Pixar's RenderMan turns 25 - <AUTHOR> http://www.fxguide.com/featured/pixars-renderman-turns-25/

<comment><USER2> It still kills me a little inside when I think of the day I helped Ed Catmull load a Pixar box onto a bus to the airport knowing I was going to turn them down on their job offer to go to work at Silicon Graphics instead.

Pixar just didn't feel stable enough and I had a wife and newborn. Sure enough, I was a hardware guy, and Pixar dumped hardware two weeks after the date I would have started and I would have been out of a job.

That's too bad. I would have been thrilled to work there.

<comment><USER3> Do you see any opportunity for Pixar to get back into hardware?

<comment><USER4> You should probably go back and study why Silicon Graphics, Sun, and the other workstation vendors no longer exist.

<comment><USER5> Apple is now the only successful Unix workstation vendor.

<comment><USER2> Yeah. Too bad that IBM company went under.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got into Renderman in the late nineties thanks to Larry Gritz's Renderman compliant renderer BMRT, which was free for non-commercial use. I believe it was used for a number of Hollywood productions alongside PRMan, since it could raytrace and do global illumination.

At that time I was working in a supermarket and running a 16meg p166. Quite a distance from the world of high end graphics!

I created models in a beta version of Rhino I got from a Computer Arts coverdisk, which I exported in Renderman's text based RIB format. I would then hand edit these files to add shaders I had written. Back then I was convinced that shaders were the future, and that they would eventually make their way into games.

I ended up using it to create artwork for some early mobile games I released back in 2003. ([http://richardjdare.com/blog/games/](http://richardjdare.com/blog/games/)) - I would love to get back into hacking on Renderman again...

<comment><USER7> You still can, 3Delight is a REYES and raytracer and is free for dual core use. [http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php](http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php)

I learned a lot from BMRT 'back in the day' until I got full time access to a PRMan license for myself. Shame about how it turned out for both BMRT and later Exluna with that patent squabble with Pixar. Nvidia bought Exluna (spiritual successor to BMRT) and hushed Pixar down, briefly turned it into Gelato product and that's the last I've heard about it.

I even wrote a brief starting tutorial into RSL about 12 years ago here: [http://www.vga.hr/resources/tutorials/3d/rsl/index.htm](http://www.vga.hr/resources/tutorials/3d/rsl/index.htm) It's still up since it still get lots of visits (mainly from wikipedia these days). It was intended for my co-workers at the time but it gained quite a popularity with studios around the world for some reason back then. I take pride in the fact that there are still sources up for PRMan, BMRT and Exluna Entropy up there. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The RenderMan Companion was my first programming book. My parents bought it for me at the Barnes and Noble bookstore where we used to go on Saturdays (this was pre-internet days for us; AOL was just arriving and would be a long- distance call for another couple of years.)

I was too young at the time to really understand the C listings in the book, but I re-read it about a dozen times and a well-worn copy sits behind me on my shelf as I'm typing this.

The thing that did stand out, that Upstill really communicated, was the concept of an API, and why standards are valuable.

Anyway, RenderMan is without a doubt the single reason I became a programmer.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great article. Despite thinking I knew a lot about Pixar's life and times, for me the surprises were:

* Pixar pioneered ray-tracing, but it just wasn't fast enough for production use.

* The Pixar hardware (a) started out as a frame store (not a 3d workstation), (b) was based on transputers, and (c) renderman was named after hardware (i.e. like a Discman or Walkman).

* Luxo Jr. was not created with Renderman -- Tin Toy was the first Renderman film.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice to see INMOS mentioned. Loved learning to program on those little transputers.</comment>


US$ 2000 Prize For Developing Open Source Microsoft Kinect Drivers - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2010/11/05/2000-bounty-for-open-source-drivers-for-kinetic/

<comment><USER2> And if anyone had forgotten why open source users hates Microsoft:

"Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

Everytime you start to soften to Microsoft and convince yourself "they're not that bad, (Oracle, Apple, Google) is pretty bad too", someone at Microsoft opens their mouth and convinces you that they are indeed the most out of touch.

<comment><USER3> What hardware company that doesn't release their stuff openly says anything different? Hardware hackers have been running into this attitude for a long time, and it's showing no signs of going away. (This attitude is what pushed me to write <http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto> after being called a 'pirate' for hacking the Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface.)

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately that is very true (I worked for Bug Labs, so hopefully did a little good changing it), but I took particular offense to the "law enforcement" passive agressive threat in the Microsoft statement.

I 100% agree that if you hack something, the company shouldn't honor the warranty, or let you use it on their services. That is their right, which is why when I modded my Xbox 1 I was fine wtih them banning us from Xbox Live. But I never felt like I was going to go to jail for doing it. I didn't pirate games, so I never thought I could get in trouble for it. Then Microsoft started trying to get people in legal trouble for just modding them, or showing people how to mod them. That was when I got really anti-Microsoft, and I've kind of forgotten that over the last 4 or 5 years.

They reminded me today why I used to think they were the most anti-open source company.

<comment><USER3> I'd go to court over Kinect hacking in a heartbeat. They can't even use the standard anti-piracy argument here, it's simply preventing competition and interoperability. I really don't think MS is dumb enough to try it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> cool..... but wouldn't this be worth significantly more than $2k?

<comment><USER3> I'd been eying it already, so $2k would just be icing on the cake. This is right up my alley but I can't afford the hardware right now -- I'd be willing to split the bounty if someone can give me something to play with. (For reference, similar projects I've worked on/hacked: iPhone dev team, Belkin Network USB Hub, Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface)

<comment><USER5> Are you referring to just the Kinect or do you also need the Xbox?

<comment><USER3> I'd need both for it. Been thinking through the best way to hack it, which really comes down to: take control over the Kinect software (even just being able to see the binary would be ok, but being able to modify it would be optimal), MITM the USB connection, and work from there.

I believe they're doing considerable processing on the Kinect itself, as that's the only way to justify the 512MB RAM onboard. Will be interesting to see what the actual data it sends back is.

Edit: Big reading fail on my part; 512Mbit, not 512MB. That's much more in line with what I'd expect from a device not doing a whole lot.

<comment><USER5> It's going to be difficult to do a MITM attack because iirc, the 360 encrypts the data going over USB so that 3rd-party peripheral makers have to get a license from Microsoft to make a supported peripheral. Of course there always seems to be some sort of chink in the armor like with Wii. But I'm sure Microsoft is probably a lot better at writing operating systems compared to someone like Nintendo.

(To those who are interested in this type of thing: In the Wii's case it was using a pair of tweezers to glitch the memory chip into spewing Wii OS code that revealed that Nintendo was using strncmp to compare SHA1 hashes instead of memcmp which rendered the entire authentication system open to attack because if you can create a hash that has a leading null-byte then it will not be compared. So even though all games and firmware updates were RSA signed, this exploit bypassed everything. )

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I wonder whether the crypto is done in software or in hardware. If it's done in software, that's not so bad, but reversing hardware at that level isn't my strong point. Now I want to do this even more...

<comment><USER6> Where do you live? I have access to an XBox in Cambridge, UK. (And my housemates have worked on the Kinectimals game.)

<comment><USER3> I'm in NYC (just moved here yesterday). I may well pick one up once I get settled in an apartment. Was planning on grabbing a PS3, but I don't think I can resist the temptation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ironically, Microsoft was founded on reverse engineering DOS. What if IBM had built hardware that precluded MS-DOS from running? We are better off today, regardless of how we feel about Microsoft. Hacking adds value.

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://www.primesense.com/?p=487>

Looks like the company behind the technology in Kinect sells a reference device and SDK.

<comment><USER3> While it'd be helpful if you wanted to take total control over the Kinect, it won't get you very far in hacking the consumer device. The main issue would be that their code running on the SoC is most likely primarily custom, to handle encryption and all that fun stuff. Attacking it from the Xbox side would almost definitely be the most effective means, at least insomuch as gaining access to the same data that Xbox apps get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For a minute I thought Microsoft was offering the prize and thought about how refreshing this is...Then I read the story.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it would be amazing to use kinect to control a robot. Is anyone working on that?</comment>


Xiki: Can your shell console do this? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUR_eUVcABg

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks a lot like the terminal from Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Using a mouse, is regrettably, too slow to replace current keyboard-based terminals.

</comment><comment><USER4> What if my eyes glazed over mid-presentation because the cognitive load was just too darn high?</comment>


Why the media is unable to report on a case that has generated huge interest - <AUTHOR> https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is-unable-to-report-on-a-case-that-has-generated-huge-interest-online-20181212-p50lta.html <comment><AUTHOR> The Age is lamenting not being able to talk about a case because it's under a supression order due to a second trial in March. However other entities not bound by the supression order including overseas papers and twitter have made this somewhat meaningless.

