Ask YCN: Contextual Ads on a Personalized Dynamic Site/App? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> As I'm exploring advertising solutions, I've discovered that most ad networks aren't really appropriate for a site that hides most content behind a registration or is highly personalized, like a social web app.

This is because most ad networks (AdSense, YPN, AdBrite) rely on spidering your content to do their targeting... and they don't log in to your site to do it. If they can't get into your site to see the content, they can only show run-of-network ads, or ads based on what you tell them explicitly about your users _in general_.

Is there a product out there that is more suited towards showing targeted ads based on protected page content? Or passing keywords as parameters to the ad script?

There are definitely privacy issues here, but I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone knew of a way to show my users relevant ads, and not just "hey I think you're a 20-something with lots of disposable income" ads...

Maybe I have to do another startup just to serve this market?

<comment><USER2> With adbrite, you can target specific keywords for them to target their ads towards, instead of having them spider...You should also be able to do the same with YPN...

Dan DormItem

<comment><AUTHOR> But can you do this at runtime via parameters?

I know I can set site-wide keywords, or section-targeted keywords on most ad sites, but that doesn't help when much of the content is user-generated AND non-spiderable...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Markus Frind posted this on his blog a short while ago: <http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/custom-channels/>

It sounds like you can at least split things up by age.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually quite curious about how he's accomplishing this... my best guess is that he's using the demographic info to redirect each age group to a different URL, e.g. 18-25 goes to pof.com/a/, 26-45 goes to pof.com/b/, and 45+ goes to pof.com/c/.

I was hoping though, that if my users are talking about cars, they get car ads. (or, even better, mesothelioma!)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Catvent – an advent calendar with cats - <AUTHOR> Https://catvent.jordypereira.be <comment><USER2> Why a 25th window? If you're that into cats, you'd surely be receiving many, many cat pictures on Christmas anyway.

<comment><USER3> It also begins a day before the advent began.

<comment><USER2> Ok didn't notice that.

I assume cats use a slightly different calendar, where cat December starts a day early?</comment></comment></comment>


JPMorgan Fueled Two Financial Crises, Third Coming? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@lancengym/jpmorgan-fueled-two-financial-crises-third-coming-e85dfd9a086a <comment><USER2> Article contains no information that suggests JPM is fueling a modern financial crisis, it only discusses past events.

<comment><AUTHOR> The word "fueled" in the title is in the past tense. I think it was meant to be a discussion of history...</comment></comment>


Blockchain data storage startup Storj recieves $100k grant funding - <AUTHOR> http://www.econotimes.com/GOED-picks-blockchain-startup-Storj-for-100k-grant-funding-513923 <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this is a story. This startup has been around since at least 2014:

[https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj](https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj)

$100k of funding after 3 years of development doesn't really seem newsworthy.

<comment><USER3> While we are excited we got the grant I kinda agree. Our stuff like the whitepaper ([https://storj.io/storj.pdf](https://storj.io/storj.pdf)) or KFS ([http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a- loc...](http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a-local-file- store-inspired-by)), allowing you to scale LevelDB past 100GB, are way cooler and more relevant to Hacker News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Until you can educate the public (and ISPs) on the importance of upload speeds, this will be crippled.

I constantly meet people who cannot understand why their upload of some video is taking forever when they have 30Mbps internet. Send them to speedtest.net or another bandwidth tester, and you find that their download speed may be 20+Mbps, but their up speed is 1Mbps or less.

And since saturating your upstream connection results in dramatic slowdowns and software pauses due to network waits, people will quickly blame Storj for ruining their internet.

Incidentally, the "How does it work?" video on the storj site does not tell how it works; it's just a typical zero-substance ad.

<comment><USER3> How it works would be at the bottom of the page labeled whitepaper ([https://storj.io/storj.pdf](https://storj.io/storj.pdf)), or you could have clicked on the link labeled Github ([https://github.com/Storj/](https://github.com/Storj/)) to look at the code.

Storj is a direct competitor to Amazon S3. We don't have to educate the public, just the developers that need to store data somewhere.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I did already scan the whitepaper. The point is that there is no real information in the video that they title "How does it work?"

And if they are in fact targeting developers, then the video makes even less sense as devs will be far less impressed than laypeople.

<comment><USER3> 27-30sec show the upload process and security, 45-51 sec down the download process and speed. The middle of the video describes the encryption process.

I disagree that its devoid of how does it work, but sure I could see someone wanted more info in the video. What do you suggest needs to be included?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is a very small funding. I like the project but this pays what, one dev for a year?

<comment><USER3> Potential for more more follow on funding. Certainly doesn't hurt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned- amazon-s3-challe...](https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned- amazon-s3-challenger-that-lets-you-rent-out-your-extra-disk-space- fa9da6ff9223#.vmk4awfu2)

<comment><USER3> Don't they only store 50 TB of data to Storj's 2,000 TB?

<comment><USER6> No, store as much as you want, only about $1/TB/month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No information at all about the company or their product

<comment><USER8> That information is pretty easily available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm just wondering If I rent my storage, will it cover cost of electricity and HW amortization on average? Or will I lose money?

<comment><USER10> They idea is to make use of unused storage capacity in existing machines, rather than standing up new ones just for Storj. The electrical cost should be minimal if your computer already stays on most of the time.

That said, I haven't seen hard numbers on the background compute load and associated marginal increase in power consumption. Shouldn't be anything close to the CPU-Hard task of Bitcoin mining though.

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I found this article which says that you can actually make a profit: [http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i- make-...](http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i-make-from- driveshare)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So if I hook up a 1tb harddrive to this network,how much can I earn?

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is a grant of $100K even a story? Pet vacation startups seem to be able to attract $20M, so this seems sort of nothing.

<comment><USER13> other people disagree. If you don't want to hear about it, hide it.

<comment><USER14> It's a valid question. There have been lots of grants given out for Blockchain applications. I'm curious why this particular one is receiving attention from Hacker News. For example earlier this year DHS awarded 6 separate companies for Blockchain solutions[0], each of which were awarded $100,000. Some of them will probably move on to phase 2 and receive $800,000.

[0]:[https://www.dhs.gov/science-and- technology/news/2016/06/07/d...](https://www.dhs.gov/science-and- technology/news/2016/06/07/dhs-st-announces-3m-sbir-awards)

<comment><USER13> its Saturday, there isn't much else going on, it was 100k from a state agency, in Utah no less, i mean.. why not?

some people are into it.

<comment><USER15> The Utah part is definitely interesting. Plus, it's interesting to hear about non-"big VC" funding. A grant of this size for a small business could help stabilize payroll for several devs, e.g. it can have a decent multiplier effect.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brazil's agricultural miracle  - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16889019

<comment><USER2> Some points (from a "farmer")

\- Brazil is a third world country.

\- labor is dirt cheap

\- on visits to Brazil, the level of human labor in agriculture is stunning. (Not possible in US at current wages). Compare Japanese automated factories to Chinese factories.

\- subsidies (perhaps) not needed because some inputs (labor) is so cheap

\- This is fantastic for Brazil.

I can't defend subsidies, and I don't know very many who can. However, it's part of the game now in the US, so you'd be a fool not to take advantage of them.

\- corn prices (adjusted for inflation) are _half_ of what they were in the 70's ([http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Articles/Corn_I...](http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Articles/Corn_Inflation.asp)), while oil (a huge input to agriculture) is 3x as expensive ([http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical...](http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_table.asp))

\- Dry land agriculture is going to explode.

\- drought resistance corn is going to increase the area of arable land in the US. (The west is relatively dry, we have a lot of "less productive" range land that could be used for agriculture. (Our land is right in that margin, all land is currently in soybeans and it is no-till.) Previous years (80's/90's) it was a mix of corn, oats, barley, sunflowers, wheat, sorghum, flax and some soybeans. \- The last few years have seen record harvests. A combination of good weather and excellent crop varieties is probably the cause.

\- Ag Input prices have soared recently.

\- Improvements in chemicals have made no-till a viable option.

\- The main problem is weed control. Canada Thistle, etc, roundup ready crops are an amazing feat of engineering.

On being green.

\- Our farm hasn't seen so much wildlife since the 70's/80's.

\- Verdant fields support way more wildlife than native prairie. However, there is still plenty of land that for other reasons, terrain, etc is used for grazing, hay production.

\- We had our land in the conversation reserve program (<http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/crp/>) for quite some time. Now, crop prices make that ridiculous.

\- Suburban chemical runoff is a faster growing problem then farm runoff. Chemicals are extremely expensive, so with new high tech methods, each part of the field gets the precise amount of chemical needed. Contrast this to urban/suburban runoff: [http://www.chesapeakebay.net/landuse_urbansuburban.aspx?menu...](http://www.chesapeakebay.net/landuse_urbansuburban.aspx?menuitem=19557) "Unlike many farmers using nutrient management plans, _suburban residents often over-apply fertilizer to their lawns and gardens_."

<comment><USER3> It's my impression that the genetically modified crops lack in taste. It's true that we can end up producing more food per acre with them but it seems that one price is on the taste. My anecdotal experience in Germany is that organic food there tastes better than organic food in the U.S. and is much better than the standard supermarket food in the U.S.

