Philadelphia write-in candidate: I won with one vote - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/362934-philadelphia-write-in-candidate-shocked-by-surprise-victory <comment><USER2> "being elected as an election judge"

Is America unique in having so many elections and positions? This job title reminds me of the "Fuse alarm fuse" (which was the fuse for the alarm that checked if a fuse had blown)

<comment><USER3> It's a pretty minimal responsibility. It's basically the person whose job it is to setup the polling place, collect the ballots, and make sure there is no funny business. You literally work 2 days a year, and have no other responsibilities.

<comment><USER4> I was a polling place Inspector in Orange County, CA for around six years.

In the lead up to an election I'd work, first up was ~2 hours of training. We were the ones in charge of the polling place, so we were the ones who needed to know all the processes and procedures.

The weekend before the election, I would pick up the supplies. Probably around 40-50 pounds of stuff. You aren't allowed to leave In in your car: Once you sign the chain of custody for it, the next time you get out of your car is when you're parked at home, ready to unload.

In the weeks before the election, I also would be getting in touch with whomever is in charge of the polling place site. You think it's fun dealing with an HOA as a resident? Well, try dealing with them as an outsider.

So, leading up to the election (that is, prior to E-1), I would've logged about 7 hours, most of which was during a business day (training could be daytime or evening, as there were always multiple sessions available, and supplies pickup was always on a weekend).

Oh, and I was also responsible for managing the other people would be at the polling place.

On E-1, if I got prior OK from the property, I would set up some time during the evening. Sometimes one or two of my clerks would be available to help, but not always. Anything non-sensitive and nonessential was set up (so, no breaking seals yet!).

On E-Day I would be waking up around 4:30. Polls open precisely at 7, so I had to be at the polling place by 6. I would take attendance, administer the oath, go through the same oath myself, and then do all the seal verification and equipment setup. Then, the flood began.

If I had a full board, I could give everyone (and myself) a lunch and a break. If we were short, then we would do what we could. Luckily, we all got some sort of break!

There would be quiet times during the day, but it would often be nonstop during the morning (there was always a line at opening) and after 4.

Polls close at 8. We then had to do full packing, space cleanup, and all of the accounting. It was a win for us if we left by 9.

I then had to go to drop off everything, with a clerk driving behind me (to make sure I went directly to the drop off point). If anything was missing, I was on the hook for it. It was a win for me if I was out by 10.

Finally, on E+1, I'd have to return the facility key. Then I was truely done.

It was a drawn-out process, but almost everything we did had a very good reason. Yes, the hours were long, and the work was often not fun, but I took a _great_ deal of pride in it.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for your service, Karl. Perhaps you might share some more light on your experience "administering the vote" as a polling place inspector. As a technologist, what do you see as the major error modes of the American system of polling? Do you think fraud is wide-spread? Is it even possible to measure fraud (since, by definition, if you detect it you eliminate it)? Are there other methods of polling that might work better? It seems like a really hard problem, and I've wanted to ask someone "on the inside" for a while now, and this seems like a good opportunity. Thanks in advance.

<comment><USER4> Hello!

To be clear, I wasn't an employee of the Orange County Registrar of Voters, so I wouldn't count myself as being "on the inside". Neal Kelley, who was Registrar of Voters back when I volunteered, is still there today, and was doing alot of stuff with YouTube at the time. Check it out: [https://www.youtube.com/user/ocrov/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/ocrov/videos)

There is also a _ton_ of poll worker training info online, which you can read here: [https://www.ocvote.com/volunteer/poll-worker-resource- center...](https://www.ocvote.com/volunteer/poll-worker-resource-center/) The dates say 2016, because there won't be many updates in off years.

I first volunteered because Orange County were using the Hart InterCivic eSlate voting system. You can read about them here: [https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting- equipment/ha...](https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting- equipment/hart-intercivic/eslate/)

These systems didn't run Windows. They ran some sort of minimal OS that had a sub 10-second boot time. Power and data went through the same cable, with a DB-9 connector at each end. All case seams and unused ports had security seals on them, which were checked at pickup, at dropoff, and during the day (we had chain of custody paperwork that travelled with the hardware). All the voting machines had printers. The eSlates were in stand-up cases with all the necessary hardware (feet for standing up, privacy shroud, etc.), and which also kept all the ports covered up. Since power to the eSlates came through the data cable, anyone messing with a cable would take out their eSlate, and all the ones after it.

(NOTE: You may notice many setups having a power cable for each eSlate. That's not a power cable for the eSlate, it's a power cable for the printer. The printers are thermal printers, and draw enough power that they can't use the daisy-chain power source.)

All of our eSlates had printers. Ballots lived in each individual eSlate's memory, in the JBC's (the controller's) memory, and in paper form (the printer was sealed). It could run on battery for a limited time, though we couldn't use that, because the printer wouldn't work. We had a supply of paper ballots if all else failed. Emergency support (new equipment, more paper ballots, etc.) was available typically within an hour.

I ended up really liking the voting system, because it was simple on the face of it, but it was also clear to me that it wasn't using a Windows OS. I wish it was used more.

> As a technologist, what do you see as the major error modes of the American > system of polling?

You're not going to get the answer you want. I know alot about the executing of the voting process for Orange County, California. That _might_ translate to other counties in California (as election policy is set most at the state level), but I'm not going to speak to other locales. To do so, I would need to study the county's training material, and see polling place-level records of a previous election.

But, _speaking specifically to Orange County, California_, I noticed two issues:

1\. Change of Address often did not make it to the voter rolls. If you moved within a county, it was more likely to process OK, followed by moving between counties, but moving between states often didn't remove you from your former home's rolls.

I think this was a trust or coordination issue: Since policy is mostly set at the state level, it's easier to coordinate information transfer between counties in a state. There isn't much in the way of a Federal ID number, except for the SSN, and I doubt your Registrar would want anything to do with that number.

2\. Your full ballot is most often only available at the polling places within your precinct. IMO, that is because of (a) the voting systems are not using full-featured OSes, so they lack the capacity to store that many different types + languages of ballots; plus (b) each polling place only has their own rolls, so your info is only listed at your polling place.

Note how both issues seem to be forms of information synchronization problems: Transferring data between regions (which doesn't have to happen quickly), or synchronizing voter sign-in data between polling places in real time.

Personally, in my opinion, I would rather _not_ have real-time sign-in data sync between polling places, because that adds more layers of technology that could go wrong.

Also, we had a good method of handling provisionals: If anything would go wrong procedural-wise, we would record information about you, and us (the polling place), and the situation. You would then sign paperwork saying that the information is correct, and you haven't already voted. You would then vote, with your ballet uniquely IDed. All the info, and the unique ID of the ballot, would go into a sealed envelope, which was treated like a voted ballot. Your vote would not count in the immediate numbers (the numbers released that night), but if everything checked out, it _would_ be counted in the final, certified numbers.

According to [https://www.ocvote.com/results/left-to-count/provisionals- le...](https://www.ocvote.com/results/left-to-count/provisionals-left-to- count/), OC had ~130k provisional ballots processed.

>Do you think fraud is wide-spread?

No, I do not think fraud is wide-spread (_in Orange County, California_), precisely because of the provisional process. For example, if someone voted by mail, the rolls reflect that. If someone then comes in and tries to vote using that name, then they have two choices:

1\. Hand over your un-mailed, empty return envelope, and vote at the polls. We then void your envelope, and keep it in a special container, separate from everything else.

2\. Vote provisionally.

(If you have a sealed, ready-to-mail return envelope, you could also drop it off to us directly, to save the stamp. We treated those the same as voted ballots.)

If anything appeared unusual, we would record all the information, and then the voter would vote provisionally.

It's worth noting that the provisional voting process added 5-10 minutes to the voting process, so perpetrating fraud would need a significant investment in manpower, with no guarantee that your provisional ballot would make it past the people at the ROV who would examine it.

The only real way I could think of to perpetrate voter fraud is to memorize a significant number of non-vote-by-mail voters' full names and addresses, and then claim to be them at the polling place. But, again, you need alot of manpower, because it's the same Clerks for the entire day, so if you show up multiple times, people will notice. Making vote-by-mail easy to do really helps stop this, because of what I described above.

> Is it even possible to measure fraud (since, by definition, if you detect it > you eliminate it)?

Yes, you can. You take the rolls after the election, scan in the signatures, and compare those signatures to each voter's original registration. If a _specialist_ can confirm a signature mismatch, then you have the _possibility_ of one instance of voter fraud, which you (by definition) _cannot_ correct, because all the non-provisional ballots are anonymous.

This is another plus point for vote-by-mail, as you can catch these cases before removing the ballot from the envelope.

> Are there other methods of polling that might work better?

This question is too general for me to answer. For example, the system whereby states set election policy is something that comes from the country's history as a tight alliance of individual States, so IMO it's not really worth arguing that.

I think there could be two major improvements:

1\. Make it _much_ easier for change of address info to get to Registrars of Voters. For example, when you terminate a rent/lease, or submit a Change of Address form to the USPS or DMV/BMV, that should trigger an automatic notification to the ROV for the county you are leaving. You would then take responsibility for registering at your new address.

The concern there is privacy, because it makes voter information even more valuable. That brings me to suggestion #2…

2\. Have all voter communications go through the Registrar.

