Epstein Arrest Leaves Top Technology Figures Racing to Distance Themselves - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/jeffrey-epstein-arrest-spurs-tech-figures-to-distance-themselves <comment><USER2> The one thing I sort of held as truth over my life about why international grand conspiracies would never be "real" was that there's just too many individuals involved to make a coverup possible. Surely there has to be _some_ individual with morals to leak necessary evidence to the media right?

The more that comes out about this Epstein case the more I question that truth. I'm sure there are people on the inside looking to call out and reveal things but if our sole source of coverage for these events are media companies owned by the very people guilty of such high crimes then what do we do? Surely the internet would enable these voices to come forward?

The whole thing seems so weird and like a fiction novel. I'd love to see those horrible people charged for their crimes, but in the absolute bare minimum I'd like to see how such criminal empires operate without notice.

<comment><USER3> One of the magazines that were indeed reporting on people like Epstein was Gawker, it's actually mentioned in the article. We all know what happened to Gawker but people in the Valley are too afraid to speak up against pretty despicable guys like Thiel.

<comment><USER4> What "people like Epstein" was Gawker reporting on? Unfortunately I only know it from Theil-related stories, i.e. reporting that Theil is gay and the sex tape issue (neither of which seem "Epstein-worthy").

<comment><USER3> Epstein himself, for once, and that would be enough. Also, one of their magazines/websites was reporting on some crazy parties, travel-trips and weddings carried out by SV owners, things that nowadays will definitely raise a few eyebrows in terms of economic inequality and conspicuous consumption, but those article were very badly received by the employees of those people the articles were writing about (so including people on this website) so that not a lot of tears were shed when Gawker went down.

I'm not equaling Marie Antoinette-way of living to the despicable things Epstein did, I'm just saying that in today's political climate it would have been very interesting to still have access to articles detailing how the Google or FB owners were throwing out their money.

<comment><USER4> I don't really see a difference between "these evil rich people are spending money / living if ways that we don't approve" and "these evil rich people are having sex in ways we don't approve" (i.e. _Thiel is gay!!!1_ ). Both are a needless distraction from progress/living happily and encourage a hostile political climate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > An active host, Epstein arranged a dinner in the early 2000s at his Upper > East Side townhouse for former President Clinton, a no-show, according to > New York magazine.

It seems they are trying to distance Epstein from Bill Clinton. Bill flew to the island a dozen times, Epstein's girlfriend came to Chelsea's wedding... Ah! but Bill didn't show for a dinner once so he wasn't really connected with Epstein that much? If the reporter just left that part out completely it might have worked, but they are trying a little too hard. I bet there is a deeper connection there.

The case, overall is just so strange. The plea deal he got before, his attempted suicide in his cell after(!) filing an appeal to post bail.

Also, he went from stealing checks in the mail [https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6962478/parties/united-...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6962478/parties/united- states-v-epstein/) to owning private islands, 7500 acre range in New Mexico, apartment in Paris, a Boeing 727, getting a multi-million dollar mansions for $1 as a "gift". It's just unbelievable stuff.

<comment><USER6> Clinton also went on Epstein's private jet 27 times. He is by far the most connected to him.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/nyregion/bill-clinton- jef...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/nyregion/bill-clinton-jeffrey- epstein.html)

It's weird how many articles say that Epstein was connected to "Clinton and Trump." No: he'd met Trump. He was _connected_ to Clinton.

<comment><USER5> > Clinton also went on Epstein's private jet 27 times

Wonder how many of those flights were to the infamous island...

I thought it was interesting to see if the reporter is somehow connected to the Clintons. It seems she was at least viewed as being favorable towards them:

(from [https://wikileaks.org/podesta- emails/emailid/33810](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/33810))

> \- Reuters (Sarah McBride) is writing what should be a positive story on our > campaign's efforts to attract the backing of young tech entrepreneurs.

I guess the lesson for Brin, and others, is to "cultivate" a better relationship with the journalists so they can insert lines like these in their articles "there was this one time when Brin saw Epstein, but Sergey quickly crossed the street and didn't even say hello".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An independent activist journalist has been digging into the case and has come up with some interesting and alarming connections and history. Worth a read: [https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/07/08/the-jeffrey- epstein...](https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/07/08/the-jeffrey-epstein- rabbit-hole-goes-a-lot-deeper-than-you-think/)

<comment><USER8> I find it interesting that both the words independent and activist had to be brought out to qualify the wonderful journalism from Michael Krieger. Wasn't there a time when it was somewhat assumed that journalists were both independent and activists to some extent?

Thanks for sharing the link!

<comment><USER9> Journalists at quality publications (Economist, NYT, AP) still are independent, at least in the sense that they are not accepting bribes from Epstein or the oil industry etc.

The linked site has all the markers of being untrustworthy: conspiratorial headlines ending in "What's really going on"; A fascination with cryptocurrencies; Incessant calls for donations, the name, etc.

FWIW the Epstein angle – that he is a Mossad agent – isn't "buried" by the mainstream media. I have seen this theory mentioned. It is just not featured prominently because there is no substantive evidence for it. It's just a Deus Ex Machina that could conveniently explain the dereliction of duty of the criminal justice system in the case.

Journalists never were supposed to be "activists", except for some universally accepted concepts such as democracy and transparency. There is a memorable scene in a documentation of the NYT called "Page One", where Brian Stelter is filmed asking Assange if he considers himselself a journalist or an activist.

What has changed are the widely-shared "assumptions". It's become a marker of one's smartitude to rail against "mainstream" journalism.

<comment><USER10> Every journalist is an activist for some point of view. An establishment- friendly bias is just as much a bias as anti-establishment bias. There's nothing wrong with this—journalists are just people. But it's dishonest to pretend that your own bias doesn't exist and you are doing 'objective journalism' while other perspectives are 'activist'.

An informed reader should understand the biases present in anything they read and weigh the arguments accordingly—pretending objectivity discourages this kind of responsibility and is very harmful to good-faith discourse.

<comment><USER11> Yes and no, but mostly no.

Every person who is a journalist has a bias. But the point of the practice/process of journalism is to mitigate those personal influences.

Just because you're investigating and writing does mean you're a journalist. Maybe you're doing glorified op-ed. Maybe you're being a wannabe reporter. But being a journaliat is a higher level.

If you're not aware of the difference between op-ed, reporter, and journalism then...you're not a journalist. One of the biggest communication problems we have today is that too many assume they understand the definition of journalism (and the processess and ethics on which its built), but they do not. Yet they continue to use the word inappropriately. Others blindly follow. And so on.

Long to short, people use "journalism" like they use "literally"; most of the time in the wrong way at the wrong time.

<comment><USER10> I agree with the distinctions you make and that we shouldn't conflate journalism with opinion pieces. I also agree that there are huge differences in journalistic quality. But _anyone_ who considers themselves a journalist and is operating in good faith is trying to determine and shed light on the truth, and they will all bring their own subjective beliefs to bear on this effort.

My point is that just alleging the presence of bias to call a piece 'not journalism' is wrong because all journalism is biased in some way. It's a dishonest tactic that boils down to an appeal to authority.

<comment><USER11> To clarify, I agree.

To further clarify, what you think I said is not what I said.

The practice of journalism will not eliminate bias. Nothing can. But it can and should mitigate it. And if you're not trying to mitigate the biases, then that's not journalism. To write shamelessly with bias is not journalism.

Long to short, there is a fair amount of publishing that gets called journalism, but is actually op-ed. There's nothing wrong with that per se, other than as journalism, it's fake news.

The Rachael Maddow Show is not journalism; and in that context/form she is not a journalist.

Many of the Fox News Shows are not journalism.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

The problem is too many people treat them as news and they're op-ed.

Put another way, just because you agree with an opinion doesn't mean it's journalism.

<comment><USER10> Obviously, but disagreeing with a journalist's opinions also doesn't make them any less of a journalist if they are in fact doing journalism in good faith.

I don't watch Fox so I can't speak to any of their shows, but from what I've seen of Maddow (admittedly not a lot), she is clearly doing at least some amount of journalism in terms of seeking the truth, verifying sources and facts, etc. Sure she also pushes her opinions and has an agenda, but I would argue that this is orthogonal to her journalistic integrity, which I haven't really seen any reason to question. She is not trying to present opinions as if they were facts—she just mixes the two in a single show. Of course she is biased in what she chooses to cover, but again the point is that _everyone_ does that to some degree. Claiming you have 'mitigated' your unavoidable bias is just an attempt to privilege your own perspective above others.

Like science, journalism is falsifiable. If you can point to specific errors or falsehoods, you should do so. Otherwise you're just dealing in innuendo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Frankly, a number of them sound as if they are already distanced. "Talked to the guy at a fundraiser" or "discussed investing" are pretty slim connections.

</comment><comment><USER13> According to the article the list of prominent tech figures who socialized with Epstein includes:

Sergey Brin

Richard Branson

Jason Calacanis

Bill Gates

Reid Hoffman

Elon Musk

Nathan Myhrvold

Mark Zuckerberg

That's an impressive list.