As a farmer, what are your thoughts on this? Also, I wonder if we are getting into a chemical arms race with nature. Roundup resistant weeds now exist. Now there is a new Roundup. Does the ecology suffer and us from this arms race?

<comment><USER4> GM crops only lack taste if they are designed with other goals in mind. For example, the McGregor tomatoes are infamous for looking great, having a long shelf life, and tasting like cardboard. I think it's possible to have a high- yield crop that tastes good, if the market can convince the growers (who convince the labs) that it's important.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately in the U.S. looks matter more than taste. I guess it's the wonders of advertising. Thanks for your answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You ain't seen nothing yet: Brazil is currently using only 16% of its arable land. It has 65 million hectares in use of a total of 394 million ([http://www.viniart.com.br/lucioWhybrasil/whyBrasil.aspx?m=2&...](http://www.viniart.com.br/lucioWhybrasil/whyBrasil.aspx?m=2&p=5&v=0)).

Things started to get really interesting when Brazilian farmers stopped using european methods, thanks to research at Embrapa (<http://www.embrapa.br/>).

<comment><USER6> Yes. I have to find out how no-till agriculture works. (See e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The following two sentences seemed a bit self-contradictory.

"They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants."

"As the briefing explains, Brazil's progress has been underpinned by the state agricultural-research company and pushed forward by GM crops."

Does anyone know if GM crops did play an important role in their newfound agricultural efficiency, or did they find major wins in other areas?

<comment><USER8> "They (they agro-pessimists) like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A little light on details of what the miracle was.

<comment><USER10> The link to the longer article is a little hidden, but it does go on to explain it in alot more detail:

<http://www.economist.com/node/16886442>

Their share of the worlds agriculture is honestly staggering. To be #1 in OJ, sugar, coffee, chickens, etc. is unbelievable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't forget that a large portion of Africa has the climate and soil of Brazil. If we (Brazilians) export this technology to Africa it would: feed all the humanity for years to come, reduce Africa poverty, and be a great source of biofuel.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is misleading: "It is not too much to talk about a miracle, and one that has been achieved without the huge state subsidies that prop up farmers in Europe and America. "

In the linked article: <http://www.economist.com/node/16886442> "According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), _state support accounted for 5.7% of total farm income_ in Brazil during 2005-07. That compares with 12% in America,"

</comment><comment><USER12> "Of course there are myriad reasons why its way of farming will not translate easily, notably that its success was achieved at a time when the climate was relatively stable whereas now uncertainty looms."

This seems like a pretty big caveat to me, especially when you look at how many civilizations have collapsed in the past due to exactly this very reason.

<comment><USER13> Caveat for what exactly? Technological transfer for Africa and Asia tropical climates? Or for the Brazilian agricultural model?

For the second case I can give an opinion, Brazil is a country with a fair amount of climate seasonal variations, where I live in São Paulo we have rainy summers and dry winters, and in the 24 years that I lived there were a fair amount of uncommon events in climate (including hot winters and dry summers), and yet year after year as long I can remember the crop yield rose, both in Brazil and in São Paulo.

I do not see how this can change in the short and mid-terms without a global climate mess that would also affect other countries in the globe.

EDIT: As mkr-hn pointed I do not know the difference between weather and climate, I think that the basic idea still stands.

<comment> mkr-hn That's weather, not climate. Climate is something measured over centuries.

Climate is thousands of little weathers collected and analyzed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Brazil doesn't have to subsidize their farmers, the US takes care of that: [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.ht...](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.html)

Unbelievable.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's a grammatical error, I think, that slightly changes the meaning of part of the article.

 _Second, the Brazilian way of farming is more likely to do good in the poorest countries of Africa and Asia._

I think that the writer actually means "do well" where he says it will "do good". My correction says that there's a good chance that it will be successful elsewhere -- which would _also_ imply his wording, that it would deliver positive results in those regions.

<comment><USER15> In the sentence, "good" is a noun. You can say "deliver ..." or "achieve positive results", but why use the longer latinate words? It just makes you look like you're trying to look smarter than you are.

<comment><USER14> No, these are not just different ways of skinning the same cat, the meaning is quite different.

The word "good" is a noun, indicating _what_ will be done. The word "well" is an adverb, and describes _how_ something will be done.

In a contrived example, a sentence like "the raping and pillaging invaders did well" is grammatically and semantically correct (they achieved their goal by getting lots of gold, etc.). A similar sentence "the raping and pillaging invaders did good" is grammatically correct, but the semantics are probably not what you want (they didn't do good, they did evil).

<comment><USER16> I think you're technically right about the difference between the two, but I'm quite sure the author did mean "do good"... more food would obviously be a good thing for Africa.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple iPhone SDK Event: iFund - $100 Million for iPhone Devs - <AUTHOR> http://live.gizmodo.com/

<comment><USER3> iPhone developers: Build something good and your profits will scale

Nico Mak (the original developer of WinZip - and remember PKWare was the DOS market leader) was making $1m+ off of WinZip licenses...10+ years ago - as for now...I'd say easily order of magnitude.

Some highlights from the liveblogs:

It's like a Mobile Wii - TouchFighter - use accelerometer to tilt and navigate (remember Wing Commander?)

Will Wright's Spore on an iPhone!

70% of revenue goes to developer, paid monthly. $99 if you want to sell, $0 if you want to give away (most app developers will probably do both)

Deploying to iPhone from the SDK is simple - take that control-freak mobile network operators from the control-freak Apple!

Enterprise-class Wi-Fi, with WPA2/802.1x,

I like how Apple ignores pressure and takes time to get things ready and right. If there was an SDK 6 months ago, it probably would not have been such that non-Mac development orgs could code something in 2 weeks (with Apple assistance)

<comment><USER4> It was my understanding that to distribute your app through App Store (the ONLY way to publically distribute), you must pay the $99 per year, regardless of if you charge for your iPhone app or not. This is a bit lame if you ask me..

<comment><USER5> It's true that you must pay $99, even if you're developing freeware. I don't know if it's per year, but probably.

Part of the cost is for the encrypted certificate that apps need to be signed with in order to legitimately run on the iPhone. This has always been the case.

It also allows Apple to know which developer is responsible for an app. So if your iPhone app ends up being malicious, Apple knows who is responsible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They're obviously making a run for the enterprise market with all the M$ support! I almost didn't believe it at first!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and with the native Salesforce.com app they are really moving to take on RIM.

The SDK is actually much more impressive than I expected. I didn't expect game support like that.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Touch Fighter game looks awesome! The Dev Tools also look really well thought out.

<comment><USER5> You'll love the dev tools. You'll be able to enjoy what we Mac programmers have been enjoying for several years now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really hate building interfaces for the web and would love to build them with tools like interface builder but I just haven't felt any need to build a desktop app. Its really exciting that you can now use desktop level dev tools for a mobile application.

<comment><USER5> Back in the day, WebObjects Builder was like Interface Builder for the web. But now you have to use Eclipse for WebObjects development and NeXT/Apple's WebObjects tools are no longer being developed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm really impressed. Trying to download the SDK now, but the the ADC servers are melting...

<comment><USER8> can somebody who's succeeded set up mirrors? :P [private of course, for a couple days until the surge subsides!]

<comment><USER9> found this: <http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4066811/iPhone_SDK>

People are saying it's legitimate, but I would exercise some caution.

<comment><USER8> Interesting! Thanks, but I also got a chance to get into the line on the Apple site itself. So, all is well now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> liveblogs are so exciting. i almost want to go out and buy an iphone + macbook right now

</comment><comment><USER11> i think they are enabling the iphone to actually become a 'smart phone' - <USER2> know several people who switched from smart to iphones and thought they were missing some things,

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a shame that I can't get an iPhone in South Africa, I suppose it's like that for a lot of the world, I'll be playing around with the SDK in the meanwhile.

<comment><USER12> I wonder if you've exhausted all resources. At last count, there are something on the order of 400,000 cracked iPhones in China now.

<comment><USER9> I mentioned it to a friend tonight and he said that he knew of people who have cracked models in South Africa.

If you crack it doesn't it void the warranty or void the device after firmware updates?

<comment><USER13> If you are actually determined to use it and develop some software, that should not exactly be a major concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very impressive. It almost makes me want to buy an iphone.

<comment><USER6> Yep, I'm in the same boat as you - "almost" ;) All I'm waiting for is the hardware upgrade announcement (WiMax, 3G).

<comment><USER15> I went from a Razr to the iPhone, and I am a huge fan. I finally can use my phone for my calendar, contacts, check things like weather/stocks, full video ipod capabilities, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Crap, the SDK doesn't work on OS X Tiger? Anybody know of a work-around?

<comment><USER17> It also doesn't work on PPC... yet another reason I need to upgrade my 4.5 y/o PowerBook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Now I have a really good reason to get that new MacBook Air!</comment></comment></comment>


High School Science Fair Winner Might Revolutionize Internet Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/high-school-science-fair-winner-might-revolutionize-internet-search/

<comment><AUTHOR> His Youtube demo is worth viewing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oeh9pdHZco>

I'm not quite sure he's the next Zuckerberg as suggested by the article, but looks like a smart kid.

<comment><USER2> By looks you mean 'sounds like' a smart kid ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I had this idea last year but dismissed it, since I though search engines already used this. Makes me want to hit myself.

<comment><USER4> Ideas don't have to be original. They need to be well implemented.

