CR-48's Still shipping - <AUTHOR>

To all who have yet to receive their CR-49's don't give up hope yet. I just got mine in today so it looks like these are still shipping out. <comment><USER2> I got mine yesterday. I remember applying through the basic and the longer (advanced?) form.

</comment><comment><USER3> I received one on Friday as well. It was not on the public list of tracking numbers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got mine on Tuesday. And it's a CR-48 (not 49).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats I get for relying on spell check instead of reading my post before submitting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I too received one on Friday.</comment>


Court says FCC's net neutrality repeal can't stop state laws - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/01/court-says-fccs-unhinged-net-neutrality-repeal-cant-stop-state-laws/ <comment><USER2> The whole thing is a bit sad. We could have a real discussion about net neutrality. We could talk about how 5G probably will need different kinds of connections with different latency or reliability and that if you are building a normal Web service you probably don't need all that while some other services obviously do. And such specific improvement maybe should cost a bit more.

But no. Because all ISPs will use non net neutrality for is to push more expensive subs on people without really offering something better to them. Or push out competition of their own services. Who in general would support Ait the way he behaves? He is so obviously a corporate ISP spokesperson, even without looking at his resume.

<comment><USER3> I'm still anti-NN because I hate how disingenuous and alarmist the pro-NN crowd has been. I don't think adding more regulation will fix anything.

But at least now we'll get to witness the power of federalism with regulatory comparisons between states.

Reasons:

\- general opposition to regulation, because compliance costs burden smaller firms more, raising the barrier to entry

\- does not address the root problem, lack of competition

\- reduces choices for consumers

Lack of competition is caused by onerous local regulations which incumbents use to raise the barrier to entry. See: Google Fiber

Because NN does not address the root cause, and in fact the support for NN has not resulted in any significant support for addressing the root cause, it can only serve to further enforce the status quo or makes things worse.

Some examples of failed predictions / misleading statements made by NN supporters:

\- Most Americans have less than 3 ISPs. This may be true depending on how you restrict which ISPs you're referring to. Mobile carriers cover almost the whole US, so there's 3 or 4 right there.

\- ISPs will produce different packages for internet access. This hasn't happened.

\- Speeds will reduce. This hasn't happened.

<comment><USER4> General opposition to regulation

\- NN is not a cost regulation as far as I know. It's preventing companies from doing something, not requiring them to do anything extra.

Lack of competition, reduces choice

\- These are the same thing and NN is not meant to be a solution to the lack of ISP competition. I think you're right that local regulations are the root case of that though. NN is meant to prevent reduced competition of services that rely on the internet, particularly those that require heavy data use. Would someone be able to start a Netflix today and compete with the media services owned by the ISPs?

Less than 3 ISPs

\- Mobile service is not a replacement for home internet service. Even with tethering most households would go way over their mobile data caps if that's all they used.

ISPs will produce different packages

\- This happens all over the world in places without NN. But since most of the major ISPs are also media companies in the US they simple zero-rate their own media. This has the same effect of reducing competition among online services.

Also your username switched around is Ajit P. That's a little suspect ;)

<comment><USER3> NN, as it was proposed, as implementation of Title II for ISPs, is a large bundle of regulations. Regardless, every regulation has a cost to compliance.

I explained how NN reduces options for consumers in a different reply.

5G is meant to be a replacement for home internet service. Its primary features: high bandwidth, low latency, etc. are specifically meant for that purpose.

The one example I saw of this was a Portuguese mobile carrier. I didn't see any other examples.

And zero-rating would be allowed under Title II.

> your username switch around is Ajit P

That's actually a pretty funny coincidence. Never recognized that before.

<comment><USER5> > Regardless, every regulation has a cost to compliance.

I don't buy this. Is there a cost to statutes against murder? What about trespassing laws? How about loitering laws? How about road laws, is there a cost to automakers for speed limit compliance?

while regulations CAN have costs for compliance (see FDA testing for an extreme example), they don't ALL have costs.

NN falls in the low to no cost bucket. "treat all traffic fairly" is a much easier algorithm and maintenance scheme than "Slow down netflix because we are partners with AT&T" or even "Slow down netflix because the user hasn't purchased the fast netflix plan". That is MORE costly to maintain for a network provider, not less.

About the only way to spin it as costly is if you talk about opportunity losses (IE, they can have higher profits with shittier plans).

I'd be more sympathetic if ISPs hadn't attained regional regulatory capture basically everywhere. If there were true competition in the ISP market then you could sway me to thinking NN could go. However, as it stands, most areas have only 2 competitors. In that case, either we need NN or we needs some trust busting.

<comment><USER6> > I don't buy this. Is there a cost to statutes against murder? What about > trespassing laws? How about loitering laws? How about road laws, is there a > cost to automakers for speed limit compliance?

There absolutely are cost to statutes against trespassing and loitering. Other countries with different laws have more freedom, for instance the "Right to Ramble" in the UK and other countries guarantees citizens the right to pass over privately owned woodlands and fields unmolested by trespassing law.

When it comes to compliance by a company, and not to your examples of statutes against murder, the company is absolutely going to pay lawyers to examine the regulation, promulgate internal rules about how to follow it, employees have to read the regulation, there may be mistakes causing fines to be levied. I don't see how a regulation as big as net neutrality could not have costs somewhere.

Edit: and slowing down traffic doesn't have to be a positive decision, YouTube and Netflix were slow on FiOS at one point because they hadn't upgraded the necessary peering due to a dispute over who should pay for the upgrade. Under a net neutrality scheme, you now have to analyze the regulation to see if it forces the ISP to pay for the upgrade themselves for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > DNS and caching services mean that broadband providers do more than simply > move bits from place to place.

With widespread adoption of HTTPS, and now browsers pushing towards DNS over HTTPS, it could become harder for ISPs to argue they provide more than communication. Most customers will then not only not be using their ISP's hosted services, but avoiding them, and enforcing their non-use by means of public key cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER8> Caching and DNS.

When I was a kid, we had 721-1700, a local number that you could call for the current time. It saved you from the long-distance call to the NIST ([https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency- division/radio-s...](https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency- division/radio-stations/wwv/telephone-time-day-service)). That seems like the local phone company was doing caching.

If I wanted to call a business (or, in many cases a person), I could call 411 (or, in a different area code, 555-1212); they would take my query, give me the number, and connect me to my intended party. Seems a lot like DNS.

So then I guess the phone companies would also not be Title II?

<comment><USER9> Exactly! Telephone operators were the equivalent of DNS back in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The FCC's push here should tell you everything you need to know. They claimed that the regulations weren't their place and that they should be implemented by legislation instead of administration. Then, when that starts to happen, they argue that their oversight cannot be overruled by state legislation. Their true goal is plainly clear: the FCC is a captured organization working on behalf of telecoms interests. So what do we do about it? I'm not sure.

</comment><comment><USER11> The telecoms won the battle... And lost the war. Now instead of one easily influenced regulator they have 50 regulators, many of whom are politically motivated but to play ball.

</comment><comment><USER12> So this is interesting; assuming that this doesn't go to the Supreme Court or is otherwise unchanged by it, it could mean that after some states implement their own laws (and fight off the inevitable lobby/lawsuits attempts to stop from from doing so ), this could go down two ways:

1) The ISPs create two (or mor) versions of their packages that they can offer/operate in different states - this would be quite expensive (and I suspect in some cases quite difficult too), but it would allow them to leech extra profit off the hides of customers not protected by state law; it would generate a bit of outrage when users see their family and friends in other parts of the country are better off, but I doubt that will make the whole system collapse

2) Or they will give in and accept the higher(highest?) standard, similar to what's happening for car emissions. I am maybe too cynical, but I doubt that will happen so easily.

Car emissions are a secondary thing for manufacturers - they can grumble, but at the end of the day it's just a bit of extra cost. The repeal of net neutrality is a matter of life or death for ISPs - it's what will make the difference between them being able to maintain outsized profits and power in their nice little oligopoly, vs becoming dumb pipes.

<comment><USER13> _> The ISPs create two (or mor) versions of their packages that they can offer/operate in different states - this would be quite expensive_

Why should it be expensive?

In State A, which doesn't have NN laws, you throttle Netflix until they pay you to stop doing so. In State B, which has NN laws, you don't.

It's just a matter of router configuration, isn't it? It wouldn't be _totally_ free, but I'd imagine it could pay for itself.

