Audio and Video support in HTML 5 - the basics-Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://microreviews.org/audio-and-video-support-in-basics-html-5/ <comment><USER2> It appears that Google's WebM (VP8) codec in all likelihood _does_ infringe on existing patents: [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/googles-webm- vp8-all...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/googles-webm- vp8-allegedly-infringes.html)</comment>


World's Scariest Stock: Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/10/29/worlds-scariest-stock-google.aspx

<comment><USER2> 1\. Virtually zero barriers to entry

Incorrect. This is where many analysts have been wrong, and hence have been underestimating goog's longevity. Google has one of the largest barriers to entry of any tech company. Personally, I think larger than Microsoft's. Here is why: they solve ridiculously hard problems and make it seem simple and easy, and monetize it well! Yahoo, Microsoft, and all the 2nd tier search companies cannot hold a candle to Google's ability to search and index. Why? Google has the smartest people in the world working hard and enjoying themselves while working there.

2\. Competition from the other big dogs

Incorrect. The other big dogs are falling rapidly behind. Microsoft is not doing well on the web, momentum is basically carrying them. Yahoo is not doing well, again they are doing a decent job at making money being second horse, but they do not do anything innovative on search or advertising, they eat up the scraps. AOL clearly is dying. Google's margins are much higher than any competitors, and this is massively important.

The other arguments could hold, but I don't agree with them entirely. Generally, I feel the advertising based model allows them to monetize any product they create, from web mail to any of their newer products, including potentially free wifi.

Just my two cents.

<comment><USER3> What's so ridiculously hard about indexing and searching? Google does it well, but if I had to use MSN or Yahoo I'd hardly notice.

It's very hard for a startup to beat Google at general search, but by choosing a subset (cheap prices, reviews of consumer electronics, vacations, flights, symptoms of illnesses, mailinglists and forums, blogs, movies, music lyrics, torrents, shareware, etc etc etc) startups will slowly encroach on Google's territory.

Finally, it may be very difficult to build a better Google, but I find it extremely easy to _imagine_ one.

<comment><USER4> Aren't tons of little specialized search engines the problem Google was made to fix?

<comment><USER3> But Google hasn't fixed it. If you're looking for electronic parts, Octopart works much better than Google.

But how to find Octopart? How to even know it exists? I envision a search engine that gets to know you, asks for clarifications, and delegates to a suitable specialized search engine.

I bet a startup is working on something like this right now.

<comment><USER5> But building an indexing system that google already has set the standard for is a little more than what any "little" startup can do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Heh. This is the second 'Google is overpriced' article I've seen from the same user. A few new howlers:

"Google's core competency - search -- has barriers to entry the size of LEGO walls. If two guys starting from their dorm room were able to topple one-time reigning search king Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), what makes you think that Google itself is any more secure?"

What, indeed? Well, for starters, Larry and Sergei are probably aware that, if it's 1998 all over again, the next Larry and Sergei are going to eat their lunch. This is sort of how France was aware in 1939 that, if it was 1914 again, the Germans would go straight for Paris.

"Look no further than the whopping price Google was forced to offer up for DoubleClick as proof of what can happen when you pit a couple of ludicrously cash-rich companies against each other."

I would suggest looking a lot further, actually. Most of Google's acquisitions go unreported (at least that's the impression I get from people in a position to know). Obviously, the most overpriced deal will get the most attention -- but that's practically a tautology. Google is probably able to buy smaller startups for less because they pay half the cost in dollars, and half the cost in I'm-working-for-Google cred.

"That said, binding the company's fortunes so tightly to an approach that has left heaps of corpses in the corporate graveyard is more than a touch frightening."

Which corpses does he have in mind? If he's thinking of dot.coms from the late 90's, he's thinking of the early version of a business Google got right, which seems as relevant as noting that Henry Ford was doomed because look at what happened to to that horse-drawn carriage company down the street. I don't know what else he could have in mind -- television, radio, product placement, and outdoor advertising aren't doing noticeably poorly (and if their returns do start to drop, the first thing to check is whether or not it's Google's fault).

"Google forecast: Underperformance, with a slight chance of greatness Again, I love Google, and I have huge respect for the company's accomplishments. The company could innovate itself to outstanding returns for many more years to come. But given the... fat valuation on the shares, I certainly wouldn't bet on it."

That's it. That's the case against Google. Good, but not 52X earnings on $4 billion in annualized earnings great.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you disagree with the specifics, but agree in general terms that GOOG is overpriced?

<comment><USER2> GOOG is 'overpriced' because of their aggressive growth. It is quite rare for someone of their size to be posting double digit quarterly growth rates.

<comment><USER7> The problem is even when you discount future earnings (accounting for this growth rate), GOOG is _still_ overpriced. So then you start trying to justify the value on other lofty factors which are more difficult to quantify. This practice is totally deja vu from 2000...

<comment><USER3> I thought Google was overpriced when it was $170 a share, and I shorted it. Lost me quite a bit of money. I was wrong, it wasn't overpriced then. It is overpriced _now_ , but I've stopped speculating.

<comment><AUTHOR> As traders say (I think Keynes said it first):

" _The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent_ "

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with just about everything said here. I don't feel so strongly about some of those points, but they're all legitimate arguments to a certain degree. However, there's one thing I'd like to add to the author's argument.

Google lacks one thing that will prevent its true value from growing into its current market capitalization: trust. We already trust so much of our lives to Google. They know what we search for and do on the web, what we do with our time (Calendar), who we speak to and what we say (Gmail), and so much more.

People (and the regulatory authorities) were skeptical (and afraid) of Google's acquisition of Double-Click because of the "scariness factor." Soon, Google will hit a point where people will no longer trust it with certain kinds of information. People's lack of trust, or perhaps anti-trust legislation, will provide some setbacks for the company in due time.

Of course, this will leave "gaps" for more trustworthy young entrepreneurs to take the stage in certain areas; areas that people no longer trust Google to dominate. In reality, Google has nearly unlimited potential, but all-in-one integration in our lives can only reach a certain point before we become uncomfortable.

<comment><USER3> Nobody I know cares about that. Nobody even realizes that Google stores every single search you do. People should care, but they don't, and they're not going to either.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps. You and I don't care, not yet. I use just about every mainstream Google product/service available. But, we're not most people. Most people are already weary about what they do with their personal information.

