Teen says he hacked CIA director's AOL account - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2015/10/18/stoner-high-school-student-says-he-hacked-the-cia/ <comment><USER2> I'm less concerned about the hacker, and more concerned that the Director of the CIA not only has an aol.com email account but also uses that account to transmit sensitive information.

I'm not just saying this to be a jerk - this should be grounds for immediate termination of his employment. This is clearly a guy who shows poor judgement with respect to the management of sensitive material.

Also, from the article:

"[The] problem with these older-generation guys is that they don't know anything about cybersecurity, and as you can see, it can be problematic."

On the contrary - these "older-generation guys" cut their teeth in an environment where we were going head-to-head with the KGB on a daily basis. These guys have a solid understanding and awareness of basic information security procedures, as well as a strong understanding of adversary capabilities. I don't buy it.

<comment><USER3> Ultimately, this is the same as when the CEO tells me he's disabled anti-virus protection because the popups annoyed him, or that he's using a personal Dropbox account so he doesn't have to go through that pesky login process onto the network drive.

My guess is that to many people in power, the benefits of using these web services seem to outweigh the disadvantages because they just don't understand the disadvantages. "It's OK - I set a great password!" There's simply nobody powerful enough to monitor what they're doing, independent enough to want to do something about it, and respected enough for people to listen.

We need independent bodies that act as national 'IT departments' and can refuse requests from the very highest powers, in much the same way that any other Head of IT can fire someone for gross misconduct because they were downloading torrents on their company laptop.

<comment><USER4> The US Federal system was designed to have checks and balances provided by oversight by different branches of government.

Unfortunately today we have people in these branches of government who either won't do their duty because they are terrible at their jobs or because there is a silent quid-pro-quo where these sorts of people look the other way for each other.

<comment><USER3> While you're absolutely right in your diagnosis of the problem in the US, I doubt these problems are specific to the US government. I'm a Brit, and there are enough stories of technical incompetence here to make me assume it's a global problem. I suspect even non-democracies have the same issue. Who's going to tell Kim Jong-un he needs to rotate passwords?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your thoughtful response, not sure what I said that rated downvoting on my comment but apparently members of the CIA and Congressional oversight committee are members of hn ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All this time I had assumed when Brennan called for dangerous things like encryption back doors he must understand the negative impacts would be but just didn't care as long as it helped the CIA. Now I'm thinking he actually doesn't know what he's talking about at all which is somehow even worse. An AOL email account with confidential files in it? Unbelievable.

<comment><USER6> There was nothing in the story saying confidential files were stored in his AOL account. Also nothing about when the account was last used.

There was a time when we all had noisy modems and AOL accounts.

<comment><USER5> I think these qualify. You are free to disagree.

 _CIA Director John Brennan's private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post. Other emails stored in Brennan's non-government account contained the Social Security numbers and personal information of more than a dozen top American intelligence officials_

<comment><USER7> Not quite. Confidential is a technical term in the military/IC world. It's a classification, just like secret or top secret. I read somewhere that a lot of the Wikileaks cables were supposedly stuff marked confidential.

Storing confidential material in an AOL account would be a crime, just like giving the same material to Wikileaks.

Brennan's PII, job history, etc. is certainly valuable information, but clearance application paperwork itself is unclassified.

<comment><USER5> Ok then my mistake - there's nothing in the article that says they were files classified as confidential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _CIA Director John Brennan's private account held sensitive files — > including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance_

Stories like these make me shudder thinking about the times I may have, at some point, included a document with personal information in an email, such as to a prospective landlord for verification. Even if I were able to keep my email account reasonably secure...I'm pretty sure all the recipients of my email aren't as wary, or regularly delete old received emails with attachments that they've collected over the _decade_.

Although in Mr. Brennan's case, he doesn't have that same excuse. It may have been reasonably safe (for a layperson in IT) to send his application file over aol.com's servers, but not to keep a copy of it in his Sent box. Even a novice at cybersecurity should realize the problem of keeping digital files around on an online server...it's not much different than keeping files in a file cabinet and expecting that file cabinet never to be compromised.

<comment><USER9> >Stories like these make me shudder thinking about the times I may have, at some point, included a document with personal information in an email, such as to a prospective landlord for verification.

I always insist on encryption for these sorts of things. I'm fairly certain that for everyone I've asked about an encrypted channel to deliver data, I've always been the first person to even ask. This includes hospitals, agencies who do background checks, etc. It's incredibly disturbing that no one else is insisting that their sensitive documents not just sit unencrypted in all these random in and out boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This kid is going to get charged with felony embarrassment of a federal official and it will probably hurt quite a bit.

<comment><USER11> But according to the government, you don't have expectation of privacy for any personal data stored in the "cloud"

<comment><USER12> That may be true, but it doesn't help. Impersonating another person could plausibly be construed as accessing a system without permission -- a federal offense, I believe. Couple that with things that likely include classified information, if the director included that kind of thing, and anyone who accesses his account could be facing a very aggressive prosecution.

<comment><USER11> You can't have it both ways if you are the government... it should be the same for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A bit of a naive question but can someone answer this for me? To be a CIA Director, isn't it a requirement to have some sort of a technical background that way whoever is in the role is able to anticipate and always be a step head when it comes to these sort of problems?

<comment><USER13> The CIA "is tasked with gathering, processing and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT)"

The director is presumably in charge of executing specific missions and a long term vision for human spying. She/he does this by directing people who manage people who manage people (etc.). I don't think a technical/engineering background is presumed or necessary for such a role.

That said, an understanding of the basic structures and failure modes of information security in the digital world as it pertains to HUMINT does seem highly relevant (and necessary) for crafting and executing a modern vision/mission.

<comment><USER14> >I don't think a technical/engineering background is presumed or necessary for such a role.

Definitely, but one should know his/her limitations, and that one in particular should also never speak about infosec. Brennan fails on both of those accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not the first time a CIA director has been casually incompetent with confidential files: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Deutch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Deutch)

</comment><comment><USER16> The reason those in charge don't care about secrecy is... _secrecy is important not for reasons of "national security", but rather for those of politics_. Do we need to bash some hackers or protesters or journalists? "OK, then secrecy is literally the most important thing, more important than cute little kids or the Constitution or even the NFL." On the other hand, when it's just us old M-IC lizards futzing around? "Naw, who cares? I'm the expert!"

</comment><comment><USER17> This apparently linked twitter account [https://twitter.com/_CWA_](https://twitter.com/_CWA_) has posted what appears to be un-redacted screenshots of names, phone numbers and social security numbers of what I would assume the NYP article is referring to as "top American intelligence officials".

A quick crosscheck of the names and emails brings up:

* The current Senior Director for the North Africa and Yemen National Security Council for the White House

* The former Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, for the US Department of Defense

* A retired 3-star general and former Deputy National Security Advisor to the President

It says something sad about our cybersecurity preparedness that the director of the CIA is keeping this info in an aol.com account.

<comment><USER14> @_CWA_ is suspended as of a few minutes ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> >_CWA_ is suspended as of a few minutes ago.

