My crazy idea to piss off spammers - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/my-crazy-idea-to-piss-off-spammers

<comment><USER3> Anyone want to take a stab at filling out the spam solutions checklist? :)

<http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt>

<comment><USER4> Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses

( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected

( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money

( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks

(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it

( ) Users of email will not put up with it

( ) Microsoft will not put up with it

( ) The police will not put up with it

( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers

( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers

( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists

(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it

( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email

( ) Open relays in foreign countries

( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses

( ) Asshats

( ) Jurisdictional problems

( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes

( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money

( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP

( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack

( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email

( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes

(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches

(x) Extreme profitability of spam

(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft

( ) Technically illiterate politicians

( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers

( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves

(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering

( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical

( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable

( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation

( ) Blacklists suck

( ) Whitelists suck

( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored

(x) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud

( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks

( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually

( ) Sending email should be free

( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?

( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses

(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome

( ) I don't want the government reading my email

( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.

(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Well said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's completely braindamaged approach: imagine I have a competitor which I don't like, I order a lot of spam pretending to be from his/her company.

And, viola, my competitor receives loads of fake orders, becomes overwhelmed, goes out of business.

<comment><USER7> Isn't saying "it will never work because of $challenge" a little too simplistic?

Maybe you're right, maybe it can't be done, but aren't we suppose to be problem solvers? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It reminds me of another project to fight off spam[0], by automatically replying to each spam message. That one didn't end too well.

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Frog>

<comment><USER9> Voted up, but this is really worth reading -- not because it failed (it did), but because before it failed, it was really working.

The spammers put incredible effort into quashing BlueFrog...

I was an early user of BlueFrog (and can confirm that the spammers didn't gain access to any addresses they didn't already have on their lists), and tried to contribute to followup efforts... it's a hard problem to solve, though -- how to make this kind of retaliation without exposing yourself to (possibly very serious) attack. We're all quite vulnerable online; it's surprisingly trivial for "the bad guys" to decide to permanently take your website (or the site of your company, etc.) offline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a feeling that most spam doesn't pay off for the person selling, but only pays off for whichever marketing company they hired to send the spam. And this technique doesn't hurt the actual spammer (assuming they are a separate entity from the seller), as there are a fairly unlimited number of sellers willing to take a chance on hiring a spammer for a few bucks.

<comment><USER11> > I have a feeling that most spam doesn't pay off for the person selling, but > only pays off for whichever marketing company they hired to send the spam.

If that's true and anybody has data to back it up, maybe publicizing it would be a worthwhile spam-combating measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've een wondering about this sort of thing (overwhelming a bad actor with bogus responses) lately. I have in place PHP scripts that send Yandex and Ahrefs and Cyveillance a semi-random HTML file in respose to any request. Those semi-random HTML files just lead Yandex, Cyveillance and other bad actors down a never-ending rabbit hole of URLs that serve up more semi-random content.

What if some significant fraction of web servers did this? Wouldn't that make trolling for "IP theft" like Cyveillance does into an economically unfeasible activity?

What if nearly everyone pressed 1 when "Ann from Account Services" or "Rachel from Cardmember Services" calls, and then talked to the service rep for as long as possible?

<comment><USER13> Why are Cyveillance a "bad actor"?

<comment><USER12> They never ask for "robots.txt", and then they download your entire site every month, for starters. Further, they lie about who they are. They send a User Agent string that doesn't reflect that it's a bot doing the downloading. The User Agent string claims to be Internet Explorer on a Windows box, yet p0f recognizes the requests as from a Linux TCP/IP stack.

Trolling for "intellectual property" infringement for third parties also seems like a scummy line of work to me. It's in Cyveillance interest to find infringements, so there's no economic reason for them to get such findings correct.

So, I conclude they're a bad actor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This sounds a lot like an idea some religious groups had, where they would sign up to adult websites and then charge back, with the goal to cause the merchant accounts charge back ratio to exceed 1%.

Don't think this worked out either.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the idea is ok, but you don't need €1 000 000

<comment><USER13> Exactly what I thought. You could get started doing this with no investment. £100/yr for a VPS, plus a few hours of your time.

<comment><USER15> jstanley from staffs?

<comment><USER13> I don't think so, I'm afraid.

I'm in Bath.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The spam problem was solved by google's spam filtering technique. I get zero spam in my gmail box.

Sometimes i think it is spam, but then I notice i signed up for it myself :p

<comment><USER17> I don't get actual spam in gmail, but I get occasional bounced messages when spammers try to send email with my address in from field. Even google groups would bounce back the email I never sent. I even got spf/dkim for domain, yet they still inform me they couldn't deliver a message I never sent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh, this is a Kickstarter-like campaign. I didn't know what "Indiegogo" was - this is basically a landing page for someone trying to raise €1,000,000 to "fight spam". I get it.

To those who say, "stupid idea", I'm very disappointed both in the rudeness you show, and the smallmindedness you exhibit. Will this work? If implemented the way Boris writes, I believe it would for the reasons he stated. Those who say "stupid idea" have never had 4,000 orders to deal with - that's the only logical thing that can explain such reactions. The problem is in the implementation of course. Yes, it would be difficult. Yes, it would require adaptive techniques and technologies. But don't forget that people who have a really good and innovative idea don't just have one idea in their heads for their whole life. Ask PG about that...

It's a good idea. I think that, for it to succeed, you would have to work with one of the big credit card companies. If you could get them to provide honey pot-style credit card numbers, you would have something.

For those saying that competitors could be put out of business if this was misused, what's stopping that from happening 20 years ago, 10 years ago, now, 10 years from now? That's not a reason for this to not be considered, is it? That's like saying, "We shouldn't allow lawsuits because you could sue a competitor and he could lose his business defending the lawsuit due to the cost/distraction."

<comment><USER19> Indiegogo predates kickstarter

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To be honest, i don't have any(!) Spam on both my active mail accounts. Heck i used mail.ru for a while and had a very limited amount of spam.

Also: Spam that gets sorted out automatically is like... whatever.. ?! [at least for me]

And like others pointed out: It's a pretty nonsense approach anyways (wondering why it got so many votes)

</comment><comment><USER21> A fruitless idea; the very ethos of spam and malware is to scurry when a new "solution" presents itself to the industry.

So now you basically are presenting a single course "solution" that - <USER2> trumped - leaves you with millions of dollars and a need to come up with a completely new idea.

Wholly faulted.

</comment><comment><USER22> Look at the IndieGoGo header image he's using. It's a screencap of Gmail's spam folder with 5,048 messages. Hasn't this clearly been solved?

I get MAYBE 2 spam emails a month that gets through the filter, and my address is pretty easy to harvest.

So is this still a problem?

<comment><USER3> It's a problem in so far as I'll occasionally miss real emails because they get binned as spam.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, I've only had this happen a couple times, and it does make you trust your spam system less.

That being said, it's seems to be getting better as more companies embrace SPF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Spam isn't really an issue for me. I simply don't see it in Gmail.

A bigger annoyance is constant newsletters/emails sent from companies whom I might have transacted with long ago in the past. I have to take time to unsubscribe from all this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER24> About 70% of all emails send today is spam. Imagine that you reply to all those emails. It will slow down the internet.

Edit: in 2010 they estimated 294 billion messages were sent per day, more than 2.8 million emails every second.

</comment><comment><USER25> i have been close to sales people and cold calling/messaging is one technique, a really hard one to master, and its what leads most of the time to spam, i think a good solution would be to teach them how to do it right.. at the end sales have to be done but brute force shouldn't be a legitimate technique to it.

So maybe tell them that if you send personal messages and segment the market that would increase the response rate and reduce the spam?

</comment><comment><USER26> Is DDoS-ing a spammer server( or its sponsors') legal?

</comment><comment><USER27> Powerful weapons can have unintended consequences.

<comment><USER28> But, we have only good intentions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Couldn't we dust off Lad Vampire and point it at spammed sites maybe?

</comment><comment><USER30> Childish idea, kind of.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is like the stupidest thing i ever heard. Sorry Boris.

</comment><comment><USER32> "Spammers hate him because of one simple trick..." :)

</comment><comment><USER33> There was a recent article on HN saying that spam was pretty much a non-issue nowadays to people using mail services with correct spam filtering.

Since I moved to GMail I don't know what spam is anymore: everytime people complain about spam I'm confuzzabled because I honestly thought the issue was solved.

