IMF admits euro problems and apologises for the immolation of Greece - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/28/imf-admits-disastrous-love-affair-with-euro-apologises-for-the-i/ <comment><USER2> What I don't understand about reactions to Greece's profligate borrowing is that I rarely see criticisms of the lender. Borrowing is a 2 party interaction and both parties bear responsibility. The so called bailouts of Greece have been nothing more than bailouts of German and French banks. All the while putting the suffering on Greeks and not anyone else. The best option for Greece would have been to leave the EU in 2008.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why Merkel is still in office. She's been behind most of that policy, along with the current immigration crisis, and the policies that Brexit was a rebellion against.

Ostensibly, Germany is a democracy, but she's had the chancellorship for 10 years and she uses her position to be the EU's de facto leader. There don't appear to be term limits.

<comment><USER4> I think because the flaws with the Euro that have been very disadvantageous for Greece are for the same reason very advantageous for Germany. Germany gets to have a big account surplus with a relatively devalued currency.

She may be doing the wrong thing for EU, but the right thing for Germany. In the long run perhaps the right thing for EU is the right thing for Germany, but I don't think German voters see it that way right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yanis Varoufakis wrote _And the weak suffer what they must_ to explain the impact of austerity policies on Greece. He was (briefly) the finance minister in one of the Greek governments that had to manage this transfer of debt.

Respectfully suggest reading the above alongside Timothy Geithner's _Stress Test_ for an alternative approach.

The basic issue now is how do they get the Greek economy (and by extension the Spanish and Portuguese economies) back into something like stability?

<comment><AUTHOR> He also commented on this piece at [https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/07/29/the- imf-confesses-it-i...](https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/07/29/the-imf- confesses-it-immolated-greece-on-behalf-of-the-eurogroup/)

        TIME FOR RESIGNATIONS AT THE IMF, THE ECB & THE COMMISSION
        TIME FOR AN APOLOGY TO THE PEOPLE OF GREECE
        TIME  FOR A POLICY U-TURN, BEGINNING WITH IMMEDIATE DEBT RELIEF, THE END OF AUSTERITY & THE CESSATION OF FIRE SALES
        TIME FOR THE RESTORATION OF GREEK DEMOCRACY

This week began with a debate in Greek Parliament called by the Official Opposition (the troika's main, but not only, domestic cheerleaders) for the purposes of, eventually, indicting me for daring to counter the troika while minister of finance in the first six months of 2015. The troika who had staged a bank run before I moved into the ministry, who had threatened me with bank closures three days after I assumed the ministry, and who proceeded to close down our banks, now moved to charge me with… bank closures and capital controls. Like a common bully, the troika proved immensely keen to blame its victims, and to violate and vilify anyone who dares resist its thuggery.

My reaction to the troika's charges, and threat of being pulled up in front of a judicial inquiry , was simple: "Bring it on!" "I shall face you", I challenged them "in any forum you want: in an amphitheatre, a TV station, even a court room!" In the end, they chickened out and the parliamentary motion was defeated as some of them (a small party usually fully in troika's clasps) strategically voted against.

And then, to complete this week's drubbing of the troika, the report by the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) saw the light of day. It is a brutal assessment, leaving no room for doubt about the vulgar economics and the gunboat diplomacy employed by the troika. It puts the IMF, the ECB and the Commission in a tight spot: Either restore a modicum of legitimacy by owning up and firing the officials most responsible or do nothing, thus turbocharging the discontent that European citizens feel toward the EU, accelerating the EU's deconstruction.

While I was in the ministry, negotiating with such folks, the troika-friendly (or should I say troika-dependent) press was arguing that I am not fit to conduct these negotiations because I had dared insinuate that, from 2010 to 2014, the IMF, the ECB and the Commission had been fiscally waterboarding Greece, causing an unnecessary Great Depression as a result of their thuggish imposition of macroeconomically incompetent policies. The establishment press were claiming that a finance minister of a small, bankrupt nation which is being waterboarded by the high and mighty troika functionaries cannot afford to say, in public or in private, that his small, bankrupt nation was being waterboarded.

My response was that we had tried silence and obedience from 2010 to 2014. The result? A loss of 28% of national income and grapes of wrath that were "…filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage". Thus, it was time to put to the troika moderate, rational counter-proposals while refusing to continue to acquiesce to their pretend-and-extend tactics. It was a stance that I was never forgiven for.

A year after the troika succeeded in having me ejected from Greece's government, by prevailing upon Alexis Tsipras to capitulate to them against the wishes of 62% of Greece's voters, the IMF's 'internal affairs' is now confirming that my stance was utterly justified, rather than mistaken or undiplomatic. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in his 29th July Telegraph article, had this to say about the IMF's IEO report:

A sub-report on the Greek saga said the country was forced to go through a staggering squeeze, equal to 11pc of GDP over the first three years. This set off a self-feeding downward spiral. The worse it became, the more Greece was forced cut – what ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis called "fiscal water- boarding". (See below for more pertinent quotations from Evans-Pritchard)

The question now is: What next?

        What good is it to receive a mea culpa if the policies imposed on the Greek government are the same ones that the mea culpa was issued for?
        What good is it to have a mea culpa if those officials who imposed such disastrous, inhuman policies remain on board and are, in fact, promoted for their gross incompetence?

In sum, an urgent apology is due to the Greek people, not just by the IMF but also by the ECB and the Commission whose officials were egging the IMF on with the fiscal waterboarding of Greece. But an apology and a collective mea culpa from the troika is woefully inadequate. It needs to be followed up by the immediate dismissal of at least three functionaries.

First on the list is Mr Poul Thomsen – the original IMF Greek Mission Chief whose great failure (according to the IMF's own reports never before had a mission chief presided over a greater macroeconomic disaster) led to his promotion to the IMF's European Chief status. A close second spot in this list is Mr Thomas Wieser, the chair of the EuroWorkingGroup who has been part of every policy and every coup that resulted in Greece's immolation and Europe's ignominy, hopefully to be joined into retirement by Mr Declan Costello, whose fingerprints are all over the instruments of fiscal waterboarding. And, lastly, a gentleman that my Irish friends know only too well, Mr Klaus Masuch of the ECB.

Finally, and most importantly, the apology and the dismissals will count for nothing if they are not followed by a complete U-turn over macroeconomic, fiscal and reform policies for Greece and beyond.

Is any of this going to happen? Or will the IMF's IEO report light up the sky fleetingly, to be forgotten soon? The omens are pointing to the latter. In which case, the EU's chances of regaining the confidence of its citizens, chances that are already too slim, will run through our leaders' fingers like thin, white sand. FURTHER QUOTES FROM EVANS-PRITCHARD

"The report by the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) goes above the head of the managing director, Christine Lagarde. It answers solely to the board of executive directors, and those from Asia and Latin America are clearly incensed at the way EU insiders used the Fund to rescue their own rich currency union and banking system."

"While the Fund's actions were understandable in the white heat of the crisis, the harsh truth is that the bail-out sacrificed Greece in a "holding action" to save the euro and north European banks. Greece endured the traditional IMF shock of austerity, without the offsetting IMF cure of debt relief and devaluation to restore viability."

"The International Monetary Fund's top staff misled their own board, made a series of calamitous misjudgments in Greece, became euphoric cheerleaders for the euro project, ignored warning signs of impending crisis, and collectively failed to grasp an elemental concept of currency theory." ""Many documents were prepared outside the regular established channels; written documentation on some sensitive matters could not be located"IEO report

It describes a "culture of complacency", prone to "superficial and mechanistic" analysis, and traces a shocking break-down in the governance of the IMF, leaving it unclear who is ultimately in charge of this extremely powerful organisation."

<comment><USER6> As a centre left I very much like his rhetorics and thinking, but you have to be extremely careful to take any of this at face value. I was not immediately involved but close enough and involved enough to the action to read and discuss these topics at least 1-2 hours a day over the course of late 2010-2014, so I would still not consider myself an expert, but I do have a rather good feel for how the discussions moved and changed.

The truth is, there was at the time no attractive option. For too long the Eurozone countries' governments delayed taking a hard decision (and so did Greece btw), and if you think back to the discussions and insights of the day that was maybe not the ideal but usually the most realistic, feasible and often also the most sure approach. The problem was that this went on too long, more and more intermediate measures were taken to try and counter the crisis, with billions given to Greece and many more promised if needed. Each time this involvement got bigger and chickening out less feasible . Then the Eurozone governments made a huge commitment and let go of probably 2/3 of their demands (which were mostly sound "stop spending and finally make sure you get all the money in that you sold theoretically be getting, i.e. fight tax evasion, etc) and finally things seemed to calm down for a few short months. Prospects looked good, Greece was sorting out some of the mess the last 8 or so governments had created.

THEN, after years already of this torment and depending on your calculation somewhere from 50 bn up to 400 bn Euro being given to Greece, syriza, which was the absolute extreme left any party across the EU could be, got elected. They had campaigned with posters of Merkel with swastikas and Germany's finance minister as Hitler. And they, a party that in the past had never been >5℅ or so, got the top job and this fringe far left economist named varoufakis became finance minister and lead negotiator for Greece.