What about the twitter account in the article? I am assuming that is what you meant?

<comment><USER14> @phphax is still up. @_CWA_ was an account that was linked to by @phphax in a stickied post. The @_CWA_ account posted the SSN's of Brennan and about a dozen other gov't officials and mucky mucks. It appears that @_CWA_ was a sacrificial account used for the purpose of disseminating that info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aaah, got it. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So they claim he had classified docs in his AOL account. Why didn't the person(s) emailing these docs to Brennan's AOL account raise a question?

<comment><USER19> perhaps he just emailed those docs to himself? I do that a fair amount, so I can pick them up later.

<comment><USER20> I'm working in a relatively locked down environment.. At least once a week I have to email myself something (nothing sensitive) just to be able to get to it at home, which requires a resource that's blocked en-masse at work, but none the less I need access to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can believe that the information security is atrocious for folks unwilling or unable to adopt agency policies, but how stupid do you have to be to poke the head of the CIA in public?

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Also this in the post>The hacker contacted The Post last week to brag about his exploits, which include posting some of the stolen documents and a portion of Brennan's contact list on Twitter.

Like seriously, it is like begging to be apprehended.

<comment><USER22> Once you've hacked the CIA it's probably easier to go public, so that you know the CIA probably won't just kill you.

<comment><USER23> But don't underestimate the power of teenage male bravado.

<comment><AUTHOR> >But don't underestimate the power of teenage male bravado.

I guess you are right. I clicked the twitter name on the post and he has indeed posted the documents and is daring them. Just unreal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is so dumb, it couldn't even be taken seriously as a honeypot strategy.

</comment><comment><USER25> If this was anyone below him he would discipline and possibly terminate them.

</comment><comment><USER26> That point in life when you realize that the people "in charge" have no idea what they are doing and might be the furthest thing from an expert.

</comment><comment><USER27> I am not buying the Palestinian/Intifada cause of this stunt. There's something fishy about this operation and the timing in particular for the leak.

</comment><comment><USER28> And the previous CIA director got fired because he had an affair that was leaked via his email account. What is it with CIA directors and email accounts?

</comment><comment><USER29> Sorry, I can't get past the fact the CIA director has an AOL account.

</comment><comment><USER30> He's taunting them right now

</comment><comment><USER30> his twitter account is nuts

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if the AOL disk is still sitting in his CDROM tray at home.

<comment><USER2> Why would he keep his AOL disk in the cup holder?

<comment><USER20> I knew (witnessed) the person who got that famed call... was at the compaq side of the MCI call center handling support calls for compaq, on one side, and iomega on the other (I worked on the iomega side).

Walking by... head pops up... "dude... dude... (trying no to snicker too hard) ... this lady's cup holder is broken..." ... me respondign "cup holder?" ... "yeah, the cd drive.. she thinks it's a cup holder" ...

Such a brief interaction, but really funny none the less... My funniest call was someone calling to back up their master's thesis work, because they were concerned about the power during the storm... was almost 6 minutes into the call when he said the power was out (desktop computer). It's really hard to be professional when faced with certain levels of stupid.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, in cases like this I refer to Scott Adams Dilbert (or rather one of the books).

"I get emails all the time from people who say they were -that- tech support guy that got -that- call about the cup holder. While we're on the subject of what people want in their email client, I want my email client to lock all those people in a room and force them to duke it out until there really is only -that one guy-."

<comment><USER20> I wasn't the guy... I just happened to be around when it happened... Like I said, I did get a call from someone trying to get hardware support when the power was out... I also had a friend that used to keep his ash tray in front of the desktop as a "smokeless ashtray" since it sucked the smoke into the front intake.

These are probably the three most stupid tech things I've seen... I also saw a computer that was shot once, I am pretty sure that's happened a few times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why do they keep referring to this guy as a "stoner"? What he smokes doesn't seem to be at all related to what he's done.

<comment><USER34> This is the NY Post.

Also, what is a NY Post story doing here?

<comment><AUTHOR> >Also, what is a NY Post story doing here?

NY Post was the first to break the news and it is all over the news- CNN, Fox, etc.. Can't find the link to them but here it is here[http://www.computerworld.com/article/2994451/cybercrime- hack...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2994451/cybercrime- hacking/stoner-high-school-kid-claims-to-have-hacked-cia-directors-email- account.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which Mac Book should I get - <AUTHOR>

So I'm looking to replace both my vintage laptop and my aging desktop with a Mac Book. But I can't decide between the 13" Air or the 13" Pro.
My main use will be web development, I was leaning towards the Air as I'm planning to do some extended travelling next year.
The problem I can foresee with the Air is that I also write and record music, and my current laptop is a dual core 1.6Ghz with 1Gb ram, and it will often struggle when recording. At 1.7Ghz dual core the Air is not much faster.
So to cut a long, rambling question short: Does anyone have experience using music software (specifically Cubase) on a Mac Book Air? Will the fact that it's an i5 and has 4GB make it cope much better than my old Centrino with 1GB?
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I went through almost exactly the same situation a few weeks ago - Air for portability, Pro for speed.

In the end, I went with the 15" Pro for two reasons - I can stuff 8GB of RAM in it for my web and audio work, and the 15" screen is way easier to read a pile of code on.

Then I pulled the SSD out of my old laptop and replaced the crappy 5400rpm drive in the Pro, and now I'm a very happy camper :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Solely based on the fact that you'll be traveling I would _highly_ recommend the Air over everything else.

I'm guessing that the SSD will make the biggest performance difference when recording music, too.</comment>


Ask HN: Any impact to your saas biz because of this NSA/PRISM scandal? - <AUTHOR>

Have you seen any drop in new subscription or people quitting? <comment><USER2> We are still building the MVP but do wonder how we should counter customer partner and potential investor worries about this issue.

SaaS still looks like the best way to deliver our software but I suppose now we will have to load the whole thing with even greater data encryption to help customers feel comfortable. Now just where do we put those encryption keys?

<comment><USER3> We aren't even sure if the encryption algos are even safe.

<comment><USER4> Which ones?</comment></comment></comment>


Oracle & IBM failure leads to 8-day outage for American Eagle's ecommerce site - <AUTHOR> http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/oracle-backup-failure-major-factor-in-american-eagle-8-day-crash/

<comment><USER2> It's a very interesting event.

I have seen many IT managers that rely on proprietary software because they believe that "having a company behind it" helps solve problems. In reality, this shows not having full access to the internals of the software is much more dangerous than not having a company to sue when everything fails.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but your really just shuffling costs around. You're either paying up front for a supported product or paying for staff that knows the unsupported product. In this particular case they got hosed by a shitty product, but that doesn't translate into a reality of not having access to the internals of software being (always)dangerous.