It's great to run your own mailserver and be independant of the evil Google etc. but face the facts: people on GMail hardly get spam anymore...

Now as to how to fight spammers I'd suggest building a gigantic botnet, taking control of hundreds of thousands of credit cards numbers and ordering like mad from these spammers. Make it so big that credit cards companies start noticing the issue.

This of course should be done by someone who doesn't care about petty money...

<comment><USER34> I still get spam in my gmail inbox, nowhere near as much as I do to my spam folder but it's still there.

Most of it seems to be of the form "Hi, this is Natalia from the dating site. I loved your photo and would want to speak with you, please reply soon! xxx" rather than "buy v1agr4 4 big dikk <http://10.23.133.21/m4dsexcockpillz>, so I guess harder to filter.

The more annoying thing with gmail is that most of my inbox is legit mail that was never intended for me. Since the gmail namespace is so cluttered there are a few people who have almost identical email addresses to me; so I get their mail in error often.

Also google seem to have merged my account with someone elses, so I get notifications about stuff that is definitely not mine.</comment></comment>


Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/03/fidget-spinner-inventor-patent-catherine-hettinger <comment><USER2> > Hettinger held the patent on finger spinners for eight years, but > surrendered it in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 (£310) renewal > fee.

Isn't this bizarre? If she couldn't monetize it and make it profitable in eight years, maybe it's for the best that someone else gets a shot.

We should not fall into the trap of thinking that intellectual property is like other forms of property. It's a trade where the people (mediated via the government) give a limited-time monopoly in exchange for promoting development. If the developer can't or won't keep up her end of the bargain, it's best for the patent to expire.

<comment><USER3> You're absolutely right but it still sucks. She has a great attitude about it but if i am honest and this kind of thing happened to me i would be seriously pissed, at myself more then anyone else.

<comment><USER4> Except that her device is completely different than the spinners of today. The child in the photo is holding one in her right hand.

<comment><USER3> Yeah i read the article and missed the images or maybe a read it to quick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No one else has brought this up, but her "fidget spinner" is a totally different device than the ones that are popular. It's like a frisbee with a bump in the middle to center it on your finger, which I assume lets you get it moving it one handed by "hula hooping" it around. But you can't put it in your pocket and carry it everywhere, nor can you fidget inconspicuously.

The popular fidget spinners are small, flat devices, comprised of a frame and one or more ball bearings. Google image results: [http://i.imgur.com/33Qg5BU.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/33Qg5BU.jpg)

The only things her invention has in common with these is that you fidget with it and it spins.

Was her patent really broad enough to cover everything sharing those attributes? You might as well patent quarters. They're great for fidgeting.

<comment><USER6> The photo in the article shows this.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for pointing this out. I didn't even notice that weird frisbee looking thing on first read. Those are not, or at least should not, be covered by the same patent.

<comment><USER5> I didn't realize it either until I found my way to the kickstarter page. It's the size of your head! And you can twirl a normal frisbee's rim around your finger just fine! And frisbees come in multiple more manageable sizes. And you can pack a frisbee into a bag more easily because it's flat. I don't mean to be a dick, but I can see why Hasbro chose not to produce it. It's a frisbee with a big lump on it that probably doesn't fly very well.

The "As fidget spinner craze goes global, its inventor struggles to make ends meet" headline is 100% bullshit and the rest of the article isn't any better.

<comment><USER5> If you want a fidget toy to actually be upset about, try the "Fidget Cube" of recent kickstarter fame. Knockoffs beat the genuine product to market.

[https://medium.com/@jobosapien/real-vs-fake-the-infamous- cas...](https://medium.com/@jobosapien/real-vs-fake-the-infamous-case-of-the- quickly-copied-fidget-cube-9b26a6161b36)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sure, I'm no lawyer, but I think I can state fairly confidently that this patent, [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Hettinger.INNM.&s2=Catherine.INNM.&OS=IN/Hettinger+AND+IN/Catherine&RS=IN/Hettinger+AND+IN/Catherine), does NOT cover the popular spinners of today.

</comment><comment><USER8> If she'd remained the patent holder, who's to say that the gadgets would have become popular?

<comment><USER9> No one. She could have spent another 8 years doing absolutely nothing with the patent. I don't think that's the main point of the article though, it's just trying to show how an inventor of something is not necessarily the person benefiting financially from their invention.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to know how it became popular, which the article doesn't really address. It seems like a fad, which would just be dumb (bad) luck. But if Hasbro, who had decided not to produce it, intentionally sat on it for eight years then manufactured and marketed it, that would be deplorable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> She launches a USA only kickstarter (all rewards ship to US only). I genuinely hope she does well but I don't understand why she would exclude the global audience and alienate potential customers.

<comment><USER12> International shipping is a huge pain in the ass for everyone involved. It's expensive, slow, complicated, and not very reliable. If you're not a company with experience doing it, it's a completely understandable decision to not offer that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's unfortunate she hasn't earned any money off of her invention. I've been enjoying my fidget spinner. It really helps while I'm out walking the dog to give my free hand something to do, so I've been using it pretty much every day since I've gotten it. I hope her Kickstarter goes well.

I do sort of wonder if it would have gotten this popular if the patent was still active, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think this illustrates one of the catch-22's of patents. If you hold the patent, other companies does not have incentive to make and market the invention, making it harder to create market awareness. But if you let go of the patent, unless you have the resources to compete, you're unlikely to benefit from your invention. You do have an early mover advantage, but if you don't have the means to invest, it doesn't help.

I think the interface between IP markets and the goods/services markets is deeply broken.

The core of the problem is that we have to create artificial scarcity to balance the IP economy against the "real" economy. For example: in theory, you could have access to every movie ever created for free. It doesn't cost anything to make a copy. This is unlike things like bread or haircuts, where having an infinite supply is a physical impossibility. But the people making the movies have to pay for bread and haircuts, so you have to pay them something. And to get you to pay for it, you have to balance your desire to watch movies against your need to buy bread and haircuts.

Previously we achieved this only through artificial scarcity. Now, with Spotify, you have another model which is: someone decides that everyone should pay $50-$99 a month for music, and then you have access to all the music. The problem is that this is a pretty inelastic market. It's hard to create competing services with different prices. It's also undemocratic. And the default is still artificial scarcity.

You could imagine an IP tax. Through a democratic process, we decide that X% of our incomes should be spent on developing IP. All IP is free, but you have IP credits that you spend on the IPs that have value for you, in whatever ratio you want. The number of credits the inventor/designer/creator receives in a month is then used to fairly divide the fund generated from the IP tax. IP developers also have to pay IP tax, and receive IP credits, so it would be natural for them to forward credits to the IP they depend upon. Since you can't spend the IP credits on yourself, you have no incentive to not support the IPs that you benefited from.

This solutions is just a thought experiment. It might not be feasible, and it's a government-based solution. I'm not ideologically opposed to government solutions, but it is inelegant. The point is just to think about how we could interface the IP markets with the "real" markets in a more efficient way. There must be better solutions than what we have today.

Another option may be to introduce basic income, have everything be free, and just rely on donations, crowdfunding and merchandise for extra funding. Patreon seems to show that people are actually willing to simply give money to the things they like, as long as they get credit.

<comment><USER15> "I think the interface between IP markets and the goods/services markets is deeply broken."

Potentially a bigger problem than any you cite is discoverability. So she has a patent... so what? No company out there is going to search over the patents looking for a good idea. If they manage to come up with an independent implementation of something that happens to hit the patent, and they happen to do a search, they're far more likely to modify the idea until it doesn't hit the patent than to go try to license it from an individual.

There really isn't any fixing the problem that there's no path that looks like "1\. Have idea. 2. Patent idea. 3. Profit." Step three is going to have to look like a business. Even _if_ you assume basic income and even if you somehow remove money from the situation entirely, which is to put it least incredibly idealistic, if you want to see "success" you're still going to have to hustle and build awareness. (And, apparently, do this on the same basic income as everybody else in that ideal world, which won't exactly make it easier to stand out.) Perfectly feasible with the right use of social media, but on average it won't happen just by putting up a post of your idea and waiting for the plaudits to roll in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Napoleon said "never be a poor devil" on hearing that someone had missed a great political opportunity because they couldn't pay to fix the wheel of a carriage on their way to Paris.

Tough lesson but sounds like she has a philosophical view.

</comment><comment><USER17> This patent would have expired in any case in 2014, wouldn't it? It was filed in 92, and issued in 97, so the term would have been 17 years, I believe.

