How Web Scraping Is Revealing Lobbying and Corruption in Peru - <AUTHOR> https://blog.scrapinghub.com/2016/03/09/how-web-scraping-is-revealing-lobbying-and-corruption-in-peru/ <comment><USER2> I'm from Ukraine and the biggest success in battling corruption comes from system called Prozorro[1] (transparently) for government tenders.

It started as volunteer project and some projections put savings at around 10% of total budget after it will become mandatory in April.

[1] [https://github.com/openprocurement/](https://github.com/openprocurement/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi there, I am the author of the blog post. I will be happy to answer any question.

<comment><USER4> Carlos, super buen trabajo, felicitaciones!! Llevo tiempo estudiando temas relacionados a tecnología vs. corrupción desde acá en Berkeley. Tengo testimonios interesantes de contactos que han vivido el cambio post-tecnología en el gobierno. Perú tiene harto potencial en esta área. Si necesitas ayuda en cualquier momento feliz de apoyarte!

<comment><USER3> muchas gracias! En el Perú ya hay varios grupos de periodistas que se han asociado con programadores para hacer proyectos interesantes de periodismo de datos. Está Ojo Publico, Convoca e IDL reporteros. Pero igual no nos damos abasto hay tanto por hacer!

<comment><USER5> nsoldiac:

Carlos, super good job, congratulations!! I study issues related to technology vs. corruption from here in Berkeley. I have interesting evidence from contacts who have experienced post-technology change in government. Peru has (too much) potential in this area. If you need help at any time I am happy to support you!

carlosp420:

thank you! In Peru there are already several groups of journalists who have partnered with developers to make interesting data journalism projects. There is Ojo Publico [1], Convoca [2] and IDL Reporters [3]. But all the same, it's not enough, there's so much to do!

[1] [http://ojo-publico.com/](http://ojo-publico.com/) [2] [http://www.convoca.pe/](http://www.convoca.pe/) [3] [https://idl- reporteros.pe/](https://idl-reporteros.pe/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting, how tools like these can be so much helpful for journalists and generally transparency in government functions.

Probably world changing, when considering that even semi-technical folks can cook up tools to dig into things like this.

I know this tool was by a developer, but scrapinghub has web UI to make scrapers.

<comment><USER7> Full disclosure, I work for Scrapinghub and the web UI you speak of is Portia - our open source visual web scraper. It's for those who range from non- technical to technical but want a quick way to scrape data. I think it's extremely important to develop tools to democratize the acquisition of data regardless of technical background and skill. Glad you find the article and tool interesting!

<comment><USER6> Yes, totally agree with you on the great potential of tools for easy data acquisition.

I have personally used Scrapy in the past, I find it to be a great tool.

Congratulations on your work!

<comment><USER7> Thank you. Glad you enjoy Scrapy, we're pretty fond of it ourselves!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can you draw a covisit graph of people? Who visited the building at the same times as somebody else. The strength of the connections could be visitedboth^2/( visitedwithouttheother1+1)*(visitedwithouttheother2+1)))

</comment><comment><USER9> In other countries, corrupt politicians found out a simple captcha per n items is good enough to defeat analysis.

<comment><USER10> [https://anti-captcha.com/](https://anti-captcha.com/) & [https://rucaptcha.com/](https://rucaptcha.com/) \- I think that can be best summarised as "from Russia with love" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> FWIW, if you live in the U.S., then you benefit from having such data in great quantity, though I don't think it's sliced-and-diced to near the potential that it has:

Lobbyists have to follow registration procedures, and their official interactions and contributions are posted to an official database that can be downloaded as bulk XML:

[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/lobbyingdisc.htm#lobbyingd...](http://www.senate.gov/legislative/lobbyingdisc.htm#lobbyingdisc=lda)

Could they lie? Sure, but in the basic analysis that I've done, they generally don't feel the need to...or rather, things that I would have thought that lobbyists/causes would hide, they don't. Perhaps the consequences of getting caught (e.g. in an investigation that discovers a coverup) far outweigh the annoyance of filing the proper paperwork...having it recorded in a XML database that few people take the time to parse is probably enough obscurity for most situations.

There's also the White House visitor database, which _does_ have some outright admissions, but still contains valuable information if you know how to filter the columns:

[https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing- room/disclosures/visitor...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing- room/disclosures/visitor-records)

But it's also a case (as it is with most data) where having some political knowledge is almost as important as being good at data-wrangling. For example, it's trivial to discover that Rahm Emanuel had few visitors despite is key role, so you'd have to be able to notice than and then take the extra step to find out his workaround:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/us/politics/25caribou.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/us/politics/25caribou.html)

And then there are the many bespoke systems and logs you can find if you do a little research. The FDA, for example, has a calendar of FDA officials' contacts with outside people...again, it might not contain everything but it's difficult enough to parse that being able to mine it (and having some domain knowledge) will still yield interesting insights: [http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/MeetingsConferencesWorkshops/P...](http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/MeetingsConferencesWorkshops/PastMeetingsWithFDAOfficials/default.htm)

There's also OIRA, which I haven't ever looked at but seems to have the same potential of finding underreported links if you have the patience to parse and text mine it: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/oira_0910_meetings/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/oira_0910_meetings/)

And of course, there's just the good ol FEC contributions database, which at least shows you individuals (and who they work for): [https://github.com/datahoarder/fec_individual_donors](https://github.com/datahoarder/fec_individual_donors)

This is not to undermine what's described in the OP...but just to show how lucky you are if you're in the U.S. when it comes to dealing with official records. They don't contain everything perhaps but there's definitely enough (nevermind what you can obtain through FOIA by being the first person to ask for things) out there to explore influence and politics without as many technical hurdles.

<comment><USER12> Thanks; it's invaluable to hear from someone who has experience with the data.

Do you know what they are required to report? For example, if they have a 'social' dinner with a lobbyist, must that be reported? Are the requirements the same across the Executive Branch? All three branches?

<comment><USER11> I don't have much experience with the lobbying rules except for times that I've had to research things specifically. Usually disclosure requirements come with a minimum amount...In the House (not sure if the exact limits apply to the Senate...), the ethics rules are quite strict but not everything is recorded...for example, a legislator (or their staff) can only receive $100 of gifts from a single source in a calendar year..."gifts" being basically anything of value...but things under $10 don't count toward that limit. So getting Frappuccinos everyday with your favorite CEO probably wouldn't be recorded in any official capacity even though not only do those add up monetarily, but someone getting coffee with a legislator on a frequent basis would be a huge point of potential influence. However, legislators aren't allowed to get gifts (such as paid dinners) at all from a registered lobbyist [1].

Both the House and the Senate have gift travel databases (travel that's reimbursed by an outside group, such as a charter flight to visit an oil drilling rig) [2]

The branches differ in how such things are reported...this was pretty obvious recently when Justice Scalia died at a ranch and people started wondering who paid for the trip...take one look at how these forms are supplied and it should be pretty obvious why we don't normally hear about SCOTUS relationships until something really weird happens [3].

This NYT editorial "So Who's a Lobbyist?" has a nice rundown of the ways that people who would generally be considered a lobbyist can escape disclosure requirements: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/so-whos-a- lobbyist...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/so-whos-a- lobbyist.html)

Still, it's useful to be able to parse the dataset in an attempt to find what's missing...something that is difficult to do conceptually unless you're dealing with the actual dataset on your own system.

[1] [https://ethics.house.gov/gifts/house-gift- rule](https://ethics.house.gov/gifts/house-gift-rule)

[2] [http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/giftTravel.aspx](http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/giftTravel.aspx)

[3] [http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N99999918_2008.pdf](http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N99999918_2008.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Peruvians, do you think this would cause a majority of meetings to be held outside of public office buildings or via secretive messaging system?

</comment><comment><USER14> This is really impressive, even more so by the fact that it has already led to discoveries being made.

Web scraping is a really powerful tool for increasing transparency on the internet especially with how transient online data is.

My own project, Transparent[1], has similar goals.

[1] [https://www.transparentmetric.com/](https://www.transparentmetric.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a fascinating project - If successful I suspect the result will be that lobbying to longer takes place in the government offices: "Shall we meet at that little place down the street", or will be carried out over the phone.

</comment><comment><USER16> Really interesting use of data extraction....

For developers and managers out there, do you prefer to build your own in- house scrapers or use Scrapy or tools like Mozenda instead? What about import.io and kimono?

I'm asking because lot of developers seem to be adamant against using web scraping tools they didn't develop themselves. Which seems counter productive because you are going into technical debt for an already solved problem.

So developers, what is the perfect web scraping tool you envision?

And it's always a fine balance between people who want to scrape Linkedin to spam people, others looking to do good with the data they scrape, and website owners who get aggressive and threatening when they realize they are getting scraped.

It seems like web scraping is a really shitty business to be in and nobody really wants to pay for it.

<comment><USER17> After Kimono got shut down, I think a self-hosted open source version would be extremely popular. I want to build my own solution, but the API functionality and pagination / AJAX loaded data would be too difficult.

