Go 1.15 – Draft release notes - <AUTHOR> https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.15 <comment><USER2> This article [1] describes the features in 1.15. The new linker is quite impressive in reducing executable size because it reduces more unused code:

For more realistic programs, binary sizes go down by 3.5% or as much as 22%.

The original linker was written by Ken Thompson, who is now retired.

[1] [https://lwn.net/Articles/820217/](https://lwn.net/Articles/820217/)

<comment><USER3> I was just measuring the size of Terraform earlier today--it's a program with 733 dependencies and it weighed in at 63 mb without stripping symbols or compressing when compiled with go 1.13. I was comparing it to our Python executable bundle that weighed in at 260mb with only 104 dependencies and had become too big to run in a lambda, and I found myself jealous of everyone who is fussing over their 10mb Go binaries. Anyway, I rebuilt Terraform and it's now I'm 6mb more jealous of everyone fussing over their Go binary sizes.

EDIT: If I compress the Terraform binary and the Python lambda, they become 14mb and 250mb respectively. At least Python is fast, right?

<comment><USER4> I noticed your sarcasm there re: python being fast.

Many of my company's tools have been moved from python to go for both speed and size reasons, as well as because it's much easier to distribute. Even python exec bundles can have significant problems on random workstations, yet the go tools always just work.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I have considerable experience with Go and Python, and my experience with Go has been consistently positive for all of the problems we're facing with Python; however, my org is not interested in considering other languages presumably because of the beliefs that it will take years to come up to speed on a new language and even then a statically typed language will be inherently slower to iterate with than a dynamically typed language (these assumptions are probably overfit to senior engineers' experiences with C++/Java in college or early in their careers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how this will affect wasm targets. I've had relatively few errors when using a Golang wasm but depending on the project they wind up being massive!

I also hate having to serve a separate js file to simuLate the Golang runtime which probably isn't going away but smaller and more efficient would be a marked improvement!

<comment><USER6> Did you have a look at [https://tinygo.org/webassembly/](https://tinygo.org/webassembly/) ?

<comment><USER5> I have! Given the compatibility of tiny go with community packages this isn't ideal.

I think if I was using this I would be building from scratch in which case I would just use rust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I despise Google Groups on mobile, as it usually requires me to log into my Google account. For those of you like me, the release notes[0] are easy to read in my phone.

[0] [https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.15](https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.15)

<comment><USER8> Mods, can we get the link updated to the actual release notes? [https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.15](https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.15)

<comment><USER9> Ok, changed from [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang- announce/A0frTIl9W6Y/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang- announce/A0frTIl9W6Y/mTgsOVCnAQAJ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The GOPROXY API being either , or | makes me a tiny bit sad. Now, what was once simple, has given these characters new and not easily discernible semantic meaning. I really wish I had commented on this proposal but missed it until the feature was already in.

<comment><USER11> What would propose as an alternative? Even if it's too late for this particular thing, I'm curious anyway as there are similar problems that crop up here and there at $dayhob

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Has there been any announced timeline on Go2?

<comment><USER13> I know one needs to refrain from being sarcastic here, but LOL. "Go2" is the typical exemple of an idea parking. It is not going to happen.

<comment><USER14> That's simply not true.

<comment><USER15> It was true for error handling improvements, which got added is just a small part of the original proposal.

And despite the 2nd attempt to the contracts proposal (now one year old with little visible progress, no updates since August on public git), or the Featherweight Go presented last week, there is still no guarantee that any of that will ever land on Go.

<comment><USER16> As a person who uses Go i don't need day by day updates to know that the Go team is working hard on generics. I trust that they are & indeed they are.

> now one year old with little visible progress, no updates since August on > public git.

This is untrue.

In January this year the Go team wrote[1]; "Module support is in good shape and getting better with each day, and we are also making progress on the generics front (more on that later this year)."

If you looked at the draft/experimental[2] branch where generics development has been taking place, you can see that it has had activity as late as just last week.

In the featherweightGo presentation, Phil Wadler said Rob Pike wrote to him asking if he would be interested in working with the Go team so that they can figure out generics and try and get them right. And that is how featherweightGo came to be.

So a lot has/is been happening.

1\. [https://blog.golang.org/go1.15-proposals](https://blog.golang.org/go1.15-proposals)

2\. [https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317](https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317)

3\. [https://youtu.be/Dq0WFigax_c](https://youtu.be/Dq0WFigax_c)

<comment><USER15> I stand corrected regarding the git updates.

As for the rest, it still has every chance to be shot down at last minute like it happened with the error proposal, regardless of what gets done.

<comment><USER17> The error proposal wasn't "shot down at the last minute". That is an entirely unfair and disinguous take on the matter.

<comment><USER15> So what is the fair way to address the community refusal and consequent introduction of a set of functions that achieve a subset of the initial proposal?

<comment><USER18> the error proposal was shutdown because the community rejected it due to the try function ergonomics sucking and not providing enough value.

the rest of the proposal went through just fine.

<comment><USER15> So who is to say that generics won't suffer the same fate?

<comment><USER18> current proposal might, but generics provide far more value than the try function from the errors proposal. they won't just stop attempting to figure it out.

<comment><USER13> > current proposal might, but generics provide far more value than the try > function from the errors proposal. they won't just stop attempting to figure > it out.

It doesn't matter how hard anybody tries when a vocal community rejects any attempt at changing Go type system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tangentially-related: does anybody know the status of go plugins? IIRC, only Linux and Darwin are supported, but is this a permanent state of affaires? Does the Go team intend to further develop this (e.g adding support for BSD and Win)?

</comment><comment><USER20> I hope one day they will fix the reflect.StructOf.</comment>


Building a Linux cluster with MPI & Oscar - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-cluster2/

<comment><USER2> Ahh memories. When I was in undergrad I convinced IBM to send 12 ThinkCenter desktops to me to play with MPI and other multiprocessor systems. While it certainly was fun to set up the systems, it was a pain in the rear to come up with stuff to run on it.

5 years later, you could get the same number of CPU cores in a single machine...</comment>


Slack notifications for Fail2Ban - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coleturner.me/post/138894760556/slack-notifications-for-fail2ban <comment><USER2> On my very insignificant server, fail2ban has banned around 400 IP addresses in 2016, so far. What actionable information would I have received by having a disruptive notification about it?

<comment><USER3> None. It is the attacks that don't get banned that you want to know about.

On this topic does anyone know if there is something simple that will tell you if a new IP address logs in or a new process is started?

<comment><USER4> For new IP addresses, you can write a script to monitor your auth.log file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good idea. I'd rather see it use something standard like XMPP and then people can connect it to propriety apps like slack if they so wish.

<comment><USER6> It's super easy, you just change the URLs to the REST API of your XMPP server?

<comment><USER7> Why? XMPP is already a simple protocol, just use that. No need to implement a proprietary REST protocol here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I did something similar a while back but used a PHP script to send the notifications to Slack: [https://savjee.be/2015/09/Sending-fail2ban- notifications-and...](https://savjee.be/2015/09/Sending-fail2ban- notifications-and-others-to-slack-chat-channel/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Well OK, but I'm not sure I get the point.

Surely just feed all logs into Splunk or Logstash or similar? Most monitoring systems have plugins to alert via Slack now.</comment>


U.S. stock markets are rigged, says author Michael Lewis - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/markets-hft-flashboys-idUSL1N0MR0L620140331

<comment><USER2> Although this instance seems to have been posted first, all of the discussion for this article seems to be here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499313) (60 points, 42 comments)</comment>


Should tech talks be rated - <AUTHOR> Should there be a standard rating of conference talks? Should events advise attendees of content that might take a talk beyond a U rate? The bellow rating systems are those of British Board of Film Classification and used for film, videos an games ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk ).
U: Suitable for all
 - No discriminatory language or behaviour unless clearly disapproved of.
 - No references to illegal drugs or drug misuse unless they are infrequent and innocuous, or there is a clear educational purpose or anti-drug message suitable for young children.
 - Scary sequences should be mild, brief and unlikely to cause undue anxiety to young children. The outcome should be reassuring.
 - Infrequent use only of very mild bad language.
 - Occasional natural nudity, with no sexual context.
 - Mild sexual behaviour (for example, kissing) and references only (for example, to 'making love').
12: Suitable for 12 years and over
 - Discriminatory language or behaviour must not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly condemned.
 - Any misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should not be glamorised or give instructional detail.
 - Moderate language is allowed. The use of strong language (for example, 'fuck') must be infrequent.
 - Nudity is allowed, but in a sexual context must be brief and discreet.
 - Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Sex references should not go beyond what is suitable for young teenagers. Frequent crude references are unlikely to be acceptable.
18: Suitable only for adults In line with the consistent findings of the BBFC's public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998, at '18' the BBFC's guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. Exceptions are most likely in the following areas:
- where material or treatment appears to the BBFC to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society – for example, any detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sexual or sexualised violence which might, for example, eroticise or endorse sexual assault <comment><USER2> I don't see why you need to rate them. What problem does this solve?