</comment><comment><USER18> Those things are a cool thing but I am glad once this craze ends and not every second item on thingiverse is another spinner.

<comment><USER19> They've already evolved into cubes! [https://www.thefidgetcube.co/](https://www.thefidgetcube.co/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> some teachers believe that they can help children concentrate – especially those with ADHD.

<comment><USER21> And some believe that they are distracting to everyone else in the class: [https://www.theguardian.com/teacher- network/2017/apr/29/secr...](https://www.theguardian.com/teacher- network/2017/apr/29/secret-teacher-fidget-cubes-need-kicking-out-of-class)

Also there is no evidence yet that they do help concentration, so it is only anecdotal evidence at this stage.

<comment><USER22> My brother was prescribed a fidget toy by an educational psychologist about 10 years ago. At that time, even though both of my parents were teachers, they'd never seen them before.

His was a rubbery snake-like thing, which didn't make any noise. It should have been less distracting to the class than clicking a pen, or tapping fingers on the desk.

Now that there are thousands of them on eBay, and they seem to have become a trend, I can well believe they're a distraction in class.</comment></comment></comment>


Managify – A Fusion Of Evernote & Microsoft Office - <AUTHOR> https://www.managify.org?qn=create_and_organize_all_your_docs <comment><USER2> A really bad name.</comment>


A tool to find out whether you are sensitive to ASMR sound (relaxing chills) - <AUTHOR> http://asmrion.com/?aplication <comment><AUTHOR> If not, can be used to create a tranquil environment for sleeping or relaxing.</comment>


XLTE leaves test phase as Verizon announces mobile data speed boosted - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/xlte-leaves-test-phase-verizon-announces-mobile-data-speed-boosted

<comment><AUTHOR> People who depend on their smartphones for mobile internet access might have guessed Verizon was upgrading its network in large cities like New York, San Francisco and Chicago before the announcement of XLTE this week. Verizon didn't just turn on XLTE today; it's been testing for months and you might have noticed.

At the Moscone Center for the RSA Conference, Verizon customers with an AWS- compatible smartphone saw LTE speeds at 53 Mbps downstream and 24 Mbps upstream and faster. This is counterintuitive because data-hungry attendees at tech venues like the Moscone Center use up the Wi-Fi capacity first, and then flood the 3G and 4G capacity. Experiencing these speeds during the RSA conference tipped Verizon's hand.</comment>


Netflix launches its own speed test website, Fast.com - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/18/netflix-launches-its-own-speed-test-website-fast-com/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722775)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> That domain name must have cost them a fortune.

I see what they keep to keep it stupid simple for novices on the main page but they really need to add advanced testing for experts if they want to get support of the service.

<comment><USER3> Taken from the previous discussion ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11722775)):

"This is from Netflix, it downloads Netflix content and reports the speed back. This is important because unlike your average Internet speed test (which ISPs take pains to optimize), there's a very real possibility that your ISP is happy to let your Netflix experience suffer - assuming they don't throttle it outright".

It's not for deep network testing, it's just to see if your Netflix is being slowed down or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every video on demand service I've used (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) streams the video. This is all well and good, but it requires an uninterrupted connection for about 2 hours if I'm watching a film. Or it requires the service to buffer for at least as much time as any outage may last - something which appears not to happen. Are there any competitors that can guarantee me a nice, interruption-free experience like a good old dvd provides?

<comment><USER5> Pirate.

If it makes you feel better, pay and then "pirate".

As long as Netflix & co keep giving the frankly ridiculous excuse of preventing piracy as the reason I can't stream 4K content with mpv, I'm going to remain _very_ reluctant to give them my money. (I'd be much less reluctant if their anti piracy efforts actually worked, but they don't and they never will)

<comment><USER6> > if it makes you feel better

Why do that, when you already give the creators exposure? Surely an lighting technician and a sound engineer can pay for groceries in exposure, right?

<comment><USER7> Netflix pays fixed licensing fees, giving them money certainly isn't going to do much to help those lighting technicians and sound engineers very much.

Perhaps those lighting technicians and sound engineers should just leave the industry that insists upon making it ridiculously difficult to give them money, if I want to get a high quality digital copy of a movie or TV series the _only_ option is logging into BTN or PTP and grabbing a bluray remux.

Hell, often these communities have content available at a significantly higher quality than any of the official releases. See DIMENSIONs 20GB mad men episodes for example.

I personally just frequent the cinemas, and try to pay for the few TV series that I can, despite it often being impossible here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Command-line tool for Fast.com: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/fast- cli](https://github.com/sindresorhus/fast-cli)

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems to be topping out at 100Mbps for me.

<comment> mh- That doesn't seem to be a cap they put in- [http://i.imgur.com/wr4Zb0k.png](http://i.imgur.com/wr4Zb0k.png)</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Tests How Much People Care About Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/technology/duckduckgo-private-search.html <comment><USER2> DDG is simply awesome. I like to see the world as it is, not as some corporation thinks I like to see it as.

Also, as comments do point out. No point using DDG on Chrome. One has to switch to FF - which is seriously fast enough for my daily needs, both on ubuntu and android.

Finally, there's still two things we need to break free form tracking services.

1\. A non google play store smart phone.

2\. Get off gmail.

I am failing on both of the above.

<comment><USER3> > 2\. Get off gmail.

What keeps you sticking to this? I read this often and can only wonder why.

A TLD + 50 GB webspace costs you around 2 Euro/month here in Germany and you have full control over your mail. I also find that it creates a sense of importance and seriousnesses (like in "cares about his/her communication"), if you use your own domain for mails. As long as it's not something like "firstname.lastname@example.com", obviously.

Most automatic spam filters work quite well and can also be trained, if not your client is doing the filtering. And some hosters also provide catch-all addresses which are great for seeing who misuses your mail address.

All in all, I never understood the attractiveness of Gmail, when using your own mail is so easy.

<comment><USER4> Man, I have been struggling to find a good domain to use for months. I have a custom domain already but don't use it for everything. Ideally, I would like to have one that is

\- fairly short

\- .com

\- unambiguous when written with a pen on forms

\- easy to spell on the phone

It's the last 3 I find important for an official domain. gmail for example is easy to mention on the phone as everyone knows it. I always have to repeat my fastmail address 3 times and spell it out as people don't know it.

<comment><USER3> I'm using a combination of three letters from my first and my last name. For you it could be "cliste.com" (taken in this case), maybe this works with your real name. This concept is also fairly easy to explain on the phone, at least I found it to be.

But the .com space is probably more crowded than .de in my case, so you might not find it so easy to get a nice URL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > If you call up DuckDuckGo on the Chrome browser, for example, Google is > still logging your search queries.

Surely not. A quick search (using Duck, obviously) gives me nothing. Anyone know what this is about?

If true, Chrome—currently my 3rd fallback browser behind Safari and Firefox—is being removed this afternoon.

<comment><USER6> In the sense that Chrome logs and syncs your browser history across all devices logged into your account, the search queries are plaintext, so google can probably read them.

Basically I left chrome when they made it annoying to use it without being logged in to the browser (Why would I want to be logged into a web browser?)

<comment><USER7> Why would you need to be logged in? I'd wager that logging in simply makes the history available _to you_ across devices. Google knows which device made the queries and knows you use the device, even without any further analysis it's a good bet you made the search.

I use an application level firewall to block Chrome's outgoing connections and it took a lot of effort to get the ruleset right, even now I'm not sure it is.

Which is why I use other browsers ;-)

<comment><USER8> How did you block outgoing connections without breaking web browsing?

<comment><USER7> Trial and error. I got a list of Google's IP ranges (using something like the technique in [1]) and input them into the app layer firewall and tried browsing using Chrome and nothing broke, but that's because when I use Chrome I don't browse to any Google sites.

I use uMatrix on my main browser and I'm well used to breaking sites, I suppose it's increased my patience for refreshing pages until I find the magic minimum for them to work.

I almost always have to turn off all kinds of blocking when doing a payment though, especially anything involving redirects, like plane tickets. Javascript is the biggest pain, IMO, next would be sites that use Recaptcha.

[1] [https://snurps.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-many-ip-addresses- do...](https://snurps.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-many-ip-addresses-does-google- have.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a DDG user for 4 years or so, and had very few quality problems. When I am not happy with results, I check Google, too. Most of the time, though, Google returns similar results.

<comment><USER10> I hope to get here. I've been using DDG since the start of the year, and I'm thinking of switching back to Google. The results for me are off the mark to such a degree that I use the `!g` more times than not. Even if DDG has the result on the first page, it's never at the top like Google often is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Using DuckDuckGo is pleasant in ways that Google just isn't, but can be easy to forget.