<comment><USER2> It's always dangerous. It's not always that something like this happens but, at least, with open-source and a competent support team (your support team should _always_ be competent anyway) you can, at least, be aware of any risks you may be subject to.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: How do you predict your "traffic/user growth"? - <AUTHOR>

We've been asked to submit a slide deck and/or business plan to a few investor people -- we're a bit stumped on what numbers to base our web app traffic on?<p>Do we simply base them on our nearest competitor (we don't have any that are direct competitors, but lots that are vaguely competing) or do we simply base it on our user feedback surveys we ran before coding? (eg, 80% of n users said they wanted a service that ...) <comment><USER2> Run it for a couple of weeks, get some data and try to predict the life cycle of an account based on your initial findings.

Other than that your only option is to use a crystal ball, I don't think it is any use at all to try to do these predictions but I understand it is part of the game. You'll only have the data you need now when you're operating for a long enough time that you have seen several full account life cycles so that you can refine your predictions.

Your nearest competitor isn't going to be much help to you because for one they are established, and secondly they may do a much better / much worse job at retaining their users.

Every web site will start off great at launch time because there is nobody leaving (yet). Once you factor in churn you're in a much better position to figure out how big something will be over time but for that you need your actual data.

</comment><comment><USER3> For investors, you give three sets of predictions - The best-case scenario, a standard scenario, and a lowball scenario, and show how you can make money with ANY of those scenarios.

Usually, they shake their heads and say "They'll make money no matter what."

At least, that's been my experience.

I financial model my numbers based on all the possible inbound factors and growth rates. Just build it in excel with the input factors and change them based on logical assumptions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> oh, I got a great idea from the Marc Andreessen interview:

Run google ads for a product that isn't there yet - if users click your specific advert you know they're vaguely interested in it.

<comment><USER4> I have heard this piece of advice several dozen times on another board and I wonder if anyone has tried it in the last 3 years or so. It seems destined for failure to me:

1) A new AdWords account starts with no history. To get preferable placement you'll have to be significantly outbidding the people who already have history. (i.e. I pay Google four cents a click for front page placement for, I don't know, [how to make a bingo card]. If you started a new AdWords account today Google would charge you a quarter.

2) There are automated quality checks which score sites these days and can raise your minimum bid to stupidly high levels, which is essentially Google's way of declining your business. If you put up a page for a product which doesn't exist, you are highly likely to have these checks fire on you, since they're specifically designed to bounce squeeze pages.

3) Getting a click on an AdWords ad doesn't prove the customer had interest, it proves that you wrote the ad well. Conversely, not getting the click doesn't prove there was no interest, it merely proves the ad was not interesting. Do you have someone in your organization skilled at the art of writing 3 line advertising copy? If not, what are you burning money for?</comment></comment>


Would you hire yourself? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/378a1a1f5e4d

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would make a good discussion topic as well - Would you? If yes, why? If no, why not?</comment>


How to split the pie, Pie Calculator v2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.biais.org/blog/index.php/2007/04/07/41-starting-a-business-how-to-split-the-pie

<comment><USER2> Really helpful, thank you. I am in a similar situation and have felt pretty uncomfortable assigning different weights to each of the founders, but I can relate to your situation where different members are contributing different amounts of time. One thing I was a little unclear about - what is the "total vanilla" line about? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> But the best bit about this post is the first comment (on the article not HN) - brilliant - gave me a laugh.</comment>


Ottawa's O-Train: A Cost-Effective Project (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cat-bus.com/2013/04/ottawas-o-train-part-ii-a-cost-effective-project/ <comment><USER2> That's a good one. For those who don't know, the O-Train line was an old freight line converted into a light rail line. If you ever want a good laugh, take a look at where the original O-Train line terminates on either end. It stops juuuuust short of an EXISTING rail bridge to Gatineau (hundreds of thousands of residents and tons of government jobs) and on the other end juuuuust short of the international airport. I will never understand why, to this day, city council isn't talking about where the O-Train can already go.

By all means, they should extend light rail in the other direction, but come on guys, the rail is already there and we're not using it!

<comment><USER3> Actually, Stage 2 of the LRT project will extend the Trillium line down to the airport.

Crossing over to Gatineau is a very tricky issue though, because the bridge is in terrible condition and would require major renovation before it could support traffic again. There's some details here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales_Bridge_(Canada...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales_Bridge_\(Canada\))

<comment><USER4> Also, Quebec & Gatineau had a opportunity and picked the rapid bus set up over it. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The new line[0] has not been rolled out as well, its a daily discussion topic[1]

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

[1][https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/dx576w/the_lrt_has_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/dx576w/the_lrt_has_successfully_run_24h_without_failure/)

</comment><comment><USER6> An interesting point is that despite the fact that the train line was already built and the rolling stock was acquired dirt cheap, the cost was still significantly higher than a bus.

Poor old buses, unloved by politicians, but usually a far more cost effective solution to public transport needs than the average multi-billion dollar tram or train project.

<comment><USER7> Short of dedicated lanes that are separated with bollards, a bus will be snarled in traffic at peak hours. Additionally, busses have much lower carrying capacity and higher operational costs compared to light rail or even street cars.

<comment><USER8> In England we do have dedicated bus lanes and famously very little room to add light rail and it works pretty well. Probably a good option for cities and buses can rerouted and powered by greener energy more easily than rail.

<comment><USER9> In England here. I wouldn't say the buses work pretty well - journeying on them tends to make me sick fairly consistently, unlike trains which do not.

I think it is due to the bumpy roads, terrible suspension and polluted air.

The difference is stark enough that I'm happy to go to work at the end of a train, underground, cycle and/or substantial walking (even in the rain), but I'm severely put off any job that requires a daily bus. After all, who wants to feel sick every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, that's from my city! :P

Yeah the O-Train was cheap, but it honestly showed. The stops are few and far between, and often in the middle of nowhere. I'm in this weird zone where I can walk for a solid 10 minutes right along the tracks and not encounter a station. Makes it useless for me.

Ottawa just rolled out its 2nd line a couple months ago, and it's been a bit of a disaster in terms of costs and technical issues. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Line)

<comment><USER4> Some major stops were at South Key's Mall, Carleton University and allowed boarding on the bus transit way before the LRT.

Isn't useless for the thousand of Carleton students who use it every day.

<comment><USER10> It has significant problem when it come to increasing capacity. Because it's mostly single track, they can't increase the frequency that easily. That leave it to blasting and twining, which will probably wipe out any saving made by reusing that freight line. And extending the platform so that they could tack on more cars when necessary.

Line 2's ridership is pretty pitiful in comparison. Daily ridership is 16900 [1]. SkyTrain does 25000 passenger per hour per direction [2].

Outside of the door problems, we're already seeing capacity problems for Line 1 now. Platform gets full, and it is built for the current configuration, so you can't add more cars without major construction (read: service disruptions).

This is what happens when we cheap out on infrastructure. We end up paying twice, and getting less for the money.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillium_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillium_Line) 2: [https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-2017-kevin- desmond...](https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-2017-kevin-desmond- canada-line-built-skytrain)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It hasn't been a happy time for Ottawa's LRT. They've been scrambling to buy up buses to take over during LRT shutdowns.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/transit-update- commiss...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/transit-update-commission- update-november-1.5366134)</comment>


Announced at PyCon today: Find a random person nearby for lunch - <AUTHOR> http://www.noonhat.com

<comment><USER2> So there's no focus? Some totally arbitrary person?