Posted talks on the internet? Well, you're on the internet, there's 5 million things worse than what you're watching, all fewer than 3 clicks away.

At a conference? If you're going to a professional conference then you're probably old enough to be aware that such things in the world exist.

Would someone skip an event because they might be offended? My opinion would be to let them be offended. If many people are offended, the speaker isn't appropriately addressing the audience (in which case they won't be a speaker next year), and you always have the option to just leave the room.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been in talks where 20% f the audience got up and walked out and that person still has a strong speaking carear. To many customers for events vs good events.</comment></comment>


Has the Internet destroyed the book market? - <AUTHOR>

I read quite a bit, both traditional computer science and programming books and online material.  I'm curious if anyone thinks the traditional book market (which is in decline) is near death?<p>For what you read, what do you look for in programming books?  What drives you to buy a physical book? <comment><USER2> I read magazines (The Economist, New Yorker) on my iPad. I read most books on my Kindle and yet I decided to buy this one programming book recently as a physical book. I've done so because it's a book that I know I will be reading at home, on my laptop to experiment and play around with code as I read. The conveniences of a real book are not met by any reading device.

Tablets: Good for books with lots of visuals. I need to see the images, figures, colours etc... of the articles I read on the two magazine subscriptions I have. I sometimes forget the magazine at home when I want to read it (on the bus, waiting, etc...). Audio readings are a great feature on some magazines.

Kindle: I use it for reading most of my books now. Cheap, instant and very light to carry. The problem? The touch interaction is nowhere as convenient as a book. It's hard to navigate the book and I usually like to go back to previous sections. I avoid that all-together on the Kindle. I also bought a book on design (Design for Hackers by David Kadavy), and I wasn't able to see a single image. For the few that showed up, they weren't coloured which made no sense. Most of the books I use though have no images, and so navigation is the biggest issue.

Physical Books: I buy a physical book when I know I will only read at home. Books are almost always going to be the most convenient, easiest to use. Unless Kindle comes up with something better. The only issue is carrying the book around, having to store it (an issue if you move around a lot like me), and eBooks are cheaper. I also go to college in a town with not a single decent bookstore around me. They all sell college textbooks only. eBooks are instant while books typically take a week to deliver to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> > What drives you to buy a physical book?

1\. The fact that I can give it away to a friend.

2\. The fact that books almost never contain advertising (the last holdout).

3\. The fact that I am often out of reach of the Internet -- and even electricity -- for a large percentage of each year while traveling.

4\. The fact that I am in my 60s and, as they say, "You can't teach a dead dog new tricks". :)</comment>


Godot 4.0 gets SDF based real-time global illumination - <AUTHOR> https://godotengine.org/article/godot-40-gets-sdf-based-real-time-global-illumination <comment><USER2> This is super interesting. The first video on the page sheds some light on how this actually works. It seems like they convert the scene into shapes that can be represented via SDF's and smooth min ([https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/smin/smin.htm](https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/smin/smin.htm)) them to blend into an approximation of the actual scene. While also capturing some general texture color data to apply and blend into the shapes. I assume the shader ray marches the scene to compute the lighting reflections and bounces. I am curious how the probes/nodes come into play and how they extract the light data from the shader output to apply it to the scene geometry (is it simply added in screen space?) I would be very interested in reading more detail on how this is actually implemented!

<comment><USER3> They explicitly say in the article that it does not involve ray racing, of which ray marching is a subset.

<comment><USER4> It's possible that "it does not require ray tracing" means that it does not require extensions like RTX. Perhaps it uses voxel cone tracing, which you may say is technically not ray tracing, but if you called it ray tracing you wouldn't exactly be _wrong_ either.

<comment><USER5> The article contrasts this approach with voxel cone tracing, so it's not that either.

<comment><USER6> I would call it Sphere Tracing since that's what it's called in "Hart, John, C; Sphere Tracing: A Geometric Method for the Antialiased Ray Tracing of Implicit Surfaces; The Visual Computer-1995"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I get why Epic probably funds this, and I love to think how great Godot could be in another year or so (and how they could surpass Unity, etc). What I _don 't_ really understand, though: Why wouldn't Unity just implement this now, too?!

It's open-source & MIT-licensed; if it's better than Unity's GI -- and it _IS_ better, because Unity does not currently have _ANY_ realtime-GI solution in their latest versions (they stopped licensing Enlighten for current/2020.x+ versions) -- so why wouldn't Unity just implement this, too?

There's nothing that appears to be stopping them from doing so, other than pride perhaps; part of me really, really hope that they'll do exactly that, though I've yet to dive into the code to see how viable it may or may not be given Unity's current SRP situation(s).

<comment><USER8> > I get why Epic probably funds this

Is it just to fuck over Unity?

<comment><USER9> You're getting downvoted, but Epic is extremely anti-competitive. This is likely the reason.

<comment><USER10> Epic's store offers a cheaper alternative to a near monopoly on digital game distribution on PC. How are they anti-competitive?

<comment><USER11> Epic paid obscene amounts of money to studios to force them come to their store and force exclusivity on them.

They basically exploited their Fortnite money-making machine to try to become a monopoly on PC.

How is that not anti-competitive?

For reference, Steam has never forced exclusivity on partners to distribute their games.

As for cheaper, Epic didn't become they couldn't charge the same. As simple as that.

<comment><USER10> How is obscene amounts of money forcing anything?

This sounds good for developers all around, and a minor inconvenience for gamers who are free to buy from as many stores as they like on PC. Yet could benefit gamers long term as it motivates Steam to be more competitive.

Anti competitive would be buying up competing battle royale franchises to reduce consumer choice.

<comment><USER12> Intel vs AMD in the past is a typical example on how money + exclusive deal could almost kill off a competitor.

Then Intel would enjoy a monopoly and instead of being stuck at Skylake for 4 years, we may have been stuck at Core 2 for 10 years.

Or maybe ARM, MIPS, Power or Itanium (!) would have had better opportunities to catch up with x86 and would be the dominant CPU.

Who knows, but AMD dying would have not benefited anyone who was stuck on x86.

<comment><USER10> Except Intel was the behemoth in the case. Here Steam is the one with marketshare, mindshare, and no serious competition before Epic. These exclusives are also usually time limited. This isn't Facebook buying whole studios and locking up content indefinitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks really cool and impressive of course, but I still feel the easiest way for most indies (which Godot is aimed at) to stand out is to get away from photo-realism.

<comment><USER14> Global illumination is orthogonal to photo realism. In fact, GI and lighting in general can help indies get away with untextured and/or low-poly models and still achieve a pleasant look (check out The Witness or Superhot for some examples.

<comment><USER15> Superhot is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!

<comment><USER16> Incredibly even more tangential but:

If you have the opportunity, do play Superhot VR.

It is to Superhot as Superhot is to a regular shooter. Absolutely fantastic and one of the best fitting VR "ports" (it is more of a sequel, but I mean the game mechanics got even better in VR than with a kb+m/gamepad)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Illumination Tutorial for Software 3D Rendering (2/2+) [c++20] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXU-6_jmw7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXU-6_jmw7Q)) was just released by Bisqwit and it goes over a rather naive implementation of real-time global illumination. The demo uses very basic geometry with a Minecraft look and shows the progress of paths being traced on the CPU. Compared to the Godot demo, the naive implementation is unworkably slow. Nevertheless, Bisqwit's video explains the concepts and basic code implementation admirably.

</comment><comment><USER18> Re-upping this blog post (sadly overlooked when first posted to HN) which asks the reasonable question 'why not just use Godot for general-purpose applications?'

[https://medium.com/swlh/what-makes-godot-engine-great-for- ad...](https://medium.com/swlh/what-makes-godot-engine-great-for-advance-gui- applications-b1cfb941df3b)

<comment><USER19> There's a lot of functionality that a general purpose UI library has that Godot will likely never approach, like support for input methods in text editing.

Productive applications require _extremely_ robust text editing, something that game engines don't spend a lot of time with. Stuff like selection, text input for non-English keyboards, IME popups, that sort of thing. Even RTL text display is usually minimally unsupported.

I also don't know of any game engine that supports multi-window display in any coherent way.

<comment><USER20> The Godot editor has a pretty good IDE. It's not VScode/Atom levels of functionality but it's improving steadily.

Looking at the github issues they seem to have made a lot of progress with non-English inputs. Again, not perfect but improving.

Godot 4 is adding multi window support. I would hesitate to judge it until it stabilizes but there's some hope there. It looks good from what we have seen so far.

The rate this engine is improving is incredible, i'm finding a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

<comment><USER21> The parent poster is referring to accessibility of the applications produced with Godot, not the accessibility of the IDE. Edit: it's not .NET it's C++.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand, the IDE for Godot is created with Godot.

<comment><USER20> Thanks, that's the point I was trying to make. It's more clear when you have read the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Tim Sweeney and Epic Games for their confidence in helping us finance our > research via Epic Megagrant.

That's interesting. Since this is all open source I guess Epic could potentially benefit from this... It's nice to see they funded another engine.

