Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data - <AUTHOR> https://www.alec.fyi/dorking-how-to-find-anything-on-the-internet.html <comment><USER2> A few corrections:

The + (formerly used to force a term to be present in the result) and ~ (also find synonyms) operators have been deprecated.

Google now advises to wrap the word in quotes instead of using the +. Google will also automatically look for synonyms without the use of ~.

I have seen 'AROUND(n)' mentioned in many other places working as a proximity operator in Google, but I don't believe that is true and haven't found it to work in any logical way.

Also the use of parentheses to nest queries is not necessary in Google. It is actually required for Bing on complicated queries though.

<comment><USER3> Worth mentioning that even if you put a term in double quotes, Google _still_ tries to be too clever - you are not guaranteed to get results that contain your quotes search term :/

<comment><USER4> As a workaround and under search tools one can enable the "verbatim" option.

<comment><USER3> AFAICT, the verbatim option gives the same results as if I'd quoted my search term?

<comment><USER4> In my experience it depends on the number of results, and the results are more accurate with verbatim.

<comment><USER5> It's like being able to touch your nose in the dark, or even having been blind since birth.

Verbatim searches are for those easy tasks when you know _literally_ , _exactly_ , what you're looking for.

Something tells me that a lot of folks on HN are being let down by Google in this area. I don't mean it in a bad way, I want to identify these issues to help everyone. I wish the UI of search wasn't so textually-bound.

Is there such a thing as an augmented reality search engine? You search like you do at the library, or when you lost your keys. But for data and virtual objects, they lose out - their evanescence creates a perception gap. There is no correspondence with physical objects, etc. We are getting better with haptics, however.

 _Rainbows End_ [0] is a future society I'd choose to live in, especially right about now.

Anyone have any good book recommendations?

[0] Vernor Vinge

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Might be my librarian career bias but I'm always surprised at how few people know about query operators. Ironically as Google search seems to be ignoring vital parts of people's queries, they are becoming more needed now, whereas years ago I would have assumed a constantly improving Google search would get better at determining what I was looking for.

<comment><USER7> You don't even wanna know how many times specialized searches have saved my ass, after multiple years on uni, and working as a writer, journalist, programmer, en even a musician! You can safely say that my entire life revolves around being good at doing various forms of searches.

<comment><USER8> I have long believed that the art of precision search should be taught at the primary level. It is a necessary skill.

<comment><USER9> That idea is present in the Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. Basically search engines and the use of discussion forums to find information becomes a subject in schools etc. Though this is not the main point of the novel at all.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Last week I blocked every * .google.* domain on my network except "youtube- ui.l.google.com".

Google Search: (1) ask a natural language question (since actual search is hobbled) (2) get unrelated garbage and ads back (3) blame yourself for "not being technical enough" to understand why the results aren't actually garbage.

Google Search has deteriorated to the point that so far I haven't missed it _at all_.

<comment><USER11> Google still good for coding related searches

<comment><USER10> Ever spent three minutes opening useless links from Google's Search results, only to realize they dropped the keyword you searched? That seems quite common now, especially with programming keywords, which are often obscure.

Remember Google Code Search, and Google (Usenet) Groups? Back then, Google cared about this stuff. Now they seem only to want to show you furniture ads, or get you to use their Zoom knockoff, etc.

These days Google substitutes the heck out of searches. Perhaps it's better if you've logged in, but I'd rather hack my leg off with a rusty saw than voluntarily log in to an account just to search the web.

<comment><USER12> This is also very common with DDG. And the strange thing is that many times, DDG will even ignore if you are using parenthesis. The parenthesis seem to add weight but I will still get tons of results that don't contain the required words at all.

<comment><USER13> Never seen this happen with DDG. Required words should be in quotes, not parenthesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live two towns over from Dorking.

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

<comment><USER15> I grew up in Dorking, but this is the first time (that I can remember...) that I actually read its wikipedia article.

TIL: No one knows why 'Dorking' is called 'Dorking', but there's a English Place Names Society which since the 1920's has researched the origins of town names in England, and is considered [0] to be "the established national body on the subject".

[0] [https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/](https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/)

<comment><USER16> The -ing part of a place name is Saxon, from memory, something like "ingas" meaning "people of". So, People of Dork, literally, and whatever became Dork (a person/place/event) is probably lost to historical memory. We have an awful lot of places with "ing" in them around here, probably due to a lot of C7 Saxon settlement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a pretty common practice among SEOs for a variety of different reasons. They are also known as advanced search operators.

Ahrefs has a pretty comprehensive list here: [https://ahrefs.com/blog/google- advanced-search-operators/](https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search- operators/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think it would be useful to be able to explicitly search around knowledge graph entities or site topics, e.g. a programming language, a city, a season, without having that single/specific term.

So a search including all sites related to an entity, say Munich or python along with the terms the user is searching because a page might then not specifically include the entity in its keywords or the text on the site or have a different language or use a synonym.

I'm sure search engines consider this somewhat, but explicitly activating such a feature would be a great improvement for the user.

Stackexchange has this feature with tags (using []), with user curated tags. Would be nice to have in DDG or google.

<comment><USER19> I would just like to create my own groups. As another user said, tagging would probably be gamed by SEO companies, but if people could use their own groupings, that problem wouldn't occur. Their could even be curated lists out there of specific sites that fall within a general category. At the least, I'd like to be able to block sites from ever appearing in my results. I've used add-ons for that which work pretty well, but it should be built-in in my opinion

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Syntax for doing things like this with DDG:

[https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/results/sy...](https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/results/syntax/)

<comment><USER21> I'd switch to DDG in a half second if they supported the full query syntax of altavista.digital.com (see [http://jkorpela.fi/altavista/](http://jkorpela.fi/altavista/) if you've forgotten). Disclaimer: I work for, um, Google.

<comment><USER20> I do wish they supported a larger search syntax. My current workaround is I have a massive bookmark folder of alternative search engines that I try if I'm not having luck narrowing things down enough.

<comment><USER22> That might make an interesting blog post

<comment><USER20> I'm still mid-setting up a blog, but I'll keep that in mind once I've got it up and running.

I'm afraid it probably wouldn't be that interesting to HN'ers though, because this is where I found most of them.

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty new to HN so I'd really find that post interesting – having them listed in one place would be useful.

<comment><USER20> If you want, you can shoot me an email and I'll send a link to a page where I have them listed already. Not a blog post, and not much info about them, but I have a list.

I just don't have a domain yet so I don't really want to go super public.

<comment><USER23> Sure thing, I've just emailed you.

<comment><USER20> Update: there is now a domain, the page can be found at

[http://a-shared-404.com/other-stuff](http://a-shared-404.com/other-stuff)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Exploit database with more dorks

[https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database](https://www.exploit- db.com/google-hacking-database)

</comment><comment><USER25> I have a question for anyone reading this thread:

Do you believe you can get consistent results with _any_ search?

For example, if we pick some _uncommon_ search terms will we get the same results on the first search, the second search, the third, etc. Or will the results change?

I did a search with some terms from one of the comments in this thread, in quotes. The first search returned only one result: this thread.