I can't help but wonder what the solution is to the "twitter prejudicing juries" problem.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interestingly, Wikipedia editors also don't seem sure how best to deal with this suppression order. Here's the talk page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:George_Pell#Rumours_of_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:George_Pell#Rumours_of_conviction)</comment>


The Giant Pool of Money, "This American Life" on How the Subprime Crisis Happened - <AUTHOR> http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242 <comment><USER2> Are their any financial types that have listened to this and can verify their claims?

In typical fashion they did a great job with storytelling and production. However, I hear conflicting reports about some of the underlying causes, including ones they discuss.

</comment><comment><USER3> These podcasts from NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross are also quite illuminating:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9468642...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94686428)

"Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets"

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't you want an economist for this and not a law professor? It's like having a dentist do a special on heart disease.

<comment><USER3> Actually, if you check the link, Michael Greenberger previously directed a division at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission so he does have some experience in finance.

Also, if you listen to the podcasts, he mentions that he teaches a class to law students which covers financial instruments beyond typical stocks and bonds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is also the "Planet Money" podcast that the same guys at NPR have been putting together. They've been discussing the most recent parts of the crisis as they unfold; hours of super depressing fun!

<http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/>

It includes parts-in-development of the upcoming This American Life episode referred to by noodle.

</comment><comment><USER6> this was a great episode. they have another one coming out soon to talk about more recent developments.

<comment><USER7> it's from a year ago, right?

<comment><USER6> may 2008.</comment></comment></comment>


Dumb Hiring Shibboleths - <AUTHOR> https://adrianhoward.com/posts/dumb-hiring-shibboleths/ <comment><USER2> Well, I was rejected by one company because I don't have public GitHub projects.</comment>


NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists - <AUTHOR> http://www.techspot.com/news/57316-nsa-classifies-linux-journal-readers-tor-and-tails-linux-users-as-extremists.html <comment><USER2> The depressing part for me is that I've started to consider what I search for on a daily basis and how that might look...essentially they are starting to make me paranoid.

Over the last few months I've googled

Numerous Weapon Systems (I have a fascination with WW1, WWII and Cold War history - stuff like Black Arrow etc).

Insurgencies during the British Empire

Electronics (want to get back into and saw a fun project to make on reddit the other day) - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=movVFYWheGM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=movVFYWheGM)

Linux stuff (settings, security, the usual stuff a developer/system administrator would look at).

Programming stuff (relating to security, encryption etc)

NSA related material (following the story closely).

Setting up a VPN (so I can access Netflix US because Netflix UK is basically crap).

The US constitution and some case law.

NSA Report: "User noir_lord has an interest in privacy, weapons, insurgencies and excellent technical skills, user noir_lord should be monitored"

Where in reality I'm a 34 year old web developer from the North of England who enjoys history, techy stuff and playing with my cats.

<comment><USER3> That is one way that thought control works.

Religion uses this, "don't think naughty thoughts, God will record it and you'll pay for it later". NSA is God except that NSA exists and is real.

Here your search is a bit like your thoughts. Any of those things you listed, possibly could have landed you on the "naughty list". So now you start to really worry about what you search for. If you can't research or find info about, well might as well not think about things at all at some point.

Before you used to go to the library. Except that they can monitor that too and it is terribly inefficient.

I grew up in Soviet Union and I remember being told by my parents not to mention or talk about certain things (criticizing the party, telling jokes about politics around strangers, ..., and so on). But at least you knew, if you are in the country side with your family you could crack jokes at the stupidity of bureaucracy. And then when I came here the big "selling" point of the country was "you have all this freedom, and this is something you really need, want and is the best thing in the world". But just like you, I started in the last 3-5 years to kind of think for a second before searching for things. Or when I write an email to a friend, I am careful if I am a bit too sarcastic or making a joke about the president or whatnot.

Not saying we'll end up in a labor camp anytime soon, but the tragedy is that this kind of control and monitoring so disturbing vis-a-vis propaganda and the expectations of what this country should be. In totalitarian regimes at least it is clear and understandable what is going on and what is expected of people. Here it is "freedom, dreams, realize yourself, pursue your happiness" but effectively what we think about is restricted.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the interesting post, as I mentioned in the first post I have a fascination for 19th and 20th century history and the parallels to some of it are horribly stark (so stark in fact I can't believe that the people in power haven't spotted them which leaves me with "this is what they want").

Secret courts, no right to due process, no right to face your accuser, the presumption of guilt on political grounds, secret warrants, an out of control security apparatus, extra judicial killings, curtailing on the right to free protest, right to free speech...

Thanks to our reliance on modern communications and technology the state apparatus can assemble data warehouses that the most optimistic of STASI operatives wouldn't have even dreamed possible and we seem to be sleep walking into a police state more pervasive and insidious than anything we've ever seen.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

<comment><USER4> But if you delve into that history even more, you'll note that it was accompanied by a pervasive sense of dread and fear even amongst those who were not being persecuted. In Nazi Germany, for instance, it was not just the Jews who lived in terror of the Stasi (edit: mixed up my history, not Stasi, but the "death squads" \-- the Stasi came after the war, but even more feared), but all German citizens in general. The reason was probably that the Stasi made no attempts to hide their activities, just as the various Islamic groups and Mexican drug gangs don't today. Publicity of their acts to spread terror is the very tool these folks rely on to exert their control.

People who draw parallels between the actions of today's intelligence agencies and the agencies of oppression of yesteryear uniformly miss out on this key difference.

<comment><USER5> The time to stop a totalitarian police state is _before_ it becomes a totalitarian police state. It gets a lot harder to stop afterwards.

<comment><USER6> As Bruce Schneieir says, it is poor civic hygiene to even let the systems be built in the first place. Unfortunately we are well past that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another repeat of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7983124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7983124)

And to repeat: the config file available from [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt](http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt) says:

      /*
      These variables define terms and websites relating to the TAILs (The Amnesic
      Incognito Live System) software program, a comsec mechanism advocated by
      extremists on extremist forums.
      */

Linux Journal is listed there, as a 'website relating to TAILS', not as an 'extremist forum'.

<comment><USER8> specifically:

        // START_DEFINITION
        /*
        These variables define terms and websites relating to the TAILs (The Amnesic
        Incognito Live System) software program, a comsec mechanism advocated by
        extremists on extremist forums.
        */

        $TAILS_terms=word('tails' or 'Amnesiac Incognito Live System') and word('linux'
        or ' USB ' or ' CD ' or 'secure desktop' or ' IRC ' or 'truecrypt' or ' tor ');
        $TAILS_websites=('tails.boum.org/') or ('linuxjournal.com/content/linux*');
        // END_DEFINITION

... assuming this file is even what it purports to be.

I understand Hacker News users aren't likely to think critically when it comes to stories about the NSA but you would expect more of them could actually read code.

<comment><USER7> Really that should be

      TAILS_terms=(word('tails')
                   and word('linux' or ' USB ' or ' CD'
                            or 'secure desktop' or ' IRC '
                            or 'truecrypt' or ' tor '))
               or word('Amnesiac Incognito Live System');

because (1) you need to disambiguate the common word 'tails' but surely not the specific name 'Amnesiac Incognito Live System', and (2) you don't want to miss [tails CDROM].

See how important code review is?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "the agency is targeting anyone who is interested in online privacy" \- not so surprising, is it. I wonder what other similar criteria there are for being considered an "extremist"? No Facebook or other social networking accounts? Uses Linux? Makes certain types of comments online that support privacy (like this one)? ... It's really unsettling.

On the other hand, now that this is out, I think the NSA will suddenly have a ton more "extremists" to look at.

<comment><USER10> > _NSA will suddenly have a ton more "extremists" to look at._

Let's say that in NSA's dictionary, extremist means "Anyone with even a small potential to alter the course of society, the economy, or technology."

Those people, plus a comfortable margin, might be 5% of the population. The NSA probably has the resources to examine all the electronic communications and do high-quality transcription of verbal communications of that 5%.

Even trying to make that targeting more selective would be, in the NSA's worldview "counterproductive."

<comment><USER11> I'm always curious to hear people talk about "alter the course of society" or "change culture" or whatever, what they think that means. What does the NSA think is the "course" of things? Because ultimately, I see it as a tautology: the course is whatever it is, it is whatever the aggregate of its constituents make it. So please, tell us NSA, what prescience do you have to know what it should and shouldn't be?

<comment><USER9> To the NSA, the course of society is what the government wants.

<comment><USER12> Consider this. NSA are the ones who are providing intelligence reports to the different parts of the government. They very likely employ a number of psychologist and sociologists. (I can not verify this, it's just a morbid hunch.)

What is there to prevent them from biasing (or slanting) the intelligence so that they continously keep nudging the perceptions of those reading the reports? The names for this are numerous; thought influence, advertising, even brain washing in extreme cases.

Or in other words - for the NSA, the course of society may well be what they can _make_ the government want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I am really keen to know is whether revelations like these have any impact on the "would love to work for the NSA fanboy". Do they continue to be just as keen and rationalize these things away, or does it make them ponder a bit.

