Google Glass code hints at spatial gestures - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/22/google-glass-code-hints-at-spatial-gestures-including-two-finger-browser-zoom-and-winking-to-take-a-photo/?fromcat=mobile

<comment><USER2> Do we have any indication that these are actually Leap Motion style gestures? When I read this I assumed it was merely a two-finger gesture on the trackpad on the side of the device. In a recent TED video, a Google UX designer said that they looked into such gestures for Glass and decided not to include them in the product [1].

1\. [http://ed.ted.com/lessons/rapid-prototyping-google-glass- tom...](http://ed.ted.com/lessons/rapid-prototyping-google-glass-tom-chi)

<comment><USER3> With the current tech there is no way Google can put in computer-vision based two-finger gesture into Glass. There isn't enough processing power in the cell phone linked to the Glass. And there isn't enough space in the Glass for a custom computer vision chip. So it is likely that you are right, and it is merely a two-finger touchpad gesture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great, as if people walking around talking to "no one" wasn't bad enough, now people will be randomly grabbing at air and twitching their eyes. How are we supposed to separate the crazy people from the sane?! And the real question here, who's going to be the first person to accidentally pinch their friends nose when trying to zoom? How will we recover from such embarrassment? Is it in the warranty?!

On the other hand this does look interesting, I wonder if you could use this to "select" things in the world like "click/point to" a restaurant sign to learn more.

<comment><USER5> Great, whenever anyone uses this new technology they'll be warped into a bizarro Charlie Chaplin style universe where everyone is a buffoonish clutz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Glass will be made by a third party but feature support from Google

I hope in the future it will be made only by 3rd parties. Say, you buy nicely looking designer shades and they have google glass. Right now it's ugly, vulgar, creepy and has a high douchebaggery factor, I wonder how they want to convince people to walk around with this thing on their faces.

<comment><USER7> It wasn't so long ago that you were a douche if you walked around in public talking into a cell phone.

Or if you drove around showing off your crazy automobile contraption instead of riding a horse like a normal person.

Or if you wore a timepiece strapped to your wrist, instead of on a chain in your pocket like a proper gentleman. (And later, if the watch on your wrist had some kind of ugly LCD thing, instead of a handsome analog face.)

Then again, there was a time when you were a douche if you rode around on a Segway... and _that_ period never ended.

So I guess this could go either way.

<comment><USER8> Unlike these other things, owning Glass is an "all-in" proposition. You can put the cell phone away. You can park the car. Hell, you can get off the Segway even.

Glass? It is on your face. It is part of your identity. Having met a few people wearing it, it is hard to imagine a more in-your-face device to own. It's one step shy of a tattoo on your forehead. When you meet someone wearing these things while they are not commonplace, the _first thing_ you will notice when you meet them is Glass. If the perception is that Glass = douche, guess what, your first impression everywhere you go is going to be "douche" before you even get to introduce yourself.

You can take it off, sure, but if people are wearing them around their neck all the time they will eventually start just leaving them at home.

It's a huge, huge problem. I wish Google luck but also at the same time worry they are going to set back wearables for some time by pushing a Segway-like device onto the public before it's ready.

<comment><USER9> How is putting your cellphone/Segway away different than putting your Glass away?

When would you know if the public is ready for wearables without releasing a product?

If Google sells hundred of thousands of these, the public is ready.

<comment><USER8> If you put your cell phone away, it goes in your pocket. If you put your Segway away, it goes in the garage (or something?) It's still useful there since you can access it when you need it.

If you put Glass away, you basically invalidate the purpose of Glass itself, which is to be an always-available HUD for your life. (At least as far as I understand it.)

And yes, I agree the only way to know if the public is ready is to release a product. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it but I'm pretty bearish on them being able to pull it off. My gut is that there is a product that exists between "cell phone" and "heads up display you wear on your face" that would have reduced the risk of colossal failure. (Similar to how there is probably a product between "E-Mail" and "Google Wave" that would have worked better too.) There are just too many things that have to go right that have nothing to do with technical prowess. If it was just about algorithms and data I'd be cheering them on, but it's not, it's mostly about stupid fuzzy human being stuff, and Google has always struggled with that. (Though they're learning quickly!)

If I was going to make a prediction I think Glass will flop. The only way I could see it not flopping is if they get something out there quickly that genuinely looks cool and doesn't have a huge pricetag. (Not because price will inhibit purchasing it, but because if it is high priced it will immediately be known as showing off, ie douchey, to own one.)

I think the next step towards pervasive always-available computing is going to be wristband/watch type stuff with flexible displays which provides a nice step forward ubiquitous-computing wise, leaves room for creative design that can spawn a array of fashions, will be affordable, and will not require forging of new social norms on the way. (I'm 99% sure this is where Apple is headed.) And lets face it, a slick-designed slap bracelet that you can post to Facebook on is going to be _fucking cool_ , whereas a cyborg-like eye-piece is at the very least going to get mixed reviews.

<comment><USER9> I actually do not have any idea if Glass will flop or not.

Personally, I'd only wear it indoors for the meantime. Maybe when I'm climbing or biking too.

I'm part of a Glass User Study since last year. Google is very careful to not make it a distraction device but rather a device to assist you by having information available with just a tap or voice command. This is the main reason that the API is only a Mirror API, just a notifications service.

What's compelling is it being a camera. Glass wearers take way more photos and videos.

I believe that will be the main use-case. Smartphones need several actions to take a picture. With Glass, two voice commands or just push a button.

I'm giving Glass the benefit of the doubt.

When people used to ride horses, I bet those who drove the first cars looked weird. Riding horses were the social norm and not riding oversized machines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find "BROWSER_TWO_FINGER_ZOOM" the most interesting - was just thinking the other day of what a Google Glass + Leap Motion mashup would look like.</comment>


Facebook has superior 'Circles' - <AUTHOR> http://www.donny.in/notes/FacebookSuperiorCircles.html

<comment><USER2> People often seem to confuse "different" with "worse." I wonder why this is. Circles are also "simple to reason about" – i.e., everyone in the circle gets the post. It's just different from Facebook in that circles are asynchronous, so it feels a bit foreign. Different, not worse. It's arguably better since it also supports Twitter-style following with a single, unified mechanism.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I wanted to say is that it is easier for the _recipients_ of the post to reason about.

That said, they should really start suggesting people to follow ala Twitter. With so little friends inside, my stream is kinda empty!

<comment><USER2> I get your point, but I think that's simple too: you received the post because it was sent to you. Or in Google's vocabulary: because you were in the circle it was shared with. I can agree though, that this slightly more confusing than the Facebook model: because your friend posted it.

I really like the idea of suggesting Google+ "celebrities" to follow; you should suggest it with the feedback tool. I recommend Tom. :)

      http://profiles.google.com/myspacetom</comment></comment></comment>


Ask PG: What's the traffic effect here from the TechCrunch mention? - <AUTHOR>

Would you mind quantifying some numbers based on the TC front page treatment - before and after?<p>Pageviews? New users? Submissions? Comments? Anything else interesting? <comment><USER2> We got 14k unique ips yesterday, which without TC would have been 10k. The effect of the spike was diminished by being spread over 2 days, because we use GMT days for stats.

The most dramatic change was the number of new accounts. There were 258 new accounts in the last 24 hours. On a typical day there are 50-60.

The most interesting thing to me was that the TC traffic exposed a design flaw in the account creation code. That's why the site got so slow yesterday.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133804>

<comment><USER3> Hopefully this will help dispel the myth that TechCrunch coverage is a "get- coverage-or-die" issue for startups. Getting on it is great, and the splash coverage from it is important.

But 4,000 uniques just isn't going to do it unless your site/service is TRULY viral. If it is, then you should be able to take off with 100 uniques just as well (if a little more slowly).

<comment><USER2> Being on TC isn't just important for the numbers. It's who those people are. I suspect practically every startup investor reads TC, for example. That's not a factor for News.YC, but for the average startup those are good people to have know about you.

Also, the traffic boost is probably ordinarily more than 4k uniques. We probably have a fairly big overlap with TC readers.

<comment><USER3> Traffic boost is not normally much more than 4k in my experience. I've had two startups on TC (multiple times each) and worked at a third startup that also got coverage. Ranged between 3.5k and 7k uniques (so you're right-- it's on the low side).

Regarding investors, I think you might be right there-- TC coverage probably helped our YC app, for example (you'd know more than I!). But, in conversations with investors, I've NEVER had one say "Oh yeah-- I saw you guys on TechCrunch." It's a nice bullet point in an email/execsum that lends credibility.

Arrington literally has talked about founders calling him crying and begging for coverage and busting into his house to plead with him. That just seems wrong to me.

<comment><USER4> To provide an opposing anecdote, our startup literally got direct contacts/calls from VCs specifically due to our coverage on TechCrunch.

We had been front page on Digg and that got us a crazy number of uniques, but the initial VC interest did not start until we were on TechCrunch and Lifehacker a week or two later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just took a look at my referrers for the past year on my blog. Without a doubt 90% of referrers are social bookmarking sites like this and reddit.

It might be the psychology of it all. You visit a social bookmarking site to find interesting links; you visit a blog to see what they have to say more than click on the links.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope its not the beginning of the enditt.</comment>


Show HN: Callwarden - <AUTHOR> https://www.callwarden.com <comment><USER2> I hate things that want you to sign up for a free trial without showing what pricing will be after the trial is up. Not willing to to register and start giving out the number to people only to find out the cost is completely unreasonable. Transparency please.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out. I personally overlooked it. I added it right below the header for now -- maybe it'll move if I can figure out better placement for it.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for adding the price, I'm actually quite surprised at how reasonable it is. I was expecting an arm an a leg when i saw the prices were omitted, pleasant surprise and will def give it a shot.

