Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/opinion/yes-we-were-warned-about-ebola.html <comment><AUTHOR> Quoting from the article:

        Part of the problem is that none of these articles were
        co-written by a Liberian scientist. The investigators
        collected their samples, returned home and published
        the startling results in European medical journals.
        Few Liberians were then trained in laboratory or
        epidemiological methods. Even today, downloading one
        of the papers would cost a physician here $45, about
        half a week's salary.

<comment><USER2> On the flip side, even Liberia's ministry of health (see author's credentials) could afford the $45, then disseminate to the clinics.

// Disclaimer: I lived and worked in Cameroon in the 80s, writing software for tracking and publishing data for various govt ministries.

<comment><USER3> Academic here. There is _____no_ __ __reason why these articles should have to cost $45. Academics have to publish in name-brand journals to get recognized, and these high prices are pure rent-seeking on behalf of the publishers.

<comment><USER4> publishers need to make money too. i also dislike this anti 'rent-seeking' culture. if there is no reason for it to cost that much, start your own publishing company and give out the materials for free (or some lower price).

<comment><USER5> > _start your own publishing company and give out the materials for free_

There are many people that are moving exactly to this. As ever, the problem is that the market is not perfectly fluid and things like academic cultural biases, impressions of prestige, etc often do not follow the most efficient contours. Posts like the GP's are called for precisely because they call attention to this and try to shift perception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find the premise of this article very hard to believe. On one hand I am sure that the researchers shared their results with the responsible agencies at the time. I very much doubt that they would have just written up this article, submitted it to the journal and called it a day. These studies are usually done in direct collaboration with local doctors, and governments, even if they might not have been authors on the paper.

On the other hand the poor state of Liberia's (and the whole region's) health system and the threat of infectious diseases has been a known problem for a long time. I can't imagine that hearing about a small number of cases of people with Ebola antibodies in 1982 would have made any difference to Liberia's policies. They were already doing all they could to improve their health system and Ebola is/was far from the only threat.

<comment><USER7> You should look into the whole "open access" movement in research. There is a huge, HUGE disparity in access to journals and research between scientists in North America / Europe and developing countries.

Researchers in the US do not cite African journals and likely do not read them; African scientists often cannot afford journals from US universities -- journal access on SAGE or Taylor & Francis can run well over $10K per year.

The premise isn't hard to believe if you've spent any time in research institutions or academies in these countries, and it's extremely unfortunate.

<comment><USER8> Except that there are initiatives (Research4Life, HINARI, AGORA, etc) to get free access to researchers in the developing world, especially Africa. If you move to "open access," African scientists won't be able to get published.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While the paper is quite specific, it is 30 years old. A pandemic that will kill millions is still just around the corner and overdue based on historical statistics.

Will I get to link to this comment and say "pandemic, I told you so" in 5 years?

In the same way many people predicted the sub-prime mortgage bubble bursting, saying how and when is the hard part.

</comment><comment><USER10> I found an abstract of at least one article from 1986 discussing the 13.4% prevalence of antibodies against Ebola in Liberia (from a rainforest area) in 2 minutes using pubmed, which is free and open for all to use. It does not link to the full text (some abstracts do link to full text), but the basic information was easily found. You just have to look for it!

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3092415](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3092415)

</comment><comment><USER11> We are warned about plenty of threats every day. Why Ebola should be the one to be acted upon?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias)

<comment><AUTHOR> While it's true that "hindsight bias" is a thing, and should be guarded against, this kind of throw-away comment dismissing issues like this bothers me. We can similarly dismiss everything said by everyone prominent by referring to "Argument from Authority," as if that's a bad thing. But in truth, people with a great deal of experience sometimes rise to a position of authority purely because they tend to be right, and so Bayesian Analysis suggests that we really should give more weight to what they say.

Similarly here. Don't simply say "Oh, hindsight bias, this is completely irrelevant." If you don't provide some sort of evidence that this particular instance is "simply hindsight bias" then I will tend to dismiss what you say.

You may be right, but you have provided _no_ evidence. Just a baseless accusation.

I was reluctant to say what follows, as I didn't want to be accused of an _ad hominem_ attack, but I have decided to say it as I feel that it is information to be shared. In looking through your previous comments I see that you have a track record for providing a relentlessly negative response to things. There is value in that, as such critical and sceptical responses balance the relentless, boundless positive viewpoints of others, but it means that now I have a more informed context in which to interpret your contributions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obviously, with the importance of the mortality issues of this study, it is not comparable in terms of importance, but NY times promoting/warning me that I only have 10 free articles left is a little ironic.

<comment><USER13> This was my exact thought. In fact before reading the article I actually thought that this was just an article about Ebola that an HN admin had retitled after being annoyed by the NYT paywall.

<comment><USER14> The NYT paywall is easy to get around. (Copy/paste the title and search for it in Google) Of course that's the irony mentioned, since the article in question was paywalled.

<comment><USER13> I know but still. I've had to do this enough that I think I am going to just write a chrome extension that will modify the referrer to be google.com on every request on specified sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Makes me once again think well of the late lamented Aaron Swartz.

</comment><comment><USER16> What's really grating here is that that paper behind the paywall is one for which the 'online rights' have never been negotiated for so the paywalled version should really have been in the public domain. This goes for almost all scientific papers up to 1995.

<comment><USER17> Is that really true though? The right to distribute a work isn't tied to a specific medium. A contract between an author and a publisher can divide up the right by medium if it wishes but an unspecfied "right to publish" would include the web already. Seem like you'd need to read the specific contract in question and have a good knowledge of the relevant precedents to draw a conclusion here.

Even if you're correct, works after 1923 would not enter the public domain, because the author never relinquished their exclusive right to web publication.

Of course even for a public domain work, there's nothing to prevent a publisher from charging for it.

<comment><USER16> > Is that really true though?

Yes, it really is. The chairman of the Royal Dutch Library paid a pretty expensive lawyer for a reasonably long amount of time to get this figured out once and for all, the rights did not automatically transfer from the author to the publisher so technically they still lie with the author or in applicable cases with their estate.

<comment><USER17> That's not the public domain though - the authors still own the work, the public has no right to it. Do you have a citation for the "figured out once and for all" information, I can't seem to find anything?

<comment><USER16> > Do you have a citation for the "figured out once and for all" information, I > can't seem to find anything?

Not everything that's useful is online. But if you have a legitimate need I can put you in touch with the relevant people, email in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are many non-Ebola viral hemorrhagic fevers across Sub-Saharan Africa. Not all might be quite as lethal as Ebola, but they have similar modes of transmission that you wouldn't need an Ebola specific warning to know not to touch dead people. I obviously think this shouldn't be behind a paywall, but I don't think that would help.

Lassa Virus in particular is present in Liberia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassa_fever#Epidemiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassa_fever#Epidemiology)

<comment><USER19> The title of the paper in question is presumably "A serological survey on viral haemorrhagic fevers in liberia".

(linked in another comment by DangerousPie)

So even if you take a step back from calling it a warning about Ebola, the question of why it was not well known in Liberia is still an interesting one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I assume this is the paper they are talking about: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0769261782...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0769261782800282)

<comment><USER20> So the main conclusions of the paper were not behind a paywall, just the full paper. And yet it still went unseen. Probably more because it was an old paper in a journal with a miniscule impact factor [1]. Even if it was open access, I really doubt that would have changed anything.

There are problems here, and I'm a huge open access supporter, but blaming this on a paywall seems like a red herring.

[1] [http://jis.sagepub.com/content/25/5/413.abstract](http://jis.sagepub.com/content/25/5/413.abstract) says it is 0.122, which is really fucking low and basically means nobody reads it

<comment><USER6> 0.122 is just the r^2 between the impact factor and the percentage of English- language articles, isn't it?

But yes, it's definitely not a big famous journal that would have been widely read.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I'm an idiot. If you look in that paper I linked to, it shows the real impact factor is about 1. Which is still low, but not as crazy low as 0.122.

Also if you look up the original ebola paper there were actually several papers that cited it and discussed the results, and apparently nobody noticed those either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh the irony. The NY Times is substionally pay walled.

<comment><USER22> Use chrome's/firefox porn mode

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The first sentence is (at least to me) obviously untrue -- their have been people clearly and publicly saying this is a serious problem since at least the mid-90's. The book "The Coming Plague" came out in 1995, and discusses almost this exact scenario: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging- Diseases/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging- Diseases/dp/0140250913)

There is little spending on public health issues, crumbling infrastructure, and, due to ease of travel and overcrowding, diseases spread faster then ever before.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hurricane Katrina was also predicted with a detailed article in Scientific American explaining the outcome of the exact same scenario a few years before it actually happened. Naturally nothing was done to prepare.