There will be a time in the not too distant future when this barrier will be crossed. Giving any large, corporate entity too much information is often perceived as dangerous, because they have a greater ability to utilize/mine/profit from that information than a new startup. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...</comment></comment></comment>


Prof. Dr. Style: Top Web Design Styles of 1993 (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/ <comment><USER2> To comment a bit on the introductory topic (interface design vs. graphic design), for a while there around when this was published, it seemed like we were going to finally understand the difference between UI design and graphic design, and I'd occasionally see Balsamiq sketch-style wireframes of A UI paired with Illustrator style guides as the input to customer conversations and after acceptance as the input to the implementation process (with answers to things like "what is this component called" or "is this something we plan on using more than once") but now it seems the trend has regressed with Invision prototypes made of static raster images -- worse even than the "here's a PSD, have fun" days -- and I have to ask for documentation of font faces, border radii, get the copy as actual text, etc., and determine what the intentions behind a design are by myself -- "Guess this color is 'primary', this one 'secondary' and uh this one is... just 'yellow'" "Oh... there's two slightly different shades of red between this and that page examples... I will assume that's a mistake, until I hear any different...".

</comment><comment><USER3> I love how he extracts the underlying beauty from these "ugly" pages...

> They look according to the viewer's browser settings. This reveals the > belief of the early 1990es that any visual design should be left at the > discretion of the user.

> Page authors wouldn't define colors, fonts margins and line-lengths. In turn > end users set their preferences for colors, fonts, links, graphics in their > browsers, according to their needs or taste. Not a big deal, one can say, to > decide if to see all the pages of the internet on a white or a gray > background. But don't think about colors, think about the concept -- each > user was defining the look of the whole WWW for themselves.

Reminds me of Kerouac saying more or less that anyone could make Paris look beautiful, but the real artist can make Topeka holy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Quite a lovely style. I wish web pages were this lightweight today...

</comment><comment><USER5> Simple and to the point, these sites! Just adjust the fonts and spacing and most sites would look much more modern.</comment>


Don't Delay Now is the Time to Start Your Web Startup. - <AUTHOR> http://thenetsetter.com/blog/startups/dont-delay-now-is-the-time-to-start-your-web-startup/

<comment><USER2> Posted this over on the blog, but interested to hear views:

Having read Outliers, what struck me about it was that - despite being a very interesting read - you could only really define the path and circumstances leading to Outlier success with the benefit of hindsight.

Whilst you can argue it is a good time to start up, it is hard to see until years down the line if a particular skill set and particular market conditions did actually lead to the success seen by the people mentioned in the book.

</comment><comment><USER3> The power of hindsight makes all things obvious with time. Uncertainty of an idea or skill in a market will always be there.

So it's always pretty accurate to say "now", because "later" is rarely a good time to start.</comment>


Ask HN: How do i go about getting freelancing or remote work - <AUTHOR> I would like tips, insights and your advice on how you think i should go about getting freelancing work or a remote job as i have tried most freelancing and job posting sites to no avail, I am even starting to think that maybe it has something to do with my location seeing as i am an African Django back-end  web developer. Do i need to content market and blog or what?. my github profile: https://www.github.com/smithmayowa20 <comment><USER2> I'd suggest perhaps making a polished portfolio to showcase your skills and give clients a preview of what you are capable of doing. This post I recently came across goes into the intricacies of that: [https://www.codementor.io/blog/Software-engineer- resume-2ouy...](https://www.codementor.io/blog/Software-engineer- resume-2ouyh6n4f6)

If you don't have a lot of freelancing experience at the moment, perhaps consider to set a lower rate to get a few jobs under your belt to help build up your profile and reputation.

Other than that, best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out [https://www.skipthedrive.com](https://www.skipthedrive.com)</comment>


Trigger.io and Apigee enable fast mobile app development for the enterprise - <AUTHOR> http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2012/10/09/trigger-io-and-apigee-enable-fast-mobile-app-development-for-the-enterprise/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have any real world examples of Trigger.io apps? How's it compare to other services like PhoneGap?

I will be working on an iOS app shortly and am curious about Trigger.io. Parse looks like something I would definitely be able to use, but Trigger.io and the like make me uneasy. I don't want a crappy user experience.

So, has anyone created an app with Trigger that can be compared to or is indistinguishable from a native application (i.e. not HTML wrapped in a UIWebView)?

<comment><USER3> I was working on an unpublished trigger app at OkCupid Labs until recently. There's one EPIC WIN vs phonegap, which is that you never need to fire up xcode or eclipse. Builds happen on the command line and are way faster than native app builds.

There's one downside that's pretty severe: it's impossible to write native ui components (outside of the few they offer). We didn't care.

> So, has anyone created an app with Trigger that [is] not HTML wrapped in a > UIWebView?

Trigger is a way to create an app that is HTML wrapped in a UIWebView (and has access to native camera apis, etc), so, no, nobody has ever created such an app.

<comment><USER2> Whoops. That's my bad. Not sure what I why I typed that to begin with.

So do you think it would be a good idea to use Trigger if: a) I needed an end result fast, and b) I am not creating a game?

I have not done practical iOS development before so I don't know what I will be missing or what I will need if I go with Trigger instead of a native iOS application.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Trigger.io rocks. On top of mobile app development, they also help with browser add-ons. Check out what they allow for the zemanta add-on - [http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development- blo...](http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development- blog/2012/07/26/zemanta-takes-their-browser-add-on-across-platforms-with- trigger-io/)

</comment><comment><USER5> very cool!</comment>


Notorious Last Words from Death Row - <AUTHOR> http://www.oddee.com/item_98739.aspx

<comment><USER2> > "I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know > this."

Outrageous!</comment>


Ask HN: Would a resurrected aardvark.com work today? - <AUTHOR>

Back in the day, I was a huge fan and user of aardvark.com before it was bought out by Google.  Aardvark was basically a 'real time' question answering service where you can post a question, tag it, and receive an answer via google talk or other im means.
I legitimately got tons of questions answered through it, and was sad when it closed down.  I asked questions about food recommendations, cities, programming, and even gardening questions.
Would any of you want a resurrected site similar to aardvark.com?
For my 2 cents, a new aardvark style site would be slightly different by:
+ After you answer a question from someone, you can become their connection online.  After some users answered some questions from me, I would want to ask them specifically more questions.
+ I would also make aardvark structured categories.  At the end of the day, the tagging got a little bit gnarly. <comment><USER2> I'd be interested in it, but the challenge would be getting enough people involved (on both the answering side and asking side).

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point. Back then I feel aardvark heavily utilized a google chat bot.

What happened back in the day is you would chat with the aardvard bot, and it would come back with answers fairly quickly.

I'm guessing everyone else was on google chat also.</comment></comment>


Python vs. Ruby: A Battle to The Death - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/ruby/python-vs-ruby-a-battle-to-the-death/

<comment><USER2> So, Gary says both "I can't stand Ruby's Syntactic Flexibility" and "I wish Python had more Syntactic Flexibility." (Really, all he wants are blocks so that he can have RSpec, etc.) But he does point out some odd, and some good features of Ruby that are worth attention.