The election campaign was nerve wrecking and threw the country into chaos, the result even more. By the time they took office the gains of confidence etc had already disappeared completely, ratings for anything Greek kept spiralling down and bad news came from Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Varoufakis mostly spent his time giving insulting speeches and interviews. Then he went to the finance minister meetings, said no to everything and kept insulting and lecturing them. This is not an exaggeration. His party went back on a huge part of the agreement that had bought Greece billions in aid. Eg they started hiring huge amounts of officials, reverted firings, went back on the promise to sort out their probably messiest pensions scheme in the world, etc. All that being in direct contradiction to Greece's signed and agreed terms.

And then they started negotiating again. The third or fourth deal, and each time Greece failed uphold it's side of the bargain but got billions. Hard bargaining while things kept deteriorating. Some rough deal is agreed while the Greek government keeps lying about the demands by the other countries. Greece's government announced a referendum with a very weird phrasing as bargaining tactic and campaigned for the people to vote against the EU's new (and again much lightened) conditions. The vote was against (!) the new agreement. And three days later, after pretty much three days of finance ministers and leaders battling in meeting rooms, Greece signed the agreement. And again got billions. Varoufakis was sacked as he immediately started criticising everything again.

Varoufakis, personally and with the rest of his party, has probably cost Greece at least 5℅ of its GDP. His solutions sound great in theory but are impossible in practice - either because they are just thought experiments of "what could have been", or because they just demand things from the other side (in particular the Germans) while promising little in return. You have to also remember that Greece caused this whole mess themselves. They faked statistics just to get into the Eurozone and continued to do so for a decade. And the one honest government that revealed it and generally started sorting out decades of overspending and cronyism got punished at the polls to a degree hard to imagine. In particular the Germans are very unhappy with the way they have been branded for trying to save the union while trying to get the Greeks to, if they are not able to be accountable to themselves, at least be made accountable to the countries loaning them billions.

This was not about saving German and French banks. That was one worry, certainly, but this whole effort was an attempt to save the EU and the Eurozone and all of Europe from doomsday. Maybe Greece could have exited the Eurozone without too much pain. Or maybe all Greek citizens would have lost their savings, all banks been obliterated, the economy completely destroyed and the country thrown down to a developing country level. The effects for the remainder of the EU were equally unpredictable. No one knows today and no one could have known then, claiming anything else is simply dishonest. And certainly no one dared to make this wager...

<comment><USER7> "syriza, which was the absolute extreme left any party across the EU could be"

That's a bit hyperbolic; it's not even the most left-wing party in the Parliament of the Hellenes -- that title should go to KKE, the Communist Party of Greece, which has 15 deputies. There are minor parties even to the left of them (e.g. ΑΝΤ.ΑΡ.ΣΥ.Α, the Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow and Front of the anticapitalist, revolutionary, communist left and radical ecology), which holds 1-1.5% of the regional governmental seats across Greece.

SYRIZA sits with the same European Parliament grouping as Die Linke, which is the fourth largest party in Germany, holding 10% of the seats in the Bundestag. It's difficult to say that SYRIZA is tremendously more left wing than Die Linke is.

They're certainly less left-wing than Enhedslisten, the Danish Red-Green Alliance, which propped up a social democrat government in the Danish parliament from 2011-2015.

There are plenty of Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist parties in various national parliaments, and more in regional parliaments. An example is the Partido Communisto Português, which has about 6% of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic and a bit more than 10% of the seats in local governments across Portugal. There's even a few elected positions held the Maoist Workers' Party of Belgium. SYRIZA is not THAT far to the left!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Actual title: IMF admits disastrous love affair with the euro and apologises for the immolation of Greece

It's nice that you fixed "disastrous love affair with the euro" to read "euro problems", but there's also plenty of unnecessary hyperbole in "immolation".

<comment><USER9> Hands down, the best bit of hyperbole during the EU debacle was when Greece's Finance Minister called the austerity measures 'financial waterboarding'.

<comment><USER10> > Hands down, the best bit of hyperbole during the EU debacle was when > Greece's Finance Minister called the austerity measures 'financial > waterboarding'.

Can you explain how this is 'hyperbole'[0] ? It's used in a single phrase 'financial waterboarding' which makes it symbolic or metaphorical, unless you are saying this is an exaggeration of Greece's economic problems, in which case I would like to know in which way you think they are exaggerated? Would it need to be 1921 Berlin for it to be 'financial waterboarding' ?

[0] exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

<comment><USER6> The conditions were there to ensure Greece would actually reform, rather than keep lying about data and overspending each year to an extremely unsustainable degree. Greece caused the mess 100℅ itself, then turned around and asked for money. Terms were agreed, billions given, and then Greece turned around and broke the agreement. After three times breaking agreed bailout terms for which the country each time got billions, they wanted another bailout without any conditions while the new government varoufakis was in was actively reinstating some of the already improved insanity ((re)hiring thousands of officials for example).

See also my other comment in this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about they do something to help Greece then since they are partly responsible for the mistake?

<comment> at-fates-hands Honestly a lot of this should be on Greece.

They racked up huge debts while losing their competitiveness in the global market. This led to slower growth. Add in attempts to hide how much they were really in debt and you have a recipe for disaster.

This was compounded by the fact that since they relied on the Euro, they couldn't just print their way out this situation like the US does all the time. Instead, they got caught with their pants down and had no alternative but to own up and take severe measures to right the ship.

<comment><USER12> It seems reasonable to me that the major burden fall on the lenders. After all, they are the ones tasked with due diligence, credit rating, etc.

I can ask my bank for a $100million loan. If they judge me worth of that, and then I fail to pay, yes, it is my fault for losing the money, but their fault for misjudging the risk. The lender has the majority of the power in the relationship until the loan is given, so it is in their court to make sure that they do their research.

It appears that the crux of this article is that the IMF didn't do the research, or did it wrong, and badly misjudged many risks and solutions. The IMF had reasonably good information about the situation in Greece, and still didn't see the warning signs.

<comment><USER13> Or to put it another way, if you feel the majority of the blame falls on Greece, I'm happy to loan any person in the world a large sum...

Provided I'm given the right to direct their, their children's, and their children's children's labor towards repaying me.

And how is bending a government towards repayment at all costs different than enslavement of its citizens? Except in this case the master happened to be incompetent enough that they made their own repayment less likely.

<comment><USER14> Fundamentally the problem with Greece is that the IMF & EU are focussed on saving the Euro.

Meanwhile Greece is unable and / or unwilling to meet it's Eurozone obligations.

The only real solution it to toss Greece out, but negotiate a smooth transition to a new drachma. Convert all existing debt to drachmas. Greece can deal with the outstanding debt by devaluing their currency.

However they'll have to choose between letting pensions see their purchasing power decline, or finally cracking down on tax cheats.

But people have a strange moral attachment to the EU / Euro. So it won't happen.

<comment><USER13> > Convert all existing debt

Would that include the debt from northern European banks already offloaded onto them? Because that seems like an equally terrible deal.

"We're going to bail you out with a loan, the balance goes to your creditors, you're responsible for repayment, and everyone is pissed at you because we told them we were giving you cash."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> After brexit the EU has to prove that it is not a lights on and nobody home situation.

<comment><USER16> Given that "brexit" covers a whole range of incompatible outcomes, some of which are unpalatable to interested parties such as Scotland, Northern Ireland and the people who voted for Brexit; so does Britain.

<comment><USER5> Westminster parliament is responding to the will of the people as expressed through the referendum. We shall what form the response takes over the next few months (Autumn statement will be a significant marker - there will be some economic data based on actual events then not sentiment or opinion surveys) and I'm sure the various political groupings will have plenty to say.

My point is that the debt transfer from private banks in predominantly Germany to the Greek state appears to have been a purely bureaucratic policy designed to prop up the Euro.

Disclaimer: I actually voted remain on the balance of practicalities.

<comment><USER17> There is no "will of the people" because Brexit was never a well-formed practical concept.

As a matter of common sense, you can't have a referendum on a word with no meaning.

Or rather you can, but the result is guaranteed to be a disaster. When there is no definition everyone agrees on, the only possible outcome is anger and disillusion because some very significant proportion of the population will be disappointed.

And even if everyone in the UK agreed on a practical definition - which they very much don't - the EU might not agree to it in negotiations.

The entire business was utterly dishonest.

There's a huge difference between 'Do you want to leave the EU?" \- which is a meaningless catch-all promise that covers all possible and impossible hopes - and "Do you want to leave the EU under these specific terms and conditions?"

<comment><USER5> Yes I agree that we don't know what the people who ticked the 'leave' box actually voted _for_.

The Westminster parliament(1) will now arrive at a series of policies to embody that choice and those policies will have to be negotiated through a long and complex process with the various EU institutions concerned. What emerges from that process will probably not fit anyone's conception of what they were voting for. As a (marginal, 5.5/10) remain voter, I would be inclined to point out that if you vote for radical change, radical change is what you get!