I'm reminded every time I somehow default to Google by mistake (using different browser or PC, for example) and am hit with one of those "Before you go!.. some bright colours and dark patterns which we hope will shield us from GDPR" modals.*

It's just such a nice _break_ from what the internet has become, like booting into Linux and simply not having that general feeling that everything you touch is out to screw you somehow to squeeze just a little more value out of the interaction.

No modals, no overlays, no cookie warnings, no needing to save cookies to avoid cookie warnings which have already been acknowledged. So refreshing.

Their branding and message is so on-point that after a while of using their search, a journey into chrome/Google feels almost seedy, like downloading a "Best Free Calculator/Flashlight App" from the android play store, or browsing sourceforge a few years ago.

*As a sidenote, I'd love to see the statistics of people who immediately stop and bounce to DDG when presented with one of those.

</comment><comment><USER12> My wife ordered pizza today and less than a minute later I got an unusual ad for panago pizza in YouTube. I've never seen a pizza ad before. I use a VPN and she doesn't, but it still figures out we live together and connected the dots

<comment><USER13> How is it correlating that two devices on different networks (as far as it can see) are in the same house? I can understand device-level fingerprinting associating device@vpn <-> device@office, but I'm not seeing where deviceA@vpn <-> deviceB@home have anything in common to tie them together.

<comment><USER14> Bluetooth. Device A and Device B can see eachother, occassionally throughout the day, via bluetooth. An app using either the Google or Criteo Framework records these and through knowing that one devices has VPN on, knows that it's endpoint is likely not real and assigns the two devices together.

Even better, thanks to criteo's bluetooth beacon service, if you go to pick up your pizza, they will know you bought it and can present you with further ads from that specific pizza chain.

If you think Criteo isn't doing that, you should check out their marketing material.

<comment><USER8> A simpler explanation is both devices have location services on, or are on the same WiFi network (same SSID).

<comment><USER14> Criteo's framework relies on Bluetooth more than Wifi IIRC. They love telling you about how accurate their bluetooth beacons are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My problem has been DDG consistently produces worse results than google for many/most of my searches. It's often sufficient, but often it is so bad I have to redo the search in google :-/

I really want to use DDG over google, but it's just not there for me yet.

<comment><USER16> I've been using DSG exclusively for about a year now and I've had the opposite experience: I've been amazed at how relevant the results have been. Occasionally, when struggling to find something, I'll use Google (via !g) and the results are, more often than not, mostly the same. It's rare for me to use Google search these days and when I do I'm annoyed by the assumptions it makes about my queries.

<comment><USER17> Fellow DDG user, but your observation about Google Searches is interesting... It may be the case that your limited use of Google is contributing to the poor assumptions it makes about your queries. The more Google tracks you, the better it can anticipate your intent.

Of course this is at the expense of privacy, filter bubble, etc. Still funny to think that Google may be over-optimizing around the presumption of an available browsing history. If true, Google could very well be degrading the anonymized experience on its sites. Could backfire in a more privacy-conscious future...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OT (but not really): putting DDG into Google Image Search first shows DuckDuckGo about 2/3 of the way down the page: [https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sou...](https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1487&bih=1018&ei=xcktXcyaCoH_5gKR1gY&q=DDG+logo&oq=DDG+logo&gs_l=img.3..0j0i5i30.1107.3122..3435...0.0..0.260.1272.2j6j1......0....1..gws- wiz-img.....0..35i39j0i30j0i24.Baujs_TmX2U)

Putting DDG into DDG Image Search yields nothing but pictures of U.S.N. destroyers: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DDG&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images&iai=...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DDG&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Ff%2Ff3%2FUSS_Barry_DDG52.jpg%2F1200px- USS_Barry_DDG52.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER18> I've loved DDG forever, used it since 2010 I think.

</comment><comment><USER19> A while ago, i needed to search something from the cli with w3m, ddg wouldn't work without JS so I had to use google.

That commentary aside, search engines make a big chunk of their revenue on prioritizing results and making sure the search term is relevant. Why can't the index be exposed as an api to allow arbitrary front ends?

<comment><USER20> >A while ago, i needed to search something from the cli with w3m, ddg wouldn't work without JS so I had to use google.

[https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/features/n...](https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/features/non-javascript/)

<comment><USER19> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> my situation: i would like to move on from google but can't.

1\. google maps is my number 1 maps app. i post reviews, i search for restaurants, i book hotels. basically gmaps is my gateway to the real world.

2\. gmail is my number 1 email app. i've got over 10 accounts in there, both corporate and personal. custom labels, filters and haven't gotten spam in a decade.

2\. google search still produces the best results. this is because of them knowing everything about me. DDG on the other hand produces horrible results for me; they don't do tracking so it doesn't know anything about me. and i need them to have context.

3\. Firefox on macos is... not good to say the least. especially compared to chrome on macos.

any ideas on this? are there any proper blows-your-mind kind of alternatives or am I stuck?

<comment><USER22> For search, perhaps you just need to spend a little while with DuckDuckGo to learn what you need to type in to get the results you are looking for. If you stay logged into Google, then when you can't find what you're looking for on DDG, add !g to your query and it'll take you to Google. The point is you can switch gradually.

<comment><USER21> that's a very good suggestion. thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


World's Simplest Electric Train [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9b0J29OzAU <comment><USER2> I have some old Ladybird Classic books[0] that I inherited from my father, who had them when he was a kid in the 60s. I remember one of them included something like this. It may have been [1]. I can't imagine a modern childrens book encouraging kids to take apart batteries or attempt their own electroplating :-)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_Books#The_classic_Lad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_Books#The_classic_Ladybird_book)

[1] [http://www.ebay.ie/itm/VINTAGE-LADYBIRD-BOOK-Magnets- Bulbs-a...](http://www.ebay.ie/itm/VINTAGE-LADYBIRD-BOOK-Magnets-Bulbs-and- Batteries-Dust- Jacket-621-2-6-/311198291511?pt=Antiquarian_Books_UK&hash=item4874dd1637) (several pics of inside)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice demo! Quick back of the envelope calculation for the current to overcome dynamic friction:

I = mu_friction * Mass * grav_acc / (Turns_per_length * Area * Br_magnet)

Say Mass=0.1kg, coil at 600 turns per metre, hand-wave mu_friction=0.2, and a rare-earth retention Br=1Tesla, gives a current of 3A. Maybe more to chug along, would deplete a 2000mAh battery in about 30 minutes. Wire looks about 20 AWG, should get quite hot.

<comment><USER4> Which would theoretically use more energy, levetating the "train", or overcoming the friction?

(I"m not suggesting this design can levitate, just curious about the trade- off.)

<comment><USER5> Levitating.

Since overcoming the friction can be achieved through approaches like coating the wire in ultra low friction material which will consume no power to operate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Same principle, different application (an electric engine): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOdboRYf1hM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOdboRYf1hM), [http://youtu.be/CoXboA8Ax7Q](http://youtu.be/CoXboA8Ax7Q) (or zillions of other videos)

</comment><comment><USER7> Almost as interesting, this video of a Stirling/Heat engine using just an empty can, sticks and heat for power source:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCjYZT6FJm4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCjYZT6FJm4)

And a very simple motor using just only a battery and wire:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSvNyHorgo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSvNyHorgo)

</comment><comment><USER8> Could a design such as this work in the real-world, for a real train?

It seems to me that this could be feasible, since the power source is on the "car" itself, and the coil (infrastructure) wouldn't be that expensive to build (apart from the materials, of course). Or is it just too inefficient?

I don't know much about electronics/electromagnetism, admittedly.

<comment><USER9> Also never forget the implications of the Square-Cube Law [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square- cube_law](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law)

<comment><USER8> Can you explain what you mean by this? I can't find mention of its implications to electricity.

<comment><USER10> Probably that as you scale up the size linearly, the volume, and thus weight goes up as the cube, but the surface area goes up as the square.

Since this design relies on closing the circuit by having the magnets rub the wire, as you scale up you have an area in contact with the wire (surface area) going up as X^2, but the downforce due to gravity going up as X^3.

You could add wheels and metallic contact brushes to scale it up. Keep in mind copper is really expensive, and you'd be scaling that up nontrivially too, or the current would fry the wire (I'd think the mass of the copper would go up as the cube too, at least to accelerate at the same rate--acceleration depends on the mass since F=MA, and the mass of the train went up as the cube).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why I do not know anything about how this works. I thought myself how to code but each time I see this stuff I struggle with the feeling that I can't seem to find a reasonably DIY knowledge builder for basic science branches like this.

