List of selfie-related injuries and deaths - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_selfie-related_injuries_and_deaths <comment><USER2> While people often write off selfie related things as purely narcissism/stupidity, I feel like quite a few of these are pretty ordinary and accidental. For example there's a few about not noticing an incoming flash flood, or the elephant ones (the herd attacked the man when he exited his vehicle).

Now some of these are REAL stupid. Climbing on trains, and being near trains is clearly a common theme.

The injuries with guns are indeed mostly pure narcissism/stupidity. Most of them were of those "gangsta selfies" where they put a gun to their head to look cool. Not only did they point a gun to their head, but they had to have it loaded, chambered, safety off, and finger on the trigger!

<comment><USER3> That one was a real downer:

 _An 11-year-old Pakistani girl drowned while attempting to take a selfie at the Kunhar River, which flows through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. The girl 's mother jumped into the fast-moving river to save her but she was also swept away and drowned. On seeing both his daughter and wife in trouble the father jumped in; he also drowned. The dead bodies of the mother and her daughter were found; the father's body was missing. The six-year-old son of the family was a witness of the tragedy._

Did the parents impulsively jump? Did maybe the dad think for a second that if he doesn't make it, the 6yo will be an orphan, so it might be better to stay? Maybe the son was even trying to stop his dad, seeing how his sister and mother already stood no chance...

<comment><USER4> _Did the parents impulsively jump?_

There is a phenomenon known as the amygdala hijack. It can cause you to jump in a river to save a drowning child before you even consciously know what you are reacting to.

They may not have had time to do any thinking in terms of "But what about my other child? What happens if we both die?" They may have just reacted in the moment, not thinking at all, really.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.selfie-deaths.com/](https://www.selfie-deaths.com/)

Crazy how many train related deaths are there. When I was young, I used to play around train tracks all the time without my parents knowledge. Back then there were no smart phones but even then its crazy How stupid that was. Its astonishing that I have made it out alive. Those things look like they are far away but you blink and boom they are right next to you.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've coined the term selficide for this.

<comment><USER7> Presumably most of these are accidental, which makes that an ill-fitting term.

<comment><USER8> Why does being accidental in nature make it an ill-fitting term? Suicide is not the only word to use the -cide suffix: genocide, regicide, homicide, uxoricide. The -cide suffix regards the act of killing, not of intention or purpose.

<comment><USER9> Suicide is defined as intentionally killing oneself.

<comment><USER10> But selficide refers to the -cide suffix, not to suicide.

<comment><USER11> But then again the "self" prefix means doing it to yourself, as in "self- portrait" (which is where "selfie" comes from): taking a portrait of yourself.

So "selficide" would mean killing yourself, i.e. the same thing as suicide.

<comment><USER9> No! It means the selfie killed you? Which would make it correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A man was discovered with his phone and selfie stick at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff at Long Men waterfall in Zhejiang. Based on photographic evidence on his phone, local police speculated that he lost his footing while taking a selfie and fell to his death. It was not known when he died or how long his body had been there."

If they have photographic evidence from his phone shouldn't they know exactly how long he had been there?

</comment><comment><USER13> "Five passengers aboard a sightseeing helicopter drowned after a passenger allegedly tried to take a 'shoe selfie' leading to the passenger's safety tether getting caught in the emergency fuel shutoff lever."

Man, I'd be so pissed if I died because someone was trying to take a stupid selfie.

<comment><USER14> I bet they were quite pissed off all the way to the morgue too.. but this is the risk you assume when you hang around with impulsive idiots.

<comment><USER15> It may be the case they did not all choose to be together, but were grouped randomly or in the order they were waiting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The main thing that popped out for me was seeing the sheer number of gun related deaths coming out of the US.

Sure, other countries had some as well, but if you scroll by country, it seemed like every US related one involved a gun.

<comment><USER17> If you're taking selfies with a gun, you probably aren't responsible enough to own a gun. Unfortunately, the same could be said for operating a motor vehicle based on a number of these incidents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "He posed with a gun pointed at his face. The man accidentally shot himself"

There seemed to be quite a few of these. There is no such thing as accidentally shooting yourself. You can only do so through gross negligence (or positive intent). It's incredibly simple and easy to 1) Not point a gun at your face, or anything else you don't want to shoot, 2) check if a gun is loaded as the first thing you do any time you handle one, and 3) Keep your damn booger hook off the bang switch.

<comment><USER19> >You can only do so through gross negligence

Which many people would consider to be "an accident". What's the point of this kind of safer-than-thou pedantry?

Believing "accident" is a term reserved for insignificant things is blame- culture mentality, and it has been time and time again been proven wrong. There are big, violent, absent-minded, negligent accidents.

<comment><USER18> > What's the point of this kind of safer-than-thou pedantry?

Keeping people from getting hurt and killed? There's a grave responsibility one takes on when handling firearms. If you take on that responsibility, you have a duty to protect yourself and others. If you don't want that responsibility, don't handle firearms.

<comment><USER19> >Keeping people from getting hurt and killed?

It _doesn 't_ keep people from getting hurt and killed. Gun safety does. Acting as though holding a gun means you cannot make a mistake or have an accident forbids people from being human, but since it denies reality, it changes exactly nothing.

<comment><USER18> Nonsense. There are three very simple gun safety rules. Forgetting any one of them is an accident. Forgetting two of them is a serious wake up call. Forgetting all three of them is not "merely being human"; it is showing reckless disregard for safety, and it is the only time you'll get hurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow, people really like standing in front of and on top of trains. I was expecting falls from height to be far more common (at least relative to trains).

<comment><USER21> I suspect messing around a train in much more dangerous than standing on something high. In statistical terms, the probability of engaging in this behavior on a train is probably lower, but the conditional probability of dying is probably much much higher.

<comment><USER2> I think it's because people understand the danger when they're someplace high - they know to take better care of where they step, how they move etc.

But I'm guessing people either weren't expecting the trains, or weren't expecting to be electrocuted by them.

Since the danger was unexpected to the victims it's more likely for them to succumb to them I would wager?

<comment><USER22> Could you actually get electrocuted by merely standing on/touching a train carriage, but not directly touching any live wires/rails?

<comment><USER2> I'm not a train expert - I'll guess it depends on the train?

Reading through the list, it appears nearly everyone on top of the trains accidentally touched something live - I'm guessing they didn't realize it was live or what would happen if they touched it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728271](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728271) \- Selfie Deaths in the Outdoors (outsideonline.com)

</comment><comment><USER24> While pretty grim, the animal ones are interesting.

<comment><USER25> So many deaths by elephants. I guess they're not the gentle giants I thought they were.

<comment><USER26> Elephants are complex, intelligent, and most importantly VERY LARGE creatures. In particular (although I doubt it's relevant to selfies), musth can make bulls quite dangerous no matter the environment or individual.

They're wonderful, but that shouldn't be confused with "harmless".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> why is India so heavily represented by the list? Even for it's large population it seems very high.

<comment><USER23> It could be biased because Indian stories are more likely to be reported in English. Wikipedia is more likely to use English sources.</comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos: Why the Kindle Is So Expensive - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/jeff-bezos-why-the-kindle-is-so-expensive/

<comment><USER3> _"We want to have the best electronic book store, and we want to have the best-built e-reader — not try to use one to thing to advantage the other," said Bezos._

 _Someone might want to tell Steve Jobs; Apple, um, clearly didn't get anywhere by tying iTunes to the iPod._

Can someone clarify for me, does it sound like Bezos' stance might be that allowing each product to compete in its own market without the advantage of the other will help force it to become a better product? And that ultimately this will be better because each product will have more merit independent of the other?

I can't tell if that's what he thinks or if that's what I think he thinks. Either way, I think I like this way of thinking.

<comment><USER4> Bezos' claim is bullshit; of course they want to use their reader to advantage their store. Long-term, the book-selling business is probably larger for them than the hardware business. But as long as they have the dominant reader device, of _course_ they are going to leverage that into a position of dominance in ebook sales.

He'd love us to believe that the store and reader are not in some sort of mutually-reinforcing dominant position. But if they really were separate, wouldn't I be able to buy e-books from amazon with a different device? And start my own bookshop for kindle users (maybe paying amazon for traffic to the device)?

<comment><USER5> _But if they really were separate, wouldn't I be able to buy e-books from amazon with a different device? And start my own bookshop for kindle users (maybe paying amazon for traffic to the device)?_

You can definitely do the former. You can use your PC to buy Kindle books on Amazon and then read them on your iPhone or iPod touch. (You can't buy them directly on the phone, but who knows whether this decision was made by Amazon or by the Apple App Store guardians.)

As for the latter, you can probably do that too, albeit in a pretty cumbersome way. Native PDF support on Kindle DX will make it much more viable, although the biggest barrier would be limited access to the Kindle's wireless connection.

I suppose one possibility if you were making your own Kindle store would be to have your customers add your site's email address to your Kindle's whitelist of addresses allowed to send documents to your Kindle. This would mean customers would pay an extra $0.15 per MB with each transaction...but now that I think about it this is still way less than Amazon would charge you to sell a book in the Kindle store at Amazon.com....hmmm...I wonder if this may actually be viable?