I'm pretty sure that the Westminster government(1) will seek a mandate for their choice through a general election.

(1) I'm referring to the Westminster parliament and government here as there are of course huge issues with the position of Scotland (which voted very heavily in favour of 'remain') and of Northern Ireland (which also voted less heavily in favour of remain, and which also has the added complexity arising from the Ulster Agreement, and the Ireland Act / Common Travel Area). The devolved assemblies in Scotland/NI will be fighting their corner and trying to see what they can get. Not sure about Gibraltar yet.

<comment><USER16> > I would be inclined to point out that if you vote for radical change, > radical change is what you get!

Yes, it's like voting for Trump, you have voted against "the system" and you will get ... something else. it will change, to something unknown. You might end up not liking it much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A properly managed currency could allow for Greece's labor and investment market gridlock to suddenly resolve itself putting a large part of the unemployed back to work.

The type of austerity that the euro group wants leads to disinvestment. It is like forcing a person to sell his or her tools and equipment to make this year's debt payments. No longer being able to work productively anymore without tools, how is that person supposed to make next year's payments?

The ECB has prevented Greece and all economically disadvantaged regions of Europe from getting the investment they need to work and get out of their morass. At this point a considerable part of the debt is a direct result of perennial monetary strangulation and not caused by the indebted themselves.

Some people may be afraid that allowing sufficient funds for investment into Greece may result in the money being diverted into short term spending instead of into long term sustainable investment. To reuse the metaphor, the lender is afraid the borrower will not buy tools with the money and work but instead buy a vacation in Santorini. It is somewhat a valid concern but then if there is this much distrust from other members of the eurozone that people in Greece are not even given the means to work, there is zero reason to continue the relationship and Greece should default and break off.

The fact that unemployment is widespread in Europe, not just in Greece tells us that the main source of problems is the damaging monetary situation caused by the ECB, not greek laziness. Greece has already achieved a primary surplus, they went through a huge amount of pain to correct their finances. And they did it while the ECB was continuously throwing sand in their gears, keeping inflation too low and real interest rates above a rate that gets Europe to an acceptable level of employment. This disproportionately affects economically disadvantaged regions.

Monetary policy in Europe is run so that only the areas that have natural economic advantages can prosper while investment is sucked out of weaker regions and turned into idle excess fiat. If Greece, through gargantuan efforts managed to be so productive as to offset their natural disadvantage and the European economy started heating up, the ECB would tighten yet again and vacuum investment out of the next weakest region causing a similar crisis there.

Only when the ECB will have produced an acceptable level of unemployment in the eurozone will you really be able to start blaming individual countries for their economic woes. After the reforms in Greece, if the ECB did an half decent job, Greece might well have been able to pay the entirety of their debt without too much pain, and if they still didn't, then you would have had a case for corrective austerity there. But you cannot have government austerity at the same time as monetary over tightness (read private sector suffocation). That is just mathematical nonsense.

To make another darker metaphor, if there is so much distrust and resentment toward the Greeks that people think they should be made into slaves to pay for their debt, even then, it would make no sense to refuse to provide the tools and infrastructure to enable them to work. What good are non-working slaves? Of course, the relationship should break off well before we get to this extreme. Sometimes it seems like Germany doesn't mind moving towards this nonsensical non-working slaves scenario.

The only real solution will have to start with the ECB moving to a higher or better inflation target that doesn't choke their continent's economy and that allows weaker members to labor towards recovery.

</comment><comment><USER19> Fake news. It is as simple as that.</comment>


2016-08-11 Security Update Release 9.5.4, 9.4.9, 9.3.14, 9.2.18 and 9.1.23 - <AUTHOR> https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1688/ <comment><AUTHOR> EOL Warning for Version 9.1

PostgreSQL version 9.1 will be End-of-Life in September 2016. The project expects to only release one more update for that version. We urge users to start planning an upgrade to a later version of PostgreSQL as soon as possible. See our Versioning Policy for more information.</comment>


SQLCipher – Full Database Encryption for SQLite - <AUTHOR> https://www.zetetic.net/sqlcipher/ <comment><USER2> The SQLite Encryption Extension is another encryption library for SQLite (under a commercial license): [http://www.hwaci.com/sw/sqlite/see.html](http://www.hwaci.com/sw/sqlite/see.html)

It's created by the authors of SQLite, so purchasing it helps support the public domain SQLite project.

<comment><USER3> Does it authenticate encrypted data?

<comment><USER4> CCM mode is an option, and is an authenticated mode. Not a great choice per se, but nothing outright wrong with it either. CCFB and GCM would be preferred alternatives.

<comment><USER3> Thank you, I somehow missed that they list CCM as one of the modes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tools such as keepass should move to use this layer instead of a custom format, and they should really be provided a UI around the data.

They can still continue to protect against in-memory access, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am using it in my iOS app and android app. It's great! It protects my data. But I had a problem before. The new version SQLCipher failed to read the existing encrypted database. Though it was not a big problem to me, it may be a big problem to some people. (Because my database is readonly. I can provide a new db in the new version of my iOS app.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Used it plenty of times in the past and always been pleased with it's ease of use both in server side situations as well as mobile. More recently we've also used it in xamarin.

Is it posted here because something new has happened?

<comment><AUTHOR> Came from watching [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEJGqNf2rgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEJGqNf2rgk) (excellent talk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> From Wikipedia, use of PBKDF2 leaves this vulnerable to GPU based fast dictionary attacks (versus eg: scrypt that is a deliberate RAM hog).

<comment><USER9> While this is true, you can tune the work factor of PBKDF2 accordingly. On the positive side, it's easier to argue for PBKDF2 in face of regulations since it's a standard while scrypt is not.

<comment><USER10> The problem with tuning it is that if you use it on a mobile, for example, tuning it enough to thwart a GPU would mean that one authentication would take 10sec on the mobile.

<comment><USER11> We have done some work on a branch in SQLCipher that allows for adaptive key derivation length based on the device it runs on. The iteration length will be computed per device where time is the constraint. We presented our initial findings last year at PasswordsCon 14.

<comment><USER10> Isn't that the standard? We always time the iterations for a specific time delay on the specific device and use that, and that's what, for example, LastPass (IIRC) does.

That still does nothing for the fact that a GPU will be thousands of times faster than a mobile.

<comment><USER11> >Isn't that the standard?

SQLCipher uses PBKDF2 as a standard mechanism to compute a key, however by default it uses a static iteration length, currently 64,000.

The problem is often that the device spread varies greatly and often a given application will target more than one device. You can watch our presentation covering the details here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8TNHZ7fWzg&list=PLdIqs92nsI...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8TNHZ7fWzg&list=PLdIqs92nsIzRFk0OCN_uQiOkgtPiNk2mv&index=23)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh yeah, something to read over and search for implementation flaws on the bus ride in to work. Monday is better now :)

</comment><comment><USER13> >> "Features: Algorithms provided by the peer reviewed OpenSSL crypto library"

Did they add that on their landing page before or after Heartbleed ? (Wayback Machine only has a snapshot as early as Oct 2014)

<comment><USER14> It doesn't use SSL/TLS stack from OpenSSL, so Heartbleed doesn't apply to SQLCipher.

<comment><USER13> I'm not taking a stab at OpenSSL or SQLCipher. Very good for them not trying to roll their own and use OpenSSL.

I was just intrigued by the wording "peer reviewed OpenSSL crypto" and referred to Heartbleed because the amount of eyeballs the OpenSSL project gets, has increased since April last year ? (no, I don't have a source on that)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> wxSQLite3 also has encryption available in it. You can use it without having to use the wxWidgets wrappers.

</comment><comment><USER16> I much prefer Realm over SQLite. The interface is just so much nicer (just objects, no more SQL, yeah!) and encryption is build in from the get go.

<comment><USER17> Main benefit with SQLite is wide compatibility. If you want to use objects there are plenty of ORM solutions available which work with SQLite while not breaking generic file & SQL compatibility.</comment></comment>


Severe drought has forced thriving farmers to leave in search of wage labour - <AUTHOR> https://scroll.in/article/919224/how-an-unyielding-drought-has-forced-once-thriving-andhra-farmers-to-leave-in-search-of-wage-labour <comment><USER2> In India.</comment>


U.S. Says Chinese Hackers Stole Trade Secrets, Sought Virus Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-21/u-s-accuses-chinese-hackers-of-stealing-virus-trade-secrets <comment><USER2> Quit hiring incompetent people to secure research data.</comment>


Parse, sentiment-analyze, and dump the Twitter stream to CSV in real time - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cantino/twitter_to_csv

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope you find this useful- I used it to gather data for an upcoming medical research paper.</comment>


Golangci-lint: next generation of Go linters runner, 5x faster than gometalinter - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/golangci/golangci-lint <comment><USER2> I've been waiting for something like this! Gometalinter is notoriously inefficient, and it's always bothered me that it runs every linter separately as opposed to parsing the code once and then running analysis on it. There's really no need to spread lint logic around in dozens of little projects when a single, monolithic linter (with modular rules) would be much easier to make performant. This project looks exactly like what's needed.