Ah what the heck, I signed up.</comment>


How Not to Lie with Statistics: Avoiding Common Mistakes (1986) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4455012/not%20lie%20stat.pdf <comment><USER2> I agree with most of the points here, although I've never seen anyone seriously attempt regression on residuals (instead of multiple regression) outside of an introductory regression course. (Actually, I graded a homework problem on it just last week.)

With all the data collected by tech companies these days, I'd be worried about other problems. It's easy to dig through loads of variables looking for correlations, and you'll inevitably find false positives. If you dig deep enough in your data, looking for differences in conversion rates between Southeast Asian Chrome users and Nordic users of Opera Mini, then you'll also have poor statistical power and end up with wildly exaggerated results.

(I am slightly biased here because I have written an entire book on the subject: [http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/](http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/))

<comment><USER3> Thanks for posting the link to your book--it's interesting reading.

There seems to be a fairly common error within:

> One 1992 telephone survey estimated that American civilians use guns in > self-defense up to 2.5 million times every year – that is, about 1% of > American adults have defended themselves with firearms.

We cannot simply divide the event count by the population count, because a single person may have used a gun more than once in a year. In fact, someone who has used a gun during the year is more likely to use one later in the year than someone who has not yet used one, because some people live in dangerous areas, are themselves belligerent, or both.

<comment><USER4> Seconded. A great book (I've read 75% of it so far).

About the error you mention - I think you are right - but the author brings up the ~1% because he is talking about 'base rate fallacy' \- he wants to say that the errors from the 99% of the population will swamp the true signal from the 1%. So his ~1% number is likely qualitatively ok for what he is using it for. It should still be reworded though - one wants 0 errors in a book about statistics mistakes :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OT: I've read and accessed this before, but I hadn't noticed the note in which Harvard is soliciting feedback on its Open Access initiative, in which it releases papers such as this...their online feedback form is here:

[https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/dash/open-access- feedback?handle...](https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/dash/open-access- feedback?handle=1%2F4455012&title=How%20Not%20to%20Lie%20with%20Statistics%3A%20Avoiding%20Common%20Mistakes%20in%20Quantitative%0D%0APolitical%20Science)

Hopefully they're getting positive response to open access, and see that both the academic community and public benefit from more open access.

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course, the problem with things like this, Huff's book, everything by David Freedman, etc., is that people _want_ to lie with statistics. To put it more prosaically, people have biases, prejudices, socially-created expectations, ulterior motives, and usually statistics is a more-or-less subtle technique for whitewashing those into 'scientific knowledge'. This happens all across the social & biological sciences, in medical research, and in industry.

</comment><comment><USER6> Zed Shaw wrote on this topic awhile ago as well:

[http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html](http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> From an article on HN a week ago:

 _In 1900, about 4 percent of the U.S. population was older than 65. Today, 90 percent of all babies born in the developed world will live past that age._</comment>


Cambridge University Press make their books free until May - <AUTHOR> https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/textbooks <comment><USER2> I was thinking on similar lines yesterday and today made the decision of making all my ebooks free for the foreseeable future. I made bundles [0][1] so that they can all be downloaded in one shot. There are five books - three of them on regex (Ruby, Python, JavaScript) and two on cli tools (GNU grep and ripgrep, GNU sed).

Currently working on GNU awk, which will take another month if I want to include everything I had planned. Now, I'm thinking of releasing as drafts and see how it goes.

I plan to release book markdown source as well in coming days. Already done for Ruby [2]

[0] [https://leanpub.com/b/regex](https://leanpub.com/b/regex)

[1] [https://gumroad.com/l/regex](https://gumroad.com/l/regex)

[2] [https://github.com/learnbyexample/Ruby_Regexp](https://github.com/learnbyexample/Ruby_Regexp)

<comment><USER3> This is really cool Sundeep, thanks for doing this! Question for you: what did you use to draw the diagrams for the "Javascript Regex" book, such as on the cover? Thanks!

<comment><USER2> That is known as railroad diagrams and provided by sites such as regulex[0] (which I used for js cover) and debuggex [1]. I've also mentioned it in acknowledgements within the book.

[0] [https://jex.im/regulex](https://jex.im/regulex)

[1] [https://www.debuggex.com/](https://www.debuggex.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My company, VitalSource, which bought my startup Verba did this good thing too! We have over a 100k ebooks from top higher ed publishers (including CUP) available for free (download to your phone or computer, or use online)! You need an institutional email address from a 2- or 4-year non-profit semester based institution. Only America right now but we're working on international! Check it out at [https://get.vitalsource.com/vitalsource- helps](https://get.vitalsource.com/vitalsource-helps) or log in / create account at [https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com](https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com), where you can download the apps too. Limited to seven titles per user, and you are automatically opted-out of any marketing now or ever and we won't share your info with anyone. Enjoy and good luck to everyone, especially those whose campuses have moved to online instruction and you maybe lost access to physical books left behind, shared with a friend, or from the library!

<comment><USER5> > ...did this good thing too!

> _email address from a 2- or 4-year non-profit semester based institution > > __Only in America > ___seven titles per user

Good for you, but that's significantly more asterixes than Cambridge's offer. I'm not sure I know anybody who's eligible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not all books, only some.

I remember one of their books [1], it was available for free PDF download for a few months. I downloaded the PDF, then later wanted to read it again and discovered I'd somehow misplaced the PDF. And now it isn't available for free download any more. I was hoping it might be included in this, but it isn't.

[1] [https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/atheism-and- agnostic...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/atheism-and- agnosticism/C0D61CA2D386696A43294D440B7F9C11)

<comment><USER7> Here you go: [https://b-ok.cc/book/5260524/55d50b](https://b-ok.cc/book/5260524/55d50b) . Z-lib (above) and Libgen are usually my go-to if I'm not sure I want to (or can't) purchase a book.

<comment><USER8> is this legal?

<comment><USER9> No. But not all illegal things are immoral.

<comment><USER10> Limiting the acquisition of knowledge to people with sufficient economic means is immoral, because it means that more than half the worlds population has no means to move forward, even if they are motivated and intelligent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If there's one to grab, it's Janes's Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/probability- theory/9CA0...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/probability- theory/9CA08E224FF30123304E6D8935CF1A99)

<comment><USER11> * Jaynes's

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a way to search just for things that are actually downloadable? My first 20 choices are not and it's getting a bit boring.

<comment><USER13> They are not downloadable. They are available for online viewing. Check the "Only show content I have access to" box.

<comment><USER12> Ah, so it's pretty much useless unless you need access to them right now and have the time to spend. Useful to know, if annoying.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, this is exactly CUP's intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Their ebook reader sucks. You have to go back to the index to advance between chapters. Bad UX, but that's for a reason.