<comment><USER6> actually, with the newest version of the kindle iphone app, you can buy books and have them sent to your iphone OTA.

and dave thomas at pragmatic programmers has been targeting kindles for a couple of months now. you pay him for the file and then it's up to you to get it on your kindle (by cable or by email), but I prefer his formatting over what you get with other technical books at the kindle store. he's put a lot of thought into making code examples readable on the device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The honest answer: "Because this is what people are willing to pay!"

<comment><USER8> Actually working at a company that designs similiar devices the real answer is: e-ink is crazy expensive. You can buy a 24" lcd screen for the price of a 9" e-ink display. It was impossible for us to match the Kindle's price because they are getting a relatively good deal on the technology compared to the average company.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, the biggest factor holding up the price is the display, no question about it. When we can get alternative e-ink manufacturers, the price will drop.

I looked into developing an e-ink reader, but the developing kit is/was around $3500, enough to keep out hobbyists at this moment.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I think the main reason they are charging 3.5k is to keep the hobby crowd away from the technology. They (eink) does not want to deal with you unless you have serious plans to develop a mass market product.

I decided to call up PVI directly (a fun experience since they answered the phone in a foreign language) and they were willing to sell me 6" displays for around $85 in low quantities.

For hobby related projects, the best bet is to use kent display's CHLCD modules which are similar to a LCD but with bistable pixels. The display driver is also integrated so much easier to interface with.

<comment><USER11> Hopefully, Pixel Qi's displays (and dev kits) will be available on digikey soon after they ramp up, as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my humble opinion, I can't see the Kindle succeeding in this pricing model.

I really respect Bezos but to me he is seeing things from his side not the customers.

The consumer has limited space in his pocket. Why would anyone want to have a Phone and a Kindle with them at the same time.

I can't really see the Kindle appealing to the mass market with that pricing model. I think Amazon's best bet might be offering subscription through smartphones like iPhone and others.

When the iPhone originally came out with the $500 price tag it only appealed to the fan boys. But by cutting the initial price they started appealing to the average Joe.

The thing with the average joe is that they don't do the two year math. They only look at the upfront price. We justified our monthly data plan costs by getting rid of our land line. I think that's why the smartphone makes sense to lots of consumers.

<comment><USER13> _The consumer has limited space in his pocket. Why would anyone want to have a Phone and a Kindle with them at the same time._

I think this misses the point. A Kindle doesn't even fit in your pocket. The value of a Kindle is not that you take it with you anywhere, but that for many people it's a better way of reading books.

<comment><USER14> Indeed. I do most of my Kindle reading on my couch.

Of course, it's also nice to have the same ability on an airplane, too. And it's nice that the battery doesn't die in an hour like my phone would.

I wouldn't want a Kindle if my phone could magically shape-shift to be the size of a book and if it had unlimited battery life. But in the real world, you have to compromise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As long as the total cost of Kindle + 'x' number of k-books is less than what it costs for printed ones, it is cheaper for the customer (ok take some points for style, ease-of-use etc).

The risk with current pricing model is that once somebody buys a Kindle they have to keep buying the k-books at whatever price they come. Otherwise the device becomes useless. One can only hope Amazon keeps a tab on the k-book prices.

</comment><comment><USER16> Every new technology goes through this cycle. Even if it is new only in form and not in it's underlying technology. Some people will be willing to pay a premium to be early adopters. Later on, when competition hits and the market is more saturated (and when the economies of scale are in full swing) the prices will reduce drastically.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is Price Skimming - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_skimming>

Done so well by Apple and others in consumer electronics space.

<comment><USER18> Not necessarily. We don't necessarily know what type of profit margins Amazon gets on the Kindle. --What looks like price skimming can also be due to maturation of a technology.

<comment><USER19> If it was price skimming, wouldn't the newer versions of the product cost less?

<comment><USER17> There'll be a significant drop in price when a strong competitor emerges...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "The Kindle DX is $489, and that is an unbelievably low price for something that has inside it a sophisticated computer, a completely new kind of display of that size, and a 3G wireless radio, Bezos said."

Somebody please send a $250 netbook to Bezos, or two for a Kindle's price.

<comment><USER21> I'm so tired of this netbook argument. They're apples and oranges. One is a dedicated ebook reader and the other is a multifunction ultra-portable computer. Just because one is capable of doing something the other is capable of does not necessarily make them comparable. I've used netbooks and e-ink ebook readers. The ebook experience on a netbook does not compare. This is like saying cell phones are a rip off because you could use a $40 pair of walkie talkies without a monthly fee instead.

Not to mention, we have no idea what the cost is on a Kindle. Netbooks use commodity components that are widely available from numerous manufacturers. The same is not true of e-ink displays. This is at least partly a factor in the perceived high cost of an ebook reader.

We also don't know what kind of arrangement Amazon has with Sprint. Amazon gives a few cents to Sprint when you purchase something using Whispernet. Maybe Sprint also gets a flat fee every time a Kindle is sold. We simply don't know.

There's also the issue of limited competition in the ebook market right now. There are only a few manufacturers of quality e-ink readers and on top of it all the Kindle is the only game in town if you want to buy ebooks from Amazon. This is relatively new technology and the price will go down. We've seen it before with the components that go into a $250 netbook. This is economics 101.

<comment><USER22> I do not agree because:

\- Netbooks are usually based on Atom processors that are cheap when compared to Core2 and other more traditional PC processors but are much more expensive than the cellphone-class ARM processor used in the Kindle

\- Netbooks use higher-capacity batteries because Atom processors use more juice than the ARM in the Kindle.

\- The Kindle uses far more commoditized components than a netbook does - <USER2> uses cellphone-class components while netbooks use PC-class ones.

\- Netbooks also have more RAM - the Kindle certainly has less than a gigabyte of RAM - I would risk the Kindle has no more than 128 megs, soldered on the motherboard - which is also cheaper than mounting RAM into a socket.

\- The e-ink displays are not new technology - a couple years ago my carrier (in Brazil) offered me a Motorola phone with e-ink display. It was an entry- level "dumbphone" and I did not need one. The only "new" thing in the Kindle DX display is its size and design considerations that follow from it.

<comment><USER23> Dude, you do not want to compare the e-ink technology from your "Motorola phone with e-ink display". That was cheaper, of course, but the resolution was awful (2x6). Not to mention refresh speed and screen size.

Pocket calculators have LCD displays for decades, too. That does not mean that your 22" inch LCD screen has no "new technology" and should be cheap.

<comment><USER22> The e-ink part is exactly the same. It's the logic behind the screen that is different.

And Kindles are not that different from any other e-paper display device bundled with e-readers from many other sources.

The Kindle should be cheap to build

<comment><USER14> You know this isn't Reddit, right? Just saying something 100 times doesn't make it true.

<comment><USER22> The same way as saying any number of times something is false doesn't make it so.

This discussion lacks a price list for all parts. Until then, it's my common sense against yours.

Or better: my biases against your biases.

<comment><USER14> Source: <http://www.isuppli.com/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=20138>

<comment><USER22> Thanks.

US$ 60 for the display doesn't look that expensive. At US$ 190 total cost of manufacture for the 2, I would risk the wireless free forever subsidy seems to be a substantial part of the unit cost. Would it be a safe bet to estimate the display of the DX to be around US$ 120?

So, again, I would be happy with a DX that used wi-fi or my own GSM/3G instead of the US-only cellular network. And the bright side is that it could probably be sold for less than the current versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I want mine with a GSM-ish modem and no lifetime data plan. That should make it cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's offensive that they considered _forcing_ Kindle owners to purchase a minimum amount of books per month.

<comment><USER25> Really? It's offensive that they considered a plan that would subsidize hardware with required book purchases? I'm glad they didn't go that route, but it would have been stupid of them to not think about it.

<comment><USER24> If they're forcing you to purchase a certain amount of books, and you don't, your hardware would most likely get turned off; meaning that you are really leasing it. Which is complete bullshit.

<comment><USER26> Does your cell phone turn off if you don't use the full allotment of minutes?

<comment><USER27> It does if I don't pay for the ones I don't use.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Elon Musk's tunnel vision the right way to fix traffic in Southern California - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-elon-musk-boring-tunnel-mass-transit-20181220-story.html <comment><USER2> So, in order to use this tunnel, you have to own a Tesla?

This is what gets me about the self-driving silos... Will all self driving cars have standards-based Tunnel-Nav capabilities? Or will all tunnels have sleds? (the video I saw of Musk's tunnel was it looked like a simple concrete service tunnel, and required the tesla to self-drive through it)</comment>


Building a socket.io chat app and deploying it using AWS Fargate - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/containers-on-aws/building-a-socket-io-chat-app-and-deploying-it-using-aws-fargate-86fd7cbce13f <comment><USER2> Fargate has been really cool. Setting up the networking was a bit of effort. It would be great if api gateway / lambda were fast enough, but it's 10x slower for 95th percentile and median latency compared to the same app running in fargate. Need to blog about this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a shame you still have to deal with cloud formation configuration files with this approach. They are the most inscrutable part of AWS, for me.

<comment><USER2> Cloudformation is really cool but ya it's kind of a pain. Yaml helps over json for me. Also there is Cloudformer where you can setup a stack in the UI and export it as a Cloudformation template: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGui...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/cfn- using-cloudformer.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome to see tutorials about making serverless apps!