<comment><USER14> Only a few months ago did Verizon misconfigure their BGP causing a big outage. Now imagine they need to have different routing for different states. It seems like they're too incompetent to manage to best standards now, so how could we trust them to do any better? We should've considered them dumb pipes from the beginning.

<comment><USER15> Remember that time.. a few minutes ago when Verizon configured BGP correctly and nothing happened? And yesterday and the day before and the day before that, too? No? I didn't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, this is what the ISPs and providers asked for... FCC could either take on the role of they have the authority (and keep NN) or that they don't, and the states then do have authority.

I'm happier the way it is... now as states lock things down, ISPs that cover multiple states have to either have wierd rules, or comply with the most restrictive (to them) implementation more broadly. They deserve what they get.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's hard to tell from the article, how narrow or broad is this ruling?

Does this have general implications for how federal agency rules interact with state laws, or does it really only apply to this case?

<comment><USER18> "As a matter of both basic agency law and federalism, the power to preempt the States' laws must be conferred by Congress. It cannot be a mere byproduct of self-made agency policy."

I am very much not a lawyer, but I don't see why that wouldn't apply to other agencies. OTOH, I'm unsure if that's really a precedent implying anything, any more than a court ruling that Emperor Norton had no legal authority would have been - it's simply reaffirming that arbitrary declarations have no inherent legal force.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good. FCC caught its own tail with Pai getting the taste of his own medicine. They reclassified ISPs under Title I, and lost any ability to impose such kind preemptions in result.

</comment><comment><USER20> I dont understand how some federal laws cannot be strengthened by state laws within that state, while others can

Is there a legal doctrine that explains this discrepancy?

Wish I had examples for both scenario

I'm not talking about conflicts though

And please, no analogies you thought up in your head. Serious replies only

<comment><USER6> Read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption)

<comment><USER20> > I'm not talking about conflicts though

(Where preemption applies)

<comment><USER6> That page has one section about conflicts and other sections explaining the rest. Look for the sentence starting " Even without a conflict between federal and state law or an express provision for preemption, the courts will infer an intention to preempt state law if the federal regulatory scheme is so pervasive..."

<comment><USER20> Thank you, was browsing on mobile and it condenses all the sections into headers that didnt seem to describe these exceptions

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will be overturned. Commerce Clause.

<comment><USER22> Commerce Clause allows _Congress_ to preempt state law when acting within it's bounds, sure. Executive agencies (including "independent" ones) don't have that power except through Congress exercising its own preemptive power, which this court does not find Congress did in a way which covers this particular FCC action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So much _Sturm und Drang_ here on HN when NN was repealed... 2 years later, how many people's business or personal computer use been significantly affected?

<comment><USER24> Net neutrality isn't about impact to personal computer use - it's about incentives to the ecosystem. It's about the viability of businesses like Netflix and new competitors thereto. You shouldn't expect to see an immediate impact, but you should expect to see new companies starting or not starting, existing companies deciding new ventures are viable or not viable, etc.

It's like saying, "We shut down all military recruiting two years ago, has anyone been attacked by an invader?" Not yet, but there's probably been a few conflicts we didn't get involved in that we otherwise would have (which could be good or bad, to be clear!), which can have significant effects on the world in many more years. And in ten years or so there probably will be some people thinking about invading.

<comment><USER25> > It's about the viability of businesses like Netflix and new competitors > thereto.

Why should the ISPs be forced to bankroll Netflix (or other startups) infrastructure? It's a different company making a business decision to suddenly massively increase their use of the ISPs networks. If the ISP is forced to both not block the traffic, and also not able to charge the provider for access, then I don't understand why you think that's ok. What makes Netflix a more moral company than the ISP that Netflix's business is more important than the ISPs?

<comment><USER24> I'm not saying (in this comment) that they should or shouldn't, only that this is the argument for net neutrality. This is why I picked an analogy about the military: whether you're a hawk or a dove, you should argue your position based on the anticipated effects of well over two years of your policy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ok Microsoft you win the gif of the day - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/21/9008239/microsoft-ninja-cat-t-rex-skype-emoticon

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone familiar on what software for beginners, you can use to make a gif like their ninja cat?</comment>


Tables Turn for Dilbert's Creator - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/business/11dilbert.html?ex=1352437200&en=9c7969aabd8edca6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><AUTHOR> Something in this article reminded me of episodes from _"Kitchen Nightmare"_ where the know-all owner, meddles in the kitchen overriding the chef. Requiring Gordon Ramsay to step in and fix the mess. Restaurants are some of the hardest businesses to run. Capital intensive where the basic ingredients have short half lives and customers who willingly vote with their dollars ~ [http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/ramsays-kitchen- nightmare...](http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/ramsays-kitchen-nightmares/)

Most of the time the problems stem from restaurant owners and sometimes staff in-experience, incompetence and the failure of owners to adapt. The number one message Gordon gives these owners is the (surprise, surprise) _"Customers, Customers and Customers"_. Give them what they want. Make sure it's simple. Charge to cover your costs and keep a tidy ship. Make sure you are running a business to serve food. Not your ego.

Not too dissimilar to running a Startup.

<comment><USER2> Not very dissimilar?

<comment><AUTHOR> probably should have been "Similiar to running a Startup"

<comment><USER2> You find restaurants similar to tech startups?

<comment><USER3> I think what our correspondent is trying to say is "tech startups and restaurants are similar, because the secret to success in both is 'customers, customers, customers'".

The message is not that tech startups are capital intensive businesses, with ingredients that have short half-lives and brutal margins and customers who have absolutely zero lock-in. They're not. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work in the area. The weirdest thing is that the original Stacey's is in downtown Pleasanton, which is an older and quaint area with other locally owned restaurants.

But Stacey's at Waterford is in, as the article says, an unremarkable strip mall. Why? It looks like just another strip mall fake plastic PF Chang Chili's Flingers suburban food dispensery. I never understood why Scott would put a bunch of money into building an original restaurant next to PJ O'Pootertoots.</comment>


Portland protesters say federal officers in unmarked vans are detaining them - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/17/portland-protests-federal-arrests/ <comment><USER2> How can you have the right of habeaus corpus when nobody knows which agency seized your corpus?

We urgently need a federal statute to require that armed federal agents wear prominent identification. Even just a number that we can lookup for the details.

Cops with no accountability are how we got in this mess and this anonymity amounts to more of the same.

<comment><USER3> The article says which agency it was (CPB), and quotes the CPB as saying that the agents identified themselves as CPB agents. It also says that they weren't individually identifiable, which is an issue, but a different issue.

<comment><USER4> I don't see the CPB supposedly identifying their agency as alleviating the first issue your parent mentioned: habeas corpus. The litmus test is: can a family/friend/attorney reasonably find the arrested/detained person within a few hours?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is nice to see this finally getting the attention of national media. It was a week or so ago I saw videos of some guy get shot in the face while holding up a sign and another being kidnapped and dragged in to an unmarked car by unidentified individuals for an unexplained reason.

</comment><comment><USER6> For everyone wondering what's happening, here's my theory. They're likely using CCTV footage, either drone or fixed, to identify people in the crowd. Most likely these are instigators that are inciting violence or destroying property. They're waiting until the people are separated from the crowd, to make sure that things don't escalate, then arresting them.

We need to follow up with the arrests and make sure due process is being followed. If you're inciting violence or destroying property, you need to face justice. If you're assembling peacefully, we need to monitore for/end the abuse of power.

<comment><USER7> Nice theory, except they are not being arrested. They are being detained, and then released with no charges, and no apparent record of having been captured.

<comment><USER6> Have a source? I don't think that's true. This is what I'm seeing.

[https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=25099...](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=250994&ec=2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> just a reminder of the dress rehearsal from Standing Rock

[https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents- reveal-...](https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal- security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline- insurgencies/)

</comment><comment><USER9> So what happens if you manage to shoot these (quasi- or even actual) kidnappers in self-defense?

<comment><USER10> You'd get shot back, and you very well might lose the civil suit: In every video I've seen, there's a big POLICE patch on their plate carriers.

That doesn't make what's happening super awesome, but OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.

<comment><USER11> > You'd get shot back, and you very well might lose the civil suit: In every > video I've seen, there's a big POLICE patch on their plate carriers.

If having a POLICE patch is a license to commit violence without the target having a right to self-defense, that's...a problem.

> OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, > operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.