<comment><USER16> interesting, how would a self-hosted open source version make money tho in order to support itself and continue to upgrade?

Is this even a realistic business model? Seems like this is what Scrapy is doing and what Import.io is doing. Make the tool free in order to get free marketing and then charge people willing to pay money to extract data.

Meanwhile I see Mozenda charging like 5 cents for each page extracted, do you think this is a fair model or does it not matter?

<comment><USER7> So for Scrapy and Portia, they are both free as in beer, specifically because we believe in the power of open source. Scrapy actually precedes Scrapinghub and was certainly not developed as a marketing tool.

Charges come with large scale crawls (above certain limits on our platform), additional products like Crawlera (our smart downloader that routes requests from a crawl through a pool of IP addresses to avoid bans), datasets, and for us to handle complex crawls for companies outsourcing to us.

Our model is that there is something for everyone whether you are looking to dip your toes into web scraping (free), use it occasionally (usually journalists) or dependent on web crawling for your business.

<comment><USER18> >Scrapy actually precedes Scrapinghub

Right. I had first come across Scrapy, while browsing the web for Python software tools, some years ago, on the site of a company in Uruguay called Insophia. It was in the list of products developed by them, and that they worked on. Scrapinghub came later.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Livestreaming My Entire PhD - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8YzYEIAR9ba5HPlr17eabQ/<p>Hello everyone! I'm a high-energy physics PhD student just entering my first year at University College London, and I've decided to livestream as much of my PhD as possible, from the beginning to the end. At 6pm EST tonight I'll do my first broadcast, introducing myself and my rough plan for streaming. My goals are to share what it's like to be a graduate research student in the sciences, to be an entertaining educational resource for fellow students, and to get the general public excited about the current frontier of what we know about the universe! <comment><AUTHOR> Slight technical delay, 630 everybody</comment>


PEP 427 – The Wheel Binary Package Format 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0427/

<comment><USER2> For those confused by the relatively unhelpful title change, this is an official binary format that can be used for cross-platform distribution.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, an overwhelming majority have expressed frustration at this title changing, but they insist on doing it routinely. I understand fixing editorialized titles, but they are not doing that. In most cases, they change it to a far more useless title.

Often the article title will have some implied context, and that is completely lost when it is posted to a general aggregation site like HN. This is just one of many cases where changing the title makes no sense at all.

<comment><USER4> Maybe mods could post the original title and their change as comment for people to vote on as feedback. That would also mean we would finally know who the mods are...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain the situation with eggs and all the installation utilities? After years of programming in python, I still don't understand why everyone makes such a huge deal of installation, which is basically copying things somewhere in the PYTHONPATH.

<comment><USER6> First, this does not require code to execute (which setuptools require).

Second, the problem is to know _what_ to copy, or rather _what_ to get. even when it's pure python it can be a problem (e.g py2 vs py3) and it's even more of one with e.g C extensions, where you have a choice of building it from source (thus requiring gcc and all build dependencies such as headers) or getting a pre-built binary tied to a given platform.

Ruby gems support that since quite some time, and it's a bliss to install e.g the libv8 gem in a few seconds vs a lengthy build.

[0]: <https://rubygems.org/gems/libv8/versions>

<comment><USER5> Oh, so it's more of an improvement rather than "eggs are horribly broken". I think I'm confused with the "easy_install vs pip" thing, where I also don't see much of a difference.

Easy binary retrieval sounds fantastic, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, where's the wheel to .deb/.rpm/.msi/.pkg converter?

For real ease of distribution, you have to support a destination platform's native package format.

See also: <http://xkcd.com/927/>

<comment><USER8> I've long thought the better mechanism is to hook into the destination platform's native package _system_. A la BSDPAN.

[Such that installing your language-specific package causes appropriate entries to appear in the system's global database of installed packages. Thus making it easier to identify candidates for upgrade, ensure dependencies are correct, remove redundant libs and so forth]

<comment><USER9> Hear, hear.

Though I believe the best way to make that happen is to make your language play nice with automake. Nobody believes me.

<comment><USER10> I believe you. This is why I don't use CMake / SCons / Jam / etc -- they're nice for developers but bad for the package maintainers and sysadmins.

<comment><USER11> CMake is _widely_ distributed now if only because of KDE, so the package maintainers and sysadmins have figured it out one way or the other already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the header the following line confused me very much:

        Content-Type: text/x-rst

Took me a short while to figure out it actually marks the type of the PEP rather than the documented format.

</comment><comment><USER13> So here's my question: Are things in a wheel allowed to rely on ANY site- packages? IF not, this is spectacular. If so, another unfortunate attempt in the long long struggle.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure if this answers your question, but the format includes PKG-INFO, which includes a "Requires" field. How do you envision disallowing dependencies for python packages working? Would all packages have to contain all of their dependencies? I don't think that would ever happen in python- land. It would break lots of things, for dubious benefit.

<comment><USER13> Thanks. Seems like that may solve the problem, if people actually use it.

<comment><USER15> A question to those who know more: for those of us who only target Linux, isn't it better to leave these things to distro package managers?

<comment><USER16> Leaving dependency management to distros can cause problems when they upgrade a package to a new one that breaks the old API or when they lack a package for a library you need. Dependency isolation is something that Java got right: compile everything into one jar and then deployment is just copying the jar and executing it.

The drawback is that you are responsible for security vulnerabilities in the libraries you install.

<comment><USER14> _Dependency isolation is something that Java got right: compile everything into one jar and then deployment is just copying the jar and executing it._

So _that's_ why jars are always 100 MB! I don't think the python community will ever perceive this as the "right" way to distribute libraries. (Actually I'm not sure even java thinks jars are the right solution for libraries.) You'd probably get more agreement if it were declared the right way to do AMIs or buildout recipes or whatever.

 _The drawback is that you are responsible for security vulnerabilities in the libraries you install._

It's one thing to say that the sysadmin is responsible for security, but it's another to make sure they have access to fifty rebuilt binary distributions every time a library upon which those depend has a security update. There's dependency isolation and then there's dependency isolation.

<comment><USER16> > So that's why jars are always 100 MB! I don't think the python community > will ever perceive this as the "right" way to distribute libraries.

I'm not advocating it as the right way to distribute libraries. It's the right way to deploy applications. Compiling everything into one simplifies deployment. It does not simplify public distribution.

> the sysadmin is responsible for security [...]

It just means that whoever is responsible for security (which should be operations _and_ development, IMO) need a list of the libraries used as part of an application. In Python this is normally stored in the file "requirements" in the root of the source tree. Java projects have similar things, so does Haskell.

<comment><USER14> _I'm not advocating it as the right way to distribute libraries. It's the right way to deploy applications._

OK, I agree that's a different case, one for which jars _may_ be appropriate whenever you don't have access to an OS-level package manager. But when is that? When using Windows, but not in the enterprise? Surely most would avoid that grim situation. Since I use apt or the equivalent to install and update apps (unless I have a reason to be closer to the current version), I primarily think of python distributions as providing libraries, although of course they may include applications as well.

 _It just means that whoever is responsible for security (which should be operations _and_ development, IMO) need a list of the libraries used as part of an application._

Of course it's nice when the applications one installs are supported by developers in the same organization, but it's a rare luxury that doesn't obtain for the typical sysadmin. Even in that case, however, aren't you proposing to make a lot of work for yourself that your package manager is happy to do instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why the name "wheel"?

<comment><USER18>
        Because 'newegg' was taken.
        Python packaging - reinvented.
        A container for cheese.

From [https://bitbucket.org/aragilar/wheel/src/38ab0c4bca96/docs/i...](https://bitbucket.org/aragilar/wheel/src/38ab0c4bca96/docs/index.rst?at=default)

<comment><USER17> Aha! Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really really really really want this to work out so I can justify trying to port it to ruby...

</comment><comment><USER20> Literally reinventing the wheel

</comment><comment><USER21> Good, let's just kill eggs now

</comment><comment><USER22> Hmm... How is it different from binary eggs?

<comment><USER23> Does <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0427/#comparison-to-egg> answer your question? If not, what would?</comment></comment>


JamLegend Takes On Guitar Hero On The Web (1,000 Invites) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/jamlegend-takes-on-guitar-hero-on-the-web-1000-invites/

<comment><USER2> Hey, guys, Andrew Lee from JamLegend. Feel free to tell us what you think.

We've been hanging out on News.YC for about a year now and know some of the YC companies personally, so please give us as much feedback as possible.

REQUEST FOR HELP: if anyone has experience with Glassfish (with Java, not Ruby), please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com, we're experiencing some tricky load issues and are imploring for help.

<comment><USER3> Let me guess - garbage collection? ;)

<comment><USER4> Sadly not, we looked into GC stuff but it doesn't seem to be the culprit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting.

There's a game called riffmaster that I discovered via addictinggames.com (<http://www.addictinggames.com/riff.html>) that was pretty fun to play. It has similar keyboard options. There is also a sequel (<http://www.addictinggames.com/riffmasterii.html>), but I haven't played it.