<comment><USER24> From a business perspective, Unreal doesn't really do 2D as per se (Whereas Godot is very simple to use) so improving Godot keeps people away from other tools like Unity which do have features that compete with Unreal.

<comment><USER25> As a unity developer I'm drooling at godot. I can't wait to jump ship to open source. Don't get me wrong unity is great, but godot is super compelling.

<comment><USER26> There's one thing that make me reluctant to use Godot though and it's GDScript.

Edit: Seems like it's not a problem anymore, can't wait to try again.

<comment><USER27> Doesn't Godot allow binding with multiple languages? You can even use Rust for that instead of GDScript.

<comment><USER28> The problem is few of those bindings are mature, nor can they be expected to remain up to date. I don't know of any games in Godot using anything but GDScript or C#.

This will probably change in the future (I hope it does, and I really wish Godot just used WASM internally so any language that already compiled to it would work) but as of now it seems there's no point to using anything but GDScript or C#.

<comment><USER27> You mean bindings aren't stable and require reworking all the time?

<comment><USER28> I mean that language support comes in the form of random third party projects like perbone/luascript[0], so stability and completeness are entirely up to the whims and capabilities of the owner.

It's open source, of course, so that's to be expected, but it also means support for any language other than C# and GDScript is kind of a crapshoot.

[0][https://github.com/perbone/luascript](https://github.com/perbone/luascript)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Makes me realize that photo-realism is not the most important thing. Illumination(and by consequence shadows) is. Bad looking 3D games look bad because of two reasons: Aliasing (which is the worst thing in 3D imo, but easily solved) and most importantly, because of bad illumination code. If the lightning code is realistic, you don't even need textures.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it possible to make a game that makes use of this new lighting system at high graphical settings and regresses to something simpler for low end computers?

</comment><comment><USER31> So if I wanted to make a simple 2d game, should I go with godot, pygame, or a JavaScript game engine?

<comment><USER28> Godot.

The sprite, tilemap and animation blending functionality alone are worth it, just grit your teeth and put up with gdscript (edit - or use C#). And it exports to the web anyway.

<comment><USER32> You don't have to use GDScript, C# support is very strong at this point.

<comment><USER28> Fair point.

Unfortunately for me anyway, I'm using the Steam version which doesn't support C#.

<comment><USER33> Why can't you just download Godot yourself [https://godotengine.org/download/windows](https://godotengine.org/download/windows) and grab the 64-bit mono c# version?

<comment><USER28> I can, I just like using Steam to manage it. I'll probably change in the future, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I like the old plugin model for its one click development cycle. The new plugin system forces to build the library which make the compile execute run cycle much longer

</comment><comment><USER35> Now someone please ELI5 how this compares to the algorithm Unreal Engine employs?

</comment><comment><USER36> Looks awesome! Might need to give godot a try :)</comment>


Extracting beauty from the mundane: Wouter Rietberg (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flickr.net/en/2015/08/24/extracting-beauty-from-the-mundane-wouter-rietberg/ <comment><USER2> Not too beautiful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, not everybody has a taste for abstract art, it is understandable.

But did you see his actual photostream (beyond the article)? Like [0], which is at least interesting in its similarity to some crude computer graphics experiment.

[0] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/wouterrietberg/26614536032](https://www.flickr.com/photos/wouterrietberg/26614536032)</comment></comment>


Show HN: CSRF Protection Using Cloudflare Workers - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/simonerni/3501b8de6320ac37398d08d9d2d08561 <comment><USER2> Nice! Great thing to build as a Worker, since it can be layered on top of basically any web service without having to change the server code.

Have you had any trouble with some browsers not sending either Origin or Referer, even for legitimate same-origin requests? I seem to remember trying this approach myself several years ago and finding that some users' browsers seemed not to send either header, but I never got a chance to dig into it, and I might be mis-remembering...

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen that (current) browsers won't send Origin / Referer Header for GET and HEAD requests, so I'm whitelisting these request types.

Other than that, it seems that IE is not sending the Origin Header for POST requests, so I simply use the Referer Header in this scenario.

Assume an attacker site sets the Referrer Policy header to no-referrer, IE sends no Referer / Origin at all for POST requests, so I block those requests.

The real origin must thus not have a Referrer Policy of "no-referrer".

Other than that, I'm observing the impact of the rule in production but haven't encountered any problems thus far.</comment></comment>


I'm looking for a partner or two (here are some of my ideas, feel free to add your own here) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone looking for a partner? My email: firstname.lastname@example.com. If you like, we can discuss startup ideas here. In fact, this social news forum might be a good way to throw ideas around to see which ones generate more interest.

<comment><USER2> Do you have any ideas currently?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am interested in collective intelligence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence. How would you build a service where thousands of people collaborative to solve a problem, create a work of art, or play a game (e.g., chess)?

<comment><USER2> That's a really cool idea. I doubt it could be turned into a successful business, but I love synergy effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What would a completely transparent company be like? All resources, records, and processes available for comment (maybe modification?) by anyone. People that have run or are currently running startups could make suggestions on the business processes, the things going on in the company, and the products or services. Maybe the more eyes/fewer bugs idea applies to business?

I'm not sure of the full picture; It's an idea.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER3> What would a completely transparent company be like? All resources, records, and processes available for comment (maybe modification?) by anyone. People that have run or are currently running startups could make suggestions on the business processes, the things going on in the company, and the products or services. Maybe the more eyes/fewer bugs idea applies to business?

I'm not sure of the full picture; It's an idea.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm interested in solving the contact management problem. My mac/mobile address book isn't flexible enough and wont tell me how I know these people but CRM is too heavy a solution.

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1457

</comment><comment><USER5> I am looking for a partner too. However, I already have a product that is close to beta. Looking for investors, partners, customers. See my thread. "Have you experienced the customer-investor-team conundrum?" http://juwo.com

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you taken a look at the Croquet Project?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_project

http://www.croquetconsortium.org/index.php/Main_Page

There are some videos of Alan Kay demonstrating an early version of it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really like the photosynth idea: http://labs.live.com/photosynth. But can we take this idea further? For example, what can we do with video? Maybe we could put together many people's videos to produce a dynamic 3d world? One could imagine allowing people to watch and explore events in 3d such as concerts and sports games.

Another idea is to identify dense areas in 3d where people tend to take a lot of photographs. One could then use these dense areas to guide people to interesting places. For example, when visiting a museum, one might look at the dense areas first.

</comment><comment><USER3>

</comment><comment> Nate</comment>


White House Weighs Limits on U.S. Portfolio Flows Into China - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-27/white-house-weighs-limits-on-u-s-portfolio-flows-into-china-k12ahk4g <comment><USER2> The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem:

\- _Should free markets /societies/cultural entities allow participation by all actors, even those which (in their own spaces) obviously don't play by the rules of the entered market/society/culture?_

\- _Or, should entry into the entity be restricted to those that themselves (in their own space) follow the rules of the entered culture?_

It seems to me that there are definite advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and it's probably something that game theorists have addressed. To use a convoluted, over-simplified metaphor of a playground:

\- _If we allow kids (that have different rules in their own playground) into our playground, we run the risk of their rules overcoming or having a negative effect on ours. We also enable them to play with us while having "bad" rules on their own playground - some of which might give them an (unfair) advantage over us on our own playground. However, we get the benefits of having more kids and toys to play with. And, maybe the kids will choose our rules (which we perceive as better) over their own._

\- _If we don 't allow them into our playground, we have less kids and toys to play with. We also have no real direct influence on them - they can't see that our rules are better in person, and we can't threaten to kick them out of our playground if they aren't in it to begin with. However, we avoid the risk of having their rules overwhelm ours and we worry less about them having unfair advantages over us on our own playground._

<comment><USER3> What other country from the West has a beef with China?

This is purely US vs China. Leave the rest of us out of your own mess please.

<comment><USER4> So what's the message, the EU is only interested in combating oppression when there's no money on the table?

<comment><USER5> China today is a lot more free and open than when Nixon went to China in '72 to play them out against the Soviets.

The real issue is that as China continues to grow economically, its military power grows as well and ultimately the US is no longer the dominant military power in the south china sea. Rhetorics about fair trade, democracy, freedom is just that, rhetorics; international politics is about raw power.

Europe has no military interest in the south china sea. And China does not pose a military threat to us. Therefore we are fine with China's continuous growth as it benifits us economically.

<comment><USER2> The EU has put forth a picture of itself as a defender of human rights for both EU citizens and global residents.

 _There are two main streams of human rights policy and action within the European Union. One is to protect the fundamental human rights for EU citizens, and the other is to promote human rights worldwide._

[https://europa.eu/european-union/topics/human- rights_en](https://europa.eu/european-union/topics/human-rights_en)

I don't see how that is compatible with the frequent violations of human rights in China. As an above commenter said: it seems to boil down to money.

<comment><USER5> Because it is bullshit. The current US administration is pushing issues now that it has ignored in the past. Eventhough in the broad view these issues are improving dramatically. Look at China today compared with how it was two or three decades ago and it will show massive improvements on living standard, environment, human rights, protection of minorities, intectual property rights, rule of law etc.