</comment><comment><USER25> >>> Even today, downloading one of the papers would cost a physician here $45, about half a week's salary

And if that's not a good reason to end the publication by private journals, I dont know one.

</comment><comment><USER26> Please stick to the actual title of the article and avoid adding your own linkbait.

<comment><AUTHOR> I found the reference in someone else's blog, and followed the guidelines by submitting the original, and not the link to the blog. I kept the title as it was on the blog because that's what auto-completed when I used the bookmarklet, and it felt justified given the line:

        Even today, downloading one of the papers
        would cost a physician here $45, about
        half a week's salary.

The mods appear to agree with you, though, so even though the title I used was the title from where I first found it, and even though it matches one of the lines in the article, and even though it helps provide more information about the content/conclusion, it's been reduced to the less informative exact title of the original.

<comment><USER27> What was the title you submitted?

<comment><AUTHOR> As originally submitted:

        Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola,
            but It Was Behind a Paywall

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So they are saying more research needs to be open sourced...

</comment><comment><USER29> population control</comment>


How could online banking stop sucking - <AUTHOR> http://micho.biz/online-banking-sucks/

<comment><USER4> Sorry, but I have to disagree with many of your suggestions.

1\. Log in from the home page: This would require the bank to serve its home page from https, including a redirect from http for every visitor, in case he or she wants to log in.

2\. 4-digit passcodes: You're missing the key point about your ATM login -- it's only secure because it combines something you have (your ATM card) with something you know (your PIN). If everyone's login is a 4-digit number, then if I have a list of 10,000 users of your system, it would be trivial for me to compromise at least one account (not of my choosing) without even resorting to multiple login attempts.

3\. Setting all login ID's to users' email addresses: This just removes more entropy from the login security process, since I now know that logins come from the set of valid email addresses. For any individual user, I now know their login with a high degree of certainty.

4\. API: Do you think that banks really want to circumvent their security measures by allowing third parties to hold keys to the front door, even if the proverbial vault is locked?

All that said, I do agree that there are things that could be improved: making the login button front-and-center, so I don't have to guess where to find it; giving better choices for exporting financial data. But, you've got to realize that banks (online and offline) are prime targets for criminals, and that in some ways user experience has to take a back seat to protecting assets.

<comment><USER5> 1\. All email providers do the HTTPS thing. Have you noticed any problem with them? Almost every user who visits the bank's website will want to log in.

3\. You might get some tiny fraction of additional security (through obscurity) by obfuscating people's logins, but this is ridiculous, unnecessary, and at great expense to the user experience when a decent password provides all the security you need.

<comment><USER4> On 1, I doubt that "almost every user who visits the bank's website will want to log in," at least not on every visit. I'm guessing that it's not even the majority -- many others will be looking for branch addresses, seeking info on loan or credit card terms, etc.

Yes, email providers allow you to log in from their front page, but even then only from their gateway page. As a good example, www.yahoo.com does NOT have a login for their webmail client -- you have to click through to a separate screen. You only see the login if you go directly to mail.yahoo.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They have far more to lose through bad publicity, and even punitive damages levied by governments, than to gain from making things easier for customers.

The idea of a weak password so you can have more easily a nose around someone else's private details is frankly laughable. This is personal financial information, not Facebook, FFS.

A moment's reflection, and you can imagine the headlines.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. While some of the opinions are valid and useful, the idea of intentionally setting up weak authentication for an online bank account seems absurd. (Did he really suggest accepting an e-mail address in lieu of a password?)

Banks often have you confirm recent transactions on your account to verify your identity (over the phone, for example), making this data pretty sensitive. But even setting that aside, I think most people would like their balances and transaction histories to be pretty private. It only seems reasonable to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not "intentionally weak authentication" – it's optionally weak authentication, so users can choose how hard it is to see their data.

Something completely different is securing sending out money

<comment><USER6> I think you've missed the point.

It's not sufficient to let the user decide how much security they should have. It won't protect the banks from the expectations of security placed on them by others, however unreasonable that might seem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Give me a freaking API and all the other issues go away.

Also, stop restricting the data I can download to the most recent 30-90 days.

Paypal and Amazon both let me download my entire purchase history (>5 years for both) with a ton more detail than the bank.

If security is an issue give me a client SSL cert and force me to do 2 factor login (SSL cert + password) to grab a feed of data. This isn't rocket science - it's me wanting a simple "select * from checkingaccount" from your database on the other end of a HTTP request.

</comment><comment><USER9> Most British banks require two-factor authentication. My bank (Barclays) allows me to login without sending a password over the wire. I insert my debit card into a reader and enter my normal PIN, which generates a one-time password. The scheme is remarkably well-designed and defeats all of the usual attacks[1].

Crucially, I must generate a different one-time password using a different procedure if I wish to transfer money to someone I haven't previously paid. This essentially puts paid to phishing and man-in-the-middle, as an authenticated session isn't enough to do anything malicious; To steal my money, you would have to either completely break the cryptosystem, or convince me to enter your account number into my card reader to generate the necessary one-time password.

[1] [http://www.barclays.co.uk/Helpsupport/IntroducingPINsentryfo...](http://www.barclays.co.uk/Helpsupport/IntroducingPINsentryforOnlineBanking/P1242559314766)

<comment><USER10> Sorry to tell you that there are valid attacks against the PINSentry used by Barclays - <USER2> [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/bank_reader_insecuri...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/bank_reader_insecurity/print.html). I don't know of any actual breaches though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Systems exist (just not in the US).

My provider (ABN Amro in Holland) works like this:

1\. Login is your account number and card number (1234567 + 004, located on card)

2\. Password is generated by putting your 'smart' card into a little device, typing a PIN in, and typing in the resulting one-time pass. Other banks do this by sending the code via SMS, which is also good (though a bit less secure).

3\. Interface is not mind-blowingly web 2.0, but works pretty well.

4\. Transfers to other bank accounts are free, happen within one business day, and are confirmed by performing step 2 for each batch of transfers.

5\. There is an iPhone app, which you do a one-time authorization with step 2, and create a 6 digit pin code. This code let's you check your balance. Performing transactions requires step 2 again, unless you are transferring to someone in your address book (there is a limit which you can set).

To be honest, it's pretty good. It's first priority is clearly security, and given that it's pretty damn usable.

US banks should take note.

<comment><USER12> I've used the same bank since 1999, and their internet bank has always been stellar. In the beginning you logged in with your id and a PIN and you had to have a personal browser certificate. Since then they've added an additional one-time code, and you can also log in with something called BankID which is a national electronic id system.

So it's secure, works in all browsers, and gives you choice in how you want to log on. And on top of that, the actual service is great, paying bills is easy and free, opening accounts and moving money between accounts is instant and free, transferring to other banks or other people is free (but takes time), automatic bill payment is easy and free.

And the other banks in my country aren't bad either, competition forces all of them to be secure, free to use, and easy to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't mind the crappy web interfaces because I have bigger complaints about modern consumer banking. I really don't understand how loose sloppy a lot of it feels to me, and how old school other parts feel. Here are a few of examples from my very recent past:

1) I had a check stolen. The thief was able to write themselves (or someone they know) a check for $100, sign it with my name, and deposit or cash it. I only discovered this after seeing the transaction in my history and notifying the bank. The forged signature was looked completely different from my own. What's the point of a signature if it's not used for authentication?

2) Because of the above, during the fraud claim process I had to close my account. This disrupted my direct deposit and my employer attempted to deposit my paycheck into a closed account. I didn't realize this until the payment was being returned. I was told that I would have to wait 5 business days for the payment to be resolved. Why isn't this instantaneous? Why do high frequency firms enjoy millisecond trading while consumers have to wait what is basically the equivalent of postal mail delays for electronic transactions? I'm sure this is vastly simplified (HFT firms colocate with exchanges, consumer banks must have to comply with regulations that necessitate these delays) but it does seem that the ordinary consumer is being screwed out of some innovation here.

3) Finally, just this past week, someone accidentally deposited over $1000 into my account. They must have made a mistake with the account number. I told the bank about it, and it still hasn't been resolved. How is this even possible? From what I understand, all you need to withdraw and deposit money from an account is the combination of routing number and account number, and this seems so crazy in the way it opens up for mistakes or abuse.

