The Serif Readability Myth - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-serif-readability-myth.html <comment><USER2> Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true.

I use a serif font on my Kindle. I recently bought a book that was somehow locked to only use sans-serif. I got a few pages in, and had to stop, it was terrible. I wrote the author, who apologized and claimed he was trying to fix it.

There are going to be some sans-serif fonts that are more readable than some serifs, but in my 25 years as an amateur fontophile, that is a rare exception.

The author rightly asserts that legibility is a very difficult metric to evaluate, and there are a large number of other factors in play here like conditioning, but I think the market is evidence enough that serif fonts are still the choice of book designers and typesetters long after the initial technical reasons for doing so have become obsolete.

<comment><USER3> _Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true._

No, but the body of evidence suggesting that there is little if any difference might. The best starting point I know if you want to explore it is Alex Poole's site[1], which cites a large number of sources and some critical commentary similar to the blog post introducing this HN discussion but with much more material.

[1] [http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif- or-s...](http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans- serif-typefaces/)

 _... I think the market is evidence enough that ..._

The "market" used to think the world was flat and if you didn't drown you were a witch. Common perception is a lousy substitute for properly conducted experiments, particularly in any usability-related field, where it's been found time and again that self-reported preferences don't necessarily correlate with measured performance.

<comment><USER4> hey if you don't drown you're definitely a witch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually did a project on something similar in high school. I wrote a little program that would show people two passages in a random order, timing how long it took them to read the passages, alternating between one of four random typefaces. The four faces had two sans-serif faces and two serif faces, but I was interested in a different quality: whether monospace was easier to read.

Unfortunately, I ran into serious methodological issues which rendered the data completely inconclusive, but it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

The main thing I learned was how awesome computers are at saving me effort: I got all my data in one go while others had to conduct their experiments manually, one-by-one. Even counting how long it took me to hack together the program--and even in high school, using Java Swing, it did not take long--I still won out time-wise. More importantly, I traded boring data gathering for fun programming.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought the "conventional wisdom" was that serif fonts were best for print, while sans-serif fonts were best for computer screens. Honestly, I've never heard anyone claim that serif fonts were all-around more readable.

<comment><USER7>
        One of the most-cited "authorities" on serif legibility is Cyril Burt, whose 1955 article [2] in The British Journal of Statistical Psychology (a journal he was the editor of) seemed to end the debate on whether serif typefaces are more readable than non-serif typefaces.

I think this article is referring specifically to print given the dates of the research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally, I've always found Sans Serif more readable. Maybe just that I've been trained by reading typographic blogs to like it.

I would love to see what others think over this. Which font do you prefer?

<comment><USER9> I wasn't finding the sans-serif font in which most of the article is displayed to be particularly hard to read, but when I got to the short blockquote in a serif font, I found it noticeably easier to read. The effect is persistent for me. Have a look -- do you not have the same reaction?

<comment><USER8> Same thing here. I think the line height is a bit off on the blog.

But when used with proper spacing, I like Sans Serif anywhere. Even HN is using Sans Serif and its quite usable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> IN A SIMILAR VEIN, TEXT WRITTEN IN ALL-CAPS ISN'T ANY LESS LEGIBLE THAN TEXT WRITTEN IN lowercase; however, I'm sure you found the beginning of this sentence much more irritating to read than its ending.

It's about comfortableness, normality, custom. Serif evokes a relaxed, readable mood. Sans-serif is for quick points of information and eye-catchers. Capitals are for critical information. (And for us coders: mono-space is for code.)

There's nothing innate to the form to justify this is so, it's just how we've been taught/grown to interpret their presence in text. If the form doesn't fit the usual function, we feel a little uneasy (even if we don't realize it). I'm sure people who haven't been taught the distinction won't have this uneasiness... A bit related: <https://xkcd.com/1015/>

</comment><comment><USER11> I believe it will always comes down to context. Some people love pixel fonts (like Silkscreen), but they generally don't have a place in larger sizes or on paper. Likewise, browsers handling serifs' mix of thick and thin line weights can lead to unwanted results. When all of the lines are the same weight, you run into less problems with individual letters. That said, they can have a complete lack of personality. I rather prefer a hybrid typeface like the one Portland's TriMet uses - <http://portlandafoot.org/documents/IdTrimetCasestudy.pdf> (on the headers of the print pieces and the words "Trip Center" in the signage on page 3).

</comment><comment><USER12> Well I always learned it was true for ink on paper. Ink on paper flows. Thats the reason they used serif fonts.

Related info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_trap>

<comment><USER13> Even the both examples on the wikipedia article are sans-serif! Serifs have very little to do with ink properties. Probably more to do with ancient romans and their chisels if you want a technological explanation for serifs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Edit: First: serifs were invented by monks? You should look for example here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_square_capitals>

It is called 'roman' for something which has nothing to do with monks or the middle ages.

Sorry: the fact that it has not been proved true does not mean it is not. Caretul. (He says so in the very last sentence...)

</comment><comment><USER15> It would be interesting to know the most used font on old gen Kindles (which have only three choices : serif, serif condensed and sans-serif.)

<comment><USER16> A survey of preference may not say much, but it would be something. It would be more helpful to have data on Kindle page views per minute by text display choice, controlled for other factors like book, typeface size, etc.

My biggest problem with my Kindle is that I can't even get that sort of data for myself. I'd love to know when I read, how long, which topics, and so on.

<comment><USER17> I'm almost certain with the latest it ware update this data is available _somehwhere_. Kindle now estimates time left in a book as a function of your past reading speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One may be dismayed to find out that _most_ things in design haven't been proved conclusively (in a scientific way). There are many reasons for this, but I think it all boils down to the difficulty of measuring how the human mind reacts when interacting with something.

What we have nailed down is the _effects_ of those interactions: clickthroughs, purchases, and such. So, when you try to perform an experiment about legibility you usually apply a comprehension test and measure the speed at which the text was read.

In science you should isolate as many variables as possible, but I think in the case of typography there's just too many factors at play: the content, the medium and the reader introduce too much noise into the experiments.

I think that in the future brain imaging will advance enough to study how much people are able to concentrate with different typefaces. A researcher might give you an essay written in Comic Sans and see your mind wander more often than other subjects reading the same essay in Times.

<comment><USER19> If most things in design haven't been proved conclusively, that would just mean that design as a field doesn't take research seriously and doesn't insist on a strong empirical basis.

You don't need to wait for unspecified advances in neuroimaging. The basic research can be done 50 years ago. You measure the mind with behavior, end of story. That part is as easy as A/B testing. Just do it. If you go to neuroimaging, you should first know why it is relevant and worth spending the $$$.

And your feeling that the factors you suppose to be important are too many shouldn't ever stop us from looking into it. When we really get down to brass tacks on a subject, it's common to find that a lot of the factors we suppose to be important contribute negligibly to the final outcome. You just don't know which these are until you look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Legibility and readability are intertwined, but still separate criteria.

Sans-serifs have better legibility, that's why they are used for all kinds of signage. Serifs are better for long-form text, they give visual cohesion to lines, making it easier to follow the breaks. That's what the 'myth' is about, not that serif is _always_ better than sans.

<comment><USER21> Except that that is exactly the thesis that the article has rather convincingly demonstrated to be completely unproven. It may still be true, but we don't now. And I am not sure that Bodoni will beat Gill on the "visual cohesion to lines" metric, Bodoni is quite static and vertcal, while Gill is rather flowing.

<comment><USER20> Quoted:

> reading speed or reading comprehension, which have no bearing on glyph > recognition per se

This post is focusing on _legibility_ \- how efficiently can we recognize the shape of letters and words. The studies on reading speed and comprehension, which he dismisses without any backing whatsoever, are the ones that surface the difference between serif vs sans.

His arguments are 1) "legibility is poorly defined" 2) "reading has no relation to legibility" (?) 3) "it's complicated" 4) "paper X turned out to be bogus" (because the author cheated in an unrelated study). That doesn't add any information to me, just controversy.

He also ignores the fact that sans-serif type is currently way better for reading on monitors due to their low resolution. Serifs look great on a >250 dpi display. How many books have you seen lately printed in sans that are not for kids?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, if it's a myth, it's been a useful one as long as it's reduced the use all those ugly, ugly sans-serif fonts.

<comment><USER23> But I think it's the serif fonts that are ugly you insensitive clod!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My opinion: People don't read individual glyphs, they read words. The amount of variety between different glyphs and other factors such as kerning which help the letters combine to make an elegant whole word. A classic example of how not to do this is blackletter; all the glyphs are so similar that at a glance, the text looks like variable length blocks of repeated characters. It is also very hard to read.

In my experience, many computer fonts also fall into this trap. By trying to establish a consistent theme or feel to the glyphs, they iron out all the letters' individual quirks that make them easy to distinguish and recognise, thus readability suffers.

I think in terms of readability, the sans/serif issue is largely irrelevant (as the article might suggest).

</comment><comment><USER25> Final <P>:

> _"So before you go around claiming that serif typefaces are easier to > read... It's one of many myths you (and I) have accepted as true, that > isn't."_

It isn't true? Prove it. Until then, you don't know whether the myth is true, and it is not necessarily a false belief.

<comment><USER26> Huh? Prove that a _myth_ isn't true?

Shouldn't the burden of proof be the other way around? Otherwise it follows that goblins and fairies aren't necessarily false beliefs.

