Yahoo's New Male CEO Is Making Double Marissa Mayer's Salary - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3068987/most-creative-people/dont-be-surprised-that-yahoos-new-male-ceo-is-making-double-marissa-may <comment><USER2> It's just laughable how this article tries to pull a gender issue out of thin air.

Her base salary at Yahoo may have been $1m, but during her first six months at Yahoo she got a total of $36,6m. She has $69 million worth of unexercised stock options plus $97 million of Yahoo stock she already owns, after less than five years, during which she run the company into the ground.

McInerney gets a base salary of $2m plus a bonus of up to $2m, and he "will also be eligible for grants of long-term incentive rewards of up to $24 million". All of this is connected to his performance, and I guess the requirements will be much stronger than the ones set for Mayer.

<comment><USER3> > _during which she run the company into the ground._

That might be an exaggeration, but yeah. It's hard to fathom that someone could sock away enough wealth to last _generations_ for accomplishing so little (from an investor's perspective).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> She almost destroyed what was left Yahoo, right? If anything, she should have been paid a negative salary.

<comment><USER5> She defintaly failed to save Yahoo from being destroyed but I would not go so far as to say she destroyed Yahoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> He has double the salary, but less than half of the annual compensation. Sounds like the male CEO should be the one crying discrimination?

Salary means absolutely nothing on its own. Many CEOs take a $1 dollar salary, and among them are the richest individuals in the world.

</comment><comment><USER7> One had prior experience as CEO...one didn't. Move along, no gender-based discrimination to see here.

</comment><comment><USER8> yeah it is called supply, demand, and negotiation. if she didn't want the salary she got, she can say no. it is very simple.</comment>


Being Flown Out for an Interview - <AUTHOR> http://www.geralds.co/work-life-being-flown-out-for-an-interview/ <comment><USER2> So I will date myself here a bit, when I got out of school in 1999 it was not uncommon at all to be flown out for interviews. At the time many large consulting companies were hiring and there were usually several rounds of interviews with the last being at one of their offices.

They were very formulaic. They would fly you out so you got to the hotel by early afternoon. They would have a get together with the other candidates, take you to a nice dinner and just chat with you. Then the next day was 3-4 interviews, a rush to the airport and a trip home.

I knew a few people who went on several just so they could hangout with friends they had in the city. The would do the interviews but had no intention of taking the job.

It made negotiations very interesting as you usually had 2-3 offers. Learned very quickly that you could get an extra $10k in base and equal in sign on bonus just by having a competing offer in hand. Good times....

</comment><comment><USER3> I was once flown to Texas by a large space travel company that's looking to go to mars (I signed a NDA but I'm assuming you can guess what company) I wasnt incredibly interested in the role due to the location (middle of no where Texas) but I was willing to interview because it was a really cool company and the role had potential to sway me. I was surprised how accommodating the company was and how smooth the process was. I got a hotel and rental car paid for and was reimbursed for my meals. Because I flew out on a weekend and interviewed on a Monday it was essentially a little vacation to Texas. Really great time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing Taylor! I feel that companies that do these type of interview accommodations are showing their care for the candidates! I'm glad your experience was positive!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone else felt the same way for their first interview being flown out?</comment>


Make Firefox support moz://a - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1331968 <comment><USER2> While I don't like the branding move at all, I think the concern that people will start calling them moz-colon-forward-slash-forwadslash-a is a little ridiculous. Is Sony's line of laptops Analog Wave One Zero? Is Verizon Verizoncheckmark? Is Johnson & Johnson Johnson ampersand Johnson? Is Comcast CComcast? No, because people aren't complete idiots. Those that are going to know/care about Mozilla will be able to tell it's a little web reference nestled inside the logo and that it still reads "Mozilla".

<comment><USER3> > _No, because people aren 't complete idiots. _

Sweet summer child.

[http://www.gentside.com/le-bon-coin/le-bon-coin-un- ordinateu...](http://www.gentside.com/le-bon-coin/le-bon-coin-un-ordinateur- susv-marque-concurrente-de-asus-vous-dirait_pic124466.html)

[http://i.imgur.com/4nMqG8C.png](http://i.imgur.com/4nMqG8C.png)

[http://www.jofogas.hu/veszprem/Sony_mio_laptop_elado_6040346...](http://www.jofogas.hu/veszprem/Sony_mio_laptop_elado_60403468.htm)

[http://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/sony-mio- pcg-6e1m-laptop-o...](http://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/sony-mio- pcg-6e1m-laptop-okazja-i6494889749.html)

[https://www.olx.in/item/sony-wio-laptop- ID19koWZ.html](https://www.olx.in/item/sony-wio-laptop-ID19koWZ.html)

<comment><USER4> Change languages and you're in a whole other world.

Have an Argentine (for example) pronounce Yosemite National Park for you.

Or for that matter, ask an English speaker to pronounce Habanero (there's no ñ) or someone from the East Coast to say Oregon or Puyallup.

While those are words and names, examples abound in marketing.

But to continue my example, Argentines already pronounce Mozilla differently than an English speaker, or other Spanish speakers for that matter! So this should be nothing new.

<comment><USER5> I always got a kick how google/apple maps used to pronounce Sepulveda Blvd in Los Angeles. (Or almost any street name with a Spanish name)

<comment><USER6> Using stuff like Here Maps, Apple Maps (and probably Google Maps too) when driving around Argentina is a real laugh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're not a logo geek, this is the major website that reviews logo redesigns, on the new Mozilla logo:

[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_mozilla_by_johnson_banks.php#.WIDIXJJXU84)

<comment><USER8> Quote, to maybe nib the ritual hatred in the bud before mozilla becomes the new Apple:

"A logo that not only DOESN'T suck but one that has a strong idea, a fresh execution, a promising flexibility, and, that all of it together, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, manages to communicate what Mozilla is about."

Now if only someone would write an article explaining why considerations such as branding are useful even for non-profits...

edit: the last sentence was apparently interpreted as an actual question, when it was meant as a plea for someone to do an eloquent write-up of the non- profits-also-need-marketing case that I could link to.

<comment><USER9> The general idea is that 90% of people I tell "I work for Mozilla" respond with "Oh, you work on Firefox?" but we're about so much more than that. My understanding of the motives behind this change is that having better branding that explains we're focused on the internet in general will hopefully expand our reach and recognition outside the tech bubble.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure how a logo change begins to address that. I'm INSIDE the tech bubble, and apart from Firefox and Rust I can't name a single Mozilla project that isn't canceled (Persona, phones) or on its way there (Thunderbird).

If not Firefox, then what DO you work on at Mozilla then? I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER11> I didn't know Rust was Mozilla. I thought it was FF, TB, and "generic OSS projects like Apache but less well-known".

<comment><USER12> Yeah, Rust is a Mozilla project. Graydon worked at Mozilla, and them interested in taking it as an official project.

Why do you think Mozilla is using Rust so much? (See servo, pushing rust components into FF, etc) They're not exactly known for jumping onto new things...

<comment><USER13> > They're not exactly known for jumping onto new things...

Trying out new web technologies that are experimental doesn't count?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the comments there makes a good point - they should really register `moz://` as a protocol, otherwise someone will grab that at some point and cause endless confusion.

On the other hand, "we used this for branding" is really not a great justification for registering a new protocol, is it...

<comment><USER15> It may not be the best reason, but aren't there already dozens of highly product-specific schemes in use? (such as steam:, unreal:, chrome: in Firefox, chrome: in Chrome - with completely different semantics -, view-source: etc etc)

<comment><USER16> Are any of _those_ registered with the IANA?

<comment><USER17> Yep, though most of them are "provisional", which means it isn't a formal or permanent definition. Here's the full list:

[https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri- schemes.xht...](https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri- schemes.xhtml)

<comment><USER15> Thank you for the link. I wouldn't have believes there are _that_ many URI schemes in existence though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Until now I didn't realize Mozilla changed their logo. Now I've seen it the typographer in me cries… The whole purpose of text is to _unambigously_ convey information. So either Mozilla now rebrands themself as

moz-colon-slash-slash

or they now live with a significant portion of typography-anal nerds who dislike that logo.

<comment><USER19> Logos fall more in the realm of graphic design rather than typography. They're an avatar thus logos don't necessarily need to be readable - albeit there is a modern trend to use the company name in an interesting typeface as their logo. However there are plenty of examples where a company logo contains no text what-so-ever - including Mozilla's previous logo[1]. So I wouldn't get too hung up on its typographic design. At least not unless Mozilla start using 'Moz://a' in normal correspondence. ;)

Personally I quite like it. It's memorable and well suited to the business they're best known for. Which is essentially the crux of a logo.

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Mozilla_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Mozilla_dinosaur_head_logo.png))

<comment><USER20> You dont remember when people got confused and always called Mozilla 'red dinosaur head' because the logo was confusing?