When I first saw it, I thought it would be boring, but there are some elements that make it pretty fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> This definitely has viral potential. Very cool and well implemented so far.

Lots of monetisation strategies (buy songs you like jamming to via the site or affiliate, advertising, selling gig/concert tickets and merchandise for featured bands, premium subscriptions, etc.) and growth strategies (unsigned/new bands put tracks people can jam to and discover, myspace-style user profiles, youtube-style self jamming videos/webcams, facebook-style friend-sets and widget sharing, xbox-style achievement goals, etc.) too.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> Only problem for me is the return key. It isn't quick enough to register it sometimes, I tried playing a song on medium and I do suck, but I did notice it not registering the key :S

 _edit: Also, more indie bands. Try and get Vampire Weekend or someone else to toss their songs on the site. Man, that would rock_

<comment><USER2> Great feedback. We have a couple bands in the pipe, but we're gonna be opening up the platform so it'll be very easy for any indie band to put their stuff up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I was in china, such games were very popular in all the net bars. The had some type of internet cafe system in use by most internet cafes, and this jam legend style music-making as well as some dancing girls thingy - based on the same concept - was quite popular. So it's certainly a good market to be in.

In china, they have these scratch cards that you can buy at 7/11s and other convenience stores. You then use the credit on the scratch cards to buy dresses and so on for your figure. Several of the girls I knew were obsessed with making sure that their avatar not only looked good, but that she always had new clothes. So games in that style, though free initially, still make loads of money just selling add-ons and things to individualise yourself.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats to Andrew and the JamLegend crew. We met them awhile ago and have been following their progress ever since. Amazing progress in a short timeframe.

I guess soon I will have to give the official report on how well this works hooking up a Wii guitar to my mactop and playing Jam Legend.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it me or are some songs very difficult in easy mode? ;) I also think that there are some bugs in the key response. Or: I just suck at playing it. However, great idea and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> job well done and nice execution!!! key press timing seems a little buggy but suppose that's to be expected given it's a beta.

<comment><USER12> I agree very well done. A lot of fun, right from the get go.

 _key press timing seems a little buggy but suppose that's to be expected given it's a beta._

I had this same problem. I can actually anticipate the slowdown and the inevitable note miss that is coming.

I think it is just a matter of dealing with latency a little bit better when things go awry.

Or maybe it's a problem of resources since I have 20 apps open on my computer. Either way it's minor compared to the fun from playing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love the game and love the idea. The only issue I have had thus far is pulling off combos. Not sure if I am just too slow or if something about the keyboard is prohibiting me from moving from note to note fast enough. Has anyone else had this problem?

What would be really interesting is if you could build this into a facebook app.</comment>


Opera ditches browser scrolling for "pages" - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/370447/opera-ditches-browser-scrolling-for-pages <comment><USER2> I think the title is a bit misleading... Developers can opt to insert CSS code that allows for page flipping instead of scrolling. Even then, the end user can opt out of this in favor of scrolling.</comment>


My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein - <AUTHOR> https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/my-apology-regarding-jeffrey-epstein/ <comment><USER2> "I met Epstein in 2013 at a conference through a trusted business friend and, in my fundraising efforts for MIT Media Lab, I invited him to the Lab and visited several of his residences. I want you to know that in all of my interactions with Epstein, I was never involved in, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of.

"

" On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 "

<comment><USER3> Do you do a deep dive in the criminal history of every person you deal with? No? didn't think so.

<comment><USER4> Come on. This wasn't a hidden secret. I can believe not everyone who did business with Epstein after he left prison was aware, but this wasn't a secret; it was widely reported (the truth is, many people just didn't care) why he went to jail. The circles he traveled in might have changed, but from my own experiences on the periphery of the wealthy/connected, stuff like this comes up.

You'll note Ito never claims he wasn't aware of the allegations or the guilty plea, he simply says he didn't ever see any evidence of that behavior.

Plenty of people would pause before accepting money from someone like Epstein and plenty of people, as we've seen, did not.

Those that did aren't responsible for any of Epstein's crimes, but it's more than fair that they answer questions about why they took money from someone like him — even if the answers are uncomfortable.

<comment><USER5> This is probably not the best time to point to SV and the influence of Milner and the Kremlin, but it's fascinating to read PG's comments in the 2011 discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604) and how he seems to be comfortable with the Kremlin connection even though others seemed to have known at the time.

<comment><USER6> So? There are many other external investors in the US companies, most importantly from China and Saudi Arabia. This is not illegal. And US-Russia relationships were a lot different in 2011.

<comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897) and PG's reply captures the problem well:

> Basically, Milner is a crook, and if there was any justice in the world he > and Usmanov would be in jail for what they have done. But there isn't, and > there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you > have enough money. The fact that Milner is now working with YC is a sad > testament to that fact.

PG: VCs are not so high minded that they're offended by who his LPs are, believe me.

> Actually, it would seem to be just as simple as he implies. VCs in the > valley care only about money and don't give a hoot about morality. You > haven't debated the fact that Milner is linked to the looting of state > resources; you've simply said that anyone else would also take his money if > they could.

PG: even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing.

This is the ultimate problem and it has nothing to do with US-Russia relations but rather with dealing with known seedy characters

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like an appropriate response. I was approached by a woman who wanted to merge her lab with mine a number of years ago, I didn't go through with the deal for a number of reasons, but many years later it was revealed that this woman was a neo-nazi. I had no inkling in my business dealings with her that this was who she was, but it would have made zero difference if I had merged my business with hers, as I would have been in business with a nazi. Folks make mistakes. Owning those, taking accountability for your mistakes and moving forward with contrition is the only way to make those kinds of mistakes okay.

<comment><USER8> I was listening to a recent podcast interview of Ricky Gervais on this topic, where he observed "it's not enough to apologize anymore and move on. People want blood, people want you ruined, because it's a point-scoring competition now." [1]

My only disagreement with Ricky is that I'm not sure it was ever enough, but the people for whom it isn't enough now have a platform.

[1] [https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ricky-gervais- takes-o...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ricky-gervais-takes-on- verbal-terrorism-dont-apologize/) is a write-up of the podcast interview

<comment><USER9> Should it be enough to apologize and move on? I would say that such apology is empty. There should be that part where people who were affected are made even as much as possible, where we reflect on what was supposed to be done differently and make changes for future.

There was really no one who voiced disagreement at the time? If no, why? If yes, what did happened to their career and status in the organization? How were they argued again, how did the fight at the time went? Were they retaliated against at the time?

All these things matter and should matter, so that next time people voice dissenting opinions in case like this and are listened to.

<comment><USER10> The difference is between "wanting blood" and "restorative justice." In former, vengeance is a motivating force, potentially with little regard to making amends. Simply inflicting pain can be sufficient. In other, the goal is to compensate, restore and reform. This may or may not require inflicting great pain or ruining someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find this tiresome. You don't need to apologize for acquaintances, or for the hidden personal lives of people you have impersonal business transactions with. Guilt is not spread by touch.

My guess is that you have shaken hands, at least once in your life, with someone who (unbeknownst to you) is a truly horrible person. It's life.

<comment><USER12> It wasn't exactly "hidden" though. Their interactions happened _after_ his plea dead for underage prostitution.

<comment><USER13> It sounds like Ito probably missed that news, which I think is what folks have a problem with — he should have done his research before accepting the money.

I think there is also a separate debate here about whether Ito should accept or reject money from a donor who he knows is a sex offender.

Edit: seems like people are assuming he _did_ know about that past, which is unclear to me.

<comment><USER12> > seems like people are assuming he did know about that past, which is unclear > to me.

According to Ethan Zuckerman, he "urged [Joi] not to meet with [Epstein]". Presumably Epstein's past was the reason for that urging.

[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and- the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media- lab/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also, Ethan Zuckerman and his Center for Civic Media is going to exit the lab as he can't in good conscience remain:

[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and- the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media- lab/)

<comment><USER15> I think the information portrayed here is less favorable to Ito.

<comment><USER16> Quite. Though Zuckerman doesn't detail what was inappropriate about the Lab's relationship with Epstein (besides "Epstein"), Zuckerman does say that they tried to warn Ito about Epstein five years ago -- that should have been sufficient to cause the Lab to separate from Epstein then.

<comment><USER15> > Joi told me that evening that the Media Lab's ties to Epstein went much > deeper, and included a business relationship between Joi and Epstein, > investments in companies Joi's VC fund was supporting, gifts and visits by > Epstein to the Media Lab and _by Joi to Epstein's properties_.

> As the scale of Joi's involvement with Epstein became clear to me, I began > to understand that I had to end my relationship with the MIT Media Lab.

Emphasis added

This doesn't go into enormous detail, but I wouldn't say he "doesn't detail what was inappropriate".

<comment><USER16> I'd missed that! Visiting Epstein's properties, especially his island, makes one radioactive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The system has a turnkey solution to this sort of thing. Say I'm sorry. Then reassure us in conclusory fashion you didn't do anything really bad (ignore his prior conviction). Formulaic apology that uses phrases like "allowed him to invest" and "funds were received with my permission" to distance from the problem. "Equivalent" future-facing commitment to fund-raise. Return exactly the amount of money that led to your personal benefit, don't mention any gains on the money. Use the word "again" to reiterate empty message. Ok, everyone, ready to move on?