You could imagine anything and claim it is not necessarily a false belief until someone proves that it is. Worse, you could imagine something with properties such that it is impossible to prove that it doesn't exist. At this point we'd all have to go around accepting your imaginary world of "not necessarily false" beliefs because we can't prove them to be false. What a terribly unstable situation that would be. Imagine, millions of people believing in one not necessarily false set of beliefs, and millions of other people believing in a different set of not necessarily false beliefs, and both groups claiming that the other must be wrong, each without method of proving the other to be false. What a dangerous way to reason about things.

<comment><USER14> No, what he means is that the author should have said: "It is a myth without proof" but not "a myth which is not true", which is what the last sentence says.

Myths can be true, like, you know, the existence of Nineveh (yes, it was a "Myth" and then it was proved true).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's hard to believe that serif fonts are not more readable than sans-serif. It would seem such an easy thing to test. Apparently not so.

</comment><comment><USER28> I prefer sans-serif too. The only downside is the difficulty to distinguish "I" (capital i) from "l" (lowercase L) on most sans fonts.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've been involved in publishing too (LaTeX, QuarkXPress) and...

It is a fact that for short texts (eg titles) Sans-Serif is actually much easier to read. Studies have been conducted: this is precisely the reason city names and exit names on the highways are using sans-serif. Security (and lifes) are at work here: not just reading speed. The last thing you want is people reading Serif on the highways, being distracted by all the fancy curves, and realizing too late it's their exit and suddenly switching lanes in a hurry and hence potentially causing accidents.

But for long strectches of text, like inside books? I don't know. My take on it is that basically the reading speed is the same but that Serif looks nicer from a typographical standpoint. There's hardly anything that beats the beauty of the ligature of a Serif font between a 'f' and an 'i' (i.e. when the dot of the 'i' is connected to the 'f').

I do prefer: sans-serif for everything except serif for printed medium, where the resolution is at least 600 dpi (no, retina ain't close enough yet).

So, yes, for printed books I still prefer Serif.

As a side note: this effectively means I cannot yet get a PDF which I find pleasant to read both on screen and printed.

And of course I configure my browser to use sans-serif fonts instead of serif fonts wherever possible.

P.S: as to my coding / shell font(s)... Pixel perfect fonts of course. Like the Proggy family or the Terminus family. I _hate_ being distracted by the blurriness of anti-aliasing / sub-pixel anti-aliasing (RGB decimation). But I've got a _very_ good eyesight.

<comment><USER30> A few details here:

It's not sans-serif vs. serif that makes short texts more legible: it's the x-height of the letterforms that tend to make sans-serifs more legible. Automotive signage typefaces are usually designed with larger-than-normal x-heights, which has the effect of increasing the legibility of a typeface from a distance without increasing the font size (which is why, for example, Arial looks HUGE in Word at 12 pt whereas Times New Roman looks perfectly acceptable).

There could certainly be a serif typeface used for shorter texts. A good example would be TheSerif from the FF Thesis collection.

Another issue with serif fonts on screens that you touched on: most traditional serif fonts were simply not designed to be viewed on a screen. However, a good counterexample would be Georgia, a serif font designed by Matthew Carter that was made specifically for the screen and used by a large number of websites.

One last thing: a reason why serifs are often thought to be more legible in large bodies of text is due to designers being careless about leading. With sans-serif fonts, you generally need to let the leading out a bit in comparison to serif fonts. On the author's site, for example, having the font so big and the leading so small tended to make me lose my position while reading (remember that without serifs to 'anchor' your eye, you're basically limiting your recognizable shapes to lines and circles).</comment></comment>


JavaScript Idiosyncrasies - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/miguelmota/javascript-idiosyncrasies

<comment><USER2> Javascript does have some (well-known) warts, but once you grok function declaration and variable hoisting many of these listed "idiosyncrasies" become obvious. Also, most of these are things you should never do anyways.

</comment><comment><USER3> I found similar one: [http://javascript- puzzlers.herokuapp.com/](http://javascript-puzzlers.herokuapp.com/)</comment>


Bayer donates 3M chloroquine phosphate tablets for potential Covid-19 treatment - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-bayer/bayer-donates-three-million-malaria-tablets-to-us-for-potential-use-against-coronavirus-idUSKBN21637E <comment><USER2> An alternate zinc ionophore with less side effects is Quercetin [1] [2] which some people here already take for other reasons, myself included. It is most beneficial if being taken prior to infection to slow the RNA transcoding process by getting more zinc into the cells, assuming one is not deficient in zinc to begin with. I mention this because by the time someone is talking to a doctor, the virus has likely already replicated in vast amounts. Chloroquine currently requires a prescription, at least in the U.S. I am neither a doctor or a scientist, as per my profile. Very few doctors study molecular biology as a hobby or as part of their career.

[Edit] To be clear, I am not a doctor and this is not medical advise. Please research this topic yourself. There are many studies on nih.gov on zinc ioniphores. Here is a video discussing both compounds by a doctor. [3] They are also not giving medical advise.

[1] - [https://examine.com/supplements/quercetin/](https://examine.com/supplements/quercetin/)

[2] - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25050823](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25050823)

[3] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4_LsftNKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4_LsftNKM)

<comment><USER3> Bioavailability of quercetin is low. That doesn't prevent the supplement industry from profiting from it, unfortunately. The upside is, since it's poorly absorbed from the gut, you probably won't die from it.

<comment><USER4> There are formulations with higher bio-availability. Try Thorne Research Quercenase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Warning: chloroquine has strong side-effects, and very high toxicity, unfortunately pretty close to therapeutic doses, that may cause serious arrhythmia, and even heart attacks. Don't ever try to self-medicate with chloroquine.

<comment><USER6> WARNING: the above is almost certainly wrong. Citation should be provided.

The preponderance of the evidence suggests that it's a well-understood drug that has been around for decades, used by 10s of millions for not only malaria but also arthritis. In fact it is safe enough that it is available over the counter in some countries. [1]

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

<comment><USER5> From your own link, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#Overdose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#Overdose) : "Chloroquine is very dangerous in overdose."

Please read what you're posting, at least.

<comment><USER7> Hydroxychloroquine has lower toxicity and while it has side effects including sight loss these tend to only occur with long use (years to decades) and are mostly accumulative.

The current HCQ protocol for COVID-19 is a 600mg dose daily (within about the safe limits for a grown adult, however can be a bit high) for 10 days.

This isn't a recommendation of any sorts however the side effects are likely to be mild and reversible for this type of usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A word of warning to all who consider stocking up on and self-medicating with Chloroquine: while this is a well-studied medicine, it can have severe side effects, particularly in the eyes (including blindness). That said, let's hope it has some effect as current anecdata suggests.

<comment><USER9> It's not anecdata. There was a small clinical study which was just completed, and showed almost miraculous success with hydroxychloroquine.

[https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp- content/uploads/20...](https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Nope, not a miracle, top comment takes it apart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wouldn't say 'take this with a grain of salt', but I also wouldn't brush it off as fake either. Yes, the french study wasn't structured perfectly. But such a trial isn't possible in the timeframe we're looking at.

If enough respected virologists (like Didier Raoult) and doctors in China/South Korea see some positive signals, it makes sense to prepare for the event that it does indeed help. Keep in mind, this is already being used as a treatment in the US today. They likely have even better data than we do. Or if they don't, they still feel like it's worth taking a calculated risk on.

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628302](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628302)

Derek lowe reviews the evidence here and has far more of a positive take on it than i'd expected. (as in , "not obvious nonsense!")

<comment><USER3> No, he doesn't. Derek has a favourable opinion of favipiravir and in the footnote he calls the French trial "messy". That's very polite, considering the shape of the data.

<comment><USER13> Boy, "messy" data when performing initial experimental administration of a drug, during an outbreak with no officially approved treatment, with limited testing capacity.which is piling up bodies faster than mortuaries can cremate them. How shameful.

People are nitpicking. Yes, "we need further studies", that's at the end of literally every research paper ever, but the longer you delay the more people die.

It's no different than signing up for an experimental cancer drug. There are no alternatives that are known to work. You take the best shot with the possibility that looks promising right now. The alternative is dying without trying.

It's kind of a weirdly US-centric position, both from science fetishism and the fact that we're the the country with the fewest deaths so far. Oh golly gee I guess we better wait 18 months for a double-blind clinical trial and FDA approval and a Nature article. Other countries have the bodies piling up and they are pushing ahead, because a chance is better than no chance. Just like with cancer.

<comment><USER3> It's not that you didn't have a supply of patients for clinical trials. You have to make sure that your proposed therapy works, else you waste money and lives. If your wonder drug is so great you'd notice immediately in the data and would cut the trial short. What is concerning that the Chinese didn't notice a great effect, else they would have told the rest of the world.

<comment><USER14> On the contrary the Chinese told the world very early how their successful treatment plan worked.

* [https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/standards-of-care-for-s...](https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/standards-of-care-for-serious-and-critical-novel-coronavirus-pneumonia-patients/)

* Or [https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fd15kg/preprin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fd15kg/preprint_article_from_the_shanghai_medical/)

South Korea and Japan used the very same plan in their ICU's.

Maybe it's the crackdown of Western media on China, but right now italian doctors trust chinese experience more than western experts. Western experts still preach lockdown, whilst Italian officials in the meantime also found out that the asian recommendation of mass testing everybody is better. Without drastic lockdowns. Test everybody, wear masks, be responsible.