<comment><USER21> This isn't a logo, it's a stylised name, they serve different purposes. Consider Indesit, they style their name but have a useful logo that can stand alone.

Mozilla could do with an actual logo, something that fits with the Thunderbird & Firefox logos.

Edit: Having looked at the other designs I think they chose correctly, but perhaps needed a "none of the above" option. This [https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/now-for-the-fun- part/#co...](https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/now-for-the-fun- part/#comment-1989) gets closer.

Perhaps they wanted something that worked just using text, I guess. Maybe 2017 will be the year of leet-speak on the desktop!?!

<comment><USER22> _> This isn't a logo, it's a stylised name_

Pretty much all the material about the redesign says this is, in fact, a logo.

I agree that the whole process was a complete clusterfuck. They picked the less atrocious suggestion. It's still terrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does this mean that [http://](http://) is httpill? httpsill ftpill ircill sshill

<comment><USER24> One protocol to rule them all.

kimjong://

<comment><USER25> This is the only network protocol used in Best Korea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One tiny detail I noticed -

I hadn't been aware of the new logo until today, so I didn't have any context for what "moz://a" might mean.

After googling about it, and seeing the new logo, I realize that, in the logo, the bottom of the colon, and the bottom of the slashes, lines up with the bottom of the rest of the text.

Conversely, in my system's default font, the colon rises a bit above the bottom of the line, and the slashes descend below it.

When I saw the new logo, I at least was able to read 'mozilla' without squinting, and without confusion, while also seeing the double-meaning of 'moz://a'.

</comment><comment><USER27> Such a terrible idea... this will generate endless confusion for no gain at all.

<comment><USER28> How will it create confusion? Nobody types moz:// in regular usage, so this only effects you if you are specifically looking for an easter egg or something.

<comment><USER29> I didn't think to type moz:// but I'm starting to read "moz" instead of "mozilla" now.

<comment><USER30> The guys from moz.com will be happy about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that the logo's rendering does not change the name's spelling. It's still "Mozilla", in the same way that it's Apple (not [apple emoticon]), and Google, not <blue>G</blue><red>o</red><yellow>o</yellow>...

<comment><USER31> Nobody expects to be able to type an apple-symbol, or for colors to have any meaning.

But if Apple changed their branding so that their logo was just "App/e" written out, wouldn't you expect people to type that out?

Actually, wait, we don't have to imagine. What about the Apple ][, or the Apple //e?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It wasn't my favorite concept at first, but after they refined it to what it is now, I am honestly in awe. I thought the process was bold and refreshing to begin with, but the fact that they arrived at such an excellent identity makes it all the more amazing. The fact that the logo incorporates a URL scheme is genius and perfect. The new zilla font is dope too.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's a cool concept - but surely there are a lot of regexps our there that will now trigger in vain.

Also search engines will index "moz://a" as a different thing than "mozilla". Likely, the first will be indexed as ["moz", ":", "/", "/", "a"] and the punctuation likely be thrown out, resulting in matches for "moz" and "a".

<comment><USER34> Because search engines are using Firefox, right? This is an easter egg within the Firefox web browser. No search engine is going to notice a thing.

<comment><USER35> No, the issue is the new logo is "moz://a", so when people don't get that it's supposed to mean "mozilla" they'll type it in as "moz://a".

<comment><USER36> If they're seeing Mozilla logo somewhere, they're either on the Mozilla website or a webpage regarding Mozilla or a product thereof, so all this discussion is in vain and is a parody of itself.

Also, WRT indexing, the logo is an image, not text, so the search engines will either not index it or index it like they index other images, using filename and maybe embedded metadata.

<comment><USER22> _> they're either on the Mozilla website or a webpage_

or they've seen a sticker on a laptop. Or they've seen a t-shirt, or skimmed a magazine article. And they're now googling it, and ending up on moz.com.

It feels just like a scene from Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER36> A proper needle in a haystack situation here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I sense the dumbest security hole ever...

</comment><comment><USER38> There is already a working add-on [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/moz-a-protoco...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/moz-a-protocol-handler/) (Firefox only)

</comment><comment> awinter-py I Like the new phonetic spelling. A lot of people weren't voicing the glottal stop the old way.

<comment><USER39> Could you explain? Is it the mo _zi_ lla part?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Apparently our friends at Mozcolonslashslasha don't realize how many more important things they could be working on than this.

<comment><USER10> People keep talking about Mozilla like it's the engineering wing of the EFF, that it's tirelessly working on a mission of Internet freedom, etc.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see it. I see:

(1) a team of developers, incrementally maintaining a codebase that that was donated by a 1990's commercial entity, and

(2) some second-tier marketing types, burning through Google/Yahoo money and padding their resumes with random "me too" projects that don't last very long.

The flagship browser has only had one major re-think since Netscape's demise, and that re-think was, " _We should make its UI and dev cycle look like Chrome 's_". The most significant "new" project dreamed up by the marketing types was a me-too Android alternative, which they then almost immediately canceled.

The only noteworthy and truly innovative things I can think of coming out of Mozilla have been Rust and Persona, and the latter was also quickly canceled (which was a shame since it's the only example I can think of that REALLY fits the mission statement they talk about).

I'm glad that Firefox is out there to prevent a Google monopoly, and I'm glad that Rust has a financial patron since it's a pretty interesting language. But if Mozilla want to be seen as some greater "force for Internet freedom", beyond just maintaining an dated and declining web browser, then a logo change won't be enough. Actually DO some other stuff without canceling it.

<comment><USER41> Keeping that thingy running all those years and making sure it is still competitive against Chrome (that has 1000 times the resources + free access to put ads for their browser on two of the highest value ad spots that exists) is an engineering masterpiece as well as a marketing masterpiece if you ask me.

Also you write like Firefox extensions haven't been years ahead of competition (proven by the fact that no other browsers have even come close even Mozilla had proven what was possible) and like tabs where commonplace in browsers before Firefox.

<comment><USER10> Hey, I love Firefox and I'm glad that Mozilla keeps it running. But the parent comment complains that people never talk about anything other than Firefox. Well...

Also, tabs (like most browser UI innovation over the past 15 years) came from Opera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The :// thing is cute, but… did Mozilla really need a new logo? Their existing wordmark may not be especially distinctive, but it is familiar. And they have a distinctive symbol, too.

The new logo looks more contemporary. I'm not sure if that's good. Mozilla can be proud of its history, no?

</comment><comment><USER43> 2nd google result for moz://a is that bug report. At least in "my google". ;)

<comment><USER44> Ironically googling for moz://a from the address bar doesn't work in Firefox Android. It's interpreting it as a protocol and doesn't send it to Google. It displays a blank page.

Moz://a from google returns moz.com as first result. Ironically again, it's a SEO company. Maybe Mozilla needs their services.

<comment><USER45> Searching "moz://a", neither Google nor DuckDuck shows Mozilla's website on the first page of results... and the SEO company is first in both indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Since Mozilla is a combination of Mosaic + Godzilla, the only good logo for them should have been a dinosaur image laid out in mosaic, that's it. This :// thing is more of a s://y marketing than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER22> Everything around this redesign is just a clusterfuck: the process, the winner, the hacks introduced to cope with it, the SEO fail, the loss of identity...

<comment><USER47> Most people don't care.

It shows how emo some of the users are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> just make it do what happen when you type

about:mozilla

in the address bar

<comment><USER49> btw, about:about will list all of Firefox's internal about: pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On some level, this starts to look like a really silly one-up/who-can-violate- the-spirit-of-uris-the-most contest.

So Google got its own TLD just for marketing purposes?

Well, Mozilla got its own _scheme_ for marketing purposes only!

</comment><comment><USER50> Well, weither you like it or not, it's been such a hot topic we can't deny it's a PR success. Now everybody is talking about mozilla, and sharing this branding and logo.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is worrying sign when they are trying to change things through branding...

</comment><comment><USER52> this logo is so tacky

</comment><comment><USER53> I think the bikeshed should be painted orange!

<comment><USER54> It is well understood by those of us who are more literate in these things that a bikeshed should have a combination of transparent windshield walls and solid green roof. I therefore propose we tear down the existing, functional, bikeshed as its blue walls (which would _not_ look good in orange) are constructed of a material which is not transparent.

<comment><USER55> no need to hate on the blue walls. people who park their bikes in bikesheds with walls made of transparent materials shouldn't throw stones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> So once you switch the browser , mozilla website stops working...

<comment><USER34> Just like how chrome://flags/ breaks when you switch away from Chrome. Not very surprising, is it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Yeah, that will totally solve Mozilla's now so slow fading into irrelevance.

VideoLAN.org website stats tell me that Firefox hits percentage dropped from 26.3% through Jan 2016 to 21.2% through Jan 2017.

Of course this is not a 100% reliable measure, but stats usually don't lie about that.

<comment><USER41> > Yeah, that will totally solve Mozilla's now so slow fading into irrelevance.

Neither will constant picking on anything they do or don't do.