How do you start? Help please.

<comment><USER11> We were taught this stuff in school, although I didn't think of that application then :-) I mean that current running through a coil induces a magnetic field.

Maybe just start with a physics school book?

Edit: in fact current running through a wire induces a magnetic field (actually, just electrons moving, with or without a wire), I guess the coil just gives it direction and kind of amplifies it (it's been a while).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone have a neat explanation for how it works?

<comment><USER13> When the train is placed completely within the copper coil, the circuit is closed. A current flows from the +ve end of the battery, round the local part of the coil, back into the -ve end of the battery (the magnets are conducting).

This circulating current generates a magnetic field. Proper orientation of the head and tail magnets leads to both magnets being pushed in the same direction because of their interaction with the generated magnetic field.

This is the force that drives the train.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We may properly guess that the handedness of the helical copper coil determines the direction the train takes? (left hand rule and whatnot) Connect two loops of opposite handedness and perhaps the train will alternate direction? nahh, probably just get stuck at the transition point.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this also the first real perpetual motion machine? That thing looks like it could go on forever. Or is it limited by the current in the battery? If it is, could the motion provide _back_ the energy to the battery somehow, and would it be a net positive?

<comment><USER16> The motion depletes the battery, no different than a toy car motor. Yes, you could theoretically provide energy back to the battery. No, it would not be a net positive. It would deplete the battery faster, for a net loss because of unavoidable conversion inefficiencies.

Edit: if you saw this video, realized there was a battery involved, and your first thought was " _Perpetual Motion Device!_ ", you might be delusional or severely misinformed. For your own sake, please research the topic a bit more and avoid echo chambers.

<comment><USER17> This comment would be better without the second paragraph, which is needlessly personal and meta.

The first paragraph is splendid.

<comment><USER16> I agree the second paragraph is personal and meta, and I don't like it either.

But if I ever go down a rabbit hole and end up detached from reality, I would _love_ to have someone to tip me off. It's like pointing out someone's fly is open.

Maybe OP is perfectly sane and just got confused on the physics of this system. Maybe they are very young. Or I misread their comment. In that case, OP has my deepest apologies.

It's just that perpetual motion is a well known trap for intelligent people; and expressions like "first real perpetual motion machine" and "provide _back_ the energy to the battery somehow" make me worry that a fellow human being is going down the wrong path.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for clarifying the helpful intention behind the comment. That does make sense. Probably all it needed to do was make the intention a bit more explicit, so it wouldn't be mistaken for one-upmanship.

By the way, your reply was so neutral and respectful that I didn't realize you were the original commenter. That's remarkable, so thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone else notice the Berta Lovejoy comment? :D

<comment><USER19> I wonder who made the stupid decision to remove the downvote feature in the YouTube comments. I heard that they couldn't implement it because Google+ only has upvotes, but why they don't simply allocate another column in their database is beyond me.

<comment><USER20> If I had a dollar for every time a manager said "Just put another column in the database"...

But seriously, I doubt it was a technical reason. Probably wanted to drive more positive behavior.</comment></comment></comment>


Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The legacy of the teen heroine - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25494967

<comment><USER2> The day BBC News Entertainment is worthy of discussion on hacker news is a dark day indeed.

Remember when this place was about programming and start ups?

<comment><USER3> It's called _Hacker_ News. The proportion of hackers who are fans of geek culture (e.g. Buffy) is much larger than the proportion who are interested in start-ups. Indeed, I have never understood why this site seems obsessed with stories about start-ups, often posted by people who aren't even hackers.

<comment><USER4> Isn't reddit better for geek culture, in general? There's no tagging here, for example. Stories flow through too quickly if this site tries to be everything to everyone.</comment></comment></comment>


Smartphone Resin 3D Printers - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2016/11/18/3d-printering-smartphone-resin-printers-actually-work/ <comment><USER2> I took a punt at $79 - around £50 at the time. Seemed like a pretty good gamble since the idea (resin/lithography printing) is proven, just not with smartphone screens. I'd forgotten about it until this post came up!

Was the concept that heavily doubted by so many people? The article is pretty snarky - e.g. "It is "a boon for democratizing 3D printing technology," according to one idiotic tech blog." The comments are similarly vicious, people are treating this as snake oil. "Whether or not the ONO works or not, and when it will ship is irrelevant. We've seen cooler printers with more interesting technology fail spectacularly." The author seems to be deeply unimpressed that they might actually have a product.

Whether it works _well_ is almost entirely going to boil down to the quality of the interface between screen and resin. We have a Form 1+ at work and struggled for a long time to get it to produce reliable prints. In the end we cleaned all the optics and polished up the windows and it seems to be pretty good now. Resin cost is the main bugbear - since they say you should change tanks ($50 a pop) every two bottles (litres) of resin.

Their timeline/Gantt chart shows they're a few months behind schedule, though that's not that bad for a hardware kickstarter that launched in March of _this year_ (they hoped to be shipping in September). They're now saying shipping in January subject to their resin passing various international compliance laws. Depending how skeptical you are, they do have photos with rows and rows of semi-completed units.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/olo3d/olo-the-first- eve...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/olo3d/olo-the-first-ever- smartphone-3d-printer/posts/1738250)

<comment><USER3> Hackaday comments are famously dismissive and negative. In the case of hardware kickstarters that's typically justified, for everything else, not so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ionel Ciobanuc built a new version of his printer that gave a much better result using a lens: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjCIkxHVhNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjCIkxHVhNM)

</comment><comment><USER5> I bought into the ONO to see more development in the area of LCD resin printing. Great to see it actually working! Here is the best video I can find: [https://youtu.be/SjCIkxHVhNM?t=62](https://youtu.be/SjCIkxHVhNM?t=62)</comment>


Rr 4.0 Debugger Released with Reverse Execution - <AUTHOR> http://robert.ocallahan.org/2015/10/rr-40-released-with-reverse-execution.html <comment><USER2> How much of rr is C++-specific? I know of a few other compiled languages out there that would love to have a tool like this.

<comment><USER3> As I understand it, not much. It seems to work fine with Rust, for instance.

<comment><USER4> That's correct. Anything you can debug with gdb should be debuggable under rr. (Though of course there could always be rr bugs that need to be fixed.)

Languages where debugging requires complex VM services are another story. For example, if your language supports debugging by modifying the code generated by a JIT, that's going to be a problem under rr, since an rr replay preserves the exact instructions executed during recording.

<comment><USER5> Debugging a non-trivial application with gdb without gdb crashing is quite a feat, however. Hopefully rr is less prone to segfaulting. Gdb is easily the least stable standard debugger I've used on any preemptive scheduling OS.

<comment><USER4> gdb almost never crashes for me debugging Firefox on Linux, with or without rr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome. I wanted just something like that but never heard it exists. Thanks, HN.

Anyone with experience using rr - does it work for long-running processes (daemons) that eventually crash? I had few cases where it wasn't possible to trigger a failure right away, and waiting another day for the daemon to crash to have a new core dump wasn't any great experience. Is the tool usable for such cases - I mean, without dumping few hundred gigabytes of execution history?

<comment><USER4> The recording data rate is highly workload-dependent. For Firefox I find it's often around 1MB per second but your daemon could be a lot more or less than that, depending on what it does.

A few hundred gigabytes may sound like a lot, but it costs less than $100 so if it saves you a significant amount of time, why not? The biggest problem using rr with a very long trace is that to debug it you need to replay all the way forward to the crash point, which might take you _another_ day or longer. Though that's just machine time so you can run that in the background while doing other work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know how rr compares feature wise with [http://undo- software.com](http://undo-software.com)?

<comment><USER4> The features and general approach are quite similar.

There are some significant internal differences. UndoDB relies on code instrumentation but rr does not. Mainly because of that (AFAIK), UndoDB's recording overhead is significantly higher than rr's. On the other hand, UndoDB can handle some cases rr does not, in particular when a recorded task shares memory with another task which is not part of the recording. Also, UndoDB supports ARM/Android and rr does not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why such/similar tool with a simple GUI interface isn't default standard, for most popular languages/platforms ?

Wouldn't it tremendously save developers time ?... And, accordingly, huge amounts of money ?

Please! No more sado-masochism!