Of course, in the real world there is an obnoxious patent system, just something to be aware of.</comment></comment>


Can we take "learn python the hard way" off the sidebar? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/40s6dm/meta_can_we_take_learn_python_the_hard_way_off/ <comment><USER2> The whole 2 vs 3 issue is quite annoying when you are starting out with Python. I really, really hope that it is sorted once and for all either very soon or with Python 4, if that comes one day.

It's a great language but really off-putting when there is seemingly a war going on within it.</comment>


How Does a Human Critique Art Made by AI? - <AUTHOR> https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/creative-ai-art-criticism-1202686003/ <comment><AUTHOR> In 1962 something unusual happened at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey.</comment>


Encryption ransomware threatens Linux users - <AUTHOR> http://news.drweb.com/show/?i=9686&lng=en&c=5 <comment><USER2> This reminds me of my first mention in a Linux kernel commit message: [https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=0a489cb3b6a7b277030cdbc97c2c65905db94536) It's the fix for a bug I found in the kernel. This sounds quite boring, but the fun part is the background story: Antivirus vendor X (actually forgot which one) bragged about a new, dangerous virus that can spread on Windows as well as Linux platforms. Joe Barr reported on that for NewsForge, claiming that the Virus didn't work at all (on Linux). I jumped in and tested too, and found that it wouldn't work (meaning: infect other binaries) on newer kernels since there was an actual bug in the kernel preventing it from doing so.

Why I'm reciting that story is this: It is perfectly fine for a binary to write executable code to other files. Your typical compiler does. The kernel isn't there to prevent that. The kernel is supposed to prevent it if you configure a security policy that forbids it - starting with things as simple as file ownership and permissions. This is pretty much clear for anyone who knows some things about what the computer does. For people who only have some fuzzy ideas, fixing the Linux kernel to make (in this case) a virus work again sounded a bit weird.

Well, ransomware is in the news these days because of the raid in the Netherlands, and here there's another "security specialist" trying to use this for its PR. But again there is nothing that indicates that this is all about standard functionality. Yes, you can encrypt all your own files on a typical machine. Yes, a piece of software can do it for you. Yes, you can run such software. And if you're careless and follow orders easily, someone else might give you the software to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> No information on how it spreads?

"Once launched with administrator privileges, the Trojan loads into the memory of its process files containing cybercriminals' demands"

This sounds like it needs to run as root, is there any vulnerability involved and do I need to patch things?

Is it just a particularly crazy spam campaign that would somehow trick "website administrators" into running malware as root on their servers?

<comment><USER4> According to Dr. Web, it spreads through USB disks and the internet, and Dr. Web has great solution to that problem:

"Dr.Web Office Control access restriction system: Restricts or completely prohibits access to Internet resources and removable devices, and therefore, excludes the possibility of a virus invading via those sources."

"Users should only have access to the local resources they require to perform their jobs. It's no use trying to convince staff that flash drives are dangerous. It is much easier to centrally disable access to such devices."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure why this made it on the HN frontpage.

It seems its lacking any relevant information and is mostly some marketing for an antivirus vendor that tries to tell Linux users they need antiviruses, too.

<comment><USER6> Exactly that.

> Doctor Web security researchers presume that at least tens of users have > already fallen victim to this Trojan.

"presume" .. tens of users ..

Right, a bit more details on the infection vector would have helped to properly validate the concerns. But when you start presuming and pull numbers out of a high hat I'm almost ready to discard it.

The only thing we know now is that "something" needs to be run with admin privileges.

Just make sure your backups are OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is somewhat suspicious that their screenshot of the alleged ransom file appears to be taken from Notepad++, a text editor available only on Windows.

<comment><USER8> This, combined with the fact that so far only Dr. Web is reporting on it, makes it appear suspect.

Besides, once someone has root access to your *nix server, or at least privilege escalation (either of which would be required for this exploit to work), they already own you and can do whatever they want anyway. If you have a good backup scheme in place this is little more than a headache and a few hours of work to recover from. The only way I see this being a catastrophic exploit is if you end up with it on your home box with no offsite or air gapped backup. This holds true for Windows based ransomware attacks that do actually exist; nothing about this is unique, if it's even real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unlike a lot of other malware out there, crypto lockers don't require privlidge escalation to be effective.

Got to hand it to them, its actually a pretty cool attack vector.

<comment><USER10> A lot of attacks don't require root/admin to be effective. Some Key stroke loggers run entirely in user space.

        edit: https://github.com/w8rbt/keycap

<comment><USER9> Good point, you're right that gaining root/admin isn't the only way to ruin someone's day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Exactly how is this being executed on Linux systems?

Dr Web are selling anti-virus. I'd like more info on how it infects systems.

 _Edit:_ You know, this is really ONLY being reported by Dr Web. Funny that.

<comment><USER12> There is more technical details at [http://vms.drweb.com/virus/?i=7704004&lng=en](http://vms.drweb.com/virus/?i=7704004&lng=en)

<comment><USER11> It doesn't give much info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lively discussion over on reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rv78j/linux_ransomw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rv78j/linux_ransomware_is_now_attacking_webmasters/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Google has some popping up in their index. See: [https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:%22README_FOR_DECRYPT....](https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:%22README_FOR_DECRYPT.txt%22&biw=1979&bih=1075&tbs=qdr:w&filter=0)

</comment><comment><USER15> I have to say, I'm surprised this didn't happen a lot sooner. While there aren't as many linux systems that won't have backups, there are a lot of very valuable systems out there, and some percentage of them must not have backups.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here's the Virustotal entry for one of the unpacked versions:

[https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/18884936d002839833a537921...](https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/18884936d002839833a537921eb7ebdb073fa8a153bfeba587457b07b74fb3b2/analysis/)

Enough evidence for me to believe that the malware exists. Apparently it uses mbed TLS for encryption and communicates via UDP.

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://www.google.com/search?num=50&safe=off&q="index.html....](https://www.google.com/search?num=50&safe=off&q="index.html.encrypted")

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) Flatten the server/VM/whatever 2) Load the last clean backup image 3) Apply updates made since the last backup 5) Carry on .... You do have back ups don't you? You do develop off-line and push deployments to servers don't you? No? Then remember to renew the notice in the front window of your house telling the potential burglars you didn't lock the place up and there all the valuable are stored.</comment>


Ask HN: Small projects to improve web performance coding skill - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm a leader in a small web developer team. We want to build website with a high performance in mind.
Do you have any small projects / applications recommendation that we should create so we can improve our coding skills especially on web performance?<p>Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Odds are the biggest bottlenecks in any webapp are going to be the DB and the network itself. So unless you're doing some really complex computations your actual business logic likely won't be taking up most of the time between a request and a response. So you can work on something that will help you tune DB queries or you can take the DB out of (some) of the equation(s) and learn how to make good use of something like Redis or memcache to reduce DB load. Learn how to use a CDN to decrease static asset loading time.

I would also checkout this talk: [https://vimeo.com/147806338](https://vimeo.com/147806338)

It's pretty long but it's pretty funny and should give you some things to think about. There aren't any technical examples or demos but it's a good high level talk about the balloning size of web pages.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd make a small single page website with a few fixed parameters (and maybe a few database calls) and then optimize everything on it using Google PageSpeed and other resources [0]. Make a script which runs during check-in which measures speed changes and have a contest to see who can reduce the speed the most.

A good example of this is the homepage of t.co which clocks in at 3.08 kb and yet looks fantastic.

[0] [https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, we are going to try that for sure.

But I think I missed something in my question. We will create an interactive website that has many ajax call and will often modify the DOM.

There are other points that we'd like to learn which are:

* DOM performance

* CSS layout

* Improve javaScript execution speed

* Minify memory usage

<comment><USER4> > CSS layout

I just recently discovered [http://book.mixu.net/css/](http://book.mixu.net/css/) which is the book on CSS layout that I've been looking for for years. It actually teaches a comprehensive mental model rather than a bag of tricks.</comment></comment></comment>


Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and IFR, Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, Louisiana - <AUTHOR> https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/11/20-3029_article <comment><AUTHOR> Stand out figures are an IFR of over 1.5% which is pretty scary, but fits with the recalculated Diamond Princess IFR of 2%.

If the IFR is 0.6% that would make it 50* more fatal than the 2009 flu pandemic.</comment>


Computers are Brain Amplifiers - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/computers-are-brain-amplifiers <comment><USER2> > _A computer allows you to amplify the power of your brain considerably by > trading understanding for extreme speed of execution. This allows a person > that is not well versed in math for instance to arrive at the correct > answers for math problems either by trying a bunch of solutions in a row > (called 'brute forcing') or by using the computer to figure out a rough > approximation to the answer which then leads to the crucial insight required > to get an exact answer._

Yes exactly. Which is why I consistently disagree with people who don't think that programming is a new kind of literacy...either they have an incredible faith that computers will continue to be better beholden to their computationally-ignorant users, or they just don't understand that programming (or "coding") does not mean, "Teach everyone how to deploy a Rails bootstrap app on Heroku".

Is traditional literacy -- reading and writing -- any more than an amplifier? It's possible to be able to communicate without reading or writing, but the ability to transcribe your thoughts in a durable format (even in this age of unlimited digital video) and to interpret the transcribings of others...that ability greatly amplifies your ability to communicate and interact with society.