> VideoLAN.org website stats tell me that Firefox hits percentage dropped from > 26.3% through Jan 2016 to 21.2% through Jan 2017.

I guess the reason might just be that the market is moving towards a new equilibrium.

Unless we start making websites and web apps that only work in other browsers then the web is big enough for both Firefox and other inferior browsers ;-)

<comment><USER57> I'm not picking, I'm just looking at the stats I have. I've actually have it graphed on [http://thre.sh/stuff/browsers-stats- videolan.org.png](http://thre.sh/stuff/browsers-stats-videolan.org.png) now.

<comment><USER41> > I'm not picking, I'm just looking at the stats

English isn't my mother tongue so I might have misread. What would you call this, in a toplevel comment about what seems to me to be a well received rebranding:

>> Yeah, that will totally solve Mozilla's now so slow fading into irrelevance.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you coping with the deluge of political bot traffic? - <AUTHOR> Is it just me or doesn't it feel like theres a huge amount of bot traffic on Instagram and Twitter pushing Trump/anti-Obama/anti-Biden content in the comments sections of large US celebrity, media and meme accounts? <comment><USER2> Heh. Exactly why do you feel these people are bots? Might it be that you live in an area where it is unacceptable to express opinions like that? There are real humans like that, some nervously hiding in your neighborhood or workplace.

I happen to live in a different area, where those opinions are held by 100% of the people I know. I have never seen a pro-Biden sign. I know lots of real humans who are very angry that they always get flagged as being bots. No, they aren't bots.

I wonder if you will dismiss me as a bot. :-) Denial of the existence of Trump supporters is a really strange phenomena. What drives it? Of course these people exist! Denial is how people thought Hillary would win. If anything, Trump has more support in 2020 than he did in 2016. Among republicans, the doubt and mistrust is gone.

Note that you can't even see much of the Trump/anti-Obama/anti-Biden content. Both [https://kamalaharris.info](https://kamalaharris.info) and [https://joebiden.info](https://joebiden.info) have been blocked on Instagram, even in private messages. The sender sees it as sent, but the receiver never gets it. Those aren't malware or scams or anything like that. Those are well- researched opposition sites that even have references, put together by a really dedicated Trump fan.

So the true extent of Trump support is just hidden. You can't see it. You may find yourself having a really big surprise on election night.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever someone posts something about mainstream news, I unfollow the account, with few exceptions.</comment>


Ask HN: How to favourite HN posts for my keepsake? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Submissions have a "favorite" link at the top, for individual comments you have to go to the comment permalink by clicking on the timestamp, there you'll find the favorite link.

Link to the lists are in your profile (and public!)</comment>


New Open Source Ventilator "AmboVent" Built from Cots Parts - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AmboVent/AmboVent <comment><AUTHOR> See: [https://twitter.com/AmboVent](https://twitter.com/AmboVent)

> _Off-the-shelf components VCV Machine. 3 tidal-volume (33%, 50%, 75%), 11 > ventilation rates (6-24 cycles /min.), 5 ventilation steps (30-70 cmH₂O), 🇮🇱 > design_

> _AmboVent is an #opensource blueprint for low-cost (off-the-shelf > components) #COVID19 ventilator device, designed by a team of Israeli > experts in response to world shortages caused by #Coronavirus epidemic._

> _Engineers from @Microsoft Israel R &D, Israeli Air Force & 40 professional > volunteers designed a medically tested #COVID19 respirator from off-the- > shelf components, sharing the mechanical model design source-code files > online for global mass production_</comment>


What's to love about C? - <AUTHOR> http://mortoray.com/2012/06/11/whats-to-love-about-c/ <comment><USER2> I am going to make the bold claim that everyone should know C. Even in a world where we can do 90%+ of our coding in a higher level language we still aren't at the place were we can get past writing out performance loops in C. Case in point my company recently needed to speed up a 128bit AND on two MySQL binary fields. While this can be done in pure SQL implementing the function in C saved an order of magnitude of time. Everyone is going to run into these performance problems and until we have run times that can match hand coded C it will in my option still be a required skill to have.

( Yes I know you can s/C/ASM , however this is a time issue eventually we may get past needing C , but we are not there yet )

<comment><USER3> > I am going to make the bold claim that everyone should know C.

I agree. Anyone who's going to be working at a non-entry-level job in the computer industry should know what the foundations are built on. C still dominates in the kernel space and other low-level facilities everyone uses. If you don't know it, you are at a disadvantage compared to those who do.

<comment><USER4> Pah, 99.9% of programmers will never, ever, ever need to drop down to that level.

Where do these delusions even come from? I think a lot of people here would benefit from 6 months in a 'normal' company, the kind that employs the vast majority of programmers. Just for a bit of perspective.

<comment><USER3> > Pah, 99.9% of programmers will never, ever, ever need to drop down to that > level.

That is true. Most programmers will not need to write code in C. But they'll still be better and more versatile programmers if they know the language.

<comment><USER5> Pretty much any extra skill will make you a better programmer if you disregard the time put into learn it, so that's hardly a high bar. What about comparing the marginal return of an hour spent learning C with an hour learning best practices in their own particular field, whatever that might be?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> After using C++ for years (in addition to Python, Haskell, etc) I've recently converted back to C for my low level tasks. You just gotta love the simplicity of C programming. My jobs consists of reading blobs of binary and throwing it around different buffers in memory (mmap's and dma buffers, etc), so C is a natural choice.

I like how C is fast and dangerous, there's no silly security layers (like Java) and it lets the operating system do it's job. Fast stack allocs for temporary data are great but deadly if you fuck up.

Coding in C is like carrying a loaded gun pointed at your feet. You have to handle it with care and responsibility but when you need it, you can shoot away any extra limbs that get in the way and show 'em who's the boss.

<comment><USER6> <Coding in C is like carrying a loaded gun pointed at your feet.> Could not agree more. Except I would say pointed at someones head, or, perhaps, your own.

<comment><USER7> Coding in C is like being presented with a grid of buttons of various shades of blue and green. You know to press a specific colour, but it doesn't always do quite what you expect, and half the buttons segfault.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People who love C love it, in part, because they are often solving interesting problems with it. Many problems that require C are interesting: embedded software, automated robots, new databases etc. Most problems that C is not good at - Web development - are not that interesting to many people that love C.

<comment><USER9> C is not good at web development? Most of the "web" stack is written in C: OS/NGINX/apache/php/java/perl. If you do write the top of the stack in C, it will run faster than anything else and be smaller. This means lower turnaround time which is VERY IMPORTANT in web apps. C, in many cases, is the best Web language.

<comment><USER10> In what world does runtime speed and compiled size have anything to do with turnaround (or programmer productivity, as I read it)?

C is a great language for many reasons, but let's not conflate benefits.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps there's a misunderstanding in the term "turnaround". I meant it in this sense t = x + y + z. where t = total time, x = send time , y = processing time, z = send back to user time. If you can decrease y, you decrease "t". Responsiveness is important to users. With the advent of large and extremely fast memory cache, small program size will dramatically increase program execution speed by have small code and small data already in cache. Smaller program executable will enable many more instances on a real physical node. Size matters. Speed matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing I love about C is that it the most obedient of all languages and never assumes you are an idiot. Never does it tell me I'm about to blow my own foot off - it just does it and I've learned from the experience. Due to this it taught me how to think about things first and know of all the consequences of doing everything.

*NIX is the same.

<comment><USER12> The following program compiles _without warnings_ using gcc 4.7.0. The compiler uses the undefined behavior of accessing a variable that may not have been initialized to turn the conditional into one that's always taken, and then folds it away.

<https://gist.github.com/2910012>

<comment><USER13> valgrind:

       ==46592== Conditional jump or move depends on uninitialised value(s)
       ==46592==    at 0x100000E90: foo (in ./a.out)
       ==46592==    by 0x100000ED3: main (in ./a.out)

The matter is, valgrind exists. Everything is a C deficiency that valgrind is able to overcome decently is no longer a C deficiency practically speaking.

<comment><USER14> Not true. Valgrind is a dynamic analysis, while these kinds of errors could be caught by static analyses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15>
      * Lots of programmers you can hire today (contrast to D, ML, Haskell )
      * Excellent introductory texts (Kernighan & Ritchie)
      * Backed by giants like Microsoft, IBM
      * Everything else always has some mechanism to link against it
      * Thorough API documentation (if quite large) MSDN, man 3 sprintf

<comment><USER2> I think its a lot harder to find good C coders then you might think. For example 80% of people who claim to know C that interview with my company fail a test on reading a CSV file.

<comment><USER16> But many of those 80% probably just haven't needed to use C, or read a CSV file, in a while. If someone randomly asked me to do that in Lisp, when I've been coding in Python for a year, it would take me a while to remember how to do it. But after working with Lisp for a week, I could do it easily again.