<comment><USER2> Fargate is kind of serverless. Ultimately you're running applications on containers on ecs. It takes away the need to deal with the ec2 instances which is huge, but you still have to deal with the networking and making sure your web server process(es) stay up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage device time with your children? - <AUTHOR> The other week I saw some great discussion around children's use of technology. That got me thinking, how does the broader community view device usage for their children?<p>If you have kids, what limits do you put on their technology usage (if any)? Specifically, how/why did you reach that decision? <comment><USER2> 11 yr old girl. PS4, 1 hr Saturday and Sunday (parent control). Everyday aprox 30 minutes of TV (Disney crap series for teenagers) before bedtime. Tab or PC for homework (if needed) and of course a mobile phone, but only for homework and/or study...SIGNAL APP. In the morning a Ladybug cartoon with younger doughter when they eating before school. I think she don't need more...</comment>


Hosting backdoors in hardware - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/hosting_backdoors_in_hardware

<comment><USER2> Every PCI device in your computer could be hosting a backdoor: _" The PCI specification defines an 'expansion ROM' mechanism whereby a PCI card can include a bit of code for the BIOS to execute during the boot procedure. This is intended to give the hardware a chance to initialize itself, but we can also use it for our own purposes."_

The idea is to hook the interrupt handler that normally invokes BIOS code for handling hard drive I/O at boot time so it invokes instead code in the PCI device that applies a backdoor patch to the Linux kernel when it is read off the disk. The author explains how to patch the Linux kernel by overwriting an obscure, seldom-used error message string, and provides sample code for a simple kernel patch that will listen for IP packets with an unused protocol number and run any payload delivered via them on a Linux shell with root privileges.

 _It 's scary how straightforward this looks._

Whenever I read things like this, I'm reminded that every day we're trusting our data and privacy to the people who design, build, and distribute all the hardware (and software) we use but didn't create ourselves from scratch.

To paraphrase Ken Thompson, we have little choice but to trust trust.[1]

\--

[1] [http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html](http://cm.bell- labs.com/who/ken/trust.html)

<comment><USER3> In other words, there's a serious "open hardware" market opportunity waiting to be captured.

<comment><USER4> There's really no way for open hardware to be better. Unless you have your own fab, the only way to ensure that back doors haven't been added at the hardware level is to decap and manually validate every chip. That's pretty clearly not viable.

<comment><USER5> Don't mix up "better" with "perfect". That's the mistake made by people who post a link to the trusting-trust: Trust isn't binary. "Perfect or give up" is a false dichotomy.

I sometimes say "trust no one", which seems to support that false dichotomy, but I mean to say "Reduce and distribute trust".

Open source code and hardware doesn't remove trust. It reduces the amount of trust required and distributes it among more parties. It makes betrayal harder, more expensive, more temporary, and less destructive. That's not perfect, but that's much, much better.

There's a world of difference between closed source software from MegaCorporatism Inc and open source -- even if an evil genius is still technically capable of sneaking something into a compiler or chip.

<comment><USER6> Well, in this case it is a binary thing. When you talk about this in an applied sense you're right, then it isn't a binary thing but when you talk about feasibility then it is black-or-white. You're either sure or it might as well be compromised.

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily. As the author of the article said, it's easier to rely on software bugs than to ship a crocked piece of hardware like this. If you manage to backdoor a mass-production piece of hardware (let's say this is a wifi card or something else similar), you're just one odd error away from someone curious finding out what's happening, raising the alarm, and the whole operation comes crashing down.

From a logistics standpoint, it's easier to break software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny. Folks used to laugh at me for being too paranoid to allow loadable kernel modules on my firewalls (actually I preferred to host the kernels on read only media and have no lkm support all with custom compiled kernels). What seemed horribly paranoid to so many people seems so reasonable today.

This being said, one of the key issues is that I could expect that a compromised motherboard and controller (for example ethernet controller) should be able to make such changes in ram after the boot process has completed, with or without the help of BIOS. The level of paranoia certainly needs to be stepped up a bit.

<comment><USER9> The thing is that distros tend to use loadable modules, and if you want to avoid that you need to compile your own kernel (as you seem to be doing), and at least I am a lot happier getting security updates from my distro than being on the hook for recompiling them myself in a timely fashion.

You can get most of the security benefits of avoiding loadable modules by setting the sysctl kernel.modprobe (i.e., /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe) to "/bin/false" instead of "/sbin/modprobe", late in the boot process. So everything needed to initialize your hardware is loaded, but anything that an unprivileged user attempts to autoload (like a buggy kernel module for a socket family you've never heard of) fails.

I have a config like this on all the security-sensitive servers I run, which tend to have a few thousand unprivileged users. It's actually a shell script that logs the attempt and then returns false, instead of silently returning false, but "/bin/false" is good enough.

But do note that this is a bit orthogonal to the issue mentioned in the article: the proposed attack involves the victim machine having the kernel and modules intact on disk, but device firmware compromised so that it changes the kernel after it's been loaded into memory.

<comment><USER10> Building a kernel isn't difficult (and used to be pretty much required). Build support in many distros is quite robust.

The real challenge is that once you've compiled a kernel, _that 's all you've got_ in terms of support. If you need to add filesystem support, a networking capability, additional driver support, etc., you've got to configure and build a new kernel, _and test it_ , which is distinctly less convenient than autoloading an existing module (or even one you've newly compiled in many cases, on a running kernel).

I seem to recall a kernel option or syscontrol, possibly from OpenBSD/FreeBSD, which prevents loading of additional modules once it's been set. This allows you to boot and load modules, but then no more. If your boot media are read- only, this gives a fairly high level of confidence.

I cannot find a reference though.

<comment><USER11> On linux:

      echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled

      http://www.outflux.net/blog/archives/2009/07/31/blocking-module-loading/

<comment><USER10> Awesome, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You don't even need this. Patrick Stewin and Iurii Bystrov[1] released an excellent paper earlier this year (and Patrick presented his research at 44CON[2] last week) on abusing Intel's iAMT functionality to create an in- firmware keylogger and undetectable (from the host's perspective) exfiltration mechanism for streaming out keystrokes and receiving malware updates.

[1] - [http://stewin.org/papers/dimvap15-stewin.pdf](http://stewin.org/papers/dimvap15-stewin.pdf)

[2] - [http://44con.com/talks/#persistent-stealthy-remote- controlle...](http://44con.com/talks/#persistent-stealthy-remote-controlled- dedicated-hardware-malware)

<comment><USER13> Wait, you mean there's a better technical explanation than the CNN-quality original article? (that's just trying to sell Oracle Slice)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> See also: the potential for rootkits on disk controllers:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148347)

</comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't this basically make it impossible to trust any hosting company that provides the equipment for you? The NSA could have every server at Rackspace backdoored.

<comment><USER16> The more I think about this, I am convinced that the only way to avoid private data snooping is to pollute / poison the data.

If all channels of communication are flooded with poisoned messages, it wouldn't matter who / what snoops the data. The poisoning needs to be obvious so that the intended recipient can immediately ignore it. At the same time, it needs to be ubiquitous so that machines can't filter it.

<comment><USER17> If the poisoning is obvious to the intended recipient, at some stage it will also be obvious to anybody collecting enough (poisoned) data on them.

This is a bit like the spam / spam filter arms race.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, human recipients and snoopers would both be able to filter out the poison. But it would make automated collection difficult.

Another idea could be a reverse captcha. All messages by default could be coded as images. (Hey in fact I think this is a brilliant idea if I say so myself!) Combine that with poisoning, and we can be safe from automated collection for atleast a decade. Combine that with encryption and other security measures and that would be awesome.

In fact I am on a idea spree. What if messages were encoded with a captcha? Enter the captcha to decode the message. This encoding is purely to eliminate automated collectors and indexers.

Spam is easier to tackle since a spammer can be tainted for ever. But a poisoned feed still needs to be processed every single time

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It seem to be very specific for an OS and maybe even kernel version, how much generic it could be? There aren't kernel security modules that could detect if something had been overwritten? The paper was written in 2010, maybe was something done in the kernel development to be able to check for that.

What about detection of that kind of backdoors is being present in your current hardware? It is possible if a backdoor is running? Or, i.e. loading some not very used OS for that kind of validation (i.e. some of the BSDs or a kernel with modules disabled) that could avoid to run the backdoor and being able to do that detection.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't your stateful packet inspection firewall notice the remote attempts to reach the backdoor? Assuming its running openbsd and not also full of hardware backdoors.

This is one reason I never buy hardware p2p off bitcoin trading sites and forums, since it would seem logical to target those buyers who may have stuffed wallets to clean out

<comment><USER20> I'm sure the use of a funny protocol packet is just to keep the example simple, making an evil module that opens a tunnel that a DPI firewall wouldn't notice is routine gruntwork to the kind of attacker that can manage to sneak an evil PCI device onto your bus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The CPU from US companies could be hosting a backdoor itself.

<comment><USER22> It's more likely Intel is hiding a back door in their microcode mechanism, which has been suspected for some time. AMD publicly denounced having any back door in their hardware: [http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/32120-amd-denies- existence...](http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/32120-amd-denies-existence-of- nsa-backdoor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Esr needs a new machine.</comment>


Dufl, a Service That Packs and Ships Your Suitcase - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/30/dufl-a-service-that-packs-and-ships-your-suitcase-is-a-travelers-dream/#.nbasaa:poaF

<comment><USER2> Might as well throw in a toothbrush and some razors no?