Make up your mind, please. ;)

His example that:

        >> x = Proc.new { 5}
        => #<Proc:0x00000001015f21a0@(irb):1>
        >> x()
        NoMethodError: undefined method `x' for main:Object
        	from (irb):2
        >> x[]
        => 5
        >> x.call
        => 5

Is also a bit crazy: Proc.[] is an instance method of a Proc that is aliased to Proc.call (crazy as that may be); proc() is a language feature for calling an object's _method_ (a proc isn't a method, it's an object--Proc.call _is the method_ ). And before you ask what about a method without an object, understand that they do not exist. There is a global object that receives all methods not associated with an object.

        >> def x
        >>   p self
        >> end
        => nil
        >> y = Proc.new { p self }
        => #<Proc:0x00000001015ecf48@(irb):4>
        >> x()
        main
        => nil
        >> y.call
        main
        => nil

And, in case you're confused about why y.call prints "main", the Proc's block is technically created within the scope of the calling or parent object. In other words, the block passed to the Proc is created in the main class and then delegated to the Proc instance--therefore when executed it belongs to, and references the scope it was created in: main. (A binding from the Proc itself is neither created, nor passed to the block. If it _were_ the block would return the same Proc inspection from line 4.)

And... the reason a "patch level release" (his words, not mine) added syntax is because 1.8.7 is a backport of new features from Ruby 1.9 down to Ruby 1.8. I don't claim to like or understand the version numbers, but the patch level is given like "ruby-1.9.2-p136" not as the third part of the number itself.

/rant

Sorry, I should stop here before I lose my whole morning.

<comment><USER3>
        And before you ask what about a method without an object, understand that they do not exist.

Technically, there are unbound methods (i.e. methods with no object) but you can't call them.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps more technically, unbound methods _are_ objects (as are [bound] methods, procs, etc.).

<comment><USER3> You are right of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Money quote, at about 15:20:

"The very attributes of Ruby that I find distasteful are what give rise to all the wonderful software that the Python world can never have. And vice versa -- the very thing that makes Python aesthetically pleasing to me is exactly what leads to not being able to do any of this cool stuff. Ever."

This is after complaining about how complicated Ruby syntax is, but then showing how RSpec uses that malleable syntax to make what he considers to be beautiful code.

</comment><comment><USER6> Related: [http://blog.extracheese.org/2010/02/python-vs-ruby-a- battle-...](http://blog.extracheese.org/2010/02/python-vs-ruby-a-battle-to- the-death.html) (blog post by the author)

[http://blog.peepcode.com/tutorials/2010/what-pythonistas- thi...](http://blog.peepcode.com/tutorials/2010/what-pythonistas-think-of- ruby) (Blog post about the video referred to by the author)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1097723> (HN discussion about that blog post)

</comment><comment><USER7> The example for "If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea." was very enlightening.

I always felt Ruby was a bit too irregular for my taste. Now I know why.

On the Cucumber thing, there is something similar in Pyccuracy. The Yahoo office in São Paulo is using it a lot.

<comment><USER8> There is also a project called Lettuce. It isn't quite as 'natural language' as Cucumber, but the added syntax isn't too much and is still quite readable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is any one else getting tired of these versus type articles?

<comment><USER10> This one was actually interesting. Usually they are obvious and boring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ruby overuses []. It is used in Array literals, but it is also an operator (i.e. a method with odd syntax) on several classes: Array, String, Fixnum, Bignum, Proc. In a language with dynamic typing, we should avoid having methods (or operators) with the same name and different function since calling nonexistent methods is how we catch errors.

The [] operator on Proc was new to me. I don't like the [] on Fixnum and Bignum, which is a bit operation: x[y] := (x << y) & 1\. Hence my fixes to Ruby would be:

      $ irb
      001> add = lambda {|x,y| x+y}
      => #<Proc:0x0000010089ef30@(irb):1 (lambda)>
       002> add[1,2]
      => 3
      003> 1[2]
      => 0
      004> class Proc; undef_method :[]; end
      => Proc
      005> class Fixnum; undef_method :[]; end
      => Fixnum
      006> class Bignum; undef_method :[]; end
      => Bignum
      007> add[1,2]
      NoMethodError: undefined method `[]' for #<Proc:0x0000010089ef30@(irb):1 (lambda)>
            from (irb):7
            from /usr/local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
      008> 1[2]
      NoMethodError: undefined method `[]' for 1:Fixnum
            from (irb):8
            from /usr/local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
      009> (100**100)[1]
      NoMethodError: undefined method `[]' for #<Bignum:0x00000101116f50>
            from (irb):9
            from /usr/local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'

I'm also tempted to remove [] from String, but the usefulness probably outweighs the occasional confusion from thinking a String is an Array.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use and like them both. I find Ruby more consistent and Python with better libs (for what I do). Either is a fine choice.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice talk, but in the questions and answers it would be better to see people instead of the blog address all the time.

+1 For the grammar graphs :)

</comment><comment><USER14> Can't we just agree that both Python and Ruby are awesome and rant about Java some more? ;)

</comment><comment><USER15> Lack of namespaces and monkeypatching (extending classes) are THE "features" that keep me from using ruby seriously every time I try to approach the language.

</comment><comment><USER16> Competition is good.</comment>


What kinds of open data would developers pay to access via an API? - <AUTHOR> What kinds of open data would developers pay to access via an API? A lot of open data is either hard to access, hard to find or in an unusual format. Let's say it was cleaned up, aggregated over a whole country or region, and exposed on a RESTful API with beautiful documentation. What kind of open data do you wish had this treatment? <comment><USER2> The kind of data that would help us to make decisions.

I would personally be interested in social media and web analytics data. Those are the only 2 I can think of that are open. I know it's out there but something simplified would be nice instead of us having to process and store every single tweet, like, etc.

There are many other types of data that I would love but are either owned by other corporations or are too expensive for a startup.

<comment><USER3> What do you think about BuzzSumo data?

<comment><USER2> BuzzSumo data would be interesting. I'd have to look deeper into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'ts incredible how many businesses revolve around this, you have the obvious ones like Lexus Nexis, but even more in the housing space you have the regional MLS's sole purpose of existence is to be the keeper of the data. Again in the housing space companies like First American just index the public records data. I can't say just because it's on an API with good documentation there's anything positive to come from paid access to open data. It's just a business model that seems wrong.

<comment><USER3> Why does it seem wrong if they do the heavy lifting of crawling/indexing all the data so you don't have to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd pay to use data about politics/governments. Who? How many? How Much ? We never know anything about the taxes we pay.