> else you waste money and lives. If your wonder drug is so great you'd notice > immediately in the data and would cut the trial short.

The problem is that it was chinese and south korean data only. Trials are not cut short, western buerocracy still rule the hospitals. Many doctors do get their younger patients on those trials. But in the overloaded case, such as Italy and Spain it's too late. You need to apply virostatica early on for 10 days, not when it's too late. But those people are advised to stay at home and wait for the fever to go down. Without effective treatment plan, as outlined by the chinese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> WARNING: To all those who are reading threads like these and intend to self medicate: you should not do this unless you are medically qualified or have a doctor prescribe you whatever medication might help. The risk of side effects is substantial and there is a reason many countries keep quack laws on the book to go after those who practice medicine without a license.

Medical advice should be given by doctors and what works for someone else may not work for you (be ineffective), cause side effects of all degrees of severity. Note that the original title includes the word 'potential'.

<comment><AUTHOR> chloroquine is prescription only in the US.

<comment><USER15> I know. It might even work. But until there is really hard proof and the side effects are well documented saying it's out there is tantamount to telling people to self-experiment, prescriptions or not. Illegal drugs are a thing.

<comment><USER16> He didn't "say it's out there". Bayer did, who apparently think there's merit to this enough to issue a press release of their own and donate 3M pills. Bayer probably knows more about this than you.

Also, reuters, cnn, msnbc, etc. covered it.

Making the info available here in HN is not tantamount to telling people to self-experiment. that is laughable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To those who aren't aware of it, there was a recently completed (small) clinical study of hydroxychloroquine (and in some cases HCQ plus z-pack) just completed in France. The results are here: [https://www.mediterranee- infection.com/wp-content/uploads/20...](https://www.mediterranee- infection.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf)

They're miraculous. This is a well-studied, mass-produced drug which has been around for 70 years and appears to be _highly_ effective at treating this virus.

<comment><USER17> >They're miraculous.

Where are you seeing that? Because what I see is a very non-rigorous, non- randomized study. Also, what about this part:

>A total of 26 patients received hydroxychloroquine and 16 were control patients. Six hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were lost in follow-up during the survey because of early cessation of treatment. Reasons are as follows: three patients were transferred to intensive care unit, including one transferred on day2 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on day1, one transferred on day3 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on days1-2 and one transferred on day4 post-inclusion who was PCRpositive on day1 and day3; one patient died on day3 post inclusion and was PCR-negative on day2; one patient decided to leave the hospital on day3 post-inclusion and was PCR-negative on days1-2; finally, one patient stopped the treatment on day3 post-inclusion because of nausea and was PCR-positive on days1-2-3.

Really easy to have "miraculous" results when 20+% of your treatment group were excluded and also happened to be the ones with the most severe symptoms.

<comment><USER10> Medical doctor and statistician weighing in just to say: I agree fully with what you wrote. No miracles observed.

<comment><USER9> I don't mean and disrespect to you as a physician, but there appear to be many experts who disagree with you to the point of acting out their disagreement at scale. Chloroquine has become a standard part of treatment for this disease in several countries, and its continued use seems to imply its efficacy.

<comment><USER18> > _there appear to be many experts who disagree with you to the point of > acting out their disagreement at scale. Chloroquine has become a standard > part of treatment for this disease in several countries, and its continued > use seems to imply its efficacy._

The fact that experts agree that this drug should be used doesn't mean they agree that it is miraculous. And this certainly doesn't suggest they disagree with the parent MD/statistician.

<comment><USER9> It seems like such a strange nit to pick here over my use of the term miraculous. I don't know what else you would call the results of the study I linked (supported by the reaction of many national health orgs). Yeah, maybe this isn't the cure to this disease, and of course we need more testing, but the result as reported are incredibly hopeful. It seems to have hit a nerve with some people that I used the term "miraculous", but I will continue to defend that term. We are looking at a virus that has disrupted the global order. Here is a study claiming incredible efficacy. That isn't a miracle in the divine sense, but if definitely reports as being extremely helpful during a dire need.

<comment><USER18> You were wrong when you presented alleged evidence/argument that experts must necessarily disagree with the MD/statistician, above.

<comment><USER9> If doctors are using this, and not seeing an effect, why do they continue using it? Doctors are humans, and prone to irrationality of course, but they're also scientists.

Maybe my faith in the collective ability of the world medical professionals to evaluate their treatment techniques is misplaced, but I still have faith that these people are acting in accordance with their scientific training.

Maybe that's wrong, and I shouldn't be trusting these people. But if I'm not trusting doctors (and especially infectious disease experts who are writing papers about their findings), then who should I trust?

I think a lot of this distrust in institutions and doctors is going to get us into a lot of trouble. I wish people would start listening to these orgs.

<comment><USER18> Your post does not address my point. That's okay, if you simply wanted to say the things you said. There are things you've said that I agree with, and things which I strongly disagree with. In a conversation, I like to be careful about going down too many side tangents if certain fundamentals are not already mutually understood.

<comment><USER9> It seems like you disagree with my implication that use of something (in this case, chloroquine to treat covid-19, the use of which seems to be increasing daily) implies its efficacy.

Why? I'm modeling the doctors and health officials who are making these decisions as agents which are presumably continuously evaluating their decisions. So basically:

A lot of experts are taking this action -> assume the action has a desirable outcome -> believe what the experts are saying (in this case both their words and their actions seem to agree with each other, _and_ point to the idea that chloroquine is an effective treatment of covid-19).

I am genuinely at a loss as to why this stance (my stance) is anything other than completely obvious.

<comment><USER18> No. Here, as in several places, you make unwarranted assumptions about other's thought processes. Remember that "efficacy" is a matter of degree. I try not to spend too much time and effort on strawmen.

<comment><USER9> I'm trying to understand you here. Is the assumption that doctors are taking actions based on previous experience with those sorts of actions unwarranted in your opinion? Or a strawman?

I'm sorry if but I'm having a difficult time figuring out what I have said that you disagreed with.

<comment><USER18> You seem sincere, and unlike prior comments to be approaching this in good faith. Maybe you even welcome criticism as a means of improving your thought process. I don't mean to be cryptic, and certainly don't mean to be rude, I just try to conserve energy and not get caught up in non-constructive arguments.

You don't seem to be taking people's statements at face value, but rather projecting additional meaning onto them, almost as if you conceive of fewer possible positions than there actually are, and pigeonhole us.

Consider my prior two statements in this thread which start with "the fact" and "you were". Do you agree that these statements were correct, on their own terms, in their own context, and independent of additional complexities involving degree if efficacy or various arguments for or against use, testing, or hopefulness?

Also, do you see that the people who disagree with your framing are not 'picking nits' nor are they having 'struck nerves'? Can you see other reasons why they might respond as they did?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know how quickly the production of Chloroquine Phosphate and Hydroxychloroquine can be ramped up (say, to the tune of 500M people * 7g per "course" = 3.5 million kilograms?

I tried finding out how much chloroquine is prescribed world wide per year, but couldn't find it. It may give us a clue into how much is already being used.

I know that it isn't used except for pregnant women as a malaria treatement because the first line antimalarials aren't proven save in pregnancy, but also that the malaria protozoa has some resistence to Chloroquine in many countries (Ecuador, among others)

<comment> semi-extrinsic Not a medicinal chemist, but here is an overview of the synthesis routes we know of:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/chloroquine](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/chloroquine)

From this, it doesn't look like there are any major hurdles in the necessary precursors. E.g. chloroaniline is very commonly used for making many drugs (incl. chlorhexidine), methyl acrylate is similarly in the six-figure-tonnes- per-year category, and that diamine also looks to have a nice synthesis route.

Fingers and toes crossed for this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Starting back in the 60's, hundreds of thousands of Americans serving in the military and peace corps in areas with malaria were given daily chloroquine for extented periods of time. Think Vietnam. How long does it take to evaluate safety?

<comment><USER21> It's prescribed here in Canada, but at least in Alberta, the prescription goes along with annual in-depth retina screening to catch retinal toxicity before there's permanent vision loss. It's ok, but there's a reason it's not available over the counter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if there is a point where literally everyone just gets a dose of chloroquine. My understanding is it stops the virus replicating and so is almost a preventative rather than a treatment.

<comment><USER6> It may not work as a prophylactic (preventative measure) and in fact, as an immunosuppressant, may actually make things worse.

For example, it enhances influenza: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25715935](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25715935)

<comment><USER23> Someone else in this thread said that chloroquine experiments started because Chinese doctors noticed that none of the covid-19 patients had lupus (and basically everyone there with lupus takes chloroquine). If that's true, maybe it could be prophylactic. /IANAD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Pakistan with other few Asian countries already using it for Corona Virus patients. Even 300K tablets sent to China for curing the disease.

</comment><comment><USER25> What will the effect of drinking quinine tonic be as a preventative measure?

<comment><USER26> Wikipedia: In the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limits the quinine content in tonic water to 83 ppm[3] (83 mg per liter if calculated by mass), while the daily therapeutic dose of quinine is in the range of 500–1000 mg,[4] and 10 mg/kg every eight hours for effective malaria prevention (2100 mg daily for a 70 kg adult).

How much less than 83mg/litre is unclear. You would do yourself damage with the sugar should you try to drink enough for a dose. Also it is unclear how effective quinine is compared with hydroxychloroquine.