<comment><USER14> Bill Gates is not a nice person, but I will believe almost everything before believing that he was raping underaged girls on a secret island.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if none of them were involved in Epstein's worst crimes, their willingness to even give the time of day to a convicted sex trafficker reveals a disgusting toleration for predatory behavior. The overall picture it paints is, "hey, as long as he could buy his way out of any real trouble it's safe for me to associate with him."

<comment><USER15> Is it not possible that some of them only knew him before his conviction?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Question to ask is why they're only distancing themselves now?

<comment><USER17> Probably because Epstein thought he was in the clear after his sweetheart non- prosecution agreement.

Let's be very clear here: anyone trying to distance themselves from him now isn't doing it out of principle, as numerous allegations against him have been rumored for many years. They're doing it for self-preservation.

<comment><USER18> There weren't rumors, there were convictions, a jail sentence, and numerous known victims.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Eyes Wide Shut [https://www.newsweek.com/eyes-wide-shut-missing-footage- epst...](https://www.newsweek.com/eyes-wide-shut-missing-footage-epstein- kubrick-death-1449108)

</comment><comment><USER20> Well, at least the US has finally jailed him. Here in the UK they don't even need to be billionaires to wield the kind of influence to escape the eye of the law. Just be the guy that reads out this week's government approved list of popular tunes, on behalf the state broadcaster, to get the full protection of the state, media and police. Saville was openly fingering underage girls on live primetime broadcasts of Top Of The Pops and nobody did a thing until after he died.

</comment><comment><USER21> It does seem likely that most of these contacts were trivial. Apart from the headline names in this Bloomberg piece, he often courted notable scientists who of course would respond as he funded research. 99% or even 100% of those were equally innocent.

I have wondered how people with odd (or horrible in this case) fetishes that are looked down upon manage to meet. I imagine the number of people involved in the abuse must be pretty small.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's another similar story from Belgium (underage victims, blackmail etc): [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/05/dutroux.featur...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/05/dutroux.featuresreview)

Edit: warning, the story above had me crying on public transit. It is worth knowing about but terribly terribly sad.

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone he blackmailed to make his millions should be distancing themselves.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just want to point out that a lot of this information has long been known in circles dismissed as conspiracy theory under the overly broad label "pizzagate."

Suddenly the crazy connections among business magnates, past and present world leaders, and pedophile rings is not so crazy.

<comment><USER25> Pizzagate was fiction and was easily debunked. The fact that there are actually bad people who do actual bad things doesn't suddenly validate made-up stories.

<comment><USER26> Of course Pizzagate was fiction. That's not the point the original comment was making. The comment simply stated that unrelated events such as Epstein were being unnecessarily lumped in with the "pizzagate" craziness in recent years (caused both by feverish conspiracy theorists, and a reflexive dismissal by the media) and due to that the broader topic of 'pedophilia among elites' was ignored up until now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> top finance figures: "meh"

</comment><comment><USER28> Why? Unless they were in on the shenanigans he was just a well connected investor with lots of cash. Better taking his money for good than letting him use it for bad.

<comment><USER18> I'm jealous of people who think that using money for themselves is synonymous with using it for good.

<comment><USER29> especially when they are creating wealth for the people they are taking money from</comment></comment></comment>


Our suite of Ethereum security tools - <AUTHOR> https://blog.trailofbits.com/2018/03/23/use-our-suite-of-ethereum-security-tools/ <comment><USER2> I have coded Solidity a bit, and it's pretty obvious the language is not up for the task. I mean its 2018 and we have a brand new "business language" that can have overflows and stuff. It's like making all mistakes over again. Many problematic vulnerabilities and lost funds (e.g. parity freeze) is due to this language being not the right choice. If "code is law" we need a better language and not just tooling on top of a broken one.

I don't know, how about Cobol? I'm serious, that was designed as business language at least.

<comment><USER3> Is it possible to implement a compiles to solidity or compiles to evm language with better properties? I assume yes.

<comment> mike-myers Yea, Solidity is not the only language of code that compiles to EVM bytecode. There are other languages that also do so: Serpent, LLL, and Viper. "Better" is subjective, but it looks like Viper is intended to be more audit-able. But it's also still a work in progress.

Serpent and LLL are apparently lower-level than Solidity.

[https://steemit.com/ethereum/@balzss/the-many-languages- of-e...](https://steemit.com/ethereum/@balzss/the-many-languages-of-ethereum- clearing-up-misconceptions-about-solidity-serpent-vyper-and-the-evm)

<comment><USER4> Bamboo looks quite interesting. I think it's mainly focused on modelling the state changes smart contracts undergo more explicitly. [https://github.com/pirapira/bamboo](https://github.com/pirapira/bamboo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel most of these vulnerabilities should not exist in the first place. When you create a language that's specifically made to handle money that also is immutable (so without possibility to rollback), it should be generally a bit more secure than the average language.

The VM should be protected against integer overflows and functions should be protected by default, I don't really get those design choices.

<comment><USER6> Oh it's even worse than overflows. The order of operations of Solidity isn't even the same as most languages, which will undoubtedly lead to issues at some point. [https://twitter.com/esultanik/status/976186942625861632](https://twitter.com/esultanik/status/976186942625861632)

<comment><USER7> I fail to see the problem in that code.

        (1 | 0 < 1)

evaluates to False in python as well.

<comment><USER8> There's a, what, 50 year tradition in C of boolean ORs evaluating left to right. I don't know truthiness rules in Python, but the REPL just told me 1 is not False. So we have something that is not False ORed with True. What is your thought process?

<comment><USER7> >ORs evaluating left to right

There is only a single bitwise OR here, and no logical ORs. Whether they are evaluated left to right or right to left makes no difference in the execution of this expression.

Swap it left and right:

        (1 > 0 | 1)

And you'll see that C still gives you 1, and Python still gives you False.

>we have something that is not False ORed with True

No. We have (in the original Python equation) 1 ORed with 0. That results in 1. Then that resultant 1 is compared ('<') with 1. That comparison results in False .

The difference between Python and C is that in Python '|' has higher precedence than '<', but in C '<' has higher precedence than '|'. Dennis Ritchie admits that this is a mistake in the C language[1]. Python (and Solidity) have corrected that mistake.

The reason that '|' should have higher precedence than '<' is the same reason that '+' should have higher precedence than '<'. Namely, people want to do arithmetic calculations ('|' and '+') then compare the result of those calculations ('<' and '=='). There is essentially no situation where it is useful to have '<' have higher precedence than '|'.

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4685072/operator- precede...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4685072/operator-precedence- bitwise-lower-than)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the explanation. I'm not familiar with Solidity and was assuming the intent was logical or.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a LOT of things to cover here, this tool chain is just the tip of the iceberg. The EVM is open source on steroids - not only is the code open source but every cpu cycle, memory access and IO activity is executed in the open, and replayed across thousands of nodes by anyone, anywhere as a necessity.

This is probably one of the most exciting paradigm shifts in recent times, being able to call services / functions that are cryptographically verified is an incredibly powerful tool, and may one day become a standard part of the web stack. There is still a long way to go, but what a time to get involved!

</comment><comment><USER10> Are there no frameworks for formally validating smart contracts or using thereom provers? The small code size, non Turing completeness, and extremely high penalty for failure seem to all align.

Hell, even in an offensive sense it makes sense. [https://anee.me/solving-a- simple-crackme-using-z3-68c55af7f7...](https://anee.me/solving-a-simple- crackme-using-z3-68c55af7f7b1)

<comment><USER11> [https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/zeppelin- solidity](https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/zeppelin-solidity)

<comment><USER10> As much as they use 'secure' in their README, I don't see any real evidence of that in their code.

When I'm looking for formally methods, a package.json is a bad sign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hopefully these and other smart contract analysis tools can become a part of a CI/CD system for Ethereum. It seems like that would have prevented some of the massive losses due to simple programming errors.

</comment><comment><USER13> While working at the level of code can undoubtedly reduce the number of errors, it is not enough to solve the significant risk of making logical errors in contract design.</comment>


Ask HN: Good forums to ask/talk about Delphi? - <AUTHOR> Checked the comp.lang.<i>delphi</i> ones, seem inactive - via faqs.org at least. <comment><USER2> For technical questions (problem solving) StackOverflow has a good number of very active and knowledgable people. For opinions and more general talk, the Google+ community is a good place: [https://plus.google.com/communities/103113685381486591754](https://plus.google.com/communities/103113685381486591754)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Useful.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> That should be comp dot lang dot star delphi star, above, not delphi in italics, sorry.</comment>


10 Interview Questions Every JavaScript Developer Should Know - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/javascript-scene/10-interview-questions-every-javascript-developer-should-know-6fa6bdf5ad95 <comment><USER2> While I think this sheet is a great reference, the level of opinionatedness is a turn off. It strikes me not open to people that might bring a point of view that challenges the author's orthodoxy. Some of the opinions expressed seem to indicate a lack of understanding of successful patterns from outside of the mainstream JS world. I would not use as a filter in hiring.

For example, I might agree that composition is better than inheritance if I'd never experienced the joy of algebraic data types. Pattern matching doesn't work out so hot without some concept of "is-a". Languages that support type- classes also tend to avoid the brittle-class problem. I agree that Java style single-inheritance hierarchies are a recipe for disaster, but that's not the only type of class-based inheritance. Scala, for example, has a much better story.