Things have indeed been getting scarier by the minute. Interest in Linux is not treason, yet, but I cannot/dont rule out that it could be, for some value of 'Linux'.

Several trends in political/informatic/economic structures does seem to be headed towards the medieval side.

<comment><USER14> I briefly met a guy who worked for US intelligence (can't remember specifics). I asked him about the NSA. First, he told me he couldn't say much. Then he said "Well I don't wanna brag, but the NSA _really has_ caught a lot of terrorists, and is way more competent than the media makes them out to be." This leads me to believe that either: all these press articles paint a distorted picture; or the level of rationalization is pretty high.

<comment><USER15> It also makes you wonder what those "terrorists" had actually done to warrant being captured.

<comment><USER13> Being stupid suckers for set up set pieces, or searching for pressure cooker based recipes for quinoa (not enough to be arrested, sorry, gitmo'ized, but enough to be questioned)[0].

[0] HN comments on "Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa, oh my" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140545)

EDIT: @csandreasen I did not mean to imply that the quinoa incident was NSA related, but to give an example of what could happen as we veer deeper and deeper into a culture of surveillance and assumption of bad faith. Criminalization of sarcasm is another thing that will happen / has happened.

<comment><USER16> The "surveillance state looking for pressure cooker searches" ended up being complete paranoia and shoddy journalism. Yes, a New York man was visited by the police and questioned by local police regarding his Google searches for "pressure cookers" and "backpacks". It turned out that it was not an Orwellian surveillance state that tracked him down, but rather that the local police were following up when his employer viewed its own network logs, became suspicious and alerted the authorities.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/02/michele_ca...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/02/michele_catalano_pressure_cooker_search_was_not_due_to_nsa_surveillance.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh shit. I had two articles published in it last year. What does that make me?!

On a LUG mailing list I belong to we started using the term "command line extremist". I rather like it.

</comment><comment><USER18> What about SELinux [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security- Enhanced_Linux](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux)

"The SELinux project was merged into the Linux Kernel back in 2003"

It's still listed on the NSA website in several areas: [http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/selinux/papers/x/x.shtml](http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/selinux/papers/x/x.shtml)

To be honest though, if someone was downloading tails from region of know terrorist activity and such systems are actively promoted amongst terrorist sites then it obviously makes for a good target. But the Linux Journal ..comon.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nowhere in the evidence is there any indication that the NSA classifies Linux Journal as an extremist forum, or that it considers the readers extremists.

<comment><USER20> You're right, they just monitor and log everything and everyone on Linux Journals forums.

We really should stop saying the NSA's targets are considered extremists. They watch everyone.

<comment><USER19> _You 're right, they just monitor and log everything and everyone on Linux Journals forums._

That's a contradiction. If you believe the latter, you don't think I'm right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> if I was the NSA I probably would target my own employees first as they have the most power to take me down

<comment><USER22> Your employees have probably already been screened as risk averse nerds without a social life outside of the near area. Sure, you'd monitor their movements and those of their family members, but statistically it'd be unlikely they'd move too far from a pretty boring norm. After all, they're prohibited from visiting interesting countries and are probably watched or flagged if they visit even other US states. Is it unlikely that their movements are not routinely monitored by cellular site presence and/or numberplate recognition?

I think you would target high ranking politicians... because the option to blackmail them ensures you an uninterrupted and growing black budget.

You would target communications businesses... because compromising a properly placed employee grants you access to the sum total of customer and peer communications through their networks.

You would target media... because a jump on a popular change in public sentiment is very actionable intelligence, both to multiply funding (through investments prior to predictable market response), and to further control politics.

You would target diplomats... both for tradition's sake, and because borders are the most easily grasped us-and-them (divisive) tool in the post 20th century semantic playground, giving you options for powerful public sentiment manipulation through selective media generation. However, realistically for most embassies worth their salt you'd know these groups are largely not going to do anything remotely surprising that you can pin to them through pervasive communications intelligence gathering.

Probably also, you would target multinationals, because almost all of them are doing something dodgy, somewhere, and that gives you tremendous leeway for behavioral modification.

But in reality, the majority of these can be monitored very effectively on an automated basis with near zero effort once you have full visibility of various domestic financial networks, the SWIFT international financial network, credit and debit card networks, electronic information on intended travel (passenger name records) and border crossing (whoops! I-lost-my ... new passport number, anyone?), and the public switched telephone network.

Email, social network and general web use are cute extras, and probably greatly useful just for delving in to people's character and actions, communicative profiling (grammar, typing style, languages known), interest profiling, waking hour and social network profiling (beyond just phones), etc. But I don't think it's necessary to go to that point most of the time ... the broad metrics are already available and probably extremely reliable unless people are making a concerted effort to bypass dragnet surveillance activity. (eg. By avoiding all of the above networks... damn hard these days, it would seem, for any length of time)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > While there is no word about how the source code was obtained, security > experts aren't sure whether it was leaked by Snowden.

So we don't really know if it's genuine. (Though it doesn't really matter because it's not surprising at all.)

</comment><comment><USER24> The NSA's problem is that new threats are a form of innovation, but that it's hard to predict innovation, and harder to target surveillance towards people planning a dangerous activity if nobody has seen that activity before. New ideas are a threat.

So perhaps their method is to define Normal, and then monitor everybody Abnormal, on the basis that dangerous innovation is more likely to come from the Abnormal.

Enthusiasm for Linux isn't as abnormal as it used to be, but it definitely puts you in the "dangerous 1%".

<comment><USER25> I could see a group of analyst deducting that people interested in traffic privacy fall into two groups. Technology intent and nefarious intent. If you were looking for people with nefarious intent, then that would lead you to monitor the tools that those in the nefarious group would use. This article feels very much like link bait for the technology activist.

You don't put a DUI checkpoint outside the library you put it outside the pub.

My point being that they tasked intelligent people with finding "terrorist" and this search pattern is a natural evolution of that task. Policy aside.

<comment><USER26> But what if they view the technologists as "incidentally" aiding the group with "nefarious intent". Remember a US president in our lifetime said: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."[1]

The treatment of Jacob Appelbaum[2] and David Miranda[3] suggests that members of US/UK Government may believe that if one provides "incidental help" to the current ideological enemies of the US you are a terrorist/extremist or at the very least targetable under terrorism laws (Miranda was detained under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act).

[1]: [http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/200...](http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html)

[2]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Detention_and_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Detention_and_investigation)

[3]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Detention_of_Da...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Detention_of_David_Miranda)

<comment><USER19> Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 does not require a person to be a "terrorist" or imply that anybody detained under its authority is thought to be one.

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7)

<comment><USER26> Notice that I said, "Miranda was detained under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act", this statement does not contradict your statement.

I am not a lawyer and I am in no way familiar with UK law, but my reading of the law is given below:

tdlr; Section 7 applies people that the officer wishes to determine are terrorists defined in Section 40(1)(b)[1]. It does not require evidence, but the purpose is to determine if the person is, in fact, a terrorist.

[1]: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40)

Section 7 states: "For the purpose of satisfying himself whether there are any persons whom he may wish to question under paragraph 2 an examining officer may—"

Paragraph 2 states: "An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b)."

Section 40(1) (b) states: "In this Part "terrorist" means a person who— (a)has committed an offence under any of sections 11, 12, 15 to 18, 54 and 56 to 63, or (b)is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."

<comment><USER19> You also said that "members of US/UK Government may believe that if one provides "incidental help" to the current ideological enemies of the US you are a terrorist/extremist", which you haven't shown at all, and that "at the very least targetable under terrorism laws", which is meaningless, because _anybody_ crossing the border can be detained and questioned by that statute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I didn't realize that he had actually leaked any code: [http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt](http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/xkeyscorerules100.txt)

Is there a list of other code or rules files that were released?

Is this information legal to search for, store, or link to since it's now public?

</comment><comment><USER28> I guess the first issue of LJ I have on the bookshelf just doubled in value..

</comment><comment><USER21> since their goal doesn't appear to be to stop "terrorists", is their goal to stop unwanted politicians?</comment>


Ask HN: What are some open unique data feeds I can use for mashups? - <AUTHOR> Current site is related to the corona virus but I'd like to show other interesting data mashups as well.<p>I show maps videos news feeds and so social media along with market data. I'm looking to create similar mashups in other niches. <comment><USER2> Well there's data.gov</comment>


Transinistria, the Area Between Moldova and Ukraine - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/03/transinistria-moldova-republic-ukraine/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_Escape_20200917&rid=270AC37550F07188CAC5926E6E931E62 <comment><USER2> It seems like Transnistrians would generally prefer independence to the status quo. (Whether they would prefer joining Russia even more is a different question). Moldova would prefer to integrate it into Moldova. Everyone in the international community - including those aligned with Russia, such as Belarus, Serbia, and Russia itself - officially opposes independence, and in practice approves of the current situation even if they occasionally speak in favour of Moldova's position.