Finally, quinine can have serious side effects, take care.

<comment><USER27> This is anecdata, so beware. For a full story, email me.

I have minor symptoms, and have been self-isolating since Wednesday (18) because many people around me were coughing on Monday (16) & Tuesday (17). The government here in NZ has not issued any lockdown instructions.

Due to comments here on HN, I decided to buy 4x 1.5 litres of ordinary Schweppes tonic water. Panic buying had not yet struck (it has now, but mostly bread, pasta, and toilet roll). I shared one bottle around the office, and gave one to my homestay family.

I've been drinking about 3 glasses per day, a litre at most. It's a sub- clinical dose for sub-clinical symptoms. The bitterness causes immediate sputum production in my mouth. Despite feeling a sore throat yesterday, I haven't yet started coughing.

I'm advocating for it in direct messages to friends: not because it's some miracle cure for the virus, but because it eases the coughing symptoms and thus might slow the spread. The placebo effect is probably also very real: I feel like I'm doing something, and that calms me down.</comment></comment></comment>


Dyatlov Pass Incident - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident <comment><USER4> If you like this sort of thing, the Unresolved Mysteries subreddit [0] is a great resource. Some plausible theories include avalanches and military experiments [1] [2].

You could waste many days reading through Wikipedia's Unusual Articles [3]. If you like aliens, here are two worthwhile reads:

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

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

Good luck sleeping with the lights off tonight :)

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/) [1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1u031h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1u031h/by_far_my_favorite_unresolved_mystery_the_dyatlov/) [2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/2q5bih...](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/2q5bih/dyatlov_pass_a_slightly_different_theory/) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles)

<comment><USER5> There's also this, from two years back, which defies explanation - <USER2> lights on/in the Pacific ocean. [http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/pacific_eruption](http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/pacific_eruption)

I've seen my share of "weird shit in the sky". I've seen a bolide in broad daylight, which was literally a "holy shit drop to your knees in awe" moment, but I've also on a few occasions seen patterns of lights moving in impossible fashions - high speed motion, instantaneous vector changes, followed by insane acceleration and disappearance. They're usually orange. An explanation I've heard for this sort of thing is car headlamps reflecting in a temperature inversion - but the last I saw these was while camping in the taklamakan, a long way from anything or anyone else.

I'm a physics graduate, an amateur astrophotgrapher, a pilot with an expired license, and I can identify aircraft, satellites, and so-forth - but some stuff I can't explain.

I also saw bona fide ball lightning and St elmo's fire a few years back driving across the Russian steppe, between astrakhan and volgograd - <USER3> electrical storm, but as we were heading towards it, we kept seeing little sparks of bright white light zooming up from the road into the clouds, and as we were coming into the storm, we noticed the barbed wire fences along the road glowing with purplish plasma. Cows in the field were sporting furry plasma pompons on the tips of their horns. Absolutely nuts.

Anyway. I reserve all judgment on the question of LGM, but it'd be foolhardy to say all unexplained phenomena simply don't exist.

<comment><USER6> Night + sea + strange green lights...

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

<comment><USER5> The green flash is just the sun retracting over the horizon - you can see it off the west coast of most places.

Also, the Taklamakan is a desert, not a sea...

<comment><USER6> It can appear anywhere you have a clean horizon, such as while flying. It can be so dramatic that any time I hear of green light moving in such a situation I point to green flash phenomena.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't get the mystery. They were asleep in the tent at night. Then something happened, presumably near the door, that caused them all to panic. Nine people panicking in a tent, at night, in 1950s Russia. They wouldn't have had lights, at least not the fancy flashlights were are used to today. So someone opened up the tent wall with a knife and they all fled into the night.

Depending on weather, once you are 10+ feet from the tent in the dark, you could be in big trouble. The trail of bodies flows from there. Some walk, some stay put, others move later, some fall/slip and are injured... nothing here seems very odd.

Now, what happened to freak them out? It could be any number of things. The sound of a suspected avalanche coupled with a tent pole failing could start a panic. An aircraft could sound like an avalanche. An aircraft dropping a few flares could also put them in fear of incoming weapons. Or it could just have been someone shouting something at exactly the correct time. The power of suggestion is hard to fight in such a group. The group feeds on itself. Someone says "run" and the herd moves.

<comment><USER7> And yet you would expect nine experienced hikers in 1950s Russia to be smart enough not to slice open a tent wall with a knife in the middle of night and go running out into the snow.

<comment><USER8> I've panicked badly while staying in a fairly remote bit of Scotland in a tent by myself - middle of the night some large animal blundered onto my tent, made a lot of noise and scared the wits out of me. I was camped in a narrow bit of ground between a steep mountainside and the sea at the head of a sea loch (fjord) - to show you how irrational I was I thought it was a bear even though there haven't been bears in Scotland for over a thousand years!

Felt pretty silly when I noticed a large herd of deer not far away the next day.

I suspect having more people with me would have made us react even more irrationally. I'm a pretty experienced hiker and generally fairly level headed....

<comment><USER9> I woke up once to what I thought was the sound of Velcro outside my tent. I called out to my cousin (his backpack was leaning against the tree next to my tent) that it is too early and I was trying to sleep.

Unzipped the tent and took a look out. The sound was a bear ripping my cousin's backpack open. He did not leave any food inside, but had let some food touch the pack and left a scent.

I quickly closed the tent and let the rest of the group run the bear off.

<comment><USER8> I don't think I could camp anywhere that had bears!

<comment><USER10> @Cerium I'm not aware of any such requirement per se, mostly just that it's good advice. We used to tie our food up but you have to pick the right tree or the bear will simply climb up the tree or pull the tree over to bring the food within reach.

<comment><USER9> The regulations are not national, but enforced by individual park services. As far as I'm aware all national parks with bears require proper food storage. Many states have regulations as well. A quick search shows that parks in New York with bears require their use during the summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I enjoy a good mystery as much as the next guy (Though preferably ones which does not involve several people losing their lives!), it would seem rather plausible that these students were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The military tested some weapon in a remote area, unaware or indifferent to the fact that people were around; the students are awoken in their tent in the middle of the night by loud explosions and shockwaves; heck, I'd get up and run like hell, too.

Then hypothermia and/or a fall into a ravine did them in.

When the armed forces realize that a whole group of students died as a result of weapons testing, they were probably more than happy to leave it as a mystery, rather than stepping forward and claiming responsibility.

There. No yeti required.

<comment><USER12> It's the little details that are hard to explain, like the missing tongue or the brain damage.

<comment><USER13> Neither are that hard to explain plausibly, and the wikipedia page does so. Brain damage could come from concussive forces applied from the blasts of the (speculated) explosive ordnance tests, this would in turn explain the absence of external soft tissue trauma? The tongue part, as is the case for a lot of missing limb story, sounds like some critter found a soft, yummy looking part of the corpse and made away with it.

The bigger mystery IMO, is the absence of reported blast marks or damage to the terrain one would expect from testing explosives.

<comment><USER14> > The bigger mystery IMO, is the absence of reported blast marks or damage to > the terrain one would expect from testing explosives.

Mid air?

<comment><USER15> Many HE munitions are airburst, because they cause greater damage from aerial deployment than they do close to the ground. For example nuclear weapons are detonated 1-2 miles above the ground. Considering that fact it doesn't rule out a conventional military munition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> With present knowledge of wilderness medicine, this is not a mystery at all, although it was at the time. Everything is explained by the odd effects of hypothermia. Someone missing a tongue after death is explained by hungry animals.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=paradoxical+undressing+in+hypother...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=paradoxical+undressing+in+hypothermia&ia=web)

<comment> guard-of-terra They were originally inside a tent, which was count cut through. Then they left without boots. That's not paradoxical undressing, is it?

<comment><USER17> It's like this: you're in a tent becoming hypothermic--maybe the night was colder than your equipment was good for, maybe you got wet-- you hit the delirium stage and feel great so you decide to go out. You can't work the zippers because of course you're half frozen in reality so in the unlogic of delirium you just cut open the tent and step out. In that delirium you don't so much paradoxically undress as simply not-get-dressed.

<comment><USER18> Wouldn't this theory be among the considered ones for the investigation in a country like Russia, experienced with cold related issues? And why would they have been so inclined to make this secret for over forty years?

<comment><USER17> They didn't keep it secret there was an official investigation, it got written up in newspapers, people wrote books about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Kholat is a game developed by independent studio IMGN.PRO, inspired by true events known as the "Dyatlov Pass Incident".

[http://kholat.com/en/index.php](http://kholat.com/en/index.php)

<comment><USER20> Looks fantastic. Never heard of the game, how do you usually market it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are photos of their bodies when they were found, as well as photos from the morgue. They are quite gruesome and can be found with Google Image Search by "дятлов тела" or "дятлов морг" keywords.

<comment><USER15> I'd read a lot about the incident but never seen those photos, pretty gruesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> if you want a quick read thru the story and some speculations there is an awesome page for that:

[http://dyatlov.looo.ch/en/](http://dyatlov.looo.ch/en/)

make sure you hit the play button if the music does not play automatically

</comment><comment><USER23> It's possible (maybe even likely) a key piece of evidence as to what happened is missing. And also, given what's known so far, that piece of evidence has not been found and thus remains unknown to anyone but the hikers. I wonder if any of the 9, before perishing, had tried to leave a clue as to what happened at the tent.

