Mark Zuckerberg donating $500 million to Silicon Valley charity - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-donating-500-million-in-stock-to-silicon-valley-charity/2012/12/18/13910758-496f-11e2-8af9-9b50cb4605a7_story.html

<comment><USER2> See: [http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own- disp?CIK=0001548760&actio...](http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/own- disp?CIK=0001548760&action=getowner)

Apparently that's 18 million out of ~500 million. But the denominator is irrelevant. Nicely done sir.</comment>


Scott Adams: Connect citizens all over the world with a pen pal website to prevent new wars - <AUTHOR> http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/02/i-will-get-that.html <comment><USER2> The underlying assumption -- that social connections will act as a barrier to war -- seems pretty flawed. Extensive connections didn't prevent any of the European wars between, say, 1700 and 1945. A country is more likely to have an internal war than one with any given outside nation.

Maybe, as an American, Scott associates wars with far-off, little-known lands. True in recent times for the US maybe, but certainly not for most conflicts.

<comment><USER3> You make a good point, the main reason the EU started was to prevent wars and it has worked. Since the formation of the EU, there has been no wars between its member nations, and that's saying a lot when sneezing in a foreign country was about all the justification needed.

Merely connecting people won't act as a barrier to war, but I think forming a universal governing structure would; however unlikely it is to actually happen. There's a saying that states democracy is just a farce to control the masses by giving the illusion of control, well I would say the EU does the exact same thing.

I can't speak for EU politics of late, I've rarely been in the UK the past year, however last I was keeping track the UK had a major problem with French farming subsidies (basically French farmers were being paid to be uncompetative) and the French wanted the UK to stop getting discounted for payments to the EU (each country pays like a tax that's supposed to benefit the whole, however the UK was paying less than it was getting in even though we're the richest country in the EU).

So, personally, I would say no level of communication will prevent war unless you're economically and socially tied as in the EU. I mean Kings would marry their daughters to Kings of other countries in an attempt to prevent war, the British bloodline has French descent in it. Even look at Richard the Lionheart, he barely even spoke english! Yet no amount of ties between England and France ever stopped war until the EU. Simple fact.

<comment><USER4> Actually I think the European thing is just an example of a broader phenomenon: democracies never go to war with other democracies.

(I went googling to make sure that was true, and found this: <http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm> which goes through all the potential counterexamples. So I'll amend my statement to say that democracies _hardly ever_ go to war with other democracies.)

So the idea is really a bit redundant -- two countries probably won't go to war if the people have anything to say about it anyway. Only when you have decisions being made by a dictator on at least one side are disagreements likely to turn into wars; democracies tend to compromise.

<comment><USER5> I'm glad you went through and found that; the US has ravaged third-world democracies for a quite a while now.

<comment><USER6> And what about the McDonald's-rule: "Two countries with McDonald's don't go to war with each other."?

Does it hold up?

Edit: The answer is in the linked page. (It's "No, but better than the other rule.")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love Scott, but this shows a fundamental lack of understanding for why wars happen. The American Civil War comes to mind as the first counterexample. There are dozens more.

Nations don't resort to armed conflict because the citizens don't know each other that well. In fact, the counterexamples are very interesting -- I'm thinking of German presence in Great Britain before WWII. People demonize citizens of other nations after war is started, but that's more of a moral crutch than anything else. I think Scott confuses correlation with causality.

<comment><USER8> I think that you have to distinguish between wars in which the outcome is uncertain—that is, wars in which real risk to both sides is present—and wars that are essentially a big guy beating up a little guy.

I agree that the former kind of war would happen with the same frequency if this pen pal idea were implemented—the motivation for such wars need to be large enough to overcome the personal danger that they produce, and so would easily overshadow semipersonal connections with citizens of the opposite side. I think that the latter would very much be deterred, though, because the motivation for such wars can be miniscule, to the point where even the humanization of the "enemy" could be a significant deterrent.

<comment><USER7> I must admit finding it hard to make the distinction you suggest.

Would the American Civil War be a big guy beating up on a little guy? After all, the North was ten times as populous, and many, many times as rich. Nobody on either side thought the war would last very long.

How about the Romans and the Germanic tribes? Nobody in their right mind thought those Barbarians could stand up against the full might of the Roman Empire very long.

Wars are fought until one side decides to stop fighting. This means that "big guy/little guy" wars and "outcome is uncertain" wars don't seem to be that different. In fact the determining factor would seem to be how easy it is for one side to quit. But how would you know how much it would take to make the other side stop fighting until it actually happens? From the history I've seen, when both sides are very intimate with each other's language and culture -- that's when some of the deadliest, nastiest conflicts take place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The elites make the wars and the elites already know each other.