It's exactly like that: LGM were armed troops that wore generic military-style fatigues with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense linked them on some level to the Russian governmwnr. These armed troops wear generic law-enforcement style gear with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense link them to the US federal government. It's _exactly_ the same thing, except that it's internal unaccountable repression and not an external not-quite-plausibly-deniable invasion.

<comment><USER10> > If having a POLICE patch is a license to commit violence without the target > having a right to self-defense, that's...a problem.

I suppose so, but it's currently within the law to do so. In fact, the police don't always have to identify themselves as the police in certain exigent circumstances (!). It's also a common myth that universally the police must identify themselves personally and give a badge number. That's up to department policy.

I support reform in these cases, at the least requiring officers to wear patches that uniquely identifies them ("X25" or something) for later use in court. That said, what we are seeing is within the bounds of the law today.

>It's exactly the same thing

No, it really isn't. Men in civilian clothing or blank fatigues blowing things up with zero identification is indeed distinguishable from men in uniform with American flag and POLICE patches.

<comment><USER12> > No, it really isn't. Men in civilian clothing or blank fatigues blowing > things up with zero identification is indeed distinguishable from men in > uniform with American flag and POLICE patches.

How so?

<comment><USER10> A reasonable observer could conclude that they are almost certainly American law enforcement. Is is difficult to tell that these German fellows are police officers?

[https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg](https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg)

The LGM had no patches, no flags, nothing to indicate to a reasonable observer where they were from or what authority they might have. This was more pronounced with LGM in civilian clothing:

[https://i.redd.it/2sukgo8bjjl41.png](https://i.redd.it/2sukgo8bjjl41.png)

I'm not a giant fan of the cammies. I think a solid color would suffice for all but snipers and it looks less militaristic. But that doesn't negate the fact that all of the videos show men with POLICE patches in the middle of their plate carriers and American flags on their uniforms.

<comment><USER13> > A reasonable observer could conclude that they are almost certainly American > law enforcement. Is is difficult to tell that these German fellows are > police officers? > >[https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg](https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg)

Based on the comments here, it is difficult for these people. Perhaps they are not reasonable observers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has been going on for a while. It started with using unidentified units at the DC protests. Then the clearing of protestors for the photo op. Now they're roaming the streets in unmarked rentals in Portland abducting people. This is against the wishes of the Governor and the Mayor.

The DHS secretary visited Portland yesterday, this is what he saw that has prompted him to send in these forces: pictures of graffiti [1].

For that he labeled these are violent extremists and violent anarchists. And he has labeled these unidentified units abducting people as our valiant men and women in uniform and patriots. This is war on terror language used in our country, on our streets.

On Wednesday Trump, with AG Barr next to him named other "blue cities" in addition to Portland: Seattle, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

If this chills you and you don't want to see it progress, call your representatives and ask them to intervene to stop this.

[1] [https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1284095525122453504](https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1284095525122453504)

<comment><USER14> Legit curious about the down voting. If we're going to allow news like this to be posted, then what about my comment is not adding facts or to the conversation? Is it because of this line: "If this chills you and you don't want to see it progress, call your representatives and ask them to intervene to stop this."?

<comment><USER15> I upvoted to counter the downvotes, but I'd guess the downvotes were because you described what some people feel were legal arrests as "abducting people", and because you suggested the the DHS secretary sent in forces solely because of graffiti. Your point of view is legitimate, but others might legitimately disagree with it. I think just about everyone would agree with the "call your representatives" part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oregon law seems straightforward:

ORS 162.367:

(1) A person commits the crime of criminal impersonation of a peace officer if the person, with the intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another person, uses false law enforcement identification or wears a law enforcement uniform to give the impression that the person is a peace officer and does an act in that assumed character. (2) Criminal impersonation of a peace officer is a Class C felony. ... (3) As used in this section: ... Law enforcement uniform" means clothing bearing words such as "police," "sheriff," "state trooper" or "law enforcement," or clothing that is an official uniform or substantially similar to an official uniform of a law enforcement unit that would make it reasonably likely that a person would believe that the wearer is a peace officer. [1993 c.243 §2; 2005 c.259 §1]

ORS 133.005:

(3) "Peace officer" means: (a) A member of the Oregon State Police; (b) A sheriff, constable, marshal, municipal police officer or reserve officer or a police officer commissioned by a university under ORS 352.121 (University police departments and officers) or 353.125 (Creation of police department and commission of police officers); (c) An investigator of a district attorney's office if the investigator is or has been certified as a peace officer in this or any other state; (d) An investigator of the Criminal Justice Division of the Department of Justice of the State of Oregon; (e) A humane special agent as defined in ORS 181A.345 (Humane special agents to enforce animal welfare laws under direction of law enforcement agency); (f) A regulatory specialist exercising authority described in ORS 471.775 (Service of subpoenas) (2); (g) An authorized tribal police officer as defined in ORS 181A.680 (Definitions for ORS 181A.680 to 181A.692); or (h) A judicial marshal appointed under ORS 1.177 (State plan for security, emergency preparedness and business continuity for court facilities) who is trained pursuant to ORS 181A.540 (Certification of judicial marshals).

There is a separate definition of "Federal Officer." A Federal Officer is not allowed to wear clothing bearing the word "Police", because they are not a police officer.

Impersonating a police officer is a class C felony, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

<comment><USER17> IANAL so I don't quite understand why would be a state law (Oregon in this case) applicable to federal agents executing the federal law. Seeing that internet is full of pictures of federal agents with "police" insignia (usually together with the agency name, but not always) it appears that the federal law allows this type of identification and, because of the Supremacy Clause, the state law has no effect. Am I missing something here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How did he know they were federal?

<comment><USER8> The feds have said they're there. Not what they're doing exactly but they haven't been hiding their presence. If you know they aren't local PD because you've been there long enough to know what swat-ass PPD look like the choice is vigilante cosplays or Fed, and Occam says fed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article offers scant evidence that this occurred.

A man claims that he was arrested "as he was walking home from a peaceful protest" and taken to the courthouse in an unmarked vehicle. This strikes me as unlikely to be the full story, but it is presented as the gospel truth. The entire thing is based on the word of this guy. What did the Washington Post do to verify the truth of this story? Anything?

The WaPo article refrences Oregon Public Broadcasting as a source, and their article[0] contains more allegations:

> Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive > around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14.

and

> Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers > driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they > are being arrested, and driving off.

Neither article links to these videos. So, in terms of supporting evidence, we're left with the word of one man and a perfectly credulous article written in a local publication.

Has anyone seen one of these videos?

[0][https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement- unm...](https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked- vehicles-portland-protesters/)

<comment><USER20> Here's one:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/hry8db/arme...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/hry8db/armed_troops_in_portland_oregon_are_taking_people/)

<comment><USER21> Many of the comments note a number of highly suspicious irregularities which point towards this being some kind of asset extraction, as opposed to a genuine arrest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This play is straight outta Vladislav Surkov's book. He's starting to look like Putin's Kissinger. Look up the "little green men" in Ukraine.

</comment><comment><USER23> This was happening in Cincinnati about 20 years ago and nobody believed me the neighborhood I lived in was so bad with gang violence anytime you called the police they showed up an unmarked clothing wearing masks in unmarked police cars white and black</comment>


The Penguin Book of Oulipo review – writing, a user's manual - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/18/the-penguin-book-of-oulipo-review-italo-calvino-georges-perec <comment><USER2> The Oulipo movement stands to me as a fascinating study of creative processes with differing goals and results. It can be great short circuit around a creative blocks that stem from expectations and unlimited possibility.

I am a fan of utilizing 'soft Oulipo' where the rules are more of an influential and motivational underpinning vs absolute rules to be strictly adhered to. As alluded to in the article, this was/is a controversial position.

I've tried and failed to get into Perec, who apparently has numerous and inscrutable rules in his works.

On the other hand, I love Italo Calvino and the assembly that resulted in Invisible Cities.

I've never heard it described as an example of Oulipo before this article, but Alice Oswald's Memorial is amazing and sparse and heartbreaking, especially if you managed to make it through a more traditional translation of the Iliad.