While Javascript's prototype system is really powerful, I'm not at all convinced anything more than a small number of library writers should be interacting directly with it. CoffeeScript and ES6 have class stories that are vastly more productive in most cases, in my opinion -- and by the way, are pretty thin layers of prototypes, if someone needs to really hack on that level. In my experience, most people spin monstrosities when they try to hack together their own prototypal logic, when all they is something pretty basic. The author's stamps [1] are very cool. They're more powerful than `class`. But they still expose a level of variation and control people don't generally need in reality. To analogize with functional programming -- sure you can solve almost every problem with `reduce`, but that doesn't make it better than `map` in all cases. There's huge value to using a tool with just the power you need for the task at hand.

In general, I'm suspicious of anything that tries to establish some kind of knowledge quota for new hires. How much time would it take to acquire this knowledge? If the answer is "not that long, just read all the links on this page" then why not evaluate your candidates on skills and knowledge that aren't so easily acquired, and then assign the reading those links you want understood as orientation homework? Don't get me wrong, I want people on my team capable of thinking at the level of depth some of these questions explore. I just think it's more productive to find ways to let the applicant expose that depth through descriptions of their past experience, not by adhering to my preconceived list. I wrote a piece [2] when I worked for HuffPost that explored ideas for evaluating potential hires, with out being overly prescriptive regarding their specific knowledge at the time of interview.

[1] [https://medium.com/javascript-scene/introducing-the-stamp- sp...](https://medium.com/javascript-scene/introducing-the-stamp- specification-77f8911c2fee)

[2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alanjohnson/were-hiring- engine...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alanjohnson/were-hiring-engineers- all-wrong_b_7973484.html)</comment>


If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible? - <AUTHOR> http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/10/30/start-up-studies-a-pop-quiz/ <comment><USER3> I'm amazed by the number of people in this thread who have gotten the challenge wrong.

They didn't only have 2 hours to conceive and execute their idea, nor did they have to limit themselves to the $5.00.

They were given an envelope that contained an unknown amount of seed money, and then they had 4 or 5 days to decide how to make money with it. They would only have 2 hours once they opened the envelope to make as much money as possible.

The challenge wasn't what people could make with $5.00, it's how the teams dealt with a set of unknowns in order to make money.

(Edit: Someone disagrees with me, but I'm not sure why. If you watch the video, it's quite clear that this is the case. I'm not just stating an opinion here.)

<comment><USER4> I haven't voted you either way, but from the video it's still not clear to me whether the $5 was a known or unknown amount. I agree that the exercise makes more sense if it's unknown, but I don't think it was ever clearly stated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're not thinking of watching the video, think again. Even if you watch just the last two minutes. There's a good twist in the tail in the way the most successful team made the most money :-)

<comment><USER6> Can someone just spoil it please? I hate having to waste my time in order to glean insights. Pareto.

<comment><USER4> She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can.

She cites three teams' approaches:

1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of charging, and makes more money. Lauded for rapid iteration.

2) Second team makes lots of reservations at local restaurants, and then sells them to people waiting in line for same restaurant. Didn't use the $5 at all. Lauded for realizing that the $5 constraint was artificial, and that using it constrained their thinking.

3) Third team skipped the exercise, and sold their 3 minute class presentation time as a advertisement to a local company. Made the most money. Instead of presenting, they recruited. Lauded for realizing that the 2 hours was also artificially hampering their thinking.

Personally, I found the presentation glib and condescending, and the solutions immoral and dishonest. I'm hoping for good discussion about the issues here, but I would not recommend the video.

<comment><USER7> See, the problem here is that she hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints.

1\. Used a device to measure the tire pressure and materials to build the booth and signs. Did they cost less than $5? Maybe. Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, _and_ perform the services? Unlikely.

2\. Well done on finding something you can acquire for free and then sell. However: did they make the reservations at 6pm and then sell them before 8pm? If not, the process of making the money took more than the 2 hours allotted.

3\. You had two hours. Instead, you spent 2 hours talking to an advertising company and then a week later you sold 3 minutes of your time. Total time used to make $650: a week. In the real world you can't just discount lead time and idle time; that's a mistake made by a lot of starving contractors.

The point of the puzzle is to work inside the constraints. "Thinking outside the box" is a great skill and all, but basically all these teams are doing is finding creative ways of breaking the rules. It means the puzzle isn't "make the most money in 2 hours with $5", it means the puzzle is "find out how far you can stretch these rules without being disqualified". Points for creativity, sure, but that wasn't the problem.

<comment><USER8> "she hands out two artificial constraints"

But that's very important. People are constantly working under ... and handing out ... artificial constraints. _Getting outside the box_ is one of the most important lessons. Who could _possibly_ want to communicate but be limited to only 140 characters?

The US spent a million dollars to develop a pen that could write in no- gravity. The Russians used a pencil.

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally."

<comment><USER9> Not using the $5 at all thinking outside the box is. You break a rule that thought existed before you thought about it. It is a constraint on your mind, not your world. This is a space pencil.

Using $10 instead of $5 is not thinking outside the box.

<comment><USER8> For some people finding fault is easier than seeing the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just a few options off the top of my head:

1\. Email everyone I've done work for in the past 5 years, promising all of my time on Mondays for the next year to the highest bidder by 2:00 p.m.

2\. Same as #1, but instead of the highest bid, the first $10,000.

3\. Same as #2, but $1,000. I will accept all checks received in the next 2 hours. What they will get: free use of my next web service for life.

4\. Tell my employer that unless he cuts me a bonus check for $10,000 in the next 2 hours, I quit.

5\. Write a one page book, "How I Lost 50 Pounds in 9 Months." Make as many photocopies as possible. Put on a pair of pants twice my size and sell the one page books for a buck a piece in front of McDonald's or the food court at lunch time. (I weigh 150 pounds.)

In all 5 cases, I leverage assets (goodwill & good health) I've already earned in much more than 2 hours.

The $5? For the lunch I eat while my "assets" (hopefully) earn.

<comment><USER11> But with several of those options, you take on liabilities that may exceed the money you made. By the same logic, you could use your two hours to get a mortgage on your house. (And the last option sounds like fraud.)

<comment><USER12> You always see pictures of guy who are obviously tremendously muscular and who have gained 30lbs of fat for the sole purpose of photographing it and losing it again.

The diet ad doesn't say, Hey, unless you have 65lbs of muscle under your flab and are able to devote several hours a day to working out, this 4 week plan/pill isn't going to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is a link to the original Stanford podcast where this video is from: <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2219>

I really recommend the whole series also, they have had some excellent guests. <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html>

Edit: Grammar

<comment><USER14> Agree 100%. It's a great series with many good talks. One of my all-time favorites is from Tom Kelley (IDEO) on being an innovator for life: <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2054>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Buy a box of Cokes, sell them individually outside the movie theatre, repeat. Run when the management finds out.

I used to do this with Blow-Pops in middle school. You could buy a huge bag for about $1.50, and sell each one for 25¢. Great profit margin.

<comment><USER16> I did the same with Now and Laters. Buying them in bulk and selling them individually to kids at school.

<comment><USER17> Same here and one classmate thought I was being crass. Or being a profiteer.

<comment><USER18> Take it as a compliment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If the question is what I would _actually_ do, I'd probably offer "computer tune-ups" as someone else suggested. That, or set up and secure wifi routers. A lot of people are afraid of wifi routers because they've heard the person next door can get them in trouble; solving this problem is of definite value to them. Once I did this for someone whose house was big and radio-interfering enough to require repeaters; I made $100 in an hour.

If the question is what would make the most money, I'd print up a bunch of official-looking flyers and an official-looking record sheet, go to some high- traffic spot, and collect "donations". This is very unethical, but it probably earns money the fastest of anything that can be set up so quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually in the video, one of the teams did something similar. They went to a highly trafficked area on campus and offered to test bike tire pressures for free, then fill the tire up for a dollar if necessary.

They had a great response from this, but soon learned that they could make even more money by asking for a "donation", instead of a dollar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is merely an academic "bounding/framing" exercise in every sense of the word. Pure entertainment.

A better measure of business creativity would be to allocate the same fixed budgets of labor and materials to all teams and record revenue, profits, and judge the sustainability of the solution at the end of a more reasonable operational timeframe--say 1 week.

The "winning" teams operated under entirely different working budgets for materials and labor during their prep time and 2 hour window.

It's made even worse as the professor immediately demerits the 'party' example due to the costs of the party supplies and setup. Apparently, Stanford student time & attention is "free" for one team, but worth $650 for the other.

</comment><comment><USER21> Apparently by ignoring the money and the time limit...

Personally I found the latter 2 solutions pretty unimaginative in ignoring the $5. If the exercise is to maximise the $5 (a much harder task it seems) then they seem to have failed.

<comment><USER22> But to maximize the $5 was NOT the exercise...

<comment><USER21> no, but it would have been a lot more impressive.

If the point was to show that artificial limits were, well, dangerous I dont think it was made hugely well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd buy balloons and a bag of rice, make five juggling balls and busk. The balls take about 30 minutes to make, I'd get about an hour of busking, so I'd make about $40 as a one off, maybe $100, depending where I am.