Instead of offering voter rolls for sale, the Registrar should serve as a conduit for mailing/calling.

I mean, companies like Facebook let you target ads towards specific groups of people. The Registrar knows who voted (though not who they voted for), and they know people's addresses & party affiliations. They also have the infrastructure in place for doing large mailings (since they mail out ballots), so if you're a candidate and you want to mail stuff to certain people, give the materials to the Registrar and have them do it.

<comment><USER6> For context, there are heavy legal restrictions on why, how, and when moving between states in the US can remove people from the voter roll in their old state. Unless the voter tells their old state to remove them, the state has to send them a notice and wait until after the second Federal election - if they vote in any election before then, the state can't remove them. (This is probably why Gregg Phillips, the guy who Trump was promoting as a voter fraud expert for some reason, was registered in multiple states.) Also, the only legally safe trigger for starting the removal process is the US Postal Office's change-of-address process, and it wouldn't surprise me if the ACLU challenged even that.

Not only that, removing people from the voter roll for this reason almost always results in headlines implying or outright stating that this is voter suppression. There's even a popular conspiracy theory about the 2016 US presidential election (started by journalist Greg Palast) that relies on the assumption that almost every voter marked for removal from the rolls in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in this process was a Democrat voter whose vote was suppressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's concerning that he wants to use the election judge role to "advance progressive causes."

Election judges should be the most non-partisan role in government.

<comment><USER7> Curious as to the downvote. I'd love to see the argument for how partisan election judges serve our Republic.

<comment><USER8> The position and the execution of its duties is supposed to be impartial and non-partisan. There is no requirement at all that this also apply to the _person_ elected or appointed to it. Few positions in government would be filled at all, if that were the case. We know the political affiliations of just about every judge on the federal bench, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you go through the election results there are actually quite a number of 1-vote write-in winners for this position across the various ward divisions - and a few with no votes at all. Quickly scanning through the hundreds of results I didn't see any that even had more than one candidate.

Looking at the electoral ward division maps it's not hard to see why: these political units only cover a few streets. There are hundreds of these subdivisions across the city. I'd argue that this is too minor of a role to even bother having an elected position for.

I suppose since these divisions are so tiny one might have a chance of knowing any individuals who might be running against each other, but otherwise, what criteria would one judge the best candidate?

</comment><comment><USER3> Ironically, a judge of elections using his first act to call for impeachment of a candidate likely running in an election he will preside over is extremely inappropriate.

<comment><USER10> Why? That's exactly what his voters wanted.

<comment><USER11> In fact, he has a 100% approval rating among all known constituents.

<comment><USER12> There were two other voters who wanted someone else

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> my dad once won a local elected position with one write-in vote, and he wasn't the one who wrote his name in. It turned out one of his friends had written his name in.

<comment><USER12> Jerk :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Jokes aside, I wonder if we're really seeing the long term erosion of democracy because people just don't care. You can see it in most aspects of the nation, from the NSA revelations largely being accepted in a sigh of hopelessness to the several social issues that have been in the news since 2014 and haven't seemed to move. People just don't take an interest in the larger issues except to tweet their thoughts and move on. I wonder if, for example, when events like 9/11 or Katrina happened people were moved more to donate or help because they couldn't just say "thinking of the victims" in a public social media space and move on with their day. And I don't think mandatory voting is a solution to this issue because people will default to laziest method, which would probably be whose name they heard the most. The big picture idea is how to make people care, and that is probably the biggest unsolved issue of our day.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are right. Also people are being worn down by the 24 hr news cycle and always on social media. It's hijacked our emotions into thinking facebooks likes or retweets matter more than voting or going out in the world and doing something.

The other side is most people aren't doing well financially.I know tons of people who work all the time, and are just too exhausted/demoralized by the end of day for anything but tv and beer.

The apathy, desperation, political violence/polarization, filter bubbles, poor economy for the average person, rise of the new alt-right, antifa, and resurgence of the extreme/alt-left all make me feel like a collapse is coming.

<comment><USER15> In addition to all of that, my personal experience has been the following:

Setting: 2016 US Election

      - Everybody is screaming in my ear all day every day "YOUR VOTE COUNTS, GET IN THERE AND VOTE"
      - Tons of people go to vote
      - The candidate with the lesser number of votes wins the election

And that's why I don't care to vote anymore. I don't know enough about politics, social sciences, or whatever the fuck else gobbledygook to take a stance on whether or not this result makes sense.

All I know is, simply put, my vote feels worth nothing and so I now deafen myself to politics as much as possible. Much more worthwhile to focus energy on building businesses and making money that I can donate to charity rather than wasting away in my armchair yelping about politics proven to be outside my control.

<comment><USER16> As someone smart and technical enough to hang out on HN, if your argument for dropping out of the political process boils down to "I can't be bothered to understand how my country's electoral system works", that's pretty weak.

<comment><USER17> On top of that, people don't realize how little the federal government (Presidential Election) affects them, nor how much their local elections affect them. Our local elections here get 4,000 votes per candidate. In a city of 120,000 people that's pretty much shit. Your local and state elections impact your lives substantially more than anything at the federal level.

Whether or not your city closes/opens drug/alcohol treatment centers or homeless shelters will affect your life much more than Trump boasting about how he's going to build a wall.

<comment><USER18> Federal doesn't matter, until it does. It's decisive, for example, for war and peace. Those tend to have rather large effects on people.

Even without considering the lives lost, both American and foreign: The Afghan & Irak war have cost $5 trillion over the years. That's $60,000 for every US family of four that could have been put to other uses if those wars had been limited to a fast and cheap campaign against the Taliban government.

<comment><USER19> USA military doesn't do fast and cheap. The whole point of the operation was to funnel trillions of dollars to armaments manufacturers and their sockpuppets in media and politics. If Afghanistan/Iraq hadn't had that potential, they would have agitated for War in some other unfortunate locales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Were electronic voting machines used here?

In past elections, whenever the issue of extremely hackable and vulnerable electronic voting machines was brought up, objections were raised that their use was too limited to make a big enough difference in the election. Well, here that's clearly not the case: the difference was so slight that such fraud could have tipped the scales.

<comment><USER21> The article states that write-in candidates receiving a single vote commonly win these positions. I'd suggest reading the article before shouting "fraud potential."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> ...but the official results show that he got 8 votes?

[http://phillyelectionresults.com/Citywide_Election_Results.h...](http://phillyelectionresults.com/Citywide_Election_Results.html)

<comment><USER23> Not sure which line you're reading, I see under "21-10" that 3 write in votes were cast and the article says the two others were potentially disqualified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Kind of funny. He appears more qualified than people others vote for or against.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Judges in the city are paid $100 per election they preside over" For a days work, that's not much for a one off job even by central European standards. It seems to me, that the pay should be increased.

<comment><USER26> On the one hand, a lower salary ensures people don't do it for the money. On the other hand, low pay can restrict the candidate to wealthier or higher- income individuals. This is a challenge in deciding out how much to compensate people for service, not just for a one-off such as this but for longer-term and more time-consuming roles as well.

<comment><USER27> Maybe pay each person the same rate they earn in their day job.

<comment><USER28> So if a person makes millions of dollars a day they get paid millions from taxes but if an unemployed person does the same job they get paid nothing? I'm not sure that's an improvement.

<comment><USER27> I was imagining there would be a minimum and maximum rate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alibaba's Jack Ma not a fan of Bitcoin (3 min video) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_HZkcUP_O0 <comment><AUTHOR> Can you have a cashless society in China, which Jack Ma says he's working toward at Alibaba, built entirely on the blockchain without involving a crypto currency?</comment>


Visitors to the U.S. May Be Asked for Social Media Info - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/homeland-security-social-media-border-protection.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> And yet another invasion of privacy.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you secure your OSX machines? - <AUTHOR>

OSX security is an open question. What do you do to keep your development machines secure?
Recently at a large conference one of our OSX machines (10.7.5) experienced erratic behavior: mouse moving around as if a vnc was engaged. Upon turning off the wifi, the behavior stopped. All seemed normal until a bit later we had strange phone calls, weird ssh requests via mosh, other strange occurrences that made us paranoid to the level of changing all passwords / wiping the machine.
What security precautions do you take with your OSX machines -- and which ones are the best tradeoff in terms of hassle vs security? What tools do you use to check for intrusion/strange behavior on suspicious machines? <comment><USER2> The basic stuff really.

Keep your software up-to-date (older versions of OS X get less love from Apple as fixing vulnerabilities goes).

Turn on OS X's FileVault and firewall, install LittleSnitch [1]. Turn on 'Ask for password on wake'. Create a user account to work in, don't use your Admin account for everything. Don't install Java Runtime, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Office, MSN/AIM Messenger, or Microsoft Windows (Bootcamp, VM, or otherwise). Disable Flash plugin in Chrome. Only install signed apps.

Run good AV on your incoming mail server. For testing on Windows, use a separate box or host it remotely.

[1] <http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html>

<comment><USER3> " … or Microsoft Windows (Bootcamp, VM, or otherwise)"

I'm curious, do you think there's any attacks that can break out of those visualization environments and threaten the host MacOSX machine? I quite often use "throwaway" Windows VM clones for IE testing - usually (but not religiously) starting from scratch with a new fresh clone (but occasionally leaving one running for maybe a few days at a time). I'm never _too_ worried about hardening my Windows VMs, since I (at least intend to) throw them away after using them. I never bother disabling Flash/Java/Acrobat in them either, since I generally only visit sites I'm developing (and, as above, I throw them away anyway).