</comment><comment><USER3> You might also find this apt: you must omit all fifth glyphs on this mastodon social forum

[https://oulipo.social](https://oulipo.social)</comment>


Clear Solar Concentrator from MSU Could Revolutionize Solar Power Generation - <AUTHOR> http://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/transparent-solar-concentrator-from-msu-could-revolutionize-solar-power-generation.76332/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just imagine if every skylight was generating electricity? MSU engineers have also developed a new disc engine that is capable of 100 mpg

[http://www.dailytech.com/New+Disc+Gas+Engine+Looks+to+Challe...](http://www.dailytech.com/New+Disc+Gas+Engine+Looks+to+Challenge+Traditional+Diesel+Gas+ICEs/article21323.htm)

</comment><comment><USER2> One percent efficiency.</comment>


High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/High-speed-rail-taking-shape-even-as-opponents-10926131.php <comment><USER2> Huge supporter of rail but sadly I believe there are a number of mistakes being made. This is a classic example of how projects like this in the US need to be monolithic, self contained, and gold plated to the hilt. The correct action would have been for CA to incrementally acquire and build railways along a number of corridors. Take the SF bay for example. There should be one agency running Caltrain, the Capitol Corridor, the ACE. It should electrify and improve all the routes. Extend reach to Monterey and other Central Valley locations. And do the same in Southern California.

The incompatibility of CAHSR with other rail strikes me as a repeat of the BART mistake.

<comment><USER3> Other successful high-speed rail systems (France's TGV, for example) also have dedicated rights-of-way, not shared with older equipment, and rail physically built to different standards (specially welded). You really don't want genuinely high-speed trains (300 km/h) running on the same tracks as anything slower, in normal operation. And if you try to build a high-speed system on earlier rights-of-way, you get something like Acela, in the US Northeast corridor. It can go at ~150 mph on track that can support it, but there are only a few miles of the route between Boston and Washington can support that. Net: it's only half an hour faster than conventional rail on the same route and track -- and something like half the difference is accounted for by the conventional trains making a lot more stops.

<comment><USER2> Correct. A difference is they start by thinking of (and running) the rail network as a whole system of supporting lines. Then add high speed railway segments to the network like expressways along key routes. This is what I think CA should do/have done. It's not too late actually, they could set up a "Caltrak". Develop a state wide rail plan that covered everything but urban metros, and begin buying assets/access and merging them into one whole network. What the CAHSR is building could continue, maybe with some adaptations of that plan, to just be those "expressway" sections mentioned.

<comment><USER4> This. I know HSR is sexy, but for the money California should put in a conventional rail network first. People would take the train between San Francisco and LA, say, if speeds were comparable to driving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I had known that they were going to run this through the Central Valley instead of down the coast where it belongs I never would have voted for it. It should have gone straight from la to Oakland or emeryville, turned and gone straight to Sacramento. Instead we have a convoluted mess of rail connections that take people places they don't even want to go (no offense to Bakersfield buts it's hardly a holiday destination).

It's a farse because of how it's getting implemented, and nobody is under any illusions this isn't going to turn into another bay bridge budget monster in California.

Still a rail proponent, but bitterly disappointed in the implementation choices of this project.

<comment><USER6> Seriously - trains should go where the people are. The people are in the central valley. Between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz the population is very light and the terrain is very difficult.

It wasn't until the 20th century that access to the Big Sur area was possible. And even today for over a hundred miles highway 1 is the only access.

Fresno - 509,000 people Bakersfield - 363,000 people

The first segment connects 1 million people with a high quality dedicated rail connection. Take a trip on the San Joaguin train - that train slow as it is, is very popular.

Next take a look at a map. Los Angeles is due south of Lake Tahoe. So going to central valley is not a detour or some other political game.

The real political mess is the choice of Pacheco Pass (hwy 152) rather than the Altamont Pass.(I-580) Once again Altamont Pass - a lot of people. hwy 152 - crickets in comparison.

<comment><USER7> _trains should go where the people are_

That's why the money would be better spent on local transit improvements inside the Los Angeles area and the Bay Area, not connecting them.

<comment><USER8> Making trains go where people aren't relieves the pressure on ever increasing prices in populous areas. People will have a realistic option of living in cheaper areas.

AND it allows real estate speculators to get a _much_ higher rate of return when they build up cookie cutter neighbourhoods in cheap land that is soon to be linked up by rail.

Both a good and a cynical reason for this behaviour, which is why I don't think you'll ever see it change (no matter where you are).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Forget high speed rail, where's the commuter trains? It seems ridiculous that in most US cities public transit is mostly non-existent. Traffic is bad in most major US cities you'd think people would be jumping for this as urbanization increases.

<comment><USER10> Those are covered under other bond measures. LA has a multi-generation plan [1] for building out several new rail lines, busways, etc. It's harder to find an overarching document for the Bay Area because there are too damn many counties and transit agencies around here, but there are lots of projects -- BART to San Jose, Caltrain electrification, new rail lines and improved lines in SF, rebuilding the Dumbarton Rail Bridge -- that are in various stages of planning and construction.

[1] [http://theplan.metro.net/](http://theplan.metro.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not sure why they decided to build an elaborate viaduct [1] to allow for a high-speed curve radius in Southeast Fresno, if Fresno will be a likely stop anyway. Just make all trains stop in Fresno, a place conveniently midway between SF and LA and desperate for improved connections with California's more prosperous areas. After all, isn't the whole point of HSR to improve connectivity between more than just the two termini, since those who want to go direct between SF and LA will always have a direct flight as an option?

[1] [https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1NYS0Y3nyyYZowXFDtJ...](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1NYS0Y3nyyYZowXFDtJst5nEJYKg&hl=en&ll=36.72964523009003%2C-119.77272911322018&z=12)

<comment><USER12> > since those who want to go direct between SF and LA will always have a > direct flight as an option

Therein lies the problem. The cost of the line can't be justified unless it provides a viable alternative to flying between SF and LA, because that's the only conceivable way to get enough ridership. The problem is the distance between SF and LA means being competitive with flying in terms of travel time is incredibly difficult. To achieve parity the trains will need to _average_ around 220 MPH, which is incredibly optimistic. Existing high speed rail lines rarely run at 200 MPH even momentarily due to high operating costs.

All this means that most trains will have to run nonstop between SF and LA to even have a hope of competing with flying. If the trains fail to draw passengers away from the airlines, ridership will be far too low to sustain the line without absurdly high subsidies.

<comment><USER13> NYC to Boston is 230 miles, about 3.5 hours by "fast" train. It's about an hour flight. A lot of people still take the train.

If you can get the trains to take you directly into the city center, it can often be a better option.

<comment><USER14> _If you can get the trains to take you directly into the city center, it can often be a better option._

That's because Boston and NYC are both navigable without a car. Only one side of the SF-LA link can claim to be close to that ideal.

But the time and hassle of airport parking and security and delays might be able to keep a 3.5 hour train ride viable even in CA. That would require a train system that allowed passengers to step through a quick scanner with no line and onto the train without queueing or carefully organized boarding. Lots of train systems used to do that in the USA but the bureaucrats don't like passengers freely walking around platforms by heavy machinery or directing themselves or quick predictable security procedures. Acela has been abandoning efficient and established traditional practices to copy instead the airports. How long are they going to stand for a train system that isn't as awful as airport security and boarding?

Since politicians can't risk being blamed for trouble, we have no ability to control the bureaucrats and every high speed transportation system will inevitably get to be as bad as airports.

If rail could be built at the same costs as in France or Japan (or even, optimistically, Spain or Korea), to wit, $20-30MMM, you could justify it just for saving the cost of airport expansion. But at $80-120MMM it's lunacy to proceed.

<comment><USER15> You don't think Measure M passed last year would make any difference? [http://theplan.metro.net/wp- content/uploads/2016/09/factshee...](http://theplan.metro.net/wp- content/uploads/2016/09/factsheet_measurem.pdf)

<comment><USER14> You can't make a city transit and walking friendly by grafting rail infrastructure over a car-based design. You need to allow development on narrower streets without minimum parking requirements on every lot and you need more population density.

You'd have to actually change the rules and overcome the NIMBYs. Some problems can't be solved with cash.

<comment><USER16> Pretty much this, if its sub-5 story slum (aka most US cities & nearly all suburbs) overlaying rail is a bandaid. The city was built wrong in the first place, and needs to gain density, rail can keep a dense city economically viable by providing reliable, rapid transit. There is no good transit solution for suburban sprawl.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As I see it, the price of rail tickets will be pretty high.whats stopping the price of flights from being halved in the next couple of decades and killing this train service too?