Of course, I'm likely underestimating the complexities and histories here so I would be very happy to have my naivete corrected.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really disagree about making it 'easier' to login to your online banking. Those who are savvy enough know what they are doing and can handle complex password / authorization combos. Until we have better solutions leave it complex and let customer service handle the cases where the odd person can't manage their login info. With banking, security is a far better requirement than usability. Having said that, my online bank has what I perceive to be a fairly secure 3-step auth system and if I don't have my info physically in front of me I can't get access. Emergency and can't login? I'll call them.

<comment><USER15> 3-step authentication? Which bank offers that?

<comment><USER14> my bank uses:

1\. 12 digit pin / complex password

2\. Physical reference card (like a puzzle game to answer on login)

3\. Must reply to SMS to transfer funds / configure payments

<comment><USER15> Which bank?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article has several ideas that are fundamentally flawed - but here's the most easily falsifiable one:

"What's worse, a weak password, or a password that sits on your desk?"

Contrary to what is said in the article, a weak password is worse - <USER3> question. A password that sits on my desk is only available to people who break into my home. If they do that, they probably have access to other documents of some importance.

A password that is weak can allow anyone access to my account, from anywhere.

<comment><USER17> He mentioned login attempts in the article. Someone tries the wrong password more then a few times and the account gets locked. That should thwart any and all dictionary/brute force/you name it attacks. So which is more secure, an impossible to accomplish remote attack, or a password sitting on your desk?

Bank password polices are retarded. I currently have one that requires 6 characters. No more, no less. This may be the worst offense I've seen but it doesn't excuse the other bullshit that passes as secure or acceptable in the banking arena. These guys need help.

<comment><USER16> I'm not trying to say that bank password policies make sense. They do need help.

"Allow weaker passwords and limit login attempts" is not the solution either, because it gives an attacker who has discovered my user id but not my password the ability to lock my account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How many times do people talk about their bank in glowing terms? How many people _love_ their bank? How many people rave about their bank? I have never met anyone that would meet those descriptions. I think those are telltale signs that there is room for a Zappos of banks. I hope www.simple.com can be it. I wish www.mint.com had gone for it.

<comment><USER19> I'm feel pretty good with Lloyds (UK). While they're not perfect, they:

\- don't have silly password restrictions (login is username + password 1 + 3* n'th letter from password 2, transfers need password 1 again, large transfers to unknown destination needs phone confirmation (automatic service))

\- have website working well in pretty much any browser

\- provide instant SMS notification about low balance and an account summary every week

\- have pretty low waiting times (whenever I call, it's rarely more than a minute before my call is picked up)

\- process my statement and split known records into groups showing me money spent/earned from various sources (car, house, food expenses, etc.); they find recurring payments and put them into a calendar which gives a good idea of how much money I need and when; effectively they killed the need of using local app for keeping track of my account

\- they provide exports into csv and other formats (although they've got a "known issue" for years where the export range is approximate - it can add or miss a couple of days randomly)

\- they do watch my account - when my employer missed the payday by 1 day, I got a call to check if that's expected; when I got a larger incoming transfer, I also got a call to notify me about it and check if it's expected (did not request that before)

I do recommend them to other people, because they're better than other banks I had to deal with.

<comment><USER18> Great to know. Thanks! I will check them out :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I do all my banking from home by physically mailing stamped envelopes with checks, deposit slips, and signed letters ordering transfers. These envelopes are then opened by a teller who processes the transaction and mails a receipt of the transaction back.

It's considerably faster than trying to use their web site.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a space that will likely never be "disrupted" because the people capable of doing it don't have the huge capital required and the people who do have the capital don't really give a shit.

<comment><USER22> However, there are companies who care.

Two of the banks I use share the same web engine. They've both bought it from some company that I don't know. Both banks are of the smaller ones so they don't do internal development, hence outsourcing: big banks would probably exhibit a loud NIH syndrome.

Now, one of the banks I use has had it for at least over ten years, having been a customer there, and the user interface hasn't essentially changed much. I remember a couple of cosmetic updates but the pages still look pretty minimal and clean. This is a sign of caring about users because web user interfaces tend to get replaced every few years for the sake of getting renewed. Somebody has clearly had an opinion on how an online banking interface should work, and that somebody has stuck to it. For years.

The login, as is typical in Finland, is a username + password, plus a ever- changing PIN code from a printed table. You need one PIN code for login and another if you issue wire transfers. I've had the same username since 90's and I've changed the password maybe twice. I don't have them on paper. I get a new PIN code table by mail a couple of times a year as soon as the old one is about to run out of codes. Pretty secure and convenient: set of credentials that don't change and another set of simpler credentials that change every time.

Too bad their demo logins are in Finnish and Swedish only, not English. From what I read, this company has awaiting sales in the U.S. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe <https://simple.com/> is the best chance to start pushing the banks to improve their online interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's a stupid situation: the interface is so unclear and messy that you're afraid to do something wrong(and nobody wants mistakes with the money), so you just use the online banking for small amounts of money.

Also in my bank the password need to be shorter than 15 characters, I will never understand this.

<https://simple.com/> is the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER25> ING has a pretty great banking interface. Simple, easy to use, powerful enough to do anything I've needed so far.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mint.com is a good dashboard to watch your finances. I check my balances and trends etc from Mint and only log into my bank when I need to do a transaction. They are probably stealing all my personal information however.

</comment><comment> lenka-penka tnx, michokest, fully understand your pain

</comment><comment><USER27> Great!</comment>


MongoDB ODBC Driver with SQL Connector - <AUTHOR>

Simba Technologies Inc. is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.7 of its innovative Simba Technologies MongoDB ODBC Driver, providing best-in-class connectivity for MongoDB data sources. The release features several ground-breaking advances, notably a breakthrough SQL interface for MongoDB, industry-first support for ODBC 3.8, and better performance. <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.simba.com/data-technologies/odbc/simba-brings- new...](http://www.simba.com/data-technologies/odbc/simba-brings-new-level- odbc-3-8-connectivity-mongodb-data-sources)</comment>


Urban Outfitters CEO says retail bubble has burst amid weak sales – Fortune.com - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/03/08/urban-outfitters-bubble/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to understand fashion a little more. On the one hand many people in fashion are left of center, on the other hand they push people to buy _new_ clothes every season --a very wasteful and unproductive strategy. So they go cheaper and more disposable resulting in ultimately more waste. I'm seeing people begin to buy things like farmers do, more expensive but more durable -is not as fashionable.

I don't understand the choice of profession knowing it's one of the industries most oriented toward disposable products and built in obsolescence, aside from toilet paper and nappies/diapers.</comment>


Get Ready for Peak Oil Demand - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-peak-oil-demand-1495419061?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> At the beginning and end of every business cycle, the media ( sellers of ads not news ) run the "peak oil" and "peak oil demand" stories.

8+ years ago, "Peak Oil".

[https://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/05/04/peak-o...](https://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/05/04/peak- oil-global-oil-productions-peaked-analyst-says/)

Now it's "peak oil demand".

It's so silly. These people write the same thing over and over and over again because they are in the business of selling ads and propaganda.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." \- Twain</comment>


TweetPhoto CEO Says Too Much In Interview, Gets Fired. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/tweetphoto-dan-caufield-fired-legal-threat-wsgr/ <comment><USER2> If you listen to Frank Peters' intro, Caulfield had apparently been fired from the company prior to the interview being published.

Not that TechCrunch ever messes up their facts...

<comment><USER3> Maybe he couldn't get in touch with him because he didn't know how to spell his name. Oh wait, he says he didn't feel he should. Misspelling the name was an entirely separate fail.

After the Scamville fame, Arrington puts things back into perspective. They just can't bother thoroughly researching a story, because somebody (Mashable, ReadWriteWeb) will beat them in a race to FIRST POST!!1

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting part is that Arrington used to be a lawyer, and he used to work for the firm mentioned. [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/tweetphoto-dan- caufield...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/tweetphoto-dan-caufield- fired-legal-threat-wsgr/#comment-3107324)

<comment><USER5> Yes, he used to work for Wilson Sonsini.

This is when I'd like to have a yelp for service providers, or a "karma keeper". Today, a lawyer at Wilson Sonsini did some bad karma. Another day, another partner there will do a great thing. Can we keep the score somewhere?

Eventually the scumbags would rise to the top and we'd all know better.

<comment><USER6> Did some bad karma - aka, represented his client?

<comment><USER7> They sent out a letter on law firm letterhead that made reference to violations of the law and wrapped up with a blunt request for a response within 24 hours. They are trying to bully the interviewer by using carefully crafted language to make it look like the interviewer could face legal consequences from not complying with the request. In fact, the interviewer has done nothing illegal and has no legal obligation to take down the podcast containing the interview nor an obligation to even respond to the letter.