<comment><USER4> If that VM is isolated, you're fairly safe. Most people in practice run VMs on a Mac with various Sharing options enabled where files can be dropped to/from your Mac filesystem if the VM is breached. Given that a lot of people don't run AV or Firewalls on their VMs they're a very easy target.</comment></comment></comment>


Man banned from having sex unless he gives police 24 hours notice - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12115119/Man-banned-from-having-sex-unless-he-gives-police-24-hours-notice.html <comment><USER2> The Telegraph here doesn't name the man, but links to three other stories:

Paedophiles and rapists let off with cautions by Cumbria Police

Woman who laughed as she filmed sex attack jailed

Children forced to have sex with animals, court hears

In the UK context there are two things pulling in different directions:

Jimmy Saville spent years abusing girls. Many people knew this, and no-one protected the women. So, people are careful now ot investigate all claims.

But then we had the Satanic Abuse scare, where a bunch of untrained interrogators planted false memories of abuse in children, ruining many lives.

Chidren do need to be protected from abusers, but I hope the police and courts are careful to protect freedoms.

</comment><comment><USER3> What amazed me is that thr police have restricted his freedom before even convicting him of anything... Seems like a lot of power- anyone here know how thry justify these orders?

"[These orders of protection] are used when someone has not been convicted of a sexual offence, but the police convince a court it is necessary for one to be made against the person to protect the public from him or her.'

<comment><USER2> It's a bit scary. Here's the relevant (I think, I could be wrong) bits of law.

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/2/crosshead...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/2/crossheading/risk- of-sexual-harm-orders)

The sex that is being prevented is listed:

> (3)The acts are—

> (a)engaging in sexual activity involving a child or in the presence of a > child;

> (b)causing or inciting a child to watch a person engaging in sexual activity > or to look at a moving or still image that is sexual;

> (c)giving a child anything that relates to sexual activity or contains a > reference to such activity;

> (d)communicating with a child, where any part of the communication is > sexual.

Here's a press release:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-powers-for-tighter- re...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-powers-for-tighter-restrictions- on-sex-offenders)

Here's an explanatory PDF:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251341/27__28_sexual_offences_and_VOO_fact_sheet.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Sexual risk orders are a civil order and can be made when the person > concerned has not been convicted of a sexual offence.

the whole story is when Kafka meets Orwell.

</comment><comment><USER5> So he needs to call every 24 hours to say "I am planning on having sex in the next 24 hours"?

<comment><USER6> No, the order requires him to identify the woman.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious if he's required to inform them of any men he plans to have sex with.</comment></comment></comment>


Recap of Chicago's Intro to Lisp Workshop - <AUTHOR> http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/recap-of-intro-to-lisp-workshop/ <comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has questions about how it went that I didn't cover in my writeup, please let me know and I can include them here and on the recap page.</comment>


I Love The 20s - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/2249/ <comment><USER2> Very appropriate if you look at the front page titles.</comment>


Ask HN: What happened to Microsoft Surface? - <AUTHOR>

Not the tablet/pc thing but the table with touchscreen. The Url I had saved for it is now for the Surface tablet...<p>Anyone here now if it's cancelled or what's going on? <comment><USER2> Maybe they're just not marketing it to the public at large, since it's so expensive. A few months ago I saw a few at the Vancouver aquarium that people could interact with. It didn't see the Microsoft brand anywhere on them though.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like they renamed it all:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense></comment>


Show HN: Pagegen, Python static site generator withunlimited page hierarchy - <AUTHOR> http://pagegen.phnd.net

<comment><USER2> I've been wanting to build a site generator with unlimited page hierarchy in the past, but after finding that I could do it with Jekyll (I hate Jekyll, but it works) I also discovered that I wasn't using the unlimited page hierarchy as I imagined. It is difficult because you have to commit yourself to that hierarchy to not break the links later, and you don't always know exactly where to put each content.

</comment><comment><USER2> Shameless plug: if you want themes for your site generator, you could join this effort I came up with while writing CMSes and page generators: [http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/classless/showcase](http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/classless/showcase)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry if I'm ignorant, but what is an unlimited page hierarchy?</comment>


The Internet of Things (Infographic) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the-internet-of-things-infographic/#

<comment><USER2> "By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more Internet traffic...than the entire Internet... in 2008"

I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around that stat. Anyone else?

<comment><USER3> This statistic seems bogus no matter how I try to figure it. From wikipedia ([https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Internet_traf...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Internet_traffic)), the total internet traffic in 2008 was estimated at 7639PB. And for 2010, that number had only doubled compared to 2008. Presumably 2011 is along the same trend line.

I plugged this into wolfram alpha:

7639PB / month

Which yields a whopping 23.25Tb/sec (Terabits). So each of 20 households would have to be generating ~1Tb/sec continuously every second of every day.

If so, I think I'm going to need a bigger bandwidth cap.

I also tried 1998's number, but each house would still have to be generating 1.67Gbps.</comment></comment>


How I Kicked My Smartphone Addiction, and Never Looked Back - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2017/03/09/how-i-kicked-my-smartphone-habit-and-never-looked-back/ <comment><USER2> It's funny how these articles always go completely over the top rather than being about learning self control.

Buying too much stuff? Cancel amazon prime, throw away everything you own, go full digital nomad and spend the rest of your life moving from airbnb to airbnb so you can never own more than you can carry.

On your smartphone too much? Man up! Don't just turn off notifications, delete the apps completely! Throw away your smartphone!

Social media destroying your life? Delete it all, it's the only way!

If you're really addicted to something I think it will take more than just these articles to help you, if not then you surely you can 'man up' enough to control yourself?

<comment><USER3> You know it's gone too far when it starts to sound like yesteryear's pretentious "I don't even _own_ a television".

<comment><USER4> What's important IMO isn't not owning a TV, it's not having or using traditional TV services, namely cable TV or even over-the-air TV.

Having a TV by itself can be good, so you can watch a movie at home with friends (preferably served by a mediaPC). It's cable/network TV, stuffed with ads and mostly worthless shows, that's the real time-waster. (And even if there's worthwhile shows in there somewhere, they're aired at inconvenient times, you actually have to watch them as they air (without spending extra money to rent a DVR), and you can't pause or rewind them (again without a DVR rental). The whole scheme is archaic and ridiculous and inefficient.

Finally, a big factor is cost (except with OTA). The TV itself is pretty cheap these days unless you get some big 60" quantum-dot display or something. A simple 32" TV can be had for just over $100 now, and a 40" for around $200. These are one-time costs. But cable TV can easily cost you over $100 every month, or over $1200/year. And for what? So you can watch ugly, over- compressed video, loaded with loud commercials, that you have no ability to control when you watch, or pause or rewind?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Scrap your smartphone.

2\. If you must, carry a dumbphone.

3\. Keep that off except when necessary.

4\. If you must have a device, consider either an ultralight laptop (vastly preferable: they are in fact generative devices) or a tablet, with severely pruned apps, and no G4 / cellular internet (WiFi only).

I'm increasingly a fan of paper-based records and tracking systems -- index cards, etc. For books and research, online has certain advantages, largely bulk and weight -- I can carey a fairly formidable library in the palm of my hand, though the access, interface, and organisation leave much to be desired.

I'm inclined to say there is _no_ generally acceptable mobile device or OS presently, though I somewhat favour iOS over Android for a better privacy and surveillance environment. Whatever CyanogenMod calls itself this week might be slightly favourable. What I'd prefer is a generally tablet/folio form-factor (e.g., non-wired, non-integral keyboard, lapable _or_ tablet mode, and no, Windows Surface doesn't work either, though it's a fair start -- rubber keyboards aren't acceptable), but running a Real Operating System (e.g., Linux). I'm keeping an eye on what's coming from Ubuntu, though without much hope.

<comment><USER6> I honestly love reading stuff like this, especially on a tech board like HN. Sometimes these days I feel like I'm not allowed to be disconnected. It is beautifully refreshing to hear about others who think that it's okay. Let's find ways to use tech to our advantage and not have it control our lives.

<comment><USER7> I think working with computers breeds a sort of contempt for them and you start looking for alternatives.

One of my hobbies is photography, and lately all I've wanted to do is shoot film. My big DSLRs can do some amazing things, but there's something about being limited to between 12 and 36 images, advancing the film by hand, controlling every aspect of the exposure, and standing at my kitchen sink for half an hour developing each roll that makes rattling off a thousand images in a blink then sitting in front of yet another screen a lot less appealing. I'm already sitting at a computer for 40 or more hours per week, why add another if I don't have to?

<comment><USER8> Plus, unless you're buying a $5000 medium-format DSLR, your 35mm film camera has a larger "sensor" size than the digital camera. And if you spend $100 and buy a medium-format TLR, well, now your negatives are 6x6cm and holy crap that's a lot of detail.

<comment><USER7> Hah, definitely. Just ordered some rolls of 120 Velvia and Provia today for my Mamiya, in fact.