<comment><USER6> Consider checking out US Dept of Commerce's Census of Governments - it has a lot of information. There's also a big trend of state/local governments opening their budgets and expenditures to the public in new and engaging ways. Some examples:

\- [http://www.checkbooknyc.com/](http://www.checkbooknyc.com/)

\- [http://budget.dallasopendata.com/#!/year/default](http://budget.dallasopendata.com/#!/year/default)

\- [http://miamidade.budget.finance.socrata.com/#!/year/default](http://miamidade.budget.finance.socrata.com/#!/year/default)

\- [http://budget.topeka.org/#!/year/default](http://budget.topeka.org/#!/year/default)

* Disclaimer: I work for Socrata which powers all of the above links except for NYC Checkbook

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Retail/grocery pricing information. This barely exists in any capacity and is a literal goldmine once your database reaches critical mass.

On the other hand, it is fairly difficult data to gather - and even harder to keep up to date... it certainly falls into the class of "doing things that don't scale"

</comment><comment><USER8> Market data (closing prices good enough) including Indices data.

Bloomberg and Reuters are a monopoly.

Macro economic data (eg inflation, GDP) (the ones published by WB and sovereign states)

</comment><comment><USER9> better mapping data, give us Geo boundaries for cities and zipcodes etc. give us a database of all government land like schools, airports, parks, etc and appropriate Geo boundaries associated with them. this is a huge issue for delivery services right now, particularly those in the growing MMJ market where you cannot deliver to federal land or near schools

</comment><comment><USER10> -Weather -Time {time is not the same around the world} -Pricing of generic s stuff, gold, wheat, across multiple locations

<comment><USER11> You want to pay for a service, to convert times between timezones?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lots of open government provided data (eg: FOIA) is explicitly restricted from resale and many other use-cases.

</comment><comment><USER13> most financial data, but xignite is already charging for it

really annoying that the price on this hasn't come down yet

<comment><USER14> there are separate licensing fees for financial data distribution

order of magnitude higher ^2 than 'for consumption' personal use

<comment><USER13> I'm aware, that doesn't excuse the old antiquated formats they are using, or the ridiculous pricing model they use, or the lack of support for accessing this data in an efficient way

It isn't an efficient market and I am expressing my discontent with it.

There should have been a race to the bottom with pricing over a decade ago.</comment></comment></comment>


White Hat Hackers Would Have Their Devices Destroyed Under the TPP - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/white-hat-hackers-would-have-their-devices-destroyed-under-the-tpp?utm_s <comment><USER2> I don't understand the argument here.

The TPP is not itself a law. It's a meta-law, which commits its signatories to enact actual enforceable laws based on the framework established in the treaty.

No device can be destroyed "under the TPP". The TPP instead demands that its signatories enact laws so that they have a judicial process whose remedies can potentially include the destruction of devices. The TPP hasn't even been ratified yet, let alone enabled by law.

This seems like hair-splitting, but I don't think it is. I think the question of what impact TPP will have on security research depends entirely on what the enabling laws for the TPP look like in each country. In the US, our laws already cordon off security and interoperability research from anti- circumvention enforcement.

The TPP itself also acknowledges non-infringing use. First, note that the Vice article selectively quotes the leaked TPP text, which does not demand destruction of "anti-circumvention devices", but rather of devices engaged in _prohibited activity_. The TPP does not demand a prohibition on security research. Further, the TPP earlier (QQ.G.17) binds each party to balance IP law with fair use for criticism, comment, and research.

I'm not arguing that the TPP IP law is going to be a good thing for security research. It probably won't be (at least, not outside the US). But it's too early to know what it's impact is going to be, and certainly to early to say that it's going to result in the confiscation of security researcher laptops.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> The TPP hasn't even been ratified yet, let alone enabled by law._

Public debate precedes and informs whether a government will sign the TPP. If a government signs the TPP, public debate will precede and inform how a government chooses to implement exclusions which are permitted by the TPP.

The US has entered a 90-day window for public debate, 60 days of which will include access to the official text. [http://i.imgur.com/k6Je0Dz.png](http://i.imgur.com/k6Je0Dz.png) . Hundreds of industry lobbyists have had access and input to the TPP text for years.

Journalists and academics now have a short time window to try and understand possible interpretations of the TPP text. This will be like reading source code without Git history or comments.

 _> But it's too early to know what it's impact is going to be._

When would be a good time for public debate?

<comment><USER2> I didn't argue that it was too early for debate. I argued something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related threads from yesterday:

70 comments, _TPP final negotiated text – IP chapter_ , [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10359604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10359604)

150 comments, _The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared_ , [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10363500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10363500)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh, the TPP is going to be bad generally speaking. Trade deals don't tend to help out the little guy much, only the corporate interests.

<comment><USER4> FYI

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDiHspTJww&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDiHspTJww&feature=youtu.be)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do we stop the madness? And even worse how do we undo it after it's too late ?

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds more like "anyone who has ever ripped a cd or jailbroken their iPhone would have their devices destroyed under the TPP."

edit: the FCC have always had that power over pirate radio - maybe that's the new metaphor that's going to be pushed.

</comment><comment><USER7> It may not pass because neither tobacco nor diary farmers got carve outs.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think we need another black out the web day to protest the TPP... Maybe November 2nd?

</comment><comment><USER9> uh -- do these idiots not think that a "white hat hacker" could be doing something from a VPS/VM in a cloud behind six proxies??

Destroy that bitches!

<comment><USER10> Someone's credit card pays for that VPS/VM/Cloud... they can really destroy that as well.

All they are doing is forcing white to go black.

When everything is illegal everyone is a criminal.

<comment><USER11> > Someone's credit card pays for that VPS

I pay for mine with Bitcoin.

If this treaty and its ilk come to pass, I expect we'll see a massive flourishing of digital grey markets, with a heavy focus on anonymity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is as "hacker news" as it gets, but apparently it got flagged? Considering the age, upvote count and position relative to other stories, as well as that it does NOT have a lot of comments which apparently also pushes things down, it really seems that way, and that's just sad.

<comment><USER12> Ditto for this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10368404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10368404)</comment></comment>


PostgreSQL Domain Integrity in Depth - <AUTHOR> https://begriffs.com/posts/2017-10-21-sql-domain-integrity.html <comment><USER2> @craigkerstiens: Thanks for sharing. This is a good reference.

It seems that a BEFORE INSERT trigger call to a function remains a better solution than the domain approach presented here when evaluating more than VALUE. Otherwise, the domain-function approach seems useful.</comment>


A stupid website that turns what u send into speech and plays it on my speaker - <AUTHOR> http://annoyme.us <comment><USER2> Livestream is here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzjUwXX- azU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzjUwXX-azU)

Interesting project, but I think we all know how these things end up when anonymity is involved :)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't even press enter to send, must click the button...</comment>


Ask HN: Has Google Stopped Showing Page Rank to Public? - <AUTHOR> They had earlier declared they will not update page rank (may be they might do internally but will not show in public) but now even the old data has gone. <comment><USER2> Yes, they've deliberately killed it [1]. Page Rank itself hasn't been that useful for some time due to the fact that Google changes its algorithms regularly to weight a multitude of different factors.