Why is this? It doesn't seem that the EU benefits from keeping the status quo of heavy Russian influence but _de jure_ Moldovan ownership: if anything, an independent Transnistria might one day prefer to court the European sphere. Conversely, Russia should be happy to have an official ally in the region. The international-law disputes over who signed what treaty, 3 states ago, seem moot and trivial compared with the principle of self-determination. So why not give them what they seem to want?

<comment><USER3> > The international-law disputes over who signed what treaty, 3 states ago, > seem moot and trivial compared with the principle of self-determination.

Here lies the flaw in your thinking. An obvious issue is that Transnistrian secession would impinge on Moldovan sovereignty. This is similar to how Catalonia is not allowed to secede from Spain. Some counterexamples are Kosovo seceding from Serbia (supported by USA and UN because of Serbia's terrible international standing at that moment, specifically because of the ethnic cleansing employed by the Serbian government and army in the war) and Algeria seceding from France (which the French agreed to to end the Algerian War). So I think the reason for Transnistria not being recognized is that Moldova is in relatively good international standing (at least compared to Serbia around the time of the Kosovo War), thus no internationally recognized country wants to attack Moldova's sovereignty, for kind of the same reasons that most people try not to break any laws. (And those that would be willing to "break the law" presumably have nothing to gain from it.)

Also see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- determination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination)

> The principle does not state how the decision is to be made, nor what the > outcome should be, whether it be independence, federation, protection, some > form of autonomy or full assimilation. Neither does it state what the > delimitation between peoples should be—nor what constitutes a people. There > are conflicting definitions and legal criteria for determining which groups > may legitimately claim the right to self-determination.

<comment><USER4> The other difference between Moldova and Serbia is that there's specific precedent pertaining to the matter.

Transnistria was not Moldova's only ethnic separatism conflict; there was also Gagauzia, which similarly declared independence, but that conflict was resolved without shooting. Moldova promised significant autonomy, and, for the most part, did deliver on those promises.

And then you contrast that with how Serbia treated Albanians in Kosovo when it was a part of their country...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A very different style of presentation, but if you want to get a more close-up view of Transdniestria, [this video by bald and bankrupt][1] is worth a watch.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kVnrqBb6y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kVnrqBb6y4)

<comment><USER6> You beat me to it. His channel is just chock full of awesome videos that go way beyond tourist traps.

<comment><USER7> Woah he seems to speak Russian? And quite well, too. Really admire any non- native Russian speakers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The current situation is designed by former sovjet leadership who chose to draw their internal borders for administrational units or "oblasts" in such a manner that a eventual secession of said region would naturally result in a instable faction or nation. Speaking of such happenings we should also not forget that a large chunk of the soviet small arms industry was concentrated in Transnistria and for strategical reasons. Even today to occupy that region coerces military eyes to focus at a tiny gap between Belarus and the Baltic states in case of a conventional land war. A scenario in favor of Russia due to their occupation of Koningsberg where they have installed advanced AA weapon systems, among other things. The Soviet Union was never fully beaten and the KGB was merely renamed "United Russia".

</comment><comment><USER9> The (in)famous hacker & troll, weev, lives in Transnistria, at the moment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#After_prison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#After_prison)

<comment><USER10> >He was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison[34] and ordered to pay $73,000 in restitution.[49] Just prior to his sentencing, he posted an "Ask Me Anything" thread on Reddit;[50] his comments, such as "I hope they give me the maximum, so people will rise up and storm the docks" and "My regret is being nice enough to give AT&T a chance to patch before dropping the dataset to Gawker. I won't nearly be as nice next time", were cited by the prosecution the next day in court as justification for the sentence.[51]

Dear god what did I read?

>On April 11, 2014, the Third Circuit issued an opinion vacating Auernheimer's conviction, on the basis that the New Jersey venue was improper,[56] since neither Auernheimer, his co-conspirators, nor AT&T's servers were in New Jersey at the time of the data breach. While the judges did not address the substantive question on the legality of the site access, they were skeptical of the original conviction, noting that no circumvention of passwords had occurred and that only publicly accessible information was obtained.[59] He was released from prison on April 11, 2014.[60]

How incompetent do you have to be to arrest someone over something that isn't a crime, and also screw up the case so badly that you'd have to release him even if it was?

<comment><USER11> > How incompetent do you have to be to arrest someone over something that > isn't a crime, and also screw up the case so badly that you'd have to > release him even if it was?

I don't know, indicting, charging, and convicting someone in a federal court without proper venue when the charged act probably isn't a crime would seem like it would take an extraordinary combination of both _competence_ and _malfeasance_ from the prosecutor. _In_ competence would lead you to fail even without the impediments of "not a crime" and "not a court in which venue is proper".

<comment><USER10> The US system is set up to arrest everyone and keep them locked up indefinitely as slave labor (literally true - the 13th amendment allows for slavery in prisons).

I'd say that you have to be pretty incompetent to still lose with that system in place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I visited in 2018. The weirdest experience was getting drunk on vodka with 4 locals and listening to them rant. They wanted #1 an end to local corruption (a common complaint all over the world) and #2 they wanted Putin to nuke the US.

I'm not really sure how serious they were about the nuke part but they _really_ didn't like America.

<comment><USER13> I am from the same region and until now I did not get used to this. People live surrounded by dirt and corruption but they still don't like America as thou America is making that dirt and corruption. Also online, if someone points to something negative passing in Russia, Belarus, Transnistria, the usual response will be: "But look what is passing in US"

<comment><USER14> This has been happening for decades, not just online.

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

<comment><USER13> Yes, however in the past it was state propaganda as a response to criticisms of human rights violations

Now it's the response of normal people to someone also local criticising a local event, state of afairs, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article has a real nauseating "I went to document the primitive natives" feel to it. Lines like:

> But when he was out on the street with his camera, something struck him > about the way people reacted.

Make it sound like they've never seen a camera before. And surely there is more to the story than pictures of tanks and people in military uniforms?

<comment><USER16> > "It was strange," he says. "Nobody was happy. But nobody was pissed off."

More of general Eastern European mood :)

<comment><USER17> I don't get this to be honest. It did strike me as a weird line a well. In any country I've been it's not like I've seen people react in any specific way to me taking photos. A person uses a camera while the rest of the world goes on seems... extremely normal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a Russia-backed puppet state, the same as Abkhazia (same period of time), South Ossetia (2008), or a newer DNR/LNR (2014). It's not people that decided to do something, it's that big pile of shit country making life worse for them.

<comment><USER16> As someone who lived in proximity to this region, the issue is not exactly as black and white as you may feel.

<comment><USER19> Please enlighten us. You seem to know something about the subject; why stop at a 1-line dismissive comment?

<comment><USER20> Because slavic politics is a powder keg and you have to be extremely conservative about what you say for fear of angering somebody who might want to kill you for saying it.

Most of the people in Transnistria very much value their independent status, it allows them a degree of practical freedom in commerce that they would not have otherwise. They also typically are not limited by the nation's independent status as they also nearly universally hold Ukrainian or Moldovan citizenship in addition to Transnistrian.

Furthermore, the practical matter of it is that the PMR (Transnistria) military cannot hope to withstand say, a prolonged assault with the Ukrainian military. Though both Ukraine and Moldova officially declare Transnistria illegitimate and their rightful clay, extremely prominent and well connected people in both countries also greatly benefit from its existence. Lots of border and jurisdictional games to play. Nobody seriously wants it to go away.

<comment><USER21> Thank you for your helpful comment; in the spirit of reciprocity, by "their rightful clay," I _think_ you meant "their rightful soil" \-- in which case, FYI, "soil" in particular is occasionally used to refer to "land" as in "native soil", ie "homeland". But "clay" doesn't work there, the idiom is strictly "soil". HTH! :)

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure _rightful clay_ was a polandball reference.

<comment><USER20> You would be correct, and also clay rhymed easy with play and away and thus made the text have a nice, soft flow to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Russia (FSB) is really good at sowing dissent. We had a big Anti Covid protest in Poland last week. By Anti Covid they meant something totally different from what you might expect. Main slogan:

"Covid-19 - global lie! turn off TV - turn on thinking! Learn facts! take off your mask!"

[https://oko.press/skrajna-prawica-organizuje-bunt- przeciwko-...](https://oko.press/skrajna-prawica-organizuje-bunt-przeciwko- pandemii/)

Organized by far rights, religious fringes, alternative medicine enthusiasts, conspiracy nuts, and a Russian 'psychic healer'.

Berlin had similar protest last month, organized with the help of their neo nazi party (AfD).</comment>


Google Translate gets Beatbox button - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/google-translate-gets-doug-e-fresh-approved-beatbox-button/ <comment><AUTHOR> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1952356></comment>


Status update? · Issue #941 · moinwiki/moin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/moinwiki/moin/issues/941 <comment><AUTHOR> I find it interesting that the Python project wiki runs a wiki software that requires a completely obsolete version of Python.