This, is bad karma.

<comment><USER8> If you think that's bad karma, you clearly haven't dealt with lawyers much. This is about par for the course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This feels much more like a publicity stunt. We don't know if the CEO was planning to leave all along and they just decided to try something to get press and spill the beans about some Kodak connections in the process.

Think about it, if this hadn't gotten sticky, that little interview never would have reached a real audience, and they clearly wanted everyone to know about the connections they were building.

This is all wild speculation and conspiracy theory, but if I'm right, it worked out nicely. I've now heard of TweetPhoto and it sounds like they are going to be connecting it with a major photo printing company... so... interesting.

<comment><USER10> I don't know any self-respecting CEO that would agree on that.

They better be paying the CEO a nice severance package for him to agree in ruining this reputation for good.

You have a wild imagination man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If there was ever a call for "Dear Lawyers: I read your letter. Go pound sand. Sincerely," ...

<comment><USER12> <http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman/arkell.htm> <\- This is my favourite legal response

<comment><USER13> Here's another famous one, at the otehr end of the scale: <http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm> (The "Our response" link is the one, but the others may be useful for context.)

<comment><USER14> Interesting to see that not only does Monster cable rip-off un-knowledgeable customers but they also shelter their profits from US taxes by paying an offshore holding company a royalty on the designs. Truly an odious company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "This story just screams amateur hour, although I can't figure out exactly who's the amateur."

maybe you, mr Arrington... maybe you.</comment>


Algebra Driven Design - <AUTHOR> https://algebradriven.design/ <comment><USER3> The top comment on yesterday's post on the Keli language ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331635)) sums up FP's failure to become mainstream pretty clearly IMO:

> The other reason is that many FP users are too enthusiastic about creating > abstractions. This is of course something that FP is exceptionally well > suited for. An api that was written to simply process a list of Orders into > a Report might be abstracted into a fold on some monad, which at first seems > a great idea. But if you're not careful, readability suffers a lot. It's > much easier to get to know an application when its code deals with business > objects that you already understand well, than to read hundreds of lines of > code that deal only with abstractions.

Industry programmers didn't sign up to learn about category theory. They do what they do because they like building things. There is a subset of those Industry Programmers that does indeed like learning about category theory and all of these other concepts necessary to grok languages such as Haskell - <USER2> it isn't a critical mass by any means.

That's why I think languages like Elm are a good example of "the sweet spot" of FP languages. Yes, Elm lacks the horsepower that other pure FP languages have, but at least it doesn't lead a developer to think "hey, I didn't sign up to learn about Arrows and Monads. I just want to write a TODO list".

<comment><USER4> You don't have to know category theory to use Haskell. You have to learn some basic concepts like monads, but complaining about that is like complaining "I don't want to use Java because then I'd have to learn what an object is".

<comment><USER3> I disagree that objects and monads are the same level of building block in the respective paradigms.

Objects <> Java and functions <> Haskell might be a better comparison.

Not to mention that there's already a person's intuition about what an "object" might be before they even learn programming. But there's no real- world analog to what a Monad is. So, yes, you do get into the situation where a programmer will say, "what? I didn't sign up for this" when being told to learn Monads to use Haskell.

<comment><USER4> There's also no real-world analog for a For-loop, but it's still not a credible complaint to avoid learning C.

Also, just because java objects are called "objects" and not some other word with less colloquial meaning doesn't mean that they actually map well to real- world objects. Fully understanding the true semantics of Java objects is at least 100x as complicated as fully understanding the true semantics of monads. The only thing it's easier to do with Java objects is to delude yourself into thinking you might understand them, because they have a familiar name.

<comment><USER5> thats not true at all, repetition is natural.

map is also quite natural, but isn't it telling that the way a human will do this on paper is by reptition of the same task in sequence... i.e. a for loop.

> The only thing it's easier to do with Java objects is to delude yourself > into thinking you might understand them, because they have a familiar name.

i'm not sure why you consider this 'delusion'? that familiarity of name and concept is precisely why its so easy to learn.

<comment><USER6> > map is also quite natural, but isn't it telling that the way a human will do > this on paper is by reptition of the same task in sequence... i.e. a for > loop.

Would they?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > 10x is often cited as the magic number beyond which technology is good > enough to overcome network effects. I'm personally convinced that functional > programming is 10x better than any other paradigm I've tried

Better for who? Bad code that ships is better than good code that doesn't. From a business perspective, I don't care if it's written in COBOL as long as it ships.

The critical missing piece in the functional argument is an example (or probably several) where a company using functional programming consistently outperformed one that wasn't. By default, the business will be opposed to using anything that isn't one of the big programming languages because haskell/scala programmers are expensive. Why would I pay a bunch of expensive haskell programmers to build a chat app? I could build something that got me 80% of the way there for 30% of the cost.

I think Haskell can flourish in places where correctness matters - fintech, factory control systems, and weapons come to mind. But in the vast majority of places that employ programmers, correctness doesn't actually matter. One argument for this is that requirements change so often that "correct" is impossible to define, so the overhead of being correct is actually a bug, not a feature.

With all that said, I do wish that we had better software, and that correctness mattered more. I like functional programming, and I think learning it can make any programmer better.

<comment><USER8> "Bad code that ships is better than good code that doesn't"

Maybe better for your bottom line (no criticism, we all have to eat), but not better for the world. Look around at our software universe: bad code that shipped, everywhere.

Bad code that ships gets us Windows.

<comment><USER9> > Bad code that ships gets us Windows.

as much as an enthusiast linux user I am, I'm pretty sure that the world would be a worse place without DOS & Windows

<comment><USER10> How so? I mean, obviously it's impossible to make a decent educated guess since basically the entirety of most peoples' interactions with computers stems from the near-monopoly Microsoft had on personal computing in the 90s. But I'm still curious to know what you predict would be different if MS didn't strike their deal with IBM.

<comment><USER11> MS Window's presence in the market made PCs true commodities and drove down the price for home and office computers in a way none of their contemporary competitors would have achieved.

Most of their competitors were tied to hardware, and received a lot of their revenue and profit from the combination of hardware and software sales. MS only needed to sell the software, and let HP, Dell, Gateway, and others compete on hardware prices. This probably put more computers out there (within that time span) than would have been achieved without them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love Haskell and appreciate its abstraction power. But recently I started to think that one of the reasons that prevent it from becoming more popular is that the community focuses too much on "mathematical" abstractions. Almost every abstraction becomes a mathematical one. "Oh, this thing turns out to be a Monoid! Let me abstract it." "Oh, I can simplify this using Traversal", etc.

They usually make perfect sense and useful abstractions, but at the same time they scare many programmers away. Especially non-math-savvy programmers will be easily turned away when they see code that is heavily abstracted in a mathematical manner.

I also come from Lisp and Lisp focuses on building a language using the terms/concepts from the given problem domain. And when you do it right, it makes the code very natural in that specific problem domain and any domain experts can understand the code easily.

Haskell communities do it very differently by making everything a mathematical problem, and it's only math experts who feel comfortable with the code.

<comment><USER13> Mathematical abstractions are often at the wrong level of abstraction. Mathematicians mostly care about value semantics but programmers need to care about how it's realized in hardware too.

For example, sure, you can think of a list as a "monoid" where the add operator is concatenation of two list. But adding two lists is not a fast operation even using specialized functional data structures. So making concatenation a primitive for equational reasoning just results in really slow code.

<comment><USER14> I'm confused, with the right data structure concatenating lists is an O(1) operation.

<comment><USER13> You're probably thinking of storing it as some linked list but that doesn't work with mathematical abstractions (which is my point).

For example in mathematics if you write "C = A + B" and then you ask what A is, it's still always going to be the same.

To make this work in programming you basically have to make all your data structures persistent[1]. AFAIK you would need a store the list as a finger tree or something if you need fast concatenation and that will still only be O(log(n)) [2].

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

[2] [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/fingertree-0.1.4.2/docs/D...](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/fingertree-0.1.4.2/docs/Data- FingerTree.html#v:-62--60-)

[3] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28406512/why-does- concat...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28406512/why-does- concatenation-of-lists-take-on)

<comment><USER15> In math everything is persistent/immutable anyway, so persistent data structures are a given when working with purely mathematical abstractions.

There is a memory issue because of this, but this problem isn't exclusive to FP languages. Many languages solve this with something called garbage collection.

<comment><USER15> The very definition of pure FP (which is basically just programming founded on the principles of mathematics) rest foundationally on just a program that is immutable and has no side effects. Those are the only two requirements needed to do FP.