<comment><USER18> High speed trains are much better than flights for small commutes, after the expenses are payed, it will be cheaper, it's easier to get on a train than wait hours for flights to take off. High speed rails are the future; flights are the past. Why would you not want to see this work out? Flying is quite annoying because it has constant delays, TSA, and hours of waiting in between.

<comment><USER19> You really think the TSA isn't going to want a piece of this?

<comment><USER20> The TSA's primary mandate is just to socialize legal liability for terrorist attacks away from the airlines.

Their secondary mandate is crony capitalism.

Their tertiary mandate is to acclimatize the population to the trappings of the unconstitutional American police state.

Only the latter would be substantially aided by encroachment onto rail, so I'm not too worried about it for now.

<comment><USER21> The airlines never asked for TSA. In fact the airlines would prefer doing their own screening like the old days. And 'crony capitalism?' That makes no sense.

<comment><USER22> The airlines asked for both retrospective and prospective relief from liability for the actual past (retrospective) and potential future (prospective) security failures in the wake of 9/11.

Nationalization of the security function was the mechanism for the prospective portion of that relief; since they no longer controlled the function, they would no longer be liable for any failures.

Now, they would have preferred immunity from liability while controlling the function, but even their allies in Washington couldn't sell that open-ended a handout publicly. But TSA security theater made adequate political cover for the real purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I loved Chomsky's response to this "Like the one I took in Japan... in the 1950's..."

For extra fun, realize that California had already begun about the same time as Japan to install more public transport, but the car companies moved muscle on them to stop it.

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

</comment><comment><USER24> I would prefer to see the money spent on improving Caltrain. It really is not a viable option for a lot of people. South of SJ Diridon, the trains only run 3x in the morning and 3x in the evening and they require you to basically wake up at 5 or 6 AM depending on the train you want to catch. A lot of tech workers don't come into the office until after 10 AM.

The high speed rail won't really help people already living in Silicon Valley except for the rare few who live near downtown San Jose and plan to work in SF (or vice versa).

And yet, they are the ones who will bear the inconvenience. The proposed plans I have seen will have the train elevated 60 ft in the air, it's about 70-80 ft total from my bedroom window and the train will travel 150 mph several times an hour at around 100 dB. Additionally, they will be narrowing a major road that is 2 lanes in each direction to 1 lane in each direction to make room for the train. Which is weird, because the Caltrain tracks are just another 30 feet away so not sure why they don't just build it above that.

There was some talk of a proposal to reimburse home owners due to the loss of value to their homes if this goes through. Based on the proposal I was looking at they showed a $100K to $200K loss of property value if the train goes through.

If I actually wanted to take the train, it would take me 20-45 minutes to get to the train station in San Jose even though I am already in San Jose.

I'm really disappointed in how impractical this is for the majority of people who live and work in SF bay area and the level of cost and inconvenience it will cause.

<comment><USER25> High speed rail isn't generally meant for commuters - if it had frequent stops, it would never have a chance to reach high speeds before it would have to slow down again.

Perhaps they could provide some subsidy to help you soundproof the side of your house facing the tracks?

Also, it's 100 dB at what distance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Probably should be spending that money on infrastructure (read: dam) maintenance.

<comment><USER10> Both can, should, and are being done. The California Water Project is rather adequately funded. The Oroville Dam problem is due to a pretty unprecedented winter, not a lack of maintenance. The emergency overflow seems to have held, at least for now, so with hope they can put in a fix for the spillway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was against the project back when it was a ballot measure, but since then my opinion on it has changed -- I don't care if trains ever run on the damned thing, what really matters in this project is getting the right of way to the land, because they're going to put in a MASSIVE amount of fiber optic cable as they dig out the path.

</comment><comment><USER28> One thing that nobody has mentioned - autonomous cars. Close to the time this will be completed, I assume I'll be able to sit in my vehicle and be shuttled from SF to LA in 5 hrs in the comfort of my own vehicle.

<comment><USER29> The car is slower, and an order of magnitude less efficient. And efficiency matters -- there's a limit to how much energy can be sustainably spent, and if transportation is more efficient, we get to do more other things.

<comment><USER30> Not to mention that the US is going to continue to expand in terms of population. We've added 60 million people in 20 years, nearly equal to the population of France. We'll add another 20+ million in the next decade.

Simultaneously we'll become slightly less rural and more urban in terms of population concentration.

Even if the autonomous electric vehicle has a huge role to play in improving traffic in the US - which it clearly does - high speed rail (whether hyperloop-like, above ground, below ground, whatever) will still make sense alongside that. There is going to be plenty of demand to go around, such that having multiple approaches will be useful. Sometimes the autonomous car will make sense, sometimes rail will make sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >America's biggest infrastructure project is both in limbo and full-speed ahead.

There is a logic to that for a project of this magnitude that may take dozens of years to complete.

</comment><comment><USER32> "planning snafus" AKA politically motivated outright lies.

</comment><comment><USER33> $64B just in startup costs, for a slower trip than flying. Why this infatuation with a technology that hasn't been leading edge since the 1800s?

<comment><USER2> Have you ever ridden a train in Europe or Japan? They are far and away the most comfortable way to travel any distance under 500 miles.

<comment><USER34> They are also much, much cheaper per mile. Something is wrong with construction in the US that makes rail lines dramatically more expensive here.

<comment><USER35> Its a hell of a lot easier to fly over the dozens or hundreds of different landowners and jurisdictions than it is to convince each of them to allow you to build a giant railroad through them

The us rail infra was built when this wasn't an issue or could be solved by sending some heavies in or bribing the right people.

<comment><USER36> Texas Central is about 1/3 of the way through right of way acquisition on their Houston to Dallas route.

[http://www.texascentral.com/alignment- maps/](http://www.texascentral.com/alignment-maps/)

They're partnering with Japan National Railways and planning on running the N700-I Bullet total system (the international version of the Tokaido Shinkansen).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Finally,an Alternative to QR Code - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/01/09/qr-code-clickable-paper/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss&utm_reader=feedly

<comment><USER2> Alternative? There's no visible way that the data is embedded in the ad which is being scanned, none that I can see, so the only way is to have the ad recognized via image comparison. Oh boy. Better, perhaps, but alternative? Nope.</comment>


Scientists have developed a material so dark that it can't be seen - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/blackest-is-the-new-black-scientists-have-developed-a-material-so-dark-that-you-cant-see-it-9602504.html <comment><USER2> We researched dark coating for astronomical telescope.

0.00035 albedo is pretty impressive. It does not reflect any light, nothing human eye could focus on, so it is impossible to judge distance and details. It is practically invisible and alien. So wall out of this material would appear as 'dark hole' and we would practically walk into it.

We did also experiment by covering room walls with dark cloth, so it would not reflect any light. It was strangely claustrophobic, you could only see light bulb filament and nothing else. Something like this picture:

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:How_Things_Work/Lig...](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:How_Things_Work/Light_Bulb#mediaviewer/File:LightbulbGlow.jpg)

It would be fashion revolution, If they turn it into practical material safe for humans and weather resistent.

<comment><USER3> What if the "World's Quietest Room" is colored like this... Just wonder :)

<comment><USER2> Place nobody wants to be longer than 10 minutes.

<comment><USER4> Floating in water in such a room might be usable as a lot less scary sensory deprivation tank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some digging reveals Surrey NanoSystems as the claimed creators.

Their website: [http://www.surreynanosystems.com/](http://www.surreynanosystems.com/)

Press release for VantaBlack: [http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/19/](http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/19/)

Mid-2013 press releases [1][2] talk about using "vertically-aligned carbon nanotube (VANTA) arrays" and cite similar absorption rates as the linked article.

Okay, now I'm interested.

1: [http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/17/](http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/17/)

2: [http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/16/](http://www.surreynanosystems.com/news/16/)

</comment><comment><USER6> A lot of funny claims in this article,

"Vantablack's practical uses include calibrating cameras used to take photographs of the oldest objects in the universe. This has to be done by pointing the camera at something as black as possible."

Just covering with a lens cap would seem to be a simpler way of accomplishing that,

and:

Stephen Westland, professor of colour science and technology at Leeds University, said traditional black was actually a colour of light and scientists were now pushing it to something out of this world.

"Many people think black is the absence of light. I totally disagree with that.

Really? I can't think of any better way of describing black.

<comment><USER7> "Really? I can't think of any better way of describing black."

I suspect the quote got mangled to suit the article. He was probably referring to the fact that since "black" is generally still reflective, it therefore must have some color. We may not be able to see it, but it has something. I'm sure we've all had the experience of seeing something that was "black" become "navy blue" in the sunlight or something.