<comment><USER8> I haven't tried those, I'm a big fan of Portra 400 in my Yashica-mat

<comment><USER7> This will be my first time with slide film, actually. I'm really looking forward to it because I love the high contrast and saturation that those films in particular produce. Of course Portra and Ektar are great color films that I love as well, but I want that extra punch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My Nexus 5 is circling the drain. When it finally goes, I'll be going back to my Sony-Ericsson feature phone. A quarter the size of my Nexus and true 14 day battery life. It's a pain in the ass to text on, and thats a good thing.

After 30+ years in IT, I'm turning into a Luddite.

<comment><USER10> Me, too. When I was younger, I liked being an early adopter. Now I am turning into a curmudgeon. IoT? Who needs that crap. I want things to work for me, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons I still maintain a wet darkroom--it is one of the ways I can be completely disconnected. (Even being out on my bike doesn't do that-- I take my phone with me and use the GPS maps instead of paper maps.)

<comment><USER9> I hear you about the bike, I'm a LD rider (FJR). I travel with my Sena wired up to my phone (for calls and tunes - even though I don't ever recall listening to tunes while riding.) and my GPS for in-ear directions.

Over the last couple of years, if the batteries dead in my Sena, oh well. Getting lost is kind of the point :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I haven't gone cold turkey with my iPhone, I started to take the first steps a couple years ago. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and any other social app thing. All gone. Deleted the accounts.

I've blocked ALL comments, except for essentially Hacker News, in all of my browsers.

I disabled all notifications on my phone, except for actual incoming phone calls.

All sounds are disabled, in fact the phone runs on mute permanently.

The phone gets plugged in a couple hours before bed time, in the other room. I don't check anything on the phone, until I get to work.

Even the Kindle has been relegated to be ONLY for flights. I've bought tons of hardcover novels in the last two years.

I don't think getting rid of smart phones is necessary, just much better management. They've definitely saved my ass in more ways than one.

<comment><USER2> Why has the kindle been relegated in favor of hardcovers?

<comment><USER11> I want real paper, not a glowing interface.

<comment><USER12> This is not specific to you, but I've never understood the vitriol e-readers receive. E-readers provide incredible benefits and don't have to be all or nothing. Just because I cook at home doesn't mean I'm against eating at restaurants.

Almost all the news and ground-breaking journalism I read today is from the web rather than print. The combination of editorialized aggregators like Longform/Aldaily with the portability of e-readers, I now read more long-form articles today than in previous years because I don't have to sift through plethora of sources to find those high quality articles worth reading. Now, I can just preview an interesting article during the day, send it to my Kindle, and then read it later before I go to bed, on a device that's dedicated to the reading experience. I'll also add the consistency of the layout means the focus is on the story rather than the editorial design.

Now with respect to books, a good portion of us live in smaller spaces like condos/apartments. Not having to store tons of books on shelves is a great way on saving space. Of course, I could borrow from the library, but I enjoy sometimes re-reading parts of books or going back to important points I highlighted. And while I enjoy the aesthetic presentation of books in a home, it's very dependent on space.

Lastly, the fact that I can shop on my device was a real game changer. Like it's wonderful when an author cites another book, or you just have an inclination to read a certain topic, and you can get it instantly and keep feeding the fascination. Like I remember last January, I read more books in that one month on my Kindle (I think it was 12 books) than I remember ever achieving in previous years.

Anyways, I'm certainly a proponent of removing oneself from digital devices a few hours a day, but I don't see e-readers as following into the same category as say, laptops/smartphones/tablets, which have far more versatile applications that can lead a person to be distracted.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure there's been research on the psychological effects of backlit screens versus paper. So the comfort level alone could be enough for "overcast" to eschew the Kindle.

It'd be different if these stupid companies would make color e-ink display readers, because then your argument would be very apt. But as it is, you're completely ignoring the technical detail of the backlit screen that modern e-readers all use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I found myself spending far too much time on my iPhone, and most of this time was spent using Safari and Twitter for mindless browsing.

My approach to this was to uninstall all "problematic" apps, especially Twitter. Then I used my iPhone's Restrictions settings to hide Safari, and to prevent the installation of new apps. I then asked a friend to set a passcode on "Restrictions" so that I was unable to reinstall Safari, Twitter or anything else even if I wanted to.

After a few weeks, I got hold of the passcode again (to install something "essential" :)) but I have never since reinstalled Safari or Twitter. The habit was broken. Result: no longer do I walk down the street browsing the news, nor do I find myself staying up too late browsing in bed.

It's been a positive change for me.

</comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only that never really physically feels better doing these extreme things? I recently went with no sugar for January (my New Years Resolution). I actually ate some sugar, but it had to be "natural" (in fruits/vegetables) and no artificial sweeteners allowed. Everyone else who had done it (on the internet) spoke of how much better they felt after doing it.

After a month I felt like I did before I started. I felt fine, but nothing special. I didn't feel bad before I started, but people described how incredible it made them feel and it didn't do that for me at all. I felt the same. The first day of February I had teriyaki chicken for lunch and had a snack of M&Ms. I felt completely the same.

I also tried going vegan before and gluten free (both for time periods shorter than a month), and neither did anything either. I get that all these things may be healthier, but they didn't make me feel any better.

Reading this guys account, I have a hard time believing that using my phone less would make me feel much better either. That said, I have been turning more notifications off as I do agree that there is very little that justifies interrupting what I'm doing to look at that app.

<comment><USER4> Everyone's body is different, and there's so many variables: age, fitness level, etc., so the sugar thing may work for some people and not be noticeable to you. Personally, FWIW, I had a bit of a weight problem ~12 years ago, and I was drinking soda a lot every day. I cut out the soda, among other things, and no longer have a weight problem. I attribute much of it to the sodas; there's a lot of calories there, and no fiber (as in fruit) to help you moderate it.

The gluten free diet isn't likely to help you at all unless you have a problem with gluten. Gluten-free foods are NOT healthier (in fact, quite possible the opposite, to a small extent, according to recent research). The only reason to eat GF food is because you have Crohn's disease or some other gluten intolerance, which affects I believe about 5% of the population or so. If you don't have any of these problems, then stick with gluten.

Vegan diets are not healthier. The main reason people adopt these is because they don't believe animals should be used for food, including animal products (eggs, milk, cheese, etc.). It's not for health. Of course, too many eggs isn't healthy either, so you might get some side-effect here, depending on what animal products you were eating before and how much, but this isn't the goal of veganism, it's all about an extreme view of using animals and their products as human food. If you think that meat is bad for you (which again isn't scientifically supported; we're omnivores), you can always just adopt a vegetarian diet. Or, if you think you're eating too much red meat (which is a common problem with Americans), you can always just eat _less_ of it, instead of adopting an extreme diet.

It sounds to me like you're young (under 30) and healthy, so of course you're not going to notice any difference with various diets unless they're cutting out something you really need or not supplying you enough calories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, I just don't install Facebook, Twitter, etc. so I only open the mobile or desktop sites when I want to read them (not every time I get a notification).

Otherwise, I just keep notifications off for most things other than work email and leave my phone on silent for the vast majority of the time. I still get calls and messages but I'm not constantly being pulled away from what I'm doing because my phone is beeping again.

As an ADHD-type person, it's one of many ways I've found to reduce distraction and interruption when I need or want to be doing something else. I do leave a charger at my bedside (and my desk, and my car, etc...basically anywhere I plan to be sitting for more than an hour at a time). This is probably just a throwback to the early smartphone days when you needed to keep your device topped off whenever possible since you never knew when you might need to ( _gasp_ ) use it and kill the battery in a few hours. Not really an issue nowadays but the habit remains. Still, silent/quiet hours make a big difference.

<comment><USER16> This is basically my approach too, and I haven't felt any need to step it up to the things in the article.

I keep phone chargers at work and by the bed, but I've got an old phone that I don't trust to wake me up. At night, Twilight and silent mode mean I'm not having my sleep delayed or interrupted. During the day, texts and calls get vibrate, but everything else just gets a status bar icon. My news apps are slow to change (BBC) and social media only gets opened in browser via links. Problem solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What helped me personally was buying phone with smaller screen - iPhone SE have all the features of bigger phone I've might ever need but due to 4 inch screen I tend to use it as little as possible. For me it's more private communication device than internet machine - that what phone was suppose to be.

<comment><USER18> This sounds like an interesting factor that I want to experiment with. I anecdotally have been using my phone far more than before (and more than desired) since I switched to a phone with a display about 6 inches in size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't use a cellphone, AMA. I have a "Nokia 101" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_101)) for emergency situations tho.

<comment><USER20> Without Google Maps, or functional equivalent, or do you ever manage to find your way anywhere? When I think about leaving the getting rid of my phone, my first thought is that not having maps would suck. I planned a bus trip from Point A to Point B yesterday, and without a phone, that would have sucked.

And I like Lyft a lot. It'd be a pain to get rid of that.

<comment><USER21> Funny how we both asked exactly the same question. I wonder if there's a niche for making phones which just have the basics + Maps and Uber/Lyft. Perhaps Uber or Lyft should try to make such "devices".

<comment><USER22> A GPS (Tomtom, garmin, etc.) with access to transit feeds would be really useful. We already have a standard for transmitting traffic information via FM radio; maybe it could be put to use transmitting bus/train info as well?