Immutability is therefore the axiomatic foundation of FP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You might have been bitten by this before:

        1. Make it work
        2. Make it right
        3. Make it fast (uh-oh your nice design prevents performance optimizations, time to scrap it)

The reaction to that is usually to think more about performance ahead of time so you don't get trapped by your theoretically perfect design when the real world comes crashing down.

With your hard-won experience you do away with those childish notions of being able to make a perfect elegant design where you don't have to worry about performance until the end.

The most valuable thing you'll find in Sandy's book is that you can actually ignore performance until the end and nearly always (always maybe?) be able to make it fast.

You can regain your optimism from your younger years before the bad experiences and resume this path:

        1. Make it work
        2. Make it right
        3. Make it fast

I think it goes without saying that I _highly_ recommend Sandy's book and think it could be the way forward for quickly writing correct, elegant (composable/re-usable!), and __FAST __programs.

<comment><USER15> >theoretically perfect design

We have no metric to use to quantitatively score one design as something unequivocally better than another design.

This is the first thing you will need before you can prove one "design" is "better" than the other. Until than we are doomed to go in circles and have endless debates.

I believe even if we do find some quantitative measure on program "designs" it won't be rating something as "better" or "worse" it will likely be metrics on many dimensions measuring tradeoffs.

<comment><USER6> When you design software focusing only on the business logic and domain the end result will be better than if you have to do it while juggling implementation and performance concerns.

> We have no metric to use to quantitatively score one design as something > unequivocally better than another design.

Given the current state of software development, it's not fair to place that burden of proof here when it's not used elsewhere.

<comment><USER15> >When you design software focusing only on the business logic and domain the end result will be better than if you have to do it while juggling implementation and performance concerns.

Do you have a foundational proof for this? What are your axioms and theorems? A qualitative description (that you have provided) is open for debate. I can say the opposite and supply you with an endless chain of examples while you come at me with couter-examples and we go nowhere.

>Given the current state of software development, it's not fair to place that burden of proof here when it's not used elsewhere.

The entire mathematical community has this burden placed on them. The entire scientific community has lesser statistical validations placed it. The programming community has endless design pattern debates online as the burden.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about myself - it _seems like_ functional program ought to be > object-oriented program which ought to be > procedural programming. However, I've almost never seen a functionally- designed application "in the wild" and honestly, it's pretty rare to even see an object-oriented one. It seems like every program I ever dig into is mostly written procedurally, even if it's written in a language that supports higher- level abstractions. And, for the most part, software works. As much as I love the concept of pure functional programming, how do we really know that "functional programming is better" and that's not just wishful thinking on our part? Looking forward to digging into this - hopefully the author can make a better case than others have.

<comment><USER8> Neither paradigm solves the expression problem. This forces people to break the paradigm as the code grows. Look at the code in some Julia packages, and you will see good use of abstractions around a language design where the expression problem does not exist. This is practical stuff, being used in applied scientific research on a large scale.

<comment><USER17> From the wikipedia:

> The expression problem is a new name for an old problem. The goal is to > define a datatype by cases, where one can add new cases to the datatype and > new functions over the datatype, without recompiling existing code, and > while retaining static type safety (e.g., no casts).

Why should I care about recompiling? That's an implementation detail.

Taking the compilation stuff out, it looks very similar to classy lenses.

<comment><USER18> > Why should I care about recompiling? That's an implementation detail.

Sometimes you don't have access to 3rd party src code you call into, hence why you can't always modify and recompile it.

<comment><USER19> Its more about the modification rather than recompilation.

<comment><USER17> But type classes solve the modification problem. (Even tough no language that I know of solves the recompilation.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This looks interesting and the "freebie" is quite extensive at 80 pages. It would be nice to have a full table of contents to see what more you can expect, rather than the "executive summary" of what you could hope to learn.

</comment><comment><USER21> As both a mathematician and a programmer who often works on projects where high reliability is essential, I want to like the concept behind this book. However, based on the website and sample chapters, it's not clear that there will be strong arguments made here about either scalability or performance, which are the usual practical problems with trying to employ formal methods and very "mathematical" abstractions. Sadly, the early repetition of the usual faux quicksort example _and_ the casual dismissal of arguments by "purists" about the difference is going crush the author's credibility among a large group of programmers by the end of page 7, which is not a good omen.

<comment><USER22> Do you mind sharing what industry you work in and how you got there? I am mainly caught by "as both a mathematician and a programmer who often works on projects where high reliability is essential". I was a mathematician (or more strictly am a failed mathematician) who also does software, and so I am always curious what other domains people with this background work in.

In general, I am turned off as well from the abstractionauts in the software world, particularly those found in the Haskell realm, and highly prefer more pragmatic functional languages like F#, Racket, and Elixir/Erlang.

<comment><USER21> _Do you mind sharing what industry you work in and how you got there?_

I've worked on software in a few different industries, but the ones that needed particularly good reliability were mostly related to hardware deployed in challenging environments. For example, it's never good to discover a bug in production when your firmware update process involves helicopters. :-) I've also worked on software that used quite intricate data processing algorithms, where any bugs could manifest as subtly incorrect behaviour that might not be noticed until it was too late and some serious failure had been caused.

I didn't specifically pursue these kinds of projects, they just happen to be common themes in the roles I've taken over the years. In time, I developed an interest in tools and processes for producing software that is significantly more reliable than much of what our profession produces, yet not necessarily on the level of say threat-to-life or running-a-satellite code where extreme measures might be justified almost regardless of cost. I firmly believe that even with the inevitable pressures driving commercial software development, the standards in our business could be much higher than they often are today, and that much of the problem is due to people — developers, managers, users — not realising what else is achievable or what it would really cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm starting to think that every thread about FP is pretty much identical on HN, especially when Haskell is involved. If you still need a ton of push to try it out, you'll never get it. If decades upon decades of provably superior concepts haven't convinced you, just give up. Just go and get hyped when the next minor FP feature gets integrated into your favourite language, something that's been used in Haskell/Erlang/etc. for 20+ years.

<comment><USER24> > I'm starting to think that every thread about FP is pretty much identical on > HN

Spot on.

Where is Haskell actually used? No I meant apart from Facebook and Uber and Klarna.

> Just go and get hyped when the next minor FP feature gets integrated into > your favourite language

We already have immutability in Java - why, the designers themselves made Strings immutable [1]

We said goodbye to nulls in Java [2] but in case you really don't like nulls you can also say goodbye to them by switching from Java to Kotlin, which doesn't have them [3] but also does [4].

If you want to cut down on some boilerplate (without moving to Kotlin), you can try type inference in Java [5]:

> For example, consider the following variable declaration:

        Map<String, List<String>> myMap = new HashMap<String, List<String>>();

> You can substitute the parameterized type of the constructor with an empty > set of type parameters (<>):

        Map<String, List<String>> myMap = new HashMap<>();

Go got rid of Generics which made programming so much simpler. I can't wait for its new Generics feature though.

But if you really need that functional stuff - the best thing writing Java code is that it runs on the JVM, so you can code in Scala instead. And if that argument doesn't make you want to code in Java I don't know what will.

[1] [https://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-string-is- imm...](https://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-string-is-immutable-or- final-in-java.html)

[2] [https://programmer.help/blogs/finally-i-m-happy-to-say- goodb...](https://programmer.help/blogs/finally-i-m-happy-to-say-goodbye-to- null-say.html)

[3] [https://medium.com/kayvan-kaseb/say-bye-to- nullpointerexcept...](https://medium.com/kayvan-kaseb/say-bye-to- nullpointerexception-in-kotlin-c8f0bae2c773)

[4] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50427490/nullable- type-s...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50427490/nullable-type-still- throw-nullpointer-exception-at-kotlin)

[5] [https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/generics/genTyp...](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/generics/genTypeInference.html)

<comment><USER23> I use Haskell because it actually delivers on the promise of software reusability. In his book, John Ousterhout wrote a wonderful phrase: "increments of software development should be abstractions, not features.". I completely agree.

Even though the JVM ecosystem is great, I dislike the languages that run on it, Clojure being an exception. To filter out OOP, it fundamentally abstracts the wrong thing. Modules should abstract functionality, not data. And that's why I don't want anything to do with Java.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I'm personally convinced that functional programming is 10x better than any > other paradigm I've tried.

The failing is having a simple model that assumes that any one paradigm is ever best.

A multi-paradigm language will always have the capacity to be better, or equal, by any metric.