<comment><USER3> Looks like that's fine. From their Terms Of Use: >You may only store with DUFL and pack in your DUFL bag clothing, shoes, belts and toiletries (for example, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo and other hygienic products, and hair care products and maintenance items such as hair dryers) (collectively, "Luggage"). All other items, including but not limited to jewelry, prescription medications and illegal drugs, are strictly prohibited. If you send any prohibited items to DUFL, then DUFL, in its sole discretion, will either return these items to you at your sole cost or discard these items.</comment></comment>


Folding home servers overwhelmed by Corona interest - <AUTHOR> https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=314382#p314421 <comment><AUTHOR> I started folding last weekend (due to it being advertised on this forum), but I keep getting: "Failed to get assignment from 'xxx': No WUs available for this configuration"

Apparently I was not the only one that started donating some compute:

> The whole world is suddenly interested in COVAID-19 and FAH has received > unanticipated advertising from several popular websites so suddenly we need > 6x of the infrastructure and of the staff</comment>


Long Blockchain is backpedaling on it's "blockchain" promise - <AUTHOR> http://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/long-island-iced-tea-company-planned-to-buy-bitcoin-mining-machines-backpedaling-on-plans-2018-1-1012735857 <comment><AUTHOR> The context here is that the company called Long Island Iced Tea changed it's name to Long Blockchain and promised that it "is shifting its primary corporate focus towards the exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology" [1].

One of these investment opportunities was to sell $8.4 million shares to buy 1000 Antminer S9 bitcoin mining machines [2]

[1] [http://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/long- isla...](http://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/long-island-iced- tea-company-pivots-to-blockchain-stock-explodes-2017-12-1011743880)

[2] [http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/long- island-i...](http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/long-island-iced- tea-company-to-buy-bitcoin-mining-machines-2018-1-1012525242)</comment>


Show HN: How I built my connected smart shower - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@drewry/building-my-connected-shower-31d148b03539#.1mqgf1lmz <comment><USER2> Seems like the start of a pretty slick setup. It would be really cool to add an IR frame and get a multitouch UI working with this sort of like this setup: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Interactive-Multitouch- Displ...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Interactive-Multitouch-Display/) Might be easier for navigating rather than using a mic?</comment>


Ask HN: What payment processor can a private individual use to offer a service? - <AUTHOR> I'm finishing one hopefully ineresting service and want to offer it, but I have a problem finding payment processor that allows private individuals outside of the US.
And I would just like to avoid registering company in this testing phase.
Is there anything out there that HN can point me to? <comment><USER2> Try [https://paddle.com](https://paddle.com)?

I use them for a paid Chrome extension ([https://www.checkbot.io](https://www.checkbot.io), you can see the Paddle checkout when you click the buy buttons) as an individual.

Paddle let you sell worldwide via subscriptions and individual purchases where they handle country specific tax for you. Obviously you need to declare the income you make to the government but that shouldn't require you to form a company (in the UK at least) and this structure means you don't have to do accounting for EU VAT which I've heard is a huge plus.

Let me know if you've got any questions like integration tips. Generally for a SaaS for example, you accept purchases via Paddle's embeddable JavaScript checkout then use a web hook sent from their server to trigger account creation, email confirmation etc. from your server.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, in the UK forming and maintaining a company is so simple and cheap that you might want to do it anyway to keep your business finances and liabilities separate.

<comment><USER2> It's not simple though in the sense that you'll then have more ongoing paperwork to do each year for taxes and your accountancy costs will be higher (I wouldn't recommend doing company tax filings by yourself). The OP mentioned testing an idea out so creating a company only for this might not be worth the hassle and you risk doing your taxes wrong if you're not careful.

<comment><USER3> In my experience (UK), company tax filings are very simple if you have a solo business selling online, and not more difficult than tax filings as an individual. You have to do your accounts anyway: If you can do that you can fill a company tax return.

Of course that's highly dependent on your jurisdiction. I was replying to you because you seem to be in the UK. Sometimes the hassle of wanting to avoid forming a company exceeds the hassle of forming a company (which you can use for multiple projects), which also shields you many liability issues.

<comment><USER2> > In my experience (UK), company tax filings are very simple if you have a > solo business selling online, and not more difficult than tax filings as an > individual

If you haven't done it before, I think it's realistically several days of work over the first year to get up to speed (e.g. dividends, payments on account, what you can expense, deadlines + fines, setting up a business account). Most of the time you'll have to do a personal tax return at a minimum and the company tax return would be on top of the personal tax return (so extra rules to learn and extra paperwork you could forget to submit during the year).

I'm not saying it's impossible and you shouldn't look at forming a company, but I wouldn't call it simple in terms of time and stress, especially when you want to focus on validating a modest side project.

<comment><USER3> All the accounting you mention has to be done either way and HRMC nicely sends email reminders. The personal tax return also has to be done either way.

The only thing I'm saying is that very often people with no experience are a bit afraid of forming a company as that sounds like a daunting task and it means becoming a "real business" but in fact, and I stress again depending on the jurisdiction, it may not be a big deal at all and will actually bring benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can receive payments using your individual social on PayPal I believe. I don't know if that opens up their checkout and subscription APIs though. It's a bit of unique test case, so if PayPal and Stripe don't work for you, I think you'll have a hard time finding a solution. Perhaps try talking to a business in the cannabis industry? They often have a lot of hurdles to overcome when accepting payments.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the same conclusion I came upon, also interesting case for someone to build it :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have had success with PayPal in the past to power payments for my service [1]. Their API and documentation (or lack thereof) wasn't great but it worked in far more countries than the likes of stripe.

You could also try gumroad.

1\. [https://errorship.com/](https://errorship.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> My company Gilded[1] can help small businesses or individual contractors get paid with cryptocurrency (stable coins), Stripe (local fiat currencies) integration, or wire transfers.

Setting up a Coinbase account and getting paid with Gilded would be fairly easy. Also, USDC (stablecoin) can be exchanged 1:1 on Coinbase and can be quickly exchange for fiat in your bank account.

Happy to help or discuss specific scenarios.

[1] [https://gilded.finance](https://gilded.finance)

<comment><USER5> Hi, I looked around the website and it looks like a cool service.

But I was unable to figure out;

1\. What countries are supported for sellers.

2\. What countries are supported for buyers.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for taking a look!

We're a non-custodial service allowing our customers to create invoices anywhere, payable by anyone. We don't touch your funds, which makes us global without restrictions.

If you are curious about on/off ramping stablecoins into your bank account, we have a deep integration with Coinbase which is available in 80+ countries and have partnerships with several stablecoin companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: I've tested Paddle, and it seems it's perfect. Thank you all for kind answers, and special thanks to @seanwilson for bringing Paddle up.

</comment><comment><USER7> Snipcart might solve your problem!

</comment><comment><USER8> no one said crypto? stable USDT, EURT, Bitcoin?

</comment><comment><USER9> Afraid the answer will be None.</comment>


Heroku founder Adam Wiggins: Speculating Sucks (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://adam.heroku.com/past/2008/8/11/speculating_sucks/

<comment><USER2> The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.

— Dr. Linus Pauling

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

</comment><comment><USER3> ""be prolific, then ruthlessly filter your output""

Great advice! We learn a lot even from failed experiments.

</comment><comment><USER4> Counterpoint, I suppose: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953023>

<comment><USER5> The experimentation in system's programming still exists, it just takes a different form (possibly because the cost of committing a design to code is a bit more). Jeff Dean says that the hallmark of a good systems programmer is the ability to mentally simulate the effects of a number of different designs so that you can quickly throw out ones that won't work. You don't sit in a corner trying to perfect your design, you go out and talk to many potential users of your system to make sure you understand its requirements, then you come up with many _possible_ designs that might fulfill those requirements, then you prune that down to one design that you actually implement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been mulling this a lot lately. I'm going to try to remember this when I get too deep into 'designing' a solution.</comment>


Why Ice Delays Recovery - <AUTHOR> http://drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, rest (the R part of the "RICE" acronym previously advocated by Dr Mirkin) delays recovery:

[http://www.healthline.com/health-news/rice-method-for- sports...](http://www.healthline.com/health-news/rice-method-for-sports- injuries-not-best-practice-040314)

</comment><comment><USER2> I just sprained my ankle on Monday, and I've not iced it, and been trying to use it lightly.

<comment><USER3> I just sprained my ankle and have some other anecdotes.

A couple days after the sprain, my physio told me to ice for about 20 mins and that the last few minutes are the most important, because the icing actually increases blood flow to the joint as the body tries to warm up the cold extremity. This apparently brings in all the healing goodness due to increased circulation mentioned in the article.

I also sprained my other ankle several years ago, and that physio wanted me moving on it as soon as I could (after X-ray showed no fracture). She said that movement helps get blood supply to the bones and joints which aids the healing. She also said that the bone that heals the fastest is the rib, because people are constantly breathing 24/7 and thus it gets constantly supplied with fresh blood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, increased blood flow is integral to recovery. Ice slows that down. However, icing is not categorically bad. 10 minutes in an ice bath does wonders at helping to dispatch the lactic acid accumulated during a long event.