<comment><USER18> So what should we do?

<comment><USER19> He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times. Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's "apology":

[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and- the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media- lab/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm somewhat surprised that MIT just took money from someone based on a notable fundraiser's nod to do so. My understanding would be that a some kind of financial department would handle an application from the donee citing a joint interest between them and the donor [0]. That department would then investigate the donor for any red flags or question marks. This news is still pretty fresh, so I think there will be an investigation as to how all of this came to be and we will find out if there was any oversight process and if so, whether or not that oversight process was short-circuited in any way.

I mean I probably had to go through more for each of my job interviews and any corresponding background checks. Furthermore, MIT probably assesses potential students more thoroughly than what happened in this account of the event.

[0] [https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/donations/](https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/donations/)

> The person making the gift is called the donor and the person receiving the > gift is called the donee.

<comment><USER21> It's easy to return money or apologize after the fact. Universities are going to attempt to take any free money they can get and not worry about it until there's a proven public outcry.

<comment><USER19> It wasn't just the university though. Ito also allowed Epstein to coinvest in his personal startup investments. He also visited his houses (which were decorated somewhere between provocatively and illegally based on residence). Ethan Zuckerman also directly confronted Ito and was ignored: [https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media- lab-715bfc707...](https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media- lab-715bfc707f6f)

<comment><USER20> To add, it would be less likely that we would be reading and commenting on this story if a university like MIT was not involved here: Ito would just be some venture capitalist that did not perform adequate due diligence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _I vow to raise an amount equivalent to the donations the Media Lab received > from Epstein and will direct those funds to non-profits that focus on > supporting survivors of trafficking._

Raising money to combat human (child sex) trafficking is a worthy endeavor; go for it.

> _I will also return the money that Epstein has invested in my investment > funds._

Using well-earned money for evil is bad. Using ill-gotten money for good is good. If you think MIT Media Lab's research is good, keep the money and use it for good. Giving money (back) to a bad source just makes matters worse. At best it's a vain attempt to wash your hands of the situation.

> _Regrettably, over the years, the Lab has received money through some of the > foundations that he controlled. I knew about these gifts and these funds > were received with my permission. I also allowed him to invest in several of > my funds which invest in tech startup companies outside of MIT._

Was Epstein's money even ill-gotten? The man's deplorable personal crimes seem orthogonal to his wealth, or at least the causality runs from wealth to crime, not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER23> This person is also a board member of New York Times [1].

[1] [https://www.nytco.com/board-of-directors/](https://www.nytco.com/board- of-directors/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand an apology in which the person apologizing admits to no wrongdoing. If you did nothing wrong, I would expect something along the lines of "What has taken place is extremely unfortunate, but I did not and could not have known that what I did would entangle MIT with a criminal."

</comment><comment><USER25> Does this mean anyone who attended MIT and went to the Media Lab should also apologize because they acquired their skills through a corrupt system and now they're reaping their rewards in their careers?

</comment><comment><USER13> I think I'm missing something with all this — hopefully someone can link me to better resources, or help me out.

What exactly did Ito do wrong here? It sounds like he had no knowledge of Epstein's misdeeds while they were associates.

<comment><USER19> Epstein's conviction for raping a minor was public information at the point that Joi Ito raised money from, coinvested with and visited his homes. Far more information is included in Ethan's MIT resignation post:

He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times. Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's "apology":

[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and- the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media- lab/)

There's no way Ito didn't know about this, it would come up with a simple Google search. Investors do diligence.

<comment><USER13> Yep, that makes sense. I wish more of that info was in the apology — Ito makes it sound like he was just unaware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some important context is in this other post and thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20757879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20757879)

<comment><USER19> Indeed, people should read Ethan's post as it contains _much_ more content. I'm not even sure why Ito's apology is on HN right now. I submitted this exact same link days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741961)

Shouldn't post this be a dupe?

</comment></comment><comment> throwaw-zxcvbn FWIW, I am pretty sure that the rich cavorting with pretty young women (and some of it in an exploitative manner, and some of them under 18, and most of it for compensation) is going on in a lot of places, and certainly in many parts of the Middle East, Asia, Africa.

In fact, it's probably safe to assume that anyone accepting investments from the Middle East or Asia has very likely dealt with or taken money from people engaging in the same or worse conduct, only that it hasn't been prosecuted there.

If this here is the standard by which things ought to be measured and decided now, then I would expect a lot of money be returned and/or given to NGOs and charities.

But then, I suspect this is mostly moral posturing and virtue signalling, so nothing substantial will happen.

<comment><USER27> It's funny how this comment in article about an American child sex trafficker that abused American children [1] somehow makes it about unprosecuted rich people in everywhere but the USA.

> I suspect this is mostly moral posturing and virtue signalling

Indeed, though I refer to a different "this".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Civil_cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Civil_cases)

<comment> throwaw-zxcvbn If the policy is "don't accept money from American child sex traffickers that abuse American children", then fine, return the Epstein money and ask for the head of everyone that took money from him.

If the policy is "don't accept money from anyone abusing children (or at any rate people under 18)", then I suggest that a lot more due diligence is required.

<comment><USER27> But that's just whataboutism. The article and the whole topic is about _this_ particular American child abuser and his American victims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If the author never had reason to suspect Epstein of anything unsavory.... why is the apology required?

I can understand the need to make a statement, but seems to me that there was no lapse in judgement exercised at the time, but rather an unfortunate crossing-of-paths in retrospect.

<comment><USER29> The only reason he wouldn't have had anything unsavory to suspect of Epstein would be that he lived under a rock. Epstein's "unsavory" predilections were known for about five years (he was convicted in 2008) at the time that Ito started associating with him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> They probably take in money from so many questionable sources at MIT (and similar institutions) that Epstein's prior conviction didn't raise any red flags. Business as usual.

</comment><comment><USER31> "he was accused of" ... a truly peculiar choice of words for a person who confessed, was sentenced, and in jail.

</comment><comment><USER32> >I am deeply sorry to the survivors,

This is very strange phrasing. I would certainly say victims.

Perhaps English isn't his native tongue, but I doubt he wrote this himself or alone. It seems to both eschew responsibility and subtly remind everyone to be grateful it wasn't worse.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand the logic in returning the money? Why raise an equal amount of money for charity while returning the original contribution? Wouldn't it be better to also donate that original contribution to these charities?

</comment><comment><USER34> And he's an Ethics professor? I am still fuming at having to pay for a (required) Ethics class at business school. What a load of crock that was! Come, learn how to be ethical in one credit spread over 4 Sunday seminars.

</comment><comment><USER35> What's the scariest thing about monsters?

They look like you and me.

</comment><comment><USER36> all i can think reading this is, "well the capitalist in me says that money is money, it doesn't really matter where it comes from, all that matters is where it goes to and what good it can do". i understand wanting to disavow oneself of unsavory characters, that's just fairly common political and business acumen. but, just accepting money from someone doesn't make you complicit in their behaviors, nor does it mean you condone anything they have done. it literally just means an transfer of finances occurred between two parties (which may itself have other ulterior motives, but ultimately that has nothing to do with how the money is distributed).

i honestly think in situations like this, when you get money from an awful person, the only place that that money should go is somewhere where it can do good in the world to offset the negative influence of the individual that provided it. just sending it back is basically saying "i worry more about maintaining my image than potentially helping people here and now when I can". sure, the whole "im going to work to match all the donations" thing is a good way to hedge your bets, but really, DRY should be a virtue in more than just coding. reduplication of effort is a bad code smell, and I'm sure that inefficiency extends to other domains in some analogous manner as well

</comment><comment><USER37> Could someone explain why this is flagged? Maybe someone from HN? Is this topic verboten?

</comment><comment><USER38> Dude, just resign

</comment><comment><USER39> IDK, people seem to have forgotten the idiom, "Talk is cheap"

</comment><comment><USER40> You have to apologise for having been friends with and having received money from someone you didn't know was a pederast?

Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta.

<comment><USER2> Didn't know? Epstein was convicted 5 years before they met.

<comment><USER40> So you look up everybody who you meet irl? I mean the way I'm reading this blog post is that the author had no idea. Personally I don't believe it, that's why I wouldn't accept the apology if I cared about this

<comment><USER41> >So you look up everybody who you meet irl?

No, but if I'm trying to get someone to give me money for a project, invite them to my lab, and visit "several of their residences" I would definitely look them up

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > That said, I take full responsibility for my error in judgment. I am deeply > sorry to the survivors, to the Media Lab, and to the MIT community for > bringing such a person into our network.

If you don't know that a person is bad, then you just don't know. People didn't know Bundy was a serial killer, and we shouldn't fault them for not knowing. You don't know what you don't know. That's not a fault. That's not something you have to apologize for.