This substance is much closer to "black", and given the mechanism by which it is working it is plausible that the remaining light is essentially reflected without preference, in which case it would technically be a black mirror, which could not be said to have a color in the usual sense of the term. (While, again, I'm sure we've all seen shaded mirrors, we do not tend to call perfect mirrors "white".)

<comment><USER8> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body)

If something is perfectly black, then that means that the radiation it is emitting is a perfect black body spectrum, unadorned with spectral emission and absorption lines. If you were to raise its temperature to 4000K or so, it would emit white light, but it would still be "black".

This feature would indeed make it useful for calibrating equipment, as the radiation emitted from it would be very predictable, depending on its temperature.

<comment><USER7> I'm talking about color strictly from the human eye perspective, which I may not have spelled out but ought to be clear. Black body emissions into the visible spectrum at room temperature are insignificant. If that were not the case, nature would probably have chosen a different "visible spectrum".

<comment><USER8> Not necessarily. I can imagine it would be a remarkably useful trait for an organism to be able to see far infra-red, where everything is glowing. See in the dark!

<comment><USER7> Aren't you just the argumentative one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In homage to Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun", I propose it be called "fuligin."

</comment><comment><USER10> This article cites the Independent as its source.

The Independent's article is: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/blackest-is-the- ne...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/blackest-is-the-new-black- scientists-have-developed-a-material-so-dark-that-you-cant-see- it-9602504.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, can this approach be used to other wavelengths?

<comment><USER12> "black" is not a wavelength of light. It's the absence of light.

<comment><USER13> What I think the question is, is whether it's possible to create a surface of light that reflects only a very specific (range of) wavelengths; that would be quite interesting actually. Highly accurate colors and such.

<comment><USER14> A Dichroic Filter is an example of what you describe.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've seen a few references to this today, but this is certainly the most link- baity of the bunch.

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cs.aspx](http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cs.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER17> It makes me think of Larry Niven's hyperspace "blind spot", which the human brain has so much trouble perceiving that it can cause madness.

<comment><USER4> I know I shouldn't, but I have to think of that bit in HGttG when Ford and Zaphod are looking for a spaceship to steal:

 _FORD: No. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute! That one there.

ZAPHOD: Hey-yeah! Now that is really bad for the eyes!

FORD: I mean it's so black! You can hardly even make out its shape. Light just falls into it._

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wish I could find the short story 'Absolute Ebony' by Felice Picano online. I always think of it when these breakthroughs happen.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there a lower bound on albedo caused by black body radiation? If so, what is it?

<comment><USER20> I think that sort of depends on how you define your terms. Generally albedo is how much of the light which hits an object is reflected. A perfect black body, by definition doesn't _reflect_ any light: all of it is absorbed and converted into thermal energy. It does however _emit_ light with a frequency spectrum dependent on its temperature.

So if you wanted to, you could calculate a pseudo-albedo as incident light over emitted light for various conditions, but it wouldn't be an intrinsic property of your material like albedo is usually considered

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Never has a purely #000000 colored symbolic image been put to better use albeit being slightly incorrect.

<comment><USER22> #000000 is in the device-dependent RGB colorspace. Its correlation to a device-independent colorspace depends on—you guessed it—the device.

This (absence of a) color can be represented in L* a* b* coordinates as L* = 0. (a* and b* are then irrelevant)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If the human eye can't see it, then it makes no sense to call it a color.

<comment><USER23> But this colour already has a name. It's called "black".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What is it in hexadecimal?

<comment><USER25> #//////</comment></comment>


PRISM update - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/16/prism-update-recent-reports-you-shouldnt-miss/ <comment><USER2> Crazy to me that our government is capable of a monumental task such as filtering _the_ raw unfiltered data stream into manageable information, but can't manage to get the VA to get benefits to soldiers in a reasonable time frame.

<comment><USER3> Priorities. Why would the government care about soldiers that are no longer of any use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Uhhh, that post looks more like rampant speculation than an update on where things stand. Here are a bunch of primary sources of info that came out over the weekend instead:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/of...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/officials- nsa-programs-thwarted-potential-terrorist-plots-in-us-more-than-20-other- countries/2013/06/15/ca868b9a-d614-11e2-ab72-3f0d51ec1628_story.html)

[http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013306160046](http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013306160046)

[https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/346414410945941505](https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/346414410945941505)

<comment><USER5> None of those are primary sources, just FYI.

And from the second article (an op-ed by a Congressman):

>Neither program allows the NSA to read e-mails or listen to phone calls of American citizens.

This is blatantly false, and the Government has said as much. The entire article is a mixture of falsehood and slick (read: dishonest) reasoning.

The first link is more unsubstantiated than the submitted link.

And the third link is a tweet about what a Congressman said.

The only one that has any helpful information is the Washington Post article and it's just a statement offered without evidence.

In case you didn't know, primary sources would be things like internal memos, pictures, videos, etc that are related to programs like Prism. E.g., the evidence offered by Edward Snowden and not in any of the links you posted.

<comment><USER6> The evidence offered by Edward Snowden, that you have been able to see, says very little about actual capability. And without context, we don't even know if it describes current or proposed capability. We don't even know if it was created by an NSA employee, and not e.g. a BAH contractor.

So if we're going to be standing on some sort of epistemological high ground, let's make sure it's not quicksand beneath our feet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they pull everything from undersea cables they must have all CA Certificates from all over the world to do the man-in-the-middle for encrypted connections.. plausible?

<comment><USER8> No, not plausible.

A CA certificate would allow them to forge a website certificate (and pull off the MITM), but the website owner would still notice - they would see that the hash number of the certificate they installed doesn't match the one the browser is looking at.

Most website owners would not notice, it's true. But some would.

<comment><USER7> How does this comparing of certificate hashes work? If the connection is plain text in the middle, can't the hash also be forged?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> PRISM isn't the NSA's only project. They could can it tomorrow and then name this something else. Only with full unrestricted inspections by the UN can this kind of abuse be brought under control.

</comment><comment><USER10> PRISM " _provides the government with names, addresses, conversation histories and entire archives of email inboxes._ "

</comment><comment><USER11> I am not too sure I want to live in this ugly world of ours. Staying alive feels like complicity with the evil.

<comment><USER12> Being alive is the best way to do something about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whether the NSA is capable of rewinding this undersea data stream is an interesting question indeed. I had always thought managing that much information would be impossible, but now days one cannot be sure of anything.

</comment><comment><USER14> What about the different dates Google, Facebook etc came into prism. Why would there be different dates if the government were just collecting raw unencrypted data?

<comment><USER15> Slurping raw data from one source gives them that raw data.

Slurping nicely formatted data from known sources gives them nicely formatted data that they can then cross-reference and use to help data-mine the raw data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What would be the point of harvesting raw internet traffic when any half- intelligent person would be using an encrypted connection?

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if we'll see a fracturing of the Internet. I live in Switzerland and I am already seeing reports in the news of companies moving/expanding data centers here. As someone that lives in Europe (but not EU thankfully) I will try to avoid sending too much info to the u.s.

yes, I know it's ironic that I'm posting this on a u.s. site.

<comment><USER18> And whats exactly the reason for the side blow against the EU? Oo

<comment><USER19> Most of the EU countries are in cahoots with the NSA (reportedly to get around pesky legal restrictions on domestic spying; don't remember if this was media speculation or shown to be true). Wouldn't be surprised if Switzerland is too.

<comment><USER15> Confusingly the EU has supposedly strong laws about exporting private data outside the EU.

ECHELON report from EU parliament showed that 5 countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) were part of ECHELON and gave lists to each other as a way to avoid laws about spying on their own citizens.

That EU parliament report is very old now (pre 9/11) and there are a bunch of more recent laws that probably exempt GCHQ and others from these laws. But I could be wrong; I haven't kept up; and I welcome corrections. I have no idea what parts of RIPA (regulation of investigatory powers act, UK law) are enacted or not, and what exemptions it has for GCHQ.