I also strongly disagree with this sentiment based on experience. There are some tiny niches where functional programming is particularly useful, but outside of them the code is classically difficult to read, write or debug.... a problem made worse by the, very honestly, absolutely appalling quality of almost all example code - normalising one letter variable names, squeezing things onto one line and all kind of other terrible practises.

these are deeply serious problems that fp fanboys and academia seem to glaze over, presumably from a lack of real world experience, or appreciation of how valuable these qualities are ...

<comment><USER6> > There are some tiny niches where functional programming is particularly > useful, but outside of them the code is classically difficult to read, write > or debug

What niches are these where FP is "classically difficult to read, write or debug"?

<comment> non-entity I think they're saying the opposite, that FP languages are difficult in general and only useful in a few niches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Someone wrote a comment in this thread saying that Haskell's strength is "rigorous correctness". Ok sure, I agree that generally your program is going to be more correct with Haskell than with, say, TypeScript. But that doesn't preclude a TypeScript program from ever being as correct as a Haskell one. One limitation might be the additional boilerplate due to the inability to abstract as much as Haskell. But if more boilerplate translates to greater readability (i.e. less abstraction & much closer relation to the problem domain) then I would argue that the added boilerplate is justified.

Hence I don't really see, "rigorous correctness" as a good selling point for using Haskell since company culture tends to affect correctness just as much as the language a team uses.

<comment><USER25> That's a pretty big "if", though. Boilerplate is generally noisy, and it can be challenging to encapsulate it well enough (e.g. behind function boundaries) that the remaining code is high level and business-logic oriented. Company culture can only go so far (unless you're willing to pay the full tax, and maintain your code in the costly, slow way that e.g. NASA and other life- critical systems developers would).

You can get halfway to Nirvana just by using a language that self-manages memory and has some kind of exception system (error handling at a distance); something like RAII (automatic lifecycle management, or automatic destructors in a pinch) can be a big help, too. Now, at least, all the systems-level boilerplate can be omitted from your mainline code.

But high level, business logic pitfalls are hard to encapsulate, and especially so in a dynamically typed program. Documentation becomes critically important (don't ever do X before you do Y), as rigorous unit tests for chains of actions can sometimes be difficult to write. A good, type-level model of your program can be a helpful set of safety rails when refactoring a a large and complex code base, and a rich type system gives you more tools to build those rails to fit the the solution you're building. As a (weak) example, if your type model never lets you read from a file that's already been closed, that's one less thing you have to cover in testing or documentation -- or more importantly, it's one less thing you have to _remember_ to test.

At scale, having multiple ways to introduce structure into an otherwise chaotic (or _arbitrarily_ structured) code base is a win. Building a good type-level model is one smart way to achieve that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I prefer a book on api design with haskell rather than this theoretic book.

<comment><USER6> This "theoretic book" can help you design a very good api. If you mean REST api's by chance, remember those were theoretic once too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd be more convinced if the author linked a bunch of software they'd written before writing yet another haskell tutorial.

10x? We're way above 10x in the ratio of haskell/functional/monad tutorials to running applications. If touting that yours is "the one" and we should skip over the tens of thousands of others out there, some supporting evidence might be useful.

Applications written in haskell you can run on your computer for doing something other than programming is still a list that you can count on your fingers. Please let me be wrong about that and list them if I am. I'll be delighted and wildly enthused.

<comment><USER6> > Applications written in haskell you can run on your computer for doing > something other than programming is still a list that you can count on your > fingers.

Before you make such strong claims, you should at least try and validate they're true. Please stop spreading this lie.

<comment><USER28> You could counter that claim by actually providing a list. You will quickly find that there are far more applications written in Java, Go, NodeJs, Python, Ruby and C/C++ than in Haskell.

EDIT: Please see the TIOBE rankings just to see where Haskell is. I think it is currently at 43

<comment><USER6> Someone already did and the goalposts just got moved again: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24352585](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24352585)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How did Elon Musk learn enough about rockets to run SpaceX? [Answered] - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enough-about-rockets-to-run-SpaceX/answer/Jim-Cantrell

<comment><USER2> That's one of the most fascinating reads I've had in some time.

Some gems...

      The one major important distinction that sets him apart
      is his inability to consider failure.  It simply is not
      even in his thought process.  He cannot conceive of
      failure and that is truly remarkable.

      He and I had very similar upbringings, very similar
      interests and very similar early histories.

      I know this because this is where we parted ways at
      SpaceX.  We got to a point where I could not see it
      succeeding and walked away.  He didn't and succeeded.  I
      have 25 years experience building space hardware and he
      had none at the time.  So much for experience.</comment>


When to fire your co-founders - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/fire-co-founders?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+venturehacks+%28Venture+Hacks%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1084471>

Remove feedburner parameters from the URL to help HN detect duplicates automatically.</comment>


PyCon: PyCon 2009 Videos - <AUTHOR> http://pycon.blogspot.com/2009/03/pycon-2009-videos.html <comment><USER2> There will be more soon. The videos will start being uploaded to <http://pycon.blip.tv> starting today and we should finish everything over the next couple of days. You can follow me (@offbytwo) or @pycon on Twitter for details.</comment>


Kicked out of the US: 33 hours of hell - <AUTHOR> http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11494827 <comment><USER2> I read a lot of posts like this where someone makes a mistake (stupid or not) and ends up in a jail cell for extended periods of time. Aside from the notoriously inhuman behavior of US border security (I'm an American and am treated better at foreign border crossings than at my own country's), the _facilities_ should not be humiliating and scary.

I understand that they can't be admitted to the nearest best western, because the could be a flight risk or a security threat (in some very unlikely scenario). But there's no reason why an airport holding area can't both a) look like a spartan hostel dorm room † and b) be secure. Families with children should stay together, if possible. Separating couples by gender isn't so scary if both partners arrive in a nice dorm room, they know their partner is safe. Dim lighting at night means that people could still be monitored, if truly necessary, and get a good nights sleep. Only dangerous, unruly, or mentally unstable detainees should be kept in jail-level security conditions. Lying on a visa application does not warrant prison treatment.

I know someone has to pay for this, but as someone who travels internationally I'm happy to have my taxes spent in this way... there's a reciprocal quality: I may make a mistake on a form or apply for the wrong visa, and I want to be treated with dignity when that happens.

† [http://aspiringbackpacker.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/Hos...](http://aspiringbackpacker.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/Hostel-Dorm-Room.jpg)

<comment><USER3> > _But there 's no reason why an airport holding area can't both a) look like > a spartan hostel dorm room † and b) be secure._

Heck, real prisons for murderers in Nothern Europe and Nordic countries often look better than Best Western rooms...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many people understand the visa waiver program to mean "America has no immigration laws which apply to white people." This is not _actually_ what the visa waiver program means.

Many countries are pretty lax with regards to people immigrating to the country to work. The United States has fallen into a weird equilibrium where working illegally is very, very common and, since the polity hates this fact, also very, very illegal, but only enforceable against people who mostly follow the rules. If you're reading this and don't hold a US passport, you probably mostly follow the rules, so you need to be _very, very careful_ to not violate immigration law when coming to the US.

<comment><USER5> And the law does not mean that "you made something wrong therefore we have the right to treat you as shit".

And by the way, that is not what is discussed in this thread. These people made a mistake when getting the visa, and instead of getting an error, they were put in jail 33 hours. Not everyone that makes a mistake with the visa is a terrorist or an illegal worker. Probably most of them aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I spent about 60 seconds doing research. The J-1 visa they initially applied for is a work visa (or study visa). The ETSA they came on is for visa- waiver (tourism.) Most countries are going to be very unhappy if you apply for a work visa, don't get it, then show up anyway and say you're just a tourist. Non unreasonably, they assume you're lying. This isn't just a US thing.

<comment><USER7> I might not have read it correctly, but I didn't spot the point where they said their J-1 was not approved - just that it was in progress (and from what I hear, months-long approval processes seem pretty common in the States).

The two countries whose visa process I'm most familiar with in this situation are Singapore and Australia. I've hired many foreigners into Singapore on Employment Passes (the H1-B equivalent) and in some cases, they came in on a tourist visa whilst their EP was in progress (testimony of our hiring speed rather than the Singaporean administration, which delivers the thing in 7 working days).

Similarly, when I applied for Australian PR, which takes quite a bit longer than Singapore, the embassy specifically told me it was fine to travel in and out of the country during the application, and I did so on the usual visa waiver whatever it is called.

I once was cornered - in a polite and friendly manner - by an Australian immigration agent in Singapore on my way to Perth, who for all intents and purposes looked like a perfectly normal, unarmed civil servant in a suit, and who was wondering why I kept popping in and out of his country. Satisfied with the explanation he let me continue after 2 minutes. And if you think immigration is a hot topic in the US, you should see Australian news at the moment...