<comment><USER17> You don't even need a week if you have access to the internet, which as a dev you will. (Or with just Clojure's repl-docs you could probably come up with `(with-open [rdr (reader file-name)] (doseq [line (line-seq rdr)] (let [parsed (.split line ",")] ...)))` fairly quickly, and even if you forgot the specific reader syntax remembering the more memory-intensive `slurp` for a year seems doable and ought to be acceptable in an interview.) If you hadn't been doing Python for a year would you still remember the existence of the CSV module you can import, and then use dir() and help() on if you forgot the exact syntax?

The particular example of reading a csv file is just a bad one to compare C and any dynamic language with, because in C file IO is a pain in the neck with a lot of pitfalls whereas dynamic languages make it lovely and you only have to remember a small amount. I guess it's a decent test to see if one's potential C coder has memorized all the details about C's file IO, maybe the company does a lot of that since they create libraries for others or something. (Did you allocate enough memory on the stack/heap? Are you reading byte-by-byte looking for a newline or in chunks before looking? Are you checking if you need to re-alloc? Do you support "\n", "\r", and "\r\n"? Are you checking for E_NO_MEMORY and E_BAD_SOURCE? Are you using sprintf safely? Are you checking for end-of-file correctly? Are you tokenizing the line properly? Are you faster than Python? Etc.) If the interview is just looking for coders who can "fopen, fread with malloc, and fclose, it's okay if details are forgotten", then it's just a weeder question rather than a skill test and there are better weeder questions.

Personally I have a handful of C programs on hand that I know are correct and that do various IO stuff, I tend to just copy from those on the rare occasion I need to use C to do manual file IO or memmapping (we all remember the subtleties of that right?) because of the reasonably high probability I'll forget one of the many details if I do it from scratch. I much prefer using already existing libraries to read and parse for me; there's too much reinventing-the-dysfunctional-wheel culture in C.

<comment><USER16> I used Lisp and Python as examples because I don't know C myself. In any case, the point was that when people say they know a technology, they might mean that they can answer any question you can come up with, or they might mean that they once knew it, and can become proficient with it again in a short time. Of course, some people don't actually know anything about it, but I doubt this number is quite as high as 80%.

<comment><USER17> I can believe the 80% number. I don't know any formal studies (surely there have been some by now?) but I've heard and read a lot of anecdotes (like the one in this thread) from technical interviewers about how a high percentage of their applicants can't write code or are in some other way incompetent for the job; I have yet to hear from one about how almost all their applicants are awesome and they wished they could hire them all. If you haven't seen the accounts about the FizzBuzz problem alone (and the hilarious failures of people online with no stress or time constraints pasting their incorrect solutions in blog comments to prove their skillz) it's worth half an hour of your time to read about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ugh. Just today I've had to clean up a problem where a function was called without enough parameters, but because the compile-and-link step included _just the right_ components, there was neither a warning nor an error. Not only that, but because of a coincidence on the stack (the missing parameter was a NULL, which just so happened to be lying around), the relevant unit tests actually passed.

The problem with C is that, for all its simplicity, there's a _ton_ of voodoo which you've got to "just know", and the best practices are not at all clear from what the language makes easy. In fact, the language makes it easy to make mistakes and difficult to find them.

I _wish_ Go had made GC optional, I really do.

</comment><comment><USER19> _Guaranteed simple flow_

And then there's setjmp/longjmp.

 _Clear and unambiguous_

Aside from all the undefined and implementation-defined behavior.

 _A macro preprocessor_

Which just does plain, dumb text substitution with no understanding of program syntax (or the environment where the expanded macro will appear!). CPP's macro system is a pretty leaky abstraction.

The other points are why I use C (when I use C), but I wouldn't make these three arguments in favor of C.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's an old adage that a computer only does what you tell it to do. What I love about C? It really does only do what you ask it to; nothing more, nothing less.

<comment><USER21> When C does what you ask it to do, you're probably just getting lucky. It's more or less impossible to write a nontrivial C program without relying on undefined behavior.

<comment><USER22> With the exception of the translation limits (a strict reading of which may allow a compiler that can only compile a single program), it's pretty much trivial to avoid undefined behavior.

Implementation-defined behavior can be harder to avoid, but that's not a problem if you're targeting a known implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with all of these comments. But... Unless you are an old-school coder who grew up with C, it is just so much easier to get stuff done with Python/Ruby or, hell, Bash/Awk/Perl. Granted, that last was for very specific tasks, but still. Want to write security code? C is is your friend, but you better be good at it, very good.

<comment><USER3> > Unless you are an old-school coder who grew up with C, it is just so much > easier to get stuff done with Python/Ruby or, hell, Bash/Awk/Perl.

True, but who is going to write your Python/Ruby interpreters then? And using what language?

<comment><USER23> > True, but who is going to write your Python/Ruby interpreters then?

Pythonistas will.

> And using what language?

Using python. Case in point, Pypy.

<\ :P>

<comment><USER3> > Using python. Case in point, Pypy.

Yes, PyPy is an excellent example of doing low level tasks in a high level language. It's also quite rare. I think in the future we'll see more examples of self-hosting dynamic languages that have a JIT-compiler based execution environment that combines interpretation and compilation.

However, in comparison to the stuff that the PyPy guys are writing, C programming is easy. And I bet all of the PyPy programmers are excellent C programmers, because they have to be good with low level stuff anyway.

I still advice learning C programming, and how interpreters and compilers work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> One great advantage of C (which was kind of mentioned in the article) is predictability of the generated code. Compared to a C++ compilers, a C compiler is much simpler. When you write a for loop, even doing something on a struct or some fairly "complicated" object, you have a fairly good idea of the machine code generated. It's also easier to go between the assembly code and the C code generally. In some applications like email or image processing, this can be valuable.

<comment><USER25> > predictability of the generated code

To some extent, I hope the code that gets generated _isn't_ predictable in the way you mean: I _want_ the compiler to know all of the obscure ways to make string operations go faster by using SIMD hardware, for example. I _want_ that kind of deep low-level knowledge to be encoded into the optimization passes because I _don't_ know it and I likely never will. Isn't that why we have optimization passes to begin with?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What I don't like about C: it's 2012, strings should be easy. Instead they are a source of bugs and security vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER27> One thing I LOVE about C is that it's so easy to create APIs that other languages can use. For instance, if a C library exposes a good API, you can call it from lisp quite easily with CFFI. This gives you a large advantage: the low level, raw speed of a C library paired with the high-level forms of whatever language you choose.

I'm all for people writing programs/apps in C++, but I kind of cringe when I see a library in C++ because it's a harder language to wrap around.

</comment><comment><USER28> C is what you use when you should actually be using assembler, but you are not insane enough to actually do that.

<comment><USER3> The statement "C is portable assembly" may have been true some time in the 1970's but compilers have improved since then and the statement is no longer valid.

<comment><USER25> > compilers have improved

And hardware has changed. Remember, the C machine model (the virtual system you imagine in your head when you write C) doesn't have cache, doesn't have SIMD, and doesn't have any kind of ability to do things in parallel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think the most dangerous part of C is that many people assume C is perfectly efficient. It's as if C was the "100%" of performance and other languages are converging towards it as they get better.

But I don't see how this is true. Pointer aliasing is the biggest example probably:

[http://www.futurechips.org/tips-for-power-coders/how-to- tric...](http://www.futurechips.org/tips-for-power-coders/how-to-trick-cc- compilers-into-generating-terrible-code.html)

And then there is the huge abstraction penalty for things like `qsort()` where C++ is actually way ahead of C.

</comment><comment><USER30> The preprocessor, and conditional compilation especially, are not something to love about C. That is probably one of C's most hateful, code-goop enabling capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER31> C is well placed in that sweet spot close to the hardware where the abstractions are good enough to hide the hardware specifics from the programmer and good enough to build more advanced abstractions with sufficient efficiency.

Because it is so close to the lower levels of abstractions, it ended up a compact and concise language, easy to keep in mind. This (among other things) led to C being the quintessential language for some segments of "computer science": maybe not so much directly but as a reference model.

</comment><comment><USER32> In embedded product development, C and C++ is King.

</comment><comment><USER33> No. ...wait

</comment><comment><USER34> I've never heard anyone informed bash C. C++ and Java, yes, but not C. Even people who've never used it tend to know that C has a domain at which (a) it excels, and (b) it's really the only credible option.

There's actually no such thing as a bad language. I enjoy language wars as much as anyone else, but languages are only good or bad relative to the type of problem they're being used for.

For example, what makes C++ and Java odious is that people try to use them for inappropriate purposes. They aren't platonically "evil" languages, and they weren't designed by stupid people; they're just inappropriate for over 90 percent of what modern programmers have to do in their professional lives. When people need high-level features and don't have them, they tend to roll their own-- badly. This is Greenspun's Tenth Rule and the heart of those god- awful "design patterns".

C++ and Java, for all that, also have domains in which they're the appropriate languages to use. They're just very small.

