.

The article mentioned "secret police": To set that aside, just read the JLM quotes and explanations of the laws.

<comment><USER34> Except they are blocks away from the courthouse.

<comment><USER33> There's an explanation for that, good, bad, or otherwise.

The claim is that they didn't want to dive into an angry, violent, dense mob to arrest people because that would be dangerous.

For an arrest away from the action, all I saw was one video clip. For how general that was, I saw no information.

I was concerned about that one video clip, but without more information I'm ready to set it aside as poor judgment, a mistake, a one time thing, or some such. I need more information.

But, still, broadly, the "FPS" was not there, in either theory or practice, for the scary reason, Federal forces, not wanted in Portland, inserted to _police the city_ , etc. Even given the one video clip, the FPS was clearly not _policing the city_. And for protecting the Federal courthouse, they were not _over doing it_ since the courthouse was significantly damaged.

Can read the reference I gave and conclude that the FPS, CBP, and DHS were just doing what the laws said they were supposed to do.

For the laws, does anyone have any better ideas how the Feds can protect Fed property? Uh, supposedly that is actually not the job of the local police, that usually there is an agreement that the line is the center line on the street in front of the Fed building with the FPS on their side and local police on the other.

IMHO the Portland case does not look like some start on _Federal secret police_.

For the Chicago case, as best as I can see from the media, the Feds are there just to help local police with murder, etc. investigations and not on the street police work and were invited in by the mayor of Chicago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There's this quiz on the web where you're given a dozen names and have to guess if they are the names of My Little Ponies or porn stars. In that vein, here's another quiz:

Story 1: In the late evening hours, the sound of sporadic gunfire was heard all over the city. There were many white vans driving around the streets searching for people. During one incident, plainclothes police jumped out of a sliding door, grabbed a civilian and then sped off.

Story 2: They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them. "I see guys in camo. Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s __*. I don 't know who you are or what you want with us.'" Law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.

Now here's the quiz part: which of these describes Tiananmen Square and which describes Portland, OR?

1\. [http://www.jeffwidener.com/index.php?/stories/2016/09/tankma...](http://www.jeffwidener.com/index.php?/stories/2016/09/tankman/)

2\. [https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers- us...](https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked- vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland)

<comment><USER10> Tiananmen Square is the one where they massacred civilians with machine gun fire. That's the difference.

<comment><USER35> Authoritarianism doesn't happen all at once. Trump continues to test his limits. The DHS is currently being run by someone who was never approved by Congress and in violation of the law for how long an acting director is allowed to be in place. The DHS officers are now pushing our several blocks away from the Federal buildings.

Compare Trump's response to how the government responded to the Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where a federal building was occupied for 40 days and cost the Federal government millions of dollars. But the Feds didn't escalate the situation like Trump and the DHS are attempting to do.

This is a three block area of Portland. The city is not overrun. The protests are largely peaceful. I don't condone the graffiti or anyone trying to damage the building but the Federal response is over the top and unjustified.

Trump would like nothing more than a huge escalation in events.

That there's any similarity between the events in Tiananmen and in Portland by the authorities is not okay.

<comment><USER10> > Authoritarianism doesn't happen all at once.

I don't think protecting the Courthouse is authoritarianism AT ALL. It's protecting a Federal building.

> The protests are largely peaceful

The anarchists are not protesters. They aren't at all the same people. The vast numbers of peaceful protesters don't change the need for police to contain the ~200 anarchists trying to destroy the Federal Courthouse.

> Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

This is an insane comparison. A major west coast Federal Courthouse, home to the US 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals as well as a number of Federal offices, is absolutely NOTHING like occupying a small park Welcome center: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/MalheurN...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/MalheurNWRHeadquarters.jpg) . Was that even a serious comment?

> I don't condone the graffiti or anyone trying to damage the building but the > Federal response is over the top and unjustified.

The Federal response doesn't go far enough. The people attacking the building need to be arrested and sentenced to prison for attempted arson of a Federal Courthouse - ideally by the judges who's courthouse they are trying to burn down.

> Trump would like nothing more than a huge escalation in events.

I agree. So they should stop trying to burn down the Federal Courthouse.

> That there's any similarity between the events in Tiananmen and in Portland > by the authorities is not okay.

There isn't of any significance. You can always claim "similarities" when your bar for such is so low. Hitler and Trump both breathed oxygen - did you know that? Obviously he's a Nazi leader reincarnate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If Osama bin Laden "hated our freedom" as Bush said, then mission accomplished.

<comment><USER37> Why are Americans so obsessed with freedom? It's the catalyst for peoples freedom to not wear masks and go to the beach during a pandemic.

Freedom has pros and cons. The historical foundations of Freedom in America is an idealistic notion that should be tempered with modern knowledge about the price and complexity of freedom.

My friend in China has told me that the crisis has largely been contained in in their country. The irony here being they have less freedoms than we do but they can now go out in public without worrying about transmitting or receiving covid.

<comment><USER38> Because we believe it is the way to maximize individual happiness and that individuals are inherently valuable. To take an individual's liberty is to violate something sacred that the person has just by being alive. You have to have a very strong justification, with a high bar.