<comment><USER16> Why would you waste 25% of your time making balls you could buy for $5? Go to a 99 cent store, there are tons of balls in there for under $5.

<comment><USER23> Well, since you ask, juggling balls that you can buy for less than $1 are crap. Very, very hard to juggle five with them. Good juggling balls in the UK cost upwards of ukp3 each, so that's about $10 for five, and you can't buy them in your corner store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Teacher: "And the TEAM that made the absolute most MONEY challenged absolutely every assumption and managed to make $5000 in the two hours."

Student: "How?"

Teacher: "Prostitution."

Student: "Who was in second place?"

Teacher: "The team that robbed a convince store."

<comment><USER25> A "convince store"? I think I am going to open one of those... then I can just convince someone to give me $10,000 or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> #1. Buy a hammer. #2. Threaten people with it. #3. Take their money. #4. Profit!

I kid!

<comment><USER27> Love your humor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Prostitution.

</comment><comment><USER29> 1.

Trick 1: Forget about the $5.

2.

Trick 2: Forget about providing the actual service within those 2 hours. Use the 2 hours just for doing the actual trade.

3.

Then sell something before you buy it. If I was given just 2 hours, I would do quick brokerage.

Hour 1: Find a group of people who wants to buy laptops* at a decent price. Get their configs down and get a commitment.

Hour 2: Find a seller who will give the best price on bulk laptop purchases.

*Laptops because I think it has high profit margins. But if finding a group or a business that is willing to buy laptops is hard - I would switch to some easy product - like movie tickets.

<comment><USER30> ... and you've just created an inductive proof for how the US financial system collapsed.

Don't get me wrong: I think step 3 has a good chance of working. BUT if you, like your customers, assume that a commitment is equivalent to the actual asset (i.e. the laptop) then you are vulnerable to defaulting on YOUR commitment if and when you cannot deliver the asset.

How might that happen? Imagine you commit to purchasing laptops through a broker, exactly like yourself, who has no laptops to sell. This happens all the time (e.g. "just in time" ordering) and it results in delays, angry customers, and in the case of the US financial system, systemic fraud, corruption and failure.

Naked short selling is surprisingly similar to your strategy:

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

<comment><USER29> While in theory you are correct, there are a few points to ponder upon:

Laptops are not like stocks or other exchange commodities. As in, their prices won't fluctuate like crazy (unless of course you manage to get pre-order commitments to like 10,000 laptops.) At the scale we are talking about, we have a pretty good idea of what price discounts we'll get. And more importantly - who will be able to deliver them well.

Its important to keep scale in mind.

<comment><USER30> Agreed - delivery is the important aspect, when it comes to just-in-time order fulfillment. If they don't deliver, then you don't deliver either.

On your last point, I agree again: scale is critical. You describe something that might work once, given that there are no supply chain screw-ups or customer service problems. At the scale you describe, you can probably absorb any costs associated with these problems, but you will eat into your time and/or profit to do so.

My whole point is that the risk doesn't disappear just because you haven't invested any capital; you've just shifted the risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> if we're going for outside the box thinking I would buy a homeless person a meal and claim the satisfaction was priceless. since priceless > $650 I win.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am now thinking about every "problem" in my life, its borders, and whether those borders mean ANYTHING. Is everything this artificial?

</comment><comment><USER33> Get as far as you can on $5 of gas and drive to friends and family's houses running msconfig and cleaning up crapware to make their computer run faster. Easily $20 - $40 a pop. Protip: reinvest a little profit into more gas, make even more money!

<comment><USER34> I'd be surprised if you could thoroughly do one in three hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Since it's a video, I will risk ruining the 'surprise' for you since it's hard to scan a video. She says the most successful teams didn't really use the $5 because it was a limitation, they broke out of the standard "framing" of the problem.

<comment><USER36> So, the 2 hours is more important than the 5 dollars? I did get caught by the framing, but in retrospect I should have been tipped off by the fact that most wages are > 2.50/hr.

<comment><USER35> Yeah the 2 hours plus their "skills and creativity." One of the examples she liked the best was a team that sold their class presentation slot to a company that wanted to pitch to business students.

<comment><USER37> Not just the one she liked the best, the one that made the most money. Company paid $650 to give a 3 minute pitch to the students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am always surprised by the power of framing.

It's like a weak form of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, where language shapes your thinking.

nb: it's "always surprising", because that is the nature of framing and then noticing the frame...

</comment><comment><USER29> Or the other thing I would do is - organize an auction.

1\. Source products from an auction company on consignment basis.

2\. Find an event happening in town and pickyback to it - hold your auction at that event (with permission) or outside but very near the event (with no permission).

3\. Auction the stuff. Anything over the reserve price = profit. Anything under the reserve price = sale canceled.

Sourcing products within 2 hours from an auction house is hard though - <USER2> you already have a relationship with them before. But given a bit more time - and this is a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER39> Set the kids out front with as much lemonade and cookies as $5 will buy. Pretty sure they could at least double that $5 in two hours on a warm afternoon with lots of passing traffic.

</comment><comment><USER40> She published a book called "what I wish I knew when I was 20". If you like the story, you'd probably enjoy the book as well (the $5 funding story is in there). It's a good motivation recharger for those entrepreneurs in the thick of it - get's you pumped up to innovate. Also, might make you want to go to the d-school at Standford because a number of stories are based on her class there.

<http://tinyurl.com/yzj5hlj>

*that's my shameless amazon referral link to the book (muahahah!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the suggestion and mini-review, added it to my wish list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Spoiler: The team that won got Frog Design to pay $650 for the students to give a 3 minute presentation to the class.

</comment><comment><USER42> Just an idea, sell lottery ticket, 50 cents per ticket and winner gets $5.

Need to make some assumptions and do some calculations to figure out the optimal way to price the ticket.

Also, we can ask people to buy ticket in advance, then use that money as new prize and lottery that again. Sounds like ponzi, but in fact more like the fractional reserve system our banks use ...

not sure whether this will really work, just an idea ...

</comment><comment><USER16> The real lesson here is: Break the rules.

The rules were, 2 hours and $5. No one spent only two hours and only $5. The first suggestion from the class was a $50 house party. Tire pumps cost more than $5. The restaurant reservation scheme occurred the next weekend.

The last, most creative team was perhaps the only one that actually followed the rules, assuming they sold the class time in those two hours.

</comment><comment><USER43> You have five dollars, two hours, and a three minute slot with a room filled with Stanford students.

<comment><USER44> And my axe!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> In short: Entrepreneurs should "think outside the box". Don't be scared of competition/constraints.

</comment><comment><USER46> Use the 5 dollars to buy a case of Mt. Dew, hop onto eLance or mech turk.

edit: Make that Red Bull, time is money.

</comment><comment><USER15> Buy a handful of cheap, blank, brandless t-shirts, write my name all over them in bleach, sell them as designer t-shirts to celebrities.

</comment><comment><USER47> Before watching the clip or reading the comments: I'd use the $5 to have coffee in some posh hotel or something and try and network.

</comment><comment><USER48> Sell frozen orange juice futures.

<comment><USER49> Actually oranges and extremely cold winters heavily impact businesses. Jamba juice 2 years ago stopped carrying fresh squeezed OJ and smoothies with orange juice in them were 25 cents more.

<comment><USER48> I was making an obscure movie reference.*

*Trading Places

<comment><USER50> that's hardly an obscure reference.*

*or is it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> That's really worth watching.

</comment><comment><USER52> First team: regular work. Second team: speculation. Third team: ads.

Where is direct marketing team?

My solutions:

Receipt one: * by bunch of cheap sport items; * walk to the park; * lease them; * hire and teach other people to do that instead of you for half of income. (Tested).

Receipt two: * by a sport item (e.g. ball); * walk to the street; * encourage people to play a casual game with you, alone, or with other people; * hire and teach other people to do that instead of you for half of income. (Tested).

<comment><USER53> i doubt anyone will pay you to play a ball game with you just off the street

<comment><USER54> He claims it's tested. Seems improbable though. It would be worth hearing the details.

<comment><USER52> See 2 year old sample photo here: <http://sites.google.com/site/vlisivka/zatoka>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Eh, these all seem to violate the rules.

They have time to make money from 2 hours after they open the envelope. If you make your money outside of that time, how is it supposed to count towards the money that you made for the project?

Why couldn't they just never open the envelope and work 9-5 jobs for a couple weeks? Then say 'HAH! see! we made 2,000 bucks each!'

<comment><USER18> Yes, but you have to present next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Totally worth the time. But its great, instead of thinking of what you can do with what you're given, think of what you can do with what you already have. The funding money and time you have to do anything is only there as a buffer, a push in the right direction if needed, but that money is not there to fund your work, your ideas are.

</comment><comment><USER44> Easy... I'd buy a Sharpie, a piece of cardboard, and some ragged clothes at Goodwill, and stand out on a street corner. It's not uncommon for bums to make upwards of $200/day around here.

</comment><comment><USER56> In the real world you probably wouldn't have constraints unless you were working for someone.

<comment><USER56> Actually, chris, you wouldn't have externally mandated quantitive constraints.