Computers obviously are another such amplifier...so why shouldn't programming be seen as a worthwhile kind of literacy?

<comment><USER3> I'm skeptical. Reading & writing is a skill necessary enough in modern society that illiteracy is practically crippling. I imagine an illiterate would have to ask someone else to read to them every half-hour at best. E.g. "I'm trying to google 'how to tie a necktie', how do I spell 'necktie'?"

My intuition says basic programming-literacy by contrast is (while a powerful skill) unnecessary for the average Joe's quotidian life. He might frequently need GUI's, but he won't need to understand the guts. Can you come up a situation that programming could accomplish in a way that a well-designed GUI couldn't?

If anything should become the new literacy, I'd expect it to be discrete math based on its generality and source of analogies.

<comment><USER4> You presuppose there'll always be a GUI. That's similar to the assumption that I don't need reading skills since there'll always be an audio version. True for many cases, but the more you approach one-off, the more you'll find there is no audio version. Or no GUI.

The question is, are there examples where the cost of acquiring and applying the skill is worth the savings? In individual instances, doubtful. Done habitually, probably - the case for reading is fairly well established.

The case for computational literacy might be hampered by the very spotty availability of data. Once you can obtain data sets, it definitely becomes worth it.

Silly overprivileged example: When I was looking for a place to live, I was evaluating the location to choose based on a heat map generated from 20+ different metrics. As a result, I found a place that * Was well below what you usually pay * Was pretty unique for the area I'm in * Makes me happy every day * Only cost me a 15 minute increase in commute time. (This is L.A., so consider that an achievement of epic proportions ;)

Was that one instance worth spending time learning how to work with computers? No. But it's one single neat payoff. And if the data hadn't required custom scrapers, it would've required only minutes of my time.

<comment><USER3> Correction: I presuppose there'll always be a GUI _for the cases where the average Joe has a show-stopping problem frequent enough to warrant someone else to build a GUI solution_. Literacy is needed because (a) people need it on a daily-basis at least and (b) it's a meta-skill since it's impractical for people to learn other subjects without it.

Contrast literacy with programming. I don't expect that programming will be as frequent or spontaneous except in a future where either (a) brain emulations exist or (b) citizens interface with reality exclusively through emacs. Nor do I consider programming a meta-skill in the sense that refusing to learn it will impede you from accessing every other area of human knowledge.

(But I'm glad you're enjoying L.A.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we're tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer.

And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn't look so good.

But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.

 _And that's what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds._ "

~ Steve Jobs

<comment><USER6> First thing came to my mind as well, hasn't Steve Jobs already said the same thing in 1990? It's too obvious in today's world. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8)

<comment><USER7> 1980.

[http://fortune.com/2011/12/14/video-steve-jobs-in-1980-on- pc...](http://fortune.com/2011/12/14/video-steve-jobs-in-1980-on-pcs-as- bicycles-for-the-mind/)

I'll go further and point out that his is the better saying, since it captures the concept in one simple and universal, non-technical image. That's how you talk to people -- bicycles, not amplifiers. (Though a guitarist might like the amplifiers image.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of a time I was tasked to do operate lights on an amdram performance. I had a 6-channel programmable mixer to control a bunch of lights, and created something like 12-20 different light scenes for various parts of the performance. I wrote myself a table of light values in all scenes.

I quickly realized though, that manually changing power of lights will take a few seconds, and it's easy to make an error. The mixer itself was programmable however, which meant that I could assign a particular preset of all lights to a single channel, which would then serve to interpolate this preset from no power to full power. So I coded myself a Lisp program that took all my 12-20 scenes and reduced them to 6 channels at different power settings. So instead of changing 6 different lights between scenes, all I had to do to kill one channel and move another to a power level my program computed. For each scene now I just had a note like "Channel 2 - 50%", or "Channel 5 - 66%", etc.

It was somewhat brutish and inelegant approach, but solved my particular problem.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think I've heard this before...

"I believe the computer is the most significant tool invented, as it is unique in mechanizing part of the process of learning and understanding, or at least giving us that potential. All other tools have been extensions of muscles and limbs, whereas the computer is an extension of the brain, and it is that which we make of it." \-- Erik Naggum, 1996-02-06 ([http://naggum.no/erik/knowledge.html](http://naggum.no/erik/knowledge.html))

</comment><comment><USER10> Famously, Apple coined the term "Bicycle for the Mind".

       I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is
       that we're tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of
       locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least
       energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive
       showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a
       showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn't look so good. But, then
       somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of
       locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a
       bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.

       - Steve Jobs

That's one of the reasons I've always loved Hypercard. [1] It made ordinary computer users programmers -- heck, it was even used to create the hit game Myst. In the video linked below, check out the used car salesman who creates a tool for matching cars with his customers. In the nineteen eighties no less!

As computers have become more consumer oriented, the ordinary user doesn't _need_ to know how to program. There are plenty of apps for individual purposes. But I often wonder how different things would be if our operating system were more like Hypercard. Need a calculator app? Build one. Okay, perhaps a waste of time you'd say. But let's say the ordinary user could build a calculator app -- those skills could be extended to piece together ever more sophisticated tools.

A lot of people argue that ordinary folks don't want to program. Or don't have the time... Recently I saw a tweet that turned the Bicycle for the Mind phrase into a dystopian one: A Treadmill for the Mind. Perhaps we have more time than we think, but we burn it on computers doing pointless things.

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3624149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3624149)

<comment><USER11> Treadmills do provide exercise, although at the expense of limited interaction with the natural environment.

There does seem to be a huge time/energy loss with the way we use computers for mindnumbing entertainment, rather than exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The lever, the transistor, the vacuum tube and the computer all have something in common. They're amplifiers, they allow a relatively small change or capability in a domain to have a much larger effect."

The article's premise unfortunately relies on a conflating of two or more distinct meanings for "amplify". A vacuum tube or transistor increases a pre- existing voltage or current level, but the thing being increased stays the same -- it's a change of scale. A computer amplifies a multidimensional capability like the ability to model reality using mathematics -- it's a change of scope.

A computer isn't just a faster or stronger version of biological processing, although that happens to be true. Consistency, precision and scope come into the equation also. But "amplification" really doesn't describe what the computer does, any more than it describes what we do.

</comment><comment><USER13> Might as well go to the source of Intelligence Amplification:

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

</comment><comment><USER14> For a simple machine, I like the inclined plane, because it occurs naturally at the human scale [humans don't just walk up cliffs -- or walk down them for that matter] and thus the tradeoffs are also obvious at a human scale.

Computers are great, but there are tradeoffs related to the supporting infrastructure [e.g. a military industrial complex]; the costs in learning to use them; and their potential to distract us from more important matters. TANSAAFL.

</comment><comment><USER15> For several years I have described mine as extensions of my mind.

They're where I do the math that would be too slow to calculate with my brain. They're where I edit and store the words that I want to share with others. They're where I visualize things that are beyond the capability of my imagination.

I think I like "Mind Amplifier". I may stick with that.

</comment><comment><USER16> Shameless plug for a (much longer and broader) thing I wrote on sort of the same subject:

[http://convexfunction.com/blog/2015/01/11/cognitive- behavior...](http://convexfunction.com/blog/2015/01/11/cognitive-behavioral- prosthetics/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I got stuck on what the 7 is supposed to be??

<comment><USER18> The number of chips. So if there are 3 defects in 7 chips...

      Some specific chip has the first defect.
      The odds that it has the 2nd defect are 1 in 7
      The odds that it also has the 3rd defect are 1 in 7 squared.

Which equals 0.020408....</comment></comment>


Wikipedia doesn't need your money - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia_chugging/ <comment><USER2> Yes, it's a hit piece, but that doesn't mean that the author doesn't raise some good questions.

What's the purpose of Wikipedia, anyway? Is it an online, open, encyclopedia? Or is it becoming some kind of quasi-political organization with tendrils everywhere?

There's one thing we are learning about the net: everybody wants to own the entire net. Whether it's Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, or Wiki, once you get so large you start thinking of the internet and your service as being the same.

Wikipedia has the money it needs to operate, yet still it grows. If anything, the bigger they get, the more demanding they are getting with asking for contributions. Why? I believe that's an excellent question, and investigating the answer is also fascinating. (As is watching the story continue to develop over the next 5-10 years)

<comment><USER3> Demanding? Questions to answer?

1\. They put up a temporary site notice asking for donations. They don't advertise on the project, and their sole source of funding is though donations. Very demanding.

2\. What questions, specifically, does the article raise in your mind? Note - I say "questions", and not vague and ill formulated doubts.

<comment><USER4> The question it raises in my mind is how much of my donation is going to fund the servers and bandwidth and what they are always asking for money for, and how much is going to other things that I would not agree are worthy of my charity dollars.

<comment><USER5> Last time I looked at their finances it was about 50% went to fund servers, bandwidth and engineering in general. Now I'm sure that they do need to spend more than that, but I found that proportion different to what I had expected and it discouraged me from donating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just one short detail to show how ridiculous and picking on details this article is:

How is covering Festivalsommer 2013 "highly questionable"? Thats a clever way do things!

