Ask HN: What can we do about the new FCC proposal? - <AUTHOR>

Contrary to the doomsayers, the internet is not dead yet. However, I think we can all agree, regardless of the ultimate extent of the consequences, this proposal is a bad thing.
Now, we know that we, as the public, have the power to change things. Unfortunately, it takes a massive, concerted effort like the SOPA blackout in order for our dimwitted/corrupt/greedy/spineless/etc politicians to take note.
So, what can we do? Specifically, what can we do 1) on May 15th and 2) by the day they actually vote on it? <comment><USER2> This is going to take an amendment to the constitution. The appeals court has ruled multiple times against core ideas of net neutrality [1][2], meaning that, fundamentally, net neutrality goes against the "law of the land". Well? We need to change the law of the land, then. Brazil has just passed an internet bill of rights [3], and I strongly believe that the internet cannot and will not be protected until the United States enacts something similar within our own constitution.

The thing to remember here is that laws are not really the governing rules... it is the society which decides what laws to make, and therefore, it is the job of law to reflect the values and needs of the society.

Edit - Maybe I should make myself clear in lieu of the downvoting: The threat of a walled-internet will not go away without proactive legislation to protect it in it's current form. The constitution guarantees "negative liberties"[4] for the people, meaning it protects the people from encroachment of their rights. What the internet needs is a similar protective piece of legislation which prevents encroachment on some of it's fundamental structures.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/technology/appeals- court-r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/technology/appeals-court- rejects-fcc-rules-on-internet-service-providers.html)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/fcc-to-propose- ne...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/fcc-to-propose-new-rules-on- open-internet.html)

[3] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2014/04/23/306238622/bra...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2014/04/23/306238622/brazil-becomes-one-of-the-first-to-adopt-internet- bill-of-rights)

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

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't think convincing the FCC to rule that ISPs fall under common carriers is enough?

<comment><USER2> That would be a huge win, certainly! But it doesn't necessarily provide _protections_ for the internet. Unless there are protections built into our legal infrastructure, the internet will continue to be whittled away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We do not "all agree". The internet got to where it is today without the FCC shepherding it along; it'll be just fine.

The FCC is the USA's only national censorship agency - fining broadcasters for "dirty words" or other indecency. It enforces the telecommunications wiretap requirements (CALEA). If we ever get a national blacklist like in the UK or Australia, it'll be the FCC that enforces it – the exact same ISP-meddling staff that would be imposing some "neutrality" formula.

At most, the government should be enforcing antitrust rules when concentration occurs, _not_ dictating service details and pricing. (Doing that actually tends to benefit national, concentrated operators – because those know how to work DC to their benefit.)

Tell the FCC to have no more regulatory control over the internet – digital publishing – than the total non-involvement it has in book and periodical publishing. Don't invite it into a position of extra power.</comment>


Tim Berners-Lee on the Internet as a platform for 'fake news' - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bloomberg/father-of-the-web-confronts-his-creation-in-the-era-of-fake-news-dfad265b7aaa <comment><USER2> This version doesn't require you to sign in:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-13/father- of...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-13/father-of-the-web- confronts-his-creation-in-the-era-of-fake-news)

<comment><AUTHOR> w00t - ty!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Instabug for Product Managers – #1 ProductHunt of the Day - <AUTHOR> https://try.instabug.com/product-managers <comment><USER2> Just a word of caution: Instagram (Facebook) tried to sue my company due to having the word "gram" in our name, which, exactly like "insta" is claimed by them and they are using a heavy-handed SF-based law firm going after each and every trademark application going that direction. Those who decided to fight it, have been in legal battle for three or more years last I heard.

They may leave you alone now but this will end up in a call from them sooner or later. Just be ready for the rebranding, took us half a year to recoup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes! Sorry you had to go through that. Thanks for the heads up...</comment></comment>


A rate for all channels in the world! - <AUTHOR> http://siehe.strikingly.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sign Up!</comment>


Show HN: Turtle.audio – a music sequencer inspired by turtle graphics - <AUTHOR> http://turtle.audio <comment><USER2> Reminds me of another fascinating project I saw recently:

"Deltaphone is a programming language for generating music that uses the ideas from turtle geometry to jump around the staff"

[https://twodee.org/blog/category/projects/deltaphone](https://twodee.org/blog/category/projects/deltaphone)

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn, this is really similar to an idea that I filed away and have wanted to build for a long time. But I think it's even better than what I was imagining. Nice work! I'm going to spend some time playing around with it.

I think this has a ton of potential and could be used for serious music production. MIDI export would be awesome. Or even a VST plugin that emits MIDI into a DAW. It would be great to use something like this inside REAPER [1].

[1] [https://www.reaper.fm](https://www.reaper.fm)

</comment><comment><USER4> Super fun to play with! The first time I messed with this a week ago I had no clue what I was doing and didn't accomplish much. Giving it a second go I'm starting to get the hang of it and coming up with some weird and fun stuff.

I think my two immediate ideas would be 1) a line type that might be a sustain or held open gate and 2) maybe a mixing list with all the lines on it so that you can selectively mute/unmute paths.

I played a little bit with Slang a week ago too, looking forward to messing with the more options in there. Seems like you're into a lot of cool stuff, thanks for making this all!

Also, what I've got looping right now: [http://turtle.audio/play/3mu3sm](http://turtle.audio/play/3mu3sm)

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting idea. Visual music design can inspire new ideas for composition.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of SimTunes! "Bugs" move around the screen according to simple rules, triggering notes as they pass over them. For example: [https://youtu.be/DAluHrsCKxw](https://youtu.be/DAluHrsCKxw)

<comment><AUTHOR> SimTunes was (and will always be) a huge source of inspiration for me. Played it a bunch as a kid. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is absolutely beautiful! My wish for a tool like this is to not have it in a web environment, but as a Jack-pluggable standalone program. Then it could be used for real music composition.

But anyway, this is a really nice little app!

</comment><comment><USER8> this is very cool, i want to stop all that i am doing and just fiddle with it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Amazing project. Do you plan to create some kind of gallery for the "scenes"? I'm sure people will create unbelievable things with it and it would be greta to learn from such examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, yeah that's a great idea! I have been keeping my eye out for neat sketches in the wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love this tool but as an amateur musician, I have to wonder: who is your target audience? Anyone remotely serious about making music won't use it. I'll play around with it but if I want to make a track, I'll just head over to Ableton.

There is value in making music easier, but you're only good enough for a little while before people move on to more professional tools

<comment><USER11> There's a huge market for musical software and instruments that are ultimately just games. I would guess more than 99% of any music equipment and software bought is never used to create commercially used music, which is fine - it's fun and interesting, and it's challenging to learn.

A clear example is everything made by [Teenage Engineering]([https://teenage.engineering](https://teenage.engineering)) - check out the OP-Z. The interface is completely weird in the age of hi-res screens, but I'm sure it's going to be a hit.

Another point is that in a creative process, sometimes the 'easiest' way to produce output causes all the output to be similar and uninteresting. When you change the rules, and make the creation process significantly different, you can sometimes see new results you wouldn't have expected.

<comment><USER10> I've used the OP-1 and loved it, but I don't see it fitting into my workflow (Serum is a far more capable synth).

But I guess I'm approaching this from a very different perspective. I hope to go pro some day, so I also use tools that are not meant to "just have fun" (which the OP-1 is a whole load of).

The majority of musicians are just doing it for fun. For them, I can see something like this being another tool to play around in.

I take my comment back. I now understand what kind of people might use this (anyone not insane enough to want to be a professional musician)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks cool, no undo/redo though? Makes it feel harder to use/less forgiving.

</comment><comment><USER13> I love this too ;) Thanks for building.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like such projects! Too bad I am unmusical and have no time either.</comment>


Show HN: Sailor, an MVC web framework in Lua - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Etiene/sailor/releases <comment><USER2> Wow. I never expected to see Sailor Moon references in HN.

I never tried Lua before. Is this a good place to start? I'm looking to learn something new.

<comment><USER3> LÖVE might be a fun place to start: [https://love2d.org/](https://love2d.org/)

(Also, I can't believe I didn't get the Sailor Moon reference...)