<comment><USER6> Environmental? China emit more CO2 than the EU and US combined [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china- emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/amp/)

Human rights? They have started putting Uighurs, Buddhists and Falun Gong into re-education camps [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong)

Two previous points also counter the rule of law point, which is admittedly a western concept.

<comment><USER5> China is 1.4 B people; why wouldn't it have higher co2 emissions than EU and USA?

Anyways. We can chat about particular data points. But if you look at the broad picture over decades; you really have to be willfully blind to deny massive improvements that have happened.

<comment><USER6> The claim though was that it had improved on these and other points. And at least on these there seem to be a big and widely published degradation.

Can always talk about data on the other points as well to see what they say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, now WH is exploring all creative (and unprecedented) ways to fight against China. I have to say this seems to have crossed a lot of boundaries, either clear or vague ones.

And we've also seen WH is doing similar things (though at a different degree) to close partners like Mexico.

So let's extrapolate, if there're some conflicts in interests between US and major NATO countries, will WH do the same thing? Make America great again even no one wants to talk to US?

<comment><USER8> Seems that the easy war with China is not that easy. So now the WH is resorting to other means to put pressure on China. This will backfire as the WH is trying really hard to make US less relevant. By actively using weapon that were previously seen as a huge deterrent, you make them a short term problem for China, but they will find a way around them and make them ineffective. The WH is fighting will almost all major economies (apart SA, Israel, and brexit Britain), and it's going to end pretty badly. I will be very surprised if we don't get a market crack before end of next year.

<comment><USER9> What'll really surprise you is when the central banking system is shut down.

<comment><USER10> Isn't bitmain ramping down production already though?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm guessing that Chinese companies are somewhat similar to statutory companies. I've heard that large Chinese companies have strong CCP oversight, with a party member involved that the CEO/founder has to defer to.

So the question is - does it make sense for not-actually-public-companies from other countries to be listed on the U.S. stock exchange? It could be potentially misleading otherwise.

<comment><USER12> The Alibaba listing in the US isn't even for stock in the Chinese company. It's "stock" in a Cayman Islands holding company that doesn't have any guarantee for stockholders to have any rights in the Chinese parent company.[1]

When the US president uses the bully pulpit to insult and threaten American- based multinational companies to suit his political / personal needs at the threat of a DoJ / SEC investigation or FAA license threat, how is that much different than a CCP official doing the same? I would argue it's not nearly as far as my fellow Americans would like to think it is.

[1] [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beware-alibaba-ipo-isnt- re...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beware-alibaba-ipo-isnt-really- selling-alibaba-2014-05-07)

<comment><USER13> True but American don't like being pushed around while the Chinese are used to it. Which means the Bully is usually tolerated for much shorter durations than Chinese Bullies are. Churchill's rise and fall is a good example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Emmmm, this is crazy. Capital will find its way just not through US exchange

</comment><comment><USER15> Thread title does not match link title or content.

<comment><USER16> while the title is a bit more inflammatory than the article, it does say that delisting is being considered amongst other options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would that just mean the securities will just trade on pink sheets? Or would it be more likely that trading would migrate to a stock exchange in another country?

<comment><USER18> The London stock exchange would be an obvious candidate.

<comment><USER19> I heard people were moving away from doing stocks in London with Brexit looming. Is this no longer the case?

<comment><USER16> I know blackrock will delist quite a few EUR denominated ETFs[0] from the LSE, but what stocks actually mentioned leaving the LSE?

[0] [https://www.etfstream.com/news/8949_blackrock- delists-43-etf...](https://www.etfstream.com/news/8949_blackrock- delists-43-etfs-from-lse/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How would this affect foreign pension funds that invest in NYSE?

Would they just sell their Chineses stocks or move some investment to another country??

</comment><comment><USER21> Time to bring out the duck and cover PSA videos ... US/UK vs China-Eurasian hegemony ... sounds like 1984 all over again.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh boy, this thread needs to be locked down. All the conversation has turned into political short outbursts and I only see one comment actually remotely talking about the topic.

Even the thread title is not what the article headline is. Maybe the title is at fault for off-topic conversations.

</comment><comment><USER23> Im sorry but just reading this almost feels like an April Fools joke, except sadly its September

</comment><comment><USER24> Normally the US government has extraordinary power over China in financial sector.

But Trump has alienated all traditional allies. Threat to exclude China turns into opportunity for others to exploit the situation. Euronext, London, Toronto, Tokyo and Hong Kong are in the position to gain relative to NASDAQ and NYSE.

ps. I think the change of delisting happening is less than 5%.

<comment><USER25> I do not understand why this comment is being downvoted. The OP is absolutely right about this.

<comment><USER26> China hates Canada, no way these tech stocks are being listed in Toronto, it's nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> On the one hand - I feel it is totally legitimate that the US take the view that they want a symmetrical arrangement in so far as 'if Chinese firms can access US investors then US firms should be able to access Chinese ones'.

On the other hand, this has the feel of trying to bully China into a trade deal that is good for Trump but not for the Chinese. It could also hurt investor confidence in the US.

Ultimately, its a tough one and while I think its a horrible path for the US to be pursuing, I understand why they are thinking about it.

</comment><comment><USER28> How would it change costs of chinese goods (esp. hardware) for a third world, if implemented?

Edit: added chinese

</comment><comment><USER29> This seems reasonable, though the administration is likely doing it for the wrong reasons. Genuine question: Is sentiment more important than correctness, or is the opposite true?

<comment><USER30> > This seems reasonable

Does it? The U.S went to wars, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to force open markets to its products, it has been preaching the free market mantra for decades. Regardless of everything else about China, they're now starting to make some actually compelling products so the U.S is acting out.

I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S.

I just assumed it's going to be more subtle than this, as an EU citizen, this sends a clear signal to me that the EU is only an 'ally' as long as it keeps buying American products.

<comment><USER31> > I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the > state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S

What

<comment><USER32> Also US started wars , military actions or changed the governments around the world,spied(maybe assassinations - I would apreciate someone if knows of a good example of this) , pushed international law for the interest of the big companies(aka for money) ex the banana wars [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars)

Also the government will intervene on the internal market too with money,subsidies, regulations,exceptions to help the big companies,

in t he end the state and big companies are in a long relationship and there is no way you can deny this just ways you can try to find arguments that is fair and honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> sadly the CCP don't play by any rules

</comment><comment><USER34> US Propaganda and sentiment as instigated by this administration against China resembles cold war anti-Soviet sentiment in the 1970s and 80s.

</comment><comment><USER35> Looks like a proper shakedown.

</comment><comment><USER36> Not my VEMAX!!!

</comment><comment><USER37> i would recommend the documentary "the china hustle"

i was skeptical of the documentary before watching, but it is very good

</comment><comment><USER38> The China problem is of our own doing, of course. Up until Trump nobody had any interest in addressing it. I'll just say nobody before him took this on because of the potential for political suicide. Love or hate him (I'm +/\- around neutral, hate how he presents the presidency, like most of what he is actually doing when he is not busy saying stupid things) forcing a realignment of China is a good idea.

This had to be done 25 years ago, when it would have been far easier to accomplish. Attempting this today is equivalent to not detecting cancer early enough for a simple operation to extract it fully with minimal consequences. Instead, we wait until it has metastasized and nearly have to kill the patient in an attempt to cure him. Notice my use of the word "attempt"...because there are no guarantees.

The China problem, I think, can be boiled down to a few important line items:

        - Intellectual property theft
        - Currency manipulation
        - Terrible disregard of the environment
        - Objectionable labor practices
        - Predatory practices with foreign entities operating in China
        - Fraud in regulatory testing and standards
          (UL/CE/TUV mark from China testing means nothing)
        - Lackluster of participation in foreign aid
          (for the second largest economy it is embarrassing)
        - Asymmetric property ownership laws
        - Abuse of the global postal system
         (free shipping from China because the US taxpayers subsidize
          their packages within the us to the tune of US $500 million per year)

There's probably more, though I think these are some of the main points. If any other economy behaved this way they would be universally scolded in around the world. If the US, Germany, France or the UK behaved this way we would have massive marches all over the world. China does this and more and people, for the most part, are either oblivious to it or don't care. The problem with this is that they are sacrificing their own jobs and their kid's futures for their inaction.

I think the value of playing with reasonably similar rules is that one entity can't destroy other players by using out of the norm methods to destroy them and then gain supremacy. This is why we have such things as antitrust and monopoly laws. This is why such methods as price fixing and bribery are illegal in the US and Europe. This is why we respect intellectual property, fight for humane labor practices, respect safety testing of the products we use and help less fortunate nations to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and generally speaking.

China is almost the diametric opposite of this. And for that they likely deserve a bit of a reality check today.

Non an easy problem to fix. Others have allowed this cancer to metastasize for decades. To fix it today you have to be a complete a--hole and go for broke. It looks like the job fits the guy in the White House. Not sure if he will succeed. The other problem is that, in western democracies, leaders and some policies tend to only survive term limits and election cycles, while in China they know they can stay the course for decades.