The only negative is the name -- I understand the desire to market your hosted linting product, but "golangci-lint" is hard to remember and something of a mouthful.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: $500k revenue business – Shopify vs. Custom website? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I run an e-commerce business which now turns over ~$500,000/year. It was initially built on Shopify but I am currently looking to invest some money into rebuilding the website and am considering all my options.
I assumed it would be cheaper in the long-term to invest in having it custom made, but with the new Shopify online processing fees it seems this is not the case.[1] Shopify payment fees are 1.8% + 20p compared to Paypal which is 2.9% + 30p and Stripe which is similar. Even with the unlimited Shopify plan which works out at $2148 a year it's still cheaper for me to use Shopify as I save ~$5000 on online processing fees.
My questions are:
1. If Shopify payment fees are nearly 1% lower than Paypal/Stripe, why does anyone still build their own custom website outside the Shopify platform? Is there some kind of catch I'm missing?
2. Are there any other platforms I should be considering building my website on?
Would really appreciate any thoughts or feedback you might have. If you need any more information please ask and I'll be happy to answer.
Thanks in advance for your time,
[1] https://www.shopify.co.uk/pricing <comment><USER3> Well before that volume of sales, people generally set up a merchant account and use a payment processing gateway like Braintree or Authorize.net instead of one of these intermediated systems. You can then negotiate your rates down below what Shopify+ charges. (You can also configure your own gateway with Shopify. Here is a list of the ones supported in the UK: [https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways/united- kingdom](https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways/united-kingdom) )

It really depends on the needs of your business. Does the hosted solution do everything you need it to? Are you hampered by a lack of features or flexibility? How complex are your product offerings, and content management and marketing needs? What are your growth projections? These types of questions should have a larger influence on your decision than transaction fees.

If you want to build your own site, check out SpreeCommerce (Rails) - [https://spreecommerce.com/](https://spreecommerce.com/) and ReactionCommerce (Node/Meteor) - [https://reactioncommerce.com/](https://reactioncommerce.com/)

Don't hesitate to add more detail or ask me more questions here or offline - <USER2> deal with this stuff all day.

</comment><comment><USER4> First, Congrats on $500k+ that's not easily done. I have a Ecommerce I started that makes $200k+/year. As of last year I gave my brother the CEO title. I still own my shares and have my seat on the board.

Right now the company is going threw some similar changes as you. We have decided based on feedback to do a Rebrand. Along with creating a new site. The first site was originally build using Bigcartel. We are still conducting research on what platform we will use but we are certain we will not create a completely custom site.

Simple explanation our company is not a tech startup, its a product company. So we want/need simple maintenance that our team can handle which a platform like Shopify, Squarespace, Bigcartel etc provides. My reason? I've experienced several problems in the past with maintaining a custom site.

The questions we are asking are asking our self, may be something you want to ask yourself as well before you build a new site.

What's our reason for wanting to rebuild the site? Are we seeing loss in sales? How long will it take to build? What do our customers need, that they aren't getting from our site now?

So far we are leaning towards Shopify over squarespace. The only payment option on ss is stripe and all though we love the advance tech stripe is building the rates are to high.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you looked at Shopify Plus? Maybe reach a rep at the company for more info, but from the looks of it, the processing fee is 0%. What the monthly bill is, I don't know.

[https://www.shopify.co.uk/plus](https://www.shopify.co.uk/plus)</comment>


MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/273246798/mythic-the-story-of-gods-and-men <comment><AUTHOR> Project has already been taken down by creator, and all of the companies information is being deleted from the internet, yet they still managed to get nearly $5,000 in the few hours it was up, which is quite worrying.

 _Points of evidence_

\- God character art is from [http://pgwebdesign.net/blog/35-mythological-art- masterpieces...](http://pgwebdesign.net/blog/35-mythological-art-masterpieces- of-character-design-history)

\- Backgrounds are from <http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211755> and [http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/painting/ancient-temple- en...](http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/painting/ancient-temple-entrance/)

\- Poster consists of this icon; [http://xooplate.com/templates/details/2443-ancient- warrior-s...](http://xooplate.com/templates/details/2443-ancient-warrior- shield-icon) on top of this texture; [http://panzertm.deviantart.com/art/Old- Yellowed-Paper-125646...](http://panzertm.deviantart.com/art/Old-Yellowed- Paper-125646153)

\- The sword reward pictures are from; [http://www.knifecave.com/fantasy/store/products/Designer+Cus...](http://www.knifecave.com/fantasy/store/products/Designer+Custom+Swords/Kit+Rae%26%23153%3B+Valermos%26%23153%3B+-+Sword+of+Fire++Swords+of+the+Ancients+Collection+-+6th+Edition/UCKR7.html)

\- The reward tier text and values are copied wholesale from The Banner Saga's kickstarter, with just a game name search & replace.

\- The office photos; <http://i.imgur.com/uTCBT.png> are just crops from the Burton Design Group; <http://i.imgur.com/XOFdi.jpg>

<comment><USER2> The don't actually get that $5,000. It's worrying that that amount was pledged, but Kickstarter / Amazon Payments doesn't charge until after a project is complete, and in the case of an unfinished, canceled project, never.

<comment><USER3> > and in the case of an unfinished [...] never.

That is incorrect. The money is transferred once funding period has ended if funding goals have been reached.

From that point on, the project authorship has the money (minus Amazon's and Kickstarter's shares) and may never get it done still.

Source: funded half a dozen of KS so far, I know when money leaves me. It would also completely unmake the point of kickstarter: it's about providing funds for the project to be done, not guaranteeing sales so people can go get institutional investors showing they have 3 million sales in already (especially since most KS are a few thousand, the current million+ craze is not the median project)

<comment><USER4> You are correct, but nevertheless, they did not get the $5000. The funding goal was $80 000 and they got nowhere near that. So that was a scam that did not work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been wondering for a while how long it would take for mass fake projects being created on kickstarter/indiegogo once these sites got more widely known. This project uses stolen pictures, but one could easily mock up random 3D scenes, make a cool video and walk away with 100k for two days work

<comment><USER6> I think you'll find the "walk away" part is not that simple, considering the fact that it would constitute a _crime_. The kind of crime law enforcement is quite familiar with and that leaves plenty of traceable evidence because it involves financial transactions.

I'm sure there will someday be someone clever enough to get away with it, but most people are likely to get caught very quickly.

<comment><USER7> While I agree it would be a crime, how hard would it be to enforce? Can't the perps just claim some lame excuse for why they didn't execute on their stated plan?

<comment><USER8> A lame excuse isn't going to hold up in court. Imagine you raised $100K to make some cool gizmo but instead buy your self a sports car, the fact that you never had any intent to even try to make the product is going to be really obvious. If you actually spent enough of the money raised on the project to convive a judge that you weren't running a scam, then you not going to have enough left over to really be considered a scam.

<comment><USER9> That rather depends on who you pay and how convincing their invoices look.

20 folks on here could create a convincing Eco system of sub contractors and out sourcers - spend 20k on equipment and rest on salaries, you can spend most of yourdays on the yc startup subsidised by the game income

or is that sounding like actual work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If anything, this is should be kind of a relief to Kickstarter users since people have PLENTY of time to discover these scam projects before payment is distributed.

</comment><comment><USER11> The only scams like these which will work on Kickstarter is campaigns that aren't especially interesting or may not appeal to a huge audience. Once a campaign gets to 100k, there is press involved and people researching. If you get $5k in pledges, no one would look deep enough to check if you're legit. Kickstarter is quite tough in terms of getting on the site and through the month process.

I think it shows, always do some due diligence, it seems people did in this case. Look up the creator, their experience. They don't have to provide any work at the end of it all, so it's up to you as a possible pledger.

<comment> shock-value I think the problem though is that projects can end up "scammy" even if they aren't outright scams. If a project makes very ambitious promises, and upon getting the funds, the developers don't put forth much effort and deliver a bug-ridden, lackluster product, it might not technically be a scam. But it will sure feel like one to contributors, and I think Kickstarter is going to increasingly run into this problem in the future.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that. One of the big selling points of the Double Fine, and Shadowrun campaigns was that it was a established team with a reputation for making good games. Also, say you do raise $100K and produce a lousy product, your not going to find funding for you next project. You can actually see this already as some projects are now on their second or third campaign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Was this a real attempt at a scam? Or just an attempt to get some news coverage - like a prank? Like the first real scam on AirBNB someone wants to be the project everyone always talks about with online fundraising.

<comment><USER13> When you start collecting money from people a prank becomes a scam.

<comment><USER14> They didn't collect any money, simply took pledges. And, looking at it that way, it's easy to see how it could be looked at as just a prank.