<comment><USER9> Looks like it's because until now it was not available, since rr has gained both reverse execution and x86-64 support quite recently (now and end of 2014 respectively)

There have been other similar tools previously, but they were either slow (chronicle), unable to work on complex programs or only worked on VMs.</comment></comment>


Russian Hack of Elections System Was Far-Reaching, Report Finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hack-of-elections-system-was-far-reaching-report-finds.html <comment><USER2> I don't understand Mitch McConnell's reluctance to passing an election security measure, I would've that assumed that a voter suppression strategy that utilized the new law would be finalized by now.

<comment><USER3> You would have to know more about the proposals he blocked to have an informed opinion. This is such a surface level strife of McConnell that it's close to "why won't he think of the children?" The article should have linked to a previous story specifically about that proposed legislation.

<comment><USER4> > Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also asked for consent to pass legislation > that would require candidates, campaign officials and their family members > to notify the FBI of assistance offers from foreign governments.

> McConnell also objected to that bill.

Make up your own mind.

<comment><USER5> 100% chance it wasn't the only thing in that bill. It also opens up any candidate, democratic or republican, to FISA surveillance down the line, which is something that I can guarantee will be abused at some point. In fact it already _was_ abused against Trump. FISA warrants to spy on his campaign were obtained by misleading the FISA court with what we now know was fake evidence. There's also a strong possibility that McConell wants voter ID, which is something the Democrats are strangely reluctant to introduce even though it's quite a popular thing to require: Mexico, for instance, does have voter ID.

I'm hypothesizing here, I haven't read the bill, but then neither have you, so you're "making up your own mind" based on a shallow regurgitation of democrat talking points and without any critical thinking.

<comment><USER6> >In fact it already _was_ abused against Trump. FISA warrants to spy on his campaign were obtained by misleading the FISA court with what we now know was fake evidence.

Source? Carter Page had a FISA warrant against him after he left the Trump campaign. And none of it was based on fake evidence. Sounds like you're just regurgitating Republican and Fox News talking points without any critical thinking.

>There's also a strong possibility that McConell wants voter ID, which is something the Democrats are strangely reluctant to introduce even though it's quite a popular thing to require

Republicans are strangely against giving voting IDs or state IDs for free to low income people. They also restrict early voting to make poor people choose between losing pay and voting, and are also against making election day a national holiday. They are also on record stating that the voter ID laws will help them win.

<comment><USER7> >Republicans are strangely against giving voting IDs or state IDs for free to low income people. They also restrict early voting to make poor people choose between losing pay and voting, and are also against making election day a national holiday. They are also on record stating that the voter ID laws will help them win.

In the United States, we have 50 sovereign states that are responsible for election systems/laws. Distributing power was a key feature in the founding of the USA, and shitting on the design in order meet a goal (I personally happen to appreciate) does not justify the means.

Mis-characterizing your opponent's argument is not helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> However, from the coverage by Think Progress:

"The heavily redacted, 67-page report _found no evidence that Russia was able to alter vote counts in 2016_ , when Russia carried out what Mueller's final report called a "sweeping and systematic" hacking and disinformation campaign."

<comment><USER4> Isn't the whole point of the disinformation campaign to make people vote a certain way? With this in mind, altering votes _directly_ by hacking voting machines isn't necessarily the problem people are worried about. It's indirectly changing votes due to the foreign assistance/misinformation, which is illegal under our system. I think it's a reasonable concern and we shouldn't ignore it, just because votes weren't changed directly by hacking. A law that requires campaigns to disclose to authorities if they receive illegal offers of assistance is sensible IMHO.

<comment><USER9> The title of the article seems taylor-made to suggest that Russia hacked voting machines. That's what prompted the top level response. The headline is misleading.

Nobody suggested that Russian disinformation is unimportant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are technical details on what they actually did publicly available?

Was this just a portscan and someone logging into an unsecured database? Did they use a zero day or was a system unpatched with a known vulnerability?

<comment><USER3> This has been my problem with the Russia story. We never get enough detail to make our own judgement of the severity of this. The media and the Democrats lump everything together under the umbrella of "Russia hacked our election/democracy". Aside from the nonsensical nature of that statement, it has been a catch-all term for everything from Facebook ads to hacking some state commission's Wordpress site that contained no secure data.... to possibly real hacks of important systems which are still classified. I really don't care about the former but the later would be a big deal.

<comment><USER11> Lets ignore the nomenclature for a minute. Russians used American social media to manipulate public opinion to help implement a Russian sympathizing Administration. Ignore the verbiage. Start with that.

<comment><USER12> That sounds like a great thing to raise as an issue in an election. Lots of voters might care about that. However, we have a First Amendment, so it's not against the law for anyone to talk to anyone else. That's the case whether it's some weird social media thing like those pictures of Bernie with big muscles or an actual true fact like that the DNC staff sent emails to each other discussing how they had screwed over Bernie. That is strictly legal, whether it is done by Russians or by the _Citizens United_ dudes or by the actual Wikipedia source.

<comment><USER13> The first amendment does not protect the right of foreign nations to dispense propaganda. Indeed there are in fact provisions prohibiting foreign nations involving themselves in the election process in the US constitution.

<comment><USER12> Try again, greenbean. The text is literally this:

 _Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances._

I don't see the words "foreign nations" in there anywhere? Why are you posting this falsehood under a new account?

<comment><USER14> Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20538796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20538796).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If this far-reaching hack succeed, it might be the end of Democracy as we know it: Now the elected official has a vested-interest not to deter foreign hacking and the vicious cycle might go on.

<comment><USER15> That's not just a hypothetical. From the article:

> It also landed hours after Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, > personally stepped forward to block consideration of a package of election > security bills.

The Republicans are rejecting election security bills precisely because Russia has intervened to their benefit, and will probably continue to do so. President Trump has also openly asked for interference from Russia, if memory serves.

These attacks are acts of war and we need to start treating them as such. That won't happen as long as those attacks benefit those in power.

<comment><USER16> It would seem that the first step would be to delegitimize those election results and any ensuing laws or orders from those officials.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that if/when the Democrats win, the Republicans will use the same tactics and delegitimize those election results. We are effectively living in two forked realities with no way to rejoin them.

<comment><USER18> In some other countries, foreign election monitors are routinely invited to monitor elections. They aren't all-seeing or all-knowing, but they can at least highlight irregularities in the voting process.

<comment><USER9> What type of issue would you expect these monitors to prevent or uncover?

Election monitors make sense in third-world countries, where elections are administrated by corrupt government officials and literal ballot-box-stuffing is a possibility. But in the US, civilian volunteers with known party affiliations administer elections, and many states cast ballots electronically.

If you're really concerned about the integrity of our elections at a ballot- box level, the best thing you could do would be to volunteer to administer elections in your local precinct.

<comment><USER18> It's an extra check on the whole system with a known cost. People could voluntarily go on exchange trips to other countries when they have their elections. If foreign election monitors state that some places didn't have enough ballot boxes, then it will be more difficult to ignore that sort of problem as business as usual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> NYT yesterday: "Mueller Hearings Present Make-or-Break Moment"

NYT today: TFA. We wondered what they were going to do in response to the dud that the hearings turned out to be. That confused old man learned more about his report than we did! MFW it seems possible they might actually talk about real problems rather than fairy tales...

People of good faith have been warning of the flaws in election infrastructure since long before Obama made his "of course the elections can't be rigged" comments [0]. There are lots of flaws with voting machines: closed source, no tangible verifiable records, confusing for voters, etc. There are lots of flaws with voting in general: voters removed for specious reasons, greater inconvenience for poor voters, one-party-two-heads, etc.

Actually now that I hear it again, what Obama had to say makes a lot of sense to me... how do the anonymous-yet-somehow-official sources account for this? Sure, someone could cheat in a small number of precincts, but if they try to affect a national election using a small number of precincts they're definitely going to inspire recounts. It's too bad that Congress won't pass Tulsi's bill that would require recountable paper records...

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcjaO2953os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcjaO2953os)</comment>


Ask HN: How to generate a maze that has valid path? - <AUTHOR>

In Phaser.io/JS. <comment><USER2> Generate the valid path first and then build the maze around it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point!</comment></comment>


Microfluidic Automation - <AUTHOR> http://misl.cs.washington.edu/projects/puddle.html <comment><USER2> Looks really interesting. It's interesting as well to see the convert science protocols into code attempts out there, esp when comparing different approaches such as allowances of branching and loops versus no branches or loops allowed.</comment>


Multithreading: C# vs. Java - <AUTHOR> http://jj09.net/multithreading-csharp-vs-java

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty bogus comparison, I am a C# coder and write multi-threaded programs quite often and rarely use raw thread classes anymore, the task parallel library makes the experience much cleaner and more powerful.