Check out [http://moonscript.org/](http://moonscript.org/) too (CoffeeScript for Lua).

<comment><AUTHOR> Lua is Moon in Portuguese, so for some people it might be easier to get ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been paying attention to this project for a while since the space for Lua frameworks is rather quite small. While I am interested in evaluating it once it matures, the biggest stumbling block for it so far is that the documentation and tutorials needs more polish and love.

I understand that it may be difficult finding someone willing to edit and clean up documentation, much less fill it in where things are currently empty, but it's not too soon to try and prioritize this. It may be worth trying to collect donations to start a bounty in the hopes of attracting someone who wishes to do the work and I personally would be happy to pitch in what I could toward it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been putting a good effort into the documentation recently :) But I agree that the more the better!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> With the coming of WebAssembly, I think Lua might become a popular choice. I've only dabbled with it, but it seems impressive. Thank you for the heads-up on this. I plan to check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> There has been some discussions about WebAssembly at the lua mail list and I get sooooo excited thinking about the implications it could have! ___ I too believe it could make Lua a popular choice.

<comment><USER6> I definitely prefer Lua to Javascript, but in my opinion the languages are roughly similar enough that it's not worth going through the trouble to swap one out for the other.

You don't get any of the weak typing, but you still have very similar syntax and features, same dynamic typing, same prototype OOP. Lua doesn't hold enough of an advantage over JS to warrant the cost of trying to get it in the browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really like lua, and have been using openresty(nginx+lua) apart from lua inside openwrt environments. Will try this when I need anything resembling MVC.

<comment><USER8> Try [http://getkong.org](http://getkong.org) (openresty+nginx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been lightly following this for a while now (and it looks really good) but sadly so far I see hardly any benefit in using Lua without openresty for web development (I have two fun projects using Lapis and some more boring stuff in production in pure openresty+Lua, without any external libs). Why openresty? Simply for performance reasons - when using Python the ecosystem is just exponentially bigger than Lua's and for the stuff I need Flask usually is the right answer and gives quick results and stable(!) libraries for everything are at hand.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand your comment, Sailor can be used with various web servers, openresty included! :)

<comment><USER9> Awesome! Maybe I just didn't look properly but I was under the impression (from a while back) that I only saw Apache support.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was a goooood while back ^_^' The openresty support is not perfect yet, but it's there and one of the next steps is to make it better :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't comment about the framework since I don't speak Lua, but I want to congratulate the author for her work. Less than 1% of opensource contributors are women. Women are already under-represented in tech, but in opensource women are even more under-represented, so this is good to see.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about you, but for me that's really irrelevant. And honestly, why is this the top comment? Why should the gender of a person contributing code, of all things, matter?

I know that I'm not living in an ideal world and I know what kind of discrimination, both overt and covert, women go through in all walks of life. I also understand that it takes a lot for any group of people, not just women, to succeed when they are being discriminated against.

However, I feel, that giving someone a pat on the back just because they are from a discriminated group is demeaning. Why not instead comment on the code? Commend good code, suggest code improvements. I would rather appreciate the output than make any comment on their gender, because finally, that is the true achievement and that should speak for itself. And in my opinion, that is what that person is looking for - to be judged not because of who they are or where they come from but for what they have done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whether their comment was appropriate or not, we don't need to make this a discussion here! Please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another good one is Lapis (leafo.net/lapis/)</comment>


Microsoft Is Technology's Comeback Kid - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/29/microsoft-is-technologys-comeback-kid/

<comment><USER2> This article smells like a PR Hit. "We expect our data to be portable, usable across all of our devices and apps." Well, that pretty much rules out .doc(x) doesn't it? Only a non-techie could believe the biz-speak in this article.</comment>


The Never-ending Awesomeness of Bash - <AUTHOR> http://marknelson.us/2010/10/17/the-never-ending-awesomeness-of-bash/

<comment><USER2> chapt{00..15}.txt works in Zsh as well.</comment>


Outbox – A beautiful inbox for postal mail - <AUTHOR> https://www.outboxmail.com/ <comment><USER3> I had this service for about two months and just cancelled it. My reasons were:

1\. They weren't picking up my mail or delivering my magazines/packages with the consistency that they promised. This gradually eroded my trust the more times I found evidence of it happening.

2\. I don't want to lose access to all my mail if they go under or get hacked. My only way to access it is via their apps and website, which could go away at any moment. To make matters worse, they shred all the physical copies after 30 days.

Those things plus the general lack of trust started making me very, very nervous as time went on.

Edit: more details

<comment><USER4> I used to work for a company that did a similar thing to outbox, but differently. They took a picture of every piece of mail and then stored everything until customers placed shipping/scanning request via the web.

I was still there when Outbox first launched. It was deduced that Outbox would have it rough due to privacy/security problems. It was for that reason my former employer never launched an auto-scan product to compete.

It looks like a smart move, even today.

<comment><USER5> If you know something about the industry, could you recommend some good alternatives?

<comment><USER4> Sure, happy to. First the incredibly biased part:

I used to work at US Global Mail and I did most/all of the R&D/deployment to modernize their service offering. It now includes a picture of the important side/part of every item that arrives, mail/magazines/packages, whatever. Also a weight and pretty accurate dimensions. The tracking number is also recovered from barcodes on the package, if available. Then after every piece is entered into the database it's uniquely barcoded for internal tracking. Nothing is scanned or opened unless customers ask for it. That's for your privacy as well as liability for the business. Most of the customers get a big FedEx envelope or pouch full of still stamped and sealed regular envelopes (that goes a long way towards building trust) on a weekly/biweekly/monthly basis. You can setup automatic shipping or place requests manually depending on your needs. US Global Mail ships all over the place.

Now the less biased part. Primary competitors are: outboxmail.com earthclassmail.com USA2Me.com myus.com bongous.com

I'm sure there are others but those are the ones I was aware of when I was still in the industry.

I would say that the primary thing to google if you're looking for that kind of service is "mail forwarding service" as a search for that turns up many of the competitors I listed and more. <https://www.google.com/search?q=mail+forwarding+service>

The real bummer about mail forwarding is that you need a Form 1583 either signed in front of one of the employees, or witnessed by a notary. It's a real pain but the USPS did it to prevent mail forwarding companies from being unwitting accessories to various kinds of fraud.

That's about all I can think of but feel free to ask more questions. I'm happy to answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Collect mail door-to-door

2\. Scan each page of mail, including envelopes

3\. Post scans online

4\. Return requested physical mail

5\. Charge $4.99 for this service

6\. ...

7\. Profit?

Looking at their job postings, they have one person per city managing a team of people working probably close to minimum wage going door-to-door. These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by Outbox.

Let's say they pay a City Manager $100,000, or $125,000 after taxes, unemployment insurance, and benefits. An individual can take on 30 customers, is paid above minimum wage (let's say $15 after taxes, etc.), and works 7 hours a day (or 35 hours/week, making them part-time employees). That's roughly $30,000 per worker annually.

At $4.99 per month, none of the economics work. At 30 customers per part-time employee, the break even point is $100 per month per customer. At $4.99 per month each PTE needs to handle around 600 customers each to break even. 100 customers per PTE at $30/month also breaks even. But even 100 per PTE seems unrealistic.

Unless I'm missing something very basic, it just doesn't scale at $4.99 per month. At all. It's not even close.

<comment><USER7> After looking at their FAQ [1], yes they actually do collect mail. My initial thought was that they way to achieve this at a lower cost would be to redirect all mail direct to this company, who could then receive all customers' mail at one central office/warehouse which would lower staff costs massively.

I don't know if mail redirection is possible or easy to set-up in the US, but it is in the UK - although I just checked prices, and that alone would cost $6.40/month for each customer. [2]

> _These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided > by Outbox._

If their FAQ is truthful, they will bring all mail back with them - as it says you won't get mail delivered unless you specifically request an item. Maybe they have clever machines to speed through the process of opening/scanning/filing? At the very least, this means drivers can just rush round collecting items, and the opening/scanning process can then be streamlined back at HQ.