[1] [http://searchengineland.com/rip-google-pagerank- retrospectiv...](http://searchengineland.com/rip-google-pagerank- retrospective-244286)</comment>


The best interview question I've ever been asked - <AUTHOR> http://www.cerebralmastication.com/2011/04/the-best-interview-question-ive-ever-been-asked/

<comment><USER2> On that subject, here's my favorite interview question to ask:

"What is something that's broken in the world that you want to fix?"

It's very open-ended so it tends to be a good conversation starter. Good candidates will have _some_ answer, it could be about anything. Not so good candidates will have some kind of waffling answer.</comment>


What are zk-SNARKs? - <AUTHOR> https://z.cash/technology/zksnarks.html <comment><USER2> The real question: what is a snarf?</comment>


Non Tech Founders – Why Do You Not Listen to Tech Advice from Tech People? - <AUTHOR>

Here are 3 scenarios that have happened in the past week or so:
1) A client wants to build his frontend on Sqaurespace while hosting his backend on the cloud (AWS). I told him we should just put it all on the cloud but he insisted on Squarespace so he can edit the frontend whenever he wants even though it will render data from the backend. He insisted so that is the route we're going. If you know tech, you know how incredibly stupid this is.
2) A different client considers a 20-minute run through of an app I developed to be adequate QA. I constantly tell him we need to put it in the hands of other people for many many hours to test. He disagrees.  More accurately, he politely agrees then ignores everything I said.
3) Related to #2, said client keeps adding new features literally hours before deployment deadlines.  I keep advising against to no avail.  Again, polite agreement, zero compliance.
Non tech founders, seriously, wtf? What is this universal impulse to disregard tech advice from knowledgeable people who you pay to help you? I don't understand the mentality. If my doctor told me to stop eating dairy, I don't challenge his assertion - I simply stop eating dairy.  Can someone explain? <comment><USER2> In my anecdotal experience non-tech founders are quite arrogant. They exhibit a Randian belief that they are capable of doing everything better than the peons who work for them, and like to dictate to others, especially technical folks, how things should be done. They tend to ignore advice from technical folks.

I don't know. Maybe only two out of the ten I've worked with have not cared and have actually listened to the advice of the techies. In one case, the techies forced them to rewrite everything in a new language for no real reason, and blamed a lot of shortcommings of the old system on the language when it was really a problem of poor implementation. In the 2nd case everything worked out great, and that founder's business is really taking off, traffic still nearly doubling every year. His stuff is running off a single WordPress server.</comment>


Fifty Women Say Salesforce Helped Sex Traffickers Exploit Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-27/fifty-women-say-salesforce-helped-sex-traffickers-exploit-them <comment><USER3> Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? Salesforce is a platform (albeit a horrible one I never want to work with again) and provides services to whoever pays. Illegal actions are between the local government and the user.

Criminals lie. They could claim to be a humanitarian company while trafficking. The only way for Salesforce to know would be to manually investigate all their stored data. Not only is that practically impossible, but it would also ruin them. Business information is private.

Then again, in lots of jurisdictions today, a landlord can be held liable for the tenant committing a crime. In these jurisdictions, if your tenant assaults someone on your property, you can be liable for millions in compensation. This is yet another way to drive former criminals back to crime. They aren't full citizens. They can't get a job to get money. They can't get a loan to buy a house. They can't even rent a place to stay because it's so risky. Since they've been effectively "unperson-ed", their only choice is going back to crime. At least if they're caught, they'll have food, healthcare, and a place to stay.

Stupid laws are stupid. If person A is legally responsible for person B's actions, they will necessarily start asserting control over person B's life. We do this to kids under the idea that they are too ignorant to know better. Why do we do this to mentally-capable adults? They are capable of independent decisions. Hold them responsible for their actions. Quit forcing Landlords, Salesforce, or whomever to play as parents and be legally responsible for other adults.

<comment><USER4> >Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows?

If a company provides products/services to someone with the knowledge those products/services will be used for a crime...then yes.

For example it's legal for an arms dealer to sell a gun, but illegal to sell a gun if the seller knows the gun is being purchased with the intent of being used in a crime.

Here what you have is Salesforce who allegedly sold its products/services to backpage knowing their software would specifically be used to facilitate prostitution and human trafficking. Whereas you - for whatever reasons - <USER2> to be concluding salesforce had no way of knowing their products/services would be used by backpage in the commission of a crime (ie your Windows analogy). However, the facts suggest SalesForce was well aware of backpages business practices and activities (and was publicly fighting against the same criminal activity, while simultaneously supplying software that facilitated the same). It's a tough case but human slaves and a corporation privately profiting from these activities while publicly "fighting" against the same won't play well to a jury.

<comment><USER5> Craigslist also had an adult section. Should anyone who sold software to Craigslist be held legally responsible as well?

<comment><USER4> I can't answer "if we should"...only as I explained above that under the law what you describe isn't enough on its own to create liability for the service provide, the legal threshold is whether the seller knew the buyer would use the good/service in commission of a crime.

So for example the power company who sold power to run backpage, could they be liable? Probably not.

But a tech company who allegedly custom built a database to facilitate backpages human trafficking/prostitution activities...maybe

<comment><USER5> They custom built a database to facilitate an adult classifieds section. Which on its face is not illegal, and the argument it was illegal was based on a technicality related to filtering and word replacement that removed their safe harbor protections. The owners themselves did not know this until the court case was decided years later so it seems weird to presume that Salesforce could know it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since it wasn't mentioned in the bloomberg article, whoever has been paying attention knows that shutting down backpage has made sex workers less safe and more dependent on pimps. Prostitution should be completely legal and brought into the light, not pushed into the shadows.

<comment><USER7> Full legalization increases trafficking and allows brothels, which are basically pimps who are able to operate legally. [http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitu...](http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitution_Increase_2012.pdf)

The Nordic Model - decriminalization of selling, with criminalization of purchasing - protects sex workers from pimps and has been very successful in the countries that have instituted it.

<comment><USER6> Human trafficking is just another word for illegal immigration. It just sounds more sinister and it gives a way for anti-immigration folks to sound humane and pretend like they care about the trafficked people, when they really care about not letting them in. As long as you have inescapable poverty and hardship in some countries, and no legal ways for people to get in, you'll have human trafficking. The only way to stop it is to let people in. The harder you try to ban it the worse it gets for the trafficked, but as I said, their well being is not the true concern of anti-trafficking laws at all.