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

Phones are pretty good at nav but I still really like having a standalone GPS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The comments so far seem to be in response to ways that phones and other tech distract us. I feel like the author glossed over a key part. Where before his experiment he would wake up tired and feeling hung over. To me this is a sign of poor sleep habits and/or waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle. I've had better sleep habits and have been waking up refreshed after I paid attention to the needs of my body. I go to bed at a consistent time, 10:30, fall asleep by 11, and wake up 7am. I've been doing it consistently now for the past 3 months. I have the phone alarm set and usually wake up a few minutes before it goes off. Phones are a distraction, but the real goal should be in learning to make them work for you. Going cold turkey feels like a bandaid solution to a larger problem of learning to change your habits.

<comment><USER24> I do similar, bed around 10pm and sleep until I wake naturally. I have my watch alarm set for 7:30am (just in case), but haven't needed it for months. I just wake up when my body is ready, usually around 5:30am. Not having an alarm jolting me awake and letting my body wake at the right time in my sleep cycle has made a big difference to the energy I have, especially at the start of the day. I hit the office at 6:30am, couple of golden hours to go deep without the phone ringing... and home every evening on time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a great opportunity to make Blackberry great again!

1.) Great for calling and texting. 2.) Useful in a good way for email. 3.) Not enough apps available to be annoying.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's actually some really solid advice in here – I never thought about Android as being "better" for reducing distractions, but the amount of control you can get over _not_ having self-control seems useful. Apple, on the other hand, is busy trying to get you to open as many apps as you can every time by resisting adding change to the home screen, outside of those luring red (1) icons that show up constantly, often for no reason.

I might consider switching to a Pixel for this alone.

<comment><USER27> I'm about to switch to an iphone (oddly been a cocoa/mac developer while being a android user for years), and have been a bit worried that it'll be a more distracting experience while watching friends more engaged with their phones than conversatin at dinner. This said, here's my tentative iphone-specific plan on managing myself from becoming addicted:

\- Generally, don't keep social apps on the phone. Use the web versions with content blockers.

\- Email: keep using gmail's importance filtering and set notifications only for 'important' messages - been doing this for years and it's mostly worked fine.

\- Content blockers - find a safari content blocker that lets me block social sites at certain times, or write one myself.

\- Keep using a smartwatch - I really like using my pebble to let me minimize phone use, ideally I can still do voice replies like I can on android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics.

Does nobody notice when they're writing software with features designed around user "engagement" and "retention" that they're doing a disservice to their users? If not outright building addictions?

I think a most developers _do_ notice _pieces_ of it, but don't connect the dots and/or rationalize it with some "mutual benefit" mental hand-waving.

Taking ethics seriously would force us to confront the idea of software built for addiction. Show us how to spot it, and remove the mental wiggle room to minimize it.

There is a set of common software practices that rise from iterating designs and throwing ideas up to A/B test that are so psychologically manipulative it would seen as downright sociopathic if it was planned from the get-go. - I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but if we can't even get rid of _those_ , what chance do we have overall?

<comment><USER4> >Things like 'smartphone addiction' are why I believe software developers should have a strong professional code of ethics.

What good is that going to do? Software developers write software that they're told to. If you say "this is unethical and I'm not doing it", your employer will fire you on the spot and find someone else.

Also, what you're talking about is something that's far more visible to someone working at a high level, e.g. the architect. An individual developer not only has no real power to change the system design, he also has limited visibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I deleted my Twitter account, removed my Instagram and Facebook apps. I trimmed my Facebook account down to only my local table top gaming groups while deleting friends and family(who aren't associated with previously mentioned groups). I've disabled all notifications on my phone other than SMS(and the people who have my number is a small group). It's greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone(and on social media off the phone too) now that it's not constantly alerting me to look at it. I won't be replacing it with a dumb phone because there are still plenty of times it's a useful tool, but now it's a tool that stays in my pocket until it's actually needed rather than a focus of activity itself.

</comment><comment><USER30> Article advice #5 is totally the opposite of what I do: because my email app (outlook) categorize important messages and only display notifications from them I can keep my mailbox closed while working on the PC.

Surprisingly buying an Apple Watch greatly reduce the time I spend on my phone and the stress related to where it lies on my house: I don't need to be close of it anymore and notifications are displayed as a red dot. If a notification is irrelevant* I can dismiss it on the spot without any temptation to use the phone for something else.

* I already highly curated app allowed to notify me. Only mail & chat (fb messenger, Line, etc.) apps remains.

</comment><comment><USER31> Contrary to this article, there is an easy way to block apps - and websites - on iOS. There's an app called Freedom that lets you create lists of sites that you'd like to block. Once blocked, their apps will not work either. I find it to be a phenomenal way of increasing my focus. When I compulsively grab my smartphone and realize that my usual time-waster sites and apps are blocked, I just put it right back down.

Unfortunately it does cost money, but they regularly run promotions up to half-off on their "forever" plan.

</comment><comment><USER32> If you want to go nuclear you can add OpenDNS to your router and block specific sites or categories of sites. This will work for all devices on your network, android, iphone, laptops, etc. Or edit your hosts file and 127.0.0.1 the sites you want to block. To do this on android you have to root or you install Firefox and add Ublock Origin and blacklist the sites you don't want.

</comment><comment><USER33> Traveling... driving to new places, exploring new cities... I know we had maps in the past but man... I just cringe at having to plot routes manually. Anyone have a reliable solution that isn't a smartphone for this? I have an old GPS I could fire up, but I think the battery is dead and not sure it works when it's not plugged into my car...

</comment><comment><USER34> Few more ideas that helped me

\- Remove Play Store replace with FDroid - makes it harder to find and install crappy apps like FB, Snapchat etc.

\- Install AFWall+ or other firewall and make sure you disable internet access for most apps</comment>


Ask HN: Toxic cofounder, considering leaving the country. Thoughs/legal advice? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
We're a DE C-corp and cofounder relationship is toxic without any sign of possible improvement. I am the product and programming side, toxic cofounder is biz dev and I don't need him to build awesome product (already vetted in market). I want to leave and start my own/take the idea elsewhere abroad if necessary.
Has anyone else been in this situation? What are the legal ramifications? Thanks <comment><USER2> Read the contracts and it sounds like you have your heart set on cutting him out, so if your contract allows then do so. If you plan to skip the country to avoid your legal obligation then you must walk your own scoundrels path. Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you have a shareholders agreement? If so it should contain the breakup terms so to speak

</comment><comment><USER4> Your co-founder doesn't read HN?</comment>


Mailinator.com: Anatomy of a Spammy Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://mailinator.blogspot.com/2018/07/mailinatorcom-anatomy-of-spammy-campaign.html <comment><USER2> I love these kind of writeups about services which are like plumbing for the web. If it wasn't for mailinator, managing my inbox would be a chore. I use it all the time, although there is a panoply of others to use and I suffer from disposable inbox fatigue (just as bad as suffering from an overflowing inbox).

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the more under appreciated features of Mailinator is the fact that they'll take any mail sent their way, regardless of the email address domain. This means that, if @mailinator.com is blocked for a given site, you can use any number of aliases for it and still get through (my personal favorite is @devnullmail.com), or you can even set up an MX record pointing at Mailinator and effectively use a custom domain.

<comment><USER4> Using mail.mailinator.com as MX records are something that almost all tools check to ban disposable email addresses. The only real thing that works for them is to renew their domain pool as fast as they can. In our service in [https://apility.io](https://apility.io) we check for MX records of very well known DEPs, and also we crawl the web to try to keep an up to date list of these domains.

<comment><USER5> >Anti Abuse API

Why does your company consider disposable email addresses abusive?

<comment><USER4> Some people use DEA to abuse of trial services of SaaS, for example. They register again and again after the trial has expired. These users consume resources but they never effectively become customers. Some companies ban users using DEA, anonymous proxies, TOR, VPNs... or even Free Email addresses (the conversion rate comparing a user registered with his or her company email and a Free Email (gmail, hotmail, protonmail...) is much higher).

<comment><USER6> But no one stops you from getting a domain and effectively creating infinite email addresses to register

<comment><USER7> You effectively have unlimited (not infinite) e-mail addresses with Gmail and many other e-mail providers by using the + sign. E.g. email@example.com

<comment><USER8> Except sites that mistakenly disallowed the + symbol.

Also, it's very easy to mechanically identify all such users because of the + symbol, which, if you are trying to prevent your real email address from revealed means it's not that useful...

<comment><USER9> Presumably they don't block [.] however, and since gmail ignores it, you can always just use t.estexample@gmail, then te.stexample@gmail, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If spammers IPs are so widely spread out, then doesn't it make most IP based RBLs fairly pointless? Or worse, more likely to get false positives?

Sending legitimate email becomes increasingly frustrating, yet spammers still to find their way to our mailbox.

<comment><USER11> Non spammers send from a consistent pool of IPs and domains that don't send crap. By contrast, spammers either send high volumes of crap from a small set of IPs and domains, or they spread a single content pattern over a wide diversity of IPs and domains that do not have a good track record.

So long as you can keep track of literally billions of counters in real time, you can effectively combat spammers.