</comment><comment><USER24> I like any unsolved problem that includes "Yeti" as a possible solution.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident#Yeti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident#Yeti)

<comment><USER25> They made a mediocre (but reasonably watchable) film about this called "Devil's Pass" (or "The Dyatlov Pass Incident" in some regions) - I won't spoil it for you, but their possible solution made "Yeti" look quite mundane.

<comment><USER24> "Russian yeti" as opposed to....? "Canadian yeti" maybe?

<comment><USER26> You know, like an African swallow vs a European swallow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Donnie Eichar's book _Dead Mountain_ is a good, fun read on it.

<comment><USER28> This suggested that they were freaked out by infrasound caused by a Karman vortex street caused by wind flowing around Холатча́хль.

It's plausible, as it happens elsewhere, but has anyone checked to see if this does actually ever occur on Холатча́хль?

<comment><USER27> Not that I know of, but how often does it occur where it does occur? That is, how long would you have to leave a recording device there to invalidate the infrasound hypothesis?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Have to put a plug in here for the Astonishing Legends, podcast they do great work and are pretty damn entertaining. I would highly recommend anyone interested in this and similar events check out their two part series on it [http://www.astonishinglegends.com/portfolio/ep023-dyatlov- pa...](http://www.astonishinglegends.com/portfolio/ep023-dyatlov-pass-part-1/)

</comment><comment><USER30> The extremely-talented folk-metal band Kauan recently released an album about this[0]. It's worth checking out if you like ambient, moody, atmospheric music.

[0] [http://www.metalsucks.net/2015/10/22/stream-kauans-new- album...](http://www.metalsucks.net/2015/10/22/stream-kauans-new-album-about- the-mysterious-death-of-nine-hikers-in-1959/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I heard recently of the book "Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident" by Donnie Eichar ... which apparently goes into the whole thing via access to records, photos, interviews, the hiker's journals, and so forth.

The book's on my short list of reading.

<comment><USER32> I can't believe this book wasn't mentioned earlier in the thread! I finished it last month and won't spoil anything, but the author ends up with a pretty good theory. The book goes into great detail about the investigation and examines and discards plenty of possible explanations (including every "Well of course it must have been..." suggested here so far!)

It's also an interesting look at young people in the Soviet Union at that time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is one of those happenings that captures popular imagination and keeps coming up over and over again. I wrote about it when I first heard of it almost a decade ago, and received a steady stream of conspiracy theorist comments thereafter: [http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2008/02/27/dyatlov-pass- acciden...](http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2008/02/27/dyatlov-pass-accident/)

I've resolved myself to never knowing the truth of what happened both here and for many other things. It's really hard to let it go like that, but at some point you're just making a bigger and bigger intellectual itch that can never be scratched.

</comment><comment><USER34> There's a great Stuff You Missed in History Class on this [1].

If I'm remembering correctly, one theory is that their canned food was tainted with a bacteria (not terribly uncommon for the time) that caused mental issues which triggered the bizarre chain of events of them leaving their shelter is various states of undress.

[1] [http://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/the-dyatlov-pass- inc...](http://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/the-dyatlov-pass-incident/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting that Polish wikipedia has more information about this than English. It says that military accident was not likely.

</comment><comment><USER36> I believe it was a migu that killed them. Yeti type animal. Why? Possibly because of the Russian military activity nearby, most likely. I doubt there was provocation on the hikers part. The physical damage was definitely animalistic and no doubt if men had killed them it would have been an entirely different story

</comment><comment><USER37> The Trivia section is funny and shows you why we have so many Devils Lakes in the US (oh, spirit, must be the Devil!!)

I do love the name Kholat Syakhl (Dead Mountain). That must mean EVIL!!! (asks native) Oh, yeah, nothing to hunt on that mountain, try that one over there called Lunt-Husap-Sjahyl (Mountain of Goose Nests).

</comment><comment><USER38> Yeah but what about the Radiation? It's only mentioned in passing in this article but I've read this story in other places where it is covered in greater detail.

<comment><USER39> Once you accept they were attacked by a Yeti it is a minor jump to conclude this Yeti, or perhaps all Yetis, are radioactive, don't you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Randall Munroe thinks the "explanation seems pretty clear".

[https://xkcd.com/1501/](https://xkcd.com/1501/)

</comment><comment> torrent-of-ions Any chance they just all took drugs or something?

<comment><USER41> maybe, but i don't it's likely. experienced hikers wont chug e's for fun if they're in a potentially dangerous situation. the undressing is due to hypothermia, as explained above. the missing tongue is most likely due to foxes or other predators, they eat the soft tissue first.

an avalanche+hypothermia is the most likely explanation.

<comment> guard-of-terra There are photos of this place and tent on it. No signs of avalanche and inclination is very mild.

It's kind of hard to explain why they did not take boots or at least return for them.

<comment><USER11> >It's kind of hard to explain why they did not take boots or at least return for them.

-That's presumably just what (probably, obviously this is pure conjecture on my part) the three bodies found apparently heading back to the tent were trying to do? Return to retrieve their kit, that is?

I'd reckon fleeing in panic is why they didn't pause to put on their boots and kit in the first place; something caused them to leave in a hurry. What that something was, however, we obviously do not know; my money would be on munitions testing, but YMMV.

Now, I didn't see any details in the Wikipedia article or on the (fabulous!) looo.ch site that the rescuers found any inexplicable tracks in the snow, suggesting either that whatever tracks there was had blown over OR that whatever scared them was airborne or at the very least a fair distance from their tent - or, for that matter that the rescuers happened to be encouraged to leave out some details, further indicating the authorities were involved.

I agree an avalanche sounds very unlikely, though - both based on the terrain and the fact that at least some of the victims were experienced mountaineers; they simply wouldn't have set up camp anywhere they deemed vulnerable to an avalanche in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amygdala Neurosciences Acquires GS-6637 from Gilead Sciences - <AUTHOR> http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amygdala-neurosciences-acquires-gs-6637-from-gilead-sciences-300408827.html <comment><AUTHOR> This drug looks promising, anyone know if this will make it to the market?</comment>


Show HN: Dplython, dplyr data manipulation for python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dodger487/dplython <comment><USER2> Is there anything comparable to this in the node.js or clojure world?</comment>


Vermont Entices Remote Workers to Relocate by Paying Their Expenses - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/vermont-entices-remote-workers-to-relocate-by-paying-their-expenses/ <comment><USER2> Any recommendations on the best city or cities to settle in? Where are the best developer communities and affordable high speed internet?</comment>


Why Google Bothered to Appeal a $761 Small Claims Case (and Won) - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one sypathetic to Google here? It seems to me that this guy's self-righteousness is based on a serious misunderstanding:

 _After pointing out that in the United States of America, the accused are generally given the right to know both the crimes they are being accused of, and the identities of their accusers, Mr. C. responded by saying that such thinking did not apply to Google's terms of service. Effectively, Google's position was that it was above the law, and if not any law in particular, then at least the spirit of the law. Irked, I decided to find out if such a position was tenable._

Well, he found out, through the appeals court, that his position was _not_ tenable. The rights of those accused of crimes have no bearing on the TOS, a contract he agreed to, which clearly states that his account can be cancelled for any reason. His whole lawsuit was predicated on the fact that he didn't think the reason they gave-- that his account " _posed a significant risk to [..] AdWords advertisers_ "-- was good enough.

Now, based on this, why would Google let a lower court ruling stand? It's not the $761, it's the precedent.

<comment><USER3> Not a lawyer, but yes, his case was predicated on that the answer was not good enough. It was a non-answer, and hypocritical to boot, given their "AdSense for Domains" offering.

When using three specific words in a page can get you _banned for life_ , basic fairness suggests that they at least tell people what the hell those words are.

Legally he had no standing, but what does that mean for regular people? We can be abused at will because all corporations force us to sign contracts full of weasel words?

<comment><USER4> >> all corporations force us to sign contracts

Last time I checked I was free to sign whatever I like. Don't like the AdSense contract.. don't sign it. Sell the ad space yourself.

<comment><USER5> Imperfect markets. Don't trot out that tired horse that goes "you have every choice possible, how could you complain about the one you picked?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dunno. This bit:

"This is what I tried to explain in my opening arguments. Despite Google's objections to what they perceived to be technical violations of their AdSense terms of service, they also had an entirely separate (but confusingly similar- sounding) program called AdSense for Domains, which handled the exact problem I was trying to solve--that of using advertising to profit from "parked," or unused, domain names, much like putting a billboard on a vacant lot."

strikes me as his saying that he was actually quite aware _why_ Google objected and terminated his account.

That, coupled with his arguing in court that _Gee whiz_ , he was totally following the terms of service for a _completely different_ service that he wasn't actually paying for just kills my sympathy for him.

Yes, Google should tell people why it terminates these accounts. On the other hand, this guy comes across as a domain-squatting asshat.

<comment><USER7> Asshats have rights too.

<comment><USER8> Do they have the right to breach contracts?

<comment><USER7> They have a right to be told how the contract was breached, especially when hundreds of dollars are on the line.

<comment><USER9> Where is that right spelled out or granted?

<comment><USER7> I don't think you have a right to an answer for your question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What did Google expect of this? Did they think they would fight this guy, and suddenly he would give up writing about this case?