Getting rights for pictures of artists is a long and messy process, so you best take them yourself and make sure that you are an accredited journalist, so you are actually allowed to publish them. For many german artists, there are no pictures at all. The project has already been tried on one festival last year (Wacken 2012) and they try to cover 30 festivals. Expecting 50 Bands per festival, this potentially yields 1500 pictures (more or less). For that, 18000 is a _steal_, especially expecting that volunteers provide their own equipment.

So, tl;dr: Wikipedia is more than a website, it is also a foundation[1] that tries to improve all aspects of the service in clever ways. This costs money as well.

[1] Actually, more then one, Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. is something completely different. Another thing the Article misses: Wikimedia Deutschland has its own budget.

<comment><USER7> Thats exactly the point why people are reluctant to donate. The budget for running Wikipedia the website is rapidly approaching single digit percentages while the foundation is hiring at startup rate.

<comment><USER8> A lot of those people are doing things like working on software and doing DevOps, which seems like "running Wikipedia the website to me". People complain that MediaWiki needs a visual editor that's easier for people to use, so Wikimedia hired developers who are working on that. That's pretty directly related to operational expenses, no?

People also want more frequent and better database dumps, scaling to account for more traffic and improve reliability, worldwide mirroring of the database servers to reduce latency across the world, a replacement of the increasingly crufty template language, etc., etc. All reasonable requests, but they require a staff of developers and sysadmins to implement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ah, Andrew Orlowski. When I was administrator, at around the time that I started the Admin's Noticeboard and maintained the Wikipedia In the News section of the site (thank you Google News!), I noticed that he attacked Wikipedia on an almost weekly basis.

The man has an axe to grind. Not sure why, but just bear that in mind when you read his articles.

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with that? As long as he's got arguments, there's nothing wrong with him focusing on an issue that he deems significant and educating people about the issue.

<comment><USER10> He's a British Drudge for the technology world. He's an inaccurate, rumour- mongering, slanderous/libelous troll. He's not someone with a pet issue offering useful critique, he's a vicious little ankle-biter who wants everyone else to hate what he hates because it drives traffic to his site.

<comment><USER3> Case in point: he flamed Charity: water for having the temerity to promote an event around twitter. The horror! This actually got a write up from Paul Carr in The Guardian.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/17/twestival-c...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/17/twestival- charity-trolls)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, in other 2005 news, The Register still hates Wikipedia. Honestly, I just don't get it. Sure, the culture can be off-putting. Sure, the donation drives can get annoying. But it's still a massive, eminently useful site run on a shoestring budget. The constant intimation that editors should be paid, a rather ridiculous assertion given the realities of open source communities, gives this piece the air of someone's personal gripe. It really does seem like someone set out to write a hit piece, then decided after what details to cherry pick in order to make it as hitty as possible.

One of these days, I'd be interested in finding out just what it is that makes The Register hate Wikipedia so much. The kind of vitriol you see from them is usually only matched by the Wikipedia Review, which leads me to believe that there's a jilted ex-editor somewhere on their staff whose mission is to expose the nasty, evil, free and open source encyclopedia to the world.

<comment><USER12> $51 million isn't really a shoestring budget any way you cut it.

<comment><USER11> Wikipedia serves more traffic than Amazon, Twitter, LinkedIn, or eBay. What's their budget?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Jimmy Wales' response on Quora <http://qr.ae/1A4iQ>

"That article is typical of The Register - typical nonsense. The number of falsehoods in it is substantial, so in the interests of time, I will cover just a few of the highlights.

1\. "The vast potential for advertising attracted venture capital firm Elevation Partners (whose investors include Bono from U2) to court Wikipedia" - at no point in our conversations with Elevation was there ever a suggestion that Wikipedia should take advertising. Indeed, Roger McNamee was quite adamant that Wikipedia should not do that.

2\. "Bono also urged Wales to drop the volunteers and hire professionals instead." This is absolutely and utterly false. Bono has never suggested any such thing nor anything even remotely resembling it. He's always been in awe of the community and how it all works.

The Wikimedia Foundation (and associated chapters) are incredibly transparent about our spending, hiring policies and practices, etc. The idea that the Foundation should restrict itself to the tiniest possible budget just to keep the site running is frankly idiotic.

And the idea that the Foundation has steadily increased our reserve position is bad is also idiotic. There can be such a thing as having too large a reserve, but we aren't close to that level yet. One think we know our donors are interested in (because of their response to banner messaging) is that we keep Wikipedia safe - and that means, in part, being fiscally responsible and building up a cushion for the future."

</comment><comment><USER14> They hired a lobbyist? That means they are evil, right? What would they need a lobbyist for, it's not as if freedom of information on the internet is under any threats at all? Nothing to see here, move along.

And they sent some people on a vacation with a work background, and printed business cards? Is it not allowed to throw parties for staff of charities? So why not work related vacations?

Very shocking...

</comment><comment><USER15> Seriously ? Merely clogging a bunch of maybe facts together doesn't make an evidence.

Every organisation is trying to grow and for that it's understandable that a non-profit will try to secure more funds.

</comment><comment><USER16> Dear smart people, stop upvoting sensationalist articles like this. I know that you can read through it and understand it lacks real arguements. Dumb people are not actually reading it, they're just reading the headline and first paragraph and thinking 'IT MUST BE TRUE'.

Yes wikipedia is becoming more than just an online encyclopedia, because it NEEDS to.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article reads as if it was published in a tabloid, to put it mildly. Flashy headline, then looses the focus of the headline and glues together separate paragraphs some of which seem far from the topic because there's no point being made with them, like the paragraphs about WMF not listing all its donations anymore and the decision not to show ads. In fact, there are very little assertions made. Instead, the author seems to hope that by throwing some statements, references and numbers, the readers would be impressed enough and draw conclusions. Statements like the ones below are all stated without ANY conclusion or are a conclusion on it's own but with no arguments preceding it: A) _"Earlier this year Wikipedia attracted criticism for its new-found enthusiasm for political campaigning - not a traditional activity for encyclopedias, where fairness and objectivity is part of the "brand"."_ , B) _"All this has been met with dismay by the loyal enthusiasts who do all the hard work of keeping the project afloat by editing and contributing words - and who still aren't paid. For the first time, Wikipedians are beginning to examine the cash awards - and are making some interesting discoveries."_ \+ subsequently quoting the salary of the WMF's director (again, with no point made), C) _"The Wikimedia Foundation hired a convicted felon as its chief operating officer to look after its books while on she was on parole. The executive's convictions included cheque fraud and unlawfully wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest."_ , D) _"The substantial contributions from Google leave the foundation open to the charge that it's lobbying for the agenda of large corporations by proxy."_

A) forgets to mention the implications SOPA had on Wikipedia.org B) Does the author confuse how the product (wiki) works - volunteers contribute for free- and the fact people employed by a charitable organization still get paid? C) The author "forgets" to mention that person worked at WMF only for 6 months instead of making it sound that person still works there. And what's the entire point of this? WMF is corrupt and hence money disappears? I'll get back to this later. D) "open to the charge" ? Ridiculous, anything can be left open to any charge; the question whether there's a substantial reasoning and/or proof for such charge(which are >completely< lacking here) is a whole another matter.

Now, let's look at the main (and only) statement of the article - WMF is awash with money and does not need donations to operate. "operate" is key. If the idea is to keep paying electricity, servers and maintenance, then yes, the author is right. This can be inferred from the stat he gives about WMF having only 3 employees in 2007 and operating with $3m. (Of course, ignoring growth in usage and costs)

But why should that be the goal of the fundraiser? Should it not aim to make Wikipedia.org the product we need it to be? Hence all the money spent on improving editing tools (yes, even if that means paying a research grant, what's wrong with that?), improving the community and especially reversing the trend of less and less people contributing to the wiki? These essentially are maintenance costs of the main product, even if the bits themselves are new development. Look at the projected staff growth for next year in [1]. Almost all of the jobs are software/system engineer jobs.

And the bit about the lobbyist is hilarious! I'm actually surprised they didn't have one until this year (or maybe I'm misreading).

The facts in the article about how some of the raised money has been spent indeed raises questions about the WMF's efficiency (and as Argorak points out[2], even those aren't definitive). But that's about it. Claiming that the foundation is "awash" with money and no donations are needed is a very large leap. It currently has $27.7m in reserve. According to WMF's strategic plan [1], this can last the foundation for less than a year. In other words, every year the money raised are extending the life of the foundation by 1 year. I find this very close to what the fund raising message on Wikipedia.org conveys.

edit: formatting

[1][http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-1...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf)

[2]<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947370>

<comment><USER18> So, one thing that always gets brought up is "yeah, but what about those reserves?"

WMF have in the past said that they keep about six months of cash in reserve. And have for a few years now. Orlowski and some of the troll brigade get very antsy about this. I think it is... sound financial planning.

I don't know about you, but having a cash reserve is kind of a useful selling point if you are trying to hire programmers and engineers. "We're not suddenly going to go bankrupt overnight and leave you in the lurch" is something you actually need to be able to tell prospective employees if they've got families and mortgages and so on.

As a Wikipedia admin and volunteer, I'm actually mostly okay with how the Foundation operates. Some of the local chapters are probably a bit too bloated but the Foundation itself, I'm broadly okay with.