Source: MailChannels CEO

<comment><USER12> For anyone that's interested, fraud detection is a pretty big use case for graph databases[1]

[1] [https://neo4j.com/blog/fraud-prevention-neo4j-5-minute- overv...](https://neo4j.com/blog/fraud-prevention-neo4j-5-minute-overview/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mailinator is a lifesaver. Good to see them still up and running after all these years.

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh yeah, so much "good day" spam recently.</comment>


Raising Seed Funds in NYC: Where Startups Should Start - <AUTHOR> http://www.kartme.com/blog/raising-seed-funds-nyc-guide-tech-startups-part-2-2 I updated the post to mention 2 more angels in NYC by name.<p>Also, you can find a list of the 10 seed funds in NYC here:  http://www.kartme.com/phil/seed-funds-nyc <comment><AUTHOR> I updated the article to include 2 more angels in NYC. And here is a link to 10 seed funds in NYC. <http://www.kartme.com/phil/seed-funds-nyc></comment>


This christmas is day #55555 on astronomers' timescale (modified julian date). - <AUTHOR> http://www.leapsecond.com/java/nixie.htm <comment><USER2> In Thai language, 5 is pronounced 'haa'. People use it in IM as a replacement for 'lol'; thus sentences are often suffixed with '555'.

Today is obviously the funniest day ever.

For the curious who want to hear it:

        http://www.thai-language.com/id/134341

</comment><comment><USER3> I know this is being hyper-geeky but I've never appreciated these kinds of alignments because they are just based on arbitrary man-made starting points.

If you want to impress me, show me all the planets in a solar system in a row.

Moon alignment = bonus points.

Unfortunately we have to wait until September 2040 for that around here.

ps. was that lunar eclipse amazing or what?

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder why this isn't mentioned in the Principia Discordia

<comment><USER5> Some things the Goddess keeps to herself. Others, she leaves for us mortals to find, like breadcrumbs leading to a shack full of fireworks - and you having to light a match to see where you are.

And yet others, Mankind makes for himself, and Goddess can only sit back, pour herself one, spark up a spliff and laugh at our inability to see the consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aww, crap, I missed it. It was something like 8:20AM EST

</comment><comment><USER7> since when?

<comment><AUTHOR> 00:00 November 17, 1858, Wednesday (from wikipedia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Around 8:30 EST will 55555.55555.</comment>


Show HN: Itch, an open-source desktop client for itch.io - <AUTHOR> https://itch.io/app <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

There's a bunch of moving parts to this, if you want to dive right into code, here's a few links:

      * itch repo: https://github.com/itchio/itch
      * golang helper: https://github.com/itchio/butler
      * jenkins-powered CI/CD job definitions: https://github.com/itchio/ci.itch.ovh
      * Jenkins configuration generator: https://github.com/itchio/cigale

Feel free to ask any questions, I'll hang around this thread for a while and I'm sure leafo will too!

</comment><comment><USER2> This is the first I've heard of itch.io - I like what you're doing, and there are some fantastic projects on the site. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome. Congrats on the launch!</comment>


Ask HN: What programs to write? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm trying to learn programming, the language which I've studied is C and now I want to start write simple programs. I've written FizzBuzz, simple parsers and a very simple text RPG. I want to write a bit bigger but still simpler project that takes more than 2 hours at least, any ideas?<p>Thanks in advanced. <comment><USER2> I remember a fun program from school. Pretty much, it was a maze solver.

Say you have a maze, and a mouse. The mouse, denoted by an uppercase 'M' character, starts out somewhere in the maze. The mouse has to find his way through the maze, to the end.

To add a bit of spice, say there's a piece of cheese at the end of the maze, denoted by the letter 'C'.

A maze would be stored in a file on disk, called something like "maze.dat." The file would be a normal text file, with a maze drawn out in simple characters.

Here's an example: <http://pastie.org/5721807>

(You can create a more simple / complex maze if you'd like, or maybe find one online.)

So, you've gotta figure out an algorithm that the mouse can use to find its way out.

Tip: be sure to handle the case where the mouse can't find a way out (yet) .. i.e. the infinite loop case.

I hope this helps. Have fun!

Edit: switched to pastie.org link since hn didn't format the maze properly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

<comment><USER2> No problem. :)

I remember having some fun with this one. I think the prof gave us a pretty simple maze, and a fairly complex one to test with. You may want to try the same, and start by solving the simple maze.

Other than that, the advice to try and solve a real-life problem is good.

Since you're currently working in the console, it may be a bit tougher to find some problems to solve. But here's a few ideas:

1) Write a program that can download a given webpage

2) Expand #1 by writing a library that allows you to parse the different HTML nodes on the page, searching for things like "a div with an id of 'content'"

3) Write a console based file uploader. I.e. so you can have a file in the root of a directory that you're working on, say "uploader.dat", which has the ftp (or ssh/S3?) server and username, and the files to upload / exclude. When you run your app, it will check that file, prompt you for a password, connect, and upload the specified files to the server. You can have settings in the file for whether to overwrite files or not, or prompt the user to decide whether to overwrite a file. You can add a bit of smarts in by checking the "last modified" date on each file, and compare it to a stored setting of when you last uploaded files (or each individual file). Perhaps display the files that were uploaded / modified after the upload is complete.

Anyway, just some thoughts. If you can find an app / problem that you'd be truly passionate about building / solving, I'd say go with that one.

I hope this helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why not just write/design a company you want to do right now whatever the idea instead of waiting for someone to give you an idea? Find something you'd like to learn how to create and get to work figuring it out.

Sorry - not trying to be rude but you've asked a silly question IMO. It's like someone picking up a guitar and then going around asking their friends, "What songs should I learn?" Hell, learn the songs you like and want to learn. You shouldn't need other people to tell you what you want to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okey, well... I guess I ask because I don't know what I want to write(or learn). I don't have such ideas anymore.

<comment><USER4> Make a simple employee database that you can not only store and read, but also edit :)

When I made that, it resulted into great progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Programming_Tasks>

This site has a lot of interesting tasks in many languages. "100 doors" and "24 game" are good starters. "Minesweeper" (text-based) is a little more involved, but it might be what you are interested in. Sudoku games and solvers are lots of fun.

Making a text-based chess or go game (no ai) could also be an interesting challenge.

<https://github.com/alexch/learn_ruby> has some good challenges for Ruby, but I'm sure they can be done in other languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to enjoy creating simple animations for basic algorithms.

You can try writing a program that displays animations of different sorting algorithms (a nice way to compare the sorting algorithms). You can make the animations something like this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bubble_sort_animation.gif>

Also, you could display an animation for the Tower of Hanoi problem (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi>)

Try exporting the output as .gif and have fun.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd say figure out some projects that let you get familiar with different basic data structures(stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, graphs, hash tables etc), what they're useful for, and some of the basic algorithms that are useful to know for each.

A decent one for getting comfortable with graphs off the top of my head would be something along the lines of a peg board. Users can attach each peg to any other peg, and once you create a closed shape it fills the shape in. It would give you a good understanding of graphs, detecting cycle etc, and is not a trivial thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER8> Consider participating in <http://onegameamonth.com/> It doesnt matter if you're new at it. We're all learning as we go. I'm an experienced programmer but I'm doing it in a language I didn't know previously and I've never made a game before.

</comment><comment><USER9> I got a great deal of fun and benefit from an old copy of Dietel's "C: How to program" (seems that recent editions have C++ in it too now, so it may have changed a lot).

Takes you through writing an interpreter and then a compiler for a toy basic- like language.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do this program in C:

<https://bsd7.cs.sunysb.edu/~cse219/Handouts/homework_1.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> Write a program to find all duplicate files on a set of hard drives. "Duplicate" could mean same file name, or same contents (prolly a hash), or both.

</comment><comment><USER12> A sudoku solver, implement some basic data structures(linked list, vector, binary tree), replicate some basic unix programs like ls and cat.</comment>


Reasons to move to a startup - <AUTHOR> http://thisrealjob.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. I read Hacker News a lot and was surprised to see this pop up. I just started writing a few days ago and am glad that people are reading already. It might be the only good thing that happens today, and judging by the way my boss is staring at me right now... it probably will be.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought your posts were pretty funny. Keep up the good work. Good luck with the rest of your day - it sounds like you are going to need it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> couldn't have been more aptly named. this is pretty funny, in a sad kinda way. we've all been there, kiddo. thanks for giving us a reason not to go back.</comment>


Several thousand MongoDBs without access control on the Internet [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cispa.saarland/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MongoDB_documentation.pdf

<comment><USER2> This can also happen with Memcached, Redis, and for that matter SQL databases. If you find it on your servers, you should be very, very alarmed. (Assume that any attacker with arbitrary access to any of these owns the box. [+]) One easy-ish way to make sure you don't inadvertently leave a port open is to use iptables and deny inbound connections to everything but 22, 80, and 443 by default.

This is part of the Slicehost VPS setup guide that PickledOnion wrote back in the day, and it's still one of the first things I do when I get a new box. (Typically right after locking down SSH with a key requirement.)