[https://wiki.python.org/moin/](https://wiki.python.org/moin/)</comment>


Soviet Image Editing Tool from 1987 - <AUTHOR> http://www.petapixel.com/2010/11/03/soviet-image-editing-tool-from-1987/ <comment><USER2> It's not Soviet , it's French ! It's a PERICOLOR-1000 system with a software translated to Russian. They used to buy hardware and software in the West and change it a bit(translate) and present it as one developed internally in some scientific institute.

Here is the discussion in Russian: <http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/history/107465/>

<comment><USER3> I _love_ the fact that the blog post is titled "Олдскульный Фотошоп", which transliterates to English as "Old-school Photoshop"

<comment><USER4> It actually transliterates to something closer "old-schoolnyi photoshop". I love it, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be so funny if one of the examples were: Herse's Trotsky with Lenin. Wow now he's gone!

edit: like here: <http://www.dutchcowboys.nl/images/upload/trotski.jpg>

<comment><USER6> I thought the same thing, but then realized that, by 1987, retconning the early days of Bolshevism was a low priority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was using a Scitex imaging workstation before Photoshop 1.0 was released. There were others available too, like Barco and Paintbox.

The big advantage of Photoshop is that it could run on cheap hardware (Mac IIcx and IIfx) with decent performance.

<comment><USER8> If anyone knows where I can find resources about the history of such machines, such as early reviews, screenshots or manuals – either of academic research prototypes or of commercial products – I'd really appreciate it.

I intend to sometime in the not-impossibly-distant future write detailed descriptions (beyond the level of any of the PS books or online resources I've seen) of all the tools in Photoshop, and some critiques/suggestions for improvement. A lot of the ideas seem traceable to 70s/80s research at PARC, NYIT, Stanford, etc., or to these early workstations like those made by Scitex, Tektronix, etc., but there's not much material online about all of that history, so my knowledge of it is pretty sketchy.

[My email is in my profile, for anyone who has advice.]

<comment><USER9> One very early system was the Symbolics S-Graphics suite, which came out sometime in 1984. Its main strength was 3d graphics (actually either it or Wavefront was the first commercially sold 3d graphics system), but the Lisp Machine versions also came with 2d paint. When Symbolics went out of business the code was acquired by a Japanese company (Nichimen) and ported to Allegro Common Lisp on Irix and Windows NT (and later Linux) and sold branded as "Mirai" as a 3d graphics application (although the 2d paint part was still there in the form of an integrated texture painting tool).

Here's some scans of an early S-Graphics sales brochure: <http://www.lemonodor.com/archives/000256.html>

Unfortunately the company basically folded sometime in 2003-2004ish timeframe - the last work done on Mirai as far as I know was on contract for Weta for Lord of the Rings (Mirai was used to animate Gollum's face; there's an interesting article about it on AWN: [http://www.awn.com/articles/technology/two-towers-face- face-...](http://www.awn.com/articles/technology/two-towers-face-face- gollum/page/2,1)). You can still buy a copy, but it's not under active development: <http://www.izware.com/mirai/> (the texture painting tool is pretty cool: <http://www.izware.com/mirai/paint.htm>). When I have a spare million I'd like to buy the rights and release it as Free Software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some of those "retouchings" near the end don't seem like they would be possible, even with today's technology. The bearded guy with with the cool hat goes from being very blurry to very sharp, with a lot of extra detail seemingly added out of nowhere ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2PsiJXswiM&t=02m27s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2PsiJXswiM&t=02m27s)).

Note: I have a hard time using MS Paint, let alone a modern image editing suite, so it's entirely likely that this magic is indeed possible, I'm just unaware of it.

<comment><USER11> As sister comment suggested, it's increasing the contrast. Normally, it would not make things look 'less blurry', but due to the way the image is being captured, the screen likely has higher dot pitch than recording medium their using, so low contrast areas blur together. As you increase the contrast, then they start to appear 'discrete'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love how they call it "restoring damaged images". I suspect the primary goal was "blot out enemies of the state".

[http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishe...](http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm)

<comment><USER13> You are off by several decades with your suspicion.

<comment><USER12> The linked examples are. The practice itself probably didn't go away.

<comment><USER13> > _The practice itself probably didn't go away._

So you are saying that the practice of editing out "enemies of the state" still exists in former Soviet Union countries? How exactly do you envision this happening?

<comment><USER14> Not entirely unrelated, but during Milosevic's dictatorship here in Serbia, one of government-owned daily newspapers used PS to "slightly increase" number of supporters on a pro-government rally.

[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/media-by- milosevi...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/media-by- milosevic/photo-essay-how-milosevic-controlled-the-media/874/)

I know, not '80s, but '90s and not ex-SSSR, but close enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So three years before a consumer grade tool existed, a research grade tool existed?

Name one area of technology where this was NOT the case!

<comment><USER12> That doesn't make it any less nifty to see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the comments reminded me how great Deluxe Paint was (I used the PC version):

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

<comment><USER17> I know of one industry that is STILL using Dpaint to create graphics and animations for a certain type of dot-matrix display. It's crude, but nothing works as well. Also, they have a bunch of tools to read the LBM format and nobody is available to upgrade to newer stuff.

<comment><USER18> What industry is this?

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't be surprised if people working on 2D games for gameboys etc still used it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> After more than 20 years, I still have rotary scanner envy.

In 1988, I spent several weeks trying to cobble together a prototype for capturing USGS topographic maps in color using a NewTek Digiview and an Amiga 2000.

<http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=307>

</comment><comment><USER20> More interested in seeing the Soviet Synthesizer that's providing the background music!

<comment><USER2> That's a music by a pioneer of Soviet electronic music - Eduard Artemyev. P.S. Personal opinion he is one of the greatest 20th century composers.

<comment><USER21> Link to original.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJj9y4t9UnU&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJj9y4t9UnU&feature=related)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did their 23-year old mechanical scanner just scan the photo faster than any scanner I have ever used? I think it did.

We have come so far.

(Yes, I know, I know. It's just funny)

<comment><USER23> Most copy machines these days are actually scanners, and can do an 11x17 page at 600dpi in about a second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder what's the Apple III doing...

<comment><USER25> I wondered the same thing. Can anyone tell if that really was an Apple III or a clone or a coincidence? (I tried pausing in various places but it's inconclusive.)

<comment><USER23> It sure does look like an Apple III. It's not the US model because it has a >< key (in the modern Backspace location) where the US had a \| key. Actually probably German because it has the M key to the right of L. I'm pretty sure I see an Apple logo on the key to the left of the space bar at 1:38.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What's that piece of music at 2:30? I've heard it before in some cheesy techno dance track I think.

<comment><USER27> Yes, I was about to comment on that and saw you'd spotted this too. Bonus points to you!

So the techno dance track is "PPK - Resurrection". One of my favorites tracks of all time until now.

I'm guessing that what we heard in the film is either a a traditional Russian song or a song from the late 80's -- either way it means that PPK ripped it off and didn't write that catchy hook themselves. I'm very sad to learn that.

 _anyone reading this who has no idea what we are talking about, listen here<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipE9QFiWhzQ> _

<comment><USER2> It's from a very good movie called Sibiriada. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBkdlnsKVYU> (around 5:00 min)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Impressive... Looks like many american movies, too :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Come on, nobody? Ok I'll do it... "In Soviet Russia, image edits you!"

<comment><USER30> This is not Reddit.

<comment><USER31> Thank you captain obvious (and condescending).</comment></comment></comment>


PayPal joins the Dark Side - <AUTHOR> https://hax.5july.org/2015/04/25/paypal-joins-the-dark-side/

<comment><USER2> As usual for this kind of complaint, this is a person who does not understand copyright very well: without being granted a universal license to reproduce, store, and modify modified your content, websites on the Internet would not be allowed to resize, truncate, or cache your content, and quite clearly would have right to show it to absolutely anyone else. Therefore, essentially every website not only will but must have a clause that reads similarly to this one. In the case of PayPal, while this user waxes on about not even providing content to PayPal, 1) if that is true then this clause has no effect (so he should stop whining about it), and 2) that isn't true for everyone else: I believe PayPal caches the brand images one posts for hosted buttons (and if not they probably should), payments themselves can have descriptions that might themselves be trademarks or even long enough to be copyrighted... what I imagine happened is that PayPal had previously made essentially the same argument that "we don't host content" and so never added this boilerplate, and someone just recently realized that there really is at least small amounts of content involved, so they added the required language.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _So the only content there is, is the online stuff people and companies sell > using PayPal as payment provider._

This deduction makes no sense because PayPal isn't publishing those things. Their checkout-with-PayPal service is not much more than a link on a website, in most cases.

But even if PayPal were trying to use that service to copyright the material on the originating website, it wouldn't fly in court.

If PayPal's legal boilerplate really bothers you, you'll have trouble browsing top few thousand websites at all (most popular sites have broad and vague agreements like this).

On a related note, PayPal is pretty easy to avoid these days, if one is so inclined. The behavior of Facebook and Google are much more worrisome, as they're totally impossible to avoid.