<comment><USER16> Wow, thanks! That is really bad. I just spent several minutes unsuccessfully trying to get past the front matter. There are also lots of weird text positioning glitches in their SVG (!) version of the book pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Free for viewing online for now" isn't exactly "making books free". More like "hey you can look at my things for a bit if you'd like but I'll hold it and tomorrow you gotta pay to see it".

<comment><USER18> Yes, but it is making them "free to access online during the coronavirus outbreak". Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is wonderful! Does anyone have any particular recommendations (in any subject)?

<comment><USER20> Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies by Anil Rao [https://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Particles-Rigid-Bodies- Syste...](https://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Particles-Rigid-Bodies- Systematic/dp/0521187907/ref=nodl_)

Dr. Rao's systematic approach to solving dynamics problems is consistent and concise. He also has a companion set of lecture notes on YouTube. I remember it as one of the most challenging but rewarding aspects of my engineering school experience. All the principles are described mathematically in a coordinate-free manner. You'll learn to set up equations of rigid bodies and constraints without all the guesswork and haphazard construction of coordinates typically encountered in a physics textbook.

<comment><USER21> I haven't read the book, but looking at the contents I'm surprised that the author hasn't introduced analytical mechanics anywhere in the book. This might be a good introductory book if you haven't taken a mechanics course before, but using Newton's laws for understanding the dynamics of particles and rigid bodies is a _terrible_ idea.

> _All the principles are described mathematically in a coordinate-free > manner._

Newton's laws aren't coordinate free, e.g., Newton's second law written in polar coordinates would look different from Newton's laws in Cartesian coordinates. But, Lagrange's equations are coordinate-system independent.

<comment><USER20> This is definitely not an introductory level book. On the contrary, I wouldn't recommend it unless you've done at least Calc 3 since you'll need a strong grasp of vectors and derivatives. Newton's laws say e.g. the net force on an object (a Euclidean vector) is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration (also a Euclidean vector). That in itself is entirely coordinate free, sure it assumes that the vector is not a moment, but that's different from dictating a particular coordinate system.

You are right to say that if you wanted to express those laws in different coordinate systems, they would look different, but the key to this system is in essence that you leave any kind of coordinate projections till the very end (lazy evaluation, to put it in a computer science analogy), at which point much of the math is simplified due to term reduction, or various projections cancel each other out.

What is tempting to bring in from other materials is the notion that a vector has coordinates, which as far as this philosophy is concerned, they don't. A vector is the direction and magnitude per sé, devoid of the concept of an origin or any particular unit vectors with which you could represent that vector numerically. It's a mindfuck for sure, and it confused all the students in the class for a solid 3 weeks; that's why it's great.

<comment><USER21> > _This is definitely not an introductory level book_

I disagree. I used Kleppner and Kolenkow as a freshman, and it has pretty much the same content as this book, and I would consider Kleppner and Kolenkow to be an introductory book. Sure, it's more advanced than more common freshmen books like Halliday and Resnick, but it is still very elementary mechanics. Newton's laws is just the tip of the iceberg that is mechanics. Most advanced books, including upper-division undergraduate books, would at least introduce analytical mechanics, whereas this book doesn't. If you want more advanced treatments of mechanics you should look at Landau and Lifshitz, or Arnold, or Marsden, or even Lanczos (the latter three making moderate to extensive use of Riemannian geometry and can be daunting for that reason alone).

> _but the key to this system is in essence that you leave any kind of > coordinate projections till the very end_

That is not the definition of coordinate invariance, at least as defined in physics. Newton's laws aren't coordinate invariant because the acceleration involves the second derivative of coordinate basis vectors, and that is zero (or constant) only in very few coordinate systems, like Cartesian coordinates for instance. Of course, the statement F = ma still holds true, but becomes very cumbersome to use if, say non-orthogonal coordinate systems are used. As a simple example, try finding the equation of motion of a particle constrained on a smooth surface, say a paraboloid z = x^2 + y^2 in Cartesian coordinates using Newton's laws. Of course, this problem can be solved using Newton's laws by introducing Lagrange multipliers, but that essentially amounts to finding the constraint force. But it would be much better if you could avoid finding the constraint force altogether.

> _A vector is the direction and magnitude per sé, devoid of the concept of an > origin or any particular unit vectors with which you could represent that > vector numerically._

You're right that it is important to distinguish between the geometrical meaning of polar vectors and their representations in a particular coordinate system. It's even more confusing when axial-/pseudo-vectors, e.g., the cross product of two polar vectors, are introduced since now they _do_ depend on the handedness of the coordinate system used. And why should nature care about handedness? (It actually does, but that's a story for another day.) And this is precisely why analytical mechanics, which is an inherently geometrical subject, was invented in the first place! All equations in analytical mechanics are scalar equations and look the same irrespective of the coordinates you use to describe the system.

<comment><USER20> If you have a bone to pick about the term "coordinate free", I suggest you take it up with Dr. Rao. I am just forwarding along the message, and making a recommendation.

> try finding the equation of motion of a particle constrained on a smooth > surface, say a paraboloid z = x^2 + y^2 in Cartesian coordinates using > Newton's laws

The method described in this book makes this kind of problem very straightforward.

> Newton's laws aren't coordinate invariant because the acceleration involves > the second derivative of coordinate basis vectors

I find this very doubtful. The acceleration of an object in real life does not change depending on how you measure its position. Why would expressing the quantities in math be any different? I think you are making a false assumption that any given vector necessarily has a numerical representation. For instance, if gravity acts down, and there is an object of mass m with no other forces on it, Newton's law says that F = m * g. Since g is in the down direction, F is also down. Note that both F and g have direction and magnitude in this word problem even though there are no basis vectors to speak of and thus no way we can represent any of this numerically without defining more mathematical objects. What would your coordinates be? We don't have an origin and we only have one axis, not enough to construct a right handed system or any 3D system. Sure, we could do it one dimensionally but we're talking 3D Euclidean space for the purposes of this book.

<comment><USER21> > _I find this very doubtful._

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think you understand the meaning of coordinate invariance. Coordinate invariance in physics means that if you go from one set of coordinates, say (q1, q2, ..., qn) to (s1, s2, ..., sn), the _form_ of the equations remain invariant (assuming the transformation is nice and smooth). Newton's laws aren't invariant under a general coordinate transformation of that sort, and this is precisely because the acceleration involves the second derivatives of the basis vectors. E.g., Newton's laws when expressed in polar coordinates would involve centrifugal and Coriolis terms, which are absent in Cartesian coordinates. Equations in analytical mechanics (e.g., Lagrange's or Hamilton's equations) are coordinate invariant however [1].

> _The method described in this book makes this kind of problem very > straightforward._

Perhaps we have different definitions of "straightforward", but most physicists I know would not consider using Newton's laws in Cartesian coordinates to find the equations of a particle constrained to move on a smooth surface straightforward. At the very least, one should try to introduce a local coordinate system on the surface. It can be done, no doubt, but it's way more cumbersome than writing Lagrange's equations involving the generalized coordinates on that surface.