<comment><USER15> the difference is it got taken down before the prank became a scam. If it was never caught, and cashed out I don't think anyone would be calling a prank. Every system involving money always has people testing the boundries. This isn't the first and probably won't be the last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bostinno also recently reported another project that simply failed to deliver: <http://bostinno.com/2012/04/25/kickstarters-dark-side/>

Could this create a market for 'verified' kickstarter projects? Kickstarter as an organization states they dont verify, but as they grow the need will also grow. I'm thinking this could be an optional feature that everyone would be aware of (IE: grayed out badge when not invoked). For a small fee a typically background check will be performed, either by kickstarter or an independent.

<comment><USER17> Ugh. No. Every damn news site on the planet misrepresented the Star Command money issue.

First, Star Command didn't fail to deliver. It simply hasn't delivered yet. The game was being shown at a trade show last month. It's on it's way. This is not a case of a cancelled project or someone running off with the money.

Second, the article's statement that only 4k went to the game is an outright lie. They clearly state that 6k went to music, 5k to marketing (poster + PAX), and 1k to development/demo hardware. That's not necessarily ideal but it's not entirely unreasonable either. You can argue the marketing/hardware issue perhaps, but 6k went directly into the game in the form of music.

The real lesson to take away from Star Command is their under-estimation of time and money required to create, package, and ship backer rewards. That's the real danger that other projects should be wary of.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, the way their funds evaporated into nothing after delivering all those t-shirts and whatnot was large in my mind this past week as I worked out the rewards for the comic book I just started the campaign for. I'm basically not offering anything physical beyond the book - more money gets you sponsor credit in the back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is why kickstarter/indiegogo need to release an api or a data dump. It will only help them and the public, just the same as the sec releases public company data.

<comment><USER20> An API or a data dump of what?

<comment><USER19> Of campaigns, basically a scrape of their website (they make their money fees, not advertising). Then other people can do review sites of campaigns and do statistical analysis.</comment></comment></comment>


Coleslaw: Static Site Generator in Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/coleslaw-org/coleslaw <comment><USER2> Nice looking project, especially nice hacking.md write up in docs/.

From a 15 minute look (I haven't cloned the repo yet) it was built as a blogging platform and more recent changes to extend for more general web sites.

It always makes me happy to see well documented Common Lisp projects.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A good quick start tutorial for Coleslaw. [0]

[0]: [https://jany.st/post/2015-12-07-blogging-with- coleslaw.html](https://jany.st/post/2015-12-07-blogging-with-coleslaw.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> What? No org integration?

Who creates a Lisp based blogging solution with out support for org?</comment>


Eating 60 McNuggets in 20 minutes? - <AUTHOR> We have 4 contestants from our office who think they can do it. 3pm PST live feed on Instagram @CadreHQ <comment><USER2> Is this an established challenge? Is water allowed? 4 out of how many potential contestants think they can do it?

This doesn't sound hard on the surface, but then again neither does 7 saltine crackers or 1 gallon of milk.

<comment><AUTHOR> All 4 thought they can do it. 1 finished in time. 1 had 2 left at expiration but finished it a min later. 2 bowed out after 35 or so. I urge you to watch the replay insta: cadrehq

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What sauces?

<comment><USER4> Or just plain.. Important questions here!</comment></comment>


Boosting brain matter by learning like a child. - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/28/1103217108

<comment><USER2> The original title was more interesting, but I guess it was too long.

 _Learning new color names produces rapid increase in gray matter in the intact adult human cortex_</comment>


Why Do We Keep Building Tightly Coupled Software? - <AUTHOR> http://www.codethinked.com/post/2009/07/05/Why-Do-We-Keep-Building-Tightly-Coupled-Software.aspx <comment><USER2> Using the abstractions of loose coupling at early stages of development tends to add more complexity than you gain, violate YAGNI, and give you the wrong things later. Unless you've already developed exactly that kind of software before you'll just make a lot of mistakes.

You have to go through a refactoring process at every stage if you want to achieve a big system with loose coupling.

<comment><USER3> It is a balance. Follow DRY while you are developing and the refactoring should occur as you develop.

Need to write something to a file, fine; just do it. Need to do it again in another class; time to extract common behavior.

You should also have an idea of what components will likely need this kind of abstracted behavior and preempt the wasted time writing something twice by just doing it the first time.

All of this comes with experience and the best way to gain experience is by doing it. Avoid trying to keep everything loosely coupled because it adds too much complexity is a great way to introduce tons of code smells and maintainability/extensibility issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Because it's cheaper, more efficient, gives you more control between components, may keep your code-base smaller, your engineers actually get something done, etc. Pretty much all the important stuff except long-term maintenance. Loose coupling, like anything else, is a trade-off you need to make. Not some absolutely right solution.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting problem and as someone who's never been much good at writing big systems, I've given it some thought.

A system like Erlang helps here, I think, not because it is functional (and I say this as a functional programming advocate), but because it has a different metaphor for partitioning programs at the medium to large scale: processes.

With a process, you have to think about where you draw the "error boundaries". When a process fails, it fails and it is either restarted, or the calling process also fails and propagates the problem, or your code might simply report that the subsystem failed.

In the OO world, the main metaphor for decomposition of a problem is the class.

There are two pitfalls here, as I see it:

* The class metaphor is uniform enough such that it becomes difficult to decide where to draw the "error boundaries". This leads me (and others too, I suspect) to blur the small, medium and large scale interactions. Think of code that tries to deal with weird exceptions and interactions form a subsystem where, if this subsystem were a failing process (as in Erlang), the subsystem would have died and your code would have had to restart the process or give up,

* It's easy to share state. I am not yet sold on the idea that all shared state is evil (since I think there are problems that are easier to deal with when using shared memory), but I do think that the sharing of object references between different subsystems, in general, makes it much harder to have decoupled code.

It is possible to write OO code such that some classes are the equivalents of processes and where interactions with instances of those classes are treated as such (i.e. any exception coming from such an instance means that the instance must be terminated).

This need not entail too much extra work and benefit here is that one doesn't need to limit communication between "processes" to simple datastructures. And since the code uses the normal calling conventions, a debugger will work fine.

I do agree with everything that's been said here about refactoring though: for my part, I can't typically at the start of a project see how things should be decomposed.

<comment><USER6> > It's easy to share state. I am not yet sold on the idea that all shared > state is evil (since I think there are problems that are easier to deal with > when using shared memory)

There absolutely are problems that are easier to deal with using shared memory. Clojure takes a middle ground here, and recognizes that shared state is sometimes necessary, but is often overused, mainly because the language makes it easier to make something mutable than immutable.

Just as you mention about Erlang, "With a process, you have to think about where you draw the 'error boundaries'", in Clojure you can paraphrase that as 'With refs, you have to think about where you use shared state'.

To create a local, immutable variable, you would write

        (let [x 42] ...)

If you wanted to make that mutable, it would be

        (let [x (ref 42)]...)

You have to explicitly say the variable is mutable. This change in defaults alone goes a long way in making Clojure a more correct and loosely coupled language.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. Shared state is absolutely necessary sometimes, it's just not a good _default_.

Exactly what you said about Clojure applies to OCaml as well, except the syntax in that case is

       let x = 42 in ...

and

       let x = ref 42 in ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems, I could have missed something, more to be about the loose coupling in Object Land. Not about loose coupling in software land. Some sentences seems more or less taken out of context from any Haskell book (pure vs IO). Some seem, again, taken out of context from the OTP Design principle.

More annoying is the fact that there is a code example of How Not Todo It but nowhere any How Todo it. I would have liked if the article had some indication on what direction the Author thought on some way to do loose coupling.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, to me this article basically sounds like some guy heard you shouldn't tightly couple your software, and wrote a blog post about it to sound smart. That may not be the case, but giving an example of how not to do it, and then NOT giving an example of how to do it just seems silly to me.

<comment><USER10> I agree. To say loosely coupled software is better is just restating the Law of Demeter. The tricky part is figuring out where the interfaces should actually go. Every abstraction comes with overhead, so it only makes sense if it eliminates some emergent complexity from the whole system. Now I guess given the choice between the copy and paste code monkey and the architecture astronaut I'd choose the latter, but I'm pretty sure I'd rather work with someone who is smart and gets things done.

I think it's all too easy to look at old code with today's perspective, and assume the original programmers were idiots without considering what the code base looked like at the time or what were the requirements and time constraints given to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have been the sole developer working on a enterprise web project (jboss/spring/hibernate) with extreme decoupling: 400k LOC and 48K of XML tying it together, rampant OOP and patterns du jour. First problem - too much code. Second problem - difficult to debug, because the flow of control often stopped at an interface. If the original developers had done decoupling as needed, the code would have been 50% smaller, more if done in something like Python, maybe 80% less.

<comment> brown9-2 _difficult to debug, because the flow of control often stopped at an interface_

Not sure if I understand how this is a problem - you should always have the concrete class's name in any stacktraces that you have, either from exceptions or by attaching a debugger. Are you attaching a debugger?

Not only that, but if you have your application's logging based around logger name = class name, you'll always know exactly which classes/objects are in control.

Also, if you have the "XML tying it together" how can anything hide behind the interface?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I liked one of the comments on the OP, "Tight coupling is often the proof you are not unit testing your application".