<comment><USER5> Lactic acid does not cause muscle soreness. In fact, it is used as fuel for muscles. This isn't the article I want, but I can't find that one now, so this one will have to do:

[http://running.competitor.com/2014/01/training/six-lies- you-...](http://running.competitor.com/2014/01/training/six-lies-you-were- taught-about-lactic-acid_29432)</comment></comment>


Financial Independence: What If Passive Income Isn't Necessary? - <AUTHOR> https://danielvassallo.com/financial-independence/ <comment><USER2> Well, the author has one opinion, I have another: acquiring deep assets (income property, stock market, investment in businesses, farms, etc.) should be a natural thing that people do. You never know what might happen in life and building deep assets is a hedge. A wonderful result of conservatively building assets is that assuming things go well and you don't need them, assets can be passed on to younger generations.

What the author of the article is promoting is not financial independence, it is simply finding a pleasant job and then enjoy life. Good advice but no reason to not also build up assets.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author makes two assumptions which are either wrong, or at least I don't think they apply to me.

\- "it would be quite unpleasant if I had to regress on my standard of living", this makes the assumption that how great your life is is dependent on how much money you spend. That assumption sounds obvious, and I made it for decades. I realize now it just isn't true. I can meet my friends somewhere cheaper and have just as much fun. I can cook at home and, although it's more effort, it can be just as good if not better than the takeouts I used to get every day. Making the effort to have relationships with people in the city I live in, as opposed to finding people on the internet on the other side of the planet. At least for me, I was able to cut down on my expenditure significantly without cutting down on the pleasure I had in life.

\- "Work gives me satisfaction, and I intend to continue working for as long as I'm able to.". When I was in my 20s, my girlfriend's father was near retirement, also a software developer, and he seemed to try and do as little work as possible. I didn't understand, I was building great stuff (my first job was at a social network in Europe, with 6m users and about 50 servers), I loved it. I assumed I'd always want to work and would never be like him. Now I'm in my 40s, that social network has long been taken offline, most of the work I've done for startups is no longer online, my one stint at a large company involved politics making me write worse code (e.g. 1y with a team of 15 developing basically a static website, we wrote our own CMS because it meant the company could bill its customer more hours). What I mean is, just because you are enjoying work now, doesn't mean you'll enjoy work forever.

The author builds their argument on these two assumptions, which (at least for me, but I'd say for everyone) aren't valid.

<comment><USER4> The author is inflexible in his conviction that he has no intention of retiring. (and never will!) In 10, 20, or 30 years he may change his mind, what then?

He points out that he's willing to make the trade off of working in exchange for money (even if he doesn't need it) -- but what about working for other reasons? Taking a job at a non-profit that can't possibly pay what you're "worth".

<comment><AUTHOR> I know dozens of people that are able to retire, but don't. Or they chose to retire, but then very quickly started doing some other work that gave them satisfaction. I just don't believe in the myth that if you retire early you're going to spend the rest of your life sipping pina coladas on the beach. My argument is that if I can be doing the work that I would be doing if I "retired", and it paid me enough money to make ends meet, then I won't need to retire. Sure, if the work you want to do can never pay you enough to live off it, then you have to find another income stream; maybe passive income. But it's not the only option if what you seek is satisfaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because of $bad_life_decisions I made in my late 20s to mid 30s, recovering from those bad decisions for the last few years and getting married, (gladly) taking responsibility for two step children, "retirement" is not in the cards for me anytime soon.

But, I'm okay with that. I've been a software developer for 20+ years and I've never hated my career. I have hated my _job_ at various points but as long as I kept my skills marketable, I could always get another job. The only burnt out I've ever felt was the politics of corporate America. I've learned sticking with small companies was the best way for me to avoid that or being a contractor/consultant where I don't care about the politics.

That being said, my wife did choose a low stress, relatively low pay job with the school system that guarantees us lifetime access to health insurance after 10 years to allow me to just jump back and forth between being a salaried employee, contractor, consultant or not having to work for a few months.

</comment><comment><USER6> Living off interest and investments seems to be a recent phenomenon (FIRE). My grandmother ensured that all her well-off children never sat on their laurels and depended solely on passive income even though it could be considerable.

The goal was to keep the mind fresh and running, and to be a productive member of society even if you didn't exactly need to work. If you had more, you could give back more, but stopping work was always heavily discouraged.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean by recent? There's been a whole society of rentiers living solely off investment income in most countries for at least the last 300 years, if not several thousand years. It's extremely well documented, especially in Britain and France since the early 1800's (see Thomas Piketty's work on wealth distribution). The more capital one owns, in general, more income is earned from capital rather than wages. This ratio increases sharply when you look at the top 1% and 0.1% of owners.

<comment><USER8> > What do you mean by recent?

I think the recent phenomenon is that many folks with moderate levels of income and initial capital have become convinced that they can attain financial freedom. Pickety's research does not support that, in fact, it supports the opposite conclusion: the only way to get wealthy, is to start wealthy.

<comment><USER9> That's an ironic claim on this platform. If you make $200k/year (normal high tech comp, probably not far from the average person here), save $100k/year and average 6.5% returns over 10 years, you have $1.4M.

You can then on average draw down $63k/year assuming 2% inflation to retain your purchasing power until the end of time. That's very comfortable if you're just willing to not live in the bay area or NYC.

<comment><USER5> Yet another example of HN bubble thinking that the "normal high tech comp" is anywhere close to $200K a year.

[https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software- develope...](https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software- developer/salary)

<comment><USER9> I'm drawing a line between "software developer" and "high tech"

By high tech I ideally mean a company building novel and innovative software using new ideas and techniques, but implicitly I pretty much mean FAANG/well resourced startup in a tech hub.

And of course it reflects the "HN bubble", that's literally what I was referencing.

<comment><USER5> HN ranks in the top 1000 most popular sites in the US. How many of those visitors do you think are building "new and innovative" software?

How many of those who are building software at all do you think are not just building yet another software as a service CRUD app where the founder thinks they need "rockstar ninja" employees who can do leetCode in their sleep?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It sounds like what you're describing is financial comfort/stability more than true "independence." That being said, those that seek traditional financial independence aren't exactly free from bad beats that might destroy their nest egg and force them to become financially dependent on their labor again.

</comment><comment><USER11> The idea that the amount of money you make working is in any way a 'measure of the benefit you provide society' is pathological. Many of those who provide the most benefit are paid a suppance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I didn't mean it's the only measure. Or that it's a perfect measure. But if you were to give me your hard earned money for something I do to you, it's very likely that I provided something useful to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The daily structure of work life allows one to avoid facing some questions that otherwise arise. Financial independence forces one to explore how one wishes to spend one's time when the work constraints are eliminated. This can be a very exciting, fruitful and rewarding endeavour. I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, really, there is no binary choice "work for money" and "don't work at all", but rather a huge spectrum: "work at a shitty job", "work at an awesome job", "be a contractor and take sabbaticals every half of a year", "have a small stream of passive income and cool freelance gigs",... Therefore limiting your attention to the final stage which is quite hard to achieve, it's quite unoptimal.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why would you not want passive income if you had the means to attempt to or outright realize these kinds of income sources?

This article wreaks of a bizarre misdirected form of moral superiority and relativism....

</comment><comment><USER15> Financial independence is important if you have better things to do with your time than work. And if that's not the case - keep on workin! :)</comment>


People killed in terrorist attacks in 2017: Europe vs. Africa - <AUTHOR> http://www.rts.ch/info/monde/9016433-le-terrorisme-tue-vingt-fois-plus-en-afrique-qu-en-europe.html <comment><USER2> Reminds me of a project the NYT did a year ago, The Human Toll of Terror: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/27/world/human-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/27/world/human- toll-of-terror-attacks.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/insider/terror-attacks- vi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/insider/terror-attacks-victims- reporting.html)

They decided during a "particularly intense spate of attacks back in March" to cover all of the victims as much as possible. This period included the 32 killed in Brussels, but that ended up being the only attack in the West. The rest were in Africa and Asia, and were generally barely covered by the world media.

It took the NYT team, which looked like a couple dozen staffers and reporters, about a third of a year to publish the project. They were only able to find 222 of the 247 known victims -- some of the attacks took place in locales where local officials didn't collect the information themselves. It's a project I use as an example of "data journalism", the kind that's incredibly hard and constly to collect.

<comment><USER3> I think a William Gibson-ish take-away from that report is that there is an inverse relationship between how someone's death is covered and how difficult it is to find data about that person.

Famous TV star from the 70s who hasn't done anything notable in 40 years dies of a heart attack? Easy mass of data and media available leads to a proliferation of heart-felt articles about that one time they were guest stars on Gilligan's Island.

Kenyan political activist is tortured to death by Al-Shabaab? Aggregated into a statistic somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand the intention of this comparison. Does this make anything better? Is this considered surprising? Is anybody relieved now because the next vacation to Europe was about to be cancelled in fear of terror attacks? Is anybody "relieved" because when counting lost human souls Europe is not that badly affected after all (because counting bodies apparently is a thing)? Does this make any of these terror attacks less bad?

Echo chamber fueled extremism is on the rise and affects people worldwide. Whoever has not realized how much terrorism is going on worldwide is advised to step out of their local news filter bubble. Wikipedia is maintaining some meticulous lists on terrorists incidents: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents)

<comment><USER5> The point, as I'm sure you realise, is that the media coverage of attacks in Europe is tremendous, whereas nobody talks about the order of magnitude greater loss of life going on in poorer countries. This is objectively very wrong.