</comment><comment><USER4> Earlier: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439691)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think in fairness PayPal were already very much on the Dark Side; now they've just gone bat shit mental.</comment>


The Big Vote Is Today: Will San Francisco Hang on to Twitter? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/05/the-big-vote-is-today-will-san-francisco-hang-on-to-twitter/ <comment><USER2> It's more complex than that - TC's reporting isn't much better than that from the unions.

That part of SF Twitter is likely moving to (Market street between 6th & Van Ness) is really blighted, most business left the area some time ago except for 2-bit retailers, and it has become a skeevy dump over a 20 year period. The tax break is for companies over a certain size who lease space for a minimum of 5 years; Twitter would be one beneficiary, but behind them is SF property management company Shorenstein, who has much more to gain/lose depending on the outcome. Due to long-standing existing plans, several firms/organizations are set to move out of that area this year and next - Bank of America, the CA public utilities commission, SF county health commission. BofA is moving some operations out of town and others into vacant space in its financial district offices, the CPUC has been waiting for construction on its new HQ to be completed, SFCH is also moving into new premises.

The upshot of all this is that an already blighted area is anticipated to see the departure of ~8,000 employees to other parts of downtown and _3 million square feet of newly vacant office space_ \- which means imminent death for other local businesses like coffee shops, convenience stores and drugstores which serve the needs of office workers. Besides office workers, the only other traffic in that area comes from the Warfield (a popular live music venue), two tired-looking strip clubs, and a few discount stores selling clothes, cellphones or DJ equipment. Not only is it desperately in need of new business, it's in need of a younger population with different standards and demands.

Anyone who's been thinking of opening an office in SF ought to look into it; besides the possible 1.5% stock option exemption for the next 5 years, right now prospective tenants have about as much negotiating power as they will ever have. Monthly rent in that area is under $3/sqft. and although it is tatty at street level, it has the same transit connections as the rest of downtown.

<comment><USER2> You can read the city economist's analysis of the proposals here, from the city's incredibly modern website: <http://co.sfgov.org/webreports/details.aspx?id=1255>

I'm watching the SF supervisor's meeting so you don't have to - I'll post the outcome of the vote. They just begun discussing it right now (2:15pm). I anticipate it will pass 8-3 or so.

EDIT: passed, 8-3 as predicted. A lot of talk during the meeting about suspending or scrapping the share option tax, and maybe even the payroll tax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Since most venture-backed start-ups lose money, they pay little state and federal income tax. San Francisco taxes payroll expense, which is independent of operating profit and can easily become a burden especially since most web businesses have little capital costs and the largest business expense is employee salaries.

My 20 person company is financed through cash flow. We pay around $1.5 million in payroll each year and our after-tax profits are around 8% of revenue. San Francisco's payroll tax reduces our after-tax profits to around 6%, which is equivalent to the city charging a 20% income tax on top of the existing Federal and State taxes. This brings our total tax burden to well over 50%.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is surprisingly well written. Indeed, it persuaded me that this SF stock option tax is probably a bad thing.

But the article is wrong in one point: a move to Brisbane _would_ be a painful quality-of-life sacrifice. True, in most major US cities, eight miles doesn't count as a commute, but as a transplant from the suburbs to San Francisco, I can assure you that I appreciate a city where I can walk or take transit most places. Most of my friends and I would take San Francisco over "most major US cities" in a heartbeat. Exorbitant rents and all.

Indeed, although I own a car, many of my friends don't, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few Twitter employees are now happily doing without. You can't reasonably get to Brisbane without a car.

<comment><USER5> Ah, but we're not talking about Brisbane vs Marina or SoMA. We're talking about Brisbane vs Tenderloin, and the Tenderloin is really not the most enticing part of the city. The advantage of working in the city is somewhat nullified when the only available lunch options are "grease burger" and "strip club".

> You can't reasonably get to Brisbane without a car.

Perhaps, but you can't reasonably get to the Tenderloin _with_ a car, so working at Twitter is now inconvenient for those who don't live close to one of the Bay Area's few good public transport options.

Besides, most of the big tech companies in Si Valley nowadays run shuttle buses to San Francisco -- there's nothing to stop twitter from doing the same.

<comment><USER6> The part of the tenderloin where Twitter is considering moving is 6th and Market. I personally would call this 'Civic Center', not the loin, but that's a different story. In addition to grease burger and strip club, there is also tu luan, Taqueria Cancun, Showdogs, Passion Cafe, John's Burger, and a number of upstart foodie places. If you're a yuppie who drinks 11 dollar coffee, there is Mint Plaza with the 2 million dollar Blue Bottle, and if you're suburban at heart it's about 2 blocks from the Westfield center. Both muni and Bart stop at civic center, as well as 11 buses and the antique F line trolley. The 101 and Oak street feed right into market street via Octavia, but alas, there is nowhere to park.

<comment><USER5> Alright, sixth and Market is about as inoffensive as the Tenderloin gets (with the possible exception of having a reservation at the Bourbon and Branch). Proximity to Westfield and Bluebottle would be a major plus (and, y'know, it's actually only the same price as Starbucks... though I should refrain from recommending Bluebottle to anyone since it's quite crowded enough already).

<comment><USER6> Don't get me wrong, it is a zombie movie after dark. I just wouldn't worry too much about getting there or lunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There really is no argument here. Either SF wants to keep Twitter, or they don't. They aren't going to guilt trip Twitter into staying, so there is absolutely no chain of events that ends in Twitter paying the SF payroll tax. Case closed?

<comment><USER8> Twitter benefits from having "San Francisco" on their letterhead. "Burlingame" and "Menlo Park" don't really have the same ring to them. Twitter wants to keep San Francisco just as much (if not more) than SF wants Twitter, but I doubt the BoS will call their bluff.

<comment><USER9> Twitter can put "San Francisco" on their letterhead no matter where they're headquartered. As long as the zip code is correct, it'll get there.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, that'll look good.

<comment><USER9> How many people would ever notice?

That said, my point is more that it'd be a bafflingly tiny reason for a company as large as Twitter not to move. There are far more significant issues in the decision than how it looks on their letterhead.

<comment><USER8> It's possible you underestimate the role of vanity in corporate America. Twitter is bluffing.

<comment><USER5> If Apple and Google can be located in the dull stretches of suburban mediocrity known as Cupertino and Mountain View, there's no reason Twitter should be too concerned about Brisbane.

<comment><USER8> Apple became identified with Cupertino before, well, pretty much anything. They could have been anywhere, but it was cheaper than Menlo Park and they needed proximity to HP.

Mountain View and Google is a little more complicated, but back during the first dotcom bubble Mountain View was hotter than San Francisco is today. I remember seeing vacation pictures of people who came here and got their pictures taken in front of the Netscape business park sign.

Google took over Silicon Graphics' wacky old buildings, which is yet another part of Silicon Valley's storied history that has nothing to do with Twitter. In fact, Twitter has none of this kind of history period, so really, if you think about it, Twitter _should_ think "San Francisco" is important. It's pretty much the only real history they have aside from the fail whale and Ashton Kutcher. Think more "Wired Magazine" than Apple or Google.

And really, you're right, they could move to Brisbane and all of my critiques would fall flat. I'm not saying they won't, but I'm also not going to agree that Twitter doesn't see value in "San Francisco." Heck, how many man-hours are they spending in order to secure this kickback? That certainly implies an internal level of value somewhat north of "trivial."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the degree of special treatment Twitter is seeking from SF is disproportionate to the number of jobs they actually provide.

<comment><USER11> That may be, but the quality of the jobs they provide is also extremely high compared to one of those sweatshops filled with old Asian ladies, with which the SF I came to know and (cough) love was well stocked.

High quality jobs improve the tax base, lessen the demands on social services, indirectly increase property values, and create fewer negative externalities (waste, pollution, noise, crime). They also have lower turnover, are less seasonal, and are more likely to result in SF homeowners as opposed to itinerant renters.

There's a balance to be struck, to be sure; "hedge fund manager" is a very, very high-quality job, but having 1 hedge fund manager isn't better than having 100 software developers, no matter what the numbers might say.

<comment><USER8> _High quality jobs improve the tax base, lessen the demands on social services_

Except in this case, not only is Twitter asking to be relieved of $500K/yr in payroll tax burden, but also to get $250K in additional police presence in the area.

<comment><USER2> $250k in annual police presence is 2 more cops 24/7 and covers the entire proposed exemption district, which includes the Tenderloin - not just the street between Twitter's future front door and the subway entrance.

To put this in perspective, if 2000 Twitter employees purchase lunch near the office 5 days a week at an average price of $10, the sales tax revenue will offset the cost of the payroll tax holiday - not to mention the benefits of an extra $5m/year flowing through the neighborhood economy.