<comment><USER43> He pled guilty in 2008 for hiring child prostitutes. Joi mentions they met in 2013. If you don't do due dilligence, or even a cursory Google search, I believe you might bear some moral culpability in being willingly associated with a pedophile.

Frankly, nobody seems to have given lark about this guy until the new broke again this time. I'm not sure if it was his connections with many obviously famous people and the time peroid this took place, but before the MeToo movement it seems like many famous people had things like this swept under the rug or people looked the other way. I'm sure it's still happening, but hopefully more light will be shed on bad people in positions of wealth and power.

<comment><USER44> After he paid for his crime, doesn't he deserve a second chance?

<comment><USER45> This is part of the problem; at that time Epstein hadn't "paid for" his crimes in any meaningful sense.

<comment><USER46> Rehabilitation/reintegration of sex offenders after they're released from prison is a real discussion that we'll need to have as a society sooner than later, but I think we should start with the folks on probation/parole listing a walmart parking lot as their residential address because they can't find housing, not a billionaire that gets a slap on the wrist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Either Ito failed to do even a minimal amount of due diligence on a person he accepted millions of dollars from, or he did and then didn't care. Either way, it's a catastrophic failure of judgment.

He ought to resign immediately. This is CYA apology. He's taking responsibility in words only. It's disgraceful.

Resign.

</comment><comment><USER48> Doing this seems completely unnecessary to me. Did Joi really make a mistake that they could have realistically avoided?

To me, putting out this apology vaguely comes off as something like "virtue signaling" or "fishing for sympathy". I'm not saying it actually is either of those things, I just don't know the exact words to describe how I feel about it.

Somebody please let me know if I am wrong and an apology is in fact appropriate from this person.

<comment><USER49> > Did Joi really make a mistake that they could have realistically avoided?

Yeah, how could he have known a guy convicted 5 years before they met was a high-profile abuser. I guess he could have asked lab founder, Minsky, about what services he received from Epstein.

<comment><USER48> Didn't notice that Jeffery was already convicted at that point.

If we don't want to believe in rehabilitation (not that it did Jeffery any good), then in that case, a resignation seems more appropriate than a few words for an apology.

<comment><USER50> I think your point about rehabilitation and "paying one's debt to society" is very valid. Unfortunately in Epstein's case the punishment hardly fit the crime, ultimately he served 13 out of an 18 month sentence. "after 3 1⁄2 months allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of 10 months and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours"[0]

Ito visited Epstein several times at Epstein's residences, which all apparently are plastered with enough "art" to make someone question if he really was a "reformed" sex offender. It should be perfectly clear to everyone that Ito understood two things: Epstein wasn't rehabilitated and Ito could claim enough plausible deniability if his dirty laundry ever got aired. His apology would be more meaningful if he actually donated to charities out of his own pocket rather than promising to externally raise funds...

Check out the his Wikipedia entry on how lax that sentence was.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and_sentencing_\(2008%E2%80%932011\))

<comment><USER51> Even with Epstein's light sentence, I'd be open to Ito saying he believed Epstein had served his time and been rehabilitated.

But Ito doesn't even try to use that defense in his apology, because it would make explicit that he knowingly took money from a sex-offender. So instead he doesn't mention Epstein's conviction at all, uses some weasel language to make it sound like he was unaware of it without explicitly saying so, and tries to make it sound like he (Ito) was just a victim of circumstances.

It's a pretty impressive non-apology apology, since he makes a big show of apologizing for something, but not the actual thing most people find troubling about his behavior.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone else experience 'Product Hunt Anxiety' - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone else experience 'Product Hunt Anxiety' where you anxiously check Product Hunt in the hope the product you are working on hasn't been announced by someone else? <comment><USER2> Yes. I'm always anxious when searching/analizing competitors.

It's completely irrational and I force myself to get over it, because I know that finding competitors is a positive sign.</comment>


Looking to buy domains - what do you have? - <AUTHOR>

Looking to buy domains that in some way can relate to a "project" organizing web app.<p>Post what you have available. <comment><USER2> I have embodier.com that sounds like it could be the one that you can use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing but that one doesn't interest me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have wemakeone.com with both @wemakeone and @wmo twitter ids.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for replying but doesn't interest me

<comment><USER3> You may want to try a different approach for domain hunting.</comment></comment></comment>


Genetic Endowments and Wealth Inequality [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://nicholaswpapageorge.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/jpe_final-1.pdf <comment><USER2> Some context for this paper:

[https://nicholaswpapageorge.com](https://nicholaswpapageorge.com)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its- bette...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be- born-rich-than-talented/)</comment>


Tell HN: My best productivity hack - <AUTHOR> I bought a CO2 monitor. They are a bit expensive but very worth it ($100 DIY or more for a ready product). Even if you have ventilation, it might not be good enough. My office often goes up to 1000 ppm and I start to feel a bit drowsy. But there's a simple solution, just open a window. <comment><USER2> The single thing that has had the largest impact for me has been simply making a list of things I need to do the next day on the night before. In the morning, often the hardest thing to do is just to get going. Having a ready made list takes out a lot of the factors that lead me to procrastinate.

<comment><USER3> I create two lists: needs and wants. I prioritise them as such:

1 = no harm if not done; 2 = annoying if not done; 3 = disappoint someone if not done; 4 = financial or emotional harm if not done; 5 = financial and emotional harm if not done.

This is applied to both sets of items on each type of list.

Now I know what I NEED to do above all else, and then I can get to what I WANT to do later.

<comment><USER4> awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A while back I set a goal to have a happy, fulfilling life, and then asked what five elements were individually necessary and collectively sufficient to produce that. Then I went one level deeper, taking care to be strict with the boolean logic. I eventually got to actionable items.

The surprising part was the amount of priorities I had in my life that _weren 't_ in that life graph. Stuff that was urgent but not important, and counterintuitively unnecessary when subjected to first-principle analysis. As I started letting those things go, I started to feel more productive since I had more confidence that my actions were aligned with my purpose.

It was tedious and time-consuming, and the closer you get to the leaves, the easier it is for the graph to feel "out of date" as your priorities and circumstances change. But the root of the graph (or the top... for me the actionable stuff was at the bottom) has hardly changed at all since those were my core principles. So I'm still not sure it is worth the time to keep it "accurate", but it was a good exercise to do at least once.

<comment><USER6> Any chance you'd be willing to share more details on what your life graph ended up including?

<comment><USER5> Any time you break something down into a collection of "mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive" elements, there's going to be a bunch of different ways you can slice and dice that. What worked for me was something that was kind of like maslow's hierarchy. I think mine broke down into physical environment, financial security, being socially well-rooted, being healthy, and working on "meeting my greatness" (kind of like actualization).

If I were to redo it now, I'd probably collapse being socially well-rooted into being a subcomponent of something else that would include service, giving back, etc. But at the time I created it I was very much invested in developing friendships after moving to a new place for a new romantic relationship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't multitask.

I work a task until blocked, then switch. Work the next one until blocked, then switch again.

You'll be surprised at how much you can deliver when you focus on delivering one thing at a time!

<comment><USER8> This. I've been a multitasker most of my life, but the moment you organise task one after the other, and keep your focus, you'll just get so much more done. Uni-tasking gets you more done than multi-tasking, no matter how counterintuitive that may sound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Coffee in the morning, hike in the afternoon, beer in the evening.

<comment><USER10> That's great for you, but the rest of us have to put "work" somewhere in that list :)

<comment><USER9> Haha I work during coffee, conference call during hiking, and then work during my first two beers :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > I bought a CO2 monitor.

We did the same, it's very noticeable, what we sometimes do is cover it and if people are feeling drowsy only then reveal it so we could be sure it wasn't a placebo (it wasn't).

I hacked up (I'm _not_ a programmer!) some code to log the data to CSV, which I then presented to the business as a case to change our aircon system: [https://github.com/sammcj/airqualitylogger](https://github.com/sammcj/airqualitylogger)

<comment><USER12> In both the OP and your comment I initially interpreted "CO2 monitor" as a computer display that emits CO2. I was wondering how this would boost your productivity for a confusing 10 seconds.

<comment><USER11> Ha! Never considered that, thanks for the interesting feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Step 1: sudo nano /etc/hosts

Step 2: Type at bottom:

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

127.0.0.1 twitter.com

127.0.0.1 instagram.com

Step 3: ctrl+"O"

<comment><USER14> I see this kind of thing from time-to-time, and it baffles me. Surely, I know how to restore access. Why not ... just not go there? And if it's a problem (again, this baffles me, but no judgement - I binge drink on weekends which is surely worse), delete your accounts there?

<comment><USER15> Having to restore access gives you many more seconds of time between impulse and gratification where you can catch yourself in the process and have the internal "the fuck are you doing? Is that video even going to bring you a modicum of happiness? Get back to work and we can do something actually fun later you adhd fuck" talk.

<comment><USER14> Does that work for you? Do you think it works in general? I do get the impulse to click on a link - and you are claiming that having to activate something (like I would do with uMatrix, I suppose?), makes you cognitively pause?