A few quick questions:

1.Are there any plans for price guarantees or annual subscriptions; something to protect early adopters from a price increase soon after momentum builds?

2.Do we get to choose our numbers or their area code?

3.Can you provide a basic rundown or links to the data collection/privacy polices

4.What is the protocol for exporting our data? Say I want to stop using Call Warden but want to keep my messages, can I download my messages en masse?

Thanks in advance, this looks like a useful idea, I wish you the best on the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the delay in responding, and thanks for asking these -- good questions to think about and get down. I'm gonna just answer with what I got in my head, as a web developer who is working on this:

1\. Annual subscriptions is a good idea. Right now we're just seeing if this thing has legs. I didn't consider that people would want to pay a year up front. We are hoping we pegged the average costs per customer accurately. These are well-defined systems with fixed prices, but users are un- predictable. If, on average, users generate way more voicemails than we expected, I don't think we'd have a choice but to reconsider our pricing, or shut down maybe. This ties into your #4 question -- I'd want to make sure everyone could port out their numbers if they want, and collect all their recordings + trancriptions in that event.

2\. Right now the number you get is a random US number. This was just a "get it done quick" decision. We'd just need to figure out a good UI for picking your area code, to tack it on. I only hesitate here because if users want a specific area code, in my head that's getting into other product territories (vanity numbers, "local business" numbers, etc), and we're trying to silo ourselves into consumer market (not B2B, there are other products for B2B). We'd also be limited by number availability at the carrier -- maybe it doesn't have the area code you want, kind of thing. Other than that, I don't think we're against the idea.

3\. Right now we store to/from values, duration values, transcription text, and recording files that start when the beep is heard. This data is under lock-and-key in S3 and in a postgres database -- when you play a recording in the UI (or download it someday), you're using a signed URL that has temporary access to just that file. The privacy policy is coming — it's a good concern to bring up. We didn't make this to sell people's data, and want to be up front about that.

4\. This is coming, especially for one-off download/export. Depending on the amount of recordings there might be some work on the user's end. It's intensive to zip up a bunch of audio and send it to a user, but not unrealistic. We'd at least have a way for each recording to be downloaded, and a user could have a script run that downloads all their recordings, in a rate- limited fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty Good! Could you please add the function to receive text or SMS messages?

<comment><USER4> Hey there, I'm Cody, one of the cofounders. We definitely want to explore allowing SMS messages. Not sure when it'll happen, but it's on the radar!</comment></comment>


I can manipulate your Amazon recommendations without IFrames - <AUTHOR> https://sites.google.com/site/amazoninjectiontest/

<comment><AUTHOR> This approach to tamper with recently viewed items on Amazon embeds the articles as hidden images:

Of course, this only works if your browser accepts third-party cookies and is inspired by this original post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3766544> .

Are the results any different from the original? Does using an image instead of an iframe have any effects on the results? What are your thoughts on this?

<comment><AUTHOR> oh, I just found out that another user tried the same thing and wrote about it before me: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3768030></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Can I Find a Mentor? - <AUTHOR> There was an HN thread a few months back about autodidactic programmers, and many people said that one of the most important things for a developing programmer is to have a good mentor.
I think I'd really like a mentor.
Some things about me: I've been coding for maybe a year, but I have a full time job so progress is not going as fast as maybe I'd like it to.
I've been doing Python (a very small amount of C# as well). I've read an intro book, and now I'm reading a book that goes into more depth with OO. I've solved the first 51 Project Euler problems, many of them with relatively elegant algorithms. I have a love for elegant algorithms.
I'm not sure what to do next. Build a Django app? Learn Java and build an Android app? Learn Haskell? Learn C? Something else entirely?
I'm not locked into any particular field of programming yet - it all interests me.
If anyone feels like they would get any benefit out of mentoring someone like me, looking at my code and giving me pointers, giving me advice about what's wise to learn, I'd really appreciate it. <comment><USER2> I saw your post and it made me think of my own experience in desiring to grow spiritually. I come from an evangelical Christian background and for those unfamiliar with this sub-culture there's a saying that "everyone should have a Paul, a Barnabas, and a Timothy."

What this means is that, if you're serious about your personal spiritual development, you need three things:

* a mentor (Paul): someone that is more experienced than you and can help you grow in ways that you were unaware of and who can help you develop your personal gifting.

* a comrade (Barnabas): someone that is at your level whom you can mutually encourage and grow with.

* a person to mentor (Timothy): someone whom you are a Paul to.

I think this has applications beyond spiritual development; it can be applied to any field/dimension that you want to grow in. Part of my problem in college that I was always fixated on having a mentor but never asked myself who my Barnabases and Timothys were.

As the years passed, I put aside this unhealthy fixation on having this spiritual mentor and I found myself begin to grow as I embraced the people around me as Barnabases and Timothys. I don't want to discourage you from looking for a mentor; it's awesome to find one. But don't feel like you can't grow as a programmer/developer without one. Growth takes lots of different forms and it would be a shame, in my opinion, if instead of growing, you spent your time waiting for Godot.

<comment><USER3> That structure is more or less what we're doing with our iPad app, Understudy, for SICP. If someone signs up for SICP, we pair them with another user a bit ahead, to talk to once a week. Once they're a ways in, they start leading another user just starting out.

[http://blog.understudyapp.com/learn-sicp-make- friends/](http://blog.understudyapp.com/learn-sicp-make-friends/)

[Obvious disclaimer - I work on this. It was posted to HN a few weeks ago.]

<comment><USER4> This is a really fucking cool idea and I hope it works out for you. It's been my opinion for a while now that something like apprenticeship should have a higher weight in the educational experience. And $5/mo is chump change if your app actually works like it seems it has the potential to.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! It seems to be working quite well so far, but we're still very small, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best mentors I've had have been people I didn't know were my mentors until I thought about it.

A perhaps my experience would be 'People I met outside a casual social circle (though I see no reason they can't exist within) with a high level of experience and insight into a field of expertise (technical or non-technical) that also enjoyed my company and my giving / reflecting something back to them.'

Seek people out in environments you're comfortable, and don't discount the value-add face-to-face contact can make. A small word of warning also - mentors can be great inspirers, but that doesn't mean they would make a good fit as a boss or employee later (just as working _for_ a friend can break relationships).

</comment><comment><USER6> If I were in your shoes I would build a list of potential mentors as I read blogs, books, articles etc about the topics I am interested in. Then I would rank them roughly in order of preference and then contact them one at a time and explain that I am looking for a mentor and give a brief summary of why I chose them and a brief background on myself.

I suspect you wouldn't have to go very far down the list before someone agrees to be your mentor.

If after a while, I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the mentor that agreed, I would explain this to them, thank them for their time and continue down the list.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's a really interesting idea. It didn't occur to me that that was even a possibility. cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I offer free mentoring: [http://markwatson.com/mentoring/](http://markwatson.com/mentoring/) but I limit this to about one hour. An hour may not seem like much time, but usually I just talk about technology options, refer people to open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER8> A mentor can be helpful to give you direction on where to focus your auto- didactic abilities.

I switched careers into software development several years ago thanks to the mentoring of several individuals.

Going to meetups in your area is one of the first places to look, and taking online or in-person courses are also helpful to find other like-minded people.

One thing to consider is that there need not be a formal "mentor-protege" relationship; you can get a lot of great one-off type advice from all kinds of people you come across.

<comment><USER9> I'm not disagreeing with you, but the downside of one-off type advice from varying people is that you are limited to only discussing topics which can be covered within a limited time frame. Surely a lot of good can come from that, but having a more long-term mentor lets you get quick feedback on things with little overhead, since the mentor will already be familiar with your current skill level, the project you are working on etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is only somewhat related to becoming a better programmer but I'd rather post here than create my own thread for this.

I just graduated from college and I start work in 4 months as a software dev at a company that you've probably heard of and use on a regular basis. What can I do in these 4 months to maximize my chance of success at this company?

I thought I might go through SICP but I'm not sure if this is more of a theoretical exercise or if it will directly improve my work. I can't work on any open source projects because of the learning curve required to get familiar with the codebase, + I won't be able to work on it once I start my regular work.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

<comment><USER11> _What can I do in these 4 months to maximize my chance of success at this company?_

This presupposes that it's worthwhile to be successful at that company. Most companies aren't worth it. In fact, there's a correlation between a company being well-known and a company having horrible code.

It depends what you mean by "successful" though. I'm defining success as "increasing one's skill." But that's completely orthogonal to most people's definition of success, which is "climbing the corporate ladder."

If you just want a secure job, focusing on your software skills isn't the way to go. Focus on your connections at the company and how you present yourself. Your connections will mostly determine whether you'll continue very long at the company. (This assumes your skill is above a certain minimum standard of quality.) Companies aren't meritocracies.

<comment><USER12> Is there really a correlation between being well known and having horrible code? Do you have anything to support this idea? It seems a bit arbitrary.

<comment><USER11> I shouldn't have used the word "horrible" when describing a codebase because "horrible codebase" has very different meanings for different people. The code of well-known companies is typically great from a business standpoint, otherwise they wouldn't have become well-known. By this definition, Mt. Gox's codebase was fine right up until they imploded, because the only reason they were large enough to matter is because rolling out features was the highest priority. But you can see how, to some, this is a distasteful definition of "good codebase."