[1] [http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-h...](http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-how- do-you-collect-my-mail-)

[2] [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGsrC9z...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGsrC9zxlm0J:www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving- mail/redirection+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-nightly)

<comment><USER6> > _My initial thought was that they way to achieve this at a lower cost would > be to redirect all mail direct to this company, who could then receive all > customers' mail at one central office/warehouse which would lower staff > costs massively._

Yes, but Outbox actually _prefers_ you don't forward your mail to them![1]

From their FAQ:

"Why on earth do you come by my house to pickup my mail," we hear from thousands of people. "Shouldn't I just send you my mail?" Great question - <USER2> one we get a lot. In fact, we shared your belief for about a year… but after tens of thousands of mailbox runs, we've concluded that picking up mail at your house is the only way we can create the elegant user experience we demand.

[1] [http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-h...](http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-how- do-you-collect-my-mail-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is probably one of the sites that you really need to read the terms of service <https://www.outboxmail.com/terms> to figure out what you are getting yourself into.

"If applicable, and unless you direct Outbox otherwise, Outbox may also, now or in the future, direct the third parties who send you mail and/or bills to send certain items of such mail and/or bills electronically to an email address provided to such third parties by Outbox specifically for that purpose and for that purpose only, in which case you authorize Outbox to do so in its sole discretion for as long as your account for the Service remains open."

<comment><USER9> It's not that different from a service I used to use a loooong time ago, called Paytrust (which got bought by Intuit). I changed all my billing addresses to an address they gave me. (Actually I think Paytrust might have updated the billing address on my behalf for most of the accounts.) Everything they received, they scanned in. The benefit was that they also marked it down with who the bill was from, how much it was, etc. then you could pay them all with just a few clicks. Also, they would do the same thing which was talk to the billers and convert it to an electronic system so that they didn't need to handle paper bills. You could also look at the scanned image of the document if you wanted to, and you could also order a CD at the end of the year with all your documents as well.

So this sounds like Paytrust minus the bill-paying, but with a stronger emphasis on getting rid of and letting you easily view all your mail. (Edit after looking at their site some more: They also will send you the original item if you want it... something that doesn't really apply as much to bills. Although Paytrust did sometimes forward things to me, like a new membership card or something.)

<comment><USER10> I still use it (was originally called paymybills.com) before the Paytrust/Intuit absorption. It's a great service, and well worth the fee of $11/month.

Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more a modern mobile/tablet version of Paytrust come around.

<comment><USER11> working on one now. <http://cloudbill.com> \- would love you to sign up for the beta and would love to chat in the meantime if you have feedback for what you'd like to see :)

<comment><USER10> Happy to help, have used Paytrust for something like ~7 years can share plenty of positives & opportunities for improvement. Just signed-up @ your landing page, marty@ feel free to contact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This idea faces two major problems.

The first is that the premise is trivial at best and detrimental at worst. Let's evaluate my current mail situation. Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is preferable to sort though my mail digitally. It is already trivial to remove my mail, quickly glance through it, and toss the junk mail into the recycling bin in my foyer. Being able to do this via a web interface means nothing to me, and certainly isn't worth my money. In fact, I would argue that this worsens my mail-reading experience inasmuch as it creates a level of abstraction that increases the time necessary to deliver the mail I do care about, like The New Yorker. Our mail system is already a travesty. I'm certainly not going to do anything to make it even slower.

The second issue, as mentioned before, is trust. I simply don't trust a startup to open my mail.

<comment><USER13> > Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount > of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in > addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is > preferable to sort though my mail digitally.

Well, wait until you have a power bill, water bill, gas bill, garbage bill, phone bill, cable bill, mortgage, credit card bills, car note, doctor's bills, lab results, dentist's bills, vet bills, student loan bills, newsletters from your kids' schools, bank statements, ...

Some of those need a response, some don't because you've already set up automatic bill payment, some are information you want and can then discard, some are things you need to keep for your records.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, this is why adding another level of complexity to an already byzantine system is pernicious. Why would I want to exert effort declaring what mail I do and don't want to receive through Outbox, then wait a substantial amount of time to receive the mail that is of value to me? If anything, simply handling my own mail is the most effectual and expedient option. The mail that I want gets retrieved and dealt with by me, and the mail that is irrelevant to me can be thrown away with trivial ease. Why would I subject myself to another level of complexity that entails extra effort on my part, an added delay, and an expenditure?

The service is fixing a non-issue, if not exacerbating a real one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> With this and the send snail mail through the web thing from earlier, you could mail yourself a letter without leaving the house. Internet complete.

<comment><USER15> _"and the send snail mail through the web thing from earlier"_

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5821421>

So, now, you can ping yourself. Internet complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I understand this is nitpicking, but not every app needs to be a revolution that you should join. That words gets tossed around far too often.

<comment><USER17> It's the Silicon Valley equivalent of the political ad's patriotic fanfare with a not-so-subtle flag and crying eagle in the background. :)

<comment><USER18> Off topic, but it turns out that eagles don't actually sound anything like that. A real bald eagle cry is an amusingly unintimidating high pitched chirp[1].

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlq2kcYQcLc>

<comment><USER19> Wait, what?!

Then what the hell is making that amazing and awe-inspiring American sound?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They're not available in the 3 zip codes I tried. Would be great to see where they are actually operating.

<comment><USER21> After clicking through a lot of FAQ entries, I found this under "I'm moving": "If you are moving within Austin, TX, we'd love to keep you as a customer." So, I guess they're just in Austin. It took a lot of work to figure that out, though. :/

<comment><USER22> They also seem to be in some parts of San Francisco, as noted in places in their blog. But yes, a list of Zips would be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Obligatory snark: That intro video had a serious case of vocal fry.

While looking at all this, I was mostly considering the potential privacy implications. Then again, with the amount of stuff we push online these days, it's seems somewhat comical to even consider it. That alone is weird.

Then I read up on it and realized that secrecy of correspondence isn't really that much of an established principle internationally as I have been accustomed to, living in Germany. (It seems like France even had the death penalty on it for a while.)

Still - Paying a service 5 bucks a month to invade your privacy* just seems a little more real when it is about actual stuff, not just things that are bits and bytes anyways.

*And don't tell me it won't happen. It will always happen. Somebody other than you will have or get access to that data.

<comment><USER22> Any reason your snark has to be obligatory? Especially since it's about a pedantic issue with the video about the service rather than the service itself?

The thing is, you've actually got something interesting to say -- we should certainly consider the privacy implications, and whether this could change limits on government intrusion into your correspondence -- but you buried the lead and presented it in a negative way for no clear reason other than you were feeling like being snarky toward someone's hard work.

<comment><USER24> > _buried the lead_

More snark: it's "buried the _lede_ ".

<comment><USER25> I believe "lead" is also acceptable spelling.

<comment><USER24> I did time at a startup for journalists so this is burned in my skull.

 _Lede_ is journalism jargon, and "burying the lede" is a phrase borrowed from journalism.

> _Journalistic ledes emphasize grabbing the attention of the reader. In > journalism, the failure to mention the most important, interesting or > attention-grabbing elements of a story in the first paragraph is sometimes > called "burying the lede"._

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

> _Bury the lead sort of works, but bury the lede is the conventional spelling > of this expression._

<http://grammarist.com/usage/lead-lede/>

"Lede" makes a distinction between lead (leed) and lead (pb/led).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Tired of pretentiously named apps. Mailbox, and now Outbox.

Yes, I get it that Apple Computer shortened their name to Apple, and that it's cool to be like Apple. But that isn't OK, and it doesn't make it OK for your startup. It's pillaging of the English language. At least when I say apple, context may help people to recognize when I mean the fruit and when I mean the tech company. With _Outbox_ and _Mailbox_ the context is less likely to provide the needed hint, because the lowercase terms and the uppercase terms in the same domain: email.

Adding to the pretense is the fact that they don't even own "{{product_name}}.com". Instead it's "{{product_name}}mail.com" or "{{product_name}}app.com".

<comment><USER27> You're kidding, right? Aptly-named products that are popular in the everyday vernacular are pretentious?

In this day and age, it's impossible to own the .com for anything but asdjhlsadnklsajkdaskljjkldas.com without paying through the nose for these domains (see Color).

Simply-named descriptive apps are a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER28> > You're kidding, right? Aptly-named products that are popular in the everyday > vernacular are pretentious?