As for sex work, there's absolutely no good reason why it shouldn't be completely destigmatized, decriminalized, and treated like any other kind of work. There are some inherent risks, but if it's decriminalized they can be managed and brought down to acceptable levels. There are certainly jobs with higher inherent risks, like working in lumber, or oil rigs, or construction. For women who aren't savvy enough to make it on their own, brothels are a good solution. With decriminalization, the bosses in brothels can be kept accountable.

<comment><USER8> > Human trafficking is just another word for illegal immigration.

No, it's not, because human trafficking can occur without crossing an limited- migration border.

As usually used, it's very close to the union of _de facto_ slavery and sex work. (To be fair, those categories have significant overlap, but there's a lot of push to include the parts of the latter that aren't the former within the reach of of the term.)

<comment><USER6> You mean there are people being "human trafficked" in their countries of origin? Can you provide an example?

<comment><USER8> > You mean there are people being "human trafficked" in their countries of > origin?

Yes; there are also people who are legal immigrants who are trafficked only _after_ arriving legally (immigrants, even legal ones, are often a vulnerable population.) And, even when illegal immigrants are trafficked, that is also often post-arrival, not part of how they can immigrate.

> Can you provide an example?

The one that is most frequently features in media reports is domestic sex trafficking of underage girls; but there is a lot more (surprisingly good coverage of a lot of variations is found, for now, on Wikipedia's page on trafficking in California [0], which is flagged for excessive detail.)

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Califor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_California)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems like this would all boil down to knowledge and intent. I have no love for salesforce but it seems like a big of a stretch to go after a tools manufacturer.

<comment><USER10> As a tools provider, sure, it makes no sense. But aren't they also a big services company as well, like Oracle? Will there be some record of an engagement on how to manage these particular pages?

And it would also be nice of "journalists" would differentiate between prostitution and sex trafficking. The cops, of course, are using the most inflammatory term possible to justify their actions.

<comment><USER11> > And it would also be nice of "journalists" would differentiate between > prostitution and sex trafficking. The cops, of course, are using the most > inflammatory term possible to justify their actions.

This is a civil suit, not criminal, brought by women who claimed they were abused by traffickers, which was enabled by Salesforce.

I can't find a single reference to the police in this piece, and the article clearly states that the plaintiffs allege trafficking in their case. So the piece is exactly correct to use the term "trafficking".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The entire 'sex trafficking' thing is a manufactured moral drama. It doesn't actually exist at scale. All the large 'sex trafficking' courts set up a few years ago have now closed due to lack of cases.

This is just the normal government/media cycle of using kids and/or sex in order to pass laws (ie, FOSTA/SESTA) to violate the rights of individuals and empower the state.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's impossible to evaluate the legitimacy of this without more technical details. "Providing customized database tools" could mean all sorts of things.

<comment><USER14> Salesforce allegedly helped them with their "trafficker and pimp database".

On one hand, that's Salesforce doing their job well. On the other, seems like they would know what's going on.

<comment><USER15> I mean, I doubt the criminals are using HUMAN_TRAFFIC_ROUTE and PIMP_QUOTA as column names. Past a certain point the logistics of a criminal enterprise looks just as generic as any other corp; It's kinda easy to see how Salesforce could be fooled

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Craigslist would have been shut down if they hadn't closed down their 'lonely hearts' section. Backpage was essentially a craigslist clone right down to look and feel and allowed prostitution advertising, which was the main substance and content of that site until they were closed down.

This is another difficult free speech and enabling platform 'responsibility' area which is easily exploitable by both criminals (human traffickers etc) and exploiters of the law's grey areas (Those suing SalesForce). Like the Michael Jackson accusers there is a danger that widely circulated accusations presented as fact by the corporate media will greatly damage SalesForce's credibility. huge sums of money as compensation/hush money are at stake and there is much to gain and little to risk for accusers in the current climate.

<comment><USER17> To be clear, Backpage didn't get shut down for merely hosting prostitution ads. They got shut down for actively editing ads featuring minors to remove references to their age, money laundering, purposefully not reporting missing and exploited children, and few other things that showed they were not just a neutral party displaying ads.

<comment><USER16> [https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona- investiga...](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona- investigations/2018/08/25/backpage-founders-prostitution-charges-settling- scores-michael-lacey-james-larkin/1097236002/)

as always it's complicated when free speech issues are involved

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the lesson here, is that by putting themselves out there as a beacon of equality and women's rights, Benioff has also made them a target for this type of attack. In other words, no good deed goes unpunished. I'm sure there were plenty of other vendors supporting Backpage.

</comment><comment><USER19> This 6* Min. clip (gender equality in the workplace) with Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff is outstanding and apropos to this thread. Benioff is reassuringly pro-equality (women's rights advocate).

[https://persagen.com/files/misc/benioff.mp4](https://persagen.com/files/misc/benioff.mp4)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Aside: for the techies here, in 2016 Salesforce purchased (Richard Socher's) MetaMind ... a superb group who continue to publish leading edge NLP/NLU papers ...

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/04/saleforce-acquires- metamin...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/04/saleforce-acquires-metamind/)

[https://www.recode.net/2016/4/4/11585854/salesforce- acquisit...](https://www.recode.net/2016/4/4/11585854/salesforce-acquisition- metamind-deep-learning)

Very forward-thinking.

</comment><comment><USER20> PG&E could be in trouble...

First, that big Camp fire last year; now, if it turns out they've been producing electricity that has been used by criminals... eek

</comment><comment><USER14> " _Starting in 2013, when Backpage's growth stalled, Salesforce took on the web portal as a client and provided tools to help manage its "trafficker and pimp database," resulting in Backpage's resurgence, according to the complaint. The lawsuit includes an order form billed to Backpage that's dated in December 2016._ "

</comment><comment><USER21> Unless Salesforce was doing a custom deployment for them, this kind of revisionism is a non-story IMHO.

Just to give context, I work at an adtech company and to be eligible to speak to an account manager, the customer has to spend upwards of 10 grand a month. Rest are self-served. We dropped Infowars as a customer `after` we got to know that they had been a customer for a while.

Would not be surprised if Salesforce has similar tiers and has magnitude more customers than we do.

</comment><comment><USER22> Big data will be used to identify, track, isolate, and then indoctrinate the most vulnerable members of society.

You will be shadow banned and gas lit into a pipeline that serves to supply the insidious demands of those who see humans only as resources.

We coders will unwittingly(poorly compensated) or wittingly(well compensated) algorithmically functionalize the pimp psychology and business practice into a system of sinister use.

For now it's just immigrants driving cars and delivering food, but you might guess what comes next.