First mover advantage is one of the most powerful forces in the startup ecosystem. The only way to exploit first mover advantage is to be the first to market, which sometimes means skipping many of what programmers consider best practices.

The general principle is that it's hard to grow large by having a bunch of principles, because principles slow you down. Idealism tends to be the opposite of pragmatism, and being pragmatic seems one of the most important qualities for success in business.

There are exceptions to everything, of course, and I'm not claiming that all well-known companies have codebases that most programmers would consider bad. I've heard Google's codebases are pretty good, for example. Viaweb grew large, and I know how obsessive pg is about code quality.

All I'm claiming is that unless the culture of the company has valued code quality from day one, the codebase of a well-known company will generally not be very good. I.e. there's a correlation between being a well-known (read: large) company and having a codebase with more hacks than most would be comfortable with. So it seems to be the default.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the size of a company or how well-known they are. Maybe it's simply that most codebases aren't very good. But it seems to have a grain of truth that business forces tend to push codebases in a negative direction by default. Additionally, it seems like most codebases you see on github are actually pretty good; better than what you'd see at most companies.

<comment><USER12> Thanks, you make some interesting points, particularly about being a first- mover. When talking about "startups we've heard of" you may well be right, I could certainly see how that could work. But in general, the companies we've heard of are the ones who survived long enough to become well known, and in that case, I suspect that their code is very maintainable, which implies many aspects of "good" code. I'd especially expect the companies known for their software to have good code, unlike companies that do other things, but happen to have developers to support their business.

<comment><USER11> _But in general, the companies we 've heard of are the ones who survived long enough to become well known_

True!

 _and in that case, I suspect that their code is very maintainable_

Unfortunately, there's no relation between a code's maintainability and its business viability. For example, if that were true, then there would be a correlation between beautiful codebases and codebases which make money. In my experience there is no such correlation.

Businesses generally maintain their codebases by hiring people to work on it rather than adopting good practices from the start (so that they don't have to hire more people to work on it). That's why startups have another advantage: they can work much faster than big companies, because big companies generally have to deal with ten metaphorical tons of code bloat, which slows them down almost as much as their bureaucratic nature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ah! I finally have a useful answer, because wrote about this here: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your- pro...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your- professors%E2%80%99-attention-or-how-to-get-the-coaching-and-mentorship-you- need) .

More nuts-and-bolts answers are much harder: look for programming or similar groups around you. If you find people you admire online, ask if you can buy them coffee when they're in town. There is no easy answer because possible mentors and mentees are subject to adverse signaling problems.

It's still much harder to find a mentor online than off.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have the same problem here! I'm looking for a mentor as well. I think getting a mentor in the context of software development is n times harder than in others sector's I'm afraid. Best thing I can recommend you is to pair with people who are more experienced, and maybe in other projects. Maybe give [http://agileventures.org/](http://agileventures.org/) | [http://www.airpair.com/](http://www.airpair.com/) | [http://www.pairprogramwith.me/](http://www.pairprogramwith.me/) a chance? hope it helps.

<comment><USER15> Attend Meetups and Conferences, meet people and share your thoughts with them. You can also join local groups. That's how you can pair up with people who are more experienced. You can even contribute to any open source project, learn from other collaborators and you will end up learning a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I enjoy mentoring people who want to learn Haskell. In fact, I'm already mentoring a fellow HNer who expressed interest in Haskell a while ago. It helps me tremendously with my personal development too, being able to verbalize concepts that I understand at a deep analytical level.

My e-mail is in my profile if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER17> Before I got good at programming I wanted a mentor too. At various points in my career, at times I've had a person in my life who acted as the role of "mentor" for short periods of time (one to two weeks). IMO a mentor isn't really necessary. If you're motivated to learn enough and to always keep your mind open you'll become good. Keep doing what you're doing. A mentor isn't going to be able to automagically transfer the knowledge and experience in his mind to yours via USB; Looking back in hindsight I wanted a mentor at the time because that was what I mistakenly believed in (that I'll be able to learn faster/better with a mentor). I admit it does feel good when someone with more experience compliments my programs. Did that contribute to how good a programmer I've become today? Not really...

"Build a Django app? Learn Java and build an Android app? Learn Haskell? Learn C?"

I've done all of them, each in my own time, except Android; I created some (toy) iOS apps instead.

Just keep going to where your mind takes you.

I would like to add that I did study software engineering at university several years after I started learning to code, and that it did help me figure out what I wanted to learn. I would not disagree with you too much if you suggested university took the place of a mentor for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> Instead of finding a mentor, maybe find a buddy? I recall from my own days of early learning that doing things with another person made them much more fun and made the time go by very fast compared to learning alone. It also led to much more interesting avenues of research and the sum was _much_ greater than the parts.

A mentor-student situation is typically mostly a one-way street.

</comment><comment><USER19> i would love to give working with you a shot. i am a python guy, strong with .net and java who loves writing code and bulding apps with others. please contact me at jwheeler1 at googles email service.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you're looking for a mentor and C, SQL, fullstack webdev, Python, and/or Django interest you, drop me an email (see profile) :)

</comment><comment><USER21> The best mentors do not set out to be mentors or see themselves as (primarily) mentors. Yet they push you, mentor you and won't let you go. Because of this it is not so easy to get someone to 'be your mentor' in a formal sense, or, if that situation arises, where someone has agreed to be your mentor, then it is not necessarily the real deal.

As others have said the mentorship arrangement only transpires over time, and on reflection. However it is something that you can find within days of working with someone, possibly even within minutes.

I believe some people are more prone to finding mentors than others. Think of school and the vast overwhelming majority of pupils that the teachers really could not care a great deal about. Then there are the chosen few, singled out for special treatment. A 'C' might be good enough for the normal demands of the course, however, for those 'mentor worthy few' it is not quite like that. Even if they do not care whether they pass of fail, for whatever special reason it is, teachers will not let them be like that. Consequently they get mentored whether they like it or not.

It is the same in the workplace, there are a lot of also-ran's. Someone who has to just pick up the phone and be in on time is not likely to be pushed to excel or develop. Others don't get to be left alone like that. This is a different pressure to 'must work harder and be more productive', more care is involved, whether desired or not. I don't think even intellect has much bearing on the deal, you don't have to be gifted for someone to pick you out for mentoring and there are plenty of very smart, intelligent people that just do not pick up mentors.

Outside of academia and learning for the sake of learning, one great pressure for 'successful mentoring situations' is where time is money and the job just has to be done for a paying customer. If you can help with that you can find yourself a most useful mentor along the way. Also, if there is a strategic need for some knowledge to be shared then that can help. If you are the only one willing to learn all the systems and do weekend call outs when things go wrong, there is a lot of incentive for others to get you fully up to speed.

I should also say that in mentoring situations, cock-ups are allowed. You can ask for help on a particular thing or break a particular thing three times and three times only. A fourth time and you are renegading on the deal.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a part of a software career where social skills and ability to make new friends help. Be nice, be curious.. be humble and honest with your skill level.

In an open source project that you want to gain some experience with, or someone in your company that will help you with upward movement... the same skills will apply.

</comment><comment><USER23> Check out local incubators in your city. The websites usually have a mentor list. If one of these people interests you then try reaching out to them via Twitter, Linkedin, etc... but if you don't yet have a business they may not have the time to help.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a pretty good post: [http://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan- holiday/2013/08/how-to-find-m...](http://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan- holiday/2013/08/how-to-find-mentors/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Your boss is your de-facto mentor, choose your boss wisely. It would be very difficult to grow quickly in software if you aren't already doing it full time.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hey Kremlin, I can't offer any mentoring, but your post reads like your in the exact same situation as I am. I have been programming on and off for about two years, mostly Python and Javascript. I have three months off this summer that I want to spend getting my skills to a professional level.

I'd like to get in touch and hear what you plan to do next. If interested, email me: philipp@[my HN username].com

</comment><comment><USER27> have you considered applying to [https://www.hackerschool.com/](https://www.hackerschool.com/) ?

</comment><comment><USER28> I had one for Ruby on Rails, Ruby and PostgreSQL for a year around 2008-2009 or something. Omar was is his name. Helped tremendously and I owe him.

Should probably catch up again.

If you're interested, there are some mentorship programs on rails-bridge

</comment><comment><USER29> Watch

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBs5zc2pepA&feature=youtu.be&...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBs5zc2pepA&feature=youtu.be&t=13m19s)

</comment><comment><USER30> One thing that has really helped me is a mastermind. While I know the mastermind is for entrepreneurs, is there something similar for coders?

Also, check out local groups like cocodevs or meetups.

</comment><comment><USER31> Starting looking the github language trends and figure out what is you passion. So, make the best choice you can. \-- TeeBSD (@teebsd)

</comment><comment><USER32> To add onto this, my boss is very well renowned in his field. Is it generally ill-advised to have a boss that is also a mentor?

</comment><comment><USER33> toastmaster do mentoring for public speaking. they have a great system. i keep thinking of setting up a similar system for programmers.

</comment><comment><USER34> try [https://www.codementor.io/](https://www.codementor.io/)

<comment><USER35> I don't consider paying someone to solve a problem I'm having the same thing as a mentor. In fact, in my mind those are completely different things.