<comment><USER19> As someone who has worked in the non-profit sector for several years, having a cash reserve is a best practice. Six months is on the smaller end. If you don't have cash reserves and fund raising falls short, you have to start laying people off, cutting programs, turning off servers, etc. Or if the global economy tanks and people stop donating, your whole non-profit may be in trouble.

Six months of cash to cover all expenses is a selling point of Wikipedia, not a detraction. I want to donate to and work for financially prudent non- profits. If anything, I'd like to see their cash reserves upped to more like a year or so.

<comment><USER18> Six months was the last time I attended a fundraising discussion meeting. I think that there may be long-term plans to try and keep a bigger cash reserve. It's what happens when non-profits grow up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Andrew Orlowski alert!

<comment><USER21> Does anyone know why he's got such a bee in his bonnet about anything that works against the continued expansion of copyright?

I realise he's a journalist and so sells the copyright to his own work, but he's so aggressive about it I always assume there's something else going on, like some weird religious or political affiliation? Anyone?

<comment><USER22> He seems close to Dominic Young, previously News International's director of strategy and product development, who now runs <http://copyrightblog.co.uk/> (intellectual platform or industry mouthpiece - you decide).

Dominic was a source for his piece railing against the "Don't break the internet" slogan [1].

I wouldn't really consider any of these Orlowski pieces journalism. He's clearly very close to certain industries (Content and Nuclear for instance) and seems to just write hit pieces for the industries he favours, relying on some intellectual sleight-of-hand and snark to woo readers to an industry point of view.

I suppose The Register is a channel to a particular educated, technical demographic and Orlowski uses his influece to try to shape the opinions of that demographic.

I've no idea whether he gets paid via other channels for his strident advocacy, and would actually prefer that it was a situation where Hanlon's razor is in play, because most of what he writes is ridiculous.

[1] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/09/breaking_the_interne...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/09/breaking_the_internet_no_property_no_privacy/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd rather they use my money to buy themselves more hard drive so they wouldn't have to delete as many articles.

I feel there are enough music and politician articles already on Wikipedia. The fringe articles are what would drive more participants to WP, were they not deleted.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd consider donating when they get serious about the deletionist problem and stop pretending that the drop off in new contributions has anything to do with the absurd notion that wikipedia is exhausting the depth and breadth of human knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wikipedia gives me so much value US$50/year is cheap. I wouldn't mind if people there where getting rich building it. Although Corporate/Organizational transparency is always a good thing, and should be demanded.

</comment><comment><USER26> I donated, yet I still see the annoying banner. How do I make it go away?

<comment><USER27> That's my top pet peeve. Pay and still see ads? Removes a major incentive. I rememer long ago RealAudio introduced a constantly-rotating ad in their player. Paid for it -the ads remained! Had to ask for my money back, deinstall, never used it again.

<comment><USER18> So, there's a reason for it. Namely, the way to implement that would require setting a cookie to say you've donated. And it'd be a cross-site cookie (because the payment is done on the Foundation site, not on Wikipedia).

The Privacy Policy is pretty strong on things like that: we don't set cookies unless there's a need to. Fortunately, you just click the 'X' button in the top-right hand corner and the banner will go away for the rest of the fundraiser... whether you've donated or not.

<comment><USER28> Can the donations be tied to a user account? What prevents checking 'user donated within 6 months'? (Assuming people can and do provide the information and remain logged in)

<comment><USER29> The donation page is on wikimedia.org and there's no mechanism to transfer your cookie, so good luck with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I really think they should have taken the advertising route. A couple of google ads would have been enough to fund the site, and they would be less of a nuisance than they're fundraising ads.

In fact, I think if they had become a for-profit, they could have innovated more than they do as a non-profit. Quora and StackExchange show you can use user-contributed content in a balanced, but for-profit way. Imagine if Google had become a non-profit dedicated to an open search. We wouldn't have Gmail, Android or self-driving cars...

<comment><USER31> If they had goole adverts they would have to follow google content guidelines. That would be awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> You can see Wikimedia Foundation's latest IRS Form 990, which includes information about their revenues, expenses and salaries of key employees, here:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/Form_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/Form_990_-_FY_10-11_-_Public.pdf)

Additional financial reports can be found here:

[https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2012....](https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2012.E2.80.932013_fiscal_year)

</comment><comment><USER4> They sure are good at crafting that advertising message to make it sound like they are in dire straits to even pay the hosting bills.

Make it sound like a small org: "we have only 150 staff" ...

Lead with the necessary hosting costs, even if stuff like "programs" is where the money is being spent: "have costs like any other top site: servers, power, rent, programs, staff, and legal help"

Imply the whole project is on shaky ground: "take one minute to keep it online another year"

</comment><comment><USER33> Here's the response from Jimmy Wales [http://www.quora.com/Wikipedia/Is- Wikipedia-collecting-more-...](http://www.quora.com/Wikipedia/Is-Wikipedia- collecting-more-money-than-required)

</comment><comment><USER34> Wikipedia should allow per project/task funding, so you could dedicate your money to infrastructure, lobbying, single research projects or any combination of those.

<comment><USER35> Charities hate this. Ringfencing costs them a ton of money to track, exposes them to legal liabilities, does little good, is often entirely meaningless given the fungibility of money, and reduces flexibility. The way I put it would be this: if you don't trust them to spend your money well, why do you trust them to spend a restricted donation? Shouldn't you find a charity you do trust? There's so many out there, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If they ask for donations, it seems fair to know what their operating costs are as others have pointed out. As a point of reference, all of the non profits I donate to have annual reports that specify exactly where the monies go, and are audited. People will indeed donate if they believe the money is going to a good cause and there's adequate transparency. See Kiva.org and the job they've done in that area.

<comment><USER37> Wikimedia provides all of this. See if you can spot it hidden on this page:

<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>

<comment><USER36> lol epic fail for me. Thanks for that! Funny, I usually enter Wikipedia from search engines...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ah, Orlowski. He's still going?

Bless.

</comment><comment><USER39> "You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villan" -- given the contribution wikipedia has made to the world, personally I am ok paying $100/yr to fund their beer.

As for the people editing wikipedia - its similar to facebook users adding their "data" and Mark profiting from it all. Why should this be an exception?

</comment><comment><USER40> Just check his TED talk. <http://blog.ted.com/2006/08/29/jimmy_wales_on/>

He basically says it's dirt cheap to host and operate and that it's one of the best things about it.

At the time of the video their bandwidth costs per month was just 5000$ and one paid programmer.

Aka you don't need millions to run it. So I was a little baffled when I saw his first big campaign to raise money.

<comment><USER3> That was a talk from 7 years ago. Wikipedia experienced explosive growth at around that time, and the WMF (the organisation you donate to) have expanded their remit since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Jimmy Wales is very active on Quora and answers pretty much any question with his name in it (and it's "free" to ask him to answer) if anybody cares to post this. I was going to, but since the comments here seem to say the article is without merit, I wont.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious as to what questions it actually raises? There was, a long time ago, someone who has now left as COO. The WMF (which the article consistently calls "Wikipedia") runs quite an open operation. Sue Gardener put in excellent processes into place and the organization is quite a tight ship by all accounts.

Probably there are some stuff ups. It's a non-profit. The business cards issue sounds like one of those. That's something that can happen with any organization, so not sure if that's enough to see some sort of nefarious scheme conning people out of their money...

Of all the issues that Orlowski could nit-pick on, he chose the most ridiculous. There's nothing to see here, just a bunch of assertions with no evidence or even earth shattering revelations.

Frankly, the article is a hatchet job. Bravo El Reg, a quality publication!

<comment><USER42> I hate the Register and I haven't read the article.

So, ignoring that article: You have some knowledge of Wikimedia, and Wikipedia, and the foundation. What problems do you think those projects have, and how could they overcome those problems?

I ask in the spirit of learning, not bashing.

<comment><USER3> To be honest, it's been a very long time since I was an active participant on Wikipedia. The issues I had we're always with Wikipedia, and almost never the regulars (except Giano, who I notice has now left the project). I never had an issue with anyone from the WMF, they were always very professional.

The few issues I did have were based on unsubstantiated rumour, so I'm not about to repeat them here, suffice to say that those perceived or real issues were cleaned up a _long_ time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I donated, but yeah, I'd like to know what the operating costs are.

<comment><USER44> I donated as well (and got a bunch of others to do so, without any guilt tripping), but I don't really care what the operating costs are.

I (personally) price goods and services by the value they offer me, and not the cost of providing said goods and services.

<comment><USER4> So if it turns out Jimmy Wales always flies first class... still don't care?

<comment><USER18> Jimmy doesn't take any expenses from the Foundation. He pays his own way with things like flights and hotels even when he's on Wikipedia business.

<comment><USER4> It was just an example. It's easy to say "I don't care about what they spend their money on if I'm getting value" if they are reasonable about spending the money. But it's very easy for foundations to start spending a lot of money in ways that aren't very key to their mission.

<comment><USER45> Speaking as a long-time WP editor, if the Foundation decided to fly Wales around First Class, that sure wouldn't bother me at all. The man has devoted himself to a widely-recognized and ever-more-succesful project ... I think he deserves some perks. (A helluva lot more savory than W's frequent flights to 'cut brush' on his 'ranch'.) He's the man who's got to answer the world's questions, after all (and who was, I'll add, right about a LOT of stuff).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> An easy way to monetize would be to capitalize on the black market for admin/sysop accounts. I bet politicians and corporate executives would pay for a properly leveled-up account.