I guess we're all wired differently. That one doesn't seem to be a challenge to me (although, I can assure you that there are other unhealthy things that I wish I could figure out how to stop doing).

<comment><USER16> Adding friction doesn't work for me. But I can just say, "I don't facebook anymore. It's not a thing I do." And I stop. Fine, but there's still an itch that needs scratching. I bounce to instagram, reddit, imgur, news sites, then my favorite bloggers, in that order. There's always something. And as for facebook - I can't quit altogether. I manage a page for a small business, I have to test things for work, I want to promote my blog. So I can't do cold turkey, and I keep coming back. Fuck, I hate it so much.

<comment><USER14> I do that with politics, so I can't point fingers. I don't know why - it's not like I can change anything...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if that was the problem at my old office. I felt drowsy all the time there. Just figured I wasn't sleeping right or something. Two-three cups of coffee every day. Right now I'm working remotely from my parent's living room. Most days I'm the only one here and it's a decently big, drafty house. There are many things I don't like about it, but I'm always wide awake.

</comment><comment><USER17> Mind explaining what the significance of CO2 is? I'm unclear how this relates to drowsiness.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/who-knew- excess-c...](https://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/who-knew-excess- co2-bad-our-brains.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is similar to a post back from 2013 titled "Ask HN: Which daily habit has affected your productivity the most?"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6851384](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6851384)

I'll repeat my answer from back then:

1\. If you're a programmer I recommend looking at [http://wakatime.com](http://wakatime.com)

2\. I know a guy who swears he is more productive by starting his mornings with: coffee, restroom, have something ready to work on

</comment><comment><USER20> I stopped reading productivity p*rn, optimizing task managers, finessing my setup, and just did the work.

</comment><comment><USER21> Changed my eating habits to something I never, ever thought I'd do-- \- black coffee for breakfast. \- no simple carbs for lunch. I feel great and get more done in the morning, and then I also feel great and don't want to fall asleep in the afternoon.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can you share some more info about your office? Small space, old building, what kind of heating, etc? Hard to know if there's anything to your hack without more info.

</comment><comment><USER23> Schedule your todo list on your calendar. Identify the tasks you want to complete for the day or week, and block out time on your calendar for each task.

</comment><comment><USER24> Getting consistent, good quality sleep.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm finding out that using Org mode's clocking combined with recurring tasks for long running tasks that should be done in bits helps me progress on them. I've only recently started using it, and seeing since how many days I haven't read some pages from that 2500 page book which I was supposed to have finished reading a year ago, and how little time I've spent on it than I'd otherwise believe I had, definitely has a positive impact. No revolution, at least in my case, but certainly an improving transformation.

</comment><comment><USER26> My personal best hack is giving a damn about what I'm working on.

</comment><comment><USER27> Pomodoro, for sure. Work and play do not mix but are both important.

</comment><comment><USER28> For me it was taking a very long and very hard look at all the different notifications I was getting, and then cutting them down as much as possible. It sounds like a minor thing to do, but in effect I became more focused, as I spend almost no mental energy on useless distractions. I have only so much mental juice per day to begin with, and not wasting it on unimportant notices allows me to allocate more of it on stuff that actually matters.

</comment><comment><USER29> Installed a chrome plugin that restricts my access to all social media, Reddit and some news sites between 8am-6pm only allowing a total of ten minutes access through out the day. Massive time sink.

Also, got a whiteboard which I mark out the important tasks for the day. It's a bit messy at the moment though. If everything is important then nothing is important.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've recently started using [http://www.beeminder.com](http://www.beeminder.com)

I'm finding it very helpful for sticking to my goals. Their blog is a wonderland of productivity research and knowledge, as well. I highly recommend checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are two things I like to do: 1) Avoid reading the news in the morning -- it's a rabbit hole that can suck you in and crush productivity. And, 2) Move my phone from my pocket to the deep part of my bag -- this helps me avoid the desire to check it every 15 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER32> My office is an addon, taking the place of some cubicles. The offices are frigid and I've often wondered if the ventilation wasn't corrected for the new layout.

I'm going to pick up a monitor and see what I run in to. Easy fix for now is to get up and walk :P

</comment><comment><USER33> Started to replace coffee after lunch for a short (from 15 to 30 minutes) nap. I usually would have good energy levels just with coffee, however napping brings me more clarity of mind and focus.

<comment><USER34> Interesting - I have recently started doing my 20 min meditation roughly after lunch, and that has helped my energy a lot in a way that is slightly akin to napping.

<comment><USER35> I nap 20 min after lunch and sometimes I don't fall "asleep" at all but still feel energized afterwards. I always wondered how both had kinda the same effect. Now that you mention this, it definitely makes sense that I was meditating in some form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I Found a job in which I'm not forced to set an alarm to wake up, and can take a nap at any time. I feel a lot more alert and productive all day long this way.

</comment><comment><USER37> Set up what you're going to work on next before you take a break. So much easier to jump right back into being productive.

</comment><comment><USER38> Which model? I've looked into a couple of models on Amazon but the reviews were quite mixed regarding their accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER39> recently, it has been trying to implement GTD with an app. having all your tasks setup in a project context has helped to weed out the stuff that should not be a focus.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone hiring in Montreal? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN,<p>I am 25, a backend and API dev and I am considering a move to Montreal from Germany where I currently work (though I am not a German). I am open to full stack positions and would like to make Montreal my next home. Are there any startups hiring there? The latest whoishiring thread had none. <comment><USER2> You could try:

[https://angel.co/montreal/jobs](https://angel.co/montreal/jobs)

There is also:

[http://ca.indeed.com/jobs?q="full+stack"&l=Montreal%2C+QC](http://ca.indeed.com/jobs?q="full+stack"&l=Montreal%2C+QC)</comment>


Obamacare data hub a 'honey pot' for ID thieves, warn critics - <AUTHOR> http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-data-hub-a-honey-pot-for-id-thieves-warn-critics/article/2533323

<comment><USER2> Aah, the Washington Examiner. Always a reliable source of unbiased, insightful news.

If those critics are genuinely worried about consumer protection/privacy, they'd have expressed the same concerns when it comes to private companies sharing patients' personal medical data without their consent:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/24drug.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/24drug.html)

and

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/technology/personal- data-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/technology/personal-data-takes-a- winding-path-into-marketers-hands.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> ...that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_\(computing\))</comment>


Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/technology/microsoft-expected-to-introduce-tablet.html?_r=1&ref=technology <comment><USER2> This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Windows cash flow stream, trying to get their organizations funded.

You'd think they could just leave and found their own companies, but no, they'd have to make something people wanted relatively immediately, instead of being able to mouth platitudes about being "strategic" and "building moats" to "protect" Windows and so on and so forth.

Or if you prefer, there is a Windows Tax, and these divisions are like government projects, each trying to justify their existence and draw upon the tax revenues. Like government projects, they are not accountable to the people who pay the taxes, just faceless mandarins at the top.They only lose if they are silly enough to cause a scandal with their foolishness and embarrass the company into firing them and defunding their projects.

Building Kin, then killing it, then getting into bed with Nokia, then building their own tablet... Reminds me of the way the city contractors tear up my street, then pave it, then tear it up again, then pave it again, and so forth. As long as the bureaucracy is in control, and as long as the tax dollars keep flowing, it's a game of who has the best PowerPoint.

<comment><USER3> Because Gates managed to more or less bootstrap Microsoft, he and Ballmer have maintained a significant degree of control. This allows them to orient the company toward the long term, rather than chasing this quarter's advice from Wall Street analysts.

Microsoft has always approached relationships with a B2B strategy - the _mea culpa_ following the red ring of death shows the way in which that culture extends into the consumer side of the equation. Management's job is to make sure that there are dividends going to all those pension funds which own their stock, not to entertain bloggers.

If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Releasing their own hardware also brings the Windows RT restrictions regarding BIOS into a sensible light - not that dearth of consumer interest in Linux tablets made all the whining sensible.

I suspect that Microsoft has looked at the existing tablet landscape and sized it up pretty accurately as people want eReaders and iPads, and believe that the best way to expand the market is to get telemetry on how tablets are actually used.

Unlike your local paving company, Microsoft is gambling their own money, not driving up profits by looking for change orders.

<comment><USER4> > If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term > strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably > because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware > manufacturers.

Current Windows tablet makers may infer that investing money on Windows 8 tablets is as likely to pay off as the last round. The story there is similar to the iPod natural monopoly -- no one made any money on any of those cheaper- but-not-cheap-enough hard-drive-based portable music players. What is needed is an optimal hardware+software combo, plus a different business model. Following Amazon's lead, it might make sense to sell a Win8 tablet at cost and make the profit on cloud-based subscription services.

<comment><USER3> Who is in a position to follow Amazon's lead? The list of hardware manufacturer's is pretty short: Sony. Given the existence of a Games Hub focused on Xbox Live, even that seems somewhat problematic.

The second thing I see is that the idea of a media consumption device is somewhat antithetical to Microsoft's culture of treating computing devices as computing devices. Going to the roots of the Courier concept, it was about productivity not entertainment and Microsoft traditionally pushed productivity applications down onto mobile devices as a matter of course - I wouldn't be surprised to see Office on any tablet they provide.