</comment><comment><USER39> Are there US companies that are listed on mainland Chinese exchanges?

</comment><comment><USER40> This is typical tactics from Trump. Whenever there is a meeting he inflicts maximum leverage and stress to the opponent. I wouldn't read much into this honestly. It's a game.

<comment><USER41> I wonder when Trump will realize he's trying to play checkers on a chess board?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> More trade leverage and it will also destroy Biden. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Good.

The CCP pretty much owns every Chinese big company. And, they don't let people examine their books. Who's to say that all that American investment money isn't going into grossly or even fraudulently overvalued stock?

<comment><USER43> The SEC. If your concern is that companies listed on US stock exchanges aren't correctly reporting their financials thats an issue for the SEC. It's not an issue for a blanket ban on Chinese companies being listed. Preventing Americans from being able to trade their investments easily on a reputable exchange isn't going to help them.

<comment><USER44> Except the SEC has given Chinese companies an exemption from normal oversight. I agree that there shouldn't be a blanket ban - but the companies should have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

[https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/china-and-the-u-s- stock...](https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/china-and-the-u-s-stock-market- nowhere-to-go.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Martin Luther Insult Generator - <AUTHOR> http://ergofabulous.org/luther/? <comment><USER2> Naturally I had to introduce Martin Luther to Eliza the Psychotherpist.

"Luther: The hellish Satan drives you.

Eliza: Why do you say the hellish satan drives me?

Luther: You are like a magician who conjures gulden into the mouths of silly people, but when they open their mouths they have horse dirt in them.

Eliza: Is it because when they open their mouths they have horse dirt in them that you came to me?

Luther: You run against God with the horns of your pride up in the air and thus plunge into the abyss of hell. Woe unto you, Antichrist!

Eliza: I would appreciate it if you would watch your tongue!

Luther: I was frightened and thought I was dreaming, it was such a thunderclap, such a great horrid fart did you let go here! You certainly pressed with great might to let out such a thunderous fart - it is a wonder that it did not tear your hole and belly apart!

Eliza: Does it bother you that it did not tear my hole and belly apart?

Luther: Is not what I said before true, that you have eaten and drunk yourself full of devils, and so spew vainglorious devils out of your hellish gorge?

Eliza: What do you think?

Luther: You reek of nothing but Lucian, and you breathe out on me the vast drunken folly of Epicurus.

Eliza: Perhaps you could try to be less abusive."

I stopped there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would probably be funnier in the original German version. For example the worldplay "Your Hellishness" instead of "Your Holyness" works better in German ("Eure Hölligkeit" vs "Eure Heiligkeit").

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it would be funnier in German, but then the Anglophone world wouldn't be reading it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think my fave of Luther's insults is "There you are, like butter in sunshine."

<comment><USER5> While not an insult, and probably not actually said by Luther, the best-known quote used to be "Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen." And this proves that Luther was the first owner of an IFA car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A classic source of Reformation-era putdowns!

</comment><comment><USER4> Martin Luther: Open Letter to German Nobility, 1520 [http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther- germnobintro...](http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther- germnobintro.asp)

</comment><comment><USER6> Having gone to a Lutheran school (St. Olaf - Um Ya Ya!), I can tell you Lutheran theology nerds can hold their nerdy own against any programmer for sheer monomania. As you might guess, I'm a little bit of one myself. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> > Could not successfully run query from DB: User 'lutheran_insults' has > exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

</comment><comment><USER8> Could not successfully run query from DB: User 'lutheran_insults' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

</comment><comment><USER9> This has to be the best DB error I've ever read:

"User 'lutheran_insults' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource."

<comment><USER6> Must be hard-coded to 95. _rimshot_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should Be Obeyed [http://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/323/texts/luther~1.htm](http://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/323/texts/luther~1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER10> Totally related - the Shakespearean Insulter: [http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/](http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/)

</comment><comment><USER11> "Are you ignorant of what it means to be ignorant?" FTW

</comment><comment><USER12> poopy

</comment><comment><USER12> asdasfd g

</comment><comment><USER12> dfhgrfhtdryxr

</comment><comment><USER12> boob

</comment><comment><USER12> nipple

</comment><comment><USER13> This is what I come to Hacker News for!!!

<comment> bra-ket you poor Devil

<comment><USER13> What's funny is I don't know what I was downvoted for. Was it because someone thought I thought such postings were worthwhile or do others think it's worthwhile and didn't like my chiding.

In either case, the absurdity shines through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism)

<comment><USER15> Us Lutherans actually repudiate Luther's antisemitism:

[http://ergofabulous.org/luther/insults- explained.php](http://ergofabulous.org/luther/insults-explained.php)

[http://www.lutherans.com/guide/lutherans_and_jews.php](http://www.lutherans.com/guide/lutherans_and_jews.php)

And no, the man wasn't a saint (something he said himself).

<comment><USER16> And it only took, what, four or five centuries? I would say something snarky here about the amazing moral leadership on display, except that this actually does seem to be slightly faster than average for a major religious sect as old as Lutheranism.

<comment><USER17> Ultimately all you can do is gently guide the world toward secular humanism, as people raised under the irrational tribalism of _any_ religion struggle to writhe out of the pit they were born in. Calling out the faults of one flavor of religion is silly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Home View - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMFBuHsKXb0&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> The caption translation was excellent.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hahahaha! How they can do that with a straight face is beyond me. I particularly like the third couple; they refuse, until he says, "Well, then we'll shut off your Google", and the next scene is them photographing the bedroom.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just a heads up: Audio in German, subtitled in French. But you can get the main idea without knowing those languages.

<comment><USER5> You can also use the captions translation option (hover the red cc, and select Translate...).

<comment><USER4> When I do that, I can only see French as an option. Do you get other languages?

<comment><USER6> Click "translate captions (BETA)" and select English. It worked surprisingly well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the case that the house owners take the pictures themselves, I wounder how many people would actually be willing to do that.

1% of the population, 10%? I am thinking of hardcore twitterers combined with half of all facebook users and all of the foursquare/gowalla users...

New guess: 50% of all people

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps I am mistaken but wasn't there once a google streetview for Berlin? I'm not 100% sure but I seem to remember looking at it before I moved there, but when I arrived I tried using it and noticed that it was disabled. I believe that this is due to some kind of lawsuit but I don't know for sure.

</comment><comment><USER9> great! thats martin sonneborn at his finest. he's a german satirist and is notoriously know for pulling of stuff like this.

additional info: this is taken out of the german equivalent of "the daily show".

<comment><USER10> there's a german equivalent of the daily show? :)

<comment><USER9> sort of ... it's called "heute show" (and thats not a terrible translation but rather a pun because there's a famous german newsshot called "heute" on the same channel) and airs weekly on one of the public stations. it is heavily influenced by the daily show and far better than an earlier attempt by RTL that was called "freitag nacht news".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bet facebook is working on integrating divyshot with "Dorm View"

</comment><comment><USER12> lachte mir den Arsch ab!</comment>


A Dramatic Increase in Annual Average Temperatures for U.S. Cities This Decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/dramatic-increase-annual-average-temperatures-us-cities-decade <comment><USER2> No but see climate change is a liberal conspiracy</comment>


Linux and Reliability - <AUTHOR> http://deepankar.posterous.com/linux-and-reliability

<comment><USER2> Unlike the kernel, desktop development for Linux is done almost wholly by volunteers in their spare time. There aren't many paid developer seats for KDE, Gnome, et al.

Bold new interfaces, new APIs, and complete reinventions of the desktop metaphor are really exciting hobby projects for these brave volunteers.

Perfecting backwards compatibility, re-implementing buggy behaviour from prior versions, and ensuring ABI stability do not make exciting projects. These are the torturously painful, labor-intensive foundations of Microsoft's success.

</comment><comment><USER3> As another issue, my mother-in-law's SuSE 9.1 machine has stopped playing videos, and she can no longer provide feedback on eBay. The latter is important, so I started the process up upgrading the installation of Flash.

Enter Dependency Hell.

It's still not working, and now several other things are broken. It looks like I'll have to provide a complete re-install, but it's unclear that I can find a version of Linux that still works on the hardware.

I hate system administration, and more and more I'm forced to tinker with machines.

Rhetorical Question: Why can't they "Just Work" ?

I'm seriously considering moving to a Mac and trying to get everything I want working there. Joy. Another month of tinkering instead of producing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree with you. I also believe that operating systems should embrace the chrome way of just updating silently by default. Power users can disable this.

<comment><USER4> This is only OK when it comes from a wise and benevolent company (e.g. Google). I would not want to encourage this sort of behavior in all software (think Skype, Acrobat, etc... ugh!)

<comment><USER5> Wise and benevolent? I wouldn't encourage this behaviour from any company. It's risky and has a high chance of completely alienating your users if you don't get it exactly right, and and something breaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This guy has a point. Ubuntu's constant meddling with the Desktop and adoption of immature software as default is why I left it for Linux Mint. LM 10 has "just worked" for me so far, and LM Debian Edition also look spromising. By contrast, Ubuntu breaks a few important things every time they release a new version.