How is Outbox -- which presents a digital version of a snail-mail _inbox_ \-- "aptly named"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why would you want other people reading through your postal mail?

<comment><USER30> For the same reason millions of people allow Google to read through their email.

<comment><USER31> Millions of people allow Google to read their email because that's the free option. Also because Google doesn't straight up tell you humans are hand sorting it. A human at Google can probably read my email as easily as some one can open my mailbox in meatspace, but both are assumed to be exceptions.

Edit to add: also Google does not ask for a key to my house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> One detail I appreciated: you take a picture of your key instead of mailing them one.

"Create an account and send us a picture of your mailbox key (if you have one) so we can make a secure copy."

</comment><comment><USER33> I feel like this idea was spawned from a brainstorming session at The Onion under the premise of "let's make a startup."

1\. There's no way I trust this company or its employees to act appropriately with my mail 100% of the time.

2\. I'd be afraid of missing something important due to an unknown delay in the scanning process.

3\. Their database will get cracked, and customer information leaked, when they get big enough to be a worthwhile target. It's only a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER34> It takes me only ~30 seconds per day to filter mail manually & toss 90%+ into the recycling. That's not a big problem needing solving.

And, they don't explain how they "pickup" securely. Do I need to be home? Then you've lost all time savings, as I have to answer the door to do the transaction with you.

If I don't have to be home, then how can you get into my mailbox securely?

</comment><comment><USER35> I travel a lot. I have clients who insist on paying me via old-fashioned paper check. And I have Outbox.

That about sums it up.

Thanks, Outbox.

</comment><comment><USER36> If the USPS would implement something like this in a reliable fashion...well.. it would eventually end them.. but in the interim I would be so happy. Imagine you sign up to have every one of your standard size envelopes opened / scanned automatically. Magazines and Birthday cards (weird sizes) would still come through. It would be terrific. I'd pay 5-10$ per month to have all of my tax things, pay stubs, financial product offer letters, invoices, all scanned and searchable, and they would have to deliver so much less physical mail.

However for a startup to try to replicate the multibillion dollar infrastructure that is already in place there is silly, and the USPS won't do it because of federal laws that would need to change about opening mail.

Of course it would make the NSA happy as well ;)

</comment><comment><USER37> Ways to fix whats going to make this fail:

1\. Setup a centralized warehouse, where I can forward my mail to. Just send the mail to y'all instead of you coming to get it at my mailbox. Also, makes it available to a wider customer base. That's just silly easy.

2\. Make all of the information in my account downloadable for back-up and privacy control reasons. Makes me, the customer, feel more secure and trusting.

3\. Up your monthly to $10 or even $14, $4.99 says you're not serious about sticking around long. Especially when you combine that price with the amount of overhead you have taken on. I'd buy it in a heart beat at $10 with you centralizing your workforce to an inexpensive one-location solution.

This is a great idea, just needs efficiency implemented more.

Edit: Just fixed a couple things.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been using it for several months in SF and it's pretty great. iPhone app and pretty website let me see my mail from anywhere. They pickup my mail Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Coolest thing to me being able to mark magazines or letters as spam and they will send unsubscribe messages for me.

Some flaws are how they handle anything more complex than just picking up mail addressed to you. Living in a rental apartment, I get plenty of previous residents that they ignore; I love would love to be able to get them to unsubscribe me from all mail that isn't addressed to me. But that gets more complex with my roommate, who doesn't use the service.

Otherwise, for $5/month, I like not having to check my mailbox and I haven't had any issues.

</comment><comment><USER39> The merits of the service aside, "Outbox, a beautiful inbox" really stands out as an oxymoron. :)

</comment><comment><USER40> Apropos typo: "Your account password is _excrypted_ using modern encryption technologies (SHA-512) and a random encryption salt."

(<https://www.outboxmail.com/learn/privacy>)

<comment><USER41> I'd be worried if they were encrypting passwords anyway. SHA512 is a hash function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> $4.99/mo seems pretty cheap for this service.

<comment><USER43> I agree. With gas, level of effort, energy for scanning and digitally organizing alone would seem to cost much more.

<comment><USER44> I would imagine that if 50 people got the same junk mail flyer they have a system that only scans the flyer once as there would be no need to have a scan of the specific piece of junk you received. Otherwise yes it seems weirdly cheap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'd like Outbox with a dedicated address. I still move fairly regularly, and want a permanent address I can use.

Does anyone have experience with Earth Class Mail or similar services?

I tried PayTrust but it's been nothing but problems for me.

<comment><USER46> I signed up for virtualpostmail.com recently since I was moving abroad.

It is similar to outbox except all of your mail goes directly to their facility. As in, you forward you mail to a new address provided by them.

Then there's scanning/ forwarding (including international) and package consolidation (i.e. you order multiple packages but would like to forward 1 to save money.)

The service has been good so far. it was cheaper than other mail-forwarding services and provided more of the features I was looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The privacy aspect is a deal-breaker for someone like me, but I think it's worth considering that you could just use this service for a particular subset of _all_ your mail.

It's easy to find scenarios where privacy is important, but isn't it also possible to find scenarios where it isn't?

Think of it as an alternative to PO boxes. No hassle with anthrax, ricin, and bombs in the mail anymore. (Although they probably won't use this in the ad copy for the service.)

</comment><comment><USER47> Cannot read the white text on that background without highlighting.

Other thought: while a nice idea, the privacy concerns around other people reading your mail are so great, I'd have a very hard time justifying signing up for this service. Also - it against the law, a federal offense even, to open mail addressed to someone else.

Finally, why isn't their FAQ on "Is my mail secure?" a direct link off of their home page? Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

<comment><USER28> > Also - it against the law, a federal offense even, to open mail addressed to > someone else.

No, its only illegal to do so _without authority_ [1].

[1] 18 USC § 1703: <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1703>

In relevant part: _Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both._

<comment><USER47> Good to know. It makes me a little more paranoid that searching for the words 'authority' or 'permission' reveal 0 relevant results, regarding giving them such authority, in their FAQ.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The killer app would be to combine mail from snail mail & email into a single product. For the snail mail side, some OCR, recognizing places/dates/etc. (the way gmail does), & attaching images of the snail mail to the thread should satisfy that use case. All that would be needed after that would be a simple label to designate the snail mail. Voila, you can refer to everything as mail.

</comment><comment><USER49> If I read their about page right, they only check your mail a few times a week (3x), then if you decide you do want a specific piece of mail they've scanned they will send it back to you. So you still end up checking your mail waiting for the returned item and having to filter through any junk mail that hasn't been picked up yet. This is not something I would pay for or even do for free.

</comment><comment><USER50> So they apparently have some way of digitizing my junk mail, sending it to the people who sent it to me, and getting them to stop.

Is there anyone who offers this service without the need to have someone actually come to my house and pick my mail up for me? I will gladly scan or take a smartphone picture of junk mail.

<comment><USER51> Yes: <https://www.paperkarma.com/>

I've been using it for a few months now with good results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I suspect they also can / will be keeping track of the data they mine from all of your incoming mail.. Bills, invoices, preferences, etc. just like Gmail, but for your snail mail - makes more sense that it could work with a lower price point - but still seems awfully cheap.

</comment><comment><USER53> Interesting different model from www.earthclassmail.com - one of the big players and leaders in digitized remote mailboxes.

I've used them years ago, and it worked out pretty well. Only part I didn't like was at the time they only had a very ugly po box address for Boston.

<comment><USER54> documentary series about EarthClassMail: <http://www.hulu.com/start-up- junkies>

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The demo itself is pretty well made. What framework did you guys use?

</comment><comment><USER56> HEY PPL IN SF...maybe some of you guys can tell me. I remember some service that was like this that would follow the postal carrier and grab the mail and scan it, was that this: outbox?

</comment><comment><USER57> The fact that this startup exists simultaneously excites me and also makes me lament the monumental failure of the postal service in the US.

Is anyone else pissed that we're paying tax dollars to support the US Postal Service while we're now slowly having to pay the private sector to deal with the mess that has become our mail?

It seems like such a waste of resources.

EDIT: I stand corrected. The USPS is not funded directly by tax payer dollars. I still lament the fact that either it's underfunded by us, or constrained by laws and can't offer a level of service similar to what Outbox provides!