This seems more like a site to hire a super short term freelancer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> clarity.fm</comment>


VrankenFuzz – a multi-sensor, multi-generator mutational fuzz testing engine [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://guidovranken.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/vrankenfuzz.pdf <comment><USER2> I read most of this paper and skimmed a few sections I felt were old hat. The author discusses various problems that apply to all fuzzers focusing especially on a naive fuzzer's inability to achieve depth into complex code paths. This, they explain, is solved by modifying the target program, or by seeding with data that is known to exercise deep paths. These are well known techniques. The rest of it is explaining the author's concept of three basic components of fuzzers, which are "sensors" (what e.g. AFL and others would call "instrumentation"), "generators" (just what it sounds like, this component generates target program inputs) and "processors" (these read sensors and influence the generators). I like the clarity the author brings to the subject and the framework is good for thinking about fuzzer design in a clear way. I'm not sure that the particular subject of the paper, VrankenFuzz, is anything groundbreaking. Also the author says at the end that they want "compensation" before they release it as open source.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the summary.

> Also the author asks for money at the end before they release it as open > source.

That raised my interest. It's not exactly what the author wrote though:

>> I'd like to release the source code publicly as open source for a compensation.

I imagine they'd consider other forms of compensation, e.g. free accommodation in a castle in the south of France (maybe that's just me).

I'm interested to hear how this pans out. Asking for support after releasing FOSS doesn't always work either.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I edited my comment to say 'compensation' instead. Thanks :)</comment></comment></comment>


SCA Experiences of a Small Business - <AUTHOR> https://fman.io/blog/sca-experiences-of-a-small-business/ <comment><USER2> I understand the author's frustration at being forced to do work for what he perceives as no benefit.

However, I think as a society we probably all benefit from driving down fraud - lower interest rates, lower costs to banks and law enforcement etc.</comment>


Atwood rebuttal: Mandarin Chinese programmer communites - <AUTHOR> http://odwks.com/2009/03/mandarin-chinese-programmer-communites/

<comment><USER2> "When Chinese use their native tongue, the knowledge exchange goes faster and in more depth. It encourages greater participation by a wider audience."

I think that's a very important observation. One's mother tongue determines one's thinking. I'm a native Chinese currently studying Computer Science in Canada. Although I have no problem communicating in English, when it comes to complicated cases, the logic engine in my brain seems to work better if it thinks in Chinese. Another interesting observation is that I always count numbers and do arithmetic in Chinese---I received my primary education in China, which hard wired my brain in certain ways. Plus, English numbers are just too irregular to express decimals properly (by comparison, Chinese numbers are extremely regular and match positional notation perfectly, e.g. 12,345 will be literally pronounced in Chinese as "one 10,000, two 1,000, three 100, four 10, five". )

Another defect in my English thinking process is that I can barely come up with proper phrases or expressions for unfamiliar abstractions. I guess in order to name things properly requires one to have very deep understanding of the culture and its history, which takes a long time for non-native English speakers. (e.g. There used to be an async-IO library for highly concurrent web servers in Python called Medusa. I got the idea for the name immediately, but if I were to name it myself, I'll never come up with such a smart name. )

That said, recently I noticed that somehow my brain starts to re-wire itself and certain ways of thinking in English become more natural. But that's the result of years of reading related stuff in English _only_ , which is certainly not the case for many Chinese programmers.

<comment><USER3> It is interesting from what you said. I know most friends from East Asia with the same habit. It takes a lot of training to perform small tasks in English. And my German friends count their money in German event they speak fluent American English.

I stayed in Taiwan for education until I got my Bachelor degree and served military service. I forced myself to read textbooks in original version and I read a lot outside textbooks when I was in high school. I spent first 3 months in U.S. to count number in English reflexively. And so far my problem is that if I remember anything in English, it takes me time to translate them back in Chinese. Like every time I told my mom and sister about my phone number, I need to think how to say them in Chinese by going through all numbers that in my mind are pronounced in English. But I can type in exactly the digit as someone else said. Another thing is I have problem to perform physics calculation in Imperial system because all physics constants that I remember are in Metric system.

Another problem is to explain knowledge in Chinese that I learn first in English. Especially terms in computer science are not unified in Taiwan and China.

At the other hand, I read both Chinese and English media. But it seems there are two brains in my head that are complete separated. I am also ambidextrous to the degree that I can write in both hands and using chop sticks in both hands. So maybe my brain did not develop specialization well as others.

<comment><USER2> "Another problem is to explain knowledge in Chinese that I learn first in English. Especially terms in computer science are not unified in Taiwan and China."

I have the same problem, too. A much worse thing for me is that I use English as my primary language for quite some time now, I sometimes have difficulty finding the appropriate Chinese words when I need to talk to Chinese friends. I guess that's the price one has to pay if one really wants to re-wire the brain :|

"I am also ambidextrous to the degree that I can write in both hands and using chop sticks in both hands."

This is quite an achievement. Is it a born gift, or you trained yourself? Very amazing! :)

<comment><USER3> I don't think it is born. But I felt curious when I was in teens after reading stories in Jing Yong's novel about Zhou Botong's trick. I started to practice to hold chop sticks in left hand and after a month practice. I can do it without problem.

But some friends noticed that I always unconsciously switch hands when picking up trash on the floor or opening doors. They mistook me as left handed. And you read from Wikipedia that a theory of ambidexterity is that most ambidexterity are in fact left handed by birth. So maybe I just forget my unhappy experience during the right handed when I was kid.

<comment><USER2> Emm, interesting. I'm always curious of how to work more with left hand (I'm right handed). I started with using mouse/touchpad with my left hand, but when it comes to writing with a pen or using chopsticks, my left hand always makes me feel dumb ... I guess more practice is needed. Gonna try that in the next month. Thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori I found Atwood's post to be very anglocentric. While for practical purposes it's probably a good idea for any programmer to be functionally literate in English, I certainly don't think they should all use it all the time. I'm Canadian, and I grew up in a very multicultural city. This may have something to do with my views on these issues.

In my first programming job, several co-workers were Chinese and amongst themselves usually spoke Mandarin. At a programming competition I attended a few years ago, several teams were from Quebec and most of them spoke French within their team. All these people could speak English, but chose not to because they were more comfortable speaking their native languages, even about technical issues. I think this is pretty normal, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER4> Kudoz to the author for his understanding and appreciation of pragmatism:

      use the right _language_ for the right job

or in a longer form:

      English is better than multi-language
      Although multi-language is often better than *only* English
      Practicality beats purity

</comment><comment><USER5> I think its a great post. The strength of stackoverflow is obviously the community of users. It is perfectly logic to use a local language if it helps to grow a new community somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER6> We could all try learning something simple and unambiguous like Lojban...

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

</comment><comment><USER7> He makes an interesting point on the side - "the world is not flat".

</comment><comment><USER8> It's always right to learn the discipline in a language that has the most abundant material, most of time it's the language that the discipline originally came to being.

As for computer science, learn it in English, because that's the language it's written in. Whatever anglocentric or *centric it may sound, it's the way you will get most out of it, it's that simple.

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnprog.com%2F&sl=zh- CN&tl=en)

</comment><comment><USER10> It benefits everyone when individuals speak on the language that they feel more comfortable with. If what they have to say is valuable it will be translated to other languages anyway.

<comment><USER11> I think you have a very high threshold for "valuable" content. Most of the stuff I read and consider valuable has not been translated to another language. There's just too much valuable content for someone to translate all of it, unless it comes in the form of anime. But that's a special case.

<comment><USER10> I did not mean that people would do a literal translation. I think that people can translate the _value_ of the content into other languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This link just sent to me, worth reading.

[http://kjctech.net/blog/archive/2009/03/31/stackoverflow- is-...](http://kjctech.net/blog/archive/2009/03/31/stackoverflow-is-being- cloned---contd.aspx)

Claims that Jeff and Joe were approached by the guys that built the China clone to StackOverflow and that Jeff and/or Joe didn't want a Chinese version. Their loss for believing the world is flat.

</comment><comment><USER12> It shouldn't be a big revelation to anyone that a Chinese person can communicate more efficiently in Chinese than in English, or that the same applies to other nationalities and native languages too.

<comment><USER13> Well i think you're quite wrong to put all languages on the same level here. I mean, as programmers we know very well than some languages are closer by spirit than others, even if their syntax differ greatly.

It's exactly the same thing for spoken languages. I'm french, and i learnt English, German, and a bit of Spanish. Once you learnt one, you can learn the others more easily, not only because of your mind adapting to other languages, but also because those languages share a lot, be it from a vocabulary perpective or from a grammatical one.

I'm no expert in asian languages, but from my past in linguistic and ethnology, i aquired the strong belief that theses languages are different enough to really "wire" your brain differently.

And you must also take into account the cultural penetration of the english/american culture into a country. Even if this penetration happenned everywhere, Western Europe has much more exposure to this culture than , say , China.

The bottom line is : French people will probably never need a french StackOverflow as badly as Chinese people.

The world is not flat !

<comment><USER2> I'm native Chinese. I speak English quite well, and now I'm learning German. I definitely agree with you that German is much much easier to learn if one knows another Latin-based language before. I guess same is true for French or Spanish--They are just way too similar. And they share a lot of cultural background so differences seem very trivial compared to the painful transition from Chinese to English.</comment></comment></comment>


ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 review: The only laptop in a professional's paradise - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/thinkpad-x1-carbon-2018-review-the-only-laptop-in-a-professionals-paradise/ <comment><USER2> I've been lurking at the X1 carbon for years, but now I'm finally considering getting one I can't decide between the T480s this year!

On one side, the light weight and light size of the X1 is really appealing, on the other the larger ram, graphic chip and lower heat of the T480s makes it look like a wiser choice...

At this price, it is a hard decision. I unfortunately can't get my hand on both machines before buying one in the part of the world I am in, did anyone had the chance to compare them both side by side? Is the difference of size/weight noticeable in hand?