I don't plan to consider returning until Ubuntu Desktop Edition "stabilizes" a bit. But that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, what with the impending switch to Unity, and the rumored switch to Wayland, and ever tighter integration with Canonical's proprietary offerings...

GNU/Linux is already rock solid at the base system level, but some distros just ruin the Desktop experience.

<comment><USER7> I have used Ubuntu Desktop (Lucid & Maverick) everyday for years now and certainly don't have any stability issues, I don't see how changing to Mint (based heavily on Ubuntu) would affect stability.

I also have to ask what is this immature software as default you talk about?

<comment><USER6> It's usually not the base system that causes issues. Most instabilities I've come across have to do with distro-specific UI customizations and proprietary add-ons such as Flash.

For example, Ubuntu Natty Desktop Edition will come with Unity as the default UI, which is a relatively immature platform that Canonical is trying to push hard. Linux Mint will probably stick with GNOME and KDE though.

Of course it's always possible to switch to something that is more stable, but that's not exactly "It works out of the box."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is very little reason to dread this move. I am not sure I like Unity yet, but I applaud Ubuntu for thinking outside the box. If you install Ubuntu 11.04 and want the old user interface, you can pretty much get it. Just install and then at the login screen, choose the classic desktop. Then, run the command metacity --replace. On one Narwhal test machine, I created a startup application to run this command on each boot. This gives you a desktop almost exactly like the old desktop. So, you can have the old or the new. Choice is nice and everyone is served.

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems to be what the IPad and Chrome OS are doing.

Here's where linux fails on this front. Often it doesn't just work out of the box. I have to figure out how to install proprietary drivers, then I had to figure out how to configure it to get basic visual features like the drop shadow around the top most window. There is still an obnoxious flicker when I use desktop switching, the sound stops working after I do an update, etc. This all happened to me on the last two versions of ubuntu on a dell optiplex. So I went back to my mac.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like redhat/novell/ubuntu should invest in multimedia codecs, sound architecture, wireless drivers and graphics driver support over all else.

<comment><USER5> A lot of it comes from hardware manufacturers and other providers. MP3 support on Linux was terrible for a long time because of all the patent mess.

Talk to companies like Broadcom or AMD / NVIDIA about making their components work much better with Linux, first. A lot of the issue is on their end, with not providing interfaces and drivers for distros to include.

Canonical, Novell, and everyone else try their best to include what they can for their distros but it's hard when the companies making these computers don't help much.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK, Canonical tries to bundle Ubuntu with only free (read: open-source) software, to promote the idea that a totally open-source system can be a viable alternative to Windows / Mac. We all know that's a load of bollocks, though, as inertia keeps us using Flash Player and MP3 instead of HTML5 and OGG, for instance.

Boxee, Google TV, and such are able to license Netflix and use their technology because it's much harder to hack them. Netflix has been fighting movie companies for years now to get full Linux support because Silverlight is the only player technology with the DRM to satisfy the studios that movies can't be copied from the stream, and Microsoft obviously has no intention of making it available on mainstream Linux distributions.

I believe that Boxee, Google TV, and 360/PS3 all use other technologies, but that can be inherently less secure because it's harder to get inside of them. Also, they can afford to pay the monstrous fees to work with Netflix and develop a solution that will satisfy all of Netflix's backers.

Licensing technology, especially with all of the patent stuff that's been going on lately, is an incredible undertaking and costs a lot of money, and many companies are unwilling to license to companies like Canonical because Linux is a huge administrative headache due to its openness and peoples' desire to have open systems.

At least, that's how I understand all of this. I could be wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, but Redhat is staring at a billion dollar annual revenue. Innovation follows platforms that people want to use in their own spare time. Redhat needs to make this happen in the long term or they risk ending up like Solaris where no one wants to use them after 5pm.

<comment><USER8> There are a couple of different problems here. RedHat is actually pretty good in that they only include open software in their distribution. I, and many others, would not trust the OS nearly as much if they included things like Flash or other binary only blobs. These binary blobs could be doing anything. We know Flash works against the user's interest, and who knows what other binary piece might do?

Secondly, how would they license? Most of the code they could license requires a charge per copy. RedHat , Ubuntu and most Linux distros encourage the free redistribution of their disks. You can download it for free(aside from bandwidth charges which RedHat is not involved with. They don't even know how many copies are really in use. So, either they would have to change their whole distribution model or they would have to pay for something that is fairly nebulous. Fluendo has published a version of the MP3 codec that can be distributed for free. They purchased a license that has no per copy costs, but that is unusual to even have that as an option.

Finally, the RedHat company produces the RedHat distro for commercial use and the Fedora distro for home use. There is an active community of Fedora users who happily use it after 5 PM and you can find how to get most codecs working in Fedora, if you search a bit. The freedoms associated with Linux make it much more pleasant to use that any proprietary solution available today. I would also say Linux is more powerful and easy to use, but I can see how not everyone would agree about those, since your experience and workflows can drive those comparisons. OpenSolaris was making good progress. It is a shame it was killed a little before it got to the point where it was usable for everyday duty for the average person.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think a large majority in the world is in the "I dont mind paying 2 bucks now and then but dont make me go searching for a solution on a technology forum because I couldnt care less about how to get it to work".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Forth & stack machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html

<comment><USER2> A while ago I came across Factor¹, which calls itself "a practical stack language"; it has the same basic (lack of) syntax as Forth, but has a Common Lisp-inspired object system, garbage collection, and a standard library whose scope resembles Python's.

I haven't actually written anything in it yet.

Partially, it's because of work-flow issues - Factor doesn't lend itself to hacking on source-trees outside the Factor source tree, and I'm not sure how I'd set up a single-button "run all the tests" command, for example. Partially it's an issue of finding the right project - being a new language and a new paradigm, I'd want to start off with something simple, but not so simple that I'd be tempted to dash off a half-dozen lines of Python and move on.

A good chunk of it, however, is because of articles like this one (in fact, probably this very article I read on Hacker News some months ago) that make me despair of ever making code that will be as simple and efficient as the code- samples I've seen — the Python community calls Python code that goes with the grain of the language as "Pythonic"; I'm not sure what Factor's equivalent adjective would be ("Factorial"?).

¹: <http://factorcode.org/>

<comment><USER3> I don't have any Forth background, but have written a significant amount of Factor code during the last year. I haven't really run into things that seem painful or complicated to express in what I hope to be idiomatic Factor. The project I've been working on is an interactive game, so it's neither entirely trivial nor something that a concatenative language is obviously a particularly good fit for.

The main difference from Forth are the ubiquitous quotations, Factor's equivalents of a lambda expression, which make the idiom clean and quite like a functional language. For example, Factor's `if` conditional isn't a macro like the Forth one, it's just a regular word that takes a truth value and two quotations, and then calls either the first or the second quotation based on the truth value. There are also many combinator words like `bi` or `cleave` that operate on the quotations that don't have Forth equivalents as far as I know. A good deal of being able to write idiomatic Factor is being able to use the standard combinators.

For tricky things like complex equations that aren't easy to express in pure stack manipulation Factor has the local variable library, which allows easy repeated referencing of the inputs, so doing something like a closed form solution of a quadratic equation can be done without incomprehensible stack acrobatics.

The work-flow is a bit tricky though. I like setting up automated machinery running from the command line, and Factor likes to live in an image, SmallTalk style. I guess the idea is to just write the support machinery in Factor as well, and use the Factor REPL as the interactive workflow control site and short Factor scripts for automated command-line stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ever since encountering OpenFirmware on the old PPC Macs I've been interested in Forth but I've only started playing around with it recently (I actually just put amforth on an ATMega328P this afternoon). It's really pretty interesting to use as it forces me to really program in a different way than usual. Most languages allow me, to put it one way, to break to "rules" of the language (ie: programming imperatively in a functional language) but using Forth really means having to learn to solve problems a new way.

In the case of running Forth on an AVR it also has the benefit of being able to program interactively on the actual hardware instead of having to flash and reflash every time I want to change something. Very pleasant.

<comment><USER5> Requirements are an information tool, just as any document is an information tool.

Any company where software is handed down from developers to users on a one- way street with no collaboration, refinement, and iteration is working with an inefficient process.

Any company where requirements are handed down from users to developers on a one-way street with no collaboration, refinement, and iteration is working with an inefficient process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought this part captured it nicely:

 _Forth is not the language. [...] Forth is the approach to engineering aiming to produce as small, simple and optimal system as possible, by shaving off as many requirements of every imaginable kind as you can._

I actually quite like that approach, though like the author of this post I'm not sure how well it could be applied within the context of a larger company with requirements that you don't fully control.

</comment><comment><USER5> _The requirement for "real world work" is almost by definition incompatible with "the freedom to change the language, the compiler, the OS and the hardware design"._

If "the hardware design" really means the VM for a VM based language, then I have known people who accomplished great things in their real world work by changing the "hardware design." There is a difference between changing such things willy-nilly because you can versus doing pragmatic and smart things because it makes things simpler and faster.