> _Note that both F and g have direction and magnitude in this word problem > even though there are no basis vectors to speak of and thus no way we can > represent any of this numerically without defining more mathematical > objects._

No one is claiming that Newton's laws are invalid in different coordinates! Of course they are valid and F = ma still holds true. The invariance you're talking about is the general invariance of equations involving (polar) vectors. That's obvious since vectors are inherently geometrical objects. But that is in no way the same thing as "coordinate invariance". I'm not sure how the book defines "coordinate free", and I certainly don't have a bone to pick with anyone. But perhaps also look at how physicists define coordinate invariance, since after all it's something they've been doing for a while?

I still stand by the claim that this book is a pretty elementary one. Sure, you might've learned new things from this book, and I can see how many people would benefit from it. But if you think this is what counts for "advanced mechanics", then you're very very mistaken.

[1]: [https://www.physicspages.com/pdf/Shankar/Shankar%20Exercises...](https://www.physicspages.com/pdf/Shankar/Shankar%20Exercises%2002.07.08%20\(1-3\).pdf)

<comment><USER20> I never said it was advanced mechanics, what I said was it's not an introductory book. You shouldn't give this to someone who's never taken a physics course. It's written for use in vehicle and aeronautical/astronautical dynamics and supposes a fairly developed understanding of coordinate systems and vector math.

> Perhaps we have different definitions of "straightforward"

It is certainly more straightforward than Lagrange. You just set up the constraints, which is done in two steps: (1) set up the kinematics, i.e. setting the position equal to some parameterization of that curve (2) set up the dynamics, i.e. express Newton's laws in terms of the same variables. After that, you can perform any derivatives needed using the transport theorem and set the kinematics and dynamics equal to each other using the common variables.

> Coordinate invariance in physics means

Since I'm not invoking the phrase "coordinate invariant" here I don't know what the deal is. All I said was that the concepts in this book express various physical laws including friction, Hooke's, and gravitational without use of coordinates. There is no X, Y, Z or 1, 2, 3 of the vectors in these descriptions. Whether to you that means coordinate invariant, is another story but ultimately irrelevant.

> I still stand by the claim that this book is a pretty elementary one

Considering you've spent all this time arguing that it's not straightforward (it is), I really suggest you take a look. It's nonconventional and may change your perspective if you really give it a chance.

<comment><USER21> > _Considering you 've spent all this time arguing that it's not > straightforward (it is), I really suggest you take a look._

I just downloaded a copy of the book from LibGen. I change my original assessment that it might be a good introductory book. In fact, now I think that this is a _terrible_ book that reinvents the wheel in so many places, and novices should avoid it since it teaches bad practices. E.g., look at Example 3-2 of the book where the task is to find the motion of the particle constrained on a parabola y = r^2/2R (similar to the paraboloid example I asked, but more easier since the constraint manifold is one-dimensional). The solution of that problem (Eq. 3-105) is 4 pages of algebra! The Lagrangian for the system expressed in terms of r is

      L = m/2*(1 + r^2/R^2)*v^2 - (mg/2R)*r^2,

v being dr/dt. Now, to find Eq. 3-105, which the author derives in 4 pages, all it takes is to plug this Lagrangian into the Euler-Lagrange equations, and answer pops out in 2-3 lines of algebra involving some very trivial partial derivatives. Curiously, the author has also reinvented d'Alembert's principle when he does this problem the second time in Example 3-9. I'm also surprised that the author hasn't mentioned d'Alembert's principle (or virtual work for that matter) -- something that engineers make extensive use of -- anywhere in this book.

> _Since I 'm not invoking the phrase "coordinate invariant" here I don't know > what the deal is._

You did mention that this book introduces mechanics in a coordinate-free manner (which this book actually doesn't).

> _It 's nonconventional and may change your perspective if you really give it > a chance._

It's not just unconventional, this book is filled with terrible examples and techniques to solve problems and the author has reinvented the wheel in several places. The reason you found this book challenging was because this book chooses to do problems using the most contrived methods possible. In fact, this is a book to show why one needs analytical mechanics.

<comment><USER20> > In fact, this is a book to show why one needs analytical mechanics

I don't think the goal of the book is to obviate more advanced courses. It does well what it sets out to do, which is lay a foundation of dynamics. Contrasting it with other dynamics books I've read through, this one is self- consistent and much easier to follow the math on. Yes, the solutions are often long-winded, but that is the cost you pay for having a system. Other books like Introduction to Space Dynamics are very hand-wavey and not easy to check your work or find where you made a mistake, not to mention you must pick your coordinate systems very carefully and up front. Coordinate systems should not dictate the physics; it should be the other way around.

Besides, this methodology is applicable to other circumstances beyond just dynamics. The rigorous approach to dealing with reference frames and coordinate systems is well applied to other fields like computer graphics, regardless of whether Lagrangian is more well suited to mechanical applications.

> coordinate-free manner

Yes, I said that, not coordinate invariant, and in fact my description was deliberately as devoid of jargon as I could make it. It should be taken as plain English.

> It's not just unconventional, this book is filled with terrible examples and > techniques to solve problems

Considering Dr. Rao's successful tenure working at Draper as well as working on NASA spacecraft and other military vehicles, plus running a vehicle dynamics lab, I'm inclined to believe it has value beyond what you believe it to. Though I would be interested to read your textbook when it comes out, and I do appreciate the perspective.

<comment><USER21> > _Other books like Introduction to Space Dynamics are very hand-wavey... > Coordinate systems should not dictate the physics; it should be the other > way around._

It seems like you've not tried reading actual physics books written by real physicists and have only purveyed books known to a handful of engineering specialists, and have come to the conclusion that this is the best book for learning mechanics. I also fail to see why specialists wouldn't want to make use of methods that would make their lives easier and instead would want to dredge through pages of pointless algebra.

> _The rigorous approach to dealing with reference frames and coordinate > systems is well applied to other fields like computer graphics_

In most universities around the world such things are taught as part of a standard vector calculus course or a mathematical methods course. You don't need this book (or any mechanics book for that matter) to learn such things.

> _Though I would be interested to read your textbook when it comes out_

I'll ignore the snideness of your comment, but will suggest that it's perhaps not a good idea to recommend/use books that take haphazard approaches for solving standard problems (some that were solve almost three centuries ago). In any case, my "textbook" would not look very different from the other 99% of textbooks written on analytical mechanics. If you want a recommendation, pick up Cornelius Lanczos's _The Variational Principles of Mechanics_ [1], which is a real classic and a gem of a book.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Variational-Principles-Mechanics- Dove...](https://www.amazon.com/Variational-Principles-Mechanics-Dover- Physics/dp/0486650677)

<comment><USER20> > It seems like you've not tried reading actual physics books written by real > physicists

I find it pretty baffling you think this is the inescapable conclusion. Of course I've taken physics courses, that's where the frustration comes from. Many physics and astronomy books are riddled with errors and that's almost entirely down to how frequently they skip steps. Not only are 90% of underclassman physics texts written lazily at best, when I got into Modern Physics, half the answers in the back of the book were flat-out wrong, while the example problems elided a third of the steps or neglected important edge cases. The book was Tipler / Llewellyn by the way.