Another aspect is the display. The new 500nits HDR screen looks awesome, but I've been thinking a __mate __, 300nits display would be better for programming? I don 't think I have seen a mate screen on a laptop for years... Is it really better for outdoor use? Would it make sense to privilege it, even being 200nits lower?

<comment><USER3> The X1 Carbon has low power LPDDR RAM which means it can sleep for a lot longer with minimal battery drain. This is a very useful feature for me, as my laptop is almost permanently sleeping.

<comment><USER4> Why sleep when you have 2read 1write GB/s SSD in there? suspend is couple of seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I /just/ got mine in the mail (i7, 16GB, WQHD non-touch, non-IR webcam, 1TB SSD). My comparison is a 15" Macbook Pro Retina (2014). Some initial impressions: Build quality is good, it feels solid yet light. Minor nitpick is that the screen doesn't retain its position well if you hold it in your hand. I'm not known to be gentle with my equipment, and it gets thrown in bags, used in the freezing cold, etc; it's a consumer device with limited life span, I know that going in. The trackpad is one of the best I've seen on a Windows laptop, but still no match for the Macbook (although could be my muscle memory). Also I love the aesthetics of the thing, it looks and feels professional and doesn't have any of the frills "gaming" stuff usually has. There was only one Intel sticker, which I managed to peel off without residue (what's up with those stickers...). The white backlit keyboard is a nice touch, which is overall amazing to type on. I still can't deal with Windows though (it just feels so sloooow), but I'm reluctant to install Linux right now because of a bug in the trackpad drivers (it becomes unresponsive) if you have the NFC option (which I do). I'll wait a couple more months for that to get sorted out. Right now I'm running Linux (Ubuntu 17.10) in VMWare Workstation 14, but that's also very slow (noticeable input lag when typing or dragging windows). But that's all software, I'm sure that will become better over time. The bad though: the audio quality is awful, I mean a 2014 Macbook Pro is bad ... but this is a whole new level. The case even vibrates/resonates with the volume turned up a little bit, and the whole thing sounds like a tin can. Also it gets REALLY hot, as in uncomfortable to use on my lap. The fan curves probably could also use some tuning, it goes on and off often, which I dislike over a continuous sound and would probably help the thermals too. Although, I haven't done any benchmarks yet to check for throttling. I was hoping it would replace my aging Macbook, but it'll probably end up in a drawer until I squeeze the last bit of life out of a 2014 machine, which is in my opinion still the best laptop ever build. The new Macbooks are not really an option (even if I could justify the ridiculous costs) due to lack of USB type A/B ports (which I need for astrophotography), and the annoying sound of the keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sure if the Carbon suffers from this, I've had awful Wi-Fi experience with ThinkPads (edit: same Wi-Fi module as in the Carbon). 5GHz connections just drop randomly and take a minute or two to be willing to reconnect. Pretty sure it's not the AP's problem since I've never had this problem with my USB Wi-Fi module connecting to the same network, only the built-in one. Anybody had a better experience (or know how to get a better experience)? I'm forever in shock at how they've let this happen without fixing it; it's extremely frustrating.

EDIT 1: Judging from the quick upvotes I suspect I'm not alone... (but actually, this was obvious just from my earlier Googling).

EDIT 2: Funny, I'm getting downvotes now :-) confused what the message is, but whatever floats your boat!

<comment><USER7> I have last year's X1 Carbon and have had no issues with WiFi (using Debian unstable). Certainly no connection drops. Maybe it's a bad combination of AP and WiFi module?

<comment><USER8> Question. Is it possible to buy a Lenovo and not fork out for a copy of Windows if you're immediately going to install your preferred distro of Linux onto it?

<comment><USER9> In UK, they all ship with Windows it looks like. The only laptops I found that don't shove the cost of a license down your throat are the build-your-own ones, like pcspecialist.co.uk / novatech.co.uk / scan.co.uk / ebuyer.com etc. But you're not gonna get thin portable laptops by building your own.

It's perplexing how we've let it come to a state where you can't buy a laptop device without Microsoft taking a cut for the license.

And I'm still not over the way we let them have their OS logo on _all_ keyboards, either.

<comment><USER8> What do you think of System76?

<comment><USER9> Haven't heard of it before, but they look decent. I think the price difference with brand laptops becomes less impressive if you go for the higher specs and _also_ want it shipped internationally (20% UK VAT).

The base weight for their portable 14.1" one is 1.6kg, but switching from i3 to i7, adding more RAM and choosing a bigger SSD would probably bring it closer to 2kg (compared to ~1.2kg on the x1).

I think the x1 does things like soldering the RAM to the motherboard, which makes upgrading hard, but also makes it really thin (1.5cm compared to 2.2cm for the System76 one).

Since the number of possible configurations on a build your own is quite high, I imagine it's more likely that you'll run into issues on getting everything to work on Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm reticent to get a ThinkPad because of Lenovo and it's history of malware/bloatware.

<comment><USER11> Do anyone related to tech really use out-of-the box software?

I'm always installing a Linux distro of my choice or a clean fresh windows image if i need it

<comment><USER12> > _out-of-the box_

the box has a false bottom

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

<comment><USER13> If you don't live in China then buy a Huawei.

You can assume it's compromised, but China won't share what they get with your government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Putting out a new professional-grade (and thinking developer-style laptop) in 2018 without at least a 24GB or 32GB RAM option is a non-starter in my mind. Apple is also notorious for this having had 16GB RAM be the maximum for literally years now.

For a lot of engineering work, where you may need to deal with virtualization and heavy duty tooling like IDEs (XCode, Visual Studio, etc), simulators (like the iOS Simulators or Android emulator), dozens of browser tabs, multiple browsers for testing and viewing, etc etc., 16GB of RAM just doesn't cut it anymore.

<comment><USER15> then you should look at a different, workstation line of a laptop. (W series, dell 7XXX series etc).

<comment><USER16> Or just the T-series: T480 (32GB) or T480s (24GB).

I'm writing this with a T25 that has the maximum of 32GB of RAM. An excellent developer's laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> An alternative: Dell 7520 line. Runs Linux nicely out of the box.

* No camera or mic is an option (I took it)

* No HiDPI display is an option (I took it)

* 32 GB ram

* 1TB very fast class of ssd

* Legit quad core Xeon

* Discrete GPU (decent)

* Real keyboard

* Charger is approximately size of an actual red brick (blah)

* Laptop is bulky

* I love it, best Linux and Laptop I have ever owned. Let's just leave it tied with my 2015 MacBook.

<comment><USER7> I run last year's X1 Carbon and it worked flawlessly with Debian out of the box. Battery life is excellent (3.5W isle with medium brightness) and the only thing that doesn't work with Linux is the fingerprint scanner. It's a great device that I would definitely recommend. ThinkPads generally do really well with Linux. And the keyboards are even better than Dell's ;)

<comment><USER8> When you `lsusb' what device id and description does it give for the fingerprint reader?

<comment><USER7> I don't have the device at hand but I'm pretty sure it's a Validity Sensor 138a:0097. There's an effort to reverse engineer the Windows drivers for this class of fingerprint sensors at [https://github.com/nmikhailov/Validity90](https://github.com/nmikhailov/Validity90) but honestly I don't care much about fingerprint readers on a laptop.

<comment><USER7> For the record, I checked and 138a:0097 is in fact the correct vendor/product ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thinkpads are great, I just wish they'd update the design to make it look less 2006ish. Also a bigger trackpad with responsiveness that can compete with the macs. It's been so many years, I don't know why other manufacturers trackpads haven't caught up with Apple's trackpads. Even the XPS one is Meh. I think the surface book comes closest.

<comment><USER19> I wish they made the trackpad smaller. They used to have (T420 and older) a smaller trackpad and a wonderful 7 row keyboard but they've since switched to a 6 row keyboard to have a bigger trackpad.

That means I'm stuck on the T420s for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER20> I've got a T430. Had an X201 before that. It took a month to get used to it but I'll be honest and say that I'm happy with it now. I dismantled it and wedged some paper under the trackpad though to stop it being pressed. That helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had a T440s for a while. It had a very thin LCD cover, I don't think it would have liked being sat on, the screen would be crushed down onto the trackpoint. Didn't feel confident with it, went back to a X230, and still keep a rigid plate in my laptop sleeve on the screen side. Some of the older thinkpads had very robust screen covers (at least they looked that way), the T500 in particular, with some kind of honeycomb 'rollcage' in the screen.

This machine might also have a funny SSD connector, that makes it difficult to upgrade. Maybe not.

Wish they would make a machine with a 3:2 screen.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am typing on an older X1 Carbon, and it truly is a pleasure to work with. The thinness of the chassis helps with ergonomics as you do not have to bend your wrist to place your hands on the keyboard. With the quality keys that ThinkPad is known for, I enjoy typing on this machine as much as I enjoy typing on Cherry/Outemu mechanical keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER23> Any experience on how well these things run Linux?

<comment><USER24> I bought a Carbon X1 in 2015 and it was so awful on Linux that I was grateful to unload the thing for $500 after a couple years (cost $1500). Issues:

* Palm detection. Good luck with that. Constant clicking when typing basically made the machine unusable. I tried really hard to improve it, got deep into X11 config, tried all sorts of libinput (Wayland) setups, nothing worked. Eventually I had to set it up so that typing disabled the trackpad for a half second or so, even that wasn't foolproof. Permanently disabling the trackpad would've been an option if they didn't turn the pointer nub into an unusable little flat disc.