 _The Forth way of focusing on just the problem you need to solve seems to more or less require that the same person or a very tightly united group focus on all three of these things, and pick the right algorithms, the right computer architecture, the right language, the right word size, etc. I don't know how to make this work._

A group that can make that work -- sounds like the sort of startup that PG would like to fund.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting article although I think it shows a bit of confusion. The person is also rather inexperienced both with his approach to the problem he was solving and the outcome. I would have probably used a commercial DSP looking at the workload.

Looking at Forth, it's a thing of beauty. It's just simple. That is all that can be said. In a lot of circumstances, it will do the job admirably. People tend to forget that the majority of computers out there still aren't desktop PCs, servers, mobile devices etc. Surveying my house quickly, they are tiny things in washing machines, cookers, fire alarms, traffic signals, process controllers, lighting, microwave ovens, calculators, children's toys, televisions, dishwashers, scales, cd players etc. There are literally billions of the things all doing tiny tasks constantly 24/7. Forth fits there nicely if you ask me :)</comment>


Rate My Startup - eclocking.com - <AUTHOR> http://eclocking.com Please take a look at eclocking.com and give me some feeback.
It's a stopwatch that lets you save, organize and chart your times.
Some questions: 1. Is this useful? 2. How much functionality does a premium plan need before I can charge? 3. Any other feedback is appreciated. <comment><USER2> Ok I am not sure this would be very useful as it stands. I don't think many people need that kind of timer while having an internet connection. But you may be more succesful if you turn it into an iphone/blackberry/android app that does not need constant connectivity.

I will give you another idea which is tangentially related to what you are doing. There are timers that are used for people that bill for their time (e.g., consultants, lawyers, accountants, etc.) They are some pretty expensive ones that are used by top law firms and work very well. And there are a lot of cheaper ones that are aimed at startups and the like and are pretty terrible.

I am an attorney that just left one of the top firms in the nation to try to start my own practice. One of the biggest annoyances is that I cannot find a timer application that works as well as the one my law firm used. It should not be that difficult. But all the applications aimed at small businesses are pretty bad.

So I think if you aimed your timer for people that bill for their time, you might be succesful. But you have to make it good. You have to make it so it supports client- matter billing. Also make sure it can easily interact with standard accounting software. Also make sure it is easy to switch between tasks and create new tasks (this where most existing applications fail epically).

Basicly, if you can make a billing timer which is as good as Capre Diem but does not cost an arm and a leg, I think you may be very successful.

<comment><USER3> What about Billings?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _website_

<comment><USER5> Since this is getting upvoted, I'm curious how people make the distinction between a startup and a website.

<comment><USER6> My personal distinction:

\- A website is just that. A website on the internet, usually consisting of HTML, CSS, Images and Javascript.

\- A startup is a venture to start a profitable company.

For a website to be considered a startup, there has to be some case where one could make a sound argument it will be able to make more revenue that it costs to maintain (and the incurred cost of building it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first, I thought this was just a one-page javascript demo. After watching the screencast, I can see there's more to it than that.

I'm not sure anyone will really use the online timer, it just doesn't fit with most scenarios where you need a stop watch.

I like the graphing / tag filtering system. It's your strongest feature. Could be useful for freelancers to track their hours on various projects. If you can come up with a way to get data into it that doesn't involve leaving a browser tab open, you've got something. Alternatively, come up with a really easy way to enter times manually.

Side note: If you're going to record speech for a demo video, use a windscreen on the mic to avoid those popping sounds (you can make your own by wrapping some light cloth around the mic).

</comment><comment><USER7> Contrary to what most people here have said, I believe there is a use for such a service. However you would have to focus on a niche. Lawyers time their tasks - they bill by increments as short as 6 minutes. To be useful for lawyers you would have to add more features. A few that come to mind would be having multiple connected timers (starting one stops whatever other one is running), labels associated with the timers, notes associated with the timers, and a whole lot of security. Current timer solutions for lawyers are all desktop applications, so a web based solution could be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just used it to time myself writing a bunch of emails...I find I work better when I'm under some kind of time crunch or competition, so this may be useful...

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a bug at _exactly_ one minute, ten seconds.

150 0.6 1:10.5

149 0.5 1:010.0 <\- This one.

148 0.6 1:09.4

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe DJs can use this create a smooth flow from song to song. They can preset the time beforehand when the songs should change and when one the stopwatch the 'effects' should be added. If this is possible, they can effictively sit back and relax.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's a stopwatch that lets you save, organize and chart your times.

Some questions:

      1. Is this useful?
      2. How much functionality does a premium plan need before I can charge?
      3. Any other feedback is appreciated.

<comment><USER11> To be quite honest, I don't find it useful at all. For the past several minutes I've been trying to come up with a use case for it, but can't because I don't find myself needing a stopwatch whilst using my computer, unless you're in a research facility. Maybe if you can automate the stop watch and start/stop it according to certain actions, along the lines of RescueTime, then it could be a bit more useful. As far as premium plan, you have quite a ways to go to convince me to pay for your service. My iPhone stopwatch is sufficient for my needs and I don't see a reason to use your service.

Maybe you were going for a specific use case that I'm not aware of, and if that's the case, let me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the honesty. Most people don't use stopwatch at their computer.

I created a mobile version of the website for use on your phone. It's better than your other stopwatch if you want to keep track of your times.

<comment><USER12> Don't many mobile phones include stopwatch applications? I know my Sony Ericsson from 2004 had one.

Having neither an iPhone nor an Android phone, I do not know whether they include stopwatches, but I would be more likely to use a native application version than a mobile website.

<comment><USER13> The iPhone does have a stopwatch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it's brilliant. Nice work!

In terms of a business model, it may not be a million dollar idea, but with enough connections (like an iphone app) you could certainly make some good income.

Keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER15> This might be useful for joggers, walkers, or anyone in athletics who has a mobile phone.

</comment><comment><USER16> Considering that your competition is a mobile device that costs anywhere from $1 (basic model) to $30 (deluxe models with many more features than your website), can be used anywhere in the world (or off it) without concern for internet access, has a battery life on the order of 5 years, and a total service life of over a decade...

I think you're screwed.

</comment><comment><USER17> Original feature, personally I don't like to count minutes of work because 5 minutes of good concentration is much more better than a hour of sleepy mouse clicking , but I am sure there is people that will find it useful.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a joke right? I hope so.</comment>


37 Signals shuts down Affiliate Program - <AUTHOR>

Text from an email today:
Hi X-
You're receiving this email because sometime within the last few years you signed up to be a 37signals Affiliate.
Unfortunately, we've decided to end the 37signals affiliate program. While the program has been successful, we'd like to focus our customer acquisition efforts elsewhere.
Even though we're closing down the program, we want to ensure that we do right by you and everyone else who've helped us through this program over the years.
Here's what you need to know:
Portal shutdown: The affiliate portal at https://affiliate.37signals.com will be shut down later today.
Final payments: Our records show that you haven't earned any commissions this year, and have an outstanding commission balance of $Y.00.
Because this is less than our payment threshold of $100, no final cash payment will be made. However, we'd like to offer you a $Y.00 credit on the 37signals account of your choosing.
Please reply to email@example.com with the account that you'd like the credit applied to.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to respond to this email.
Again, thanks for being part of the 37signals affiliate program. Have a happy holiday season.
Thanks, 37signals <comment><USER2> Can someone explain what the Affiliate Program is/was? 37 Signals has been doing a lot of pruning and shuffling lately. I wonder why.

<comment><USER3> [http://web.archive.org/web/20110710003815/http://37signals.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110710003815/http://37signals.com/affiliate/commissions)

I was in the program, but wasn't active. Does anyone know what 37signals did for affiliates that were still generating significant revenue? Just offered a credit buyout?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What open software is there for visualising binary data/memory content? - <AUTHOR>

In a recent TED talk, Chris Domas, a cybersecurity researcher, shows a few ways of visualising memory content (binary data) as 2D and 3D images, showing how each different type of data has a different visual signature. In the software he shows, in 2D, music looks like a thin diagonal shear or a slanted picture of a galaxy, text in English looks like a well organised square grid, images look like a tilted rhombus, and so on. 3D visualisations are even more detailed and revealing, and all of these abstractions can be done at several levels, allowing you to basically zoom in and out of data, and find what you're looking for, or identify what you're looking at, incredibly faster. So what software is out there that does stuff like this?<p>Here's the link to the talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_domas_the_1s_and_0s_behind_cyber_warfare <comment><AUTHOR> One immediate use that I could see for such software is analysing memory dumps, and debugging in (snapshots of) live memory. I wonder if it would make life easier for coders everywhere, and if we're soon going to find courses on visual abstractisation of binary data, and interpretation..</comment>


Google Releases The First Stable SDK For Its Dart JavaScript Alternative - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/16/a-year-after-launch-google-launches-the-first-sdk-for-its-dart-javascript-alternative/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> Official Link: <http://news.dartlang.org/2012/10/dart-m1-release.html></comment>


Why file-sharing has killed 'unlimited' mobile data contracts - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/11/mobile-data-unlimited-end

<comment><USER2> It isn't file sharing, it is greed of a service providers.