I've also held two work visas in Switzerland despite owning an "inferior, work-stealing frontalier" (not my words, those of the more right wing protectionists) French passport and I regularly fly in and out of the country without any issues.

Therefore, this story strikes me as an illustration of how bad the backend/IT/processes for immigration are in the US. The main failure point was a lack of communication, with the airline as well as with the travelers. All airlines flying to Singapore and Australia check your visa situation (as in, ask to see the visa and scan it) before you check in precisely to avoid these problems. One also has to wonder the wisdom of not allowing visa types to overlap conditionally, since other countries seem more than able to cope; and whether failing to obtain a work visa really ought to be grounds for exclusion from tourism travel.

<comment><USER8> > I might not have read it correctly, but I didn't spot the point where they > said their J-1 was not approved - just that it was in progress (and from > what I hear, months-long approval processes seem pretty common in the > States).

A J-1 is initiated from a host institution, similar to how a company needs to file a Labour Condition Application (LCA) before they can hire a H1B/E3 etc.

That provides you with the invitation, and you take that and all supporting evidence to a US embassy in your country of citizenship and they assess on the spot whether to approve or deny the visa.

They either couldn't get sponsorship from a host institution, or the consulate officer rejected the application because of some other criteria.

There's not really a "months-long" approval process.

<comment><USER7> Fair. I'm not familiar with US immigration beyond anecdotes from my network.

From first contact to goes-through-the-door-of-your-office, how long would you say it would typically take to hire a Vietnamese or Chinese citizen into your SF company? Singapore's figure is 7 working days and I've done it in 36 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is horrific. Eventually the product will become so bad that, at the margin, foreign tourists will cease to be interested in it and take their (NZ) dollars elsewhere.

Though I've had a nasty experience at _Canadian_ immigration. Once I was invited to speak at a University of Ottawa law school event but neglected to bring the invitation letter. I was directed to secondary screening and spent what seemed like hours there before being allowed to enter the country. At one point a Canadian immigration official said they couldn't find any record of the conference, but as far as I could tell they were looking at the main school's web site, not the law school's. Sigh. Ironically the event was sponsored by the Canadian federal government...

At least it wasn't 33 hours of hell.

<comment><USER10> Investigating suspicious claims when people arrive at immigration control is perfectly reasonable; if you claim to be speaking at a conference but they can't find any indication that said conference exists, holding on to you for a while makes sense. I hope that, even without your invitation letter, you eventually managed to put the CBSA agents in contact with someone who could verify your bona fides and they let you into the country though?

To me, the largest problem with the reported story isn't that they weren't allowed into the US -- applying for a work visa, then trying to enter as tourists when you don't get the work visa is definitely suspicious behaviour -- but rather that they were kept in jail until they could be deported. These were not dangerous individuals; they could easily have been told to go find a hotel and stay there overnight but report back to be deported in the morning.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what happened to a BSDCan attendee a few years ago when he was deemed inadmissible to Canada a few years ago: "You're not allowed in, but it's too late to send you back tonight and you seem harmless, so we're going to give you a 24 hour pass. Be back here at 9 AM tomorrow."

<comment><USER11> > Investigating suspicious claims when people arrive at immigration control is > perfectly reasonable

Not knowing how to Google isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> On one hand, this account sounds overly dramatized (and quite rude calling the officers "broom pushers"), and it's hard to feel sympathy for people who take the privilege of international travel too lightly by not researching the relevant visa regulations (especially when it's a journalist of all people).

On the other hand, US immigration and customs officials really do seem heavy- handed, and seem to revel in treating every tourist who filled out a form incorrectly or misunderstood some rules as the next Bin Laden.

Now it's just a TV show so I don't know how "cleaned-up" it is, but if you watch "Australia Border Patrol" they seem to have a much better relationship with their visitors. Many episodes have people arrive flouting quarantine rules or misrepresenting themselves still get let in, possibly just with a fine, since they get a change to explain themselves calmly and correct their mistakes and the officers come across as trying to help people rather than trip them up.

<comment><AUTHOR> > and it's hard to feel sympathy for people who take the privilege of > international travel too lightly by not researching the relevant visa > regulations

Really? I travel internationally quite often. I'd never dream of "researching the relevant visa regulations". For example, my wife and I have twice booked river cruises through Europe, entering half a dozen countries each time. We did book through a travel agent, and I just assumed we would be fine. And we were. In my experience going from one first world country to another tends to be very low friction. The USA is becoming an increasingly huge outlier. I haven't been there for a while but actually I probably would do some visa research before going these days. Although having said that if I'd obtained an online visa waiver I'd consider that to count as sufficient research.

<comment><USER13> I completely agree with you. As a US citizen, I've found it easier to get through customs in France than to get back into the US.

I find that fact completely astounding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> US immigration is really terrible. My first time through I was shocked at how unfriendly and inefficient the system was. It made a big impact on how I viewed the country.

</comment><comment><USER15> This happened to my friend's parents because they misunderstood a visa form.

</comment><comment><USER16> The whole system needs an overhaul. Voters never see the effects of the immigration laws the politicians write. I'm Canadian, but I've worked in the US in the past and make frequent shopping trips (like most Canadians). Many times I've gotten the secondary inspection treatment -- the technique is to try to ruffle your feathers. You always come out feeling violated, but that's the system.

I'm sympathetic towards the border guards that have to enforce rules that barely make any sense. They have limited information and antiquated computer systems, yet they have to filter millions of people a day, to "protect" the country. Illegal immigration is a thing and so is smuggling, and terrorism.

<comment><USER17> > Voters never see the effects of the immigration laws the politicians write.

Politicians rarely do that either. I wish they all got a heavy accent, put on an agal and did a few trips for comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I up voted, because this does seem wrong, but this lady is overly dramatic in my opinion.

<comment><USER19> As usual with dramatizations of poor policy where the treatment of people is concerned: response on both sides was over the top. Obviously immigration reform is needed. Obviously immigration workers and the security they employ are more tough than they need to be. The problem with this article is the author dehumanizes _them_ because she feels superior to them and more importantly aggrandizes _her_ suffering as if it is comparable to any one of the analogies she draws, let alone all of them.

She spent the night in a jail cell and it was uncomfortable. She was treated like a criminal (ignoring the fact that she was, in fact, a criminal, accidentally or not). She was not, however, treated like anyone typical in Nazi Germany. She certainly wasn't treated like anyone was sticking it to PhD students out of jealousy (how would they even know, especially given the number of people they have to process through customs in a day?) Making the comparison like she is diminishes the actual terrors and actual social dichotomies faced by people that are in no way deeply concerned about not having a cell phone for a day.

<comment><USER20> > She was treated like a criminal (ignoring the fact that she was, in fact, a > criminal, accidentally or not).

No. Simply making a mistake on a visa application is not a crime, nor is overstaying a visa. It counts as "Unlawful Presence", which is a civil offense; in order to rise to the level of a crime, it must be "Improper Entry", which involves crossing somewhere other than a designated border crossing, deliberately lying on application forms, or the like.

One thing that people really need to be aware of in immigration law is the difference between an unlawful act and a crime. Lots of rhetoric about immigration talks about how people are already criminals for being in the country undocumented, when in fact they have violated no criminal statues, merely civil.

Actually, I think that this may not have even constituted unlawful presence; since the author was not yet technically in the country until exiting the airport, she was essentially just turned away at the border (with a brief detention for practical reasons). Note that I am not a lawyer, and not all that familiar with immigration laws, so take my interpretation with a grain of salt; but I am certain that there's a very big difference between civil and criminal violations, and committing a civil violation does not make one a criminal.

<comment><USER21> False statements on a visa application is a federal offense and grounds for inadmissability. Presumably they clicked "no" to "have you ever been denied a visa" when in fact they had.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't presume anything. There are lots of reasons this could have happened, and not just due to lying on the application. Perhaps they had not been denied the J-1, but were just having trouble meeting all of the requirements in time; a J-1 visa requires a whole lot of paperwork, including from sponsoring organizations, and if some of that was taking longer than expected and may not have been done in time, they may have just thought "oh, we can do the ESTA and stay for 90 days with no visa, during which we can work this out", when in fact that is not allowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> US Immigration is heavy handed, some of my aged relatives have entered with valid multiple entry visitor visas, and still have been questioned for 3-4 hours by rude agents.

This couple made some stupid errors though, mainly they were clueless about how rigid the system is.