I feel like they got a pyrrhic victory here.If your customer is getting his answers in the form of evidence at a hearing, you're doing something wrong, regardless of whether or not he was actually in violation of the terms of use.

Anyway, thanks for adding this. It's good to read how it all ended up.

<comment><USER11> Google did the right thing. He comes across as a whining scammer.

<comment><USER12> Not to me, Google comes across as muscling out a small business for their own interest. Isn't this the definition of using a monopoly position for anti- competitive practice? Their position is completely undermined as soon as they introduce a product for squatting exactly like what he had made on his own.

<comment><USER11> Yeah did you see the screenshot? Do you think it's a good thing to have him defrauding advertisers like that, or a bad thing?

Tip: Don't "make a product" out of someone elses product, if it violates the T&C.

The difference is, advertisers can choose if they wish their adverts to appear on parked domains or not with the official product.

<comment><USER13> Note that at the time of the original termination of his account, the terms of use did not forbid use with parked domains and the service itself did not provide any distinction between parked domains and regular domains.

<comment><USER14> Last time I looked into adsense was around 2006, and I remember it being pretty clear that sites without content were not eligible.

<comment><USER11> And the text prompting people to click on the adsense is in clear breach of the T&C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I was Google, I would have been really annoyed too:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/rustybrick/3607264237/>

<comment><USER16> Perhaps, but they could've warned him to remove it, or at least told him when he asked for it after the fact.

Playing a guessing game about some decision with a company that nullified a debt to you by said decision is a bit classless.

<comment><USER17> He was a domain squatter with text directing people to click on the google ads. He's violating the TOS at the time in multiple ways, and clearly isn't providing any value.

Spending time holding the hand of every pissed off squatter/spammer isn't in Google's interest.

<comment><USER7> Even people you don't like have rights.

<comment><USER18> But every time you tell people what they do wrong they can begin to figure out how the abuse detection works.

What if the threshold is at 25 domains, so instead people start opening multiple accounts that run only 24 domains. By telling people what precisely got them booted they can start varying parameters to see what the triggering mechanism is.

<comment><USER19> Well, you could be sufficiently vague - "Your account has been terminated for domain squatting on domain <http://i-squat-here.com> would tell him why his account had been terminated, but wouldn't reveal any sensitive information.

And google's contactability for valid issues does still suck, with some exceptions.

<comment><USER18> No, the problem is really that information disclosure is very tricky. The very fact that you get the notice "you were domain squatting on X" is actually useful for exploits.

Whats the line where Google considers something domain squatting? Lets say its domain squatting if you have less than 5 pages of content, simply create tons of accounts with varying levels of content. What if the signal is "has tons of domains", then run Adsense on tons of domains and see what the threshold is.

(etc etc etc)

<comment><USER16> You get only one try...

<comment><USER18> I have friends and family... (really, all you need are a few collaborators.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The bigger issue for me here is that Google even has an Adsense For Domains program. This program essentially legitimizes domain-squatting by making it extremely profitable. If Google were to withdraw support for domain-squatting (as it does on regular adsense) this parasitic industry would collapse overnight, leading to a measurable increase in the quality of search results for everyone.

Sadly, Google took the evil pill a few years ago.

<comment><USER21> Domain squatting has been around for a lot longer than google for domains has.

<comment><USER22> So have many other unsavory industries; that doesn't mean that any one company needs to get into them.

( _Edit_ : I'm not arguing the OP's point that Google legitimizes the industry, simply that being in it is in some ways dubious. In case it wasn't clear.)

<comment><USER21> What?

I'm saying that google ending their adsense for domains program would not cause the domain squatting industry to collapse.

<comment><USER22> You're right, it wouldn't. That doesn't mean they have to be in it. It's a choice they're making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> To me, this case illustrates a scary fact: we entrust large amounts of our data, visibility / reputation (in the form of search results), and revenue (ad sense) to a company that applies no human judgement to individual cases regardless of their importance to the affected parties. This guy may have violated Google's ToS and have deserved to have his account terminated. But that doesn't change the fact that Google (or one of its algorithms) could decide to drop your website from its search results, or delete your GMail account, or cancel your Ad Sense account and keep the balance - all with no appeal to a human being, no opportunity to explain any extenuating circumstances, and little recourse.

True, a person may not be a more effective reviewer in general, Google's algorithms may make few mistakes, and we all benefit from the efficiency of a customer service-free operation. Still, it would be nice to think that if something bad happened, you might have a chance to correct it.

<comment><USER24> I understand where you're coming from, but I think you already covered the counterargument to this; in the aggregate, humans may not be more effective reviewers than a purely computational system. There should always be some sort of recourse as a failsafe, but I don't think that spending more money and time on human customer service is a good idea for Google. I think it's something we'll get used to; I imagine there must have been a similar sort of discomfort when ATMs were introduced, but they're ubiquitous now.

This sort of automation is also very much in tune with Google's philosophy (and really, the history of information retrieval itself--it's gradually steered away towards using much human expert input in problem solving from what I remember) and may be the only viable option for some of Google's services given the kind of scalability they need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > a number of instances where I was asked to read relevant portions of the > terms of service out loud for the judge (designed more than anything to > humiliate since it was already readily apparent that I could read),

Doesn't understand what that court stenographer does, I see. (Also, quite willing to impute intent where none lies.)

> Though at that point I should have asked him how often he beat his wife, I > was too shocked to think of it.

Should be if he still beat his wife.

> Google has more access to information about people than virtually any > company on the planet, yet despite its vast resources, it found it more > prudent to fabricate disparaging innuendo about me before a judge. The sole > purpose was to damage my credibility.

<Innuendo about Google> "HOW DARE GOOGLE USE WHAT I PERCEIVE TO BE INNUENDO!"

> but I'd like to think that more than being a simply typographical error, the > judge was conceding that I had a point. There is no law explicitly stating > so, but there was no need for Google to behave in as draconian a manner as > it did throughout the entire process of investigating the circumstances > surrounding my account termination.

Off the deep end, past innuendo, into the pool of magical thoughts.

> The fact that it conducts smear campaigns against small business owners

The only smear campaign I've seen is the one he's perpetrated against himself (somewhere in the vicinity of "social media elite") and Google.

> Google (presumably, since no one else knew) even notified bloggers and/or > The Huffington Post of the appeals court ruling

Yeah, I hate those public court records and those journalistic bloggers. Stupid Google.

As loose with his writing as his morals, this guy. (Muphry's law fans, come and get me.)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's hard to read this without hating the guy.

>> "Had it allowed my company to join in the first place, I would have had no reason to create my own billboard using "normal" AdSense since Google would have already taken care of it for me, and no violation would have occurred."

Yeah! Because they had a closed system, they forced you into violating the terms+conditions.

What a shady character. Glad Google won this.

</comment><comment><USER26> When Google's lawyer handed him pages of documents 5 minutes before the case began, why didn't he ask the Judge to defer the case until he had time to review the new material?

Methinks he should have hired a lawyer.

EDIT: Why am I being downmodded? Anyone care to explain?

<comment><USER27> Thats where you think wrong, my friend, for Aaron Greenspan _is_ a Lawyer.

<comment><USER26> I know Edward Greenspan is, but I'm not seeing anything that suggests Aaron is.

<comment><USER27> I meant this as a joke: every thing i've ever read about him is something litigious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Don't be assholes"

Try not putting misleading advertising on parked domains. Talk about hypocrisy.

</comment><comment><USER29> Ironically, I just got the following message from Google:

\--/ snip /--

Hello,

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers. Please note that any activity that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings is strictly prohibited by our program policies.

We understand that you may want more information about the activity we detected. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we're unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity, including any web pages or users that may have been involved. Thank you for your understanding.

\--/ snip /--

We run a fairly popular site that I'm not going to mention and we have a few AdSense banners in our forum. We aren't clicking on our own ads or doing anything else sneaky. So what are supposed to do about this? We can't change anything because we aren't doing anything. So next month will Google just cut us off? Frustrating to say the least.

<comment><USER30> It occurs to me that this creates an incentive for black hat hackery: you are my competitor, so I arrange (at arm's length) to artificially inflate your traffic, make you anathema to Google (perhaps by using gratuitous and obvious SEO aimed at your domain), and then exploit your declining revenue/search placement to improve my own market share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I used to think Google just providing horrible customer disservice by canceling accounts without explanation, but now I at least have some insight on the situation. Once you provide specific reasons, it invites bargaining and hair-splitting of the worst sort.

</comment><comment><USER32> google doesn't actively go around trying to screw people over. they have engineers that look for certain violations of terms, and it looks like his case fell under one of those violations.

</comment><comment><USER30> Although somewhat sympathetic and agreeing that Google really ought to consider having a proper customer service policy (instead of just making PhD types do some as part of their training), I think the Mr Greenspan is a fool for rushing into print before receiving and cashing the check.

Indeed, I find myself wondering if a similar degree of over-confidence is the root cause of his other negative experiences. His HuffPo articles seem united by a certain 'screwed again' theme. You would think a graduate of Harvard with extensive experience of legal conflict would know that until the check clears or the date passes, an appeal is always a possibility.

<comment><USER33> Huh? If he'd waited until everything settled, he'd have only one story -- and it'd be a less-interesting story about fighting "the man" and losing.

By reporting his initial victory, he gets two interesting stories out of his experience. The ultimate court outcome is irrelevant; the value is the notoriety from the experience.