> You don't need this book

Apparently I did, considering that none of the other relevant courses I took which included calcs 1 through 3, differential equations, linear algebra, mechanics of materials taught this material. I'm sure it would've come up again if I'd stuck with mechanical engineering but regardless the whole point of recommending the book is to say "this has value" not to say "other things do not have this value."

> haphazard approaches

Compared to the other books I've seen, this is one of the most verbose, consistent, and generally anal-retentive approaches. It does not take shortcuts, and its notation alone is refreshing considering its lack of ambiguous styling aside from minor issue of the bold being used for tensors and vectors. (On the whiteboard, this is resolved with a double-underline being used for tensors and a single-underline for vectors). I would consider most other physics textbooks to be the haphazard ones, and when you compare the rate of errors in the text I have a strong suspicion those other books have much higher rates on average.

Granted, I'm not a physicist and make no claims to be. Of course there is truth out there to be found among the vast sea of physics textbooks, but from my own experience and also that of someone I know well who is postgrad in plasma physics, the textbooks are generally shit and to gain a correct understanding you need to wade through multiple texts that are extremely fragmented in both notation and correctness. So I'm not sure physics is the gold standard here. I'm sure there's a good math textbook out there about coordinate systems, but like I said, I didn't post here to say "everything else is worthless."

<comment><USER21> > _The book was Tipler / Llewellyn by the way._

Ah, you're talking about lower-level-answers-at-the-back undergraduate books in physics. Yes, most of them are shit, and it would be a futile task to learn any real physics from them. Who was even talking about such books? Lol.

> _I would consider most other physics textbooks to be the haphazard ones, and > when you compare the rate of errors in the text I have a strong suspicion > those other books have much higher rates on average_

From your comments it's pretty apparent that you've not even looked into any graduate-level or even upper-level undergrad physics books and the only physics books you've read are overpriced freshmen/sophomore physics textbooks. In any case, do you really think a book (series) like Landau and Lifshitz or _The Feynman Lectures_ (which is actually freshman physics) has more errors and typos compared to some obscure text in engineering with contrived methods and reinvented wheels? Lol.

Anyway, there's no point in taking this argument further. It's unlikely that either of us would change our viewpoints ;-)

<comment><USER20> > In any case, do you really think a book (series) like Landau and Lifshitz or > The Feynman Lectures (which is actually freshman physics)

If you think that's the bible, it's on you to recommend it. What isn't okay is saying that books written by "real physicists" are the correct ones, when Tipler and Llewellyn (and the other authors I didn't mention) are that. It's dipping into the No True Scotsman territory. Graduate studies is not the world in general; of course people who are studying a topic in their graduate degree program are going to be using textbooks of a higher calibre, but also at the cost of being inaccessible. HN isn't that audience, and neither are 99% of audiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> John Wiley and Sons did similar a few weeks back for coronavirus-related research publications in the Wiley Online Library:

[https://novel-coronavirus.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/](https://novel- coronavirus.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/)

Disclaimer: Works for Wiley (UK)

</comment><comment><USER23> Thank you! Very nice, and appreciated.

Nit: some of the text displayed overlaps other text (I'm using Chrome) especially when displaying math, making it hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how long it'll take for someone to release a scraper to compile epubs from this.

<comment><USER25> Pretty sure that you could find them on libgen for ages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> And... not free to download for everyone anymore.

<comment><USER27> I wonder what they meant by "reported misuse?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Merk veterinary manual book

</comment><comment><USER29> There's always libgen if the book you want is behind a paywall. Like it's cousin scihub, it is very easy to use, fast, and has most of the books you could possibly need. Considering the awful practices of most scientific publishers, I have no problems with illegally downloading textbooks.</comment>


The Worst Predictions About 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/dec2008/db20081224_028134.htm?campaign_id=rss_topEmailedStories <comment><USER2> There are different grades of advice. Some is free, some costs 24.95 per month, some costs 6000 per year, some costs much, much more.

Now, Jim Cramer is famous because he is very shrill in his catastrophic opinions, but they are all playing the same game. One laughable spectacle is the expensive annual Forbes cruise in which wealthy people pay (I forget how much) to get stock tips, which are later relayed to the magazine's readers. This is nothing more than half-assed front running.

Rest assured, however, that ALL FREE PREDICTIONS are merely stage two of a front running scam.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Madoff's is worst. It's so ironic. While he was executing one of the greatest financial schemes in history, he was saying that it's impossible to violate the rules.

</comment><comment><USER4> The strange thing is, those who made correct predictions like Dean Baker et al., are marginalized even after they turn out to be correct.

The lesson: There is little penalty for going along with the herd, even if you are wrong, but there are consequences to being correct if you violate the herd norms.

Always being a contrarian would more often be right than the opposite, it seems -- especially lately.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's incredible to me how anyone gets away with doing predictions without a corresponding article like this afterwards documenting their (lack of) success. We only hear about predictions when they are accurate.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en- USUS300US304&...](http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en- USUS300US304&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=famous+predictions)

It looks like these search results feature either bad predictions, or mixed good and bad predictions.

</comment></comment><comment> puzzle-out Given how 2008 turned into the year of false predictions, I wonder how this will influence the development of predictive search? "You are looking for a new television" as a question rather than statement?

</comment><comment><USER7> #4 for example isn't so much of a prediction as a statement of what is happening now.

</comment><comment><USER8> hard to tell which one of these is the most frightening, though bernanke's might take the cake</comment>


Papa John's faces $250 million spam lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/13/technology/mobile/papa-johns/index.html

<comment><USER2> If they get fined $250 million, how are they going to be able to pay for their employees health insurance?

<comment><USER3> The price of every pizza will increase by $10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Speaking of Pizza spam, Domino's in the UK do some sleezy things with their ordering. After entering your order information and proceeding to the delivery page you're asked to input your email, name and phone number (so they can contact you if the driver can't find your address). The form has 2 check boxes, before May 2012 this stated "Tick the boxes below if you want to receive marketing material via SMS and Email" however sometime around May 2012 they changed this to state "Tick the boxes if you do not want to receive marketing material via SMS and Email".

Any customer that has previously used Domino's pizza (probably most people that order?) has gotten so used to their form that they don't think to re-read every input. I got caught out by it and it's really really lame that they did that. Not only are they going against the conventions we all expect (tick to include, not tick to exclude) they switched it to trick customers!

I wonder if they're breaking similar laws.

<comment><USER5> I understand the immorality, but is there a basis for illegality? If I wanted to cause trouble, I would randomize the appearance of the "do not" and maybe even the syntax.

<comment><USER6> You can't go too far or the information commissioner will want a word.

Obviously that's hypothetical - the ICO is too busy to go after anyone implementing your idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He's going to have no choice but to pass that cost on to his customers.

<comment><USER8> He could just blame the President again and cut his abused staff's hours some more.

<comment><USER9> You got the order backwards. It's cut the hours _then_ blame someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> SMS spam is worse than email spam since lots of people pay for each message received.

<comment><USER11> Incoming messages are still charged?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm waiting to see how they can blame this on employee health insurance.