Finally, one of the Metro red threads is that devices are occasionally connected, not permanently connected to the cloud like Chromium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft has been looking at making a tablet since the Courier which was previewed in the run up to Apple's release of the iPad. What their ultimate strategy is remains to be seen but my guess is that if they are branding and distributing the hardware it's as a result of lackluster interest among consumer electronics companies in manufacturing such a device.

Such disinterest, if it is the case, isn't particularly surprising given the consumer market's acceptance of Android driven tablets, and it may be reasonable to see Microsoft choosing to take on the hardware side for the sake of conducting research (ala' KIN).

Alternatively, a Windows 8 tablet under the XBox brand makes a lot of sense given the success of that franchise and the level of acceptance that console competitors have achieved with portable gaming devices...e.g. Gameboy and PSP. A gaming focused marketing strategy has a lot going for it - "Mom, I can even do my homework on it because it comes with Word" and integration with XBox Live is already part of the Windows Phone 7 Gaming Hub.

I suspect that a gaming focused device would match up pretty well against the iPad (and Android) because XNA offers a way of facilitating cross platform development. On a larger front, integration of a tablet with Kinnect would offer the potential for some really interesting applications out in the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER5> I bet this is the mysterious project Dave Cutler has been working on lately!

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms- dave-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-cutler- father-of-windows-nt-now-working-on-xbox/11684)

<comment><USER6> Speaking of Cutler, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the book "Show Stopper!", which describes the early days of Windows NT.

[http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation- Micr...](http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation- Microsoft/dp/0029356717)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am looking forward to this. Currently, I am using my wife's iPad now and then, and while the display and smoothness of interaction is top notch, I can't say I like the operating system... iOS isn't bad as an application launcher, but I find it too restricting for a tablet. I can't do basic things like configure something like startup script for an app, forward the output of one program to another one, etc. etc... While a lot of people seems to like iOS, something like Windows with touch seems much more appealing to me. Moreover, I could then have one system in both my PC and tablet, which is also (at least theoretically) great.

I also own an iPhone, and there I think iOS is great, since I want my phone to be an application console, and nothing more. But in tablet, I'd like it to be more like a computer, so iOS is not adequate for me here.

<comment><USER8> I'll have to wait and see.

I'm wishing against hope that they'll bring to life some of the features in the Courier concept: Infinite journal, clip and paste, touch+stylus (stylus for writing ideographs --which are cumbersome by finger).

Dual screen? Maybe as an alternate model. One of the main ideas is that it would not just be a presentation medium but also a production medium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Finally. One of the major reasons I use Apple-products today is that the hardware and software works together out of the box, which creates the feeling that they were made for each other.

With clunky PCs, I've never experienced that feeling. Hopefully Microsoft can get it right this time, and make it feel like a quality product. While I enjoy using my Apple devices a lot, they do need some competition to fuel innovation.

If Microsoft manages to pull this off the right way, with a feeling of great quality to it, I could even see myself buying one to try out Windows 8 properly.

<comment><USER10> This would burn so many bridges with their hardware manufacturers that some would defect and go with some other platform almost immediately.

Microsoft thinks they're the king of the hill with Windows but it wouldn't take long for vendors to team up together and make Chrome OS, Android, or some other Linux variant into a viable alternative.

All this alternate OS would have to do is everything that Windows XP does. The number of Windows 7 specific applications is shockingly low.

<comment><USER11> Disagree. The hardware manufacturers aren't exactly rolling in high quality operating systems to choose from. What are their other choices? Linux. Many will of course argue that Linux is great and is an obvious choice, which would be a fair enough argument, but for the larger majority of the population who know Windows and don't want to learn something new, the manufacturers will need to stick with Windows or risk alienating those potential customers.

Also, the argument is predicated on the assumption that this is a zero sum game. Microsoft's value proposition isn't suddenly going to be so amazing that no consumer will purchase a non-Microsoft PC. In the same way, I find it highly likely that if Apple's OS were available for licensing, a lot of PC manufacturers would license it without regard for the fact that Apple's hardware is probably superior.

<comment><USER10> Microsoft's strength in the tablet space is anything but assured. People don't use proprietary Windows applications on them. They're not expecting to run high-end accounting packages or SQL Server or do .NET development.

It's not even clear what Microsoft's value proposition is in this new space.

If you look at applications on the iPad and Android, only a small portion of them are what you might term conventional by desktop standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Designed by Microsoft and made by Nokia? This could be the very reason Nokia opted for Windows phone than choosing Android.

<comment><USER13> I think it's the other way around. MS partnered with Nokia, and then decided Nokia could do a tablet for them, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought folks already knew about this?

I know at least a few tech folks who have _seen_ the Microsoft tablet demo'd, and been plied with free drinks to forget the experience.

I can't believe that me, a tech guy in Los Angeles, heard about this (and saw a MSoftie in our shared office showing it to some folks) before people in NYC, SV, or Seattle. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER15> Where'd all the comments go today? Great articles, no commentary? Is everyone on their way home from WWDC?

<comment><USER16> I stopped reading at the second paragraph.

      Microsoft is about to concede that Apple may be onto something.

Microsoft has been wanting to do a tablet for a decade. It's not like Apple invented the concept.

<comment><USER17> Maybe you should keep reading as you've completely misinterpreted the sentence. The author is stating the Microsoft has spent a long time trying to make a tablet by building software and leaving the hardware to others while Apple builds both the software and the hardware. Then the author states that maybe Microsoft is realizing they should build the hardware too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They could call it the Zune tablet.

</comment><comment><USER19> If this is true, is sounds a lot like Microsoft's foray into the portable digital music player market.... It reeks of trying to play catchup, but not quite ever getting there.

</comment><comment><USER20> Unless they have a screen that can rival the Retina, this is dead on arrival.

<comment><USER21> What if its for 50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Or if it allows you to play Xbox games remotely over the internet? Or if it has great handwriting recognition? Or if you can program on it using any language you want?

<comment><USER20> 50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Then Microsoft loses an epic fortune and only has users without money.

play Xbox games remotely over the internet? It's just unfeasible. Control schemes on a tablet do not translate to console games.

great handwriting recognition? Then it's going to require a stylus, and many won't care. Not a good enough feature... The world has largely moved on from this desire.

program on it using any language you want? Lol! We're talking about Microsoft here! It's going to be a WinRT walled garden!

<comment><USER17> You're missing the point that there isn't a _single_ point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it.

If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, _then_ it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful metric to look at.

<comment><USER20> The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a _single_ point of failure, that's the one to bet on.

Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market... even less so after the Retina iPad. Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition.

I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a loss, and switched.

<comment><USER17> > The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component > of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a > single point of failure, that's the one to bet on.

I disagree with all my heart, soul, brain and everything in the universe. The dominating feature of a tablet is the software.

> Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market..

[citation needed]. Android has been slow to pick up but is slowly commanding more and more of the market. Android started from behind on tablets but is working to catch up; i.e., they're competing.

> Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition.

I would consider that fortunate, not unfortunate. When is a high bar for competition a bad thing?!

> I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line > Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a > loss, and switched.

That's fine. I find the screen to be the _least_ important part of a tablet. I'd take 800x600 running Android _any day_ over a high res iPad. You and I are different people with different preferences. The market is made up of many people like us, and the tablets that fit the most of us the best will do the best in the market. You cannot take your personal preference and impose it on the market. You will be wrong.

<comment><USER20> When your phone has 1280x720 native resolution, it's a little hard to accept the same resolution on a tablet.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


BofA mails your PIN to the same address as the card it unlocks - <AUTHOR> http://www.scrollinondubs.com/2011/01/25/bofa-pin-security/

<comment><USER2> I thought this was normal? They'd have two separate mailings sent from two locations such that they would only meet at the destination's mailbox on separate days. Then, after receiving the card, it'd have to be activated by calling an 800 number and giving some information, at which point they might also force a PIN change.

Also, he worries about the PIN being stored somewhere in plain text. If one- way hashes were used, anyone obtaining the hash would only need to test it against 10k possible values to get the original.

<comment><USER3> Use HMAC and not plain hashes.

<comment><USER4> HMAC's verify the integrity of a message; they don't have any use in this setting.

<comment><USER3> If the attacker doesn't have the key, he will have to bruteforce the full hash and not just 9999 values. Or what is the different use here? The root post was referring to storing hashes and not passwords (better to store HMACs and not hashes).

<comment><USER4> There is a difference between a HMAC and encrypting a hash, or a HMAC and a salted a hash.

HMAC means Hash based Message Authentication Code.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAC>

<comment><USER3> I thought HMAC was equivalent to an encrypted hash.

<comment><USER4> From that link:

HMAC(K,m) = H((K ⊕ opad) ∥ H((K ⊕ ipad) ∥ m)).

<comment><USER3> Why would HMAC be inappropriate in this case (of storing user credentials)? Is there a vulnerability?