</comment><comment><USER13> YAGNI. seriously... the curse of premature optimization is a deadly one.</comment>


The Liquidators Who Risked It All to Cleanup Chernobyl - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/chernobyl-liquidators-photo-gallery/ <comment><AUTHOR> The story opens with "9,000" deaths, far more than nuclear advocates admit.</comment>


Soon, satellites will be able to watch you everywhere all the time - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613748/satellites-threaten-privacy/ <comment><USER2> There are theoretical limits imposed by Dawes' limit. For example lets say you want to read a license plate, which you could do with some fuzzy ability at 1cm. The Amazon Kuiper satellites orbit at 367km which means they would need a 20m mirror to resolve this much. Needless to say these would be enormous and probably physically impossible at that height.</comment>


Court Filings Say Corporations Fed Opioid Epidemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/health/opioids-trial-addiction-drugstores.html <comment><USER2> The article makes the assumption that the likes of Walmart, Walgreens and CVS should be responsible for "monitoring" what doctors legitimate prescriptions are being asked to fill, as if they were doing anything illegal by doing this. If a licensed MD writes a prescription for a medication, their responsibility begins and ends with fulfilling that legally authorized prescription. It is bizarre to think that these companies should have some system in place to refuse to fill these legally authorized prescriptions. If the DEA wants these drugs off the street, they should work with congress to have these drugs added to the Schedule I list. Speaking of the Schedule I list, which includes Heroin (an opiod), I've never understood the rationale that could conclude that Heroin (an opiod) would be listed as a Schedule I (no medical benefit), yet all the other opiod analogs are not listed there as well. As a matter of fact, there is an Analogs Act [0] that has been in place to specifically deal with analogs of Schedule I substances. These drugs, like Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, other opiod analogs, you would think would fall under the Analogs Act, but for some reason they were lobbied to not be part of that -- therefore allowing a few large players to make billions of dollars a year because of it and allow millions of people to overdose.

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

<comment><USER3> I don't understand why you would post a comment that ignores so much information in the article, starting with the very first paragraph. There are in fact laws about reporting unusual volumes of drug sales and people employed by drugstores specifically to perform that task.

It seems like you just wanted to express your opinion and did so by suggesting that the article was somehow misleading or not grounded in reality.

<comment><USER4> I think you're being unfair to the above poster.

They expressed both sides of the issue. That what they're doing isn't technically illegal, and that they've obviously lobbied congress to keep certain drugs available because they can legally fulfill them for massive profits.

By no means did the above poster give these companies a pass, they just did it in a way that's closer to reality and less histrionic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How curious, when companies look to optimize for profits, and when their profits are pegged to consumption of pharmaceuticals, they look to get people hooked on them so they can sell in quantity

I didn't see this coming at all

/s

Also notice the similarities with the food/big-sugar industry

</comment><comment><USER6> Having a legal requirement for companies to report "suspicious" orders seems destined to fail. You receive an order for $XM in a product you sell. It looks suspicious.

You can fulfil the order and make $XM, or you can report it and get... nothing.

Now as the employee of course you want to do the right thing, so you run it up the chain. And someone says to the board "we should invest millions in better systems and people to detect suspicious orders, so that we can make less money but do the right thing". Any wonder this didn't happen?

The blame here seems to be with the design of the regulation/oversight. Where was the FDA/other agency reviewing a random sample of those orders and then smashing the companies for missing the suspicious ones?

<comment><USER7> It appears from this comment that you have not read the article.

<comment><USER8> FWIW:

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read > the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions > that."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No one is going to go to jail. Nothing at these companies or others that will take their place will change. None of this will help people who are addicted especially since the only thing that can help them now is to not get cut off from their supply and have access to treatment and opiates like methadone, suboxin, or even good old heroin in pure form. Our governments are so fucking incompetent in dealing with this crisis, even a multi-billion dollar settlement won't do shit. I wonder if they even really care or is this just another show they're putting on to pretend like they care when they don't? You don't need storage space to store thousands of bottles of opiates because they go very quickly. It's not a wonder, it's called tolerance. Even such basic concepts are not understood by the idiots running these governments. Nothing will change. People will continue to die. Because nothing mentioned here is an actual solution. Probably because the problem isn't opiates. The problem is people living shit lives in a shitty society. Poverty. Loneliness. Alienation. Lack of support. Lack of culture. Lack of community. Anyone who thinks our government is qualified or even cares about fixing these fundamental issues with American society is delusional. At the very least we could legalize drugs, stop the crime around them as they would be incredibly cheap, and stop the overdosing from unknown combinations that often include fentanyl or carfentanyl drugs that are tens to hundreds or thousands of times more potent than morphine. But of course, the idiots in charge won't even do that, because then how are you going to lock up all the black and brown people? What a farce.

<comment><USER10> "No one is going to go to jail. "

Normally I'd agree w/ you, but the folk in WV are super pissed

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Court filings are just statements made by random people. The simple act of a court filing saying something neither proves nor disproves the argument being made

</comment><comment><USER12> This chart shows that the acceleration of deaths from the synthetics starting in 2014. By 2015 it was unmistakable: After being more or less stable over the prior decade, overdoses of Fentanyl, Tramadol, etc. _tripled over 2 years_ and then _tripled again_. [1]

This is 2019, 4 years later, and only now are we seeing the results of action. How does this horror persist, growing so fast, killing so many and the US government under both Obama and Trump not declare war on the drug _companies_?

[1] [https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose- de...](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by- type-of- opioid/?activeTab=graph&currentTimeframe=0&startTimeframe=18&selectedDistributions=synthetic- opioids-other-than-methadone-eg-fentanyl- tramadol&selectedRows=%7B%22wrapups%22:%7B%22united- states%22:%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D)

<comment><USER13> The war on drugs has been an utter failure. Nothing about a war addresses the underlying human problems. The worst aspect of it all is that every failure becomes evidence that we're not fighting hard enough. That if we just fight harder, we'll win the war.

Ostensibly, point of the war on drugs is to help the addicts. Yet in most contexts, they get treated with disdain. We provide very little direct help. There's basically nothing to help respectable people, so respectable people don't get help. Instead, they hide their problem until it grows too large to be contained.

It sometimes feels like compassion for drug addicts starts and ends with punishing drug dealers. Maybe it's just easier that way. I think we as a society need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we really did all that we could do to save those lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's incredibly weird that there's a war on drugs at exactly the same times as the corporations legally feed and profit from an opioid drug epidemic.

Only in America could such a contradiction be possible.

<comment><USER15> Almost like the "war on drugs" doesn't have much to do with drugs ...

<comment><USER16> _"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did."_

\- President Nixon's domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, in a 1994 interview with Harpers magazine.

<comment><USER17> More dark stuff. In the 1950's through the early 1970's drug companies were heavily in the business of pushing amphetamines on the public. Enormous amounts were prescribed. And abuse was rampant.

Ever notice how anti-drug propaganda describes the effects of 'marijuana dependency'? Yeah it's describing the effects of amphetamine dependency. I'm convinced attempting to shift the blame from legal amphetamines to street drugs was the other part of the drug war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey, just like the government and the crack epidemic!

<comment><USER19> What's the story behind this idea? I've never looked into it so I don't know if it's a conspiracy theory or a well-documented event that is not common knowledge.

Edit: I also didn't read the opioid article because I got paywall'd.

<comment><USER20> It is largely conspiracy theory.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_co...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking)

<comment><USER21> Nice link. Browsing the related articles is interesting. I wasn't aware that the CIA was alleged to have trafficked opium during their secret and illegal war in Laos. Good to know.

<comment><USER22> Well, the CIA also conducted illegal human trials of LSD and a mixture of IV Barbiturate + Amphetamine on its own citizens, then tried coverup everything by attempting to destroy all their own records.

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_MKUltra](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_MKUltra)

<comment><USER23> Just a fun little fact: The Unabomber was a victim of Project MkUltra.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The U.S. Military Is Monitoring Protests in Seven States - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenation.com/article/society/national-guard-defense-department-protests/ <comment><USER2> As they should.

Those protests are ripe for foreign influence escalating the situation. USA knows this best of all with its history of amplifying civil unrest abroad in order to advance its geopolitical goals.

For USA the most recent were the Honk-Kong protests which it used to try undermining China. So wondering how China will respond now. Russia might try promoting Black Lives Matter again to escalate the tensions. Then there is Iran too. Would be interesting to somehow get the list of all the players.

<comment><USER3> I'm an African American living in Asia. I have lived in China. And I have experienced much more racism in America than in China. Some will not believe me so I'm prepared to prove it if necessary.

Recently, certain politicians have made grave proclamations about people/thugs fighting for freedom in HK, Minneapolis, and other places around the world.

It should be interesting and instructive to observe the cognitive dissonance and resulting contortions of U.S. and other Western politicians as they address this grave matter.