<comment><USER17> Here's your informed person bashing C: <http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/HateC.html> (Disclaimer: I like C more than C++, though I can't say I love either of them.)

I do think there are bad languages. Brainfuck is terrible. Maybe there are no bad _serious_ languages, but you'll have to define what you mean by serious, and you'll have to argue with Dijkstra's ghost when it comes to COBOL et al. (though I think he would have liked J). (His two famous quotes against COBOL come from <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html>) I don't think good/bad is really the best way to judge languages, I'm more interested in language power, fluidity, and library support.

I'd agree that every language has a _purpose_ , even if the purpose is as simple as making a joke like in the case of LOLCODE, and that people abuse the language beyond its intended purpose. I read somewhere someone asserting "Design patterns are missing language features" and I more-or-less agree with that.

<comment><USER35> Why would he have liked J? I do not see how he would describe it differently from "a mistake, carried through past perfection". Also, slightly related: he may not have seen J, but <http://www.dijkstrascry.com/node/90> shows that he can not have been totally unfamiliar with APL developments.

<comment><USER17> I hadn't seen that note from him, thanks for the link. I think J solves a lot of the problems he makes of APL. It can be taught without a J interpreter, it doesn't require a special keyboard, and it offers abstraction capabilities. Also it's an answer to some positive things he talks about in this 1985 interview and elsewhere: [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/misc/vanVlissingenIntervi...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/misc/vanVlissingenInterview.html) It supports both functional and imperative styles and it's deeply rooted with mathematics. It's also "hard" and isn't made for the layman developer. It encourages a very logical thought-process. I would guess he'd think Haskell was superior, but I still think he'd at least consider J in higher regards to APL even if he didn't like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Access to the hardware

Yeah, C is close to the metal. But only on a PDP-11, the assembly language of which C was conceived to integrate with.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's always hard to C a loved one Go.</comment>


Ask HN: What do new MBA's do in tech? || Self-marketing via RE - <AUTHOR>

Short question: Various stats got tossed out that x% of Stanford's/Harvard's/Etc.'s graduating MBA class went into tech this/last year, instead of the 'normal' MBA fields (e.g., finance).  What are the job titles these MBA's are winding up with?<p>Motivation, brief bio, see LinkedIn (profile) for longer:  I did my Master's in electrical engineering, but turned to the dark side and went off to law school and spent a few years practicing as an IP/patent litigator.  (Defending against trolls - the turn to the dark side was incomplete).  I then got my MBA (Santa Clara, based in SV), and have been trying to find a suitable role in a tech company.  I'm currently consulting as an electrical engineer in a biomedical company (mostly writing Matlab and Python for data analysis, plus designing measurement equipment), but would like to find something more permanent and, preferably, more interdisciplinary.  I've yet to find an effective way of branding myself.  I like hard problems, my programming skills are excellent for a business-type (mostly Python) but not what you'd want in a software engineer, and my best fit has traditionally been interfacing between tech-savvy and tech-unsavvy areas (e.g., engineers <==> lawyers).  Excellent at wearing many hats, and very good in several specialties, but not a world-class expert in any of them.  (Not looking to found a company, student loans necessitate cash flow).  Hence, the initial question above, to figure out what exactly it is other generalists are landing in tech companies as. <comment><USER2> Business development in most cases i.e sales of ads, licenses or whichever unit(s) they use to make revenue.</comment>


Mindset Innovation: The story of Tata Nano, the cheapest car ($2500) in the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/may/14tata.htm

<comment><USER2> here's a pic and a video: [http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech- gadget/pictures-2500...](http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech- gadget/pictures-2500-tata-nano-car-officially-unveiled-video-)

Not bad - nice industrial design

</comment><comment><USER3> The real question is, has it really made life easier for a family of four on the streets? The one thing that the article doesn't mention is the fact that it most likely does not meet european (not indian) emission standards.

Not that they shouldn't be applauded for what they've achieved - but imagine a country of over a billion people with easy access to a car that adds to the already over-crowded roads and burns a bigger hole in the ozone layer. Not that great anymore.

<comment><USER4> 1\. "has it really made life easier for a family of four on the streets?". It absolutely will, how can you have any doubt on that. Ask any family of 4 if they are better of riding a car than scrambling onto a scooter.

2\. "According to Tata, the Nano complies with Bharat Stage-III and Euro-IV emission standards" (From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano>)

3\. "The Nano will also replace many overloaded and worn-out two-stroke polluting vehicles, both two and three-wheeled." - again from the wikipedia.

However if the ozone is what you really care about, how about starting by dumping the SUV's for smaller cars in developed nations.

<comment><USER3> Didn't know about #2 above - I completely agree, about dumping SUVs for mass transit, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about Euro-NCAP crash safety? The Nano looks to use the driver's knees as the front crumple zone...

Personally, I do the environment a favor by buying used cars and maintaining them until they die.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to note that Tata now owns Jaguar and Land Rover :)</comment>


Here's the Email That Could Cost Mark Zuckerberg Half of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/04/heres-email-could-cost-mark-zuckerberg-half-facebook/36579/

<comment><USER2> The problem for MZ is he apparently did deal with this guy on StreetFax. MZ and his attorneys have conceeded that point. So its not like this is some guy who has never actually talked to MZ.

Second, MZ has a credibility problem. He has a reputation of duping people, or at least not playing it straight. While a lot of people give him credit for being able to use some good tactics to screw over people, those same tactics can also end up biting you too.

I don't know if the emails are credible or not, but I'd take them seriously.

<comment><USER3> I also doubt DLA Piper would file this without some due diligence

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First, Ceglia (who was previously convicted of fraud) waits 7 years to file this lawsuit. Now he releases a new batch of e-mails that bolster his story, which were conveniently omitted from his first round of accusations?

This is enormously suspicious across the board. It should be ignored as an annoyance and nothing else until a court finds otherwise.

<comment><USER5> In another interview it was said that Ceglia found the facebook stuff while reviewing paperwork for the fraud case. He might have honestly forgotten and found the documents 7 years later.

<comment><USER6> Who prints out emails? Besides my father, do people regularly print out emails? Maybe just important ones? I print out emails but usually they are e-Tickets. Call my cynical but I would rather trust an electronic copy on an ISP (or the archived copy) somewhere.

<comment><USER7> Your second sentence answered your first sentence

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As fascinating as it is, people from Business Week and Reuters commenting that they 'look real' seems silly. Pure speculation, unless those guys and linguists who have studied Zuckerberg's writing and style and compared it to the email, their opinion means exactly nothing. I thought that really detracted from the whole thing.

<comment><USER9> Occam's razor time: Ceglia was according to that email full of ideas for Facebook _until_ it started getting publicity, at which point he promptly forgot about it for several years...

If you're not looking for an interesting story angle, the posted examples look less plausible than the original contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The emails don't read 'fake,' writes Henry Blodget_

Really. How exactly? Blodget appears to qualify this claim (in the Business Insider article) by basically saying "well, they haven't been proven fake yet, so we are suspicious that means they are real".

Ahem.

To me (bearing in mind I'm theoretically supposed to be good at this stuff :D) they look like they are probably faked. The language similarities between the two examples are _extremely_ telling; for example, the odd punctuation (or lack of) visible in both emails strikes me as identical.

I think "suspicious until proven real" is the right approach here.

<comment><USER11> From the business insider article "[if they were fake] we imagine DLA Piper's investigators would already have exposed it"

I agree w/Biz Insider - A big tech law firm that is almost certainly working on contingency rather than billing $500/hr is a fair indication that there's some meat to this case.

<comment><USER12> Come to think of it this way. If there is even a 10% chance that this is true and the settlement would be at least in the range of $200M to $1B (wild guess), and the lawyer's fee is 30%, that's an _expected_ payoff of $60M to $300M. Nothing to sneeze at.

Even if they lose, think about it, DLA probably already have some spin about how they are just being "professional" about due diligence and doing the best they could for their client. No loss in reputation.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. If these are proved to be fake, then DLA will have this reputation of being ambulance-chasers. It would definitely hurt their reputation.

Plus, the legal costs of pursuing a case like this is likely to be extremely high. If the evidence is so weak to be thrown out even before it comes to court, then I don't think they would pursue it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not saying that Mr. Ceglia is right, but the amount of people on this thread outright dismissing his claims is laughable.

He has now had his claims vetted by at least one major law firm. I guarantee you they looked closely at his claims (they have both a legal and financial interest to do so) and found them worth pursuing.

The risk to Zuckerberg is probably a lot higher here than most people think.

<comment><USER15> Any "major law firm" will go after someone as long as your checks keep clearing. The weight of a law firm is not related to the likely validity of the claims. I mean, if you think you can get a 50% stake in Facebook, of course you're going to pursue that heavily, even if your evidence is weak -- because you might be able to beat FB around until they give you money to make you go away.