Edit to add:

[http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy- setup-p...](http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-setup-page-1) [http://articles.slicehost.com/assets/2007/9/4/iptables.txt](http://articles.slicehost.com/assets/2007/9/4/iptables.txt) <\-- make sure you change the port 30000 on the SSH to whatever you use on your boxes

[+] You might think "Well, that requires the existence of both a vulnerability in the server and a local privilege escalation exploit", but in practice, you can assume that the attacker has access to both of these. They also probably aren't trying to get into _your_ box, specifically -- your box is merely one of the several thousand Redis instances on the Internet that they're firing e.g. a specially corrupted Unicode string to get a buffer overrun on, at which point they will -- in a mostly automated fashion -- run metasploit (or similar ratware) and turn that into a root shell.

<comment><USER3> > This can also happen with Memcached, Redis, and for that matter SQL > databases.

No one else binds to all interfaces by default.

<comment><USER2> Memcached does, for one. This is (sensibly) turned off if you do "apt-get install memcached" or similar.

<comment><USER3> Only if you compile memcached from source. They can afford to do this because distro package maintainers give it sensible defaults on their behalf.

MongoDB fucks this balance up by recommending you use their package repositories instead of distro maintained packages.

<comment><USER4> Just to add:

[http://memcached.org/downloads](http://memcached.org/downloads)

[https://www.mongodb.org/downloads](https://www.mongodb.org/downloads)

Are identical in having normal binary downloads as the primary installation option.

And you seem to be implying that vendor supplied repositories are somehow unusual. They absolutely aren't.

<comment><USER3> > Are identical in having normal binary downloads as the primary installation > option.

I don't believe I said that MongoDB recommended their packages over compiling from source.

> And you seem to be implying that vendor supplied repositories are somehow > unusual.

Nope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar, but with memcached (2010): [http://www.sensepost.com/blog/4873.html](http://www.sensepost.com/blog/4873.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> German IT-news-site heise.de is reporting on it, I guess there'll be an english translation soon.

[http://www.heise.de/security/meldung/Studenten-entdecken- Tau...](http://www.heise.de/security/meldung/Studenten-entdecken-Tausende- offene-Firmen-Datenbanken-im-Internet-2545183.html)

Original (German language) press release is here: [http://www.uni- saarland.de/nc/en/news/article/nr/12173.html](http://www.uni- saarland.de/nc/en/news/article/nr/12173.html)

<comment><USER7> And it's not just small stuff either, 8 million phone numbers and addresses in one case. That is beyond embarrassing.

<comment><USER8> What is even more embarrassing, is the lack of proper acknowledgment from the French Telecommunication provider (Bouygues Telecom?) regarding the safety of their customers' data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Someone posted a list to a .onion site indexing these on FD in early 2014.

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/May/43](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/May/43)

Edit: Oh, seems like the site is still up at [http://un1c0rn.net/](http://un1c0rn.net/)

[http://un1c0rn.net/search?q=tags%3Amongo](http://un1c0rn.net/search?q=tags%3Amongo)

</comment><comment><USER10> We take security seriously at MongoDB. Here is a response on security best practices from the MongoDB CTO & Co-Founder:

[http://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/mongodb-security-best- pract...](http://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/mongodb-security-best-practices)

<comment><USER11> The first point in your article is:

> "The most popular installer for MongoDB (RPM) limits network access to > localhost by default."

The first download for Linux at [https://www.mongodb.org/downloads](https://www.mongodb.org/downloads) is:

> [https://fastdl.mongodb.org/linux/mongodb- > linux-x86_64-2.6.7....](https://fastdl.mongodb.org/linux/mongodb- > linux-x86_64-2.6.7.tgz)

At the bottom of the page there are alternate links to packages. Here is the description:

> "MongoDB is included in several different package managers. Generally > speaking, it is easier to simply install the prebuilt binaries from above."

If the properly packaged versions have secure defaults, maybe you should steer people towards them?

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the suggestion, we will be updating the copy to clarify that the packages are the preferred installation method.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for listening!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tried to verify the results but am getting stuck at this:

curl $SHODANURL |grep -i class=\"ip\" |cut -d '/' -f 3 \ |cut -d '"' -f 1|uniq >db.ip

The author at CISPA (in the linked pdf) states to 'paste the html code' however using shodan from the command line, one only has access to 6 verbs that shodan understands. Shodan reveals 34309 mongo databases. I can download their ips but that requires 'query credits' using shodan. How does one use curl here?

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not surprised. I've never actually gotten replication groups and access control to work properly with MongoDB. So I gave up and relied on network/firewall-level security. I guess some people don't even bother with that.

</comment><comment><USER14> # 1st: accept connections from localhost

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 127.0.0.1 --dport 27017 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 127.0.0.1 --dport 28017 -j ACCEPT

# 2nd: drop from all others

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 27017 -j DROP

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 28017 -j DROP

<comment><USER15> FYI, the Security section of the MongoDB manual has a checklist ([http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/administration/security- check...](http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/administration/security-checklist/)) and example firewall configurations for iptables on Linux and netsh on Windows: [http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/administration/security- netwo...](http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/administration/security-network/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How do I know if my access control is just local? I have a few small (pet) mongoDB projects on Digital Ocean, never spend too much time updatng and/or securing them actually.

<comment><USER2> Assuming you have the mongo client installed on your laptop or similar, use this in a command shell:

> mongo server.address.or.ip.goes.here

If this connects successfully, that is problematic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very interesting article, thanks for the submission.

</comment><comment><USER18> Please spend a little bit more money and hire a professional who knows what he is doing instead of just following installation tutorials.

<comment><USER19> You'd think Bouygues Telecom's people would qualify as "professional".

<comment><USER20> telecom, in general, isn't filled with the brightest of bulbs. especially in decision-making places...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> * MongosDB

</comment><comment><USER22> they are probably all Meteor tutorials.

<comment><USER22> I meant they are definitely not meteor tutorials.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Easy JavaScript MVC Setup - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/agrim123/feastjs <comment><USER2> They might want to say on the github what this is and what it achieves.

The first page of a github project is like a landing page. You get a few seconds to explain your product (project).

BTW I like the idea of a having a standard directory structure for these sorts of apps, a bit like rails.</comment>


Top Chinese State-Media Editor Complains About Internet Access, Deletes Post - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-18/top-chinese-state-media-editor-complains-about-internet-access <comment><USER2> Question for those who might know: how common is it for the ordinary mainland Chinese person to attempt to circumvent the great firewall? Do people there actually care about what they might be missing, as this incident implies?

<comment><USER3> Very common within millennial circle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess that tells you all you would ever want to know about the independence of chinese media if the chief editor deletes his personal tweet complaining about the internet access.

<comment><USER5> Maybe he deleted it of his own volition.

<comment><USER2> Assuming it was him deleting it and not someone else</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Had That Beer - Many many weekends project - <AUTHOR>

It is a simple beer checklist site where you can keep track of the beers you have had and what you thought of them.  I started this site around September of last year as I wasn't satisfied with any of the beer rating sites available for keeping track of what I have had.
It is still a little rough around the edges and is a continual work in progress, as I am the only one working on it.  But please check it out and send on any feedback.  email@example.com
http://www.hadthatbeer.com/signup
Code: showhn
If you don't want to sign up, and just want to browse around the site...
http://www.hadthatbeer.com/user/1 <comment><USER2> It took me a few minutes of wandering around to see the "Find beers, brewers and places" search box. You really need to make it more prominent. White text instead of ochre yellow might be a better choice. It's quite funny considering I'm in the middle of reading "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug and just 2 minutes ago, I was reading the bit where he wrote, use "Search" for your search box labels, not other words like Find.

As others have pointed out, please list some beers already. It's too much work to expect me to start typing in beer names randomly.

Why don't you present me with your own and other early users' profiles which already have a bunch of beers listed? Ask me if I like any of them or know one I like better.

Even Myspace didn't make me feel so lonely. At least, Tom was my friend. Be my friend, Mat.

Edit: Between the logo, top two nav links, search box, top right links, main page text, Search button text, you have too many text styles going on, which is confusing the visual heirarchy.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great feedback, thanks for going through it. I will be adding more content to guide a new user, and will be updating the UI to make it more intuitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you depending on users to input all the different types of beers? Would be nice if you could scrape together an extensive list that I could pick from. Was imagining a grid with pictures of bottles/logos and easy one click to select.

I searched for the last two beers I had, nothing terribly exotic, and didn't find either and so gave up at that point.

<comment><AUTHOR> To an extent I am relying on users input. I imported a beer database I had of around 3,500 beers...though it didn't have many common ones and I am continuing to fill them in.

The grid with pictures of bottles/logos is a feature I definitely want to add in :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The url <http://www.hadthatbeer.com/user/1> instantly worried me, so I tried <http://www.hadthatbeer.com/user/2>, <http://www.hadthatbeer.com/user/3>, etc and all were available.

Are user profiles meant to be public? If not that's a pretty serious security flaw.

Other than that, the site looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

The profiles are public by default and there is a setting to make it private, which would show only limited information to the public just so that someone can identify you when they are looking to friend you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Couldn't get to the Beers section, assume you're in the middle of updating it? It would be really great to have a way of tagging or arbitrarily grouping beers together, e.g. "fruity" or "goes with Salmon" etc, as well as by obvious characteristics (e.g. brewer). When I'm thinking about a beer, I'm more interested in the sort of beer it is than ranking it by a number.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great idea. My two biggest/immediate suggestions:

Allow Twitter signup (and FB, I suppose - I say Twitter b/c that's the one I care about.