<comment><USER23> Beautiful description of whats happening. Few can see what you describe through their lense of bias and rationalization

<comment><USER22> There's an algorithm out there looking for girls who don't ever get phone calls or texts from their dads...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is __very __different from Apple or Microsoft (assuming they had iphones / windows laptops), they are B2C and are not managing individual customer relationships.

Salesforce is a B2B company and actively manages every relationship that they have with every individual customer, because lots of their customers are businesses that are willing to pay $10K/yr, $100k/yr or even $1M+/yr for their cloud products (why? the world may never know).

This means that "Customer Success Managers" are constantly reaching out to Salesforce's customers to up-sell them. Anyone who works with Salesforce knows that the salesforce folks are constantly schmoozing their customers for an up- sell.

This report shows that Backpage was no exception. So people at Salesforce were emailing, calling, customizing software for, taking out to lunch and making deals with a company selling child sex slaves online. They knew and took the money anyways.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am most certain SF had no idea what was going on, and while any form of abuse is horrible it makes no sense accusing SF of helping in a crime where it's impossible for SF to know. It's like blaming a lawn gnome maker for somebody being beaten with a lawn gnome. Demanding SF monitors everything, or Google monintors all mails, to prevent criminal activity is causing more overall harm for society than those edge cases do. If not SF they could have used every other CRM with ease, I suppose, but SF, Google et al turning into the panopticon would harm everybody.

</comment><comment><USER26> evil people can use money for evil, does that make money evil and thus we should avoid having money? then only evil people would have all the money

evil people can use guns for evil, does that make guns evil?

evil comes from the heart into the hand and into the tool

if we demonize the tool then we surrender it entirely to evil

</comment><comment><USER27> On the one hand, they're probably not going to be seriously held accountable for supporting sex trafficking. Best case, the CEO gets uprooted, or they get a menial fine. Legislation to support bigger consequences would be great.

On the other hand, SESTA/FOSTA has had a chilling effect on any sexuality on any platform in the US. There's Facebook events for burlesque shows that are being removed by Facebook because the word "sexy" is included in the description. And non-profits that try to promote safer sex, support people in abusive relationships, etc are removed from social media or have their websites revoked because they have "sex" in the title.

Where's the middle ground? How can we create consequences for companies that act unethically without them then banishing all sex-related content?

<comment><USER28> By not making laws based on moral outrage but pragmatism. In countries where sex work/drugs/etc are legal - or at least decriminalised - it isn't necessarily done because the majority _feel_ this is the right thing to do, but because of harm reduction after consulting with experts in the field. Similarly, if you want less dead schoolchildren, this one weird trick of highly regulating firearms seems to work.

Also, there are other legal avenues, see OJ Simpson's criminal vs civil trials (edit: this trial is a civil one. Not everything that is wrong has to be a crime to be punished, and not every court system has to work by the letter of the law like the US does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You can't claim to be as a Service if you don't want all the downsides associated with it.

You can sell tools as is (not as a service), and if it is used for nefarious purposes, your hands are morally and legally clean. you can seek to make that specific tool illegal, but until then, everything's fair game, e.g. you can try to ban automatic weapons but you can't charge companies for selling them.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's a modern IBM punchcard case.

<comment><USER31> Seems like a bit of a leap to compare enabling prostitution (something that ~50% of Americans think should be legal [0]) to enabling industrialized mass murder and genocide.

Backpage definitely enabled trafficking in some cases knowingly or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made sex work safer in other cases.

[0] [https://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID...](https://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000121)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder whom did Salesforce annoy enough to warrant a media smear campaign against them.

<comment><USER33> Benioff seems like a tool. He puts his name on children's hospitals...it is possible to donate without people knowing, Keanu does it all the time. If you don't hate Salesforce, you haven't been paying attention. I've wanted forever to rid our company of anything to do with Salesforce, but I work with some people that can't handle change.

This law suit seems like a money grab. Go after the deepest pockets, but I personally won't shed any tears over it.

<comment><USER34> You are complaining about someone donating to a children's hospital and being credited for it?

<comment><USER35> Not talking about Benioff but yes I can complain. If you are very wealthy you have to contribute back to society, that's not a thing to admire but to require. And if you donate only a small percent of your wealth, say 1%, I don't think you deserve more credit than anybody having a net worth of $10k donating $100, in fact maybe less, even if the absolute amount is way more.

<comment><USER31> >And if you donate only a small percent of your wealth, say 1%, I don't think you deserve more credit than anybody having a net worth of $10k donating $100

That makes sense if you view charity/philanthropy as a signalling device or a measure for how generous and good people are.

Doesn't really make sense if you care about the actual good/contribution done though. Ceteris paribus, someone with net worth 100k giving 10k is doing more absolute good and helping more people than someone with net worth 10k giving 1k. Not to say small donations don't matter or aren't commendable -- they can definitely add up. But there is "more credit" given because the greater amount of money is (presumably) helping more people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "I just bought the prostitution module for my ERP, I hope it integrate well with accounting and procurement"

I am really curious as to how the developers justify taking this kind of gig.

<comment><USER37> This case is specifically about sex trafficking, which is coercive and distinct from prostitution. If you're asserting that sex-work is inherently unethical, and that developers have an obligation not to lend their services to it, you need to make that case.

<comment><USER38> Sex trafficking isn't distinct from prostitution in practice. Human trafficking is part of the prostitution supply chain.

<comment><USER31> > Human trafficking is part of the prostitution supply chain.

Is that an inherent fact of prostitution or a function of prostitution's dubious legal status?

One could make similar arguments about ultra-violent criminal cartels and marijuana in the past. "Smoking cannabis isn't distinct from funding Los Zetas in practice"

<comment><USER39> There are indications that the illegal status of prostitution does not in fact contribute to more trafficking, but the opposite.

[http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitu...](http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitution_Increase_2012.pdf) "This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows. "

<comment><USER31> Interesting that this study accounted for regional differences between prostitution legalization regimes, definitely something that needs to be considered considering these kind of markets do not exist in a borderless vacuum.

Have to wonder if the scale effect dominating the substitution effect hints that perhaps the Swedish model is optimal for reducing trafficking wholesale while reducing harm (i.e. Johns need strong disincentives in order to not be terribly indifferent people in aggregate) They suggest that the Swedish model reduces the scale effect but not enough data to say if it increases the substitution effect.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fast Bitcoin block validation without UTXO-index - <AUTHOR> https://bitcrust.org <comment><USER2> a very interesting innovation. Looks like it solves a bunch of verification issues in a clever way. The modular approach where the same data storage is used in different ways by the modules according to their purpose almost appears if some genetic algorithm were used to do optimizations.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Live comparison with Bitcoin Core is available at [https://bitcrust.org/results](https://bitcrust.org/results)</comment>


Linux on Windows (Wine in reverse) - <AUTHOR> http://wezfurlong.org/blog/2004/jan/linux-on-windows/ <comment><USER2> That's kind of cool, if a bit perverse. A much more practical solution is a headless Virtual Box running Ubuntu, which you SSH into and can install anything via apt-get, etc... I recently started using this on OS X (via Vagrant) and it's super useful, for instance having access Linux LaTeX packages instead of having to deal with MacTex (MacTex is probably fine, but the 1.5 gb download was crawling for me, while `apt-get install texlive` took a few minutes) For Windows I would imagine it would be even more useful, since fewer Unix tools are immediately available. I think I would probably prefer this to Cygwin, which was always a bit weird for me.