<comment><USER13> Yes, and based on this how much do you think the legal costs would be for a firm like DLA Piper? You're easily talking about millions. If Ceglia has that amount of money to throw around, I don't think he'd be spending his time with frivolous lawsuits.

<comment><USER14> I'm betting they took this on contingency and will take a cut of the winnings. If so the firm is willing to risk their own capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Why is there a presumption of truth in regards to emails like this, especially when coming from someone previously convicted of fraud?

<comment><USER16> From the article: People now reading the emails are beginning to take them very seriously. "The emails don't read 'fake,' writes Henry Blodget at Business Insider. Felix Salmon at Reuters agrees. "The emails Facebook says are fake don't seem that way to me." In any event, everyone agrees that, if the emails are fake, it should be easy for Facebook to demonstrate that. "Facebook almost certainly has a forensic analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's hard drives and email boxes from this period, because these drives would have been the same ones analyzed in the Winklevoss lawsuit," writes Blodget. "Perhaps the drives show different versions of the emails in question--or no emails at all."

<comment> brown9-2 This is precisely what I am referring to:

 _The emails don't read 'fake,' writes Henry Blodget_

 _Felix Salmon at Reuters agrees. "The emails Facebook says are fake don't seem that way to me."_

Why does this matter? How it "seems" or "reads" to online commentators is irrelevant. What are these opinions based on - gut feelings?

<comment><USER16> |Why does this matter? How it "seems" or "reads" to online commentators is irrelevant. What are these opinions based on - gut feelings?

The reason it matters to most is transitive trust. Most people trust Reuters/Business Insider as more authoritative than themselves so if Reuters and BI signal that they are suspicious, then the public will be. If people begin to lose trust in Zuck, then they lose trust in FB then...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's weird to me that every other commenter on this thread mentions some point about Paul Ceglia's fraud record, as if Zuckerberg is some angel with a clean background. IMHO, Ceglia's fraud record is a completely separate incident and shouldn't be mentioned at all, but if you are going to use it to defend your stance, you should also mention Zuckerberg and his world-famous history of lying, stealing, and screwing people out of what they were contractually promised.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is impossible! Zuck promised _me_ half of the company back in 2004. Here's the email:

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

        Dear Ajays,
        Thanks for the beers last night, and giving me all the
        ideas for "The Facebook". I feel your contribution is
        equal to mine, and so should your ownership. I hope
        50% ownership of The Facebook is acceptable to you?

        Mark
        PS: Don't mention this on HackerNews, they may not
        believe you.

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

Damn you, Zuck!

</comment><comment><USER19> Don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, Paul Ceglia could be the greatest early investor of all time, at least in terms of returns.

</comment><comment><USER20> I remember seeing these emails when this story broke. IAAL, and it looked to me like this is a colorable claim (without predicting its eventual outcome). It was weird to me that journalists and tech commentators dismissed it so readily at that time.

<comment><USER21> Seems pretty dismiss-able to me...

1) The guy said it took so long for him to come forward because he "forgot" about the contract/emails.

2) Selling 50% of the company for $2k seems like an odd move... I don't know my facebook history perfectly, but didn't Zuck have a business partner with a lot of money already?

3) The guy has a history of fraud convictions.

<comment><USER22> Being convicted of a felony does not make you forever an untrustworthy lout, nor a compulsive, criminal liar. It means you committed a crime once and were prosecuted for it.

<comment><USER21> That's what we call a "straw man argument"-- I never claimed otherwise. I offered it up as a data point (among several) that caused people to dismiss the claim. Statistically speaking, I imagine people who've been convicted of fraud are liklier to commit fraud than those who haven't been.

<comment><USER22> Past performance does not indicate future performance in statistics.

<comment><USER23> Uh, what!?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's something about a lawsuit "building buzz" that disturbs me.

</comment><comment><USER25> Somebody will package this whole thing--along with the rest the question marks from Facebook's nascent days--into a banal biz school class: "How to avoid squishy Facebook problems."

</comment><comment><USER26> There are a lot of powerful people that probably do not want the control of facebook to be questionable.

</comment><comment><USER27> The Zuckerberg in that email sounds exactly like the Zuckerberg in "The Social Network."

In other words, like a fabrication.

</comment><comment><USER28> Even if they are real can someone really claim 50% ownership after this period of time? Surely the ownership would have to be backdated to around his last involvement with the company, which would be miniscule compared with Facebook's valuation today.

<comment><USER29> >"Surely the ownership would have to be backdated to around his last involvement with the company, which would be miniscule compared with Facebook's valuation today."

That would be a HUGE amount of money. Even if the subsequent investments are still legit (despite not having the involvement of the main investor), Zuckerberg owns like 30% of Facebook, so if you assume the primary investor wouldn't have gotten diluted worse than Zuckerberg, you're looking at tens of billions. Even if he gets diluted as bad as Saverin did (down to 1/7th), that's still like $5 billion or so, right? That's shit-tons of money.

<comment><USER28> What I meant was the value of the company at the time, although I'm not sure how that would work legally.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, that's not how equity investing works. Even if you assume he had the worst in terms of anti-dilution provisions, that's still gonna be like 5% of a $50B company. If he gets Zuck's anti-dilution provisions, that's more like 20-25% of a $50B company.

<comment><USER28> I think what I said came out bad, what I mean is if the question of ownership was at a certain value, as in the value at the alleged time of sale can you really lay a challenge on it at any future point in the company for say that 5% diluted equity. Seems to leave the door open for people to create technicalities in deals and then treat it as a risk free investment, if they can challenge for it back at any time into the future.

<comment><USER29> Why wouldn't you be able to? Zuckerberg didn't allegedly defraud the plaintiff of cash, he allegedly defrauded the plaintiff of pre-Round-A Facebook shares. If I steal a lottery ticket from you and that ticket subsequently wins the Mega Millions or whatever, I don't just owe you the $5 ticket price, I owe you the lottery winnings, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Mark Zuckerberg no longer owns 50% of the outstanding Facebook stock. He personally couldn't lose half of Facebook even if he wanted to?

<comment><USER31> He could lose half of his share, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If only Facebook had implemented his Christian Corner(TM) idea. They'd be worth billions by now.

Maybe Twitter can use it instead.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ridiculous. Did this guy ever show up in a cap table anywhere? He would be diluted into obscurity by now.

<comment><USER25> Why would that be the case? If he had 50% back then -- same as MZ -- his stake would still be worth billions.

<comment><USER33> Zuck has probably (though I don't know for sure) been getting refreshed along the way.

<comment><USER34> False.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does any of this really matter? Since when is an email a legally binding contract in ownership of a company?

</comment><comment><USER36> This is why you should use echosign. So you can prove things through a third party that keeps records!

</comment><comment><USER37> How do I downvote paparazzi stories with linkbait titles?

<comment><USER38> Click "flag".

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How does this prove that the emails were about facebook, and not some other site?

I guess facebook isn't going to use that angle, though.

</comment><comment><USER39> _if the emails are fake, it should be easy for Facebook to demonstrate that._

How? It's easy for FB to demonstrate that the emails are real, but not the opposite. Even if Zuckerberg didn't Delete the emails himself, it is in the interest of FB to show no trace of emails.

Suppose FB shows no trace of emails, what does it matter? If Ceglia can show that the emails are indeed real, then that trumps FB. Or am I missing something here?

<comment><USER40> Honest question: How might one prove that an email is real?

<comment><USER41> My first startup tried to answer this. Basically you take a secure hash of every email and store only the hash with a third party (which records the date, that's the monetization) -- but it's really really hard to sell companies on preventative technical solutions that involve math.

It works because you don't need to know which emails/files are important -- storing 250 bytes of hashes is practically free and tells you nothing about the contents, it just authenticates the contents later in court.

<comment><USER42> Out of curiosity, how did you verify that the emails were actually sent before storing the hash. What would prevent me from storing a hash on your server without sending the email?

<comment><USER41> We didn't (this story isn't exactly our use case), but think of how much easier this would be to arbitrate if Ceglia could prove that those emails existed on Feb 4, 2004 instead of this year.

Now it's possible he could have had the foresight to make and hash fake emails that he didn't send just in case, but you've still significantly raised the bar for fraud from just "finding" emails from 2004.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The problem here is it is somewhat obvious that someone waited until FB was worth something before putting out the legal claim(the lawsuit)..What?

Look at the tone of the emails back and forth between MZ and claimant...given that tone would not a reasonable person make a legal claim when FB moved to CA?

That means there is quite a bit missing in the story on both sides...so it comes down to who has the most to loose...FB or claimant..

Since FB has the most to loose if this gets into full court hearings I see FB making an attempt to settle..Why?

FB at several 100 billion dollars in valuation probably does not need the disclosure that valuation may be in error due to past behavior of the founder/CEO not to mention the obvious decrease in stakeholders values if the claim is true.

<comment><USER13> Waiting until a company is worth something in order to file a lawsuit like this is neither a problem nor illegal. In fact, it's great strategy.