As I searched the same quoted terms repeatedly along with additional terms, more results were returned that contained the exact string of original terms. Surprised by this, I tried a search with only the original terms, in quotes, once again. This time the search returned more than just the one result.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's specific enough, the SERP should stay the same until someone else publishes the same thing

e.g. the search of another article "set up Google Sheets APIs (and treat Sheets like a database)"

turns up my site and a couple Twitter threads talking about it (plus a phishing site which has scraped and republished it). I presume that will stay the same b/c it's such a specific title phrase (but not because searches are necessarily deterministic)

<comment><USER25> I am skeptical that quotes really work like the plus operator used to work.

For example, try searching the following string in quotes: "the SERP should stay the same".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the%20SERP%20should%20sta...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the%20SERP%20should%20stay%20the%20same%22)

Now, the logical presumption, assuming Google works as people say it does, is that each result will contain that exact string. If no results contain the string, then you should receive no results.

However, for me, results are returned. Did each of the results from that search contain this exact string? For me, they did not.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I run that query, it returns

`No results found for "the SERP should stay the same".`

Then defaults to providing the SERP for the fallback query:

`Results for the SERP should stay the same (without quotes):`

That SERP should change when this HN thread is indexed though

<comment><USER25> I must have missed the line "No results found" and the disclosure that Google has, by default, gone ahead and performed a "fallback query" without the quotes. Perhaps that is the goal. That I, the user, will not notice. If I wanted the fallback query's results then I would not have used quotes. This appears to be another another example of Google second-guessing the user. Perhaps they assume that the user who searches for an exact string with quotes would, in most cases, try the search again without the quotes if there are no results found.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Dorking is not that easy to do, Google is very easy on assuming you are being malicious on certain queries, try one too many and you'll hit their dreaded captcha that is impossible to pass.

<comment><USER27> That really angers me, and I've tripped it more times than I can count, usually by searching for very specific things. Coworkers have also run into it multiple times (before everyone started working from home, we would exclaim "Fuck you, Google!" and raise a middle finger to the screen, which was a cue to everyone else to help).

The fact that they think you're "not human" when you use a search engine for its intended purpose and show how much you know how to use it is both disturbing and saddening. I wonder if Google's own employees run into it and/or the continuing degradation of results, or if they're somehow given immunity and a much better set of results...

<comment><USER28> I'm curious about this. Can you give an example of the kind of query you are talking about where Google assumes you are a bot and not a human?

<comment><USER29> I get them _all the dang time_

Suppose I want to search for a textbook in an open directory. This query will get flagged almost immediately:

        textbook -inurl:htm -inurl:html -inurl:asp intitle:"index of" +(epub|mobi|pdf|txt)

Suppose someone says to me "no one in this forum believes _(dumb conspiracy theory from Obama-times)_ " or "the lamestream media never reported on X." Naturally I will do a few quick iterations of

        conspiracy related "terms" site:someforum.com before:2017-01-01

which will trigger a humanity check if you iterate too quickly.

I got hit recently when the news about Tucker Carlson's racist writer came out. I set out to find the full threads in which the offending comments were made. Iterating through combinations of text, usernames, and urls like

        "full text of offensive post" username before:date-news-broke -inurl:news

got me checked every 3rd search or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Back when I was a teenager,I had a book titled "hacking with Google" by Johny long that was basically all specific searching tips and terms (oriented to find open vulnerabilities and the like, but still very useful in general despite the tacky name).

I wonder how much of it is still valid after all this time.

<comment><USER31> Back when I was a teenager, I had a slide rule. I can guarantee that a slide rule is still valid, so long as you're not interested in more than two or three significant digits, and you don't want to add or subtract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why doesn't google.com have a comprehensive list of these? I'm constantly seeing new ones that I didn't know about, but google never teaches you about them so you have to find them in obscure blog posts

<comment><USER33> Google randomly ignores "search term in quotes".

Related:examplesite.com used to work well. Now, it's better to use sites like alternativeto.net.

~phrase is unnecessary because but google searches for synonyms by default

phrase1 + phrase2 - Google randomly ignores it. I use it this way +compulsoryTerm

Although rare, there are things I simply can't find using Google. But Bing would. If Google keeps it up, other search engines would benefit.

<comment><USER34> Doing some "related:" queries returns some interesting results that look human-curated and out-of-date. related:google.com shows results for Yahoo, Bing, AOL Search, and HotBot (which used to be a search engine, but the brand is now for a VPN provider).

<comment><USER2> That is great! It's like a search engine blast from the past.

Also interesting, related:bing.com gives me no results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Worth pointing out if you do some of these crafted operator searches quite quickly, you'll end up getting blocked or having to complete a captcha. I haven't done so in a while so I'm not sure what their current behaviour is.

Main reason being there's plenty data mining, e.g. looking for "powered by wordpress" and vulnerable versions, and generally all kinds of data mining that involve very specific requests for information, likely queries that aren't creating revenue, either.

</comment><comment><USER36> The - prefix operator is very useful and still works.

Google should reinstate the + prefix operator. It was only taken out because it screwed up the search results for Google+, which is dead now.

<comment><USER37> I find myself having to use the "-" prefix a lot these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I love the "inject JS into the page to find stuff" hack. The author mentions local "site you are on" but this can be applied with headless chrome to crawl many sites.

<comment><USER39> That's web scraping 101

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Fun fact: googling for -273.15 without double quotes produces no results.

You need to quote negative arithmetic values when searching, even if there are no other query parameters. It made me wonder if I was misremembering absolute zero.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Oh, probably because it interprets it as a logical negation; not "negative X", but "remove X from results".

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why is this called "dorking"? "Dorking" is a word that just means using search engines to find very specific data? This seems bizarre to me. Why does this need a special word?

Or it actually means using search operators beyond natural language entry? That's what this page seems to be about? I don't know why that would be called "dorking" either?

<comment><USER42> It all started with a def con talk if I remember correctly.

[https://youtu.be/N3dzVl40lQA](https://youtu.be/N3dzVl40lQA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> A very comprehensive and frequently updated list is here: [https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database](https://www.exploit- db.com/google-hacking-database)

</comment><comment><USER44> All I want is the ability to search for symbols. Symbolhound.com is the only site I've heard that will support that, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

<comment><USER45> It's strange to me that more domain-specific search engines haven't been created. There must be value in a programmer-specific search engine for instance. Or why aren't there search engines that specialise in news, social media, Q&A websites or events, to give a few examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Learn to use time. It's a drop down.

The web is slowly atrophying. Going back in time for originals makes a big difference.

Reverse is also true.

After a blow up the mass media will repeat the same thing on mass and swamp results.

Often an article in the last hour might have what you want, like the database link they are all talking about.

</comment><comment><USER47> Don't you just love it when you're carefully crafted search finally displays the words or phrases you want in the snippet on the results page but then when you actually open the link and CTRL+F for it it's nowhere to be found? Not even in the raw HTML?

I sure do.

</comment><comment><USER48> There's a related thing you can do. If you have web pages somewhere, create a bunch of blank web pages with just one random word on them (something like "ristordshest") and then create an index page that links to them all.

Then link to that index page somewhere where noone except web crawlers will notice it. Then wait a few weeks.

Now when you

a) sell something on eBay where you are not allowed to link to the product support page page or some other stupid restriction like that

b) want to promote something on Instagram where you can't link to it

Ask people to google for the search term. There will be only one result: Yours.