</comment><comment><USER13> Between $500 and $1500 per sms? Where's the justice in that?

<comment><USER14> That's nothing compared to the $150,000 or whatever per song downloaded the RIAA was going for.

<comment><USER15> In both cases where people ended up facing such large fines, the RIAA repeatedly offered to settle for much much much smaller amounts, typically around $2-4 per song that the person was sharing.

The defendants decided to reject these offers, even though the MINIMUM POSSIBLE fine if they lost in court would be much larger than the RIAA was asking for.

Typical numbers would look something like this. The person shared a couple thousand songs, and the RIAA asked for maybe $5k. When the person refused, the RIAA would sue over around 20 of the songs, and the RIAA would have an airtight case. The best case realistic outcome for the defendant would be for the jury to award the minimum possible damages: $750/song, so the defendant would end up owing about $15k, which is about 3 times what they could have settled for.

That was their best case outcome. In reality, the jury would generally opt for something between the minimum and maximum, and so they got the big fines.

Then they would appeal. Incredibly, the RIAA would then offer again to settle for a few thousand (total--not per song). And the defendant would refuse, get another trial, and get a jury that opted for even higher up on the damage scale. Oops.

Basically, these defendants were either idiots, or they were taken advantage of by attorneys of questionable ethical judgement who put their desire to argue novel dubious copyright theories in court over the interests of their client.

<comment><USER16> Offering several thousand dollars for _"several thousand songs"_ then ultimately only bringing up a couple dozen is complete crap. It is plain, if you can see through the legalese, what was going on. The RIAA was wielding the legal system and an asymmetric power relationship _as a weapon_.

<comment><USER15> You have a person sharing a few thousand songs illegally. The RIAA offers to settle for a very reasonable amount--only a few dollars a song, which is far far below what it would normally cost to license a song to make available for free, unrestricted public redistribution. (And that is the correct license to compare to, not the $1 license that one purchases to download a song and use it privately).

If the person does not accept and the RIAA sues, it would make little sense to sue over all the songs. For each song named, they have to ensure that certain formalities have been taken care of (such as copyright registration) have been taken care of for those songs, and make sure the necessary rights have been assigned to them, and they have to submit into evidence documentation that proves all of this. They also have to show that each song being shared is really the song they are suing over (as opposed to a misnamed file of some other song, for instance).

Why go to all that effort, when suing over a dozen or two songs is sufficient to put the minimal damages at more than they have already indicated they are willing to accept to settle?

I don't see how this is using the legal system "as a weapon". It's using it exactly how it is supposed to be used--someone violates their rights, they make a very reasonable offer to settle the matter out of court, the person refuses, and then they take the person to court.

<comment><USER16> They, with extensive legal resources, go after individuals, with next to no legal resources, threatening massive lawsuits for a dozen or so songs, _or_ you can pay them several thousand dollars, "for many many songs", to make them go away.

If you don't see the problem there by yourself, I don't think I can help you. It should be self-evident.

Following the _letter_ of the law does not absolve you from ethical wrongdoing.

<comment><USER17> It is hard to see how this comment wouldn't be arguing that the RIAA should, if their concerns are bona fide, be suing for _millions_ of dollars instead of single-digit thousands. All the empirical evidence available to you suggests that when the RIAA takes someone to court who refuses to settle, they are likely to be awarded 5- and 6- figure judgements. Set against that fact, it is very hard to argue that they are being malicious when they offer a $5000 settlement.

If you are mugged in the city of Chicago, or if your lawnmower is stolen from your garage, or your house broken into, the chances are very good that the party who harmed you has far fewer resources than you do; in fact, your economic relationship to your assailant is likely to be comparably dramatic to the relationship between the RIAA and a defendant (it is probably more likely that you could start a multimillion dollar business this year than that a mugger will find a stable, successful career _ever_ ). And yet our system of law does not then say, "you are so much better off than the person who stole from your house, you should just shake it off". That's because the resources at your disposal do not alter your fundamental rights.

<comment><USER16> If they are interested in operating _ethically_ (I am not suggesting they are doing anything illegal or even illogical) any proposed settlement should be for what they are actually realistically going to sue for.

Offering a settlement for thousands of books, when in reality the settlement is to avoid only a lawsuit for dozens of books, and then turning around and saying how reasonable they are being, just reeks of shit. Perfectly legal I am sure, perfectly logical, a sound business decision... ...but let's just say it reminds me why I hate lawyers.

That the only rational decision a defendant/potential-defendant can make in this situation is not avoid at all costs a trial just drives home to me that any loyalty I feel towards the system is misplaced... but that is a separate issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand how franchises work. If there were a couple franchises that were responsible for sending the texts, why is the main Papa John's company getting sued, and not the responsible franchises?

Especially after the main company seemingly told all the franchises to knock it off when they noticed...

<comment><USER19> The little franchises that actually did this don't have millions of dollars which limit the maximum payout of the lawsuit.

<comment><USER18> So this is just a lawyer driven money grab instead of something actually worthwhile?

<comment><USER9> The point of making a money grab is to disincentivize a repeat performance. In this case, it's to get Papa John's to be stricter with their franchisees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if some of those 500,000 messages were relationship or transactional in nature since the FCC does not ban those [1]

1\. [http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and- em...](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and-email)

</comment><comment><USER21> I think it takes the same skill to discover cases with potential for class action suits as it does to discover and flesh out great ideas.

Think I should start networking with these kind of lawyers and use their skill to develop my ideas.

</comment><comment><USER22> Better ingredients, better spam, Papa Johns!</comment>


What to Do with Spreadsheets in an Organization - <AUTHOR> I work for a midsized public agency with some very smart but non-technical colleagues(housing, environmental health etc.) I was recently hired to improve our "data infrastructure".
I am currently talking to departments to understand the landscape by asking them a few key questions:
1) What data sets have they used in the past year 2) Where and how do they source it (census website, internal databases etc)
3) How frequently do they refresh it and reuse it.
I am starting to see a pattern where some datasets are sourced from internal systems with their own backing databases. It's a bit of a clutter but I can  bring these different datasets to a centralized warehouse/datalake like environment that has discovery and querying capability.
However, there is another consistent thread expressed by departmental analysts -  "I get this other data from another agency via an excel spreadsheet as an email attachment" which I am struggling to understand what to do with. At this point I am not seeking  a tool or a technical solution but rather some meta thoughts from HN tribe members.
Is there  merit in trying to centralize/bring together artifacts like spreadsheets together in a centralized place? Has someone done this/tried this before and saw any real benefit from it or is the dynamic/adhoc nature of this type of information exchange better left alone? <comment><USER2> Hi @eigen_vector, I am 5 days late, but could you check [https://www.stitchiq.com](https://www.stitchiq.com).

This is a problem statement I have been looking to solve; i.e people don't want to get out of spreadsheets, but spreadsheets are not the best data storage tools.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am regularly forced to remind people, even my engineering manager, that just because you can do something in a spreadsheet, it doesn't mean that you should.</comment>