Create a really, really, really good mobile experience. Seriously, if you want users to actually use the site, let them do it while they're drinking a beer, no matter where that is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't believe I forgot to mention this, there is a mobile web version available that I have been working on, check it out at <http://www.hadthatbeer.com/mobile>

Should auto redirect if I support your device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coming from someone who's done almost the same thing, you need to remove the barrier to entry (signup) - for some reason beer drinkers won't fill in forms. Allow twitter/Facebook signin or even anonymous ratings- a signup form was the single biggest mistake I made with my site (and I made a lot of mistakes)

<comment><USER8> Going one step further, when a user goes to your site for the first time, create an account for them behind the scenes. This will enable them to track beers immediately.

Later on, you can prompt them for an email address or password. For example, if a new user adds X beers, open a lightbox that says "Mmmm, beer. To make sure you don't lose your list, type in your email address and a password."

This is beneficial because by the time they've added X beers, they have more of a connection with the site, and likely to not want to lose the info they've plugged in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beer Advocate (<http://beeradvocate.com/>) has been around for a while.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I upvote submissions while offline? - <AUTHOR> Imagine the following scenario:
1. Open Hacker News in a new tab
2. Go offline
3. Read through the submissions and give your votes
4. Go online
5. Automatically submit and sync my given votes <comment><USER2> Why can't you?

<comment><AUTHOR> For me, it does not work in Chrome. The votes are not shown is counted if I reload HN.

<comment><USER2> Have you tried coding something up?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I am technically not skilled enough to do that. :-(

<comment><USER2> Ok. So why doesn't voting offline work?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know. It just doesn't. If I vote offline, go online and then refresh the page, I can see that it did not count the votes.

<comment><USER2> How can Hacker News record your votes if you are offline?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is exactly my question if there is a way to schedule offline actions (such as voting) and then release them when online again.

<comment><USER2> It would require learning to write code that solves the problem of why Hacker News does not count votes made offline. It's probably something that a motivated person can hack up, but it would require independent effort to gain an understanding of how websites and HTTP work.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The History of Bingo Card Creator (who just quit his job) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/page/46/

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked up the first blog post (27-Jun-2006) and will try to work my way through it.</comment>


DDoS Attacks on Web Hosts Continue - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/04/07/ddos-attacks-on-web-hosts-continue/

<comment><USER2> they should share data and attack signatures; otherwise the attackers will be left unknown</comment>


On Window Managers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/digital-productivity/c42c2786a9fa

<comment><USER2> Next up on Medium: emacs vs. vi(m). IMPORTANT

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that sarcasm? Was such a post really not appropriate for digital productivity?

<comment><USER2> It's a pretty lame article to post to HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that's straight to the point, thank you. (But not very constructive)

<comment><USER2> It's not my job to tell Medium to raise the standards of the articles it pays people to post to HN. All I can do is comment and flag.

<comment><AUTHOR> Medium didn't pay me to post this article on HN. I'm its author and I figured it could help some people.

Anyway. How is it not a good article? Is it obvious for people to use window managers? Is everybody aware of their existence? Was Medium not the right place to post it?

<comment><USER2> Medium is probably the perfect place to post it, but that doesn't mean it's relevant to HN. What part of the HN audience did you predict would be helped?

<comment><AUTHOR> Developers who haven't done their research properly?

<comment><USER3> Maybe you need to give HN readers a bit more credit. This is like posting - What is Vim?

Likelihood of HN reader not knowing this is probably pretty low.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll keep that in mind in the future. I thought the HN audience didn't only include knowledgeable developers.

<comment><USER3> Not knocking you. I liked your article. Just answering your question :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i've been using [1] Zephyros (nee Windows.app) for the last while.

similar to slate, i guess.

[1] <https://github.com/sdegutis/zephyros>

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks about as configurable. Zephyros uses coffescript instead of JavaScript, but then again, that's close enough.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How possible is to create your own currency? - <AUTHOR>

So, suddenly Bitcoin is a currency. But doesn't that mean someone just decided to "create" money? Isn't that illegal? After all you're just making 0's and 1's out of nothing. In relation to my question, what about bitcoin mining? You get some machines to mine for them, which is basically making bitcoin out of thin air. (i may be wrong, i don't know how mining works) <comment><USER2> Listen to this podcast by NPR planet money, it explains everything about what a currency is and why it has value:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/27/216125279/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/27/216125279/episode-421-the- birth-of-the-dollar-bill)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, first of all, it isn't a US dollar, which means that it isn't counterfeit, which means it isn't illegal. Anyone can manufacture anything (that isn't illegal) and call it valuable. The market determines whether or not it actually is. In this case, the market has decided that Bitcoins have value, so they do, at least for now.

There's nothing to suggest that Bitcoin _is_ officially currency, and the government currently doesn't see it as such. You aren't taxed on bitcoin gains or losses like you might be if it were a stock, or interest in a bank account. You're likely obligated to pay taxes for when you cash it out into fiat, but that's normal.

If it helps, you can think of it more like a baseball card, or a comic book. If I go and buy a bunch of old comic books for a dollar, then, well, they're worth a dollar. If they happen to be rare comic books, and are actually sought by collectors, then perhaps I can sell them for tens of thousands of dollars. If I sell a comic book for tens of thousands of dollars, then I owe taxes on that sale.

In the case of bitcoins, yeah, the coins were 'magicked' out of thin air, but they were done so in a process that prevents (or at least strongly deters) cheating and tampering. Similarly, "Facebook.com" was just magicked out of thin air. For that matter, so are US dollars (Okay, yeah, they're paper, but fiat currencies hold no actual value except for what men with armies say they do -- if the economy collapsed, your dollars are worth kindling, basically). More appropos, perhaps, is the idea of a virtual gift. If I make a virtual flower and send it to you, you have a virtual flower. If you buy a virtual flower from me for a dollar, than you have a virtual flower, and I have a dollar.

In the case of Bitcoins, some people had them, and other people wanted them, so dollars were exchanged for Bitcoin and trade occurred.

That said, the mechanics for how bitcoins are mined is indeed _much_ more complicated than I'm portraying here, but effectively, there's a pot of gold in the middle, that contains all the bitcoins that will ever exist. Contributing CPU time (or GPU time/ASIC time, whatever) towards processing transactions in the network will occasionally reward you with bitcoins from that treasure pot. The more you help, the more likely you are to receive a reward.

In some vague, abstract sense, you can imagine that the blockchain (the pot of gold) is a bank, and everybody contributing CPU time is an employee, getting paid commensurately with the work they put in.

Note: This is a string of very bad analogies that oversimplifies things to a ridiculous level, but is meant more to give a general picture than to provide a real explanation.</comment>


Self-remixed track (mixed out of samples of itself) - <AUTHOR> http://musicmachinery.com/2009/12/03/from-nickelback-to-bickelnack/?1

<comment><USER2> That is absolutely fantastic. I'd like to see the algorithm run on different (higher quality) musicians though to see the results. Is this really an artifact of Nickelback's suck, or is the algorithm just so efficient that it maintains the musicality regardless?

<comment><USER2> As a hilarious aside, I listened to the remix before the original, and some of the awkward bits I assumed were artifacts of the algorithm turn out to be in the song itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Many years ago ('70s I'm guessing) I took a Bach piece and sliced it up via 1/4" tape. Basically randomizing snippets, each about a 2-3 seconds long.

It more or less sounded Bach-ish, but rambling. A few people heard parts of it without knowing what it was and seemed to enjoy it, though I wonder if they had stuck with it they would have realized it didn't have any movement or development. Or reliable meter, for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me a bit of Oval's 94 Diskont album, where they scratched the hell out of a cd, and then sampled the bits that would play into strange-but-compelling songs like 'Do While':

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYU-zUEdZvE>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpWU_Nrwe10>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/94_Diskont>

</comment><comment><USER5> It would probably be fairly simple to do this to most Western tonal music (at least now that someone else has done the hard part and written a tool that automates the process!), as the biggest factor I see in keeping the sound coherent is the timbre and texture of the sound, not necessarily the actual music.

Most pop/rock/etc music has (at most) a single key change, which means that 75-80% of the song uses the same 8 pitches over and over again. Add to that the rather homogeneous sound of modern pop/rock/etc instruments (not to mention the limited range of vocal styles usually applied within a single song) and I'd guess this would work with most "popular" music written over the past 50 or so years.

There would certainly be exceptions (Bjork, for example, probably has enough textural vocal changes within a single song to make this much more difficult), but by and large, I'm guessing the output of this experiment is more a commentary on modern pop music theory than it is the specific stylings of Nickleback.

</comment><comment><USER6> Fun example. And the idea of a Fractal track is one of those: how-haven't-I- thought-of-it-before things.

I don't know how a true fractal song would sound. The author of the post uses the original song to smooth the final result to make it listenable. I guess a true fractally generated track could/would have infinitely high pitches that could make it unpleasant for a human's ear.

</comment><comment><USER7> It'd be interesting to see what would happen if you applied this to all of Nickelbacks work and limited it to about 3 minutes 30 seconds and see if what pops out sounds like one of their songs.

</comment><comment><USER8> Didn't Nickelback themselves already beat them to this?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs4tNeGyTyI></comment>