<comment><USER6> Why?

If you're an average citizen in the US, Europe, Australia etc, then why wouldn't you care more about attacks in other western countries than you would about attacks in Africa?

The majority of people in western countries aren't planning a trip to Somalia or Syria any time soon. They don't look for jobs there, they don't have family there, and by and large they have very little reason to care about anything that happens there, as long as it doesn't affect them globally.

It shouldn't be any surprise that "major terrorist attack in a country I holidayed/interviewed/was born in" is a much bigger story to most people than "major terrorist attack in Africa".

Is it not the news's job to report the news that's most relevant to the audience? I'm not saying that European terrorist attacks should be plastered all over the front page and on the TV 24/7 (on the contrary, I too think it's overhyped), but I also don't think African terrorist attacks should be, for the same reason I don't particularly want the weather forecast for Nairobi in my news. It's not that I have any particular opinions about it, of course I want them to have nice weather and no bushfires or blizzards or hurricanes or anything, but at the end of the day it's just not relevant to me.

<comment><USER7> My connection to France and really any European country is about the same as my connection to the countries in Africa. Why do you assume average Americans have some inherent connection that is much stronger than to other continents?

<comment><USER8> You can read Reuters, CNN and BBC right?

Of the three mentioned only Reuters sometimes covers situation in Africa and certain parts of Asia.

So if you read or watch or listen to any of the latter two you are likely at least somewhat informed about Europe and China, though in a slanted way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For the lazy (Google Translate):

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rts.ch%2Finfo%2Fmonde%2F9016433-le- terrorisme-tue-vingt-fois-plus-en-afrique-qu-en-europe.html&edit-text=)

</comment><comment><USER10> In French. The graphic is pretty clear, though. Europe is in blue; Africa is in red.

</comment><comment><USER11> It makes me wonder:

How can we ever expect to solve the biggest problems when we're ignoring them?

<comment><USER12> They're not being ignored as much as being fueled. Just for starters, how many weapons used in Africa by dictators and terrorists are not made in Africa?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are over twice as many people in Africa as Europe, mind.

<comment><USER14> The article says that there are more than 20x as many victims of terrorism in Africa, though...

<comment><USER13> And there are about 6x as many victims of road accidents. And I guess almost every barometer of law and order will be worse in Africa; for tail events like terrorism, you'd expect more extreme differences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't read it, is Israel included? And if so, are they included under Europe of Africa?

What about Egypt? What percent of the total is Egypt?

<comment> Tech-Noir Israel is not in Europe; nor is it in Africa.

<comment><USER16> An interesting aside is that Israel football team is considered part of Europe for the Euros/World cup.

<comment><USER17> It isn't "considered" part of Europe, it just plays with European teams.

Israel also takes part in Eurovision.

<comment><USER18> > Israel also takes part in Eurovision

So do we (Australia), but I'm sure we can't be in Europe because we don't have cycling lanes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good points made but the little human-based infographic is just an horrible way to represent data.

<comment><USER20> Why?

<comment><USER19> There is no clear reason for it to take so much space to represent so little data.

<comment><USER21> Every one of those icons is a human life lost to a _terrorist attack_. This is both a tragedy without compare to family and neighbourhood, and one of the most appalling events in our modern world (people being murdered indiscriminately to further political aims).

Trying to convey that weight is _entirely_ the point of the infographic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why you PHP guys should learn Golang - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikespook.com/2012/08/why-you-php-guys-should-learn-golang/ <comment><USER2> It doesn't seem to me that there is a whole lot of overlap between the virtues or sweet spot of PHP and those of Go.

Go is not a particularly hard language for the level it's designed at (though I'm not sure that remembering keywords is really a primary usability concern for any language)... but if you are just trying to slap together a web app and feel intimidated by deploy details and want to use cheap shared hosting and plug into existing libraries as much as possible, Go is somewhere between inconvenient and totally infeasible.

I'm not saying Go is a bad choice... there are good reasons to look at it, particularly if you intend to work at a somewhat lower level (e.g. for performance) and want some of Go's benefits (like the concurrency model, or some of the benefits of static typing and compiling without so much time or effort on managing dependencies as you would otherwise spend, etc.)

I'm saying the priorities which would make PHP attractive would tend to make Go quite unattractive. I can certainly see how PHP programmers (like many other programmers) can benefit from learning another language with abilities complementary to what they already know.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I was interested up until this point... _"Your PHP scripts will be evaluated by SAPI components: web server module, PHP-fpm or CLI. All needed for PHP deploying is a SAPI environment."_

What? Sorry but I know nothing about deployment. Should I? In the past I've only used PHP to solve simple problems.

<comment><USER4> You don't necessarily need to know about the SAPI, but what he says is true. Any environment (Apache, Lighttpd, FPM, CLI, ...) that runs PHP, is built on top of the SAPI provided by the Zend Engine.

That's interesting stuff, but not on the "must know" list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How can you possibly write an article telling PHP programmers to develop in Golang instead without writing anything about web programming in Golang ?

Why do people use PHP mostly ? For web development.

 _Why PHP guys should learn Golang_ should at least tell PHP guys if it's possible to do web development in Golang, and how, and show them how it's better suited (without telling them only "it's a better language").

<comment><USER6> Last line of the article:

> This is my writing exercise. If you find any grammatical or spelling error, > plz tell me!

Also notice that it's a predominately Chinese blog.

<comment><USER5> Well, thanks for pointing this out, although I think it should be possible, for a Chinese author who's not very fluent in written English, to write about Golang in a web dev perspective.

I don't really care about the author's English skills, I'm no grammar nazi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No offense to the writer, but it seems to me he doesn't really understand web development. In 99.9% of web applications, the bottleneck for scaling is the database and not the language. Web application processes are generally not CPU intensive and are short lived, something PHP handles very nicely.

On the other hand, PHP has a huge list of existing resources, libraries and excellent documentation and community.

Look over at the language used by the largest sites on the Internet, and compare the number that use PHP to the number that use Go. Not saying Go can't handle those applications, but obviously PHP was used in scale effectively on many occasions, while Go hasn't proved anything yet.

<comment><USER8> It powers YouTube, among other things: <http://code.google.com/p/vitess/>

Go documentation is very good, the standard library is extensive, and it has a very active community, but it does lack certain libraries that web developers might find attractive, e.g. a comprehensive ORM.

Insinuating PHP is better because it's deployed in more places is silly.

<comment><USER7> Stop reading between the lines, I didn't say PHP was better as a language. What I was saying was that trying to convert PHP developers into Go programmers with those kind of arguments shows a basic lack of understanding of how web applications work, or what is the real strength of PHP.

<comment><USER8> Most web developers who read Hacker News don't host their stuff with a hosting provider that doesn't even provide shell. With Go you just need to be able to execute a binary.

You sounded a lot like Go hasn't proved it's viable for "web scale." It has. Is it as widely deployed? Of course not, it's new.

I'm not sure what strength of PHP you're referring to--I'm assuming the ubiquity with shared hosting providers--but it's not even that great of a language to interface with databases, which was your example before.

Not arguing for Go particularly, just arguing against PHP. Its ubiquity is basically all it has going for it, but yes, that's a big deal.

<comment><USER7> Again, you assumed wrong. Makes me wonder what your actual experience with PHP is. The strength of PHP is its focus on the web environment through features and functions that make it simpler to develop in that environment, that have be implemented in code on most other languages. In addition, the huge amount of available mature libraries for a variety of purposes and the large community that supports it, is something I really find hard to believe Go can compete with. Saving development time with mature code is much more important than learning a language that doesn't provide much tangible benefits for the web environment.

<comment><USER8> I've used PHP for 15 years. You keep making these "I-know-better-because-I- use-PHP" statements, but ironically you probably have never even touched Go. Give it a try. Don't be the guy who hates anything that's new.

("Poor library support" is a terrible argument for PHP vs. Python, Ruby, or even functional languages with respect to web development too.)

<comment><USER7> You're the one who's doing the hating my friend... you keep finding hidden messages in what I write and generally piling up on PHP without good reason. I never said anything bad about Go, or bad library support in other languages, just not agreeing with the article on comparing PHP to it where PHP is (in my humble opinion) a very strong option already.

<comment><USER8> I pile up on PHP because it's a shitty language, and basically the only argument for using it nowadays is that it's relatively ubiquitous among budget shared hosting providers. I don't think I ever tried to hide that I hate it.

Now you're twisting your own words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I missed it, but the things that would convince me are a) a large, strong community, b) extensive documentation, and c) code examples in the article.

Seeing no references to any of these, I don't find the article terribly persuasive.

<comment><USER10> Examples for Golang _are_ sparse compared to PHP-land. The books help a lot on that. Other than that I haven't had an issue with finding stuff online. The official documentation is extensive when you know how to look for it (namely, "golang <package name>". Hopefully in the future the official documentation will have many more examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh good yet more comments about why PHP is trash and how your intelligence and social status are dictated by what language you are using. I almost don't click on posts about programming languages any more. Yet here i am, commenting..

<comment><USER12> I primarily develop using PHP. I read the first few lines of this article, got to this 'PHP is easy to learn. Golang is as easy as PHP!' and basically read, 'Hey thicko PHP guy, you could probably learn to use this language, cos its simple enough for your addled brain'.