<comment><USER58> The postal service operates, largely, as a private business which is massively constrained from certain changes due to Congress. For example, they _can't_ shut down many post offices, since Representatives complain when it hits their district. They're trying to remove Saturday delivery too — that's causing major problems.

DESPITE this ridiculousness, they're not utterly hemorrhaging money. They've got an extremely impressive automated system ... and talk about an audacious business model: They'll move your piece of paper acros the country with incredibly reliability for <$0.50! Not to mention packages — their flat rate pricing is brilliant.

I'm generally deeply impressed by the USPS, and I think you should be too.

Clearly they can do some more automation, and maybe that's in the works, but it's very hard to change people's behavior, and big systems move ponderously ... what's easy for a tiny startup is hard for a service which delivers mail to a few hundred million addresses daily.

<comment><USER57> Well put. I stand corrected.

So why is that junk mail and unwanted mail is so hard to get rid of? Clearly it seems like something people are willing to pay to opt out of.

<comment><USER19> Maybe cos they make money off it?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The road towards an integrated SecureDrop workstation - <AUTHOR> https://securedrop.org/news/road-towards-integrated-securedrop-workstation/ <comment><USER2> Let's remember that their attackers include the most sophisticated in the world, such as state intelligence agencies, sophisticated criminal organizations, corporate intelligence, and others.

Just keep the air gap; anyone using this software can afford an extra computer. Put the two machines next to each other; duct tape them together if you want, or put two USB hubs on your desk - pull USB drive out of slot A, put it in slot B. And put the USB stick shredder directly beneath slot B. Not hard for the user: 1-2-3.

Even more importantly, it's critical that they communicate accurate information, in an unmistakable way, about the level of security they provide. Statements like these are troubling:

> Based on the threat model analysis, we will perform additional hardening of > the prototype.

This implies they can actually protect their users against the attackers, which is not reasonable.

> Thanks to the work of developer Joshua Thayer

There is no way that one developer can possibly, in a lifetime, provide adequate security. You can't do it on the cheap. Joshua is facing multiple attackers with budgets in the millions and billions and with teams of hundreds or more specialists. He has my sympathies; will he get the blame when it fails?

<comment><USER3> In your proposed solution you are teaching the user how to work around the air gap. What makes you think they do this responsibly?

Furthermore, your thread model is exaggerated. Yes, "they" have giant budgets. No, "they" won't call in the cavallery in most cases because most cases are simply not important enough to justify expenses beyond "an intern clicks through the existing tools".

Finally, if you want real security, do as a farmer(!) friend of mine says: Leave all electronics at home and go for a long walk with your source.

<comment><USER2> > Furthermore, your thread model is exaggerated. Yes, "they" have giant > budgets. No, "they" won't call in the cavallery in most cases because most > cases are simply not important enough to justify expenses beyond "an intern > clicks through the existing tools".

Three thoughts:

1\. SecureDrop, like any security, has to work in the worst of circumstances, not just the best.

2\. Governments are highly motivated to persecute journalists and their sources. Even in the U.S., the home of the 1st Amendment, look at leak investigations. SecureDrop is a very valuable target, an accidental honeypot for leakers.

3\. Access to information before it's published can be extremely valuable. People can take steps to counteract bad news and even embarrass the journalists. And info that moves market prices in any significant way, whether stocks, bonds, commodities, derivatives, currencies, etc. is worth many millions, at least, and possibly billions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > We fully recognize that the transition to a new user interface and a new > operating system represents a significant potential burden for SecureDrop > users.

I know I'm wrong about this, but deep down I don't agree with this. I think the world is always ready for some UX shenanigans.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems to me that if you actually need this kind of things, maybe you should also have a cyber-security expert trusted friend and let him handle it.

There is no way a non-expert journalist would be able to use this securely, too many failure modes.

</comment><comment><USER6> While it may make sense as a simpler option for less security-critical stuff, I don't think it will ever be as secure. The virtualization helps, but you are still decrypting documents on an internet-connected machine.

</comment><comment><USER7> All the technical stuff is for the security and IT folks employed by media companies, like Associated Press. The journalist would get a loaner laptop equipped with this SecureDrop workstation from their org, this is not a do it yourself thing.

I suspect you could have security levels, depending on your work and preferences. I could see journalists out in the field without reliable internet, so they need persistence for their working files. Others probably can rely on secure connections, so nothing need be persistent.

In any case, I'd want a very straightforward "burn" feature that obliterates persistent working files.

I already expect that history and cache and swap are not persistent, but as history can be ready useful as part of working files I might want an option how to handle it. Case by case.</comment>


Why Your Brain Wants to Help One Child in Need – But Not Millions - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/11/05/361433850/why-your-brain-wants-to-help-one-child-in-need-but-not-millions

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to share this as relates to the Watsi post trending now. [https://watsi.org/universal-fund](https://watsi.org/universal-fund)</comment>


Why don't I take military funding? (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/opinions/no-military-funding.html <comment><USER2> Original probably from late 2003 or early 2004. Still on Kuiper's homepage: [https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/)

<comment><USER3> There was an earlier version of this document, without the 9/11 discussion of course, on Kuipers' homepage when I was a grad student in the early-mid 90's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Dr. Kuipers was my grad school advisor at the University of Texas. I found his adherence to principles of pacifism and nonviolence, rooted in Quakerism, to be very inspirational.

Certainly, as a graduate student, I would have had an easier time if we could take DARPA money instead of only applying for grants from civilian institutions (NSF, NASA, etc). I don't regret it.

Yes, many (most?) of our technological advances have come from military motivations. But people like Kuipers who take principled positions of nonviolence help create a vision of a society where that's not true any more. We may never get there, but that doesn't matter.

There's a definitely similarity between Kuipers and Richard Stallman in that regard... taking a strong principled position, even if it's not "practical", can be very important. And both of them came out of the MIT AI lab at about the same time :)

Kuipers trivia: he implemented the Common LISP "print" facility's ability to render numbers as Roman numerals, as a joke, and submitted it to Guy Steele, who was working on "Comon LISP: The Language". Steele included it in the book and now it's part of LISP forever.

<comment><USER4> I have never heard of Quakerism before and found it to be very inspirational too! I also see similarity between Stallman and Kuipers and I think it's because they both are very coherent to their beliefs. They strongly hold personal values and apply them in day-to-day living, they are able to professionally reproduce their core, personal beliefs.

<comment><USER5> I think of it as the American version of a Christian-Buddhist sect. Look for a "Society of Friends" meeting in your area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Germany (and Japan according to Wikipedia) there's the concept of "Zivilklausel" which is a pledge by an entire university to only conduct civilian research. The dual use problem remains and there's some loopholes but by and large the universities that pledge to it follow it. Here's a link of participating institutions (in German but mostly a list): [http://www.zivilklausel.de/index.php/bestehende- zivilklausel...](http://www.zivilklausel.de/index.php/bestehende- zivilklauseln)

Notably 6 states have that clause in their university laws. Since I live in one of them I have only conducted civilian research by default (yay?).

</comment><comment><USER7> Depriving the world's militaries of research brains isn't going to prevent or lessen violence. Those who reach for violence as a commonly used tool will continue to do so, with or without advanced researchers at their side, albeit with cruder tools of warfare in case researchers do decide to walk away en masse.

Perhaps a more impactful approach would be to resist the use of violence per se, not the tools of war. I can see room for research into non-lethal weaponry that can be sold to militaries and police forces as a turn-key, easy to use solution which, on one hand, leaves room for violent yet non-lethal action, and on the other hand doesn't exact a cost in human lives during conflict resolution. Tasers are a crude prototype preview of what might be possible. I'm thinking more along the lines of perfecting a non-lethal weapon that doesn't electrocute a person while running the risk of stopping their heart entirely. That doesn't count as non-lethal!

In short, the author's stance is commendable if short sighted. IMHO there are better ways to resist violence than simply making a one-man stand.

<comment><USER8> _Depriving the world 's militaries of research brains isn't going to prevent or lessen violence._

It's not going to increase violence either though, and if nothing else, when it comes to war and violence, maintaining the status quo is definitely better than making things worse.

<comment><USER9> No one would disagree with: "maintaining the status quo is definitely better than making things worse".