I use Java some so I can't speak directly to this but I would bet Java pros are scratching their heads over the Java code being used here as well.

What is more interesting to me though; why even make the comparison? Are there legions of programmers out there who cannot pick between these two platforms because they cannot decide who has better a better threading approach?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't even understand the purpose of the comparison, other than syntax?

It is also a pretty bad example of C# threading capabilities.

From ThreadPool[1], Tasks[2] and more recently async/await[3], there's a lot more than vanilla threads in C#.

[1] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/3dasc8as.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/3dasc8as.aspx)

[2] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dd460717(v=vs.110).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dd460717\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

[3] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh191443.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh191443.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think a better comparison would be the higher level constructs that each language's standard library provides.

For example, the Task Parallel Library is built in to the BCL [1] with some extensions [2] shipped out of band.

Although Java's constructs seem less comprehensive than what's in .NET [3]. (Disclaimer: I'm a .NET programmer and I don't know all the Java namespaces).

[1] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dd460717(v=vs.110).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dd460717\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

[2] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh228603(v=vs.110).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh228603\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

[3] [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/concurren...](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/package- summary.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> No mention of WaitHandle.WaitAll (aka WaitForMultipleObjects)?? Multiplexing is sorely missing from the JVM. CountDownLatch isn't really good enough.

</comment><comment><USER6> Out dated information for both languages.. even if it was up to date.. why do they need to be compared?

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to see how the language constructs are similar... But this blog post is so anti-climatic! Let's see some graphs and some performance analysis! GC analysis would be great too. jj09, looking forward to seeing part 2!</comment>


How perfectly sane people end up writing terrible code - <AUTHOR> http://techbeacon.com/how-terrible-code-gets-written-perfectly-sane-people <comment><USER2> > Focusing on poor metrics such as "issues closed" or "commits per day"

Well, issues closed is meaningful if the issues are truly closed. Definition of done. Also I watch commits per day not because is it terribly meaningful but I see who may be stuck and could use some help. Having some semi stable commit culture allows to detect developers decoupling from the rest of the team (nothing wrong with feature branches if the feature is not fear or ego).

Especially at the beginning of a project - a situation the author is referring with short/medium term - there is not much data at all. Closing, really closing the first things can help to get moving and counting is building a sense of progress. After leaving the harbor it is of course better to focus on the final destination and measure progress with respect to that.

Metrics are just measurements. Whether they are poor depends on what they are used for. Some metrics I watch - but I would not hold anyone accountable for them. These are intelligence like water-cooler talk. Invaluable at times and often simply noise. And then there are other metrics that one is held accountable for - time, budget, quality, delivered value.

In theory Agile should align these but there are often challenges that either make it impossible to do or make is impossible to prevent the measurements to exert an unhealthy influence on the project culture.

> Ignoring proven practices such as code reviews and unit testing

Unit testing is not always cheap. The author is remarking that unit testing was missing. From what I understand this was a re-engineering case where implementation language changed. Having unit tests to read may have helped him but that would have been an expensive way of documenting code. What really was missing that may have helped with the re-engineering would have been end-to- end tests. Writing such test cases for the old system and thus building a good basis for the new system maintenance.

It is unclear what the original budget was. A lot of code used these days was never meant to survive so long - just a quick hack to get going - MVP called these days. Conversely a lot of code that is written today for the long run will quickly end up in the dust bin. A lot of the mess we see today is due to the lack of planning. But then planning has been proven also darn tricky.</comment>


Boeing Pilots Detected 737 Max Flight Control Glitch 2 Years Before Deadly Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771451904/boeing-pilots-detected-737-max-flight-control-glitch-two-years-before-deadly-cra <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292860)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21293550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21293550)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21293497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21293497)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21298304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21298304)

</comment><comment><USER3> Title is incredibly misleading.

The text messages exchanged are about the unexpected (but normal for 737 max) amounts of speed trim applied. I.e. during normal operation, MCAS was applying more trim than a non-max 737 pilot would expect. The individuals exchanging these text messages never encountered the MCAS anomaly that led to the two crashes. The pilots explicitly did not encounter the 'glitch'. The simulator that the pilots were using was not even capable of replicating the glitch, as it didn't factor trim screw forces.

The text messages are evidence of a systemic lack of communication in the testing and certification process, but they are not the 'pilots knew MCAS would cause crashes' smoking gun that the mainstream media is about to start misinterpreting them as.

Here's Juan Browne breaking it down. For those not in the know, he ranks amongst the most experienced pilots in the country.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btZXVPfh- pE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btZXVPfh-pE)

<comment><USER4> Things are not so simple as the pilots knowing everything and just hiding the truth. They still identified there was an issue, but couldn't match it to MCAS as they didn't know about it, and misattributed the effects to a simulator error.

> As the two pilots banter back and forth in the messages, Forkner says the > system is "running rampant in the sim on me," then adding, "I'm leveling off > at like 4000 ft, 230 knots and the plane is trimming itself like crazy."

For me this clears the bar of pilots detecting there is an issue.

<comment><USER5> _The_ issue that resulted in the crashes was angle of attack sensors reporting broken data, which caused MCAS to nose down the plane; this is absolutely not what the pilots are talking about.

Everything else that has been discussed (whether the pilots should have been told how to disable it and tried it in the simulator, whether Boeing should have added the second vane or even a third one on all planes, etc.) fundamentally depends on having incorrect data from the sensors and the plane not being able to deal with that.

The exchange might hint that MCAS had an awful design history, but even a perfect MCAS could have had issues if supplied with incorrect sensor data; garbage in, garbage out. Now if there was somewhere an email about the lack of a voting system on vane readings, that would be another story.

<comment><USER6> The issue is the undocumented (and obfuscated) behavior of the airplane after the failure of a single AofA sensor.

<comment><USER5> Right, and it has nothing to do with the issue reported by the test pilots in the simulator.

<comment><USER6> I see what you mean - there is no evidence (at least in the transcript) that the problems were in response to a simulated system failure, and the actual MCAS seemed to work well enough when nothing was broken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is now marked as a dupe, so not likely to garner much more traffic, but I am curious what the "M.2" refers to in the transcript?

Also, it's pretty clear to me that they are confused by the parameters of when MCAS should be active and how much trim it should be applying. They are trying to figure out if the sim code is broken or out of sync with the spec. They are asking for spreadsheets identify exactly which flight envelopes it should be activating under.

This transcript perhaps demonstrates a cultural problem at Boeing around a safety critical system. What it doesn't actually show is that Boeing knew about the specific MCAS issue that contributed to crashing two planes.

A question in my mind is what happened between this exchange and the next time this pilot went to the FAA to tell them to keep MCAS out of the docs.

I really hope they can trace this all the way to the top and not simply hang this test pilot out to dry.

<comment><USER6> M.2 is mach 0.2 - the speed range in which MCAS was active had been expanded downwards.

Your second paragraph is precisely to the point, and it is not clear to me whether these two pilots were ever given enough correct information to make an informed decision about the safety of MCAS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower) protection assurance is not efficient; Time to amend it;

<comment><USER2> There are no whistleblowers in this story... both pilots signed off on the safety and the guys lawyer is arguing the conversation is being misinterpreted.

> "If you read the whole chat, it is obvious that there was no 'lie,'" David > Gerger, a lawyer for Forkner, said in an email. "The simulator was not > reading right and had to be fixed to fly like the real plane. Mark's career > -- at Air Force, at FAA, and at Boeing -- was about safety. And based on > everything he knew, he absolutely thought this plane was safe."</comment></comment>


Comprehensive Clojure STM Article  - <AUTHOR> http://java.ociweb.com/mark/stm/article.html

<comment><USER2> _They must ensure that no data that requires coordinated changes is modified outside an STM transaction._

How does Clojure handle this? In Haskell, the type system ensures that STM operations can only happen where expected. (Reading a TMVar, for example, returns something of type STM (TMVar a). This means that the enclosing function must also return something of the type STM a. To get the actual data out, you run the transaction, which is of type STM a -> IO a. The type system automatically ensures that STM operations don't happen anywhere else.)

<comment><USER3> In Clojure they require that all operations that affect STM are explicitly done inside a transaction, otherwise an error is raised.

<comment><USER2> I see, so it complains at runtime when when a transaction is not "in effect" and someone calls a transactional function?