The immediate feeling of condescension turned me off.

<comment><USER13> Let's try this with me...

The original: "PHP is easy to learn. Golang is as easy as PHP!"

Some str_replaces:

"Ruby is easy to learn. Golang is as easy as Ruby!"

"Clojure is easy to learn. Golang is as easy as Clojure!"

"Python is easy to learn. Golang is as easy as Python!"

Hmm, I'm still not feeling offended. Are you sure this might not be some sort of inferiority complex at play? I think a lot of PHP developers get needlessly offended whenever we talk about PHP, positive or negative.

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure it's not an inferiority complex, im in no way precious over the language that I develop in. I just don't agree with the inference that developers that use PHP do so because they aren't smart enough to use other more complex languages.

The particular line of the article I quoted however does, to me, infer that php developers can only learn simple languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't really blame the guy for the off-the-wall tone and and the straight-up poor grammar and spelling, because I'm guessing English isn't his first language. Kudos for trying.

But some of his reasons that Go may be better or more useful than PHP don't really stick. You can deploy a PHP web application using the PHAR format, which is a lot like just moving a file into a folder. And static variable typing isn't really a requirement for a successful language if you're adequately validating input and the like.

Also, a PHP programmer would have an easier time learning another scripting language compared to another compiled language, regardless of the overhead of configuring a development environment.

Things that would make me consider Go would include ease of deployment, significant speed improvements, fantastic libraries for the kinds of things I want to get done, or smart under-the-hood concurrency that I don't personally have to worry about coding. Go could have all these things, and I've have no idea from this post.

</comment><comment><USER10> Already sold! For my first web 2.0 project I started with PHP and, being a bit disappointed with its performance, switched to Golang. Among other things I didn't want to have to do ifs with parentheses or use semicolons. Those seemed superfluous. Then I discovered Go, and it doesn't need those things and it's way faster. A lot more benefits too. Definitely a steeper learning curve than PHP initially but should be well worth the effort. I'll still use PHP or Python where they make more sense.

</comment><comment><USER15> > But why you PHP guys should learn Golang? Just because it is cool! Ja, I'm > kidding, but it is true.

I stopped reading here.

I don't know. Skimming over this blogpost made me think "Why should I use go?". I'm not even a PHP guy and this isn't even convincing me. What hope do they have to convince a PHP guy.

I didn't see any code. Sure there's a link to the "A Tour of Go" but if I was a PHP guy I would be confused by the syntax. No semicolons? Ok that may be an advantage (I'm also fairly sure you can add semicolons to Go and it wouldn't care).

I dunno, there wasn't enough here explaining why I should use Golang instead of PHP. I didn't like the way it was formatted. I didn't like the rhetoric.

I am one of those strange people who prefers to watch videos of a language or a web tool working and found [http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/fosdem- video/2011/maintracks/go...](http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/fosdem- video/2011/maintracks/golang.xvid.avi) which seems to go through some of Golang's features. It's a little longer than that blogpost but it's a little better with convincing me to use Golang.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, found nothing in the article to really validate the claim that PHP developers should learn GO.

It might be a cool language, but the main reason php developers use PHP in the first place is Web Development; the article doesn't even mention the possibility of using GO for web development.

There aren't any code samples on the article either; why is GO so good ? what does the syntax looks like? _Don't just tell, SHOW_

I prefer to invest my time learning languages like ruby or python.

</comment><comment><USER17> Where can I get managed Golang hosting for $4.95 a month?

<comment><USER18> You can get managed Go hosting for $0 a month: <https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/go/overview>

<comment><USER10> I love Go, so it's a shame I can't trust its initial creator, Google, for hosting. Too many stories about accounts unilaterally yanked and prices jacked up 3X+ overnight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> With a JVM or .NET language they would be better served than with Go.

Given the available communities, performance of current JIT and GC systems, tools, libraries and distribution mechanisms.

If they prefer to go VM free, there are commercial native compilers for JVM and MSIL bytecodes.

For those with VM phobia, D, OCaml, SBCL, Haskell, Rust offer native code compilation by default, with 2012 set of language abstractions.

</comment><comment><USER20> So basically the argument is that if you are the "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" kind of developer, you should use Go as hammer instead of PHP.

I don't think so.

Not to mention the unfounded and insulting assumption that "you PHP guys" are all the "everything looks like nail" kind of people. Methinks the author is projecting too much.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great idea! Now how drunk do I need to get Systems so they will actually install Go on our servers? Because I'm sure that they would just love giving several thousand students, staff, and faculty the ability to run arbitrary machine code!

<comment><USER22> If you can't let arbitrary machine code run on your system, you are "doing it wrong." *nix was designed as multi-tenant from the get-go. also, they would not need to install Go on the servers, as the binaries are completely self- contained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most of the benefits he explained in the post also apply to Java (e.g. easy to use, GC, type system & concurrency).

IMHO, if a programmer only know PHP and want to explore, I would suggest Java/Scala/Python/Ruby as the next language instead of Go.

<comment><USER18> Java and Go's type systems are very different, Go's is much more lightweight, had implicit interfaces (aka "static duck typing") and has an improved form of composition instead of inheritance.

And concurrency in Go compared to Java is like day and night.

Then there is the simplicity and clarity of the standard libraries, and so on.

<comment><USER23> The difference between Go and Java is one issue which I have no interest to argue, but if you read the whole article in detail and will find `most of the features` he discussed are already provided by Java.

1\. Golang is a compiled language with a static type system. You have no chance to confuse veriable types

2\. You must have already felt some powerlessness to PHP. It dosen't have concurrent mechanism build-in..

3\. Golang has GC, there is no need to care about memory management

4\. Golang is also a C family's programming language. Eh… with a litte syntax difference.

and more..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hmm, reduced to begging for users in the streets?

Oh well, I suppose at least it's more popular than Dart... _ducks_

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't think that PHP programmers are capable of learning something new. Otherwise they would have left PHP for any other language long time ago.

<comment><USER2> Nah...

Even if we supposed that PHP beginners all outgrew it after one year, there are enough people always picking it up that you would still always have PHP programmers, until there was enough of a cultural shift that people stopped picking it up. (Unlikely since PHP's virtues or apparent virtues to newbies are many, and whatever its problems it is still a viable way to build things)

Second, even if PHP is a relatively bad tool in some important ways - if you actively push your abilities as you log many hours, your knowledge will improve. And without specific numbers, PHP is certainly among the most popular languages for web work (if not the single most popular one). So we can expect there are a large number of people who have grown up in PHP and have therefore gained some level of technical maturity even if they are using a bad tool (actually, struggling successfully with bad tools might help develop certain muscles useful in areas like maintenance coding).

People are PHP programmers not because they are stupid, but because that is what first worked for them and they haven't had the time or reason to change yet, or it's where their job is, or because they just have bad taste ;)

(that's a joke, I do mean to say that matters of taste are involved though)

<comment><USER26> Really, don't feed these trolls that pop up in every single thread that has to do with PHP.</comment></comment></comment>


What we miss about MIS: 5 old-school ideas that weren't so bad - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9188159/What_we_miss_about_MIS_5_old_school_ideas_that_weren_t_so_bad?taxonomyName=Mainframes+and+Supercomputers&taxonomyId=159

<comment><USER2> This article is terrible. It's fascist ideals are ridiculous. Of course debugging was easier. Complex things were impossible to do. Cobol? Grandpa says it was better because you could book criminals into jail without a computer? Also, what's the deal with slacks and ties? Slacks and ties can look sloppy too.</comment>


Uber to suspend operations in Hungary due to govt legislation - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-hungary-exit-idUSKCN0ZT0RS <comment><USER2> Uber is also illegal in Norway, but somehow Uber keeps on doing the illegal business continuing to break the law.

<comment> angry-hacker Because they have the money and lawyers, so they can break the law.

They like to call it Disruptive Innovation or some other fancy term.

The problem with Uber is they think every country is the same and welcomes them. I under that might be the case with U.S, but it doesn't mean taxi system in every country is broken and they are welcomed to "fix it".

<comment><USER3> If the taxi system is not crap there, why are there citizens using Uber there? Uber wouldn't be operating if people weren't using it.

<comment><USER4> It's cheaper because it socializes the costs - usually Taxi drivers have to make a licence that involves knowledge of the area and likely other aptitude tests, as well as maintenance of the cars and insurance. Then there are laws that prevent working below a certain minimum income rate in Europe that also affect Taxi drivers as most of them don't operate on their own.

Uber moves all these responsibilities to the owner of the car, now you are your own business man you face the majority of risks and Uber still gets a big chunk of profit. Uber doesn't care about your maintenance costs.

Sometimes it works, often this encourages dangerous behavior to still have profits e.g. skipping maintenance, safe working times, vacation... Uber doesn't care that much about this. A lot of people work almost full time without enough compensation to warrant the stress.

Besides that European countries - at least the bigger cities - have often excellent public transport that is inexpensive and mostly works. Taxis supplement that and Uber is trying to compete on price there, something that abuses the drivers in the long run.

I hope Uber is kept out of Europe or is regulated to protect the drivers and users.

<comment><USER5> TBH, visiting non-uber cities is a complete pain in the ass for me; I would prefer uber even at the same price.