<comment><USER3> This works great on Windows as well. I use Putty to SSH the Virtual Machine. I develop linux applications on my Windows machine seamlessly. It's really better than Cygwin, but I use Cygwin for some stuff like git. I also managed to install node.js with Cygwin, which is kind of cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Linux>

"Cooperative Linux, abbreviated as coLinux, is software which allows Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel to run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine."

<comment><USER5> Imho cooperative linux critical flaw is that it doesn't share filesystem with the host windows

<comment><USER6> Colinux has the ability to mount your windows fs nowadays. I think the Linux module is called "cofs".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Check out Windows Services for Unix. You'd be surprised what works out of the box with it. It also enables case sensitive access to NTFS volumes, which can be really useful.

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

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of lxrun:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lxrun> [http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~steven/lxrun/lxrun- FAQ.html#Q0....](http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~steven/lxrun/lxrun- FAQ.html#Q0.2)

lxrun also trapped syscalls, and supported running Linux binaries on Solaris, SCO UnixWare, and SCO OpenServer.

I used it in the late 90s as a quick hack to run linux binaries that were a huge headache to build on weird systems like OpenServer.

</comment><comment><USER9> See also (2001): "LINE Is Not an Emulator. LINE executes unmodified Linux applications on Windows by intercepting Linux system calls."

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/line/>

</comment><comment><USER10> january 2004

<comment><USER11> Updated on 22 May 2011 (the source is now available at bitbucket).

<https://bitbucket.org/wez/pengwin/src>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome. There's a lot I'd like to do without having to incur the overhead of a Virtual Machine

Like use the Linux BlueZ stack. But that still sounds remote at this stage.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always thought mist Linux packages have some sort of Windows version.

</comment><comment><USER14> This focuses on int 0x80, which is the old method; it's been replaced by the sysenter opcode, which is faster on newer chips. (This has been the case since Linux 2.5, and Pentium II+ processors; it was apparently first noticed on the Pentium IV.) Would this basic method work with sysenter?

<http://articles.manugarg.com/systemcallinlinux2_6.html>

<http://kerneltrap.org/node/531> (From 2002)

<http://lwn.net/Articles/18412/> (Yep, late 2002)

</comment><comment><USER15> I am surprised no one has mentioned Cygwin yet. <http://www.cygwin.com></comment>


Climate science document hacked - <AUTHOR> http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacked-hadley-cru-foi2009-files.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LuboMotlsReferenceFrame+(Lubos+Motl%27s+reference+frame)&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> It's kind of amusing to see these guys froth at the mouth at the prospect of scouring through millions of lines of text to find a couple of scientists with less than absolutely pure motivations and research methods. When the witch- hunt succeeds, it of course invalidates everything we leftist propagandists try to convince the people that we know!!

It's exactly parallel to creationists taking some instance of one scientist mistaking some fossil early in the century and milking that for decades to disprove evolution.

<comment><USER3> I'm just flagging it all and suggesting everyone else do the same. I don't know how global warming skepticism got so popular here, but it's at best way off-topic and at worst trolling.

<comment><USER4> Would you advocate flagging all posts about global warming, period? Or just about skepticism? Would you advocate flagging all posts about science, or just scientific matters that are controversial?

<comment><USER5> _Would you advocate flagging all posts about global warming, period? Or just about skepticism?_

All of them.

 _Would you advocate flagging all posts about science, or just scientific matters that are controversial?_

Neither. Just the ones that are _political_.

<comment><USER6> Have you indeed concluded that all posts about global warming are 'political' rather than 'scientific'? Possibly true for the majority of such articles, but it would be nice if there was somewhere that the small remainder could be discussed in a scientific but non-political manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speaking of skepticism...

Skeptics Handbook <http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming>

Skeptics Handbook II [http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii- global...](http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global- bullies-want-your-money/)

It's always been about the science.

<comment><USER8> And god knows, good science always involves political cartoons and exclamation points. Spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the question that interests me: how much is this information worth, and to whom? Who stole and published this information, and why?

Given the amount of money in play here, the value of this release to certain parties is enormous. What would a multinational oil company be willing to pay to derail Copenhagen? What would the Chinese government pay to avoid being subject to global CO2 emissions rules down the road?

While this is probably an inside job by a disgruntled IT worker, if this was a paid job the value delivered is truly enormous: definitely hundreds of millions of dollars, and conceivably _much_ more.

Is there any level of data security that can protect against such a large incentive?

</comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps a better link here:

[http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal- in...](http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal-information- climate-research-unit/)

</comment><comment><USER10> _These people have acquired millions if not billions of taxpayers' money_

Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates.

<comment><USER9> Does he mean climate scientists in general or Hadley Climate Research Unit specifically? Or some mix?

From <http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220>:

"Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today"

Billions of taxpayers money is no exaggeration for the general case.

<comment><USER11> Hadley is presently the only place where proof of tampering has emerged, which IMO casts serious doubt on any work emerging from Hadley if it cannot prove that its work is not being tampered with.

IMHO I doubt this is an endemic problem in climate research, no matter how much I despise the many statisticians claiming they're scientists. Statisticians _show_ correlations, scientists _prove_ causation. However with literally billions of dollars on the table, it certainly makes me curious of the validity of other researchers work.

With a $1.7B cake on the table, are people lying so that the host of the party (the federal government) gives them a slice?

<comment><USER12> AIUI, Hadley is the origin of much of the baseline data that everyone else uses. And that data itself isn't just raw numbers, but is massaged to factor out the heat island effect, for example.

The snippets of emails that I saw suggest (but don't prove, contrary to their opposition) that the methodology for building that baseline data was tainted.

So if that underlying data must now be considered corrupt, then it also calls into question any other research that used the baseline data.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DecoTime an angular arduino based timer - <AUTHOR> http://coolate.com/blog/coolate-pages/deco-time-angular-timer/ <comment><AUTHOR> Oh and a video! [https://youtu.be/BvnD95T2fO4](https://youtu.be/BvnD95T2fO4)</comment>