<comment><USER56> The restraints would not be mandated. You can choose to ignore them, but that would mean you would just fail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Put it on red on a roulette wheel! Then you have 1 hour 59 to regret the 1 minute when you lost the $5.

</comment><comment><USER58> Did anyone else find that women hard to listen to? She had a jarring quality to her presentation. I'm glad I wasn't there for an hour!

</comment><comment><USER59> My iPhone app, EasyPlay, a gesture-based iPod controller, is on sale for $0.99. Or, if you like natural language processing, check out iRhyme, my iPhone NLP rhyming dictionary.

EasyPlay: <http://itunes.com/app/easyplay>

iRhyme: <http://itunes.com/app/irhyme>

My main point is that for 5 minutes time spent, a revenue stream is opened up; an efficient conversion of units of work time to revenue potential. (given I've already invested several months in these apps). The only risk was having this entry be downvoted for self-promoting on HN, since the rank is now at -4 points.

I'll report how successful this experiment was tomorrow.</comment>


Quixey Challenge - 1 Bug, 1 Minute, $100 - <AUTHOR> http://www.quixeychallenge.com

<comment><USER2> Asking me to register before I test your website? Really? Yay! I just love doing that!

And by registering, you mean username + password + confirm password + email + captcha ... I hope I'm going to get a confirmation email, I don't get nearly enough of those.

And hopefully you're going to send me a monthly newsletter. And commercial offers from your 'partners'! If so, please make sure you send it as HTML. Plain text is boring and ugly, and quite frankly would work too easily on my mutt client. Who would want that?

</comment><comment><USER3> They really should advertise more upfront that this is Python. They should maybe even call it the Quixey Python Challenge.

<comment><USER4> couldn't make myself pass the bloodsucking reg form (it has more than 2 fields :), so didn't even see that it is python.

<comment><USER5> How long does it take to type in a gibberish mailinator address and a password?

<comment><USER4> >How long does it take to type in a gibberish mailinator address and a password?

it isn't about "how long" this specific operation takes. In Russian there is a saying "One's experience of a theatrical show starts with the coatchecking experience at the theater". In this particular case the reg form strongly suggests that the user experience on the site wasn't designed well.

And as it happens according to the other posts, the experince of the majority of the users (the ones who completed the registration) was miserable as they didn't fit the narrow category of "know and interested in Python and ready to provide Skype ID".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh, it all looked so enticing until I read:

      * Using machine learning to implement intent-based search ads

No. I think not. I'd rather use machine learning to block ads, thank you.

<comment><USER7> Riiight. And you work where?

<comment><USER6> Somewhere that makes real physical products. And doesn't need ads to know where you are... :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://i.imgur.com/o1A7M.png>

<comment><USER9> There's also this: <http://i.imgur.com/vvKOR.png>

<comment><USER10> That one's really damning. It's implying that they're using some sort of syntactic equivalence to compare solutions, which is a big no-no. It's not that difficult to generate a bunch of tests and run both solutions through an interpreter, and in this case, it's not that hard to compare them both on every possible input by running them through an abstract interpreter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love puzzles like this and gave it a try.

Learned something. A ticking counter is really, really unsettling. :)

Good luck with the site, I'm pretty sure that I cannot do even the simplest of things (having written not a single line of Python doesn't help, but the challenges are clear enough. I cannot blame the toolset here, it's myself/my mind going nuts).

</comment><comment><USER12> Note: if you pass the qualifier you need to provide a Skype id to register for the challenge itself.

<comment><USER13> More than that you need to be able to take a skype call, so doing this at work is out

<comment><USER14> Or if your microphone on your laptop doesn't work and you didn't know that because you've never tried to use it before.

[edit] Actually I just talked with them on chat, and they were able to set it up without my mike working, so it seems pretty flexible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I passed the challenge! I was able to do it because I tried implementing the solution myself from the problem statement, and made sure I had a correct solution before clicking Start. If you manage to code in the style Quixey has used, you can just diff your code and the buggy code they give you to find the bug. I highly recommend that strategy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just curious... not that I'm going to do this. Couldn't this be easily gamed by having one person in a group do the challenge first and then broadcast the question to the rest of the group to analyze at leisure prior to taking the quiz?

<comment><USER17> If it's like the last time there were different challenges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That was fun!

Even though I've never written a single line of Python, the challenge was clear and simple to solve (I'm winner #17).

To the people complaining about them not marking all solutions as correct, it does state in the "About" tab that you have to solve it by either editing one line or adding a new one.

That being said, they should've made it clearer and more visible. I actually failed all the qualifiers except for one because I added/changed more than one line.

If you're gonna participate (which you should!), make sure you take a look at the "About" page.

</comment><comment><USER19> Be warned, if you want to sign up for the real challenge, you need a Skype account and a computer with a working mic. I don't have one at work, so guess I don't get to try.

</comment><comment><USER20> So I was the fifth winner. It's pretty fun. Keep your head on straight and you'll figure it out -- it's about the same difficulty as the qualifiers, so if you have any trouble, try and do them all, I guess.

Also, it may not be obvious that there is a skype element, but the challenge occurs completely in the browser. I finished mine before they called me on skype, so don't worry about that element.

</comment><comment><USER21> This was fun but nerve-racking. I qualified and competed in the challenge but froze. The guy I talked to through Skype was real nice and supportive. Was a neat experience overall :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Solved the Quicksort challenge. It's _a bit_ tougher when you don't know python! Make sure you add quixeychallenge on Skype and then add yourself to the queue.

<comment><USER23> Save the Quicksort challenge for last. It's the easiest one (in my opinion).

That way you can see all the other challenges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is it too late to enter the challenge, link is broken for me now, although it still says I have qualified to take the challenge...

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow. This in no way relates to actually useful development practices.

<comment><USER18> But that doesn't mean it's not fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That was fun. The challenge is not very hard.

</comment><comment><USER27> Let me guess. US only?

<comment><USER28> No. It asks for your country if you win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> captcha image doesn't even load.

</comment><comment><USER30> I refuse to do this unless some chick gives me a bj under the table and John Travolta holds a gun to my head.</comment>


Ask HN: Stack Exchange Clone Needed - <AUTHOR>

I want to test an idea I have using the Q&A collaborative format and I need something similar to Stack Exchange that will allow users to post news items and ask and answer questions. It would be similar to Stack Exchange format or even the format of this site. What would people here recommend? I'm not a developer so I'd have to outsource the development/configuration to someone but I'm just trying to get a feel for what is out there that will allow me to run this test in the simplest most cost effective way possible. <comment><USER2> HN itself is open source (included with Arc: <http://arclanguage.org/install>), as is reddit (<https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki>). It does sound like Openqa is a better option though.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's always Lamer News, "an HN style social news site written in Ruby/Sinatra/Redis/JQuery"

<https://github.com/antirez/lamernews>

</comment><comment><USER4> I recently came across Coordino (<http://coordino.com/>). I haven't tried it out myself, but it looks pretty polished.

It's also Open Source.

</comment><comment><USER5> Openqa is a clone of stack exchange for django. There are several. Google is your friend here.

</comment><comment><USER6> nice. test out your hypothesis first. :)

try OSQA. Heard it's good. thanks. get a host like uhm webfaction.

Goodluck! Outsource to RoRers / pythonistas in the Philippines.

I heard this guy is good - bryanbibat.net

<comment><USER7> Second the OSQA. Used it on a project last year. Clean code, clean templates, easy to modify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://shapado.com/></comment>


facebook is down - <AUTHOR>

how much money are they losing per hour? when is the last time google was down? <comment><USER2> And they might have been hacked: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38102>

</comment><comment><USER3> You posted 24 minutes ago, and they seem to be up now, so I guess we should be calculating how much they lose per minute.</comment>


Anatomy of a Ceph Meltdown - <AUTHOR> http://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2018/01/anatomy-of-a-ceph-meltdown.html <comment><USER2> I love Gentoo, but I wouldn't want to support it in a high availability production scenario. Waiting for `emerge world` while the world burns; yikes!

<comment><USER3> I stopped running Gentoo for my personal machines when a Linode VM update caused all of my programs (compiled with -march=native, of course), including Make, to start failing with an "illegal instruction" error.

And a Gentoo box without Make is just hosed.</comment></comment>


Facebook for iPhone 3.1 Is Good, But Not Good Enough For iPhone Battery - <AUTHOR> http://localhost:8888/woorkmash/facebook-for-iphone-3-1-is-good-but-not-for-iphone-battery/

<comment><USER2> Do you realize yo posted a link to <http://localhost:8888...>?

[http://localhost:8888/woorkmash/facebook-for- iphone-3-1-is-g...](http://localhost:8888/woorkmash/facebook-for- iphone-3-1-is-good-but-not-for-iphone-battery/)</comment>


Litvinenko Inquiry Publishes Report - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-implicated-in-fatal-poisoning-of-former-kgb-spy-at-posh-london-hotel/2016/01/21/2c0c5052-bf92-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html <comment><USER2> "Fourth, the causes espoused by Mr Litvinenko – such as the FSB's alleged responsibility for the apartment bombings, the war in Chechnya, and alleged collusion between President Putin and other members of his administration and organised crime – were areas of particular sensitivity to the Putin administration. "

"Finally, there was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other. The history between the two men dated back to their (only) meeting in 1998, at a time when Mr Putin was the newly appointed head of the FSB and Mr Berezovsky and Mr Litvinenko still hoped that he might implement a programme of reform. In the years that followed,Mr Litvinenko made repeated highly personal attacks on President Putin, culminating in the allegation of paedophilia in July 2006"

That is from the report. Call me a Putin-apologist, an agent from Olgino, but these motives look like garbage. There is an entire industry of "making highly personal attacks" on Putin and blaming all kinds of things on him. The name of these "Putin's critics" is legion, they have been doing it for more than a decade, and they've had zero success... that is, of course, if by "success" you mean making Russians believe what they say, and not just selling shocking stories about the darkest secrets of the KayGeeBee to British tabloids...