HMAC(key, password) instead of hash(password) or hash(salt+password)

<comment><USER4> I don't know of any attack. However, my point is just that HMAC means using hashing for a message authentication code. Encrypting hashes makes more sense as to what's going on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where else would you like them to send it?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, good question. Guys, not _everything_ that B of A does is evil, just sayin'.

Next hyperbolic headline: B OF A TRACKS YOUR ACCOUNT BALANCE AND RECORDS EVERY PURCHASE!

<comment><USER7> To take this joke and place it right back into reality:

Holy fuck, if a bank were to actually track _every_ purchase I make, I'd freak out and switch banks. I always keep a bit of cash on hand so I have the freedom of buying something that isn't tracked by anyone. It's nice to be able to buy a beer without your bank knowing about it, you know?

I really really hope no bank every tries to pull anything like that. Even those of you who use cards for everything must appreciate the _idea_ that you're able to buy things without your bank knowing what you bought, or even that you bought anything at all?

<comment><USER6> I actually use cash as often as possible, but not out of paranoia or privacy concerns. You can't avoid being a drop in the sea of data collected nowadays, and it's awfully self-centered to think that a for-profit corporation gives a rat's ass that you bought a beer. Using that information to determine my insurance premium? Yeah, that would be a problem.

I tend to use cash simply because I'd rather have more of the money I spend go to the actual retailer (especially if it's a small business) than the bank. As a former retail business owner, I know how oppressive transaction fees are... yes, even debit card purchases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> His real problem seems to be they sent him his PIN when he didn't ask for it.

As for sending the PIN in the mail, sometimes people forget their PIN. He lists three forms of communication he claims are more secure: voice, fax & inbox on the https site. Banks can more easily verify the mailing address because it's easier. At least with that you've got a mailman checking that the name matches the address. I realize that's not foolproof, but what is? It's easier than trying to verify a phone or fax number actually belongs to the right person. And with https, not everyone owns a computer, but it's rare for a bank opening an account for someone without a fixed address. Even when account statements are sent to a P.O. Box, they generally ask for a physical address for their records.

All three can be secure if there's proper authentification, but again, if he didn't need or ask for it in the first place then that's the real problem.

Edit: another problem with voice is the the bank employee on the other end of the line has to be able to see the plaintext PIN to speak it. Banks I have worked at strictly limited the number of people with access to that info, you couldn't just walk up to a teller and have them look up your PIN, for example.

</comment><comment><USER9> Re: Stored hashes - they can be stored encrypted while the company can still retain the ability to decrypt them. This is how you store credit card numbers.

They may have generated a new PIN and it just happened to be his old one? Could be.

Do they send it registered mail? What would happen if someoene did get to your mail before you - could they use the card? what would the bank do when informed of it?

Whwther or not it's bad for you, the consumer, depends on all these things.

</comment><comment><USER10> Agreed that it's not the best solution, but it is what every bank (at least here in the UK, and from the sounds of it, in America too) does.

As to storing the PIN in plaintext, that's not even the bank's decision, a single bank can't decide to go against the entire chip+pin system.

Side question: AFAIK, chip+pin is far less common in America than in UK/Europe, with many people still using magnetic+signiture. Am I out of date, or is this still the case?

<comment><USER11> I live in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen a chip+pin card.

Most stores will take ATM/debit cards (using PIN) as an alternative to credit cards (using signature), but the ATM/debit cards use magnetic stripe like the credit cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I initially rolled my eyes at the rant, but he does make some good points.

I've never thought about it before, but a bank really has to reason no send your pin number to you in print, or store it in a form that they could access.

Or do they?

</comment><comment><USER13> Every bank I've ever had done this.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's nice to see an example of real life security holes instead of software security holes

<comment><USER15> I don't know. It's basically software with a sneakernet last hop and mtr would take _forever_! If by "real life" security, you mean "physical" security, I don't see any physical security issue. Even in the military, this sort of stuff would be handled by crypto guys, not masters-at-arms. As far as physical security of the mail, FWIW, you can ship Top Secret through the US Mail. Just double-envelope it and send it registered.</comment></comment>


Reabble – RSS Reader for E-ink Amazon Kindle - <AUTHOR> https://reabble.com/?utm_source=ynews&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=product <comment><USER2> I wish RSS was more popular. It is so useful. I think the general public doesn't think they have a need for it.

I still lament the loss of Google Reader, and haven't found a replacement that I'm happy with yet.

<comment><USER3> What if, there was a repo that contained tons of scrapers similar to Homebrew. Each scraper makes an ATOM feed for sites without one. Anyone can run their own feed repository on their own server. Community contributions help keep scrapers up-to-date.

<comment><USER2> What's Homebrew?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a couple of e-ink readers that run Android eg Onyx BOOX, MIDIA, Icarus. However they're all tiny vendors, often no play store by default, and old versions of android.

I'd love a good quality eink tablet that runs recent stock versions of Android with play store. Ideally I wouldn't have to jailbreak. Surely there is a big market for this - there are hundreds of color screen tablets like - surely a few eink ones are possible? Any suggestions?

<comment><USER2> The kobo readers run linux and seem to be pretty hackable. You can put Android on them (I only saw Android v2.3 with a quick google though, not sure if they'll run something more recent).

I bought a Kobo Glo (which I'm very happy with, incidentally), intending to hack in a hardware page-turn key (or even a cordless wifi one using an ESP8266 if possible), but I could never work out how I would be able to do it.

The ebook reader companies, like most corporations, want the consumer to be locked into their ecosystem. I assume some of the cost of the reader is offset by the profit from ebook sales. So it would be against their business model to sell one where you could just easily install any software you want.

<comment><USER5> I currently use a Kobo Aura HD (same display as the Onyx Lynx T68 but no Android). Replaced the Kobo firmware with Kobo Start Menu and KOReader [1] and I now have about as perfect of a barebones reader that I have been able to find in my quest so far. I was very unhappy with the stock Kobo firmware: the scanning on startup to build a sql-lite DB of my books was insane when there are 15+ GB of books to scan. The alternative firmware provides a file manager and an excellent e-reader application and that's all I have ever wanted in a basic e-reader. I have yet to see an "indexing" solution work well and I dread seeing them in action now given how absolute time sinks they have been for me over the years.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/3h83ls/how_much_does_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/3h83ls/how_much_does_the_kobo_glo_hd_phone_home_any/)

<comment><USER2> Can you think of any way to get KOReader to respond to a hardware page turn button? I'd like to hack one into my kobo, I'm good with hardware but not sure where to start with getting the software to respond.

I know that there's a serial port inside most kobos, I wonder if there's a way to get it to turn pages with a command through serial. If that was possible I could use an attiny, and that would probably fit inside the case.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, I don't have any good ideas there. It seems to me that emulating the IR sensor trigger for a mid-right or mid-left touch is the first approach I would try. My next attempt would comprise of adding a cheap device to the USB port and look into writing a driver to interact with it. Mobileread.com/forums has an active Kobo forum and I suspect they might be able to help better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> $0.90/month? That's an odd price point. Is it tacked on to another subscription?

<comment><USER7> Inoreader is free too, with upgrades you can pay for. Looks like this only works with Inoreader.

<comment><USER6> What I mean, is that $0.90/month is not a price point that works well with a credit card processing fee. Unless it's billed yearly or something.

<comment><USER8> If you deal with a lot of small transactions you get a special agreement with your payment processor which basically removes the flat transaction fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish somebody did a similar service for Pocket. I guess having a native client for reading files will never happen (been waiting for years..!). But I could also use an interface for reading articles while I'm online..

<comment><USER10> Instapaper for Kindle might be better.

[https://www.instapaper.com/apps](https://www.instapaper.com/apps)

[https://david-smith.org/blog/2012/10/11/instapaper-on-the- ki...](https://david-smith.org/blog/2012/10/11/instapaper-on-the-kindle- paperwhite/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can do this very well without paying anything though? I just have my rss subscription email my kindle email and it worked perfectly?

</comment><comment><USER12> Wait, so this is just a website, not an app?

<comment><USER13> Kindle doesn't have apps. The only other option would be a service that automatically adds PDFs for you by emailing them to your kindle address.

<comment><USER14> Instapaper actually does this. You can have it e-mail everything you've added to Instapaper to your Kindle as a kind of personally curated newspaper. It's not well publicized but is relatively easy to configure in your Instapaper account.

<comment><USER15> I've found the Instapaper Kindle export to not include article images. Very frustrating and devs don't seem to care (and probably care even less now with being bought up).

<comment><USER16> Yes, when it occurs it totally breaks the experience of reading long reads on the kindle. This, and the fact that multi-pages articles are sometimes not properly fetched.

I'm working on generating perfect (all images, all pages) .mobi periodical files from rss feeds, send me a mail (in my profile) if you want to test a MVP when it is ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, the icon sure looks like Instapaper's

<comment><USER10> At least they didn't use lowercase.

 _"Lowercase letters?" Erlich says, "Every fucking company in the Valley has lowercase letters. Why? Because it's safe. But we aren't going to do that."_</comment></comment>