The are less likely to rip you off, easier to catch (just press a button), to keep a record on for reimbursements, to pay (by cc), etc.

<comment><USER6> >The are less likely to rip you off, easier to catch (just press a button), to keep a record on for reimbursements, to pay (by cc), etc.

In Germany all this is provided by regular taxi services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used Uber recently for the first time recently in San Francisco and San Diego (I was at the Decentralized Web and NAACL 2016 conferences) and I thought Uber was a nice service. Each of the 8 times I used Uber I sat in the front seat to talk with the driver. All 8 drivers were fairly upbeat about being able to earn extra money whenever they had some free time. A few said that it was their full time job.

I had a mild argument with my son about Uber (he is a fireman and a union guy). He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump through some hoops to get licensed, etc. Besides wanting good service, I rate businesses like these on how much profit is captured by the person doing the work vs. the company that they work with. I don't have any data on this, so I am judging Uber based on the low cost of shared ride service and the general friendlyness of the drivers.

<comment><USER8> > I had a mild argument with my son about Uber (he is a fireman and a union > guy). He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump > through some hoops to get licensed, etc.

I have multiple problems with ridesharing services:

1) They foist the risk off onto the contractors while keeping all the profit themselves. They could have been a well-run national taxi company that serviced suburbs (and would have had _STAUNCH_ defenders), but that won't get you unicorn valuations.

2) Most of them are using VC money to subsidize the ride costs. This is fine-- until they run out of money. Then the cities will be left to pick up the pieces when suddenly there aren't enough taxi drivers anymore to service the demand. Uber and Lyft actually tried to use this as leverage in Austin to get their way politically. So, the threat is not theoretical. These companies are not trying to service the customer; they are trying to become the taxi monopoly.

3) Uber/Lyft/etc. drivers often don't comply with local laws surrounding carriage services. This includes licensing and insurance but also includes simple things like "Where in the airport am I allowed to pick someone up?" I have had a not-insignificant fraction of drivers who simply don't know where they are going--especially if "surge pricing" pulled them in from an area outside their usual haunts.

4) I have a problem with Uber, specifically. It seems like it's run by a bunch of nasty, rich, party boys and their treatment of people they regard as beneath them is absolutely disgusting.

I like the fact that the ridesharing services have forced most cities to start issuing more taxi permits. I like the fact that the ridesharing services function in the suburbs where taxis won't go(mostly--I have had some misses). I like the ridesharing services when they lobby for laws attempting to break the taxi monopolies.

So, my verdict is still out.

(Edited: I can haz English. Sheesh, my grammar is starting to suck.)

<comment><USER9> I have no opinion on Uber leadership coming into this, and would just like to see some elaboration on point 4?

I certainly would agree that there are companies with leadership teams as you describe, so I'm not opposed to that notion. Just wondering about this specific case.

<comment><USER10> I can give 2 examples:

1) They had a big party a couple of years ago where they had a large display that showed where several famous tech people were at the very moment in Uber cars. They did this without notifying or getting permission from said people[0],[1].

2) They rented the building next to ours for training. We rent several parking spaces in the lot on the other side of our building from the city. They repeatedly parked in our reserved spots and told their drivers to park there even after repeatedly being told they were reserved (purchased by us) and not to park there. They would literally move their cars, wait 5 minutes, then move them back. During breaks they would stand in front of the door to our building smoking and acting surly as if to try to intimidate us. I don't know how high up the management chain our people went, but it was clear they weren't going to do anything about it. Eventually our neighbor kicked them out!

[0] [http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/04/opinion/schneier-uber- privacy-...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/04/opinion/schneier-uber-privacy- issue/index.html) [1] [http://www.cnet.com/news/god-view-under-spotlight-as- uber-in...](http://www.cnet.com/news/god-view-under-spotlight-as-uber- investigation-intensifies/#)!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A more detailed report: [http://www.portfolio.hu/en/economy/uber_set_to_pull_out_of_h...](http://www.portfolio.hu/en/economy/uber_set_to_pull_out_of_hungary_portal.31571.html)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12086041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12086041)

</comment><comment><USER12> Article is light on what it would take for Uber to be compliant as a legal dispatcher service.

<comment><USER13> > Article is light on what it would take for Uber to be compliant as a legal > dispatcher service.

Typically the problems are: a) surge pricing b) rates that do not follow the government set rates c) refusing service to certain customers d) no mandatory insurances e) do not accept cash payments in cars.

<comment><USER14> Or, their drivers needs to be licensed taxi drivers, and they are not.

For example in Slovakia, the law states quite clearly, that if you provide road transportation for other people as a business, then if your car has more than 9 seats, you are operating a bus service, and if it has 9 or less, you are operating a taxi, and must follow all regulations applied to taxi drivers. But Uber says they are not a taxi, despite operating almost exactly like one. :-)

For example, we have other popular taxi service, which also has a smartphone app working very similarly to Uber, with the one exception, that they only accept professional taxi drivers as their drivers. So if they wanted, Uber could do the same and be perfectly legal, but they apparently don't want to.

<comment><USER13> > Or, their drivers needs to be licensed taxi drivers, and they are not.

I can't talk about Hungary but in Austria an uber driver could not be a licensed taxi driver or at least, it does not matter. However for sure an uber cannot be a taxi because uber has no chance to follow those regulations and restrictions without giving up their business model.

> For example in Slovakia, the law states quite clearly, that if you provide > road transportation for other people as a business, then if your car has > more than 9 seats, you are operating a bus service, and if it has 9 or less, > you are operating a taxi, and must follow all regulations applied to taxi > drivers.

That's not how it works in Austria and I'm sure that's not how it works in Hungary. In Austria there are two regulations: taxis and personal drivers. The latter is what uber currently follows. It's a car with a driver that cannot pick up customers from the street who are hailing and it must not be equipped with a taximeter.

> For example, we have other popular taxi service, which also has a smartphone > app working very similarly to Uber, with the one exception, that they only > accept professional taxi drivers as their drivers.

Uber is not just great because of the app but also because the drivers are rated, the customers are rated and with the surge pricing there is a chance to get a taxi when it's needed. Try getting a taxi in Vienna at rush hour. You can't, because nobody cares extra since you get just as much money there as you do normally but you are stuck in traffic, so there are fewer taxis on the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sometimes my former socialist self whispers to me that the US is annexing the whole world through its companies. Then I realize that's a simple thought that is hard to dispel.

</comment><comment><USER16> Uber and Lyft are also effectively banned in the 3rd world country of Austin, Texas, USA.

Uber/Lyft/Gett are very useful. Can't imagine why Hungary and Austin don't want them.

<comment><USER17> They didn't get banned in Austin, they didn't want to fingerprint their drivers and pushed for legislation that specifically excluded them from a law. The city of Austin even tried to work with them, offering to front the cost, set up mobile fingerprinting stations, but they rejected this stating it would be too high of a barrier for their drivers, and when the vote came in against Uber/Lyft on Proposition 1 they decided to leave. In other words, in the specific case of Austin, they acted like spoiled children when they didn't get their way and made it so no one can benefit from their services in the city.

<comment><USER16> I said _effectively banned_ and what I meant was because of the unusual and onerous requirement of fingerprinting drivers when other cities such as NYC (where I live and which is far more dangerous than Austin) has no such requirement, nor apparently, does any other major US city since I've taken Uber/Lyft in a number of them.

<comment><USER17> > unusual and onerous requirement of fingerprinting drivers

Maybe it is unusual because it's not common in other cities, but let's not pretend it's _onerous_. Austin really tried to work with Uber/Lyft on this, such as offering to pay for the fingerprinting or have mobile fingerprinting stations, and Uber/Lyft still didn't like the idea because it would likely mean that other cities would see it as an example. And it's also not fair to say that it's even _effectively_ banned because it's a law that's not difficult to work within.

<comment><USER16> If NYC, Boston, LA, Chicago, DC, SF, Las Vegas, and other major cities across the country didn't require fingerprinting then it was unreasonable and according to my view, "onerous" in terms of the implications.

There is no reason except restraint of trade that Austin would need this fingerprinting when other larger and far more dangerous cities have done fine without it.

<comment><USER18> I would like to direct your attention to the "principle of charity" suggestion that @dang recommends commenters use when evaluating discussion.

By asserting facially false facts (NYC does indeed require fingerprinting[1]), and then attributing malice ("no reason except trade restraint") to Austin's referendum results your reply violates that principle in my opinion.

[1] [http://driveubernyc.com/tlc-license- checklist/](http://driveubernyc.com/tlc-license-checklist/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder when US gov will take a deeper look at Uber.

It is not only taxi and public transportation laws around the country they "disturb"; I still receive spammy emails they continue to send, and even Sendgrid is fully in bed with them.

I forwarded spam to Sendgrid and they said they will follow up with Uber (so apparently they are Uber's customer support at this point - great!) The spamming practice never changed or stopped despite Sendgrid telling me they will send my email to them (!!) to unsubscribe me from their list, when I didn't even subscribe in the first place.

As I received more Uber spam I kept updating Sendgrid ticked (zendesk). Eventually some 2 weeks later they closed it as "resolved" and never replied to my emails again. I still get Uber Spam from Sendgrid. Stay away from them as long as you can (both Uber and Sendgrid)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN- SPAM_Act_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003)</comment>