But more debatable is: "Depriving the world's militaries of research brains isn't going to prevent or lessen violence".

Examples:

\- smarter bombs that pinpoint their targets more accurately, thus reducing collateral damage.

\- Better, lighter armor that increases survivability against roadside bombs, allowing vehicles to safely patrol and keep an area peaceful.

\- Better battlefield medical tools like high tech "skin" to wrap over wounds and save soldiers as well as civilians.

\- Take down a group's command and control electronics, forcing them to retreat without a shot fired.

We can be clever and surgical in taking out insurgencies which are the vast majority of the conflicts in the world, or just use massive, generalized brute force as has been done for thousands of years with the obvious ramifications.

There's plenty of great reasons to support military research, don't you think?

<comment><USER10> All four of those examples have the side effect of making military action more appealing. I notice you did not include "monitoring communications to successfully identify target insurgents (Really, insurgencies?)", which might actually reduce "unnecessary" violence.

<comment><USER9> But there are times when you have to take military action. Someone who is a total pacifist may disagree; that is their right. But the majority does still support the idea. Do you not agree that if we have to take out some baddies, at least we should strive for minimum collateral damage?

<comment><USER11> _> collateral damage_

You keep using that euphemism. Why is it so hard to say "killed civilians"? (or "murdered civilians" if you subscribe to Tucholsky's quote)

<comment><USER12> To be fair, collateral damage also refers to property damage as well.

<comment><USER13> "murdered buildings and infrastructure"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _(v) Pacifism. The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransfered._ \-- Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, 1945

<comment><USER15> Counter argument; pacifism accepts you don't control other countries. World still catching on.

<comment><USER16> > Counter argument; pacifism accepts you don't control other countries. World > still catching on.

Reality's still catching on … war is, as Clausewitz noted, diplomacy carried on by other means: just as diplomacy is a way to achieve a condition in which one's goals are met, so too is war (albeit a spectacularly unpleasant and evil way). Sometimes the good of one's goals outweighs the evil of war; sometimes it doesn't.

One certainly _can_ control, or at the very least shape, what others do. If not, why do we have laws? Why do we have RFCs? Why do we have common languages?

<comment><USER15> You're confusing a _possible_ future with the present. Wars of aggression can and often are lost. No country not even the US at the peak of it's power has been capable of beating every other country out there while surviving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I took military funding for graduate school -- a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. My reasoning was I was studying pure mathematics, and I knew my work had zero possibility of military applications. So by taking their money I was diverting it to purely peaceful purposes.

And their funding was a bit higher than the NSF fellowship, so that choice dovetailed nicely with self-interest.

It would have been a harder choice if my work did have potential military application. I don't know if I would have had the backbone of the linked professor. I admire his conviction.

<comment><USER18> Did you have to spend summers at DoD working for them? How was it?

<comment><USER17> No, the NDSEG just pays for your grad school and provides a stipend. No extra requirements outside of the degree program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Couldn't a very good argument be made that military research has actually prevented a LOT of conflicts? Think of what may have happened if the Soviet Union and US didn't both have large nuclear arsenals. There is a very real possibility that there would have been a WW3 between NATO and the Soviet Bloc without M.A.D.

</comment><comment><USER20> Star Trek provides the setting for an ideal military; we are currently far from an ideal military as the best and brightest leave due to a variety of reasons. Yes, weapons research is needed because you often encounter violent species but research and exploration are above all; a thirst for knowledge is more important than profit. In general a culture (society) we seek money over knowledge. Certain individuals seek out knowledge with the goal of gaining more money. I am not saying all of us are like this but take society as a whole and a large percentage learn solely to earn more money, not for the pleasure in learning.

</comment><comment><USER21> > _And as I watched my colleagues dealing with DARPA 's demands for reports, > PI meetings, bake-offs, delays and reductions in promised funding, and other > hassles, I began to wonder whether I hadn't gotten the best side of the deal > after all._

Applies to the startup world as well.

I've done startups in both Silicon Valley and Washington DC, and I have to say: The time commitment is not as recognized as it should be. Folks that build their companies around getting govt funding tend to get good at getting govt funding, which is different from getting good at building product.

</comment><comment><USER22> I did a postdoc in the US which was funded by a US navy grant. I remember that my supervisor told me that even if our research doesn't lead to any practical application, at least it won't help to kill anyone.

<comment> iso-8859-1 If you had your name in your profile, I could look up your publications...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Science funding explained [http://www.smbc- comics.com/?id=1522](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1522)

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand. The funding sources he does accept can still be funded by defense groups if they're cruising through proposals. It's ultimately the same pot of money with the same reporting due to the government who will find out the same things from the same sources. Just because you didn't get your funding directly from ONR doesn't mean the DoD isn't funding your research.

</comment><comment><USER25> Also pertinent: Terry Winograd's Thoughts On Military Funding (1984, with a postscript from 2002):

[http://cpsr.org/prevsite/publications/newsletters/issues/200...](http://cpsr.org/prevsite/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Summer/tw.html/)

</comment><comment><USER26> It's an interesting problem. Doesn't it mean that in long run, with this set of mind, military will be filled in by people who "care less" about killing people - therefore making the world "worse"?

Maybe having in military people with author's principles is what we need the most?

<comment><USER27> Fortunately, ideas and attitudes are contagious between groups of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's weird how a college professor refusing to take military funding is super controversial, but if a programmer decides to work at, say, Apple instead of a defense contractor, nobody bats an eye.

The comments here are full of people criticizing this guy's position and saying that helping your country's military is better. How many of _you_ are helping the military? Does this principle apply to everybody, or just college professors? Or is it simply that he's public about the reasons for his choice, so people feel a need to argue with it?

<comment><USER29> A programmer works at Apple instead of a defense contractor because:

\- Apple pays _a lot_ better

\- Having Apple on your resume is _far_ more prestigious (in fact, it's probably one of the most prestigious names to have on there, and I say that as someone who does not like Apple too much and generally sneers at Apple fans)

\- Defense contractors are infamous for treating employees somewhat lousily (see: furloughs)

In fact, I would seriously bat an eye at someone who, with offer letters from both, chose to take a job at a defense contractor rather than Apple.

The main thing the defense contractor job has going for it is the working hours are likely to be standard 9-5 with little or no overtime (as that gets billed to a government contract, so you're generally not allowed to work overtime without special approval). At high-profile places like Apple, unpaid overtime is generally expected to some degree.

<comment><USER28> All true, but for many people I know there is _also_ the reason that they don't want to have anything to do with the military.

<comment><USER29> I'm just pointing out that that's a really lame comparison. It's like asking why you would choose to go to college and get a high-paying job instead of just working at the grocery store (that might be exaggerating a bit).

No one is going to come down to a choice of defense contractor vs. Apple. They aren't even located in the same place: defense contractors have no presence in Silicon Valley that I've ever heard of. So you can't even make a choice between the two without considering a cross-country move (military stuff tends to be concentrated on the east coast), though there's a bunch in Phoenix too.

A better comparison would be defense contractor vs. working at some small generic commercial company. They can be located near each other, both are likely to have lousy pay for engineers/programmers, and neither is going to look that great on a resume (actually, depending on what you work on, the defense contractor will probably look better).

<comment><USER30> There are plenty of defense contractor jobs on the west coast, including the SF Bay Area (though, a lot more in SoCal than the Bay Area.)

<comment><USER29> Apple's in Cupertino. How many defense contractors are near there? SoCal is not commutable from Cupertino, any more than Seattle is.

<comment><USER30> Quite a few; the aerospace/defense section of the Wikipedia page on Bay Area companies listed several, for instance. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_t...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The right way to excercise your conscience and be an example for others. Thank you for sharing this, I hadn't seen it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Tell Iran about nonviolent methods. To have an overwhelmingly powerful military in the right hands (Bush Jr. was not the right hands) is a big safeguard against most crazy nations.

</comment><comment><USER33> non-violence or pacifism aside, military grants are loaded with mountains of mind numbing paperwork and bureaucracy ...pass.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wasn't the internet a direct result of government funded military research? I'm all for boycotting war but I think there is some value in that research.