<comment><USER47> Trust me, it really wouldn't be worthwhile.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention they would be quickly exposed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I got downvoted to hell for saying this is another ycombinator thread two days ago... I guess I jumped out in front of the bandwagon instead of on to it.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'll donate if they promise to never revert my edits again.</comment>


How to Improve MacBook Pro Performance and Thermals - <AUTHOR> https://bsid.io/posts/2019/03/how-to-improve-macbook-pro-performance-and-thermals/ <comment><USER2> Pro tip: If your MBP is overheating (constant high fan speeds) the problem is usually a lot simpler than the thermal paste issue described in the article. It's usually just dust buildup.

I have fixed multiple overheating Macbook pro's by simply cleaning out the dust buildup underneath the rubber pad, between the fan housing and the heatsink. The airflow compresses the dust into an almost solid piece (like felt), which blocks the airflow. You can usually pull it out as one piece. All you need is a pentalobe screwdriver, a pair of tweezers and maybe some compressed air.

Especially if your laptop often gets into contact with fabrics (on your lap or in bed), you should do this cleaning once a year.

<comment><USER3> OMG! You were not joking about the "felt" like appearance of the dust!

My MBP seems to always have the fans on. I do occasionally run compressed air across the vents (from the outside) but decided to open it up thanks to this thread.

As I was cleaning, I noticed that when blowing compressed air into the vents, one of the fans was not turning (indicating no air reaching?) I grabbed some precision tweezers and pulled this out: [https://i.imgur.com/aIPSRdi.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/aIPSRdi.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Nice find, but please don't blow compressed air into a fan without blocking its rotation. It will induce currents and can cause damage to your mainboard.

<comment><USER5> Seems like a problem a simple diode would fix. Is this really an issue?

<comment><USER2> Most motherboards (but not all) have basic protection for this, so it's quite unlikely that you break your motherboard electronically that way.

That said, blowing compressed air at a fan will spin the fan much faster than what it was designed for. So you still risk breaking the fan mechanically. Always hold the fan when blowing compressed air at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case the author shows up here -- I clicked through to the next post ([https://bsid.io/posts/2019/03/my-experiment-with- honesty/](https://bsid.io/posts/2019/03/my-experiment-with-honesty/)) which describes what I think is the author getting ripped off and having their work stolen by another individual. If you're reading this, author: you should publicly shame that individual, or outright sue them if you have the resources. In particular you should contact their employer or advisers and let them know that the paper they published is your work, not theirs.

</comment><comment><USER7> I see Apple hasn't changed at all --- these memorable pages from the official service manual of many years ago shows what they considered the "correct" amount of paste:

[http://attach.mobile01.com/attach/200605/mobile01-514da8fc7f...](http://attach.mobile01.com/attach/200605/mobile01-514da8fc7fc5ce50359d0bd754a7c73c.jpg)

[http://attach.mobile01.com/attach/200605/mobile01-e89d3804df...](http://attach.mobile01.com/attach/200605/mobile01-e89d3804df75a137bd9adbe040817a57.jpg)

[https://www.techpowerup.com/img/06-05-01/lol1qe.jpg](https://www.techpowerup.com/img/06-05-01/lol1qe.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Are you sure those are Apple circuit boards? When and what boards used blue solder mask?

<comment><USER7> The last picture comes from the MacBook Pro 2006 service manual.

I believe the first two come from the MacBook (not pro) early 2006 service manual, since the colour of the paste is white instead of the grey of later manuals which show (only slightly) smaller amounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Post author called out the warranty multiple times. If you're in the USA, at least, bear in mind that doing what's described in the post does not void the warranty. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act explicitly requires the manufacturer to prove that your action caused the negative impact the warranty claim is made against, otherwise they legally can't void your warranty.

<comment><USER10> If Apple decides to flagrantly break that law, what options does an individual consumer have? Is there a government agency that will fight on behalf of that consumer, or does the consumer have to hire their own lawyer?

<comment> crooked-v Small claims court can cover up to at least $5,000 or $10,000 in most states, and is generally friendly to the layman or may even ban the use of trained lawyers in some locations.

<comment><USER11> > may even ban the use of trained lawyers in some locations

So who do companies send to defend themselves?

<comment><USER12> They often don't bother - the cost of sending a representative is frequently greater than the cost of paying the judgement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whatever you do please do not do this on a 2016+ MacBook Pro.

It is significantly more complex than on previous generations. There are a lot of very tiny, very fragile cables which are very easy to break.

It gets a 1/10 rating for repairability for a reason.

<comment><USER14> In fact, it's already fragile without opening it at all...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's the first thing I do with any new laptop, be it Apple, HP, Dell, or Lenovo. It really makes a massive difference.

In my experience HP pushes the thermal boundary more than most (they generally offer higher TDP options for custom builds than their competitors without tailoring for it).

Some people take this to the next level and decap the processors and then use liquid thermal compound instead of the paste. _That_ probably voids your warranty.

<comment><USER16> > Some people take this to the next level and decap the processors and then > use liquid thermal compound instead of the paste.

They're probably de _lid_ ing the CPU (removing the integrated heat spreader (IHS) to put the compound on the die directly), not de _cap_ ping it. I can't imagine a CPU surviving the latter.

The CPU in the article is lid-less so that's not a concern.

And some CPUs have a soldered heatspreader, this allows for much better heat transfer to the IHS but means delidding is destructive (though way less necessary to be fair). Ryzen chips are soldered.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, I did indeed mean delid. As far as I know, the practice only became common once manufacturers stopped soldering the heatspreaders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One little nitpick-

> This only works efficiently, though, if a very thin layer of thermal paste > is applied between CPU and heatsink in such a way that minimises the chance > of creating "air bubbles" (air has a bad thermal conductivity).

The issue here isn't really air bubbles. It's true that air has very poor thermal conductivity, but the real issue is that the thermal paste itself has very poor thermal conductivity compared to the solid copper heatsink. The paste is really just supposed to fill in any microscopic pits in the surface to get the copper in good contact. People go to great lengths to make the surfaces as smooth as possible, going as far as to hand lap their heatsinks to a mirror polished finish.

<comment><USER18> Seems I have been doing it wrong So I really want just a tiny amount of thermal paste?

<comment><USER12> The maximum thickness of the paste layer is determined wholly by the clamping pressure and coplanarity of the thermal interface. You can only end up with an excess of paste between the CPU and heatsink if a) the heatsink contact plate or CPU package aren't flat or b) the clamping mechanism isn't properly pressing them together.

Apply too much thermal paste and it'll just squeeze out of the edges, which is merely inconvenient as long as the paste is reasonably non-conductive. Apply too little paste and you'll get air gaps, which have terrible thermal conductivity. If in doubt, just spread the paste to ensure that it fully covers the contact area.

[https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3346-thermal-paste- applic...](https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3346-thermal-paste-application- benchmark-too-much-thermal-paste)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MEAnZ3swQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MEAnZ3swQ)

<comment><USER19> TLDW: You can apply whichever you like, just don't put too little.

Even putting way too much makes 0 difference.

OP's problem was probably dust and ageing of paste. Plus interestingly there was less power used in test AFTER so I guess that contributed most.

<comment><USER20> Extra power would've been used on spinning the fan to remove excess heat. Less heat, less cooling needed.

<comment><USER19> Those fans use nowhere close 1-2 watt delta he observed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Without seeing results AFTER the dust was removed and BEFORE the new thermal paste was applied, it is impossible to attribute the resulting improvement to the thermal paste itself. That computer is super dusty, and I suspect the significant amount of dust removed from the fan and inbetween the fins of the heat sink would explain a large portion of the difference.

If the author has results from after the cleaning, they would help paint a clearer picture.

<comment><USER22> I guess the dust wasn't that significant to affect the results. This can be seen in the post-Thumbnail. The image was taken immediately after opening the backplate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Don't do this.

I have the same model. Had overheating problems. Took it to the Apple store. They fixed it and refurbished it for me. Even replaced the bottom case because of a couple of dents. It's like a brand new machine. Charged me $0. This is why I love Apple and will never switch.

<comment><USER24> You love apple because they don't repair their products, they just trick you into paying for insurance that lets them swap huge chunks of your device instead of finding and fixing what's wrong.

<comment><USER23> You're wrong. I never paid for Applecare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I swapped PTIM (stock thermal paste) with Gallium alloy (Grizzly Conductonaut or Coolaboratories Liquid Metal). The results were absolutely incredible, better than what this article exemplifies. If you're going to open up the chassis, might as well go to the full extent and replace thermal paste with liquid gallium.

<comment><USER26> I've always wondered why hardware manufacturers don't use better thermal paste on CPUs. When I build PCs I would always replace the stock thermal paste and the cost was always pretty minimal and that was without the economies of scale they'd have. If this small thing helps so much why wouldn't they use it? What is the down side?

<comment><USER16> > What is the down side?

The gain is low, it increases costs, and better thermal pastes are electrically conductive so applying them industrially is a more complex endeavour (as you absolutely can't risk leaking/spreading them to any component). The risk/reward just isn't there for manufacturers.

<comment><USER27> Also any surface that comes into contact with the gallium should really be nickel plated.