</comment><comment><USER49> the "link:" operator doesn't work for me--it just seems to include the URL's tokens in the search

<comment><USER50> Pretty sure that one is deprecated. It was very useful for SEO research, which is probably why it doesn't work anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> A few thoughts:

1) Great information!

2) It seems like the world could use a book like Joe Celko's "SQL For Smarties", but for search engines. Yes, there are such books already, most notably O'Reilly's "Google Hacks" by Rael Dornfest, Paul Bausch, Tara Calishain -- but I think the world could still use a book covering more search engines and search techniques. The above web page would be a great starting point to an endeavor like that.

3) "Dorking" (love that term!) -- is going into my 2020 vocabulary lexicon! <g>

</comment><comment><USER52> Anyone here remember Fravia? [https://web.archive.org/web/20191201105758/http://search.lor...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191201105758/http://search.lores.eu/indexo.htm)

<comment><USER53> I do. Alec's blog entry is outright pathetic in comparison. It does not even scratch the surface of fravia+'s treasure chest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is there any way to search the actual page text? I find that often I remember some unique turn of phase from the page that I'm looking for and it would be extremely helpful to be able to simply search for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> `intext:phrase` and `allintext:multi part phrase`

generally "phrase" works well too

<comment><USER54> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Does filetype: still work? I'm getting zero hits for example filetype:epub

<comment> choo-t It still work but some file type never return anything, I have the same problem with epub, pretty sure it's some google's shenanigan about books piracy.

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en)

<comment><USER56> Maybe Google doesn't index epub at all? I think I never saw one in search results.

<comment> choo-t Well, I may have become crazy but i have vivid memory using it in the past, and some websites even refer to this specific query ( [https://ebookfriendly.com/google-search-tips- books/](https://ebookfriendly.com/google-search-tips-books/) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm kind of surprised to see Google brought back the + operator. I remember they prominently changed its meaning when they made it the @ of Google+, and I never bothered to check again after it died.

</comment><comment><USER58> As a teenager, I used to search for "Index Of <movie name>" for movies. 2/3 times, I was able to find and download the movie I wanted to watch.

</comment><comment><USER59> I think I should rename filechef.com to dorkchef now

</comment><comment><USER60> The email specific queries don't appear to work. The "@" is ignored by google so you just get results for the domain string.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first two appear to still work, but the third does not.

The permutation searches are tricky because you don't know if a lack of results means the email does not exist, or just hasn't been posted anywhere indexed

Will update and credit

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Effective Google-foo is one of the first things I teach my first year students. Few greater life skills exist.

</comment><comment><USER62> This reminds me of an article I once read about the neat tricks that used to exist in altavista.com search engine

</comment><comment><USER63> NLP and to a lesser extent SEO has vastly diminished the value of this type of searching.

</comment><comment><USER64> It would be useful to use "Dorking", even for non-programmers.Good article!

</comment><comment><USER65> [https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3A+news.ycombinator.com+...](https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3A+news.ycombinator.com+lizardmancan)

i use to use these a lot but now it's just useless

<comment><USER66> You need to remove the blank after the colon.

[https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+l...](https://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+lizardmancan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Prediction: Using the methods of "dorking", this is the only page on the internet among 10 million+ results that is calling this "dorking".

<comment><USER67> I hope it doesn't catch on since it makes me die a little inside. It's a very Reddit-type word though. I can easily imagine it being used by non-technical folk and tech journalists.</comment></comment>


The magazine cover effect - <AUTHOR> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/the-magazine-cover-effect/

<comment><USER2> Immediately thought of this Business Week cover:

<http://➡.ws/䃳></comment>


Multiplayer Conway's Game Of Life - <AUTHOR> http://gameoflife.samuellevy.com/shared/

<comment><AUTHOR> Well... I'm starting to think that I may be slightly obsessed with this game. This is the second version I've made of it in as many weeks.

Really, though, it's a nice/easy way to test out some interesting ideas (in this case making a real-time multiplayer interface with javascript)</comment>


Google, yahoo, bing state that using schema.org may infringe their patents - <AUTHOR> http://schema.org/docs/terms.html

<comment><USER2> How is this surprising? If you use their service, you may need a license to a patent of theirs, which is granted to you for use of the service. The patent might not even be issued yet. It seems to me that they are just covering their bases.

So yes, you may need a patent, however, if you are using schema.org, you are _not_ infringing on the patent (because they give you a limited license).

Then again, you might not be infringing on a patent too...

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh gross, As I understand it they grant you a patent exception in a very specific case (Displaying exact schema.org valid tags on a website), but remove any incentive to make tools that consume those schemas, or to extend/enhance the schemas at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> And they go on to say that there may be strings attached to using things on schema.org, and anyone that doesn't 'sponsor' that particular item on schema.org can withhold their patent completely.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well that kind of renders this entire thing pointless. They either make this an open patent free standard or they shouldn't even bother with it.

</comment><comment><USER6> does this mean using the standards on this site may potentially land you in legal trouble later if they decide to enforce these patents?</comment>


A testing system for catching visual regressions in Web applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebookarchive/huxley

<comment><USER2> This looks pretty great. I'm guessing it's abandoned because they're using something better now? Does anyone have recommendations on a similar tool?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is one by Google : [https://github.com/bslatkin/dpxdt](https://github.com/bslatkin/dpxdt). A friend of mine, Shashank Mehta, has been working on another similar tool called Bozo which tries to be a step ahead by providing cross-browser compatibility. The tool is not opensource yet but would be soon. He even proposed a talk around it in Jsfoo2015. [https://jsfoo.talkfunnel.com/2015/45-automating-cross- browse...](https://jsfoo.talkfunnel.com/2015/45-automating-cross-browser- platform-perceptual-diffe) Will update here with the link once the tool is open-sourced.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the links! Both really interesting projects. I think I'll try dpxdt out first.</comment></comment></comment>


Obama calls for public debate over encryption - <AUTHOR> http://wtop.com/tech/2015/02/obama-calls-for-public-debate-over-encryption/

<comment><USER2> We've had, what, 20+ years of public debate, if I start dating with the Clipper chip.

I find it hard to believe there's more to say on the topic. Well, not unless law enforcement and his administration reverse course and start releasing more information on the topic. Otherwise we're left with the handful of investigative reporters and whistleblowers who reveal how internal US policies actually work.

No, I can only believe this is a wishy-washy non-committal message, using a lot of words to avoid the topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> _He said people who favor airtight encryption also want to be protected from terrorists._

They also favor not being no-knocked and shot in the middle of the night, or having their dogs shot, or getting stuck in a holding cell until the police are bored with them, or being shot by drones overseas, or just plain disappeared.

EDIT:

See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048629) .

They've basically rooted all avenues of communcation...I fail to feel sorry for them.</comment>


How Accurate are Police Sketches? A comparison. - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/07/22/police-sketch-smackdown.html

<comment><USER2> Answer: Not very.</comment>


BitTorrent Inventor Bram Cohen Will Start His Own Cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-inventor-bram-cohen-will-start-his-own-cryptocurrency-170424/ <comment><USER2> Primary source if anyone's interested: [https://cyber.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/bramcohen.pdf](https://cyber.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/bramcohen.pdf) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYG0NxoG7yw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYG0NxoG7yw&feature=youtu.be)

Of course, the Internet doesn't remember that he worked on cryptocurrency almost 20 years ago (with Zooko of ZCash) before he started BitTorrent. Pepperidge Farm remembers.