EDIT: Okay, he addressed that point in his article. However, I'd like to double down on that objection. In this fantastic video ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87WK_7lkrVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87WK_7lkrVg) ), Physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson argues how great projects come into being. He names 3 main drivers: 1. Religion and serving deities (mostly irrelevant in the western world, how the pyramids got built), 2. through economic incentives and 3. as a survival instinct (war). Historically, it's always been one of the three. I think military research is essential for progress and we need other paths to make sure that our nation does not go to war. The solution to war is not scientific ignorance, it's a pacifist population.

<comment><USER35> There's a weird phenomenon in U.S. political system where it's much easier to get spending approved by congress/voters if it's classified as "military". Thus many things that could be civilian projects end up as military.

<comment><USER11> That phenomenon is called "Military-Industrial Complex" ;-|

<comment><USER36> Dwight Eisenhower's "Military Industrial Complex" speech noted: "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Furthermore, he warned "Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and thoroughly immoral -- doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

\- Robert Heinlein

This quote stuck with me, possibly due to the force of its presentation rather than its merits.

I thought it would be interesting to present the other side of the debate to HN and open it up to comment. I'm undecided.

Heinlein's viewpoint and the author's viewpoint are polar opposites. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.

<comment><USER38> But the OP never says that violence never settles anything, his position is more nuanced than that (emphasis mine):

"In short, I believe that non-violent methods of conflict resolution provide the only methods for protecting our country against the deadly threats we face _in the long run_. Military action, with its inevitable consequences to civilian populations, creates and fuels deadly threats, and therefore _increases the danger that our country faces_."

<comment><USER39> I honestly find his position kind of vague and impractical. He does recognize that the perpetrators of 9/11 and other such attacks should be brought to justice, but suggests that it be done through non-violent means. I would very much like to know exactly what non-violent means he thinks might have been effective at apprehending the Al-Quada bigwigs from a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

When the people who need to be brought to justice are in a nation that is friendly to them and entirely unconcerned about world opinion, economic sanctions, and other such tools of international diplomacy, I fail to see what realistic options there are besides violence. I may sound snarky at times, but seriously, if anyone has any realistic and practical ideas, please say so.

That's more what bothers me about Pacifism - being totally unconcerned with the realities of the world. They just say "find a non-violent way to do it" and then leave somebody else to figure out how to do that. I think it only applies in a few limited situations, and in general, pure Pacifism means you will be dominated by anybody who is willing to use violence to achieve their goals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Too bad the Islamic terrorists who perpetrated 9/11, Paris attacks, Brussels attacks, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc don't follow the same belief system. Good luck negotiating with them.

<comment><USER40> The terrorists (who were only hypocritically Islamic) who did 9/11 were Saudis. America attacked Iraq in retaliation using massive military force.

What was your argument again? Don't bother, I'm not interested.

<comment><USER19> Why would you be interested? Why debate anything? Just jump in and make a comment and then leave because that is the way it should be. I mean that is how all things accomplished right?

The point is that believing that all problems can be solved in non-violent ways is unrealistic. The terrorists who will gladly murder any man, woman, or child to further whatever the hell it is that they are trying to further have never and will never just stop being violent to negotiate. The only way to deal with people who are that radical is through violent means.

Oh and maybe you should get your facts straight. America did not attack Iraq in retaliation for 9/11\. America attacked Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in retaliation. America attacked Iraq because in theory there were WMDs there (I will not argue the legitimacy of that because clearly that wasn't the case and in hindsight that was an awful move).

<comment><USER40> Your argument falls apart precisely because of the violent and boneheaded nature of American governments. America unleashes its military without thinking of the consequences and there is no excuse for it.

<comment><USER19> So do tell, how would you have dealt with the terrorists that were responsible for 9/11? Just like every good liberal you have said I am wrong without offering an alternative.

<comment><USER40> Do you even remember that Bin Laden and Al Quaeda were funded by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, among other things? America's disastrous history of foreign intervention IS THE CAUSE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS TO DATE. Don't put your noses where they don't belong and try to learn from your many mistakes. That's all it takes.

<comment><USER19> Who gets to decide where the US's nose belongs? I am with you that we should never support these knuckleheads like Bin Laden (which we are doing a-freaking-gain with the Syrian resistance), but it certainly has felt a lot like damned if you do, damned if you don't with the US. We get involved in some way and everyone yells that we shouldn't be and if we don't get involved everyone yells that we aren't helping.

Saying that "America's disastrous history of foreign intervention IS THE CAUSE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS TO DATE" is pretty silly. I bet most of Asia and Europe are pretty darn happy that we intervened during WWI and WWII and I'd be willing to bet that most South Koreans are pretty happy that we intervened during the Korean War lest they be subjects of that little, fat megalomanic Kim Jong Un. Do you disagree with those interventions? If so well then I guess we are done here because we will never agree on anything. If not, then what is the deciding factor on when to get involved and when not to get involved?

The fact of the matter is that we rely on oil from the middle east and we are always going to get involved there because it is in our national interests. Until we have zero reliance on foreign oil that isn't going to change. It would certainly be wonderful if everyone just kept to themselves and we didn't get involved with anything, but that isn't practical. The problems in that area of the world really have very little to do with the US. They have been fighting in the middle east for all of recorded history. Certainly longer than the US has been a nation. Our involvement hasn't helped anything, but I am increasingly of the opinion that nothing will help things over there.

<comment><USER40> US involvement in regime change: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change)

35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists:

[http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_bac...](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/)

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor : [http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930](http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930)

A timeline of CIA atrocities:

[http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia- atrocities/53...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia- atrocities/5348804)

>The fact of the matter is that we rely on oil from the middle east and we are always going to get involved there because it is in our national interests.

Are you so proud of your governments being greedy thieves? Go on then. Continue being arrogant dicks to the planet. It is fair game then that you reap what you sow.

As for WW2, Russia won Berlin. The Eastern Front was orders of magnitude more violent and more destructive to human lives than what Western allies fought for.

As for Asia, if the US had left Korea alone Koreans would have gotten rid of the Kim dynasty by 1980. You fail to remember that South Korea was a dictatorship as well until the eighties.

You also fail to remember that unlike the divided Korean peninsula, Vietnam remained whole because the Communists that you were so scared of won that war. Against the USA. And now the Vietnamese government are also your trade partners.

As for the Middle East, their problems have everything to do with you. From your unconditional support of the blatant theft of territory and resources and the atrocities committed by Israel in Palestine, to the overthrowing of the democratically elected government of Iran which led to extremists taking power there, to the Iran Iraq war where you sold weapons to both sides, to the war against Iraq which gave rise to ISIS, to the war against the Syrian government which strengthened ISIS, you are responsible for EVERYTHING. Every dead body, every lost opportunity for millions of children, that's all on you.

I'm done. Monsters.

<comment><USER19> You are clearly filled to the brim with hate and vitriol.

Am I proud that my government has done everything it has done in all of our history? No. Am I proud of the vast majority of our actions around the world? You're damn right I am. We have done a hell of a lot more good around the world in our relatively short history than bad.

Regarding Japan in WW2, your little article fails to mention the reason that the US was conducting economic warfare against Japan. Those sanctions were in response to the atrocities and naked aggressions being committed by the Japanese in China since the begin of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They aren't much different than the sanctions that the world is imposing on North Korea, Iran, etc. for their flaunting of international treaties. I am sure the Chinese who were being slaughtered wholesale by the Japanese are pretty happy we put a stop to their little empire building experiment.

As for Europe in WW2, yes the USSR (not Russia) did take Berlin, but they alone didn't beat Germany. Could they have done it if the US had never gotten involved? Maybe. If so it certainly would have been a hell of a lot more costly in human lives among other things for them. I suspect if the US had just stayed out of Europe completely and let the Germans and USSR beat the hell out of each other we would have never had the cold war because there would have only been one world power at that point, the USA. I have a sneaking suspicion that the VAST majority of Western Europeans are very happy that the US did get involved. You don't hear very many stories of people trying to escape West Germany for the utopia of East Germany and the Soviet Bloc for a reason.

As for Korea, I'd love to know what leads you to believe that the Kim Dynasty would be gone had the US not stopped the North. Maybe you've been to the North Korean unicorn lair ([http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/30/unicorn- lair-di...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/30/unicorn-lair- discovered-north-korea)) for your source?