<comment><USER3> I'll go with "Putin-apologist." Why act like pointing out an obvious motive is the focus or even a main point of the report? What about substantive points like:

"Traces of the isotope were later found in many of the same places where the two alleged killers had visited: The hotel's bathroom, their hotel room, a board room where they conducted an earlier meeting and the plane they traveled aboard."

We're not talking about traces of carbon or lead, here.

<comment><USER4> There's less doubt about Lugovoy's / Kovtun's than there is Putin's involvement.

<comment><USER5> Of course not, Putin is not an idiot and wouldn't leave a trail to him after ordering someone killed on British soil. There is no doubt about Lugovoy or Kovtun's involvement, but directly or indirectly Putin is responsible for his agents running around poisoning people with polonium (edit: not plutonium!). The fact they are refusing to extradite them is telling as well.

<comment><USER4> >Putin is not an idiot and wouldn't leave a trail to him after ordering someone killed on British soil.

Perhaps but that's not evidence.

>There is no doubt about Lugovoy or Kovtun's involvement, but directly or indirectly Putin is responsible for his agents running around poisoning people with plutonium.

That's not evidence either. Besides, they were ex-KGB / FSB agents.

>The fact they are refusing to extradite them is telling as well.

Let's reverse this. Would Obama agree to extradite a Republican ex-CIA agent with powerful friends who flew to Moscow and killed Edward Snowden without his knowledge?

Can you imagine what the political fallout would be if he did? He'd be characterized as a mixture of powerless, hypocritical, traitorous and anti- American all at once by both friends and enemies. Political suicide at worst; own goal at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> T-shirt sent to Boris Berezovsky (another Putin critic who died) by Lugovoy in 2010:

front: [https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690131788946096128/p...](https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690131788946096128/photo/1)

back: [https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690132000980729857/p...](https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690132000980729857/photo/1)

<comment><USER7> Why does the FSB threaten a Russian in (bad) English, is this a James Bond movie?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Putin had a personal motive for wanting Litvinenko dead, and that the president would likely have had to approve a high-stakes operation to assassinate the former KGB operative on British soil."

In other words, there is no evidence, just "cui prodest".

<comment><USER9> Amongst others who had personal motives for wanting Litvinenko dead are the US president and UK prime minister, so that they could smear the incident all over Putin.

Recently, I found myself not believing anything coming out of the media (Western and rest of the world alike) if it at all supports the prior interests of the owners/regulators. For example, did North Korea really hack Sony, or were they just the most convenient actor to blame?

<comment><USER10> Other way round: Litvinenko was killed years ago, and speculation that it was done by Russian intelligence broke out immediately. The formal investigation was held back until now. It's quite likely that it's only being investigated and publicly blamed on Russia because relations have _already_ gone bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> After 2002 Moscow theather terror attack some people (including Litvinienko) suggested FSB was behind the attack to justify harsher policy on Chechenia, and to increase popular support for Putin.

> An independent investigation of the event was undertaken by Russian > politicians Sergei Yushenkov, Sergei Kovalev, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, > Hoover Institute scholar John B. Dunlop, and former FSB officers Aleksander > Litvinenko and Mikhail Trepashkin. According to their version, FSB knew > about the terrorist group's arrival in Moscow and directed them to the > theater through their agent provocateur Khanpasha Terkibayev ("Abu Bakar"), > whose name was in the list of hostage takers and who left the theater > alive.[58][88][89][90] In April 2003 Litvinenko gave information about > Terkibayev ("the Terkibayev file") to Sergei Yushenkov when he visited > London. Yushenkov passed this file to Politkovskaya and she was able to > interview Terkibayev in person.[91] A few days later, Yushenkov was > assassinated by gunfire in Moscow. Terkibayev was later killed in an > apparent car crash in Chechnya.

> In June 2003, Litvinenko stated in an interview with the Australian > television programme Dateline, that two of the Chechen militants involved in > the siege—whom he named "Abdul the Bloody" and "Abu Bakar"—were working for > the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the terrorists into staging the > attack.[92] Litvinenko said: "[w]hen they tried to find [Abdul the Bloody > and Abu Bakar] among the rotting corpses of dead terrorists, they weren't > there. The FSB got its agents out. So the FSB agents among Chechens > organized the whole thing on FSB orders, and those agents were released"

Litvinienko was killed in London, obviously.

Politkovskaya was murdered in her home in Moscow in 7th October 2006. Ironicaly - 7th October is Putin's birthday.

If Litvinienko and Politkovskaya were right not only Putin has ordered assasinations of several former spies and journalists criticizing him, but he's also responsible for hundreds of victims of terrorism in Russia, mostly regular civilian Russians.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#Claims_of_FSB_involvement)

<comment><USER12> Strange that you were downvoted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While being pro-western most of the time, I do not buy into stories like this one in the current political situation. Might be the truth or might not. It won't matter that much after all (except for the authors of headlines). Do I sound pessimistic?

<comment><USER14> Putin being a corrupt, opportunistic dictator doesn't mean you have to believe Western countries are saints with their foreign policies. They aren't mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER9> I won't comment on corrupt and dictator, but opportunistic? Hardly. He's just protecting his interests, in a _very_ transparent and predictable way.

He was the only one supporting Assad and warning about the "Islamist rebels" in Syria, long before the current crisis happened. Sure, he annexed Crimea, but what do you think would happen if Russia/China orchestrated a coup/revolution in e.g. Japan, where US has military bases with significant strategic importance? Do you think US would peacefully stand away?

<comment><USER12> Oh, old Russian propaganda about 'US orchestrated a coup'?

I thought it was already gone sour, but apparently some people still believe in that fairy tale.

<comment><USER7> Wait, the US effected a government change? I don't believe that has ever happened! /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is this weird? It's logical the highest person has to be responsible? The CIA or MI6 would probably do the same for their spies. I think it's better than the alternative of an unknown high person within the ranks to make this call..

<comment><USER16> Exactly, Russian secret service were either dumb to do it in such obvious way or just wanted to send a message to other spies. There are plenty of unexplained British and US spy deaths.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_\(weapons_expert\))

<comment><USER17> _' His decomposing naked remains were found in a red The North Face bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom.'_

...

 _' A subsequent Metropolitan Police re-investigation concluded that Williams's death was "probably an accident."'_

... what?

<comment><USER18> Yeah - completely farcical ruling.

However, surely if he was killed to order, the people responsible would make it far less obvious, and if it was attempted to be covered up - surely it wouldn't be as poorly done as this?

<comment><USER16> Yes, but exactly the same logic could be applied to Litvinenko. Death by plutonium is so obvious that one might think it was meant to be that way.

<comment><USER18> I can see the use of killing someone with a painful, elongated death by polonium poisoning, it's obvious, and makes a statement. I don't feel the same can be said for making the body of someone appear in a locked bag though - people's reactions are closer to "WTF?" rather than shock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Historically, a very interesting use of poison. It seems obvious that the Russians didn't want this to be a huge mystery -- and probably wanted him to have a painful death (which he did).

If I remember correctly, there was a chair in the embassy that had this stuff on it. Nobody could sit on the chair for fear of death. I might be mistaken, though.

Also historically, I am reminded of Putin meeting one of the superbowl champs. During the meeting, he takes the guy's superbowl ring!

 _" I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring,'" Kraft said, the New York Post reported last week.

"I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out."_

The point is this: the new Russia lacks a lot of the subtlety of the old one. Aside from anything else, I _think_ that might be a good thing, but I'm not sure. They're definitely more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER20> I rarely say that, but this article really does not belong here, on HN. The title is a clickbait (there's no evidence that Putin ordered or even knew about the murder neither in the linked article, nor anywhere else so far) and it only starts political flame wars not a constructive, intellectual discussion.

</comment><comment><USER21> On the one hand, crazy story. On the other, what do people think the implications and dangers are when you're involved in the spy game at the highest levels?

<comment><USER15> Exactly, and we like the idea that some James Bond guy is working for "our" causes and killing spies, but when it happens in real life in a nice controlled manner.. we act all surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't really see why this would have implications for the relationship between UK and Russia. Isn't this part of the spy game? When one defects, one can expect to be killed. I don't believe the UK wouldn't do the same the other way around. Spying gets you killed, eventually, no matter who you work for.