This does come with tradeoffs, but I don't think the masks and beach are part of that tradeoff. People can and will voluntarily take on inconvenience for the good of others, but they have to be convinced. Our dysfunctional president has actively fought against creating a consensus that we should move as one against this virus. When the US decides to do something together, especially in the modern era, we do it incredibly well mostly without sacrificing human rights (with some obvious historical injustices we have to remedy). What is happening here is a failure of leadership, not a failure of liberty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Reminds me of this scene from the watchmen. An example of art anticipating reality.

[https://youtu.be/ShTVpGuzk1M](https://youtu.be/ShTVpGuzk1M)

<comment><USER39> Come on guys the Comedian shoots a guy with a tear gas canister and then says "what happened to the American Dream? It came true!" That's pretty on the nose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's like Homelander from "The Boys". An unaccountable menace that had a public image as a defender, reporting to dark interests.

</comment><comment><USER41> As someone who has advocated for strong states rights (a position that's traditionally not held by the progressive left over the last decade) I find these times to be interesting, and full of ideological dissonance.

People are asking for a federal mandate on masks, but at the same time want no federal enforcement of these laws? How about neither?

I hate seeing a world where "federal police" come in and squash local protests, and it bugs me that previously state rights advocates are calling for it.

<comment><USER42> Ban the police crowd is the weirdest thing.

No police means maximum freedom quickly followed by complete Anarchy. Then back to some sort of restrictive government.

<comment><USER15> Most people aren't suggesting literally banning the police, but rather either decapitating and reorganising (RUC would be an example) or dissolving and replacing wholesale (Stasi would be an example).

<comment><USER41> I feel like this argument is an example of gaslighting. The people who are calling to defund the police literally mean defunding the police.

Presumably the ones that make this call are hoping an ideological paramilitary arm (such as antifa) can fill the power vacuum left behind.

Those that want reform are asking for reform.

Don't be gaslit.

<comment><USER43> Gaslighting occurs with respect to a current situation, not a hypothetical.

Here are top results on Google for "defund the police."

 _"Defund the police" means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies ..._

 _"Defund the police" means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality._

 _" Defund the police" is a slogan that supports divesting funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources._

 _Instead of funding a police department, a sizable chunk of a city 's budget is invested in communities, especially marginalized ..._

 _Police abolition means reducing, with the vision of eventually eliminating, our reliance on policing to secure our public safety. It ..._

No sources in these results say "create a power vacuum". That is the invention of critics. Please demonstrate otherwise.

<comment><USER42> Google is extremely political. Search results are not trustworthy on anything political.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is political content. Every other news aggregation site on the planet covers this stuff. It detracts from hacker news.

<comment><USER45> What part of "Hacker" in "Hacker News" did you not notice? Hackers have always been involved in politics.

 _This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn 't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals._

(From the Hacker's Manifesto, 1986)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> There is no "secret police force".

"Homeland Security" is a umbrella grouping of organizations that were independent pre-9/11 and who were combined after 9/11\. Seemed like a good idea, at the time!8-))

When you're arrested you're arrested by someone from a particular agency: a Secret Service agent, a member of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service, the USDA, INS, etc. Creation of DHS "merely" brought 22 agencies under one umbrella for coordination. Of course, judgments and plans made in haste often age poorly.

I'm not saying DHS is a good thing but there's a better explanation than the alarmist "HS was destined to become a secret police force." See

"Break Up the Department of Homeland Security":

[https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/department- homel...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/department-homeland- security-portland-border-patrol.html)

And remember Hanlon's Razor:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

<comment><USER47> I have a corollary to that: "Never dismiss evidence of malice by applying Hanlon's Razor"

<comment><USER46> I always thought of Hanlon's Razor not as a way to dismiss evidence but as a hurdle to prevent a rush to judgment. That is, it usually indicates that one should _consider seriously_ and root out any evidence or possibility of malice but not _assume by default_ that malice is afoot. And finally that sometimes a cigar is merely a cigar.

IOW I think your corollary is precisely on point. Perhaps we should name it: "Romeo's Corollary to Hanlon's Razor" has a nice ring to it!</comment></comment></comment>


Robot pole dancers to debut at French nightclub - <AUTHOR> https://news.sky.com/story/robot-pole-dancers-to-debut-at-french-nightclub-11799391 <comment><USER2> UK artist Giles Walker made the bots back in 2008. Pictures and videos of them resurface online every now and again, and Walker hires them out to tech conferences, festivals, and other events. (They cost around £1,000 a day)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice so other than the cover charge, I don't need to tip the human workers anymore.

I guess no profession will escape automation, except for those making the robots (for now).</comment>


Ask HN: How do you build pre-launch landing pages? - <AUTHOR> I'm building an concept web app at the moment and I'm looking to launch a simple pre-launch landing page to start gauging interest in the concept.
What are some tips that you've used successfully?
NB: I have done plenty of research on the topic I'm just looking to hear from the community here. <comment><USER2> Forget coding your own landing page and try these services.