As for the Middle East, you are forgetting the fact that there has been almost non-stop conflict there since biblical times and the US didn't exist then. It wasn't the US that started the Israel/Palestine conflict either ([http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Middle%20East%20The%20...](http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Middle%20East%20The%20Origins%20of%20Arab- Israeli%20Wars.html)). Palestine was a British territory and the British decided that the Jews displaced by all the hate they received in Europe (by way more entities than just the Nazis) before and during WW2 should have a nation in Palestine. It never fails to amaze me how everyone always talks about the "atrocities" committed by Israel against the Palestinians. I find it appalling that what they have done to protect themselves from their Arab neighbors who have attacked them multiple times and from Palestinian terrorists are "atrocities" while the things done against them are not called the same thing. Strapping a bomb to yourself, walking into a cafe and blowing up a bunch of innocent women and children is not and never will be equivalent to using a missile to kill a known terrorist and killing a few innocent civilians accidentally in the process. The intent of the first case is to target innocents whereas the intent of the second is to target a killer.

You are correct. We are all monsters here in the US. Horrible, heartless monsters and all the world's woes are our fault. We clearly are "arrogant dicks to the planet:" [http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/countryprofile/u...](http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/countryprofile/united- states) [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-23341189](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23341189) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_disc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_discoveries) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_United_States) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inve...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions)

I don't even know why I bothered to respond to this ridiculous, hate filled post of yours because one can't have a calm, rational, productive discussion with someone as blinded by hate and anger as you are. I have never nor will I ever claim that America is a perfect place free from flaw, but I am damn proud to be an American and I am proud of all the good that we have brought to the world. If you are too blinded by your hate to see the good that comes out of America, well, I'm sorry for you.

<comment><USER40> Am I really the one full of hatred, now? Am I really the hateful one who has been wishing the death of others? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11067470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11067470)

<comment><USER19> Yes, yes you are the hateful one. You are claiming that Americans are monsters and responsible for all the problems in the middle east and most of the world. I claimed that a man that hacked into the FBI to expose all the personal details of employees of the FBI should be captured and killed. To clarify, I meant killed by being sentenced to death for treason. The VAST majority of the FBI works to do things such as stop the spread of child pornography, kidnapping, and other criminal behaviors and posting all the personal information on those people so that the criminals that they helped put away can potentially seek retribution against them and/or their families is a very serious crime in my opinion. I found it (and still do) quite disgusting that so many people were applauding such reckless and criminal behavior.

In the effort of full disclosure, I also wish the death on anyone who thinks it is fine to murder innocent people through acts of terrorism such as 9/11, San Bernadino, Paris, Brussels, etc. Note that I didn't say every Muslim or everyone from the Middle East or any other broad stroke like you used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Taken to an extreme, everything is unhealthy.

If you're going to say no to funding, you might as well say no to knowledge, tech, etc. - that has been gained from such funding.

Are you prepared to stop washing your hands? It's theorized that the modern practice of washing hands came from battle field surgery.

<comment><USER42> I don't disagree with you, exactly, but whoever theorizes that needs to study recent history; Lister was never a battlefield surgeon.

<comment><USER41> It is my understanding that Lister used the Franco-Prussian War as the proving grounds for his research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > My position has its roots in the Vietnam War, when I was a conscientious > objector

Ah yes, the Vietnam War, a last-ditch attempt to preserve some freedom and democracy (albeit imperfect) from a bloodthirsty regime which killed tens or hundreds of thousands of people, not in war but in post-war executions. Truly, a fine thing to conscientiously object to.

> In short, I believe that non-violent methods of conflict resolution provide > the only methods for protecting our country against the deadly threats we > face in the long run.

That is a detachment from reality so extreme that it's difficult to imagine that he is able to tie his shoes in the morning. Some folks say that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent; that's true, but only because the competent turn to it before it's their last choice.

Yes, violence is wrong and evil; yes, it is brutal and merciless. It is horrible to see violence, and more horrible still to engage in it. But — and this is the key point — violence is often unavoidable: the choice is not between violence and nonviolence (that choice is easy!) but between violence now and violence later. Which is worse? That's hard to say.

The only thing which enables pacifists to survive is non-pacifists who protect them. Calmly reasoning with (or emotionally pleading with) someone intent on stealing from, raping or killing one does not succeed with anywhere near the reliability of of stopping him with violent force. It's the police and the military which dissuade one's fellow citizens and external powers, respectively, from exercising violence upon one. 'I won't take up arms myself, but I will enjoy the peace and security provided by those who do' makes as much moral sense as 'I won't kill animals, but I'll eat meat.'

It's a free country; he's free to free-load on the sacrifice and hard work of his fellow-citizens, and we're free to think that behaviour fundamentally irresponsible.

<comment><USER28> What freedom and democracy? Our side was a ruthless dictatorship too.

You make a good point about violence sometimes begin necessary. But making that point in the context of Vietnam is weird. It's the poster child for unnecessary wars, and for good reason.

<comment><USER43> > What freedom and democracy? Our side was a ruthless dictatorship too.

It was less bad, and had potential to be more good. As I noted, it was imperfect.

> You make a good point about violence sometimes begin necessary. But making > that point in the context of Vietnam is weird. It's the poster child for > unnecessary wars, and for good reason.

Thanks for your credit; I really appreciate it.

I completely disagree that Vietnam was an unnecessary war, but it's perhaps indicative of the extent to which its supposed lack of need has become common wisdom that folks have taken issue not with my broader points about violence & pacifists but with the narrow point of Vietnam.

<comment><USER28> A less bad ruthless dictatorship is a pretty long way from "freedom and democracy," even softened with imperfection. And if that's what you're using to justify years of war, enslaving young men and forcing them to fight, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, you're going to have a really tough road to travel.

I don't think it's a surprise that disagreement with you is focused on Vietnam. True pacifism is pretty rare. Most people will agree with the broader point that war is sometimes necessary.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Modern life has not changed sleeping patterns as much as some believe - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21674491-modern-life-has-not-changed-sleeping-patterns-much-some-believe-now-i-lay-me?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/nowilaymedowntosleep <comment><AUTHOR> I sleep way better when I use a sleep mask or sleep in a blacked out room. Even moon light is a problem for me. When I remove all light, I wake up less at night and can sleep in longer.

However, I have always wondered why when we talk about getting better sleep by sleeping like our pre-tech ancestors, why is the light from the stars and moon rarely mentioned. I'm sure much of our ancestors were not able to sleep in black out conditions. And in the summer months, many places would not have enough hours of darkness to get the recommended amount of sleep. I know its not "blue light" from screens, but it is enough to disrupt my sleep.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your proven way for making money online? - <AUTHOR> It can be blog. <comment><USER2> Proven ways to make money online:

1\. Product

2\. Service

3\. Ads

4\. Affiliate commissions

Basically, most online money making involves one or more of the steps above. Let me expand a bit more:

Product

\</comment><comment>----

\- You can build a SAAS and charge a subscription fee.

\- You can sell code such as themes, plugins etc for variety of platforms including WordPress, bootstrap etc either on your own website or through marketplaces such as themeforest, wrapbootstrap etc

\- You can create and sell desktop apps. E.g. Text editors such as Sublime etc.

\- You can create and sell apps on smartphones/ipad/iOs/Android.

\- Create "tutorials" and "how-tos" and charge for them. E.g. laracasts.com

Service

\</comment><comment>--

Service can be anything really but for the HN crowd, it could be things like:

\- Provide managed hosting services. E.g. Host WordPress sites for clients, provide maintenance for a fixed fee

\- Become a freelancer and offer your services on fiverr.com or freelancer.com etc.

Ads

\</comment><comment>-

\- Create a niche blog and start writing quality articles.

\- Sign up with Google Adsense and/or buysellads.com and hopefully, get a decent amount of quality hits on your blog and make money.

Affiliates

\</comment><comment>-----

\- Signup with Amazon Affiliates and start writing about their products on your blog. You could make money by referrals

\- Do you use a software product you really like ? Check if the company offers affiliate program. Signup with their program. E.g. Affiliate program through themeforest etc.

-</comment>