<comment><USER3> Yes, I believe it is correct.

Keep in mind Clojure is running on top of jvm so they had to, first, figure out a balance between being practical and being "pretty" and, second, work within the constraints of the environment. I think Rich Hickey has done a tremendous job here (and keeps doing it).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Everyone complaining about MS buying GitHub needs to offer a better solution - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/everyone-complaining-about-microsoft-buying-github-needs-to-offer-a-better-solution/#click=http://maansiirtofirma.fi <comment><USER2> Generally I have always hated the argument that anyone opposed to anything needs to have a better solution before their opinion is valid and will be taken into account.

Sometimes it's clear how a particular solution is negative but beyond that we don't have the breath or depth of knowledge to suggest the alternative or it is not our job to spend the time to come up with one. Yet we may have enough experience in a particular aspect of it to know about a significant downside of the choice.

It always just seems like a way of dismissing valid criticism by someone who supports the choice and not addressing the criticism.

Edit: grammar & spelling

<comment><USER3> There often isn't a good solution, only a bunch of "bad" solutions. Pointing out that they are bad is useless to everyone. GitHub wanted to be a successful independent company. That failed. What is the next least bad solution before bankruptcy?

<comment><USER4> > Pointing out that they are bad is useless to everyone.

This is false.

Some people may not have given the matter consideration. When they don't they may accept the bad solution as normal, and "normal" often rightly or wrongly leads people to jump to the conclusion that the solution is proper. I've many times had to argue against something where the argument in favor was "we've always done it that way."

Pointing out that a solution is bad records challenges that can be met and satisfied in producing a new solution. But if no one notices, or those who do never say anything, then people will tend to assume it is normal and therefore proper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Everyone complaining about MS buying GitHub needs to offer a better > solution_

MS _not_ buying GitHub?

<comment><USER6> And that's better for GitHub how?

<comment><USER5> Who said the answer had to take into account GitHub's wellbeing?

The complaints against MS buying it are not because are not made with the consideration that the deal is bad for GitHub itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I personally think it's fair to be catiously optimisitic at best. I for one don't have the solution but I don't feel like all the sudden I need to trust Microsoft.

That being said I like the direction they are going in but I'm sure people liked the direction they were going in before thier change of heart towards open source too.

</comment><comment><USER8> GitHub was a bad solution for FLOSS projects already, it just became so much clearer now.

<comment><USER9> I always thought people posting content on Tumblr/Medium/WordPress were making a mistake, that they were getting very little in return for their work. It's starting to become clear that hosting your project on someone else's servers has many of the same issues.

<comment><USER10> GitHub provides a central, well-known "hub" for code collaboration. Due to its success and popularity, it has achieved a network effect that is really difficult to replicate. (Google wasn't able to do it.) If GitHub were to go away or deterioriate in some way, something else would inevitably take its place.

Putting your project on github is the best way to ensure that you have the largest possible number of eyes on it. And if something better comes along, you can always copy your repo there. I don't see what you lose by hosting on github.

<comment><USER11> > the best way to ensure that you have the largest possible number of eyes on > it

Potentially. Or it means that your work becomes diluted and lost in the ocean. The Instagram problem: many eyes but they're focused on a few targets. Most 'normal' posters will have only a handful of followers and a few 'likes'.

If you have a specialised codebase, say something to do with astrophotography, putting it on Github isn't really going to launch it into the mainstream with thousands of contributors who just stumbled upon it. People who need it will find it by other channels regardless of where it is hosted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > standards compliance that won the browser war, not Microsoft's extensions

OMG, what about the whole antitrust case of the USA against Microsoft in the 2000ies?

I can't read any other paragraph written by "journalists" like those.

</comment><comment><USER13> "You can't complain until you provide something better" is one of the oldest bullshit arguments in the book.

If I go to a doctor with an ailment, or the Agora with a public grievance, the notion of admitting and communicating that there's a problem is an essential step. Identifying etiologies, goals, and solutions ("getting there from here") are also necessary, but independent steps that need not be initiated or accomplished by the same people.

Sorry, but I'm tired of this very tired trope.

A key problem is that infrastructure, information, and information exchanges play poorly with markets and market-oriented institutions: for-profit corporations.

If markets are your problem, marketing-it-harder -- selling the company to a larger and more abusive monopolist -- will probably mean you'll be having a bad day.

<comment><USER14> GitHub, Inc. is a for-profit organization too, as are its biggest competitors. If you're concerned about the interaction between profit and code hosting, that doesn't have much to do with this acquisition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm still not sure why people are complaining.

MS is the biggest contributor on GitHub, and VSCode/TypeScript are exemplary pieces of open source projects.

Maybe we should wait and see before bashing MS and migrating everything on another centralized for-profit platform?

<comment><USER16> > I'm still not sure why people are complaining.

Of course you know why as the arguments of both sides were presented here ad nauseam, you just aren't convinced by them. In short, people who witnessed faul play by Microsoft that lasted for many years and their attitude towards users as presented in Windows 10 aren't convinced they should be the owner of GitHub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > it was ultimately Netscape's failure to respond to Internet Explorer 4, 5, > and 6's speed, relative stability, and superior (though still poor) > standards compliance that won the browser war

The monoploist practice of bundling the browser with the OS isn't to blame at all?!

<comment><USER12> exactly, the USA had a case of antitrust against Microsoft for doing that. The whole world is aware of that except that "journalist".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> People need to realize that google could have bought it. Think about it.

<comment><USER19> Why would google buy it beyond charity?

<comment><USER14> Google tried to do code hosting before, so they must see some value in it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Aah, Peter Bright (the resident MS promoter) and arstechnica.

I still have bad memories of those two from time when Windows 8 was released. Immediately before the release, arstechnica instituted down-voting. Then, upon release there were a flurry of articles (Mostly from Bright) talking about how great Windows 8 was, what a game changer etc. etc. In the comments anyone questioning the validity of that view was downvoted out of site.

</comment><comment><USER21> Of course critics of GitHub's acquisition have indeed offered a better solution in the form of Microsoft not buying GitHub.

Beyond that though, the article encourages and exemplifies the most blatant form of armchair CEO-ing.

The tech press has gleaned clicks from their fawning yet resigned corporate strategy fantasies for so long that now their headlines straight up demand that mentality from their readers.

</comment><comment><USER22> A better solution would have been to drive more users to paid accounts.

Microsoft buying them doesn't even solve the problem that they're not financially viable right now. Unless cutting HR and other support roles is enough to bump them to profitability, but I doubt it.

At this point it's too late, though, because this sale is a direct consequence of them taking VC funding a few years back. How was a website for hosting source code ever going to satisfy venture capitalists looking for a big pay out?

</comment><comment><USER23> GitHub could've built a service that is actually profitable. I know, a radical concept. But, they had _a lot_ of time to think of something to go IPO with.

</comment><comment><USER24> They really don't.

</comment><comment><USER25> Letting it shut down</comment>


Paper Boy for News.me — Download Your News in the Background When You Leave Home - <AUTHOR> http://blog.news.me/post/21643399885/introducing-paper-boy-automatically-download-your-news

<comment><AUTHOR> So the short story is that we're using geofencing to download news content in the background when you leave your preset "Home" location. Super useful for subway commuters. Kudos to @tolar, iOS developer and subway rider extraordinaire for coming up with it and building it in a weekend.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm guessing this, like other geofencing activities, is heavy on battery? Does it only trigger once a day (in the morning or whatever) and then stop checking your location?

Maybe I should just download it and try it...

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using it for the last few weeks and it's really not bad. Eager to hear your experience with it — jake [at] news.me

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice if it let you set your office as well so it downloads the latest news when you're coming back home.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool idea. For now we just support one location, but you can make that location whatever you want (home, office, etc.)

<comment><USER4> I second creativityhurts; You should really implement this feature, guys.</comment></comment></comment>


Rails Fails (rubyonrails.org being squatted) - <AUTHOR> http://rubyonrails.org

<comment><USER2> This happened once before, a year ago, guess its someone forgetting to renew the domains every year:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8epum/has_rubyo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8epum/has_rubyonrailsorg_domain_been_hijacked/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quick link to the WHOIS record: <http://www.networksolutions.com/whois- search/rubyonrails.org>

</comment><comment><USER2> rubyonrails.com redirects there too</comment>


How the Atari ST almost had Real Unix - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1355

<comment><USER2> Recently we talked in our OS class about the 68K and its lack of MMU, this article provides great insight on those days!</comment>