Copper is OK, but Gallium does alloy slightly and you may need to reapply after a year or so, not a problem with nickel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Any ideas why Apple doesn't do this themselves?

I understand that it doesn't make the system look better to a low-information buyer. So Lenovo aren't doing it. But Apply seem motivated to add small costs in exchange for moderate (if invisible) benefits.

<comment><USER29> Applying thermal paste "the correct way" needs some person to do very delicated labor. And also is impossible to do a proper QA.

Now imagine doing this in a factory pipeline. I don't think this would scale.

<comment><USER30> I would disagree - to give an electronics example, this level of work is done all the time at large scale on PCB manufacturers with solder mask, solder paste, silk screens, etc.

Print shops can do this kind of work, too (precise amounts, sub-millimeter accuracy, irregular surfaces, almost any kind of coating, etc.).

<comment><USER31> They could, but when you open up a laptop where the manufacturer used thermal paste and you'll more often than not find it apparently applied with a turkey baster in a tenth of a second. Just a big old splat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I did the same with my 2011 Macbook Pro in 2017, also to similar effect. As another poster points out, the more frequent maintenance task that makes a big difference is removing the fan and pulling the dust out.

[https://scotchi.net/2017/03/04/considering-reapplying-the- th...](https://scotchi.net/2017/03/04/considering-reapplying-the-thermal- paste-on-a-2011-macbook-pro/)

With that, my 2011 2.7 GHz i7 Macbook Pro continues to be completely usable even for C++ development (also has a 1 TB SSD and 8 GB of RAM), and hopefully will get me through to a point that Apple releases a laptop that I actually want to buy. If they haven't released a Macbook with a better keyboard by the time this thing dies, it'll be my last Apple laptop.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why would changing thermal paste reduce idle power draw by 1.6 watts (more than 50%)?

<comment><USER34> Just guessing, but the fans might not start running that early with better heat dissipation.

<comment><USER35> Keeping the silicon cool reduces power consumption by about 3.5-4% per 10K.

But that should not be case for idle, so lower fan speeds (or no fan) seems logical

<comment><USER36> This is correct. Lower power consumption as a result of better TIM and thus lower core temperatures:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poole–Frenkel_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poole–Frenkel_effect)

[https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/effect-of- temperature-o...](https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/effect-of-temperature- on-power-consumption-with-the-i7-2600k.2200205/)

The effect is so pronounced that a watercooled computer running under full load will typically use less power than an identical aircooled computer, because the lowered silicon current leakage more than makes up for the power consumption of the pump and additional fans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I would have liked to see more photos of the paste being applied. And is that the CPU and GPU sharing the same heatsink? Or is there another one that needed to be taken apart?

<comment><USER38> 13" MacBook Pros have integrated Intel Iris graphics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Awesome. Going to try this. Ardent believer in the 2015 MBP.

</comment><comment><USER38> > only hard drives and memory can be replaced / upgraded on Macbook Pros by > the owner without affecting the warranty

Not on _this_ MacBook Pro.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can I bring my MBP which is under warranty to the Apple Store along with the paste and ask them to do it? I tried bringing my MBP here in EU to an Apple Store for thermal issues and they told me everything it's fine while it obviously isn't and they weren't wiling to do anything but to keep it for "weeks" to see if there's any issue through a more in depth review.

<comment><USER41> Very unlikely. If you can convince them of a repair, they'll want to use their own supplies.

This reminds of Canadian CBC National investigation into how instead of identifying problems, Apple was caught misdiagnosing and pushing purchasing new products. [https://youtu.be/_XneTBhRPYk](https://youtu.be/_XneTBhRPYk)

I don't know if you'd have to pay, I suspect you would, but an independent repair shop is likely going to care more about you and your nuanced issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Author here. A small update regarding warranty Opening the base plate doesn't void warranty [1] [1][https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3zix1f/does_this_voi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3zix1f/does_this_void_a_macbook_pros_warranty/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Is it possible to have someone experienced do this for you or your company in San Francisco? Either cleaning out the dust, and/or applying new paste? (how much would it likely cost if so?)

(also, does it apply to a MacBook Air?)

<comment><USER43> Yes it does — and it's simple enough that most people can do it, provided that you agree to not hold them responsible if things break. Just go to any tech repair shop and bring them your own thermal paste, which is like $5.

Or better, find a friend to do it for you for a beer. This is just basic maintenance, so very low skill kind of thing.

<comment><USER42> The reason I ask is because I specifically am interested in those who have the professional confidence to be held responsible if something goes wrong (even in complex situations; e.g. a warped chassis).

<comment><USER43> I don't think anybody would ever sign that contract, however if you'd still like to try, your best bet is Apple authorised repair shops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Questions.

What other possible ways to clean up the dust without opening my machine?

Would Apple reapply the paste and clean up the dust if I had other form of repair, assuming I am still under AppleCare+?

</comment><comment><USER22> Author here. Happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have a mid 2014 MBP, and I wonder if my machine could benefit from this kind of effort...

<comment><USER46> Just popping it open and cleaning out the dust and gunk will give you most of the benefit without having to fiddle with goo and funny screwdrivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> What's with this weird font that puts the Norwegian letter Ø instead of 0s?

<comment><USER38> It's Inter UI with font-feature-settings: "zero".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Has anyone tried thermal pads instead? What was the result compared to paste ?

<comment><USER49> Normal Thermal pads are TERRRIBLE and will cause the computer to overheat.

Except those new fancy graphite thermal pads ( thermal grizzly sells some ). Those are generally worse than good paste but are pretty good and they have the added pro of being reusable and keeping their thermal property forever unlike paste. In a laptop that is subject to tension stress they may provide better cooling over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> undervolting the CPU (with Intel extreme tuning) can also help without opening up the notebook. unfortunately that's Windows only. not sure what is for macos...

<comment><USER36> Older Haswell rMBPs can be undervolted with but it requires disabling SIP which is not recommended.

Read the warnings and disclaimers and inspect the source code:

[https://github.com/sicreative/VoltageShift](https://github.com/sicreative/VoltageShift)

newer MBPs (2016+) appear to be locked down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Make it thicker? XD

</comment><comment><USER52> eh. instead of buying $400 screwdrivers and opening up the chassis to mess with the thermal paste, i've fixed my 2015 mbp thermal issues by getting a $15 usb laptop cooling pad on amazon.

works like a charm, even with multiple editing sessions on many monitors.

edit: i misread the price of the screwdrivers. I still recommend a cooling pad. High power draw is usually when I'm using extra monitors at a desk anyways.

<comment><USER53> $400 screwdrivers? The screwdrivers pictured were 349 rupees ~ $5.

<comment><USER54> I had to do a double-take when the he said the paste cost "740". I don't know much about thermal paste so I could've believed it was dollars if it was really something special. But then I noticed the "Rs." beneath the image.</comment></comment></comment>


How to build a chatbot that helps people find a parking spot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tzano/spotFinder/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Nice write up, but is the chat interface really necessary?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The idea behind adding a chat interface is to ease the process of accessing to the information while driving. Using Conversational UIs, the driver doesn't need to filter and look for the information himself.

> ... Imagine driving down in the street, looking for a place to park in. > While driving, you open your phone, look for a map or a mobile application > that provides probabilistic estimation on where you can find empty spots, > you take some time to open it and start looking on the map for the nearest > parking lot .. how much time do you think you will spend scratching the > surface of your phone before getting a ticket ?</comment></comment>


B-tree vs. Binary Search Tree - <AUTHOR> http://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/b-tree-vs-binary-search-tree/ <comment><USER2> "I studied this source codes and think I should be able to further optimize it. In the end, I got my kbtree.h macro library. As you can see in my hash table benchmark, the modified version beats STL set while using even smaller memory than the original version."

I don't see any such benchmarks in the article, which makes any claims not very useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> A nice explanation of what this is all about is one written by Rod Stephens at <http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/38097>

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm rather unimpressed by a linear reduction in memory consumption. Mostly because its linear, and its "easy" to scale linearly (its called going and buying more RAM!)

<comment><USER5> > Mostly because its linear, and its "easy" to scale linearly (its called > going and buying more RAM!)

It's only easy if your system isn't maxed or if your data segment isn't already at its limits. (64 bit addresses cause yet another round of bloat.)

<comment><USER4> My point here is that linear improvements don't really improve your scaling or performance in any real sense. Linear improvements are equivalent to buying hardware (or sharding), whereas I think the kind of really nice improvement you want is say changing an exponential factor. Because thats the kind of improvement you can't compete with by buying hardware.

That being said, for a large enough server farm, yes, linear improvements are totally beneficial. (And a small enough server farm.) But its important to keep in perspective that not all betters are created equal ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the various criticisms listed here are all valid (lack of benchmarks renders performance claims dubious, linear reduction in RAM is not that big a deal) but I still think it's worth the reminder that B-trees (and other alternatives to Binary Search Trees) are around. It's easy to get in familiar ruts with data structures....</comment>


Crab – an interpreter for a tiny subset of Logo - <AUTHOR> http://beyondloom.com/crab <comment><USER2> A cute implementation! I really love Logo / that whole aesthetic of the early versions... I like the slowness of building a picture that way, and I like the interactive development process. It's much closer to a video game kind of experience.</comment>