* Display: Awful! I exported a color profile in Windows and it still looked like crap. Low contrast and barely gets as bright at 100% brightness as a MBP at 50%. Colors looked like crap no matter what I did.

* External monitors: Nope. Tried with Unity, KDE, GNOME, Xfce, new distros, old distros, all had issues waking from sleep with an external monitor. So if you suspend with the lid shut, you had to force power off (hold power button), lose work... Oh yea, and I had to manually disable the laptop screen whenever I shut the lid while on an external monitor or else something coming from the display would be seen as trackpad input (haywire cursor).

It was an embarrassingly bad experience and I felt totally ripped off. For comparison, a T43 years ago performed beautifully with pretty much every distro once you got the Atheros wifi working.

So yea, I'm still on a Mac now like everybody else.

<comment><USER16> * Palm detection: disable the trackpad, use the trackpoint like a boss.

* Display: did you have the WQHD IPS option? Did you calibrate it on Linux using DisplayCal and a calibrator, such as Datacolor Spyder? Mine (T25) is really nice even though it got some negative reviews. Doing a calibration really fixed lots of issues.

* External monitors: I'm using i3-gaps and xrandr setup, but can't really help because most of the time I don't need an external monitor with my laptop.

Linux is such a no-brainer for me as a development OS that there is no going back to OSX or Windows. A tiling window manager, minimal installation of software and the magic combo of Emacs + st + Firefox is a deal braker for me.

<comment><USER25> > Emacs + st + Firefox

What's "st"?

<comment><USER26> My money's on Simple Terminal: [https://st.suckless.org](https://st.suckless.org)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I switched to a Razer Blade Stealth, its around 400€ cheaper with the same specs except a QHD+ display (glossy, touch, 3200x1800). I'm wondering why Thinkpad only offers their WQHD (highest available resolution, 2560x1440) glossy? Also still no 4K/QHD+ display, still no 32GB RAM support. I don't really see much of a advantage anymore, they only reason for me to stay with thinkpad would've been the keyboard that is just fantastic in comparison with _any_ other manufacturer.

/edit clarified resolution/ fixed grammar

<comment><USER7> X1 Carbon uses LPDDR3 (as does the MacBook Pro), but the CPUs don't support more than 16GB of it, so this is kinda Intel's fault. LPDDR3 uses very little power in standby so both idle power usage and suspend time are improved.

For non-LP RAM (DDR3/DDR4), the power consumption impact of going from 16 to 32 GB is definitely not negligible. It's an upgrade that makes sense only for few people. Have you looked at the T480/T480s if you need the 32GB? If you have CPU intensive workloads, they may be a better fit anyway.

<comment><USER28> My Toshiba Portege X-30D has 32GB and I get 6-8hours of actual work out of it easily. Loving it although I regret not having waited for 8th Gen CPUs that are available now.

<comment><USER7> I get much higher battery life out of my X1 Carbon 2017 (with the 1080p screen) and its 57Wh battery, to the point where I configured it not to charge above 90% to improve battery longevity (tlp can set charging limits on Linux). But without knowing your workload that's a meaningless comparison, of course.

Idle power consumption at medium brightness is around 3.5W for me (connected to WiFi with Chrome open but idle), maybe 5W when actively browsing. It's amazing.

<comment><USER28> I prefer being able to do more, have more VMs running than being able to be off the grid for longer than 6 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Might be against terms but it pisses me the fuck off that Superfish[0] incident has been forgotten, by people that should know better. No, Ars Technica, it's not professionals' paradise as long as it's being produced by the same gangsters.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident)

</comment><comment><USER30>
      > Lenovo's lightweight ThinkPad ticks all the boxes of a great work notebook.

Except one, keyboard.

The ThinkPad 25 Anniversary Edition is the only real proffessional laptop available because it also has proffessionnal keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm wondering what the max sustained TDP of the CPU on this is like. On a MacBook Pro (13,2), the Intel processor package can pull 42-45W of power for an indefinitely long time without throttling down below that power level, even on batteries iirc. I'd hope that PC laptops get this at some point; this is one of the main reasons I still buy Mac

</comment><comment><USER32> I have been using it for years. No complain except the screen. As a dev. I would prefer it to be 16/10\. I cannot understand the use case for a 16/9 in the pro world. Little detail: when I wear a formal shirt, the sleeve tends to get "stucked" (due to the border having a high angle ">" ).

</comment><comment><USER33> No 16:10 (or preferably even taller, like 4:3) screen, no buy.

I really wish there was an alternative for the 16:10 mac I am using now, but there isn't anymore (apart from old ThinkPads, which I have many of[1]).

I tried some Microsoft Surface stuff but they felt very flimsy.

[1] [https://lobste.rs/s/txuvvs/lenovo_new_linux_desktop_experien...](https://lobste.rs/s/txuvvs/lenovo_new_linux_desktop_experience#c_ujt6hj)

<comment><USER34> > I tried some Microsoft Surface stuff but they felt very flimsy.

Even the Book? Flimsy is not a criticism I've ever heard about it.

<comment><USER33> Yes, in my opinion it's flimsy and feels cheap, not as bad as some cheap Asus laptops, but worse even than a Dell Latitude, and the Dell is way worse than a Macbook or a ThinkPad.

This is too bad, because the screen is excellent.

My understanding though is that it runs Linux poorly, which makes all this moot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can someone explain to me why a ThinkPad is preferable to an XPS 15 besides nostalgia?

<comment><USER36> The keyboard is not even a different league - it's a whole different ball game.

<comment><USER35> This is the type of stuff I want to hear (I'm replacing my 4 year old laptop in the next two months)... what's so good about thinkpad keyboards?

<comment><USER37> You can type, you feel that you're typing, and you kind of start to understand why typing might even be considered fun.

It's a bit hard to explain, the travel on the keys is just really good, comfortable size and shape, etc. See if you can borrow one for a day and type on it, it took me an hour or so to get used to but now any other laptop keyboard feels wrong.

<comment><USER35> I've had great desktop keyboards, but never a good laptop keyboard. I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How's it still ddr3?

<comment><USER34> Because there still isn't any LPDDR4 support in the Intel line, these laptops are intended to move around a lot and thus need good standby life, and you can't have 32GB of LPDDR3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there a convertible "Yoga"-kind version available?

<comment><USER40> I have the 2017 X1 Carbon Yoga. As a laptop itself it's great, excellent keyboard and ergonomics, fast enough, good battery. What I didn't expect was to make so much use of its touch screen or "tent" form. It is very useful when collaborating on something with another person next to you, as it brings the screen closer.

The only negative is the endless finger blotches all over the laptop's body. I feel I'm constantly cleaning it.

<comment><USER39> I am considering buying it. Thank you for sharing the experience! By the way, have you tried using a stylus to minimize the amount of finger fat you leave on the screen? Or are the blotches on the cover actually so visible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am a late time convert to stinkpads, But they changed my perspective on what a work machine should be - trackpoint, or you don't get my money.

Now on a second X1... the only thing I miss is Ryzen option in the current lineup

</comment><comment><USER42> Now change the aspect ratio to 3:2

<comment><USER32> Maybe check the Matebook X pro (Which is a MacBook pro copycat by Huawei): [https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x- pro/](https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x-pro/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It costs $1500 - $2600, but it still has a basic integrated graphics card?

The specs do not make this seem worth it...

<comment><USER44> 1) A dedicated GPU in a laptop, specially a thin one like the X1 Carbon, is a bit of a nightmare. It consums a lot energy, it needs a lot of heat dissipation, and it can even reduce the life span and robustness of the laptop.

2) The X1 carbon is not targeted at video games/video editing. It's targeted at usages like programming or word/excel editing. For these use cases, integrated GPUs are more than good enough.

3) Dedicated GPUs tends also to be a little bit of a nightmare, specially around managing drivers. This is particularly true under Linux. On one hand you have Intel GPUs with open sourced drivers directly in the main line kernel. On the other you have the Nvidia drivers, which are proprietary, requires DKMS and can stop supporting older models, and the ATI version is about the same.

4) if you really need a dedicated GPU, the W serie is for you (and maybe some T serie laptop as well).

<comment><USER45> Given that the X1C'18 has a proper 4 PCIE Lane Thunderbolt, just buy an e-GPU if you need decent gaming - e.g. go to a LAN party, that kind of thing.

Considering it has a proper quad core CPU in such a thin frame, it's the best of both worlds really. The external GPUs really sort out the thermal issues when gaming on a laptop.

I have the OG X1 Carbon, still going well - glad I got the i7/8/256ssd model which was top of the line when it first was released (i7 was actually only avail with 4gb so bought i5, but then I had to return it due to a chassis issue; by the time that was sorted, the i7/8 was available!).

I run Win10 on it now which is perfect; had to disable the trackpad when I used Linux a few years ago. Love the Trackpoint, can't see myself upgrading to something that doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Honestly I would still buy the Macbook 15" over this. Regardless of only USB-C and silly touchbar. Better screen, better OS, better service ...

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm so sorry to see that they're still pushing the clamshell design. By that I mean that the lower portion of the laptop is thinner at the front. Extremely unflattering and no less than an attack on their design legacy. Looks like every other laptop out there. Visible here: [https://i.imgur.com/1ddfJ1Y.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/1ddfJ1Y.jpg)

(Writing this on X220.)

</comment><comment><USER48> I wish they would drop the Trackpoint and the physical mouse buttons and make the touchpad bigger. I carry a usb trackball for that.