<comment><USER8> Well, I don't know that adding two more officers to the Tenderloin is the same as adding two more to Twitterland. I guess if Twitter is smart they'll have a Starbucks nearby or inside; I'm sure it'll work out in their favor one way or another. I certainly don't think Twitter is asking for the police presence out of concern for those living three blocks north, it would be fiducially irresponsible.

2000 lunchers to the tune of $100,000 spent in the neighborhood _per week_ , are you saying that Twitter is _not_ going to have their own on-site cafeteria?

<comment><USER11> He gave one example of how the numbers for 2000 Twitter jobs can scale to revenue. He hasn't done an analysis of Twitter employee eating habits; he's just injecting more numeracy into the discussion. On the other hand, a protracted argument about _exactly_ how much lunch business Twitter employees will do is likely to harm the overall discussion more than it helps.

<comment><USER8> I see, more numeracy. Let me add: 40. Fantasy numbers don't help, and "maybe the city will even out in side-effects" isn't exactly moving the discussion along, either.

<comment><USER11> Just for what it's worth:

* Fantasy numbers do help when they illustrate the scale of the dollar figures we're talking about. It is helpful to measure things in "Twitter employee lunches to break even". It's actually more helpful than "$250,000" is, even though the latter number is more "factual".

* If you don't believe it matters whether the city will even out in side-effects†, you're basically arguing there's no point to discussing incentive programs. All of them are cost-benefit investments (or gambles). Make the argument that they're bad gambles, sure. But it's probably not worth making the argument that the city shouldn't try incentives; you'd be howling into the wind, since every city in the country has, in the city council and at the ballot box, decided this already.

† _And, tip, which I learned here the hard way: watch out for the double quotes; they can mean, "reader, this is what the person who I'm responding to just said; would you get a load of it?". You'd be surprised how irritating this can be to people. I re-learn this at least once every couple months._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always wondered why Pixar was in Emeryville. :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> Here Twitter is a bunch of whiners trying to use social capital as political capital, "people think we're cool, so you should give us something special." which means the SF Board of Supervisors will likely bend over on this. Total high-school politics. The supes like fancy holiday parties too, after all.

<comment><USER13> I question whether or not you read the article...

      Still, there's a lot of groups in the city lobbying against
      any change in taxes, confusing the issue with "corporate
      welfare." I've read through some of the materials they are
      sending out, and while a lot of this is politics, there seems
      to be a lot of genuine confusion between the nature of the
      way big companies, small businesses and startups work.

This isn't a handout; it's an attempt to fix one of San Francisco's competitive disadvantages. I can't blame Twitter for lobbying against an abusive tax code literally found _no where else_.

<comment><USER10> They're not seeking to modify the code for everyone, only to get a special exemption for themselves.

<comment><USER13> The larger goal, however, is to set a precedent for other high-growth pre- IPO's within the city.

<comment><USER8> And if they can't get the goal, they'll take the handout.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


500'000€ Prize for Compressing Human Knowledge - <AUTHOR> http://prize.hutter1.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> The "Hutter Prize" has been around for a long while, but the prize has just been dramatically increased to half a million euros (and changed the test- corpus and machine spec too).

Many years ago I messed around trying to devise compression algorithms, and was struck by how straightforward it was to take pretty much any mainstream or invented scheme and squeeze the 100MB Hutter test corpus down to about 20MB. You can get there even when you use LZ77 (behind gzip, zip etc) as your base.

Going below that 20MB was extremely challenging.

I warmly recommend everyone waste free brain cycles thinking about compression algorithms. It ought be right up there with the 'wrote a ray tracer' rite-of- passage for 'true programmers' :)</comment>


Never Lose Your Phone Again - <AUTHOR> http://tetherdevices.com/index.html/index.html/ <comment><USER2> Why would this ever be preferable to the built-in "find my phone" functionality on Android (and I assume something similar is available on iOS and other major competitors)?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Find my Phone" helps you locate your phone after you realize that you lost it in the first place (by which time it might've been stolen or you might be far away from it). On the other hand, Tether preemptively notifies you that you left your phone behind immediately so that you can go back and get it right away. Also, since Tether is a separate gadget, it works even when your phone runs out of battery, unlike "find my phone".</comment></comment>


'I just want it to stop': Unsolicited Amazon packages contain intimate items - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/02/19/these-surprise-packages-from-amazon-spark-something-more-than-frustration-fear/6X4X2rWJw3SawwCGe4n2rJ/story.html <comment><USER2> Paywalled, but amazon can and will blacklist addresses if this is indeed, a real problem.</comment>


HP computers are racist 	 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM&feature=player_embedded <comment><USER2> It's probably because there weren't any black coworkers around to test on. Otherwise they would have noticed it.

See? As if we didn't already have it, here's proof that diversity = better software :-)

<comment><USER3> Or giving them the benefit of the doubt, they tested on _a_ black person but someone with lighter skin than the man in the video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of the story about Nikon camera's blink detection asking "Did someone blink?" when taking photos of Asian people (<http://www.flickr.com/photos/jozjozjoz/3529106844/>).

<comment><USER5> Considering that the camera was designed and tested by Japanese engineers, there probably is another explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As funny as this is on the surface, I think the underlying causes are incredibly interesting.

</comment><comment><USER6> Black people's faces obviously reflect less light. This is a much bigger problem for the cheap computer cameras that are not very good at collecting light. The software probably could not distinguish his facial features because there was less contrast due to the lower light.

<comment><USER7> Nonsense, if that were the case we'd heard about it by now. Also, the face tracking algorithms can already operate in far less optimal conditions than the one presented here so in _this_ case it shouldn't be a problem.

Forgetting that the algorithm was tuned to a specific color range however seems like an entirely plausible scenario.

<comment><USER6> You have not heard about dark skin reflecting less light?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The same thing happened in early motion pictures. Black actors' faces appeared washed out because the cameras were optimized for white actors.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how hard this would be to spoof. At 2:05 the camera "follows" edging to the left even though Wanda's face has already exited left. Also, the very last time Wanda comes into frame the camera doesn't pan anymore, but picks up a last minute zoom.

<comment><USER10> I suspect that the tracking is 100% software-based. It would probably be prohibitively expensive to have optical pan and zoom. I'm so glad that modern cameras generally have an option to disable digital "zoom". It's really just a euphemism for premature cropping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting. So, I guess they trained the software, and presumably the training consisted of tracking white developers' faces.

<comment><USER12> Back for about 5~8 years, it is a known issue in face detection area where the face of Africa-America people just not so distinguishable than others. But for today's face detection system, it should be no problem. My only guess is that the guy in video is the rare "false negative" somehow.

Edit: it should be "false negative".

<comment><USER13> Off-topic, I know, but still: saying that face detection systems have issues "faces of African-Americans" is really weird, and wrong. Face detection systems have issues with the color of the skin of people, and not all people with dark skin are "African-Americans".

Please, don't be PC when there is no reason to. This is one moment that it is more correct to say "black people" than anything else.

<comment><USER14> Many indians are as dark skinned and would probably have the same problem. Do you also refer to them as "black people"?

In the U.S, "black" is a race, it's not a skin color. About 70% of "black" people in movies and music have light skin color that would probably not have the same camera problem.

So technically, saying "black people" would be wrong. The technically correct term in this particular example would be "dark skinned people".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All we have are two data points, and while there is obviously a skin tone difference between the two samples, that's not the only difference. Without more information we can't even be sure that skin color is the issue.

For example, the algorithm might just fail for the black man's facial features, which differ greatly from those of the white woman.

Can anyone test this?

Edit: By "differ greatly" I mean from the point of view of the algorithm. We don't know what features (as in data extracted from the image, not facial features) they're using.

</comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps if you removed the webcam's IR filter the algorithm would have a better chance of working for faces of all shades.

<comment><USER17> Excellent point, though you might need to take other steps to deal with the increase in thermal noise (which lowers the color quality somewhat, not that anyone seriously uses a webcam for its photographic fidelity).

There's a market opportunity here if your theory is correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> this feels fake in a "viral" kind of way.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is why we need diversity in the work environment. That software to track faces was probably designed by a bunch of white kids and they forgot the people of color.

This isn't the first time either: the voice recognition software that did not recognize the female voice at all.

</comment><comment><USER8> I found an excellent solution: [http://www.amazon.com/Hees-Design-MIME-Male- Mask/dp/B0019L1R...](http://www.amazon.com/Hees-Design-MIME-Male- Mask/dp/B0019L1R10)

HP should brand this and sell it as a peripheral.

</comment><comment><USER20> Youtube Comment:

"The xbox360's new system had the same issue, "Project Natal" that was the reason it's release got set back was I believe it was ying yang twins or one of them were testing it and it couldn't detect their movements."

<comment><USER21> It was Newsweek's N'Gai Croal:

[http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/Project-Natal-Hands- Feet...](http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/Project-Natal-Hands-Feet-Arms- Legs-Torso-Heads-On-Impressions.html)

>When game consultant and former Newsweek writer N'Gai Croal gave Paradise a test drive, however, the game had trouble reading his steering actions. The footwork (gas and brakes) worked fine, but Croal couldn't steer his car at all. It wasn't clear whether this was a problem of calibration differences between Tsunoda and Croal's very different body types, or if Croal's crazy dreadlocks threw Natal off. But it was working just fine when Tsunoda was at the "wheel."