<comment><USER19> Yeah I was way over reaching. I've given up on following the exact details of the NSA revelations and now I'm just enjoying the ride. It's probably safe to just assume from now on that I'm always being spied on and that I should stop looking at nuclear space propulsion papers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What are your WWDC thoughts? - <AUTHOR> The way the presenters are so excited and happy comes off as so fake. It's increasingly obvious the amount of money these people are getting paid is buying their excitement. There's no way people are naturally so excited about these features. Feels almost like a dystopian novel watching this. Am I alone in this feeling? What are your guys thoughts of the Keynote? <comment><USER2> As a wannabe power user, my impressions are:

> The presentation itself was kind of weird. From Apple, I would have expected > something more elegant, less over the top, less humorous

> I'm very fond of the Steve Jobs analogy that computers are "bicycles for our > minds". I have the feeling that Apple is adding training wheels to my bike > rather than something useful like a suspension, a luggage rack or new > lights.

The Touchbar is still there, there are no new (big?) functions in the operating system, I am personally not a fan of the redesign and buttons that only appear "when you need them" seem impractical. I believe that in one sentence, Craig echoed what the community has dreaded: Macs are degraded to development tools for iOS and the like.

<comment><USER3> macOS 11 = "Vista for Dummies"

"User" Interface? Who needs it? Hide everything! There, no more fiddly buttons or controls to get in the way of your Magical experience.

Lots more e-moji's, Me-Moji's, iMojiogies, etc. And they get face coverings now! Yes, our devs are hard at work on your face covering experience. We want it to be magical and courageous. We'll fix those pesky kernel panics in Catalina later.

The iPad is now the perfect tool for EVERY TASK THAT IS OR EVER WILL BE KNOWN TO HUMANITY. Coding? iPad. Gaming? iPad. In the kitchen? iPad. In the Bedroom? iPad. Unlock your fancy BMW? iPad. Three Spoiled Brat Kids at a restaurant? an iPad for each little monster of course! Oh, don't forget to add this expensive stand, keyboard, mouse, case, cover, pen etc so it's tolerable.

1000 new Dumb Answers and Useless Things you can Ask Siri! "Hey Siri, open Google..."

AirPods Pro: Watch a Movie on your MacBook while spinning your head around in all different directions and simultaneously moving from room to room while carrying your laptop and waving it around. Finally!!

Play Tomb Raider in Emulation mode - no changes and look! Almost as good as on a circa-2007 PC with mediocre graphics card!

No more hours of confusion and head-scratching as your tiny brain struggles to switch between your iDingus and your Mac -- With Big Sur (B.S.) we've taken the best elements of macOS and just thrown them right into the Trash! There, that's better, now your Mac is just another iPad. Oh, and don't try to use the disk for anything, it's all write protected now, we can't have you pesky power users mucking around in there with your fancy shell scripts and krazy kernel extensions...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel ya, I am getting really disappointed that Apple decide to throwaway usability/accessibility of macOS in pursuit of more iOS-like design language. I can't even read the text on the menu bar clearly, had to zoom in and lower contrast of my screen.

</comment><comment><USER5> The lack of applause made all that enthusiasm sound really weird. A few times Craig sounded like he was going to pause for applause and then checked himself.

</comment><comment><USER6> I really enjoyed it. First keynote in a few years I've watched all the way through.

I liked the production, too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, as plastic as a Samsung Galaxy launch keynote. Craig is authentic, but his style doesn't follow the aesthetic nor the cadence implemented now. The last good Apple conference for me was about 5 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER8> How on earth would one verify apple's privacy claims?

e.g. is biometric data ending up on apple servers

Does the iPhone's secure enclave processor make verifying such near impossible?

</comment><comment><USER9> Most people aren't good presenters....so in that way it seems pretty authentic presentation wise.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, the iOS redesign looks like Windows Phone Tiles. Just sayin'...

</comment><comment><USER10> pretty microsoft-ish in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER11> It looks like Terminator I , except for the missing Iguana. Or barney t-shirt. Otherwise it's pretty This Topian, yes.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's way too fake and polished. They should just let Craig do the whole show, he's way more natural and at ease. But then people would whine about there being no diversity so we got a lot of random women instead.

<comment><USER9> I think most of the presentation swapping that happens is because various teams or people want to be out there...</comment></comment>


Sanitising JSON callback identifiers for security — a must for web developers - <AUTHOR> http://tav.espians.com/sanitising-jsonp-callback-identifiers-for-security.html

<comment><USER2> cross-posted from the comments there:

the problem here is the fact that whatever you pass to friendfeed is again executed in the context of your page.

This means that the alert() you so "cleverly" injected runs in the context of the CALLERs page, so the document.cookies that are alerted are the cookies on the source page (the page where the friendfeed-page is sourced on), not of the target page (friendfeed).

This also means that friendfeed doesn't have to do sanitization because whatever you are "injecting" there you could as well just put on your page to begin with.

The real problem behind JSONP is that the consumer has to trust the provider and there is no way to do ANY sanitization of that (the moment you add that "script src=" you are toast and you need to do that because requesting the script via XHR for example isn't possible due to the same origin policy).

So while this might look like a nice idea, it's completely unneeded and doesn't solve the real problem, which is, unfortunately, insolvable in pure JavaScript. You can of course proxy the connection, but not having to do that is what JSONP was invented for.

<comment><AUTHOR> also, cross-posted from the comments there:

Hey Philip,

You are right, the code is executed in the context of the CALLERs page. But that is the problem...

Imagine the scenario, where a client-side web application allows arbitrary data sources to be added... it's not too implausible a future where instead of adding RSS feeds to an RSS Reader, one adds JSON feeds to such an application...

In this context, if the user is tricked into adding a maliciously crafted URL, then everything from their identity to their data is accessible... not to mention being able to abuse the account to spread a worm even...

I believe the possibilities of using JSONP haven't been explored much yet, and for it to go further in the context of interesting mashups/applications, it's important that it not be a security hole...

Hope that makes sense!

<comment><USER3> I still don't understand the problem.

In your use-case a user provides your application with a URL to a JSONP API, which they obtained from someone malicious who wants to steal the user's data (from your application, or from the JSONP source?)

Presumably the URL contains the malicious callback parameter, since that's what you're sanitizing, but your application needs to provide it's own callback parameter to get the resulting JSON. Shouldn't it strip the entire callback parameter and add it's own?

IMO the much bigger problem in this scenario is that you're loading untrusted URLs in script tags. If an attacker is able to trick the user into entering a URL with a malicious callback parameter, what's stopping them from using a URL (with or without a callback) pointing to a file on their own server which can contain any JavaScript they like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, that's why one should only add hosts/base urls which one trusts, e.g.

      http://github.com/api/json/
      http://api.twitter.com/json/

But with what you suggest, then you would've to keep a _lot_ more state -- i.e. knowing beforehand every single possible URL the host may offer.

Whilst that would be a solution, it also slows down development dramatically. What if Twitter were to rename/add APIs?

Being able to trust certain hosts/base urls makes life much easier _and_ lets things evolve at a much faster pace...

<comment><USER3> Ok, fair enough, that addresses my last paragraph.

But I still don't see what problem this sanitization solves. For a JSONP source to be useful you need to specify your own callback, not rely on one provided by a user input. Shouldn't you strip the callback and add your own?

Furthermore, even if there was a reason to keep the user specified callbacks, shouldn't the application that's consuming the URLs do the sanitization, not the JSONP provider?

It's your responsibility to secure your app, not the 3rd party JSONP providers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. I was imagining a scenario in which users/other-app-providers would be able to define their own Javascript functions, Google Caja <http://code.google.com/p/google-caja/> style... in which case, the app should simply only need to whitelist adding trusted hosts/base urls to <script src="" />...

Also, see Drew's comment below where he was able to find an XSS exploit in FriendFeed due to them accepting '<' and '>' in the callback value... a reflection of how most security exploits come from combining different vulnerabilities.

Hope I make sense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As pointed out here and in the blog's comments, if example.com does a <script src="[http://friendfeed.com/api/feed/public?callback=alert%28docum...](http://friendfeed.com/api/feed/public?callback=alert%28document.cookie%29%3Bfoo) the code will run in example.com's origin, not friendfeed.com's. This means it's not an XSS in FriendFeed. When testing for this type of issue, using alert(document.domain) makes it clear what origin the JavaScript is running in.

Although the blog did not fully describe a real XSS, developers should not allow characters such as < and > in JSONP callbacks.