<comment><USER23> Because if he was poisoned with radioactive stuff, there is a possibility that some of the stuff got into sewage

<comment><USER24> Wikipedia suggests he ingested ~10 micrograms of polonium. If somehow even most of it reached the sewage, we'll be talking homeopatic quantities at this point. It's very unlikely it would go through water treatment and end up in someone's food in enough quantity to cause harm.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#Po-210_concentration_in_the_body_of_Litvinenko)

<comment><USER23> I agree with you, we can estimate the amount of polonium he ingested, but we surely cannot estimate the amount of polonium involved in that operation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it's more likely that this was done to gain favour with Putin, rather than directly ordered by him. This possibilty is more dreadful in a way, countless FSB members dreaming up elaborate murders for Putin's detractors without him having to say anything.

</comment><comment><USER26> Imagine how dangerous Putin is going to become when his income from oil drys up this year.

In fact the whole world is going to become way more dangerous with the wealthy losing their oil income.

Somehow I think the Saudis want it that way, distracts the world from their crimes.

<comment><USER27> I don't think he will be. He does not seem like the impulsive type that will start something just because.

Frankly over the last few years he has made both Europe and America look like fools.

<comment><USER28> Tell that to Crimea and Ukraine.

<comment><USER27> Russia had military bases there, did you expect him to just roll over and play nice when a regime hostile to Russia came to power (under questionable circumstances no less)?

The rest of it is a shit storm indeed, but i don't know how much control Putin has over that situation.

<comment><USER29> Russia had legal right to a certain number of troops in a specific part of Crimea (Sevastopol). Everything that happened surrounding the referundum and the mass deployment of Russian troops from there on was a total farce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> On a related note:

[https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the...](https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine)

EDIT: There are other stories where Putin / evil Russia / the former Ukrainian government were accused of something horrible that now turn out to be quite different, such as this one.

Strangely, I never find these in the big newspapers.

<comment><USER20> Maybe because such stories are usually nothing more than Russian state sponsored propaganda and gets debunked nearly instantly(0)? Your linked "paper" doesn't look academic at all, I didn't see any actual evidence there, just an opinionated "analysis" on some blurry footage.

EDIT. here some more on this "paper": [http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/10/23/the-snipers- massacre-i...](http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/10/23/the-snipers-massacre-in- kyiv-katchanovski-marples/)

0\. [http://www.stopfake.org/en/tag/russian- propaganda/](http://www.stopfake.org/en/tag/russian-propaganda/), [http://www.russialies.com/](http://www.russialies.com/) just to name few.

<comment><USER30> Your first link indeed seems valuable and I kind of struggle to find good material both for and against the official version. So thanks for that.

The other links look much more like propaganda themselves.

How do you arrive at the claim that my link is state-sponsored propaganda and yours are not?

<comment><USER20> _" How do you arrive at the claim that my link is state-sponsored propaganda and yours are not?"_

Sure, there's no such things as objective mass media, all of them shine a light from slightly different angles to support their agenda and please investors, but I'm not aware of such straightforward, blatant lies that Russian TV (e.g. RT) shows daily on western counterparts. Publicly crucified boy, pictures from Syria, beyond funny photoshop of Ukrainian fighter jet downing MH17 etc. All these" stories" were really shown on official Russian TV. Now please provide such obvious propaganda statements from reputable western sources. "We lie, because they lie" is the exact statement Russia propaganda wants you to believe.

<comment><USER30> Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

This should account for all civilians killed by Russia in the Ukraine in the last 3 years plus a security margin of factor 10

Of course, there are others such as Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and more contested theories such as Syria, but the above should already go to show that lying is not a unique feature of the Russian government.

<comment><USER20> WMD story in Iraq was not made by the media, but by the US government, special agencies and the president himself, media only reflected that. Furthermore, you could find alternative opinions and doubts even then, while in Russia any voice that goes against the official propaganda gets silenced fast. It's not quite the same as staging video reports, lying or photoshopping photos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Putin is implicated in several murders. If he should be murdered himself, he will have died a natural death.

<comment><USER32> A former spy switched sides and worked for the other side exposing agents and whatever else MI6 deemed worth paying for. What would be your (or anyones) decision as head of state? Of course if a country being attacked, a leader is disliked by a geopolitical foe, those are natural things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Misleading title.

<comment><USER33> What's a better title?

An article on so hopelessly politicized a topic can't be good for HN, and was deservedly flagged, but if the title is inaccurate we can still change it.

<comment><USER7> I suggest: " _The Litvinenko Inquiry_ publishes _Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko_ († 2006)"

"Implicated" is misleading; the article said that he "likely approved" the assassination, which without spin translates to the very mundane fact that he was the Russia's president and Supreme Commander-in-Chief at that time.

<comment><USER33> Ok, changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Insignificant compared to openly murdering heads of states of Iraq, Libya and causing deaths of hundreds and thousands of people across middle east.

<comment><USER35> So we should not discuss about this murder since there are other more significant murders?

<comment><USER36> This murder has been discussed to death. It was plain enough from the beginning that Litvinenko was killed for defecting. I don't know why the story keeps resurfacing.</comment></comment></comment>


Social Ridesharing Startup Ridejoy (YC S11) Raises $1.3M - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/06/social-ridesharing-startup-ridejoy-raises-1-3m-from-freestyle-capital-lerer-ventures-and-others/

<comment><USER2> Congratulations Kalvin, Randy, Jason, and the whole team.

You're a super-talented bunch with honorable motivations to make a dent in the world. I know you'll do great things!

</comment><comment><USER3> These guys are major hustlers. They've earned it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks Tim! We're just getting started... =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats to the team! (I invested)

</comment><comment><USER6> Services like these have been around in Europe for at least five years. Glad to see the US is catching up.

</comment><comment><USER7> Congrats guys. Nice execution so far. Time to take that ball and run, because Steve Blank and others would say that you have taken down a big risk milestone for everybody interested in the market, indeed you have validated it. Now it's time for the second movers join the party :)

To other developers (Rails, anyone?):

Want to create a similar/better/different version (I've got the points of differentiation written up) get in touch. Up to 50% of the equity is on the table (subject to terms, conditions, etc.), plus I seed fund (no salaries until proper milestone and subject to terms, conditions, etc.).

Before you scream "copycat," consider that this project has been on my backlog since before RideJoy existed or registered its domain name. The brands I've got for this include part of my "P2P" line, plus a "_ _ _str" name, both registered prior to RideJoy: p2pRides.com and Ridestr.com.

Why don't I do it myself? Because I can't (yet?). I'm a former venture finance guy who moved to Europe and tried to get some things going, including Airbnb before Airbnb was Airbnb. Google for "BuzzPal Revealing Its Product - ArcticStartup" for the video, which kind of sucks, but is what it is. It was also a bad name for the project, but I didn't yet own p2pRooms.com or any of other better ones for that project yet (do no and it's still on the backlog).

Why did I say "yet" in the paragraph above? Because I am now studying Software Engineering with an emphasis on what I need to learn to launch these kinds of projects myself and/or assess and analyze technical partners, co-founders, etc.

To RideJoy or Airbnb or others who have been and are making offers to acquire domain names: Deals are possible, but probably something with upside vs. straight cash deals like the one I did last year (related to Amazon's $500-million acquisition of Diapers.com).

<comment><USER8> So, you're looking for someone to build you a website for a validated business model? And to the table you bring ... 2 "meh" domain names? And for this, they can get up to 50% equity?

How nice that you're willing to negotiate on licensing your "assets."

<comment><USER9> yeah, those are some terrible domain names...not even worth the reg fee. Now, if it was something like rideshare.com it might be worth something.</comment></comment></comment>


Luther's World: Understanding the man who was the powerhouse of the Reformation - <AUTHOR> http://www.weeklystandard.com/luthers-world/article/2007915 <comment><USER2> Seeing history trough individuals can be misleading. There would have been reformation even without Luther.

There were several reformations before Luther. Bible was translated into German and other languages before Luther. Mentel Bible was on it's second printing when Luther started his reformation. Several other successful reform movements started at the same time or little later.

Question is why reformations started at that particular time and why Luther was so successful and several reformations before him failed.

The answer is technology. Printing press revolution had exploded. There was over 1000 printing presses throughout Western Europe when Luther started his reformation. Germany and Italy were the main centers. Pamphlets from reformists spread around like wildfire and the movement was able to grow much faster among common people.

[https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/medievalforum/2015/08/19/literacy- an...](https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/medievalforum/2015/08/19/literacy-and-print-in- early-modern-germany-and-england/)

>Between 1516 and 1546, 3.1 million copies of Martin Luther's works were sold in Germany (excluding whole and partial Bible translations). Considering that each reprint had around 1,000 copies, that equates to 3,100 editions of his work alone. Over this period, 1,057 editions were published in Wittenberg, 490 in Augsburg, and in comparison, Basel produced 131 editions. On a shorter time-scale, the number of pamphlet editions produced from 1518 to 1529 is as follows: 181 in Wittenberg, 140 in Augsburg and 61 in Basel. What is more remarkable is that Luther also authored 20% of the 7,500 cheap broadsheets printed between 1520 and 1526. Besides preaching, the Protestant reformers clearly published a large amount of material to disseminate their ideologies to a wider audience.

<comment><USER3> > _Seeing history trough individuals can be misleading. There would have been > reformation even without Luther._

Definitely not provable.