<comment><USER3> Does anyone have more details on slide 9 "Proof of time: Modular roots"?

> In group of order 2^k, square k-1 times to find a square root

I don't want to say anything stupid, but I don't know if this is trivially true, for instance in [the multiplicative group of] a field of char 2, square is linear and so it's square root.

Edit: to clarify, in a field of char 2 the multiplicative group has order 2^q-1, which can't be 2^k. I'm just giving this as an example of a group where square root is fast.

<comment><USER4> getting the square root of x from k-1 squarings means (x^(2^(k-1))) ^ 2 = x, or x^(2^k) = x. so x has multiplicative order (2^k)-1, which is the order of GF(2^k) under multiplication.

<comment><USER5> But the group has order 2^k. Since the powers of x (for any group element x) form a group themselves, Lagrange's theorme tells us that the order of x must divide 2^k. This should mean that it is impossible for x to have order (2^k)-1. If fact, it means that x^(2^k)=1.

Further, if you are given the value y=x^2, then _no_ power of y will give you x.

<comment><USER4> The finite field GF(2^k) has order (number of elements) 2^k, but its multiplicative group has the (2^k)-1 nonzero elements, and thus order (2^k)-1, which squares [pun intended] with the fact that x^(2^k-1) = 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Sometimes people have this misapprehension that Bitcoin is a democracy. No Bitcoin is not a democracy; it's called a 51% attack for a reason. That's not a majority of the vote, that's not how Bitcoin works."

So I get that he's trying to get at the fact that it's not a large majority, but 51% is a majority.

<comment><USER7> Technically 50.0001% should be sufficient, but that doesn't sell as well in the press.

It's odd that it wasn't architected to require a super-majority of 60-66% from the outset. That would make it more resilient.

<comment><USER8> Can you think of a plausible architecture that would satisfy that constraint? I'm not an expert but it's not obvious to me how to do it.

<comment><USER7> You can define your consensus requirements when designing your system. The default is simply majority rules, though in degenerate cases (e.g. two nodes) you can have conflict.

If instead it'd been defined as requiring a two-thirds majority then that's how consensus would be achieved. The system would simply halt until that came about.

<comment><USER9> The 51% attack works because you can use the majority of CPU hash power to write a longer chain faster than the rest of the network.

I don't quite follow what you mean here: longest chain wins is a central tenet of cryptocurrency design, and even if you did something with consensus in the product a majority could still hardfork away from that design. Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER10> the value of 51% is something I failed to understand , wouldn't the attack also works even the attacker has less than 50%, but bigger than any other individual miner? for example if there are 3 miners in total, A has 40%, B and C has 30% each, wouldn't A still able to write a longer chain faster than B or C?

<comment><USER10> "A is working on one chain but B and C are working together on another chain, so the A chain has 40% and the B/C chain has 60%."

but if B and C are working together, it implies there is some sort of relationship between them so they could be coordinated together(e.g. owned by same org), this not the case I am trying to use here; my case is really 3 independent miners

<comment><USER2> The default behavior of Bitcoin is for all miners to cooperate even if they are independent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It would be interesting to know more about how to make mining dependent on space and not cpu. Seems like you could use cpu to compress and create more space, thus pinning it back to cpu?

<comment><USER12> There is such a thing as a Memory Hard Function (MHF). cperciva's scrypt was designed to be one, and was subsequently proven to be maximally memory hard.

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/989.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/989.pdf)

Litecoin uses scrypt.

<comment><USER13> Litecoin doesn't use scrypt. It uses a nerfed variant of scrypt which is not memory hard.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the correction. I have no idea why they would do that, do you? Isn't memory hardness the entire point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How is this going to be better than scrypt PoW which is designed to be more decentralized by requiring a lot of memory?

<comment><USER2> Scrypt (the version that cryptocurrencies use) is broken, but if you compare memory-hard PoW such as Cuckoo Cycle against proof of space we can assume that most people have more unused storage space than unused RAM and thus space is a cheaper resource, possibly leading to more decentralization.

<comment><USER15> > Scrypt is broken

Broken how?

<comment><USER4> Proof of Work demands cheap verification, but Hashcash with scrypt requires as much memory and time for verification as a single solution attempt.

So while scrypt itself is not broken, its feasibility in a proof of work system with a serious memory footprint (e.g. exceeding a single DRAM chip) is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Forgive my ignorance here, but it seems like everyone and their grandmother has been starting their own cryptocurrency lately... Why is this noteworthy? I'll admit that I'm still largely ignorant as to why so many people consider cryptocurrencies to be such a big deal.

<comment><USER17> > why so many people consider cryptocurrencies to be such a big deal.

Sending value anywhere in the world in a very short amount of time without having to trust a middleman.

<comment><USER18> But then you have to trust a middleman to convert it into something that's actually usable. It's like gold, I can send it anywhere with DHL or UPS, but my recipient is going to have to find someone to convert it to local currency before they can actually use it. As a result, not many people send gold back and forth.

<comment><USER19> That's not why your grocery store doesn't accept gold for a pack of gum, though. If you could have an unforgeable, standard-sized, $0.01 nugget of gold, you wouldn't have to convert it, you'd just pay with that.

That's what cryptocurrencies could offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Worth noting, there is already a coin called burstcoin that does what he's proposing.

<comment><USER21> This is addressed in the Youtube page's comment section by Bram Cohen

"Burstcoin is busted. For proofs of work you can throw any random bullshit together and it will be a functioning proof of work. Proofs of space aren't like that."

<comment><USER20> That quote is unsubstantiated. Burstcoin has been working fine for years.</comment></comment></comment>


Hello, This Is London Rising: 3D Printing Maps from LIDAR Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.aeracode.org/2016/5/16/hello-london-rising/ <comment><USER2> That's really cool. Wish it was printed in colour :)

If LIDAR data isn't available, you can do pretty detailed 3D mapping with a regular camera and UAV, using photogrammetry/structure from motion. A Phantom or almost anything that flies with a reasonable camera will do. Of course the better camera you use, the better the results. Flight restrictions over populated areas apply, check your local legislation :)

commercial solutions: [https://pix4d.com/](https://pix4d.com/), [http://www.agisoft.com/](http://www.agisoft.com/), [http://www.dronedeploy.com](http://www.dronedeploy.com)

open source: [https://github.com/OpenDroneMap/OpenDroneMap](https://github.com/OpenDroneMap/OpenDroneMap)

<comment><USER3> Color 3D printing is pretty pricey still. For something of that scale you'd be looking at several thousand dollars, even breaking it down into small individual pieces.

<comment><USER4> Using clever hollow boxes can bring the prices down significantly: [http://www.shapeways.com/product/PCVV6V9G2/y-garn- relief](http://www.shapeways.com/product/PCVV6V9G2/y-garn-relief)

<comment><USER3> It's still pricey. Making it hollow only helps if it's tall. For color 3D printing, the material is gypsum powder (well, there is CMYK filament now, but I haven't looked into it much). You need considerably thicker walls, etc. Furthermore, the cost is as heavily influenced by machine space as by the amount of material used.

For example, this was ~$100. [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joferkington/scipy2015-3d_...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joferkington/scipy2015-3d_printing/master/images/alaska_model_textured.jpg) I tried uploading and pricing a "hollow box" version, but it saved less than $5.