[http://www.unbounce.com](http://www.unbounce.com) and [http://www.instapaper.com](http://www.instapaper.com) are paid

[http://www.launchrock.com](http://www.launchrock.com) is free

Spend all your time optimising the landing page and getting traffic to it, rather than coding one up.

Read these for landing page optimisation

[http://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/the-anatomy-of- a-l...](http://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/the-anatomy-of-a-landing- page/)

and

[http://unbounce.com/landing-pages/7-elements-of-a-winning- la...](http://unbounce.com/landing-pages/7-elements-of-a-winning-landing- page/)

If you're a consumer product then well-targeted facebook ads can drive strong traffic.

[http://okdork.com/2014/03/04/how-to-start-advertising-on- fac...](http://okdork.com/2014/03/04/how-to-start-advertising-on-facebook/)

!!Make sure you get the users email address on your landing page!!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've looked into the feature sets of the above previously and while they are good, efficient solutions, they don't necessarily meet my requirements in terms of information capture. I'm building a relatively simplistic landing page server to manage the backend, and while it will not give me the flair and user interface of the options above, it will deliver the information I want, how I want. I'll probably just open source it when I'm done for others to use as an alternative.

In terms of design - I've done a fair bit of reading on design and layout, and I worked with one of the design guys at in my sharespace to build the concept. I'm just trying to capture tips and tricks (the little stuff I might not have thought of).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Regarding the design part: I usually find a couple of landing pages that I like and create something similar with the colors I prefer. Or buy one from ThemeForest.

Back-end: Whatever I prefer at the time. If you're building a project with RoR, it does not mean that the landing page has to be done with that. A simple PHP/NodeJS app works great since it can be much faster to build.

All in all, I try not to spend too much time on the landing page. Usually, more time is spent figuring out what's best to show on the page itself than building it.

</comment><comment><USER4> We are building Bouncelytics[1], an analytics platform to give users more insights about when and why visitors are leaving. We built the landing page about two months back after we had finalised the features we are going to include in the first version. My co-founder is a designer so we didn't have a problem in building the page and we used Github Pages + Mailchimp + Cloudflare to host it for free.

Our expectations was we would just start an Adwords / FB campaign and leads will start pouring automatically but it didn't happen - either we don't ran the campaign well or it isn't easy to target for early adopters.

What worked for us, was posting on subreddits (30+), Betalist (100+) and a bit of manual reach out. In the end, we managed to about 180+ emails who were interested. Now that we are almost ready, we have about 20 people whom with we can get started in polishing our product and get initial sales which sounds encouraging (although still quite low).

So my advice would be, to build the landing with minimum saleable features you can build in a short time, promote the landing page in relevant subreddits and among people who might be interested in the product and take feedback from them about what problem is they are looking to solve with your product.

[1]: [https://bouncelytics.com](https://bouncelytics.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the blog and post marketing strategy and to be honest. I doubt I will drive much traffic with paid adds, remains to be seen though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Github pages plus mailchimp to do it for free

<comment><USER6> +1 for Github Pages and Mailchimp (or even TinyLetter). If you're looking for pre-built themes, my go-to source is [http://html5up.net/](http://html5up.net/).

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://wishpond.com/](http://wishpond.com/) \- buy traffic, start build your list. write blog posts, repeat.</comment>


Pakistan court overturns blasphemy death sentence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/31/asia-bibi-verdict-pakistan-court-overturns-blasphemy-death-sentence <comment><USER2> I don't think HN would be particularly interested in this news but, as a fellow countryman, congratulations. :)</comment>


In case anyone cares, the new Color app is here. - <AUTHOR> http://www.color.com/#landing

<comment><USER2> This headline seems unnecessarily snide... It's like the opposite of linkbait. I know Color is the startup people love to hate, but this pivot is actually kind of interesting, and far more innovative than their initial app.

From the guidelines: "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." Editors?

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree, broadcasting video to your friends is not innovative, nor is it more innovative than their initial app. Startups like Bambuser, Ustream and Qik have been doing this for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Apparently "request beta invite" means "grant every possible Facebook access to a non-functional application".

</comment><comment><USER4> Edit: Their site is not down. The site completely breaks if you are using the facebook disconnect (extension on chrome.)

My bad...</comment>


It's time to shift focus to Global Financial Stability- Starting with the young - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/ae/app/finllect/id1481062156 <comment><AUTHOR> Our mission at Finllect is to aid young adults into bring mindfulness to money!

What is Finllect? Finllect is an app that makes financial literacy accessible to the Gen Z with bite-sized financial content and product recommendations.

What kind of Content do we offer? Our digital financial feed includes bite- sized learning packs across five categories: budget, save, invest, earn and mental health & money.

Why should you consider us? With the official launch of our app in Jan 2020 with over 6,000+ students signed onto our beta program. This could be your opportunity to interact with young adults and help them become more mindful with their money.

Want to join our movement? Get the App: [https://apps.apple.com/ae/app/finllect/id1481062156](https://apps.apple.com/ae/app/finllect/id1481062156) Reach out to us: email@example.com

Let's make financial literacy available to our next generation! Cheers! Team Finllect</comment>