Does anyone know how to contact security at FriendFeed? [update: there's a bug report form, hopefully someone reads it <http://friendfeed.com/about/contact/bug> ]

<comment><USER4> Reporting a bug through their bug report form worked. :)

FriendFeed has fixed the bug. There was a way to exploit this now-fixed issue as actual XSS in FriendFeed for certain browsers. [http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Part2#Content_handl...](http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Part2#Content_handling_mechanisms)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice one Drew!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ignoring what pilif said (which is all valid), the problem with accepting any of

      <identifier>
      <identifier>.<identifier>
      <identifier>[<integer>]

is that the choice of _just_ these three is kind of arbitrary. Really, you're whitelisting a specific subset of "expression" that presumably returns a function to be called. Why not allow a function that returns a function? Or an object property references as object[string]? Or nested object.property.property expressions, or an arbitrarily complex expression? It's much easier, if you're going to actually limit it, to just accept a single string and have the calling page be sane enough to make sure that name is in scope and resolves to a callable function, rather than making the whole thing harder on yourself trying to figure out exactly which expressions are "safe(st)".

<comment><AUTHOR> If I understand it right, you're suggesting limiting it to just an <identifier> ? I agree and if we would all standardise on just that it'd fine by me...

But, having said that, array_of_functions[index] is also a common pattern that i've personally had to resort to several times... and is also defined in the original JSON-P article... The code already supports nested object.property.property expressions and I'd welcome patches to support object['key'] -- which I've also used several times in the past.

And given the very little extra effort (less than 10 lines of code) required to support:

<identifier>.<identifier> <identifier>[<integer>]

I didn't see why/how it'd hurt to put that forward to standardise around... ?

<comment><USER5> Because it's (relatively) easy to validate (if you're going to) a simple identifier (ignoring UTF-8 issues and that $ can be in an identifer, I'd almost consider it matching ^\w+$ to be enough), and it's increasingly harder to properly validate javascript expressions without actually having a javascript interpreter and parsing/executing it. More complexity means an incrase in the possibility of bugs and more divergent implementations.</comment></comment></comment>


How novel is "AI" 'Search Algorithm for Ligands' used in flu vaccine design? - <AUTHOR> It made Media blitz today. It was developed by Flinders University team /w Prof. Petrovsky. Past paper used "Modeler (homology modeling) program..with receptor binding analysis using Scripps' "Vina". old paper: https://twitter.com/__jochen__/status/1146268684899495937 <comment><USER2> Interesting related work, using Deep Learning: [https://www.bergnet.org/2017/02/ligand-binding-deep- learning...](https://www.bergnet.org/2017/02/ligand-binding-deep-learning/)</comment>


Amazon Down? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to reach amazon (mostly aws) and I can't seem to get through...anyone else seeing this? <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6238877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6238877)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, I guess everyone might get another chance to figure out if their automatic-failover schemes really work...

</comment><comment><USER4> yep. cannot access aws console. amazon.com is down too. [http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/amazon.com.html](http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/amazon.com.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I likewise cannot reach the Amazon homepage.

</comment><comment><USER5> S3 bucket URL access seems to be working.

<comment><USER4> all our aws services seems to be working too (I mean 'from browser'). but we cannot connect via ssh or get access via aws console to our servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're unable to send emails with SES but otherwise things look ok...for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be back (@2:36 CST)</comment>


Wal-Mart Participates in "See Something, Say Something" Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40552073/ns/us_news-security/

<comment><USER2> _A short video featuring Napolitano will appear on TV screens at select checkout lanes, asking Wal-Mart shoppers to contact local law enforcement to report suspicious activity.

"If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately," Napolitano said in the video. "Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff. If you need help ask a Wal-Mart manager for assistance."_

Videos of govt officials educating me as I move through the check out line? This is incredibly creepy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do violations of wage and hour laws count?

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to know how fruitful these measures are. They are not cheap, but if they do not bring justifiable change in security - that is another way to distract people from real problems.</comment>


The TTY demystified (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/ <comment><USER2> Seems like a crowd favorite, previous discussions here:

2012: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062981) 2012: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544318) 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8094186) 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064657) 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631513) 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13571055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13571055)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's less the subject matter and more the depth and quality of the article on the subject.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone work with TTYs much? It's something that comes up from time to time and I think I always come away with a 70% understanding.

Say I have a server process and I want to be able to netcat onto an open port and have it expose a shell like experience. History, line editing, scrollback etc. I know ssh accomplishes it somehow, but it gets a local and remote process in between me an the remote bash process to set up some tty/pty magic.

What would I need to do to get something similar working?

<comment><USER3> History, line editing and scrollback are provided by readline - at least for bash.

[http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/rlman_2.html](http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/rlman_2.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> The question is always how do I get it to read/write to a socket (in process) instead of assuming I want to do it on STDIN/OUT? I didn't see an API for it.

<comment><USER4> Clearing a confusion: It's always stdin/stdout, but you can change what stdin/stdout are. E.g. when you do 'cat < foo.txt > bar.txt' you don't change the fd numbers that cat reads from, (they still read from stdin/stdout a.k.a fds 0 and 1), but you change what they represent (in this case, they represent opened text files). That opening of files happens before cat's process image is even loaded.

Same goes for bash, it's just a program reading from stdin/stdout. There's a slight difference though, in case of interactive applications like bash: stdin/stdout would better be a _terminal_ (e.g. /dev/tty* or /dev/pty* ). That's because a shell emits, besides textual output, control codes for interpretation by the terminal. These control codes are not displayed as readable text by the terminal. Instead, they do things like "clear the screen", "position the cursor at x/y", or "set the foreground color to green".

Now, you could have a netcat between a local terminal and a shell running on a remote server. But the problem there is that the shell is not blindly reading/writing from/to an input/output stream pair. A terminal is also an entity that's deeply connected to the Operating system and job control. That's why the terminal really has to "run" on the same machine as the shell.

So this is what ssh does: It connects to the remote server, and sets up a pseudo terminal there, so that the remote shell can interact with it and the operating system. On the local side, interpretation of control codes and job control by the local terminal are disabled while the remote system is running (the local terminal is put into so-called _raw mode_ ). For example, when you press Ctrl+z (ASCII 26), this does not result in a process suspend on the local side anymore. Instead the byte (26 aka 0x1a) is sent to the remote server, and only there it is interpreted by the terminal subsystem in the operating system, to suspend the current remote operation.

It's probably not super clear from my description, so you should just play with it a little. For example, do "printf 'sleep 10\n\x1a\necho hello\nexit\n' | ssh -t -t jstimpfle.de". What's happening here?

<comment><USER5> Actually, shells do not just use standard input and standard output, albeit that (in the interactive case) the other file descriptors are usually pointing to terminal devices too.

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/434839/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/434839/5132)

<comment><USER4> Yep, that's true. I was missing some finer details. There is stderr, which usually is the same as stdout (terminal), and you can run shells in noninteractive mode (they will detect when they are not connected to a terminal). In this case there is no prompt and no job control.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination prevents SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in rhesus macaques [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.093195v1.full.pdf <comment><USER2> This is the vaccine in trial by Oxford/Vaccitech. Another paper on an inactivated vaccine by Sinovac was published recently in Science.</comment>


Ask HN: I feel like everything I want to say is already said or written - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I read a lot of blog posts. There are many people in tech space that I praise and follow. I read a lot of opposing opinions and follow some of the online communities. But mostly I feel expressing my own opinion is pointless. Lots of things I think are said or written about and I find it difficult to join online communities as I don't feel I belong.
Writing a blog would be yet another one in countless other posts with about failure, success, startups, etc. Writing a blog in tech would be another one in the technical challenges that are solved.
I'm curious to know how HN members break this mental entry barrier and become "a part" of this community or any other online community.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Write for yourself as a public-private diary and just put it out there. Write once a year, twice a year, every day, or every week -- no pressure.

Just do what makes you happy, and keep happiness the goal. I'm sure you'll kill it. There's no person in the world exactly like you, so there's no set of thoughts out there exactly like yours (I mean, given infinite people - sure, but in a set of 7 billion, it's unlikely), so write what makes you happy and even if it's just a little different, but you enjoy it -- that's all that matters.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you enjoy writing?

Reading your comments, there is often an enthusiasm for telling people about your background and where you grew up. Those are things that can be written just for the writer.

I don't know whether or not English is your first language, but there's no reason not to write in another language...maybe there are great technical blogs in فارسی, I wouldn't know, I pretty much only know one language and that not very well.

On the other hand, if you don't like to write, that's ok too. It's not worth suffering over.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pick something you found difficult to understand and write about your personal experience of trying to learn more, and how you came to understand it better.

Don't try to teach, share your experience.</comment>