However, for this one, using a "hollow box" saved ~30%, (it's a comparable size, but much taller): [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joferkington/scipy2015-3d_...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joferkington/scipy2015-3d_printing/master/images/base.jpg)

<comment><USER4> I just found and watched your SciPy talk. The 3d-printed geology puzzle is really cool!

Yeah, the British print is basically the bottomless box you show at 15:16, but with much thinner walls - I don't have it anymore but I'd say theirs are about .3 millimeter thick. I suppose that's also why you paid three times more.

Since they don't have a bottom lid, they apply their bottom texture underneath the top.

How difficult do you think it would be to clip the print along a border, e.g. the border of Alaska?

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

I erred on the side of too thick walls instead of too thin, as I was a bit worried about durability. They're thicker than they need to be, though. It would definitely drop costs to make them thinner.

As far as clipping along an arbitrary border, it shouldn't be difficult. I haven't actually made a model with a non-square border yet, but I've been meaning to for awhile. I probably won't have time to in the next few months, though. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's good to see LIDAR in the news! I work at Advanced Scientific Concepts (FPGA engineer), our flash LIDAR is 128x128, works out to several kilometers, and will be on the OSIRIS-Rex project to scoop some stuff up from an asteroid and return it to Earth - it's pretty wild.

We are developing a system for topology mapping like this specifically.

Check the mission out: [http://www.asteroidmission.org/](http://www.asteroidmission.org/) and the company! [http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/](http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/)

If anybody is interested, send me a message.

</comment><comment><USER6> Really cool. From the description it sounds like you just made one for yourself. I would suggest you try selling these for $500 - $2000 each. You put a lot of work into it and I think that as art these would be command some money in the market.

</comment><comment><USER7> Printing it in a stereo lithography machine (think FormLABS) would get you the details you wanted. That said, from the photo it looks very nice on the wall.

</comment><comment><USER8> NYC performed a LIDAR scan of NYC in conjunction with CUNY a few years ago so that they could build a 'solar map' to help estimate how much solar capacity could be installed on a building. Anyone know where to grab the LIDAR scan data from?

<comment><USER9> [https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/1-foot- Digital...](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/1-foot-Digital- Elevation-Model-DEM-/dpc8-z3jc)

<comment><USER9> also [https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Environment/Landcover- Raster-D...](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Environment/Landcover-Raster- Data-2010-/9auy-76zt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really great write up, with lots of clear details of every aspect.

I always lament that STL was the format 3D printing software ended up with (essentially a bag of triangles, usually in text format). Far better if slicers could take a true mesh, and not have to guess if coincident points on separate triangles actually amount to the same vertex, except of course for places where it doesn't!

</comment><comment><USER11> You can collect LIDAR data for your own favorite part of city by using this $250 device and a cheap drone like 3DR Solo:

[http://www.lightware.co.za/shop/en/drone- altimeters/51-sf11c...](http://www.lightware.co.za/shop/en/drone- altimeters/51-sf11c-120-m.html)

The main issue you will face is permission to fly drone at 100m or so. In US there are way too many laws to do this.

It looks like aircraft was flying at 200m for above data. London's tallest structure are at 300m+ so this is not doable in all areas.

Also note that software like pix4d and AutoDesk 360 can construct 3D models purely from drone images or videos. I'm not sure how much better LIDAR models are compared to models from structure from motion.

</comment><comment> bjelkeman-again That is a really nice project. Having lived in London, and having a 3D printer I am very tempted.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice.

An interesting map is an exaggerated-relief map of Europe as far east as Moscow, with marks for all known battles. Over the centuries, they were mostly in the same places. It gives you a sense of how geography affects politics.

</comment><comment><USER13> How about printing a landscape from a map/contour lines? Do you think it is possible for example from OSM data? (That London looks totally cool.)

<comment><USER14> OSM is just vectors, there aren't a lot of limits on what the data can be used for.

This was recently posted to /r/openstreetmap:

[https://touch-mapper.org/](https://touch-mapper.org/)

I really don't have a sense of how useful such a map would be, but it's exactly a 3d extrusion of OSM data.

<comment><USER15> This is very interesting!

I don't really have anyone close that is visually impaired but this would be super cool to have at 3D printing events and such. Very neat idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any idea how high airplane was flying and what LIDAR device it was using?

I followed few links and ended up here but not sure if this is the one they used to collect data: [http://geosurveysolutions.com/rapid- surveyor](http://geosurveysolutions.com/rapid-surveyor)

</comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting project and glad to see the documentation and results! Had me thinking this might be a fun long-term art project, where a city like this could be given color details by hand using various inks and/or paints. Just a thought inspired by the clever undertaking seen here.

</comment><comment><USER17> Really awesome project @andrewgodwin! I'd love to do something like this for Pittsburgh as well!

<comment><USER18> What are the available data sets for Pgh?

<comment><USER17> That's a good question. Not sure!

<comment><USER18> Best I could find right now: Lidar point cloud data

[http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/pamap/lidar/index.htm#cl...](http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/pamap/lidar/index.htm#clouds)

Looks like Allegheny county was done in 2006.

What is nice about the point cloud data is that they classified each point as ground, road, water, etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That is very cool! Have you thought about tiling along road /river edges to hide the seams?

</comment><comment><USER10> One thing the author doesn't mention on 3D printing issues, is extruder retraction settings (essentially pulling back the filament from the hot end slightly before the head moves to a new path, thus limiting strings of fine filament between them)

</comment><comment><USER20> Cool.

There was some discussion of the LIDAR data-set when it was released: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10379279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10379279)

</comment><comment><USER21> Awesome, is there any data like this for SF / bay area?

<comment><USER22> Yes, from the SF city open data portal:

[https://data.sfgov.org/Geographic-Locations-and- Boundaries/B...](https://data.sfgov.org/Geographic-Locations-and- Boundaries/Building-Footprints-Zipped-Shapefile-Format-/jezr-5bxm)?

We're working on importing this data into OpenStreetMap:

[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Building_H...](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Building_Height_Import)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone know where to get Lidar or other 3D Data from Germany? (Especially Frankfurt?)

</comment><comment><USER24> One of the best uses I've seen for a 3d printer so far!

</comment><comment><USER25> Hey, I can see my (old) house from here!</comment>


Reflections on Cannabis, Ayahuasca and the mystery of plant teachers - <AUTHOR> http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG3.php <comment><USER2> "Perhaps they ARE all 'within the brain' as skeptics say".

Right, so it's only "skeptics" who point out the bleeding obvious?

I think we can safely say it is most certainly all within the brain. That's what the drug is directly influencing, and as a result your mind goes over the waterfall and you are forced to just go along with it, or suffer if you put up resistance.

The problem with long term fans of DMT, cannabis, and all manner of psychedelics is that you end up writing books about it that mean more to you than they could anyone else. There's exceptions (Castaneda), but that's generally how it goes.

The thing is, if you need to take Ayahuasca before your own brain tells you that your abuse of pot is out of control, then that points to something far less sophisticated than the exotic make-believe problems of spiritual junkies. It points to the obvious: that you're lazy. It really is that simple.

Not to undermine the importance of getting back to basics or nature, and sorting through personal issues, perhaps even under the influence of psychedelics - that can be a very cleansing experience. But you shouldn't need to go to Brazil for that and drink sewerage tasting cocktails of God-knows what and vomit your guts up. That is nothing more than conscientious stupidity (IMHO).