9-11 obviously changed the US system for ever. Now there is talk of amnesty for people who never filed a single form (sneaked across the border), while those who followed the rules to a T, or at least applied for some visa get treated like this. As a legal immigrant, I am honestly conflicted about amnesty for illegals.

</comment><comment><USER23> This person is pretending to be a fake victim. The situation they created for themselves is their responsibility. If they'd taken responsibility for making sure they are not breaking the law, they wouldn't have broken the law. I believe they are lucky to have been deported so speedily. Also the question they were asked -- "Why didn't you try harder for the J1?" is totally legitimate. Acting privileged and entitled to special treatment because they are "from NZ" is just acting privileged and entitled, instead of choosing to take responsibility to ensure they'd actually get the visa it worked for them to have. Also, planning to have "colleagues at Northwestern" and be on a tourist visa is clear indication that they weren't planning something which was going to work, and that they knew this. These people were just gambling the small probability they wouldn't get picked up, and then when they get caught, they try to incorrectly blame "Homeland Security" for their situation, instead of taking responsibility for having applied incorrectly. Unfortunately, this choice to disown responsibility and pretend you are powerless is a common deluded attitude. People get themselves into all kinds of messes and then blame everyone except themselves. "The law must be rewritten for me" is just an egomaniacal delusion of privilege and entitlement.

<comment><USER24> Have you ever connected to an open wifi before? Have you ever played a poker game with friends at home for money? Have you ever sung happy birthday or Christmas songs in public? Have you ever taken a pee outside? Have you ever failed to update your drivers license when you move? Have you ever Jay-walked?

If you have you should be locked up, quite frankly! And don't go pretending you don't know about the eight thousand pages of obscure statutes that apply to you every day. Ignorance of the law is no excuse!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What else would you expect?

</comment><comment><USER26> Just stop going to the u.s. Frankly, the place is a dump and its people are ignorant and crude. I never thought I'd have an unironic conversation with someone arguing against the existence of evolution until my last trip to the u.s. They are superstitious and even the most liberal of them has politics to the right of your government's fascist wing, and a bizarre attitude toward sex where their behavior is nothing like their rhetoric.

<comment><USER27> That's a pretty broad brush to paint a country of 350+ million citizens.

<comment><USER26> Just do a search on 'u.s. Education decline'.

Sure, there are always individuals that buck the trend but overall the u.s. Is an embarrassment and getting worse.

Anecdotally, I am in the Midwest twice per year and have to listen to people complaining about the Jews and the niggers, and about various conspiracies about global warming, and how there's no way we're descended from monkeys.

I don't hear any of at shit where I live in Europe, except for some of the racist stuff but in a more nuanced manner.

<comment><USER28> F'en BS. You visit the "Midwest" twice a year and there's just people throwing out ethnic slurs all over the place? And the most "liberal" people you're talking to are far right fascists? Sorry, simply BS.

Stop making stuff up. You're not impressing anyone with your nonsense. I await your even more strongly worded rebuttal to being called out. I'm sure it will be super convincing.

<comment><USER26> This is rural MN and NW WI, but even then do you find it hard to believe? 45% of Americans believe in creationism and the u.s. has some of the worse race relations on the planet. What sort of bubble do you live in?

<comment><USER28> I've spent significant portions of my life in rural MN as that's where I was born. I'm in rural MN and WI for 2-4 weeks a year now. My father is buried in a speck on the map that has no stoplights or stop signs. So no bubble at all.

I understand anti-Americanism plays really well at a lot of places online though. So keep the shtick going, I'm sure you'll impress someone.

<comment><USER26> What's anti-American? Do you mean the racism? Or being against racism is anti- American?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm wondering why this person's anger and outrage is so special, she gets her own article in the newspaper.

When people are jerks and rip me off - no one makes me a news article. And that's the problem, in the eyes of the law - you're not this VIP.

I understand her frustration in getting turned around. The rules are the rules. You wasted money on a ticket by hoping you could work on a tourist visa. No, you don't get "let off" or special treatment. Always double check to make sure you are using the correct visa!

Anyone who wants to see customs in action, I recommend the reality TV show "Border Security", they are in UK, Canada and Australia: [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=border+security](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=border+security).

</comment><comment><USER30> US Immigration has been throwing the book at people way, way before Bin Laden. Sorry your feelings got hurt. Next time, pay attention.

<comment><USER31> Yeah why would you want to fix the system and make it easy for people to do things correctly and detect when they have made a mistake. Oh no wait that's actually exactly what you'd want.

<comment><USER32> They didn't make a mistake. They clearly were aware that a J1 and a visa waiver weren't the same thing. These were supposedly educated people. Why did they think the J1 existed? I would be slightly more sympathetic if their first language wasn't Ebglish and they weren't highly educated.

<comment><USER31> NZ has three official language Ebglish is not one of them.

Sorry too hard to resist the cheap shot.

Edit: Sorry this is not meant to offend, I just thought it was funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love the "U.S. Immigration is harsh and mean" meme generally promoted by Canadian, West European and Aussie/NZ folks. Yet, it is interesting how those people conveniently ignore how ridiculous and politically motivated the UK system is. For example, allowing in radical Muslim clerics yet banning an American radio talk show host. Or limiting Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei's visa not because of anything intrinsic about him but because of Beijing's feelings. Ai Weiwei is being treated unequally compared to other Chinese visitors. UK immigration also has targeted certain nationalities for deportation to fill charter planes. Let's not forget about the bloody nonsense at Calais. Then we have Australian immigration policy as well.. This anti-US tripe is getting old. The original author's comparisons to Gitmo were also inappropriate. She wasn't getting water boarded and Jack Bauer wasn't sent to beat her. She was detained because of a visa irregularity that she herself was the cause of. It wasn't a clerical error; she knowingly attempted to enter the country under a false pretense: she wasn't a tourist and she knew it. Sorry for the harsh treatment but it doesn't compare at all to the treatment migrants receive in Calais or when they are captured at sea by the Italians. The fact is that all immigration situations are rather tough all over the world -- especially in countries with extremely high demand and histories of overstays, fraud and abuses.

<comment><USER33> So rather than insisting that your country tries to actually do well you would rather point a finger at someone else to say they are worse?</comment></comment>


So, if this is Hacker News shouldn't there be a category for jobs open to any company? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I would like to see jobs opened up as well. A lot more people would check the section if there were more jobs in it. It would help the YC companies and they could still be highlighted in some way to make them stand out as "special".

(The question as written is stated with a sense of entitlement that seems distasteful to me.)

<comment><AUTHOR> what is exactly distasteful about the question? I didn't ask or entitled that YC's jobs section should be devoted for anyone, but instead provoked the subject for discussion for openinng maybe a new open category, assuming this is not about YC news anymore.

not my fault if you want to look YC friendly and pitch with anything that doesn't look like so.

<comment><USER2> When you go into someone else's house do you say: "So, this is a house with a kitchen right? Shouldn't anyone who comes here have a glass of water?" or do you just plainly ask "Can I have a glass of water?"

It's not my problem if you're a prick, I was just pointing it out in case you cared.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would avoid answering cause I don't really have time for these, but I couldn't skip emphasizing your choice of your words, which really just shows your attitude on everything, including when reading a simple headline!

negative energy is bad dood! it doesn't help!

p.s. I suppose Hacker News is a community and not the house of one individual!

<comment><USER2> I reserve the privilege to be in a grumpy mood and get modded down appropriately.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I've said much dumber things on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Agreed... something simple to match up people to hack together (for fun or for $) would be neat...

</comment><comment><USER3> Nothing is preventing you from submitting a job; it just won't show up in the jobs tab.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think so. I think Hacker News should only allow job postings from companies that hackers would be happy working for, which probably includes most companies funded by YC. Filtering companies outside of that seems like a hard problem.</comment>


You're Blaming the Wrong People - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@johncwelch/you-re-blaming-the-wrong-people-2878ab149faf

<comment><AUTHOR> "The current flavor of the month in the Apple space is iMore.com. Renee Ritchie's response is here.

Setting aside Gruber's dripping condescension and evidently complete lack of understanding that not every web site can or should be DF or The Loop, when you're a company like Mobile Nations or anyone else that consists more of one lone "raconteur" and has to do things like pay writers, designers, and tech people, you're fucked. Why?

Well, for one, unlike newspapers or non-internet radio/TV, for a web site, success can kill you just as much as failure. Bandwidth is not free, and at scale, doesn't even resemble cheap. You want to have all that dynamic goodness? That's more network accesses. That's bandwidth and storage, and no one is giving that away, especially not at the scale that an iMore needs."</comment>


The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html <comment><USER2> this!</comment>