<comment><USER30> By that logic, google's decision to appeal the case has done him an enormous favor, giving him double the material.

However, if you read carefully you'll see that google called him up to say they were going to send a check, and then he went into print with his story before they did so. If he had waited until the check cleared and _then_ wrote 'how I sued google and won', he'd have the moral victory, the publicity _and_ the money, because paying out money constitutes an acceptance of the court's judgement and abrogates the right to appeal.

<comment><USER33> Google has done him a massive favor, both by flubbing the initial defense and by appealing. Just look at the plug for his new service at the bottom of his latest story.

Even with the call, I wouldn't be certain that he was on the verge of getting a check, if he'd just stayed silent. The paralegal may have been going through perfunctory steps before an inevitable review-and-decision-to-appeal. (She may have been stalling or fishing for information to assist further investigation -- didn't Google already have his Tax ID from the AdSense program? Maybe the Tax ID was what legal needed to pull up the AdSense enforcement history.)

The precedent was always important to Google -- they don't want every minor AdSense rule-bender like Greenspan to sue them in small claims. And every AdSense publisher by definition has a website, so is a potential source of blog-blowback to be taken seriously when their tiny win inspires others.

If in fact he was just days from getting a check, there should be a parade of other small-claims winners against Google who, after cashing their checks, could blog freely in the glory of their irrevocable victory. (His experience shouldn't be _that_ unique.)

Where are their blog entries?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The thing I don't understand is why they don't pay what they owe and then close the account down. If Google, Paypal, etc did that there wouldn't be nearly as much outrage.

<comment><USER35> It's not even precedence per-se.

Ad networks are _abusable_ products: there's tons of ways someone could be making use of the service in a fraudulent fashion.

You can't know someone's fraudulently using the service until they actually _fraudulently use the service_ , at which point by design the service _will_ appear to "owe" them money; thus, anytime you're shutting someone down who's making fraudulent use of the service you're going to appear to owe them money right before you shut it off.

Which is why they're not going to pay this guy: as far as they're concerned he defrauded their customers -- publishers -- out of some $700, which is how his account got into a state where it looked to him like he was "owed" some $700; there's not really a reason to pay him, though, for obvious reasons, which is why they're not going to pay him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So, a clown tries to make a circus out of a small claim case and gets his ass handed in a silver plate by shark lawyers?

Learn to have your mouth shut and accept your small victory, instead of trying to stir a happy-suing-fuck-fest.

He got what he deserved.

<comment><USER37> and a lot of publicity, perhaps worth much more than some 700 dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is disgusting--plain and simple. Not only is this an obvious abuse of the judicial system, but it is a valuable insight into the real attitude of Google HQ. I'm taking my personal data elsewhere.

Its been bung, Google.

EDIT: I understand the implications for a domain-squatting precedent here, but the tactics used by Google are still inexcusable. As a company as influential and powerful as they are, they have an unwritten obligation to treat their customers with respect. What the author of this post did was wrong (note: I am not the author, blhack's reply is not directed towards me). With all of the data Google has at its disposal, however, how difficult is it to give the man a straight answer when he asks for it? Our society is in a constant battle against corporate greed and the evil that it brings. The last thing we need is Google leading the way with this despicable behavior (selling term papers? really??).

<comment><USER21> Have you read the backstory for this?

I know the guy that did this posts here. So this is to him: I am calling you out.

What you did was wrong. As a geek you should know this. People that squat on domains hoping that people typo a URL and land on your page covered in ads is a cancer on the DNS.

NOT ONLY is it a cancer on the DNS, it steals money from people who are legitimately trying to promote their own products.

I have a little social news website that my friends and I post on. Yeah it is tiny, yeah it is worthless, yeah it is probably a complete and total mess of code that is wide open to any number of vulnerabilites, but you know what? It's my baby.

I'm broke. I'll admit that. I don't make a lot of money. But ONCE, I decided to splurge a little bit on some google ads. Yeah, it was $50, yeah it was stupid and pointless and I'm not going to recoup it, but this is my hobby and I think it's fun.

I cannot even imagine how absolutely blindingly infuriated (not to mention heartbroken) I would have been if I would have found out that this small ammount of money that I decided to "invest" in my little project had been squandered on some asshole leeching money from people with a landing page.

Those clicks are expensive. That $700 or whatever you earned came from people like ME.

You violated their terms of service and you deserved everything that you got as a result of it.

I know we're supposed to be civil here, but honestly man, fuck you. What you did was very barely (if at all) above a pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER39> Meh. I have no sympathy. You've got no money to pay for an attractive domain name so you think I should just give you mine and I'm a bad guy because I'm making a few bucks waiting for a buyer who's got his shit together? Sorry, no. Sucks to be you.

<comment><USER40> You fail reading comprehension forever. The complaints that you mistakenly think you addressed are:

1\. Domain squatters who sit on slightly misspelled domain names (e.g. ycobinator.com, gooogle.com, etc.) and hope someone will accidentally see their ads are parasites on the DNS.

2\. This practice lowers the return on investment for people who are trying to advertise something. Micro-advertising keeps a lot of web sites afloat and helps make the web's economy more fluid, so that small businesses without brand name recognition can level the playing field a little. Domain squatters who siphon off ad money by putting ads on crappy parked domain pages that people go to by mistake and leave immediately are unworthy leeches sucking the blood from the internet. They harm others and contribute nothing of value.

You seem to be exclusively defending the kind of domain squatting where you register some attractive domain name like "fishandchips.com" and leave it fallow until someone buys it from you. That does not address anything that blhack said.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Exploiting Android Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeword.xyz/2015/08/09/exploiting-android-users-for-fun-and-profit/ <comment><USER2> As living in China, it doesn't seem they were crossing a line. Things gone mad here.

If you want to type Chinese, you'll need an IME. Most of Chinese people relies on them. It was indeed an exploitable point, that you slip a lot of stuff into it:

\- News pop-ups of course; \- System information gatherer? Sure; \- Search engine, convenient; \- Anti-Malware software, certainly; \- Anti-Virus software, you'll have it; \- Homepage? Come on, let's make a bolder move \- Browser! \- A PC Manager. It's a combination of AV/AM and a software catalog, and the sweetest feature is to tell you how many seconds it took to boot up to your desktop, and shows a % of population you've beat across the nation, people can be bitchy over this.

Not just one major software vendor did this, everyone capable did, and still doing. There's also large internet companies that used by people on daily basis uses 0day exploits to push their desktop software. Like if you browse the Chinese part of the internet for one day, you'll end up with bunch of cute little Anti-Virus/cleanup/tweaking goodies rest in your notification area, some times they fight each other and cause BSoD.

<comment><USER3> This sounds horrible. I always hear how Chinese internet access is under too heavy regulation, isn't there any penalty for such behavior?

<comment><USER4> I think the word you are looking for is "censorship" instead of regulation. Though I suppose "heavy regulation" could a clever/funny euphemism for "censorship"

<comment><USER5> The chinese euphemism for censoring something is "harmonize", from the slogan: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonious_Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonious_Society)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Along the same vein, I highly recommend this read from Aral Balkan[0] on how advertising and analytics data is now really just a fancy word for what we considered _spyware_ back in the older (freer) days of the Internet.

[0]: [https://aralbalkan.com/notes/spyware-2.0/](https://aralbalkan.com/notes/spyware-2.0/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't speak for anyone else, but there's only so far I would be able to go in a job. I once turned down a job because a major client of the company was the RIAA. It reminds me of what LinkedIn did with their iPhone app and Email.. I can't believe that either Android or iOS would allow any of their apps after they did that.

I don't have either FB or FB messenger installed, since the split... mostly because they ate my battery life, and breaking apart existing/working functionality sucks. Not to mention they've been gimping their mobile website ever since, I've been avoiding them much more lately. But FB is nowhere near this level of sleaze.

<comment><USER8> I don't use Facebook at all, but I've heard good things about their new Lite app. It still asks for permission to spy on your whole device, though.

<comment><USER9> The really disappointing thing is that if you root Android you can use "App Opps" to selectively disable permissions, per app. It works great. But Google won't enable it by default.

<comment><USER10> I think Google is redoing the whole permission system in Android M. Reportedly, instead of the approve everything once at install time model, they're moving to the iOS way of default minimum permissions and asking the user at use-time to approve additional things.

<comment><USER11> They do, although in real life terms this will mean practically nothing for John Doe, because he'll have to: \- buy a new device with M \- hope his existing phone gets M before one year to date or ever.

<comment><USER12> Yeah... Google should stop and close up shop. Working towards fixing things tomorrow? HOW DARE THEY! _Shakes fist at them menacingly_

<comment><USER11> That's not what I'm implying. But suggesting that user should suck it up because something is coming in 6-12 months if he's lucky is not a valid excuse, because he can take his money NOW elsewhere.

As an ex Android user of 5 years, I just got tired of this "coming soon" attitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There was a single mention of Paint.NET in the article with no other comment. Is that the company involved in this? It was not clear to me nor do I recognize the name of the author.

There are two technical holes in how this was achieved, disregarding the initial drive-by update install:

* Unprotected browser cookie storage

* Android web-based App Install requires no user interaction past a request to a web endpoint

Are these holes still open?

<comment><USER14> It would not be Paint.NET itself - lots of Windows freeware apps are approached by advertising companies. The advertising company pays the freeware company a lot of money to add a checkbox during install. It's this kind of checkbox that the author is talking about. They probably gave Paint.NET (and Java, winzip, winrar, etc etc) a ton of money to put that there.