<comment><USER3> > I think we can safely say it is most certainly all within the brain.

Occam's razor says you're probably right, but personally I'm holding out the slim hope that there's something much cooler going on, call it primitive telepathy or whatever. The next few decades will hopefully tell.

> But you shouldn't need to go to Brazil for that and drink sewerage tasting > cocktails of God-knows what and vomit your guts up. That is nothing more > than conscientious stupidity (IMHO).

This is less stupid than popping a pill whose side effects take longer to list than the rest of its commercial. I mean, just look at this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlafaxine#Adverse_effects>. _That's_ stupid, and it was a good point made in the post.

<comment><USER4> Fuck that drug. I'm currently on 37.5mg every 4 days in an effort to taper down to nothing. I feel nothing but sympathy for those who have been taking 150mg+ daily doses, I was only on 75mg a day for a couple weeks before I thought it prudent to read stories of the drug online, which terrified me and pointed out some of the same effects I had been having but had assumed was coincidental. I took cold medicine with DXM in it, for example, and it made me feel worse than I felt just being sick. I didn't immediately realize DXM is on the lengthy list of contraindications, and found out that explained a terrible "trip" I had a week before during the night on a single normal dose of Vicodin.

One of the remedies I've been using to help with the side effects of kicking this, interestingly enough, is medicinal cannabis edibles, which has also helped with a gastroenterological problem I have.

<comment><USER5> You should really talk to a doc about how to come off that. Or maybe you have.

What I've often heard is a good route is a couple of tablets of prozac. The half life is on the order of weeks, and so you can take these for a few days, instead of the venlafaxine, or maybe with (whatever your doc says).

Then, after building some up in your system, you can just stop. As you go through the half life decay, it's a built in taper, and it's slow enough to limit side effects.

Naturally don't take my word for it, talk to a doc.

I've considered it myself, because if I miss a dose of venlafaxine, I get terrible vertigo. _really_ bad. But I do suffer from an anxiety disorder and it definitely has made a difference in my life.

<comment><USER4> Oh, I have talked to a doctor about coming off of it; it's her plan I'm executing right now as far as dosage goes, and it's already going better than most peoples' experiences. I started taking it because of anxiety issues, but the prescribing doctor didn't warn me about any of this. I've since found better ways to handle my anxiety problems, and even if I still run into a mild anxiety episode once in a while I'd rather work through that with my partner and a counselor than mask it with an SSRI/SNRI.

Thanks for your reply :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of the descriptions of Ayahuasca are similar to mushrooms (everything depends on dosage of course!) Truly life-augmenting experiences.

As a 10 year pot smoker I stopped rather randomly about 4 months ago. I didn't do it for any reason besides respiratory health, and probably wouldn't have changed if I had a good vaporizer. It's fine not smoking but I drink more and find my mind moving away from the broad thinking pot encouraged. I'll probably find a way to balance it in in some way again in the future.

The likes of psychedelics, however, are framing or pivotal events in my life, generally done in the wilderness. My feelings are similar to Steve Jobs... they are incredibly powerful experiences and I yearn to share them with those I'm close with. I imagine I'll be having these experiences throughout my life.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried not smoking AND not drinking? ;-)

Same boat, I smoked a lot of herb growing up (never drawn to drink particularly), but stopped in my 20s for about 6 years.

No longer clear, smoke every couple of weeks, and trip a couple times a year, 1/4 of shrooms and off into the woods, goodbye world.

foolish pride in you I am broken praise

The love in and beyond all things, is there anyone more blind than myself?

Sorry, got a bit off track there...back to "reality"

<comment><USER8> It's funny, I am not the OP but I read this:

> Have you tried not smoking AND not drinking? ;-)

And i noticed that my home remedies for asthma and respiratory stuff all involve either smoking (legal, non-tobacco) herbal remedies (Verbasculum thapsis) or binge drinking ;-). Fortunately it's only required a couple times a year at most. In both cases, I find the duration and severity of respiratory problems goes way down..... (In comparison to modern pharmaceuticals.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> FWIW, A couple of (semi) recent local news (here in Peru) about the practice...

[http://america.infobae.com/notas/57978-Peru-joven- estadounid...](http://america.infobae.com/notas/57978-Peru-joven- estadounidense-murio-al-tomar-ayahuasca)

[http://peru.com/2011/11/28/actualidad/otras- noticias/video-m...](http://peru.com/2011/11/28/actualidad/otras- noticias/video-muere-frances-ceremonia-ayahuaca-noticia-31793)

I am not saying don't do it.. just be careful with what you do.

</comment><comment><USER10> True story: A close friend of mine took Ayahuasca with a shaman and was then committed to a psychiatric facility in New York for almost a week. She was badly shaken up by the experience. I guess she didn't have good support, or she wasn't suited to taking it, but obviously the experience turned out to be horrific. So be careful with decisions like this...

<comment><AUTHOR> It is very unfortunate that this happened to your friend.

However, brief anecdotes like this are not incredibly useful without a great deal of additional information.

* Did your friend or others in her family have a history of mental illness?

* Was she depressed or otherwise suffering from mental illness at the time of the trip?

* Was she on any other drugs (prescribed or not) apart from ayahuasca?

* Had she had much previous experience with psychedelics?

* Did she try to fight the experience or was she able to surrender to it and go with the flow (a very important skill to have, when using psychedelics)?

* Was she in a safe environment, among trusted people during the trip?

* Did she have a concrete, positive intention for the trip? Or was she just taking it for the hell of it?

* How much did she know about what she was getting in to?

* How qualified was the shaman she took the brew with?

Unfortunately, many self-styled shamen don't have the proper training, or (occasionaly) any training at all. There could be incentive for people to misrepresent themselves and their credentials, especially when money is involved.

Yes, one should definitely be very careful, and avoid taking psychedelics when one or one's family has a history of mental illness, is currently suffering from mental illness (including plain old depression), or is using any other psychoactive medication (such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc).

You should also seriously check out the credentials of any shaman or guide you're taking the medicine with, and be sure you are in a safe, supportive environment during the trip.

Finally, thoroughly educate yourself on the substance and constructive ways of using it.

<comment><USER10> My friend did NOT have a history of mental illness. I think her dad may have had a little OCD, but nothing else that was obvious to me. I haven't followed up with her to ask her these, but this is what I think is true:

She was not on other drugs at all as far as I know.

I don't think she'd ever done psychedelics before.

I don't know too many details of the environment she did it in, but it was with an apparently-experienced shaman I think recommended by her yoga teacher friend. It was the yoga teacher who recommended to her that she try it. All that she knew, she likely heard from this friend who had done it before.

She is a Buddhist, but I don't know what her intentions were.

I don't know anything about the shaman.

I know that it was a medical doctor good friend of hers that committed her to the psych ward afterwords, so she really needed it.

anyway, hope this helps. be careful!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Each to their own, and Graham's writing style kind of rubs me the wrong way, but Ayahuasca changed everything for me. Inexpressible gratitude. 'Nuff said.