I have observed that whenever some of my compatriots are presented with information that lies outside their regular programming, they label the messenger either a Chinese or Russian troll. This Australian woman has noticed this phenomenon: [https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/19/liberal-npcs-hate- ru...](https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/19/liberal-npcs-hate-russia- conservative-npcs-hate-china/)

These could be as a result of foreign influence operations by the Russians or the Chinese. Then again, this effect might simply be the result of the online labors of America's equivalent of GCHQ's JTRIG: [https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/](https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intelligence_Group)

We (Americans) are the masters of "foreign influence operations."

<comment><USER4> I'm from South America and have lived in China (2 years) and the US (30 years) too and the only conclusion I can come to is that your post is likely one of the trolls this comment references. In the two years I lived in both rural Hebei and Beijing and in the time I spent traveling around the country, I witnessed far more elements of fascism (especially out in Kashgar and rural parts of Xinjiang) than the US that it's not even close.

If this comment was something someone had actual conviction about they wouldn't be using a throwaway account.

<comment><USER5> He said he's experienced more racism in the US than China. You say that China has far more fascism than the US, which apparently makes you believe he must be trolling.

I'm having trouble following the logic of your argument. Did you perhaps misread "racism" as "fascism" in his comment?

<comment><USER4> Both. Racism and Fascism. I lost track of how many times I heard my students say "All Japanese must die". While I'm sure there are people in the US who feel the same about some groups, such as Black people, I've never personally heard a statement like that about any group, much less heard it multiple times from different students of different ages at different schools.

This was just the attitude towards Japanese people. There was also the attitude toward Uighurs and Tibetans.

Black people aren't the only people that experience racism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Augment MN State Patrol Civil Disturbance Operations with a show of force

Well, that's fucking illegal as shit. You can't use military to perform law enforcement actions, and a "show of force" is clearly a threat to use the force, which would be a law enforcement action, since a show of force is technically a responsive security measure. The military is only supposed to support law enforcement with things like medical care or what have you, but this falls clearly on the side of law enforcement.

Edit: when I was in the Navy, we performed counter drug operations where the Coast Guard would legally "take over" the ship's command structure, temporarily, so we could legally perform law enforcement actions against drug boats thousands of miles from the USA. When we spotted the drug runners (by helo or intelligence), the Coasties would immediately become in legal command of the ship because any warnings over the radio (where we told them to stop or we'd shoot their engines) or shots to do so would be considered a law enforcement action since it was a "threat of force". We (the officers) were told if we did anything over the radio or even chased the boats before the Coastie Commanding Officer took over, we'd get court-martialed for some sort of violation of the US Constitution, no shit.

<comment><USER7> Haha what a clever end run around the rule. Just get a single Coast Guard officer in and you can enforce using the military. Reminds me of the fact that California has no civil asset forfeiture but the police have revshares with the feds and the feds can totally still do their civil asset forfeiture, so Californian police just route their stuff through the feds who take a cut. Very much in the hacker spirit.

Also reminds me of that movie _Sicario_.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it was pretty much bullshit, I am not happy about my role back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> as KKPMW comments here, "Those protests are ripe for foreign influence escalating the situation."

So are discussion pages like this, "ripe for foreign influence escalating the situation." Let's all be mindful of that.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to distribute multi-GB dataset? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the process of shutting down Word2[1], an MMO scrabble-like word game we built for Node Knockout back in 2010.  The game's world is amazing - ~265MM tiles, ~123MM played words, over 1MM unique players. Once all personally identifiable information has been removed, I'd like to provide it to interested parties to play with. The clean dataset will be ~15GB compressed - what's the preferred way to share multi-GB files these days? Bittorrent, S3 (probably Requester Pays unless there's another option with manageable costs), or something else? Suggestions welcome.<p>[1] http://massivelyfun.com/saying-goodbye/ <comment><USER2> [http://archiveteam.org](http://archiveteam.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Rad! Haven't run across Archive Team before. Looking into them now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bittorrent Sync

</comment><comment><USER4> Sourceforge

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting - hadn't considered that possibility. Thanks! I'll look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bittorrent

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems reasonable, though given the size of the file I'm probably going to have to host it somewhere for seeding purposes rather than just parking it on my home fileserver (yay Comcast monopoly in my area).

<comment><USER6> How about a torrent hosted on s3?

[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.htm...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like that only works for 5GB files or less, which is a shame.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Was Once the Most Preposterous Vehicle Known to Man - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a31709299/helica-propeller-car/ <comment><USER2> "Murder machine" ... Imagine the joy this thing would be on a gravel road.</comment>


OpenLaw Tutorial: Blockchain-Enabled, Legally Enforceable Smart Contracts - <AUTHOR> https://beta.kauri.io/article/3a4016d6e3bd4c1fbba839244f1802e8 <comment><USER2> Solidity is anything but "solid." It has way too many security holes to be used for anything of value. Several researchers have documented these problems and the OP alludes to them by saying you must be "familiar" with Solidity development. I'd say, if you're dealing with law or money, you better be a lot more than familiar! The truth is, these platforms (Ethereum and EOS) aren't as secure as the traditional transactional tools that predate them. You don't see stories in the media that millions were stolen by hacking banks or ATMs, do you?</comment>


[Python-Dev] 'hasattr' is broken by design - <AUTHOR> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2010-August/103178.html

<comment><USER2> This is from 2010, and was already fixed in Python 3.2

<http://bugs.python.org/issue9666></comment>


Show HN: A Jenkins pipeline for Docker containers in groovy - <AUTHOR> http://www.levvel.io/blog-post/building-devops-artifact-pipeline-for-docker-containers <comment><USER2> Apache Groovy joined the Apache Software Foundation in November last year (2016) and, like all products at ASF, should be tagged with "Apache" on first use in a new context like a web page such as yours. On your web page, that would be "Apache Groovy" 1 time near the top, and "Groovy" the other 10 times.

Seems like a small burden for those benefiting from Groovy integration, considering all the good things the ASF provides in return. Unfortunately, one or some of the Groovy project managers are ignoring this requirement.</comment>


Explore UI States with DevCards and Clojure.Spec - <AUTHOR> https://juxt.pro/blog/posts/generative-ui-clojure-spec.html <comment><AUTHOR> Another post by the same author on spec: [https://juxt.pro/blog/posts/parsing- routes-clojure-spec.html](https://juxt.pro/blog/posts/parsing-routes-clojure- spec.html)

Another brief intro to spec: [https://coyotespike.github.io/blog/2016/08/18/core.spec/](https://coyotespike.github.io/blog/2016/08/18/core.spec/)

Also, I wonder if someone will hook Spec up to DevCards directly for automatic UI testing. Seems like the logical next step, instead of manually putting the generated tests into DevCards.</comment>


Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-princeton-researchers-infectious-disease

<comment><USER2> Should add a "(2014)" to the title. This is a year old and already discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7104904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7104904)

EDIT: And Facebook issued a reply here: [https://www.facebook.com/notes/mike- develin/debunking-prince...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/mike- develin/debunking-princeton/10151947421191849)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does facebook need users?

Considering shadow profiles, and the wide base of installation on websites all over the world, they can continue with big data generation without anyone ever reaching out to them.

Instagram continues to grow, along with Whatsapp. The facebook (shadow profile) data and the real user profiles of those apps will be correlated and ads will be targeted to users on those platforms.

They will lose revenue from the owners of facebook "pages", but I'd be willing to bet that they will expand their API to to serve facebook ads on web sites, if they feel the need to bandage that platform when they have some more desirable platforms already underway.

</comment><comment><USER4> This idea is old. A few years ago someone claimed "Facebook is not cool anymore, now your parents are on it" and predicted an exodus of teenagers leaving. Didn't happen. Facebook is useful because it's full of people. It thrives on popularity. It's not run on being cool. Unless they make a Digg move and really screw up, people aren't going to drop it.

<comment><USER5> I question a lot of this. Everyone I know uses it less and less. Teenagers do, at least to me and everyone I know, seem to be using it less and less or foregoing it all together. In terms of ROI on ad spend, it seems to be decreasing for every client I work with. At the same time, clients are spending more and more. ROI down, revenue up. It's a rather bizarre scenario.

I'm starting to wonder if Facebook is cooking the books a little bit. Perhaps an outlandish statement since I can't substantiate it beyond personal experience, but that is how it feels.

<comment><USER6> Teenagers absolutely expect each other to have a Facebook account, and many use Messenger. They're not doing as many News Feed posts as older users though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, from the US university's mechanical and > aerospace engineering department, have based their prediction on the number > of times Facebook is typed into Google as a search term.

Yeah, that's not really a reliable metric if people have Facebook apps on their smartphones and set their homepage to Facebook now is it?

<comment><USER8> It was discussed later on in the article, but I do agree - the article is pretty bad; not much information on the study. I was expecting a detailed explanation of the methods ("equations") used, yet there wasn't much to back the title up. Feels like it was written just because some quota had to be met.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Search query data is not a reliable proxy for a platform people know as well as or better than Google.

</comment><comment><USER10> orly? Based purely on the number of searches made for Facebook?