<comment><USER7> Paint.net has ads on their pages, right next to the download page... Their own download link is non-obvious, and the advertisers create full-size ads with a big green button saying "download" ... what the user gets isn't the installer from paint.net proper. I think the fact that the paint.net guys are resorting to allowing ad networks on their main page instead of an inline donate option (like ubuntu) is pretty bad.

Another example, as recently as 3 months ago a search on google for "chrome" would result in a few ads that were for malware like this.

The ones that are in the actual installers upset me a lot... more so in open- source, and one of the reasons people are starting to avoid source-forge like the plague.

<comment><USER13> I thought SF rescinded their new policies? Regardless, I still won't be using them unless I must.

I guess this might be one benefit of the Windows Store, as long as that hasn't been taken over. I haven't checked it in awhile nor know their guidelines.

<comment><USER15> They're trying to sell SF right now (and slashdot), so who knows what's going to happen next.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if either have the funding, but Github or Atlassian would be better stewards of sourceforge, at least in terms of migrating the whole thing into the fold of Github or Bitbucket.

As it stands, I get a little sad when I see a project still on or using SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Site's struggling for me. Google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.codeword.xyz%2F2015%2F08%2F09%2Fexploiting- android-users-for-fun-and-profit%2F)

</comment><comment><USER17> Its funny the author mentions all the Google Play stuff about installing apps to users phones without them ever even knowing.. I actually found a company exploiting this in the wild using browser extensions, I wrote about it on this blog:

[http://extensiondefender.com/blog/](http://extensiondefender.com/blog/)

I'm not sure if the news I released had any effect, but they rapidly pivoted from a "desktop to mobile" ad network: [https://web.archive.org/web/20141209085229/http://vulcun.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20141209085229/http://vulcun.com/)

To some kind of e-Sports betting site: [https://vulcun.com/](https://vulcun.com/)

Oddly enough I submitted a bug report to google telling them they should set a content-security-policy on play.google.com, and was basically told "wont-fix" so the vulnerability to play store still exists.

<comment><USER18> Thanks. Btw, you forgot to put any link from your blog to the main site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This raises an interesting point I've thought a lot on which is "Developer Moral Responsibility" (Best way I can sum it it). I've started 2-3 blog posts on this subject only to shelve them indefinitely as the "gray" things I've been involved in were minor on the grand scale and the places I worked at when those things occurred were 99% "good" and I wouldn't want to smear their names over things that were minor at best (the "everyone else is doing it argument/excuse"). I would love it if a "Developer Morality Manifesto" or similar were created and accepted at both a developer and company level to cover some of these "dark" practices

</comment><comment><USER15> Way back when I was young and webvan.com was hot, I also worked on similar stuff. I didn't know then who I was, or even slightly what I wanted in life. Typical early-20s kind of thing. Anyways, I understand exactly what this guy feels like, as I feel the same way about the things I did back then. And these days I have turned down a couple of jobs that I felt were being too aggressive about advertising. One company's product was to give you a kind of GMail search, at the cost of collecting all kinds of information about you and aggregating it on remote servers to use for advertising. The founders were real cool guys, but this was just not something I am willing to contribute to.

</comment><comment><USER20> But why?

Money? You said "thousands" of "users", even if you sell those owned computers/phones at let's say $1 you don't make that much as a company.

Fame/street creds? Look how I got those lusers ?

Or you don't even care? you could optimise the deadliness of an atomic weapon and you would feel the same: code done ! Awesome !

<comment><USER10> You know, I think that optimizing the deadliness of atomic weapons is a lot more defensible than this. The nukes have arguably prevented large-scale industrial war since WWII. I'm having a tough time coming up with a defense for building malware, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> There really is no defense. It's just a money grab. When I was working there I dealt with it through compartmentalization and rationalization ("if I wasn't doing this someone else would, so I might as well earn that paycheck anyway"). Others there probably just didn't care.

The culture was very money-centric... everyone's compensation included a bonus component that was directly tied to how much revenue your products generated, and there would be big celebrations whenever new milestones were met.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those wondering how to protect against a "malware-steals-cookie" attack, see:

[http://www.browserauth.net/channel-bound- cookies](http://www.browserauth.net/channel-bound-cookies)

I believe Google does this now for their auth cookies.

<comment><USER22> How can this fix prevent this class of attacks?

The malicious app has local access to the user's machine, which means it has the ability to read and overwrite all files that the browser manages.

In the worst case, we could create malware that just reads the browser's client public key and create our own session with the same one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for honesty!

</comment><comment><USER24> This. This is what pisses me off at the Android and it's ecosystem. I'm an avid android user, and more and more witnessing how it's turning exactly what windows was(is) and how crappy they are in protecting their users.

You can submit an app to the play store and get it approved within a day. I mean, come one, phone data are some of the valuable possessions one has in this century and they care less about it being abused. I wish there can be a tightly knit app store similar to iOS with stringent reviews & regulation, but I know it's never going to happen.

<comment><USER25> If it takes 2 weeks for Apple to approve your app, it doesn't mean they are looking into it for 14 consecutive days.

<comment><USER24> Ofcourse it doesn't mean they are looking into it continuously. but it's way better than not looking at all.

All I'm saying is atleast a pair of eyes are looking into the app before it's reaching their users.

<comment><USER26> Google started manually looking at and approving all Android apps submitted to the Play Store a while ago, if I recall correctly. They just don't take 14 days to do it.

<comment><USER27> Neither does Apple. It's currently 6 days.

[http://appreviewtimes.com](http://appreviewtimes.com)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Software Companies Beg For Qualified Job Candidates - <AUTHOR> http://news.investors.com/technology/121712-637332-software-jobs-proving-hard-to-fill.htm?src=HPLNews

<comment><USER2> I agree there is a lack of qualified candidates for software development positions, but I think the biggest problem is the outdated methods used to search for candidates. So many of these companies funnel recruits into a system that filters on keywords and even then they often don't treat qualified recruits like a person. If you are a qualified candidate you are more likely to head somewhere who cares about you and treats you accordingly.

Sending automated emails is the first turn-off. Take the time to send a personal email. You might be surprised how much difference that simple act makes.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it is such a big problem then I would imagine they could always implement in house training programs. Pay workers who have a relevant background to pick up the work quickly lower pay until they complete training. This is how it used to be done by companies.</comment>


Memory locality - <AUTHOR> https://techtalk.intersec.com/2014/02/more-about-locality/

<comment><USER2> Not to detract from the interesting difference between pointers and unbounded arrays in a struct, but get_at() is surely broken. It looks like the condition uses the wrong inequality:

int get_at(const struct foo_t *foo, int pos) { return foo->len >= pos ? -1 : foo->data[pos]; }

!(foo->len >= pos) = (pos >= foo->len) => foo->data[pos] = foo->data[foo->len + x] where x >= 0, which is undefined.

It seems the author got caught up trying to be tricky, and the fix has the bonus of reading more naturally:

return (pos < foo->len) ? foo->data[pos] : -1;

It is late though. Maybe my brain isn't in gear...</comment>


Windows 10 on ARM64 gets its first compiled apps (7-zip, PuTTY) - <AUTHOR> https://mspoweruser.com/windows-arm64-gets-first-compiled-apps/ <comment><USER2> Not quite the first! I actually had a Surface RT, and for a while you could jailbreak it and run Win32 apps, as long as they were recompiled. Obviously there wasn't much available (turns out there wasn't much motivation for recompiling apps for the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of people with jailbroken Surface RTs, whoulda guessed), but there were a few: someone actually ported the Python runtime. It worked great!

It was always inexplicable to me that Microsoft did all that work to port the entire OS to a new architecture and then roped it off and said "No touching!". Looks like it finally wasn't a waste after all.

Edit: My bad, the title specifically said ARM64. Will leave the story up as a hopefully entertaining anecdote though.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft didn't want to spook Intel too hard, that, and they wanted to motivate developers to buy into the sandbox "Store App" environment. So long as Win32 worked, why bother putting effort into designing an app specifically for Windows RT/8?

There's another reason for Microsoft to allow full ARM development with the NT OS: Windows CE is dead, and I believe many IOT/Embedded shops might be too put off with other embedded systems - and/or don't want to rewrite their ATM UIs or Factory robot arm controllers (both historically the realm of WinCE) as Android apps or "Windows IOT" UWP apps. So saying "Windows 10 now also replaces Windows CE" is a good thing, especially given the relative ease of porting Win32/CE code to the full-fat Win32/NT implementation.

I think this will only be news if we hear them announce unlocked ARM for all phones and tablets. It's still possible unlocked ARM is entirely up to the discretion of the OEM, not the user.

<comment><USER4> It seems that with the whole "RT" thing is it one step forward, two steps back.

You either have a RT app, or a win32 program, you can't wrap a win32 program in a RT ui in case you want to make it tablet friendly.

Well you kinda can, if you are a web browser. But Windows will only allow you if the user sets said browser as the default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft doing a lot of instruction set translation/emulation lately</comment>


Share notes and files that will self destruct - <AUTHOR> https://safenote.co <comment><USER2> A company I used to work for used this: [http://sayakb.github.io/sticky- notes/pages/home/](http://sayakb.github.io/sticky-notes/pages/home/)

It seems very similar.</comment>