</comment><comment><USER12> The news that Graham Hancock was a cannabis addict explains a lot, such as his Orion Correlation Theory [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Orion_Correlatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#Orion_Correlation_Theory)

</comment><comment><USER13> For a broader, frequently updated, shorter-form and better categorized collection of this sort of reading check out <http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/forums/40-Trip-Reports>

</comment><comment><USER14> so either I smoke weed..

or my body is a cocoon of truths being ripped apart by 'them'?

Well I know what i'm choosing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Say what you want about the "Green Bitch", she's never killed anyone, unlike the "White Bitch".

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/this-white-powder-will-kill-me- on...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/this-white-powder-will-kill-me-one-day)

</comment><comment><USER16> One lives his life loving all things and finding place for everything, connecting everything.

One lives life weeding out things he do not like, burning down bridges, building new ones, exterminating problems and severing connections, building new ones when needed.

Sadly, only one of them will accept other.

</comment><comment><USER17> good luck buddy. pass.</comment>


Hacker Koan - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan <comment><USER2> I wrote this Koan a while back. It amused /r/ruby:

When Matsumoto first came to these shores, he met a precocious young hacker who was strong in the way of Perl, which had many practitioners then.

"Matsumoto," the young man said, "why should I learn your foreign Ruby? I am strong in the way of Perl, and I have yet to find a problem it is not flexible enough to solve."

Matsumoto smiled his kind smile and said, "One does not learn Ruby for oneself. One learns Ruby for others."

"Ha," the young man said, "then your way is not for me. I am not the cooperating type. I work on my own projects and my projects alone. No one but me reads my code."

Matsumoto bowed his head and said, "All hackers cooperate, even you."

"You are a fool, Matsumoto! Did I not just say I work alone?"

To this Matsumoto said, "Even those who work alone, cooperate with all the people they once were and all those they will become."

Upon hearing this, the young man was enlightened.

<comment><USER3> Excellent!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite hacker koans are the vim koans: [http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/vim- koans/](http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/vim-koans/)

</comment><comment><USER5> This one makes no sense... "A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked."

<comment><USER6> Knight knew enough to leave the machine off long enough for the capacitors to discharge so the machine started from a clean slate. The Novice was turning the machine back on too soon.

<comment><USER5> There's no mention of extra time between the off and on state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Also essential is the seminal work _The Tao of Programming_ , which is the first that assembled hacker koans into a published physical form, if I'm not mistaken.</comment>


Slapp: A simple chat wall Merb tutorial. - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialface.com/slapp/ <comment><USER2> Awesome! I wish there were more Merb tutorials like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> So where can I see this in action?</comment>


Picplz will shut down permanently - <AUTHOR> http://picplz.com/ <comment><USER2> It would be nice if they offered a bulk download. Selecting individual photos to download is less than optimal.

</comment><comment><USER3> This gives new meaning to winner-take-all. Either a billion dollar acquisition or bust! You have to wonder whether someone else might be interested in acquiring a competent company in the space for something short of $1 billion, though.

<comment><USER4> a billion or bust..on to the next one? seems like they take their arsenal (vc money) and navigate down a list of ideas.</comment></comment>


Do you do individual performance reviews in your startup? - <AUTHOR>

In large companies it's pretty standard procedure to do performance reviews.  At HP we did 360 degree evaluations where your peers gave feedback to your boss who delivered the news to you.<p>What do startups and small businesses typically do for performance reviews?  When there's only 3 people or so anonymous feedback isn't really anonymous, but it seems like a good process to have to keep people growing individually.  How are others handling this? <comment><USER2> I'm also interested in how small companies handle performance reviews. I've worked for 2 small companies, and find that they can be more opaque than a large company, since the boss is often pulled in a dozen directions, and performance feedback can be rare.

Is there a good way for small companies to do this? This exact issue came up in my head today as a "startup" idea to investigate. Do other companies feel this pain?

<comment><AUTHOR> The other thing with small companies is that the hierarchy is much flatter and people tend to be closer so there's the worry of spoiling the working relationship.

<comment><USER2> I understand what you're saying there, but I feel that small companies are worse at setting performance goals and reviews than large companies, simply due to the fact that the "boss" is pulled in so many directions. Can a software tool make that easier or more transparent?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We did periodic performance reviews at the startup I worked for (which had about 15 employees at the time). It wasn't anonymous: I wrote up a document that evaluated my own performance and how I felt about the working environment, and my boss and I went over it together. I found it quite useful, and it was a good opportunity to step back from the daily routine, discuss plans for my future within the company, and set goals for the next year. One thing that I felt was important was that my boss really took the time to think about the work I'd done, and gave me some legitimately useful suggestions for improvement (the feedback wasn't just "Work harder.", for example).

</comment><comment><USER4> One thing I can say is that in my previous startup we did not do co-founder performance reviews, and it hurt us immensely. I haven't been able to figure out how to do appropriately critical or praiseful performance reviews, but I think that it is tremendously important.</comment>


How does physics connect to variational inference in machine learning? - <AUTHOR> https://jaan.io/how-does-physics-connect-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> I glanced at machine learning recently (my background is bio and physics, with lots of model building) and frankly, it's all just renamed ideas from computational physics that was developed starting in the 40's. This appears to be because modern ML derived from linguistics, which used non-physical terms and copied the algorithms, or independently rediscovered them.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.shakirm.com/slides/DeepGenModelsTutorial.pdf](http://www.shakirm.com/slides/DeepGenModelsTutorial.pdf)</comment></comment>


Show HN: We made a site to crowd fund lobbying. - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
So we made this site with the goal of funding a lobbyist to represent the 99%. The money comes from small pledges of $5 and up. So far we've raised nearly $10k in under a week. We're focusing fund raising efforts on causes.
I'm the founder and lead developer, and I'd love to hear this community's thoughts on the project as well as answer any questions.
Thanks guys!
http://www.wethelobby.com/ <comment><USER3> As others have mentioned, if you don't have an attorney helping you with election law matters, I'd recommend hiring one or consulting with one. You really want to make sure you don't run afoul of election and campaign finance laws (there might be personal liability for you, if you do)--and, if you state that you do comply with these laws, you'll give people that donate a lot more faith that their money will actually be delivered to the correct groups. These laws all exist in a nebulous area which requires some time/effort to sift through.

I'm an attorney and, although I can't give you legal advice, I can try to steer you in the right direction, presuming you're not already in touch with a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER4> I applaud your effort, please open source your code! As the founder, you'll be too busy to keep the code flowing with all the other stuff to be done, and lots may want to help with this.

Also, this was an Onion article: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/american- people-hire-highpo...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-people-hire- highpowered-lobbyist-to-push,18204/)

Life imitates satire.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're not the first person to ask, and we are heavily considering putting it on GitHub soon. If you'd like to contribute when that happens, shoot an email over to firstname.lastname@example.com so we can alert you.

In the vein of the Onion article, I hope you've been watching the hilarity of Colbert's super PAC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had been considering a site called "Rent A Rep" where you would donate money to a pool tied to an outcome of a vote. So a No vote on SOPA would have a pool. Once the votes were in, the Legislators voting that way would get a cut of the pool. Contribution limits would be at $100 and no companies could take part. With something so enraging as SOPA, the pool could get pretty huge.

Direct monetary democracy.