If it's true, I don't think he deserves 50% or 80%. It's up to the courts. Also, I think Facebook is what it is today solely because of Zuck and the FB team.

But I don't see a problem with waiting to file a claim.</comment></comment>


Latest Windows 10 Update Could Hurt Your PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.lifewire.com/latest-windows-10-update-could-hurt-your-pc-4843110 <comment><USER2> Ah, this may explain an unexpected looping BSOD that started a few days after that date.

I started getting a KMODE Exception Not Handled BSOD with no driver listed. Have done full diagnostics of memory, graphics card, everything... even in safe mode without networking it would still BSOD shortly after boot.

I reinstalled Windows, applied updates... and it happened again.

It's quite vicious if this is it... there's not a lot one can do about this. Well, I flipped to a Linux laptop instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dumb clickbait title. I consider claims of "hurting" my PC to mean that a hardware issue could occur, not that it could introduce a bug.

</comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only person who installs updates as soon as they come out, yolo'ing them at my org and has no problems at all?

<comment><USER5> No, that's pretty much what I've done since well before Windows 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> April 14th update? Seems like old news.

<comment><USER7> Definitely. This article is from April 23.

The MS KB article says they saw reports on social media but didn't get any telemetry or customer feedback: [https://support.microsoft.com/en- us/help/4549951/windows-10-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en- us/help/4549951/windows-10-update-kb4549951)

Of course, if the update leaves your system in an unbootable state you'd expect there to be no telemetry, and the only thing I can imagine more like a black hole than feedback to MS would be feedback to Google, IBM or Oracle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Windows 10 users are reporting crashes like the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after installing the April 14th update

Why is this getting posted the day after May's Patch Tuesday? The title is incredibly misleading.

<comment><USER9> Someone has a working exploit patched two days ago, and they want to extend its useful life by sowing confusion.

A disinformation campaign targeted at technical site seems like an interesting approach, as we HN types provide advice to the non-technical folks around us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dammit. I'm telecommuting with LogMeIn and last week Outlook's email search bar inexplicably moved to the top of the screen. And yesterday one of my monitors was just a black screen. After logging out and back in the problem went away. After reading this post, I'm more nervous.

Hey Microsoft! Think you can take a break on non-security updates?

/panic rant

</comment><comment><USER11> I only use Windows to play games. Can't imagine how bad this could be for small businesses that rely on it.

<comment><USER12> Obviously, Linux and Mac updates are problem-free.

<comment><USER13> Linux updates are famously vastly more convenient and reliable than Windows or Mac updates. No forced updates, usually no restart required, usually no breaking changes, usually no BS. I can't say that about either Mac or Windows.

<comment><USER7> Linux just doesn't tell you when you need to reboot. You (or the package manager) has to know that updating something will affect a library that a running program has loaded, and you need to restart it to actually patch your system.

Some package managers handle it better than others, but the popular idea of "never need to restart to update" is super misleading when the reality is "updates on disk, doesn't update in-memory unless you restart that program". Windows' file locking system is really inconvenient, but it does have some knock-on benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty clickbaity, any chance we can get a more professional source with additional details?

<comment><USER15> >In addition to BSoD crashes and connectivity issues, users are also reporting that their settings are being removed and files deleted.

[https://betanews.com/2020/04/23/kb4549951-crash-file- deletio...](https://betanews.com/2020/04/23/kb4549951-crash-file-deletion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't trust Any Windows 10 updates anymore. There's always something.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is exactly why I turn off automatic updates for everything, and only update once the canaries have left the coal mine. Automatic updates might be good for keeping the masses secure, but if you're between that and a power- user then they add too much unpredictability into the system, even if something bad happens only once in a blue moon.

<comment><USER18> > if you're between that and a power-user then they add too much > unpredictability into the system, even if something bad happens only once in > a blue moon.

What's the cost-benefit analysis on that? I have literally never had an issue installing updates on the day of release at least since Windows 10 was released, so spending even a few days thinking about it already seems like a wasted cost to me.</comment></comment>


No Hope for the Verizon iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://woorkup.com/2009/11/16/nope-hope-for-the-verizon-iphone/

<comment><USER2> My reading of the situation is Verizon is probably trying to talk Apple down from their hefty iPhone hardware margins. Verizon doesn't want to subsidize a $600+ device. They would much rather subsidize it at $400 and make more money for themselves. Verizon's public support of Android is a way for them to test the waters. If Android sales are good and begin to impact the iPhone's sales in the next few months Verizon could very likely get a compromise from Apple -- at least they'd have a shot at it. If Android fails to captivate and doesn't stop customers jumping to AT&T they will have to accept Apple's terms. Most likely the two parties compromise somewhere in the middle because both parties will benefit greatly.

If Verizon & Apple can't work out a deal I do think Sprint is a very good possibility. I don't think Apple has to sell all that many CDMA iPhones to make it a profitable move. The other possibility is Apple will go the vindictive route and simply sell an unlocked CDMA iPhone directly at the same subsidized price Verizon wanted in the first place. This way Apple still makes a good hardware profit, reaches customers outside of AT&T's 3G coverage, and still sticks it to Verizon a little. Verizon would certainly benefit from this also but not as much. The hardware subsidy is secondary to the lucrative 2 year up-sold contract requirement Verizon would be missing out on. How many folks would jump ship from AT&T and get an iPhone as data-only on Verizon? or voice only and use wifi? Lots I think. That hurts AT&T, it hurts Verizon, but not Apple.

</comment><comment><USER3> The logic is flawed because the company behind the example he used -- ID -- doesn't make Apple hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Their software doesn't sell Macs. In terms of bottom line, ID doesn't really matter all that much to Apple.

But, Verizon would. They could easily double or triple Apple's iPhone revenue next year -- perhaps to the point where they'd have a bigger market cap than Microsoft -- imagine how that would make Steve Jobs feel. What the author is claiming is that Apple would drop a Verizon deal just because they were badmouthing them. That's bad business and Apple is not that stupid. For example,Microsoft office is still for sale in the Apple Stores.

If you ask me (and you haven't), Verizon's ad campaign was an attempt to make sure that when they finally go to the bargaining table with Apple, that they'll have some ammunition -- if they have an android-based phone that has considerable market share, then they're in a better place from a bargaining perspective.

I'll even go out on a limb and make the claim that Verizon increasing their early termination fees was, in part, a way to keep people from jumping over to the iPhone to, once again, increase their bargaining power when sitting down with Apple.

Verizon wants to increase profits. Apple wants to increase profits. Verizon + Apple = increased profits for both.

<comment><USER4> Verizon insulted the iPhone. I would imagine this would make Jobs a little madder then when ATI revealed information before a keynote. The dangerous thing about Jobs is that he will do things that are not profit-based.

Profit wise, why would Apple give up margin for market share? The name of the game is profit and increased market share brings its own problems (support, regulators). There is a good % of market share and Apple can get there without Verizon.

Verizon really doesn't have any bargaining power with Apple. It will cost Apple money to make a phone to work with Verizon and Apple could instantly boost one of the other carriers.

Most people don't really travel all that much. Really, most common people want a phone that works in their area. AT&T works great in my area (no dropped calls in MN), but crappy in other parts of the US. Adding T-Mobile or Sprint will add a lot of service area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I kind of assumed this from Verizon's latest ads for the Droid, which focus primarily on attacking the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER6> How hard would it be for iPhone to switch to CDMA?

I wonder if Apple has some kind of exclusivity deal with AT&T that may prevent it from working with other providers.

<comment><USER7> They had a 5-year (I think) agreement to be exclusive with AT&T.</comment></comment>


Quantum speed limit may put brakes on quantum computers - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/quantum-speed-limit-may-put-brakes-on-quantum-computers-89353 <comment><USER2> This is a surprise to no one, it is the basis of the resolution to EPR: quantum "spukhafte fernwirking" can be arbitrarily quick, but for _communication_ there must be a Classical channel. The limit therefore is the same as it is for causality... 'c'. The rest is speculation about a limit to the design of quantum computers which has nothing to do with a natural "speed limit."

This article is offensively bad.</comment>


I hacked Uber's website yesterday - <AUTHOR> http://thisshouldbefixed.com/2015/06/13/i-broke-uber/

<comment><USER2> The "Slip and Slide" bit give me a good laugh. Interesting article, makes me curious about what exploits I have on my own site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed the article. Kickstarter.com is my next target.

<comment><USER3> Recommendation: stop being an idiot. With your skills you should be able to land a job in security, and you'll actually make money instead of going to jail like a dumbass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some Uber intern probably made that form and didn't know what sanitizing inputs was about. Good find - but easy fix. You usually can't get away with XSS attacks anymore

<comment><AUTHOR> Uber told me they used WordPress to build their petition sites. Maybe other WordPress sites are vulnerable?