Men of character and placement are required to drive history though they will never channel historical forces in directions it is unprepared for. The debate over whether great men make history or history raises up great men is an old and unsettled one.

<comment><USER2> In the 1500's religious people were abandoning the the Church in numbers. There were 15-20 independent reformers at the Luther's time and maybe 5 of them are still known names.

You remove Luther from the picture and reform changes pace and takes different route but but it still happens.

<comment><USER3> > _You remove Luther from the picture and reform changes pace and takes > different route but but it still happens_

Does it ?

If the pace and course of events were changed, perhaps the reformation would happen, albeit under a different name. Perhaps not.

A different leader might not have been so resolute or bold (as to pin the grievances on the cathedral door), might not have had the political support of the Elector of Saxony. Certainly the conditions may have been present, but would individuals of sufficient character have been available to kindle change ? It was fortuitous that Germany had both Luther and Fredrick III (aka 'Fredrick the Wise') alive at the same time. Given a slightly less capable Elector the Church could have prevailed; with slightly more flexible Church hierarchy Martin Luthers fiery challenge could have been contained.

Look at it this way:

Would the outcome WWII be the same if Churchill and Roosevelt were replaced by different men? Remove Mao from the picture and is it obvious that course of modern Chinese history would be the same ?

Progress and change are not inevitable. The ingredients of _agent and agency_ must be present and work together[1]

[1]Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr wrote an essay in 1958 dealing with this issue and entitled _The Decline Of Greatness_. I am unable to find an adequate link to it. It is a fascinating read.

Also see Sidney Hook _The Hero in History_ [https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Hero+in+History&stick=H4...](https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Hero+in+History&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLUz9U3MIk3syhS4tFP1zc0Sso1Nc5IstQScCwtycgvCsl3ys_P9s_LqQQAsEs- Ty0AAAA&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi45MnQ1eDTAhUGAxoKHVcYADoQxA0IsQEwGQ&biw=1366&bih=657)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also relevant in this context is Jean Calvin, who had an enormous influence on what today is considered "protestant work ethics" and on the well-known related theories by Max Weber.

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

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

</comment><comment><USER5> "With the sole exception of Jesus Christ, more books have been written about Luther than about any other person who has ever lived."

Is there any basis for this claim or did writer forget that there are other religions and their characters ?

<comment><USER6> Even a cursory examination of other sources will show this to be false. Here is a great list from the Guardian publication in 2014: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/30/whos-most- sign...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/30/whos-most-significant- historical-figure)

Spoiler: Martin Luther is number 17 on their list

<comment><USER7> That list is a synthesis of many different sources, most prominently the english Wikipedia. It is not directly relevant to the question asked by the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really liked Dan Carlin's podcast on Luther and the aftermath of his posting of the theses: [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-48-prophet...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-48-prophets-of-doom/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Obligatory Dan Carlin mention here: [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-48-prophet...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-48-prophets-of-doom/)

It's very entertaining and interesting (I'm not making a case for historical accuracy here).

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this worth reading past page 1? After all that it's barely talked about Luther himself, and just about a bunch of authors and how great their books are and and minor opinions they have about Luther.</comment>


KonnectR, a Post-Mortem Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://outofthecomfortzone.frantzmiccoli.com/thoughts/2016/12/12/konnectr-post-mortem-analysis.html <comment><USER2> Thanks Frantz for sharing this very honest narrative. You have the best combination of technical and business skills I have seen so far!

Of course projects need also luck. To be in the right market or niche at the right time and place, to meet the right people etc. Two years ago, I wasn't sure people would want to meet other people they didn't know. Two years after, I believe their is a market for that.

Your ideas are good and your doing a great job! Keep up with it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Very detailed and honest feedback. Can t wait to see your next project : you have all qualities to succeed</comment>


Twitter flags Trump tweet featuring fake CNN chyron as 'manipulated media' - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/503514-twitter-flags-trump-tweet-featuring-fake-cnn-chyron-as-manipulated-media <comment> core-questions I'm glad that all the people who were fooled into thinking that was a real CNN video have the stalwart folks at Twitter helping them to stay on the straight and narrow.

Will this "manipulated" warning be a new chyron on SNL as well?

<comment><USER2> I know you are being sarcastic, but at what value?

One is the office of The POTUS from which only real information should derive, (this shouldn't involve guessing when he is being facetious ). He clearly speaks his mind even before the truth. He thought this pandemic was a "hoax."

SNL is entirely for laughs and satire. There is no premise of it being news. Sure its biased towards a politcal group but it's obvious in its nature and not coming from an elected official.

Do you trust his opinion because he is the President or because you ONLY trust Donald?

<comment> core-questions > One is the office of The POTUS from which only real information should > derive

Who would think this? Who ever thought this, at any time in history?

> SNL is entirely for laughs and satire. There is no premise of it being news

Au contraire. Plenty of people get all of their "news" through SNL and other related comedy / parody / punditry shows, running the gamut from John Oliver to Tucker Carlson. There's plenty of premise of that being 'news' even though it's all entirely editorialized content designed to push a narrative.

> Do you trust his opinion because he is the President or because you ONLY > trust Donald?

Do you force everyone into false dichotomies, or do you beat your significant other?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I will implement every suggestion, what's yours? - <AUTHOR> For fun, I started a little website https://web.dorianmarie.fr and thought it would be interesting to implement the suggestions/ideas of the Hacker News crowd, so what's your idea? <comment><USER2> How about a catchy headline that tells me what I am looking at?

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's start with something easy, like a random background (like Bing).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> link is [https://web.dorianmarie.fr](https://web.dorianmarie.fr) but there isn't much for now

</comment><comment><USER4> duh, add content?</comment>


A Hosty Retreat: Rework Leaves ART19 over Listener Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/a-hosty-retreat/ <comment><AUTHOR> How can I as a podcast listener avoid podcasts that do business with companies like Art19? I usually listen via Overcast or Pocket Casts and it feels like there's no way of controlling how my information is shared.

This is a bit depressing. Podcasts feel like it's on the brink of being destroyed by ad-tech.</comment>


Arduino is a building block for the world to come - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/arduino-open-hardware-movement.html <comment><USER2> "The general purpose computer is a dead end."

Hahahahahaha.</comment>


The Bleak Financial Numbers From The MySpace Sale Pitch Book - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/exclusive-the-bleak-financial-numbers-from-the-myspace-sale-pitch-book/

<comment><USER2> How hard would it really be to re-implement MySpace? I keep thinking three or four focused coders could duplicate the major needed functionality pretty quickly with today's web technology stack.

I ask that because I am wondering what the $250mm in run-rate expenses is for; the article scoffs at cutting so much out of G&A next year, and that may well be impossible, but it's hard for me to understand why Myspace needs even $100mm a year in opex when reddit (which is, admittedly, 1/10 or less the traffic) has been functioning with 2 - 4 person tech team.

Anyone?

<comment><USER3> I work at Myspace (but I do not speak for the company). I'm not really privy to all the information in the world here just being an engineer, but I do know that it was really expensive to lay off everyone in January, and they've definitely reduced expenses A LOT. In the past year, we've gone through multiple reductions in size. It might not add up to the figures they're mentioning in the article (I guess more layoffs coming?), but I do think they've probably cut more than 60% off of the $250mm already.

EDIT: I can also sympathize with the idea that you can run myspace with just a couple people. It would definitely require a holistic, new vision for the site though, as the current site is quite complex and has a lot of moving parts, where the knowledge of how those work is contained within separate units of the company.

<comment><USER2> Yes, totally interesting. Thanks for posting! I had a good chat about this today in the office; on the one hand, it's insanely daunting to imagine how you'd actually trim it down.

On the other hand, myspace's social graph, especially around entertainment is arguably the only valuable thing at the company right now.

As a thought experiment, I asked "What if color.com owned myspace's traffic and social graph?" My answer is that color.com would be worth much more than the $250mm TC seems to think Myspace will sell for. Of course, that's an inflammatory company to pick, but choose your own social company. What about groupon, or what if Microsoft injected myspace into the Live community somehow?

All the moving parts / separate units are probably not adding much value right now, unfortunately. Since I haven't used myspace in many years I have no real domain knowledge here, though. And, I browsed it for a while today after thinking about this, and agree -- the site is huge, and complex, and as I recalled a nightmare of horrible personal design and usability. On the plus side, Bieber looked totally awesome.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you beef up your freelancing profile? - <AUTHOR>

I have been freelancing for about 9-10 months for now. When looking out for new work clients always request to see sample code. Now here is the deal: I am under NDA for most of the development work I do. In that case how can I truly demonstrate my skills. How have fellow programmers coped up with this situation? <comment><USER2> I create applications from scratch and use them as portfolio material. For instance I have a custom iOS app that shows my experience working with video, images, audio, shaders, face detection, HLS, networking, etc. I show this to them when we meet and if they want to see the code I'll invite them to my git repo and we can go over it together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, now multiples times I have had client not consider this "Real World" enough. :) How would you go about handling such a client?

<comment><USER2> Well for those you can fall back on your references and high-level descriptions of your work. I have quite a few projects that are private/enterprise applications that will never see the light of day outside of their domain. Unfortunately I have to describe these and rely on references. It's the only way I can legally do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I appreciate it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>