My beater laptop that I carry everywhere is a Thinkpad 11e. I deal with the terrible screen so I can have the wonderful keyboard and trackpad. A faster cpu and a 1920x1200 IPS screen would make the little 11e my perfect laptop...

<comment><USER49> Ha - I'd prefer the opposite! - get rid of the trackpad :)

<comment><USER7> Some old models (X201 or X201s iirc, so around 2011) could be configured without a trackpad. A 12-inch notebook with a 7-row keyboard and trackpoint is fantastic!

<comment><USER50> It wasn't even an option on the older ones like my 2005 X41. But indeed the keyboard/trackpoint combination on the X201 was perfect.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Man Who Put the Super Into Modelling - <AUTHOR> http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/news-features/TMG10206090/The-man-who-put-the-super-into-modelling.html

<comment><AUTHOR> surprised that such article appeared on a column normally dedicated to beauty tips etc. think it'll make an interesting read for those interested in the vanity business :)</comment>


Show HN: Coronavirus in US Near Me - <AUTHOR> https://www.coronavirusinusnearme.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We put together a website to help you closely watch the Coronavirus cases near you in the United States and be informed.

Though there's a lot of extremely well put together dashboards that have an array of data points and a ton of illustrations, many people especially the aged who are unfortunately the most vulnerable were looking for something a little less overwhelming, clean and simple that just puts out the numbers in perspective.

Get the details of COVID-19 cases in the 3 nearest infected counties near you alongside the numbers of the country and the world.

We're just a couple of programmers trying to do our bit to help keeping people informed on the latest coronavirus updates near their location. ___Just added a new feature to put in a zip code in the search box on popular demand for users to check stats where their loved ones are at!_ __

Please share this with your friends and family if you think this could help someone be informed and vigilant.

PS: If you felt this was of some use to you or if in general you want to contribute to the WHO's efforts in fighting this pandemic please consider donating to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO by clicking on the Donate to WHO button at the very bottom of our website.

Stay Safe!

-Brogrammers</comment>


New to Hacker News - <AUTHOR> Hi buddies i am new here.please tell me what is all about it thanks <comment><USER2> Welcome to HN... Please read the Guidelines and the FAQ (see links at the bottom of the page).</comment>


Facebook Threatens Lawsuit Against Mark Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNF-y0YWwkZirtALJahymGERWUQHHA&url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/facebook-threatens-lawsuit-zuckerberg_n_1154159.html

<comment><USER2> That title is misleading but a misleading title is on-topic in a strange, roundabout way.

TL;DR: Some guy who is trolling facebook changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg.</comment>


What happens at 4am? - <AUTHOR> http://betashop.com/post/6633148318/what-happens-at-4am

<comment><USER2> Maybe purchasers from Asia and Europe weigh more in the average at that time (due to U.S. being asleep), and they spend less money?

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the stdev for that time period? Are you sure it's not just a few outliers pulling down the average?

<comment><AUTHOR> We checked the raw data and it all clusters around $75 during that time period for some reason. Items on Fab.com range from $10 to $5000, with thousands of purchases captured in that data.</comment></comment>


Why Europe should focus on its growing interdependence with Africa - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/09/22/why-europe-should-focus-on-its-growing-interdependence-with-africa <comment><USER2> Oh well Europe is already beyond its "Mediterranean border".

[https://afrolegends.com/2017/05/01/the-11-components-of- the-...](https://afrolegends.com/2017/05/01/the-11-components-of-the-french- colonial-tax-in-africa/)

And bear in mind this is only what is known to common people, in reality things could be even more complicated.

France, just to mention one, is one of those countries that say Europe should be more open hearted and things like these. But when southern countries have to get everybody trying to arrive to their shores (not even arriving), and some of those countries struggle to provide work to their own nationals, how is it that France patrols its borders to avoid African migrants to get into their otherwise welcoming country?

I see a lot of preaching and nice words, because nowadays they matter the most over facts. Hire a video crew while you are acting on a staged rescue of a tree-bound kitten, and man you become a star.

<comment><USER2> All this to say that there is already some degree of European exploitation of Africa that countries should work on removing, before even talking about interdependency.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Encrypted UDP? - <AUTHOR>

Is there any way to use UDP for private, authenticated messages? Suppose your use case is like statsd, where you can tolerate the occasional lost message, and you don't want to block on network activity--you just want to fire off the message and keep going--but you <i>do</i> want your messages encrypted, and you want to make sure the receiver can trust the message is from you. Someone else should not be able to replay your message and have the receiver accept it. An attacker should not be able to break the encryption after sniffing n messages. Is there any existing protocol that provides such a blend of features? I've seen DTLS, which is close, but has poor support on Windows and in scripting languages. Is there anything else out there? Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> DTLS is probably one of your best options. Protecting UDP is hard. It more or less requires you to implement "all" the features DTLS has (like sequence numbers). Depending on the application, one could argue that your protocol maybe shouldn't implements encryption (wouldn't be the first protocol not to do so). And it should be left to the user to protect the traffic in their network. In some sense it's better not to try (and be open about it) than to fail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your opinion! I sort of agree. I'm trying to understand the DTLS RFC, and it sounds like DTLS (and maybe anything else that avoids replay attacks) requires you to set up a "conversation" initially, which sort of reduces the appeal of UDP. So lifting that work out of the protocol into an outside context, which the user could set up or not, might be best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Variations on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Real- time_Transport_Pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Real- time_Transport_Protocol) \- mainly used as ZRTP, or DTLS+SRTP, or SRTP with manual key setup. Related: port knocking utils use encrypted/authenticated UDP datagrams; there are secure chat / instant messenger libraries using UDP; VoIP uses secure UDP. a minimalist approach is [http://www.the-control- freak.com/ClntSrvr/AES/AES.htm](http://www.the-control- freak.com/ClntSrvr/AES/AES.htm)

<comment><USER3> "poor support on Windows and in scripting languages" Try the libsodium / NaCl / pynacl family of crypto libraries, which handle UDP, work on Windows, OS X and *nix, and plug into any scripted language that can talk to a C api.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> DTLS - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datagram_Transport_Layer_Secur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datagram_Transport_Layer_Security)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just use IPsec, and then use UDP normally.

<comment><USER2> "IPsec" doesn't always protect you against replay attacks for encapsulated UDP packets (unlike TCP which protects itself).

<comment><USER5> I thought that was the point of the Authentication Header Sequence Number and the sliding window? If you can tolerate occasional lost packets you can require they only increase and achieve complete protection, no?

<comment><USER2> Yes, you're absolutely right about the existence of Seq. Numbers in IPsec. However, it might not always be enabled, that is if you're using manual keying (and not IKE).

[http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/ipsec/current/msg05871....](http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/ipsec/current/msg05871.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Worst Parts of Meatspace - <AUTHOR> http://coolexpletive.blogspot.com/2010/10/worst-parts-of-meatspace.html

<comment><USER2> I liked it, it points out the problems with some technology and how some developers clearly do not get it. What is needed are ways to make essential things easier, not a costly method of more easily doing something that increasingly is becoming unnecessary</comment>


5 Ways to Collaborate on Documents Online in Real Time (Includes Etherpad) - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/02/21/online-document-collaboration/ <comment><USER2> Doesn't seem to include MobWrite - I've checked the "GoogleDocs" section and it doesn't seem to be there.</comment>


Ask HN: Why Programmer Is One of the Jobs That Are Disappearing? - <AUTHOR> Some days ago Inc magazine published an article showing jobs that will disappear from today to 10 years.  Apparently it's based in projections made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Any idea why this will happen? <comment><USER2> [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/computer-programmers.htm#tab-6)

They seem to think US programming jobs will be outsourced to other countries.

</comment><comment><USER3> maybe the projection that programming jobs will disappear in 10 years is due to a programming 'error' ... it would be a genius move to discourage people from becoming programmers in order to decrease supply and drive programmer salaries up</comment>


Which login systems do you prefer? - <AUTHOR>

There's the "popular" choices, for sure, but which login accounts you prefer to use, and prefer to have supported when you're a user of a service?:
Choices are (choose as many as are relevant for you):
a. Facebook
b. Google
c. Twitter
d. GitHub
e. StackOverflow/StackExchange
f. custom username/password for the site in question
g. [fill in your own] <comment><USER2> f</comment>


Diffbot's Natural Language API - <AUTHOR> https://www.diffbot.com/products/natural-language/ <comment><USER2> Flaged for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER3> What are the obvious reasons?</comment></comment>


I Transcribed Glenn Greenwald's 30C3 Keynote - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/poppingtonic/greenwald-30c3-keynote/ <comment><USER2> Greenwald's speech was great, but so far the most interesting one to me has been Jacob Appelbaum's speech where he gives a lot more technical details (including new information) about how the NSA is hacking systems and how far they are willing to go, like wanting to create a "Great Firewall of Earth" or even radiating people with up to 1KW in order to get what's in their computer, which just proves how out of control and power hungry the NSA is and how indefensible their actions are, despite what some of the NSA HN users around here or their supporters might say.

Highly recommend it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA)

<comment><USER3> Why isn't there a video of this talk on media.ccc.de?

How was part 1 by Claudio Gaurnieri (@botherder) and Morgan Marquis-Boire (@headhntr)?

<comment><USER4> There will be, but the conference only concluded today, so it may take some time to be post-processed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading this (and others) makes me conclude that we the people (or any country, but especially here in the US) are truly and royally fucked. For every brave person who stands up there are a hundred thousand who refuse to the see the sun rises in the east and continues to believe what they are being told, that it rises in the west.