I dismissed the idea as too cynical and possibly illegal? A promise of monetary compensation for your vote is probably illegal. Monetary compensation with a suggestion of what the vote should be is _completely_ different. The payment is not contingent on the action. I'm not sure that the money pool with no named recipient in advance abstracts that away enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> While buying votes is probably illegal, I've had the same thought but instead of crowd funding to buy votes, we crowd fund to support politicians in elections, with one MAJOR stipulation -

Taking the money crowd funded means you can accept no other form of donations.

Just a thought, not related to We The Lobby, but perhaps a future project?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm portuguese (not a USA citizen), and I spend and send my own money to support investigations against lobby, bribery, political-corruption, and such parasite-fenomenons that deter democracy. Do that instead, and I'll fund you. It would even be funny, as private investigators could be contracted, and the reports could be released in internet, as if were episodes of a serie - <USER2> could also be amusing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Firstly, once lobbying efforts begin we do intend to post video updates as often as possible.

We don't feel that lobbying is inherently evil - it is just unbalanced and mis-guided. We wish to cast an example of how lobbying can be positive, as well as provide an argument for it's need to be regulated and more closely watched.

The general constituency of a democracy should not have to pool money just to be heard by it's government, but the current lack of regulations over gov't lobbying have forced the hand of the people.

<comment><USER6> I understand your noble efforth to go in as a player to change the vicious- game, but be aware that the "adversaries" have much more money to put in (by orders of magnitude), and so in that game, they lead by advantage... Also, the "corporate" player offers more money/media-support/carreer- influence/discretion, so I undestand that for a corrupt politician, it can be hard to turn your back at "corporate", even if by a bigger (one-time) amount of money... But I just cannot shake from my head the absurdity of the reality: citizens pay taxes for politicians to govern the country in their interest, and now again would have to re-pay for lobbying ?!? Would not be easier to fight corruption and lobby in a stroke? It will have to happen sooner or later? Or would it go forever offering money for politicians to decide?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's definitely more money on the special interests' side than ours... but we will also have data to link donations to the actual voting constituency. Maybe this will increase our impact.

We agree the concept is somewhat abusrd, but... maybe just the fact that we resorted to making this a real thing will be enough of a wake up call to congress. Maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm working on a related project: <http://makeyourlaws.org> / <https://plus.google.com/100183759660923071401>

Unlike PlainSite, it's open source and AGPL. Also some differences of approach which are hard to summarize here. Happy to collaborate with anyone interested.

</comment><comment><USER8> Who's doing the actual lobbying? How are you ensuring accountability that the groups receiving the funds are advocating actively enough, and doing it in a way that you support (e.g. no backroom deals, future consulting jobs for politicians, negative ads)?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are working on securing partners to receive the funding.

Lobbying firms are in fact by law transparent about their finances - but we will also draft agreements with any partners demanding transparency and analysis of any financial data be updated on the site, available to the public.

On top of this, we are setting up a system to update users on the activities of the lobbyists, where they will disclose what they've been up to.

As for "backroom deals" and the like - if you research lobbying, you'll find it's not quite as shady as it's made out to be. It's just controlled by one small portion of the population, which owns a majority of the wealth. We The Lobby wishes to balance that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We thought of doing this for PlainSite (<http://www.plainsite.org>) but unfortunately the law precludes it. We'd love to work with you though. aaron.greenspan at plainsite.org

<comment><USER10> Could you elaborate why the law precludes it?

<comment><USER9> Collecting money to transmit to a third party is money transmission and requires a license in 46 states + Washington, D.C.

<http://www.plainsite.org/issues/index.html?id=1>

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been looking at the best ways to deal with finances, and we are thinking of adopting Kickstarter's model. This way we wouldn't hold the money itself - we would direct all transactions to the bank account of the partnered lobbying / advocacy firm of a cause.

<comment><AUTHOR> (in response to thinkcomp's reply to this)

we are using stripe.com as a our payment processor, and they allow exactly what you've stipulated.

We'd love to have an extended chat about this - mind reaching out at firstname.lastname@example.com?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You should lobby to limit the influence of lobbying. Seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, last night Obama did urge congress to write legislation in that vein... so if there is legislation proposed, feel free to submit that as a cause on our site!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Clickable: <http://www.wethelobby.com/>

</comment><comment><USER13> You should replace "K" with ,000 it's not clear that you're talking about dollars and not # of signatures or something.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know know what the legal issues associated with this are. But this is an excellent idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't this what PACs are for?

<comment><AUTHOR> To a point, but PACs are focused on a candidate or a specific cause. We The Lobby allows for multiple causes, and will not be defined as an organization by any one cause.</comment></comment>


What to do when you need help with WordPress - <AUTHOR> https://codeable.io/wordpress-help/ <comment><USER3> Other solution: don't use a CMS that mixes plugins code with the core code with absolutely no sandboxing or even a separation between the core and the API.

<comment><USER4> What's a good alternative to WordPress that allows some level of ease of use for the non-developer site owner, while also checks the boxes for the technical issues you see?

Truly want to know because I don't know the answer!

<comment><USER5> For blogging, WordPress is about the least worst there is.

The key thing is: _you don 't have to run it yourself._

For almost all users, wordpress.com is the answer. Automattic take care of all the rubbish for you.

If you're fussy about themes, there are any number of third-party providers who will give you more wiggle room than wordpress.com but take care of the tedious rubbish for you.

If you _really_ want to run it yourself, there is a _huge_ ecosphere of designers, consultants and sysadmins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I laughed at this "Think about what you did" \- I've been a bad WordPress dev :(

No mention of backups, but that can at least save you from some of the freak out - assuming your site isn't changing more frequently then your backup scheme.

Daily backups are nice, but the problem might not be detected immediately - <USER2> snapshots (week, month, 6 month) are advisable.

<comment><USER7> Re. Backups:

check out rsync's "\--link-dest" option. It's amazing.

Alternatively, this is one thing that version control could help with. Set up a cron job to check for changes every day and commit if needed.

<comment><USER8> httrack is also very nice! I found it more comprehensive than wget's recursive mode, but I haven't compared it to rsync --link-dest.

<comment><USER9> Those tools do a very different type of job (archiving generated html). Rsync is just file transfer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These tips can largely apply to anything. I work in Liferay. I wish I had half of Wordpress's community and documentation. That said I feel sorry for people who have to work with Wordpress.

<comment><USER11> Lack of Liferay' community and documentation is well compensated by much higher pay that average Wordpress/PHP developer can pull.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the one WP site I have to maintain, I keep things as simple as possible. I avoid plugins as much as possible and push as much functionality as possible to the frontend using Javascript.

For stuff that requires collecting data I will send the form data to a separate Clojure server where I can store and process the data in a sane way and then redirect back to Wordpress as needed.

It is probably over complicating things just for the sake of avoiding having to learn PHP and deal with stuff I don't (want to) understand - but on the whole it works quite well.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish there was better docs / info about performance. I have a dog slow WP site that is hosted on Godaddy (and that may be my problem). It takes 800 ms to get the html out to the browser to start the loads. I've pulled plugins, gone back to basic themes, etc. Godaddy support has tried, but they go an 8 second load is pretty good. The admin pages are far worse.

</comment><comment><USER14> First, make note of the error message. Just kidding, you just get the "white page of death" with no error message. Good luck.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My take: You just don't shoot some keywords on forums and wait for people to bring up all the answers. You need to do your part as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> If I need help with WP I'm taking a long walk off a short pier.</comment>