<comment><USER5> WordPress has plenty of functions to sanitize, the one who made the theme or dropped in the form probably overlooked it.</comment></comment></comment>


Service Workers Already Lived in the Fringes, Coronavirus Made It Worse - <AUTHOR> https://jezebel.com/the-week-the-dream-sank-1842381638 <comment><AUTHOR> The headline appearing in the article body is "The Week the Dream Sank". But when I mouse over the browser tab, I get the title "Service Workers Already Lived in the Fringes, Coronavirus Made It Worse". I chose the latter.</comment>


How an iPad mini Could Define The Small Tablet Market - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/07/10/a-conduit-for-content-how-an-ipad-mini-could-define-the-small-tablet-market/ <comment><USER2> 2010: "The reason we [won't] make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit that price point, it's because we think the screen is too small to express the software [..]It is meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size. Apple's done extensive user-testing [..] This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps."

2012: Nexus 7 is introduced by Google

later: Apple "defines" the market by releasing a smaller iPad

<comment><USER3> Classic misdirection. Apple wanted to enjoy big margins from $500+ iPads as long as possible. There was no reason for them to release a cheaper device until someone forced their hand. They still have all the momentum to make the move gracefully. This was exactly the move they were not able to make with the iPhone when it was facing increased competition. They were locked into one US carrier and had limited international reach. So they simply couldn't respond in the same way. With the 7" iPad they can follow the iPod model directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a 7" android tablet (a really old one) and it makes a great device for reading (it has a lot of other problems, but reading is good). I think the Nexus 7 looks like a great device, and seems to already be defining the small tablet market, unlike a hypothetical apple device. This just reeks of fanboi- ism, unwilling to concede that google might have dome something good that apple doesn't already have product in that category for.

<comment><USER3> I think it's an honest assessment about the momentum the iPad has in the market. It's a lot like the iPod. Was it Sansa (Sandisk?) that had very good small digital players about a year before the iPod Nano? Apple flipped the switch on the Nano, charged more, and steam rolled them because everyone still wanted an iPod. The only big question to me is if Apple will step far enough into the 'value' market with pricing. $299 leaves the door open. $249 slams the door.

<comment><USER5> Sansa isn't Google. Apple, if they were to enter the 7-8" market, would have real competition on it's hands (Kindle Fire 2, etc)

What is more likely is that the new iPad will find a way to differentiate itself both from it's bigger brother and the rest of the pack - something that Apple can market day and night. And yes, there will be value pricing, but probably $249 at the lowest.

Dual-strategy: upsell to bigger iPad, while getting down and dirty in the 7" category so that any successes for Google/Amazon aren't cheap. One slam dunk would probably be 3G for your iPad mini, which neither of the others offer currently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't want to make assumptions without seeing some data on this, but do people really think that the 10" iPad is too big? I can understand a fiscal reason to make smaller iPads, but I struggle to see any vast ergonomic benefits to a slightly smaller device.

<comment><USER3> The benefit is mostly to reach a bigger market without cannibalizing the existing market too much. It would be awkward to sell a cheap 10" tablet that is really 'good enough' to most people along side an expensive 10" tablet. How do you explain the differences and justify paying 30-50% more? The only reason they can get away with selling the same sizes of iPhones is due to carrier subsidies. They can make money on the low end devices. If a consumer was walking into a store to buy a 3GS off contract they would likely not pay more than $200 for it. Apple is getting more like $350-$400 from the carriers for a 3GS.

<comment><USER7> Great point here. I think that the Mini (if it happens, if that's the name, etc) will be another gateway drug just like the iPod touch. I remember Steve smiling kinda smugly about people who wanted the OS and the apps but didn't want the phone. The touch was how Apple got them in the door.

Now translate that to a tablet. For $200 you can get a device that has, inarguably, the best apps marketplace, at its disposal. Android tablets will have an especially difficult time keeping up with that, except for the ones that are purchased by people who simply don't like Apple and its ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Few people want a smaller iPad. Many people, however, want a larger iPhone. I'd be surprised if Apple doesn't get that.

<comment><USER9> Disagree.

The HN discussion on the Nexus had many users coming out of the woodwork discussing how they wanted to buy one, touting the virtues of the size. In SV, I also know of other techies who regularly use a laptop but rarely use their iPad (or choose not to buy one). The iPad is slightly too big to carry comfortably in bed or on a couch to read while the iPhone is too small. And since I already have a 13' Macbook (soon to be Air), there isn't much that a 10' iPad has over it with regards to portability and function.

I wouldn't want a bigger iPhone (even though I know it's going to happen) because it already seems bigger than I'd like for a pocket phone.

<comment><USER8> I don't think the "too big for use in bed" argument carries much water, but I will say that one reason why I might buy a smaller iPad would be for use in a semi-permanent car installation. The iPad is too big for that job, but a 7" tablet would be in line with some of the larger screens in existing high-end autosound systems.

Right now I use an iPhone for navigation and music in the car, which is why I want a (much) bigger one. But I'll admit that it's possible that what I really want is a smaller iPad, not a bigger phone.

Of course, I'm just making a choice between two different kludges in order to work around the sad, obvious truth: that no Apple-like company is apparently going to save the autosound industry -- a confederacy of dunces if there ever was one -- from its own incompetence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a developer, the thought of supporting yet another resolution/form factor scares the hell out of me.

I rarely use my Kindle Fire because I feel it's too small, and can't imagine finding a need for a 7" iPad. That's what my iPhone is for.

<comment><USER11> The rumoured iPad mini is supposed to have them same 1024x768 resolution as the iPad 1 & 2\. Apparently, if you stuck to Apple's developer guidelines and used the same 44x44 point minimum size for both iPhone and iPad, then any touch controls on the new device will be the same size as they would be on the iPhone. So no effort required for developers.

There was an article about it on here the other day, but now it's probably lost in all the other rumours.

<comment><USER12> This might be the article in question: [http://castirony.com/post/26466421254/the-case- for-a-7-8-ipa...](http://castirony.com/post/26466421254/the-case- for-a-7-8-ipad)

<comment><USER11> Yep that's the one, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what resolution we can have on this 7inch tablet?

</comment><comment><USER14> This article is smug to the point that it's unreadable.

</comment><comment><USER15> What evidence is there that Apple intends to make a slightly smaller non retina iPad? This sounds ridiculous...

<comment><USER16> Rumors from inside the supply chain, as reported in the Wall Street Journal:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457750...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506471913819412.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

and Bloomberg:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes- nexus-7-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes- nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html)

Not sourced to named people, of course.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does it normally go when one Founder invests the initial money? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, thinking about starting my first company. The business co-founder is going to be putting up the initial money for server costs etc. until we get financing.
How do you normally write a contract around this? We've all agreed to split the equity evenly. Should we handle the money he puts up as a loan to the business? Is there something else we can do?
Tried googling for stuff, but had a tough time finding any resources. <comment><USER2> My company did this. I fronted most of the money as a loan to the company (in total I want to say it was <$10k) and the company paid the loan back interest free when we had the money in the bank. I was okay with it, and my 2 cofounders put in what they could (also as a loan). Haven't looked back. Never caused an issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> One way to look at it is to imagine what you would do if the money was put up by a third party (angel investor). You'd probably do a convertible note or SAFE. You could treat money from the co-founder the same way, keeping it as a separate line on the cap table. This would lead to the foundvestor getting more equity so you have to decide whether you can live with that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why spend a bunch of money upfront on servers? you should know how much you'll save by switching to a server but just use a amazon or something like that until your sure you can build something people want. Also, what happens if the business doesn't work. Has this person invested his life savings?

</comment><comment><USER5> Keep things simple. Just note the amount he puts in as a simple loan to the company. Once you're up and running and profitable have the company write a check to him to repay him what he fronted to launch the company.

Good luck in 2015.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are looking at a start-up trajectory, plan to take on additional money, etc, treat his money like a third party investment and value it separately from his role (and equity) as a co-founder. To properly do this, you'll have to come up with a reasonable valuation for your company. It should be somewhere between 100k and 200k if you are starting from zero.

If you are looking to bootstrap, then treat the money like a loan.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you don't want the money contributing to equity, you're most likely looking at a loan. Just write some legible words stating that this is a loan and email it around with the other guy agreeing to it.

I only know from experience from incorporating an LLC. If it's anything else (S/C -corp) then I have no idea.</comment>


Apple Security Update released, fixes several serious vulns - <AUTHOR> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 <comment><USER2> That's not the best HN story title (it currently is "Apple Security Update released with several serious vulns"). From what I can tell, this update doesn't _have_ several (known) vulnerabilities, it _fixes_ them.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. I've edited the title.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you have an Apple device, be it running macOS, tvOS, watchOS or iOS, you should go update it, right now.

Details aren't entirely clear, but it doesn't seem impossible that these vulns together chain from browser to kernel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunate choice of URL, since this is the generic list of all Apple security advisories.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to link the the most official source. They're sorted by date, so you can just look at the ones released today.</comment></comment>