<comment><USER6> Technology will be the solution, not politics. Cryptography is the only way out of this hell.

<comment><USER7> Exactly the opposite. The NSA already had firmware exploits for BIOSes, harddrives, mobile phones in 2008. They have won on the technological front - if they want to track your communications, they'll find a way.

Only laws could rein them in. There's simple no computing platform that can be trusted to do your encryption on.

<comment><USER8> what about the loongson laptops? they run on their own proprietary silicon, designed and built in china. yep, this is where we're at in 2014...the technology designed in a communist country is more trustworthy than the stuff designed here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How the hell is James Clapper still in office?? Isn't what he did so obviously perjury?

The America of 2013 is absolute bullshit. I can't even fathom how corrupt this country is.

<comment><USER10> >How the hell is James Clapper still in office?? Isn't what he did so obviously perjury?

Yes, what he did clearly meets the statutory definition of perjury. He's still employed by the government because our officials, elected and appointed, are almost completely unaccountable to the public due to the political process being broken down by a corporate-controlled media and corporatocratic (see: Mussolini) system of government. The law is no longer equally applied - wealthy, important, and powerful people are "too big to fail", while even the most urgent concerns of average proles is generally beneath notice of those in charge. The only exception to this is when the proles' concerns become so widespread that a movement forms and majority demand for democratic change might result. In these cases a number of pacification strategies are adopted, like co-opting the proletariat movement with well-spoken placebo change agents who offer strong messages of hope, and have absolutely no intention of following through with them, or discrediting the movement by airing the dirty laundry of those movement leaders who cannot be corrupted or co-opted.

<comment><USER11> If Clapper were removed from office, his successor would have to take the damage on. Clapper will be scapegoated for as long as this fracas lasts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A good summary of events so far, in a general sense. More important stuff to check out from/on Greenwald, one of the most important journalists in US history, at least by the nature of what he's helped publish (but of course more than that):

Conversations with History: Glenn Greenwald - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-qlF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-qlFjrgGqVA) ~2011

Glenn's "Frequently Told Lies" page - [http://web.archive.org/web/20131007002618/http://ggsidedocs....](http://web.archive.org/web/20131007002618/http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com/2013/01/frequently- told-lies-ftls.html) (it's currently down, both on archive.org and the original page)

The American columnist who can't live in America - [http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/10/the-american- column...](http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/10/the-american-columnist- who-cant-live-in-america/) (this is before the striking down of the gay marriage law in question, I think)

How Glenn Greenwald Became Glenn Greenwald - [http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/how-glenn-greenwald-became- glen...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/how-glenn-greenwald-became-glenn- greenwald)

Believing oppression only happens elsewhere - [https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/believin...](https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/believing- oppression-only-happens-elsewhere/) (the original blog is down)

Endless War, Radical Presidential Power, and a Rotted Political Culture: A Talk by Glenn Greenwald - [http://translationexercises.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/endless...](http://translationexercises.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/endless- war-radical-presidential-power-and-a-rotted-political-culture-a-talk-by-glenn- greenwald/) [28 Mar 2013]

</comment><comment><USER13> nice work, maybe you would like to contribute it to the subtitle team effort?

[http://subtitles.media.ccc.de/](http://subtitles.media.ccc.de/)

specifically here: [http://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/5622](http://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/5622)

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems someone already did it, thank you.

<comment><USER14> I think you are mistaken. The official crowd sourced transcripts for the CCC were more or less complete prior to your efforts. Refer to the timeline for this event's transcript here: [https://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/ep/pad/view/5622/latest](https://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/ep/pad/view/5622/latest)

It would be nice if you could contribute back, by making any corrections, as these are the transcripts that are linked to from the CCC's website and probably most people will find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thank you, tipped (he has a Bitcoin address in the README).

It's a sad era indeed when we have a whole network of American journalists living outside of U.S. borders for fear of imprisonment and other reprisals from their own government.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I just synchronized with the blockchain. Thank you for your donation! You just gave me my first Bitcoins ever! You truly represent what's good in the world. Thank you again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's the official recording: [http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5622_-_en_-_...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5622_-_en_- _saal_1_-_201312271930_-_30c3_keynote_-_glenn_greenwald_-_frank.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> The video for the reference:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJIR0-KJu0#t=275](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJIR0-KJu0#t=275)

</comment><comment><USER18> 'Applause' at the end is an understatement. He got a long standing ovation for his contributions to expose the NSA's war on people.

</comment><comment><USER19> Playing an unfortunate devil's advocate, all this ludicrous surveillance state gadgetry seems to be less of an attempt to be the United Stasi of America and more of a ridiculous over the top reaction in fear of being accused of going soft on terror.

I don't like it, and I don't agree with it, but I acknowledge that if a 2nd 9/11 level event were to occur after the government relented and imposed reasonable limitations on data collection that the party out of power at the time could easily scream bloody murder and take all 3 branches of government in a single election cycle. I'd previously only expected this from the party of Kang, but Obama's stance on drones and NSA surveillance has revealed the party of Kodos is no better.

Which is to say I think the surveillance state is a symptom more than the disease. America has lost all sense of perspective.

~30,000 automotive deaths (of which ~10,000 resulted from drunk driving) annually.

~11,000 gun deaths.

~6,000 deaths from falling off ladders.

~3,000 people died on 9/11.

Ergo we should ban ladders, guns, alcohol, and cars: it's the only way to be sure, no?

<comment><USER20> > _more of a ridiculous over the top reaction in fear of being accused of > going soft on terror._

As you wrote yourself, terrorism is a minor issue in the US. Most of the fear is fueled (and some of it created) by the government, because it's so convenient for manipulating the population. Therefore the government itself cannot be driven by the fear of being accused of going soft in this matter, because if that was the case, it'd simply stop perpetuing this fear of terrorism.

I'm sorry, but there is no cheap way out for this goverment. It's fundamentally evil and corrupt, it uses terrorism to keep a certain elite in power and to channel taxpayers' money to the pockets of the military- industrial complex. That's the only logical explanation I've seen so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wanted to thank the poster for their work in transcribing this! I personally really appreciate it.

I REALLY dig doing this via github as well. I submitted a pull request with some spelling changes.

</comment><comment><USER22> Did you do this by hand or use a tool and then touch it up afterwards?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I did it by hand. Emacs+Amarok. While I worked on this, I Googled for transcription software, but couldn't find any packages or readily available POSIX pipelines that I could use from Ubuntu, let alone web services that don't require a credit card. Maybe I didn't look very carefully. Took two days to complete, though. This is something that should be easily doable now, so here's my personal RFS: fix transcription software. A user should be able to either upload an audio file directly, use a Dropbox folder, or provide a link to an s/OGG/MP3/whatever, and get a text file in return. They can then listen to the audio while they make whatever edits that they need.

<comment><USER23> Aaaah! Why should a remote application be involved? It sounds completely unneeded to limit this to a web browser running software controlled by others.

Just let the user select a media file and provide keyboard controlled playback controls plus a text editor. I think some software like this is available for subtitle editing.

<comment><AUTHOR> You must be really sensitive to horrible design choices. Sorry about that one.

<comment><USER23> in a discussion about the surveillance state it just seems wrong to suggest web apps. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for calling me out on that. With that comment, I basically lowered the quality of a discussion that I started (being the poster), and for that I apologize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm very skeptical of Glenn Greenwald. I'm surprised by how many will readily accept whatever he says. That's kinda scary. There's a question of credibility when you don't fact check[1]. Makes you wonder what else is Greenwald exaggerating or not fact checking.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2013/06/1...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2013/06/11/did-snowden-really-earn-a-200000-salary/)

<comment><USER25> Broadly stated: independent sources cross-confirming each other is the best way to ensure reliability (an old scientific, police, historian, and journalist principle). Simply because we agree with a single source's statements and viewpoints doesn't guarantee the single source is right.

However, a variety of people over the years (Drake & others) have also remarked on the over-the-top surveillance. It's also true that the NSA has admitted certain of Greenwald's accusations. So at least in principle, Greenwald has been confirmed.

<comment><USER24> But the NSA has not admitted certain of Greenwald's accusations[1]. Greenwald's journalistic integrity has also been questioned before[2]. So, as I stated, makes you wonder what else he can be exaggerating or (intentionally?) not fact checking. I honestly can not see how someone could not be skeptical Greenwald.

[1] [http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart- un...](http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-under- scrutiny-key-facts-turning-out-to-be-inaccurate/)

[2] [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/08/1192256/-The- Final-...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/08/1192256/-The-Final-Word- on-Glenn-Greenwald#)

<comment><USER25> Well, the big problem is that the default state of a secret spy agency is to deny everything and to classify everything. So their denial means very little. I would expect them to deny what they could. GG may, in fact be right in part but wrong on some details; he may be right in principle but wrong in fact; or he may be wrong, period. The preponderance of evidence of NSA behavior (going back to the 90s), the previous whistleblowers, and the admissions to date indicates that in principle, GG is correct. He may be wrong in detail or in facts, but his story is generally consistent, if more than expected.

Of course, it would be nice if Congress forcibly opened the archives and let the truth out into open air - then we could see clearly and make educated decisions! Until then, we have to rely on the somewhat foggy environment of leaks, whistleblowing, and journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Thank you

</comment><comment><USER27> Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER28> watching the video, at some points there seems to be audio lag...

I even wonder if the NSA actually tried to DDOS the skype call conference.

<comment><USER29> They did not. For unknown reasons, the switch in the Conference hall got manipulated (unplugged). It carried both the Skype call and the stream to the outside world.</comment></comment>