This is a terrible, baseless prediction that should not be published by the guardian or linked to Hacker News.</comment>


Perl 5 + Perl 6 = Perl 11 - <AUTHOR> http://perl11.org/ <comment><USER2> Judging by the ample supply of version number rimshots, some clarification might be helpful: this isn't a Perl release, nor is it a new Perl version. It's the name of a general project in the Perl community to try to decouple Perl 5 the language from perl the runtime, and hopefully achieve interoperability between Perl 5 and Perl 6 code in the process. Perl 5 and 6 are distinct languages in the same family, much like (for example) Common Lisp vs Racket Scheme, which is why interop is an interesting and worthwhile goal.

There are some really cool things happening in the specific projects on the linked page, if you're into compilers and VMs.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I get the motivation. Isn't Perl a Unix-y language? You can get "interop" by using pipes or other IPC.

This seems like a heavy, Java-esque solution. 50 lines of Perl does a lot, let alone 1000. Not sure I want to see 20,000 lines of mixed Perl 5 and Perl 6.

<comment><USER2> Well, the goal is to make sure that the plentiful modules on the CPAN (all in Perl 5) are usable for everybody involved. You're right, directly mixing Perl 5 and Perl 6 isn't likely to be a common usage - at least, doesn't seem that way to me.

<comment><USER4> The p2 goal is to use as much non-conflicting p6 syntax within p5, and mark conflicting parts in special lexically scoped syntax blocks. But data and methods should be shared, the ast, compiler, vm, threads and event model ditto.

Syntax blocks also allow easier ffi and sql interaction, { use syntax "C"; c declarations ... } being a nice FFI language, compared to "extern { c decls; ... }", which is also nice.

We want to use efficient signatures, methods, classes, tasks, coros, promises, hyper operators, types, lazy lists and so in perl, regardless if you call it p5, p6 or p2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, they are using the Winamp versioning system.

<comment><USER6> Next step: Nullsoft-esque llama jokes about Llarry Wall.

(see also: [http://books.google.com/books/about/Learning_Perl.html?id=va...](http://books.google.com/books/about/Learning_Perl.html?id=va1PSgaO4xIC) )

<comment><USER7> Some say that Perl really whips the llamas ass.

<comment><USER8> _Perl. It really whips the camel 's ass._

FTFY

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool, I look forward to the next version (17) and the one after that too (28). This is the first Fibonacci version number scheme I've seen, maybe in the spirit of how TeX keeps adding digits of pi.

<comment><USER10> Not really a Fibonacci version number system since v(n + 1) = v(n) + n + 5, v(-1) = 0. It doesn't depend on v(n - 1), so while it's a _recurrence relation_ it isn't a Fibonacci-type sequence.

The next version should be 5 + 6 + 7 = 18, not 17.

<comment><USER11> v(0) = 5

v(1) = 6

v(2) = 11

v(3) = v(1) + v(2) = 17

In general sequences, especially short ones, can have many ways to be generated, but I imagine this is the one the GP meant.

<comment><USER10> Ah, I see. Unfortunately, this seems to imply that after the present version the project will stop incorporating new mainline releases of Perl (Perl 7 and on) and will instead focus on recombining the previous releases of itself.

<comment><USER12> with the time that Perl 6 is taking, I think the may have ended before Perl 7

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The name made me think that it was some subtle satire but judging by the github repo it seems real.

<comment><USER14> Since it'll take over 20 years to go from perl 5 to perl 6, I'm sure they're safe using 11.

<comment><USER15> I think Perl 6, especially Rakudo is aiming for a production release couple of years from now.

Having said that it would be pointless to go simply rewrite existing Perl 5 code to Perl 6. A good deal of Perl 5 libraries will be ported to Perl 6. And then Perl 6 will be well suited for a lot of big projects.

Perl 6 has a very nice type system, packed with all the goodies of a enterprise object oriented language,it has powerful functional programming features, and with all that it stays true to its scripting roots.

The right way to look at it is, Perl 5 and 6 will co exist for much of their individual lifetimes.

<comment><USER12> Where do you get the information about aiming for release in a couple of years?

I gave up trying to find out a while ago.

<comment><USER16> Probably from raiph. I saw that he mentioned that several times on Reddit. Also see the comments on my blog post: [http://blogs.perl.org/users/steven_haryanto/2013/03/dont- wai...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/steven_haryanto/2013/03/dont-wait-for- perl-6-to-build-your-product-on.html) (18 months).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone else in Perl 5 land, having tried Perl 6, just not that interested?

Seems like a lot of trendy changes that weren't needed to the language. There are some great changes (especially in the OO realm), but also a lot of weak ones.

<comment><USER15> Its like a trade off. While OO interests you a lot, there are a good deal of people who like functional stuff. Some people like both(See scala popularity these days). Some people want all of that with strong scripting support.

The design of Perl 6 is to ensure you can incrementally evolve the language to be whatever the trends are at that time.

<comment><USER17> Oh, I like the functional stuff too, but the regex changes and grammars and some of the operator overloading - I feel like I'm getting to a point with the functionality where Perl's syntax will start to get in the way, which is not the point of the language.

<comment><USER18> What happens in other parts of the code doesn't have the same impact on your code it does in Perl 5, though. In Perl 5 it's very easy to globally change the behaviour of code, while in Perl 6 it's a lot since harder since almost everything is lexically scoped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do I understand correctly, the point here being to allow perl5 and perl6 code to interoperate? The page is bit low on details how this will affect endusers.

<comment><USER2> It's a list of projects all loosely oriented around untying Perl 5 the language from perl the runtime. Perl 6 has already done this, with several (Parrot, JVM, Mono/.NET) VMs currently working fairly successfully, if a tad slowly still.

Personally I'm most excited about perlito (which features perl 5 compiled to javascript, among other things) and p2, which promises to be a super-speedy rendition of Perl 5 based on why the lucky stiff's last public project, the Potion language/VM.

The idea, as I understand it, is that if both Perl 5 and Perl 6 are running on the same VM, they can share library code on the level of that VM's bytecode.

All of that said, perl the runtime remains actively maintained and improved. End Perl users are just going to have some choices, much as Ruby users have had for a while (JRuby vs MRI, for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> yes, but keep in mind that Perl 11 could also just end up being Perl 4 + Perl 4 + Perl 3

<comment><USER21> Is Perl 4 + Perl 4 a way to achieve threading/parallel code execution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I thought we'd already done Perl three. Waiting on Perl100... And maybe I'll even be able to run something under Perl101.

And some people still claim we're stuck at Perl10...

P.S. I love Perl. Above said with affection.

</comment><comment><USER23> I recently was looking for something like this for Python so I could use Python 2 modules in Python 3.

<comment><USER24> What modules? Your idea is probably the wrong way to approach the problem. You could look at execnet if you just need to run hopelessly old unmaintained stuff that you can't push to get ported.

<comment><USER25> There are mountains of Python 2.x code (particularly inside companies) that are well-maintained and have no plans to port to Python 3 at the moment. My approach has generally been to make the code compatible across 2 and 3, though it requires great vigilance.

<comment><USER26> Yeah this is the approach I try to take, too. Is there a good write up on the intersection of 2 and 3? I mean more than "Here's some things to look out for when you are writing for both." I mean more along the lines of the Python standard documentation, but excluding all of the incompatibilities.

<comment><USER27> This is sort of the opposite of what you asked for: it's the list of all "fixers" that the 2to3 program will attempt to automatically fix when converting from 2 to 3. [http://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html#to3-fixers](http://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html#to3-fixers) If you avoid any issues _not_ on the list, you'll have a higher chance of 2to3 being successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Should be like Raid. 5+6 = 56.

</comment><comment><USER29> If this survives until perl actually reaches version 11...

<comment><USER11> I thought Perl was stuck at 5.x since they can't use 6?

<comment><USER30> What do you mean "can't use 6"? Perl 6 is using 6...

<comment><USER31> The parent post meant: "The Perl5 language can never increment its major version to 6, as the Perl6 name is already taken" – which is silly, as Perl5 is currently at version 18.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> perl, please die()

<comment><USER33> Ah, go eat a bag of barewords.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Upvoted for the lulz. This is ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER35> First project on the Perl 11 page is p2. Perl may be great at manipulating text, but it looks like it's awful at manipulating numbers.

<comment><USER4> p2 because of perl11: 1+1=2

And 2 as the next perl, because it should solve the p5 problem, being not extendable and improvable. And the p6 vm problem being not fast enough, and being tied to inadequate vm's and mops.

This is the idea at least.

<comment><USER35> I did get all that, I was just commenting on the crazy numbering scheme. It's just as silly as the third XBox being called the XBox One.

Even though it's a perl project and not perl itself, making it sound like version numbers can only serve to confuse things further, when Perl is already suffering problems from version numbers.

<comment><USER4> Yes, the crazy numbering numbering scheme is an inside joke. First we had the endless perl7 discussion just skipping over 6 and show some artifical progress in 5. Next came the moe folks (p5-mop in a new vm) who registered perl8.org as domain pointing to scala. Then came Ingy with the 5+6=11 idea.</comment></comment></comment></comment>