<comment><USER22> Crazy dreadlocks? They look normal to me ;-) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> if anyone has been following natal development....apparently the infrared cameras that natal uses for depth information has trouble with darker skin. I can't wait for the hilarity upon release if they don't fix it.

<comment><USER10> Where have you heard this? I've seen a black co-worker use a Natal without any noticeable difference in skeletal tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Was anyone else reminded of the Better Off Ted episode where they install motion detectors that can't detect black people?

</comment><comment><USER25> could the problem be the exposure level? to get good contrast for the details in a face with darker skin you need to use a longer exposure, which would blow out light areas in the background.

(i agree it could also be that it was trained on white faces)

</comment><comment><USER26>
      (more info)

      Uploaded Using HP MediaSmart

At least that much works...

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is the image mirrored?

<comment><USER28> Never taken a photo in Photobooth on the Mac? They mirror the image that shows to you so it appears like your screen is a...well...mirror. I'm guessing when they record they save it as you saw it on the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Difficulty processing an image with a low contrast ratio != racism. What a moronic claim.

<comment><USER30> I would assume the title is facetious...

<comment><USER31> So you're defending the title by claiming that the title is linkbait?

<comment><USER32> It's the same title as the YouTube video.

<comment><USER31> That's right; the title is linkbait

<comment><USER33> You are a great person.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Pizza Lab: We Test KettlePizza and Baking Steel's New Joint Pizza Oven - <AUTHOR> https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/09/the-pizza-lab-we-test-kettle-pizza-and-baking-steels-new-joint-pizza-oven.html <comment><USER3> I have a pizza steel and love it, so that's pretty interesting - <USER2> regardless I think most home pizza cooks really can get the most bang for their buck focusing on their dough (e.g. multiple days of cold ferment).

I thought this looked pretty awesome, but waiting for someone I know to take the plunge first given the price:

[https://uuni.net](https://uuni.net)</comment>


Chickenfoot for Firefox: Rewrite the Web - <AUTHOR> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/chickenfoot/quickstart.html <comment><AUTHOR> Sort of like GreaseMonkey, but in addition to pure JS adds a nice API for simple access to most common operations. Pretty neat.

<comment><USER2> One wonders though why they didn't implement it as a general js library that could also be used from gm.

<comment><USER3> You know, it's open source, you can just grab the code.

This situation is kinda the point of free software mate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does it compare in capabilities to Selenium?

<comment><USER5> One significant advantage that Selenium seems to have is that it accepts CSS3 selectors as target element patterns. Chickenfoot has XPath, but not CSS3. A bit of a bummer because this otherwise looks like it will be fun to play with.

<comment><USER6> I use Selenium regularly and while it is exceptionally useful, it's also quite buggy. I heard mumblings some time ago about Google contributing to the Selenium project or even forking it, but I'm not certain what's happened there.

<comment><USER7> I created the Selenium project 6 years ago. These days, I'm working on my own Selenium-based startup, Sauce Labs ( <http://saucelabs.com> ) -- We offer commercial support for Selenium and have a cloud-based web app testing service, too, called Sauce OnDemand.

Regarding Google, you might be thinking of the on-going merger between the Selenium and the WebDriver projects. WebDriver was created by Googler Simon Stewart. He currently works at Google, but WebDriver was created when Simon was still at ThoughtWorks. Also, I am a former Googler (and former ThoughtWorker), and worked on Selenium during my time at both places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked as a developer on Chickenfoot for about 6 months going into my sophomore year at MIT. It does share a lot of similarities with GreaseMonkey, but I've found it to be a much more powerful tool for writing quick scripts to perform simple interactions with web sites. This is largely assisted by its API of commonly used operations (some of which I wrote).

The ability to quickly package your Chickenfoot scripts into Firefox extensions also holds a lot of value.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The ability to quickly package your Chickenfoot scripts into Firefox extensions also holds a lot of value_

Definitely! I'm really interested in that feature - could you link to some docs of it? Couldn't find much on the site

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty cool. I wish they had reused jQuery where possible, or layered on top of jQuery.

</comment><comment><USER10> They'd need to sort this out before it can be widely recommended: <http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/chickenfoot/faq.html#xss>

<comment><USER11> Is there a way to find the text you need to append after the # symbol (#xss) to get to a particular section without looking at the page source or using the TOC links?

<comment><USER12> Not in stock browsers. But if you are happy with a bookmarklet solution, see the 'named anchors' bookmarklet on this page:

<https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html>

<comment><USER13> I use the webdev toolbar addon for this: Information > Display Anchors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Have barely tried anything with javascript. This instantly reminded me of the joy of the learning HTML in Mozilla back in the day. Will now, finally, be learning some javascript.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have used it before now. I made it write the URL of the currentp age to a listener than processed it and sent back any js it decided to run (whcih sounds a bit inner platform but I had my reasons). It is a nifty little tool though I have a slight concern because it has had no updates since 2008 and looks like it might be an orphan.

<comment><USER16> Looks like there was a december 2009 release?

<comment><USER15> Ah, stupid me. I was going by the copyright notices. I was using it before Dec 2009 when I had my concerns.

Go Chickenfoot !</comment></comment></comment>


RepRap, a (potentially) self-replicating 3D printer - <AUTHOR> http://ligress.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/reprap-a-potentially-self-replicating-3d-printer/ <comment><USER2> The RepRap is an awesome project, but it is NOT self-replicating. It can print the plastic parts which make up a small part of system Bill of Materials, at much lower resolution. It is very lossy. I use a high end 3D printer at my office and even with precision machines they are very finicky and prone to malfunction. MakerBot is similarly cool, but again it won't reproduce itself.

A sub $1000 3D printer is cool enough, lets not get carried away.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to guess that's why they have 'potentially' in the title. The video also mentions that the next version of the RepRap will be able to print out circuit boards, which brings it one step closer to actually being a little self-replicating factory.

<comment><USER2> Donw, I know, but it is a weak qualifier, sure by part count the thing is 50% reproducible, but my proportion almost none is e.g. the metal bars. Its kind of like saying that your desktop printer can reproduce itself by printing layers of paper that can be cut and glued together. I bet someone could do something, but it is unlikely.

<comment><USER4> By proportion, you're 0% reproducible; you consist entirely of atoms that must be sourced from the environment.

The relevant thing is the availability of the needed parts from the environment and the amount of human effort needed to carry out the replication. At this point the needed parts are widely available and cheap in the US, but sometimes hard to find in other places, but it doesn't look like that's the real problem. And the time to assemble the new machine once you have the parts isn't a big problem. The current problem, as far as I can tell from reading the blogs, is that the machine isn't yet reliable enough to reproduce itself in a lights-off fashion. You have to keep fixing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Think modern copyright has problems? Wait till 3d printing becomes widespread...

<comment><USER6> I think when 3D printing takes off it will be the intellectual property where the money is at. Industrial infrastructure (ie. factories, logistics, etc) will become just another commodity like computing hardware is now. China will be the industrial giant no more if it continues to rely on its manufacturing industries and doesn't adapt.

What about when 3D printers are printing buildings, bridges and other structures? Wow that would be amazing.

<comment><USER7> Thats already the reason for China - injection moulding is very cheap (once you have made the mould) and commodotized. It's assembling and packaging the parts that takes a lot of time/labor. It's the low labor cost of assembly that is the reason for China - a million 3d fab machines replacing a few injection moulders isn't going to change the time it takes to put the bits in boxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a more practical application of RepRap, see makerbot at <http://makerbot.com>.

<comment><USER9> For a less practical (but tastier!) version, see CandyFab! <http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's sad, that they don't advertise this project more at the university... I'm at Bath Uni and heard about RepRap before, but didn't know we've got one right there! I really wouldn't mind working on it as a part of some project.

(actually two, not one... unless they were in a good mood one day and made some more ;) )

</comment><comment><USER11> We have a Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) machine at my work, its better than a 3d printer and with larger capacity. Its pretty awesome.

<comment><USER4> "3D printer" is a colloquial term for a variety of 3D automated fabrication machines, including FDM machines.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, it looks like computers have a reproductive system now.

</comment><comment><USER12> A self-replicating printer isn't that until it can build machines to go out and source the materials needed for the continued operation of the printer.

<comment><USER13> Buy a 3D printer now for only $300 and get a free grey goo scenario on top of that!

</comment></comment><comment> onreact-com This is only pointing to another post:

[http://jonathanstray.com/self-replicating-desktop- manufactur...](http://jonathanstray.com/self-replicating-desktop- manufacturing)

Also it does not even link the RepRap homepage:

<http://reprap.org>

Thus I submitted the original source it refers to:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=807627></comment>