In India, for example, unlimited data plan from Airtel (country's No.1) is Rs.35 ($0.80) per day. But it is only 2,5G and their DNS servers are constantly overloaded and are lagging as hell. =)

btw, 3G spectrum auction finished a week ago.</comment>


Ask HN: Advice regarding exposure to haze and unhealthy PM2.5 levels. - <AUTHOR>

I am currently in Singapore and even with all the media attention surrounding this issue, its pretty hard to get real information regarding this issue.
I have tried accessing government websites(nea.gov.sg/psi/) but the data that was provided was based on 3hr averages and not real-time. The advice given was to wear n95 masks but its still pretty hard to purchase those masks as its sold out in many places since people have been queuing to buy it since Friday.
I currently do not have an n95 mask. I only have a surgical mask with me(which I know does nothing) that I wear to work and back.
The biggest question that I have is this: I would like someone to chime in on the damage to my lungs due to exposure to unhealthy levels of PM2.5(>200+) for over a week. Will it eventually be dispelled by my body? Any irreversible long-term damage?
Also, things might get worse and any advice(other than n95 masks, turning on A/C all day and getting an air purifier since all these costs a lot of money) will be appreciated. <comment><USER2> If you have kids, move. If you are young and your lungs are well developed, you'll probably be ok.

to be honest, 200 pmi is nothing. Beijing is usually above 100 and routinely above 200. I don't change my habits until 300+ and I'm not depressed until 500+. Work hands out face masks but I rarely use them.</comment>


How to start a company, for programmers - <AUTHOR> http://codehope.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-start-company-for-programmers.html <comment><USER2> After reading his previous entry, "Linus is Darth Vader, and IBM stole Linux", it's hard to assign credibililty to this one.</comment>


Round 1 Candidates for NIST Lightweight Cryptography Competition - <AUTHOR> https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Lightweight-Cryptography/Round-1-Candidates <comment><AUTHOR> It would not be surprising if 70% of them were built on sponges: [https://keccak.team/sponge_duplex.html](https://keccak.team/sponge_duplex.html)</comment>


Check out the bad style in the Liferay developers book - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/swMKWPY Putting Java in the JSP and using a StringBuilder to generate HTML... Nice!<p>Ironically, one of the subsequent chapters is about writing clean code in the platform.. <comment><AUTHOR> Putting Java in your JSP and using a StringBuilder to create HTML.. Oh dear.

Ironically, one of the subsequent chapters is on clean / quality code in the platform....</comment>


Type-Safe Pointers in ATS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vmchale.com/article/ats-safe-pointers <comment><USER2> I would love to use ATS, but it is not a easy language to learn and I find the error messages incredibly cryptic, and the syntax quite weird. Also, it seems to me that is pretty much a research language.

What is the best way to learn it? Could anyone shine some light?

<comment><USER3> I have some posts on ATS that might help, some for a slightly older version but the details about linear types, etc remain the same: [https://bluishcoder.co.nz/tags/ats/](https://bluishcoder.co.nz/tags/ats/)

If you know other languages the documentation is a lot better than it used to be: [http://www.ats-lang.org/Documents.html](http://www.ats- lang.org/Documents.html)

The approach I took was treating it like an SML variant, then adding the advanced features as I went along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is Rust obsolete now?

<comment><USER5> ATS has all the ergonomics of a burst reactor core, but as far as safe low- level programming is concerned, it has Rust beat.

<comment><USER6> Hilarious analogy</comment></comment></comment>


Best PHP Books For Beginners - <AUTHOR>

I am a graphic designer who wants to get started in programming. What are some good books to get started in learning php? Any good fundamental/theory books as well as practical would be great to start out with. Thanks! <comment><USER2> David Sklar's "Learning PHP" and Dagfinn Reiersol's "PHP in Action"

</comment><comment><USER3> i know this site - you may have to manually print all the chapters or just learn online.. <http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp></comment>


Gloves That Recognize Sign Language and Translate It Into Text  - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2012/11/01/best-inventions-of-the-year-2012/slide/enable-talk-gloves/

<comment><USER2> I see projects like this pop up from time to time. This might be the first one I've seen that is hardware. Usually they are tracking and/or pattern recognition.

In any case, while some rudimentary communication might be possible, sign languages tend to have a large improv component, plus facial expressions and body posture all contribute to meaning.

 __Frighteningly ambitious opportunity __: Capture _all_ of the signer's output (hands, face, body) and correctly translate _that_ into English.</comment>


Did Times Underplay Drone Program Leak? - <AUTHOR> http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/did-times-underplay-drone-program-leak/?ref=opinion <comment><USER2> Other new organizations hyped the fact that 90% of those killed were "unintended targets." But that's exactly what you'd expect when targeting officers in an insurgency. They are going to be surrounded by foot-soldiers.

It's certainly possible that among that 90% are too many civilians, but the leaks didn't provide any evidence of that.

<comment><USER3> This was my initial thought as well and why war of this nature is so difficult. Let's say you know where a known terrorist is located. Do you send a drone or risk US/coalition soldier lives? You decide to send a drone and when its in range there are 20 other people around the area of the terrorist. Are they soldiers? Officers? Technicians? Drivers? Cooks? IT/Infrastructure engineers? Innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time? If you don't take the known terrorist out, are you willing to wait another 6-12+ months for another chance?

Who's responsibility is it to determine and separate the supporters from the innocent? The attacker's push is to label them enemy, while the defender would label as innocent. It's impossibly hard to do this at a distance, so therefore, are you willing to send troops on the ground and live with US casualties? Or are you willing to let the terrorist go and risk increased turmoil in the region?

Let's remember this is an extremely difficult task and job, and in the current state of affairs, I don't think there is a right answer.

<comment><USER4> > Do you send a drone or risk US/coalition soldier lives?

Maybe you stop anything that carries the slightest risk of killing innocent people on foreign soil of countries you are not at war with?

This supposed us vs the evil terrorist mentality is used on all levels of force to treat other lives destroyed in the process as subpar and of little value.

What would your argument look like if a Pakistani drone killed a wanted murderer in your neighborhood taking down a family of five with two kids in the process?

If you're saying we cannot sit back and not get involved in this because we have a terrorist problem - let me remind you that we had/have Bin Laden and the Taliban (funded in the 80's), Isis (funded anti-Assad groups), instability in Iraq and Syria precisely thanks to US intervention in those regions.

Of course the existence of these groups is great for politicians and the military-industrial complex, since the former get to avoid issues at home and expand government powers and the later reap financial windfalls.

<comment><USER5> It's pretty clear that everyone only thinks the drone program is a valid approach "over there" in the "wild east". This is particularly clear when considering British jihadis; there haven't yet been drone strikes in, say, Leeds. But we've already crossed the threshold of a British national going to Syria and then being bombed by the RAF.

Surely this cuts both ways. Terrorists over in Syria and Yemen have a very limited capability to harm us. They can be effectively banned from planes once they're identified. They have no long range missile capability. (There's a problem of shortrange missiles being fired from Pakistan into Afghanistan, though). So the whole thing resembles colonial policing: the small group of westerners trying to balance power among the local factions for their own political advantage.

(Anyone going to suggest that drones should have been used in Northern Ireland? Or that when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found he should have been taken out with an airstrike in suburban Boston? No?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember scanning the story about that leak and not being able to figure out what was new about it, so I didn't share it. I guess the NYT reporters didn't see a whole lot either?

</comment><comment><USER7> It's sad Iowa Governor Branstad got rid of our Air Guard and replaced the 132nd with drone pilots. Then even advertise they are manning Reapers from the DSM Airport/Camp Dodge at the top of the kill chain. [http://www.132dwing.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123450496](http://www.132dwing.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123450496)

The US Constitution delegated Congress with the enumerated power to issue letters of marque. This is murder.

</comment><comment><USER8> The NYT is establishment central. Of course it underplayed it.

<comment><USER9> The world is more complicated than "the establishment" vs "not the establishment".

<comment><USER10> this is a banal truism. it doesn't rebut the strong ties that the obama admin has in the nyt. google the word 'obama' on site: nyt. then ask who is kissing all that ass to get those leaks/scoops/etc.

<comment><USER9> Right, and if the comment had been more specific about these sorts of links (ie that the NYT and the Obama administration are not only both "the establishment" but the same flavour thereof) I wouldn't have thought it was silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "We droned some folks."

</comment><comment><USER12> The rare exception to Betteridge's law. Note this is not me editorializing but the article's conclusion.</comment>


Any Googler here? - <AUTHOR> Any Googler here?<p>I want to report a spam network of around 3000 links, but the online form only allows 1 at a time (with captcha) <comment><USER2> I advice to add some form of contact in your bio. If a googler reads maybe they'll try and get in contact with you.</comment>