[http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/1424016.jpg?v=1&c=ViewIma...](http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/1424016.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1939057D9939C83F10683233376E4B9D8B75A5397277B4DC33E)

[http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3359879.jpg?v=1&c=ViewIma...](http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3359879.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=0629904139C22E581803B2105665E7FCA55A1E4F32AD3138)

[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/hitler- chamber...](http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/hitler- chamberlain.jpg)

<http://www.btinternet.com/~sbishop100/alicky9.jpg>

<comment><USER10> That's true. But it's becoming _less_ true. Consider how long the anti- vietnam-war movement took to get started. Now consider that Iran is one of the first countries where there is popular _preemptive_ dissent against conflict in the USA. Things may be bad, but one some dimensions, they're getting better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I spend a year in the USA and I can tell this will work, the feeling for that country gets very close as home or your native country.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a new proposal. Let's force all families to write letters to each other occasionally and even phone each other. This should stop domestic violence, no?

<comment><USER13> Well... Meaningful communication between members of families prone to domestic violence, certainly could be helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whether or not such a program would stop wars, it would still be a good thing to do, especially for Americans.

</comment><comment><USER15> Damn, stars are aligning.</comment>


Saving the Internet for the People - <AUTHOR> http://fourstory.org/features/story/saving-the-internet-for-the-people

<comment><USER2> A nice, well written article over-all. However I would like point out an observation I made that nobody seems to pick up on. The ""big six" are all American corporations that trying to monopolize American media industries, which leads to false sense of freedom of speech among Americans. As you know it will be hard to get this documentary produced and released to an American audience that lies in the middle an information monopolization that I have termed the "media bubble". All attempts to break the media bubble from within the media bubble will encounter a devastating attack from the big six corporations. So far no one has purposed a strategy that incorporates gaining support and using resources from outside the bubble. A place such as Europe, will allow the documentary to be very resistant from corporate attacks. While, Europeans might not be as compelled, to donate their money towards a documentary aimed at stopping a corporate takeover in America, Europe still has plenty of characteristics, which the United States lacks, that would be fruitful for making a documentary.

Ps. the chart, which is displayed in the article, cannot be zoomed in on and is rather hard to understand. However it could just be the fact that I am not very intelligent.

<comment><AUTHOR> JTfor2032: I agree with what you are saying. It is impossible to have accountable governance when most people get their "news" from the television. Television news in the US is unfortunately concentrated among six huge media conglomerates.

The Internet as we know it, is unfortunately increasingly looking like it is going the way of cable television. Especially in the wake of the NBC-Comcast merger. If this progression continues, which it looks like it will... we will continue to have more and more people in the U.S. keep up with the Anthony Weiner and Royal Wedding Stories and less and less people know that the Internet was shut off in Syria.

<comment><USER2> Is anything similar happening in Europe?

<comment><USER3> It's really hard to make comparisons with Europe, because their situation is so different, and also within a very different cultural/historical context as well. Firstly, they don't suffer from a hyper-consumerized, anti-intellectual (shit throwing) Ape culture. So they're typically more immune from Corporate Propoganda. Furthermore, they have state TV stations that are liberal and honest. Our PBS was not allowed to do anything actually relevant or watched, so our PBS was ghettoized to do documentaries about the History of the ice- cream cone on the Eastern Seaboard during the late 19th Century.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree it is very hard to compare the United States with Europe, but there are many similarities and a ton of cross over in ownership. American media firms that are competitors in the United States are many times joined at the hip in Europe. There is a ton of collusion going on.

Ben Bagdikian, former Berkeley Journalism Dean and author of "Media Monopoly" has spent 30 years painstakingly chronicling these relationships.

These media conglomerates are constantly merging and getting more powerful by the day. They of course have their sights firmly on taking "control" of the Internet (will there always be some dissension...sure on the fringes of society) But those that think that the Internet will always have to be an open medium are naive, remember everyone said the same thing about radio in the 1920s.

One more thing to think about when we compare Europe to the US. One must look at French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy and his attempts "civilize" the Internet which is really a code for "regulations favorable to big business and the national security state.

Full story here: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/france- attem...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/france-attempts-to- civilize-the-internet-internet-fights-back.ars)

The difference is the French citizens on the whole are more engaged (as braindeomon points out) so they haven't put up with Sarkozy's proposals... unlike the American populace who are largely uninformed on what's going on politically (outside of Congressman Weiner's antics).

<comment><USER3> I admit I painted an overly simplified, pre-1990's picture. Even the BBC has famously had to adopt a more "American" model of advertisers allowing more inroads by mega-corporations, and they've partnered with several American corporations.

Sarkozy is notorious for his overt racist statements and policies, so he will be no friend to democracy. I just feel sorry for his beautiful, talented wife, because he really is a narcissist.

Right wing Berlusconi built his media empire on trash, titilating television and is famous for his teenage lovers.

However, being ultra-/ far-right wing in Europe is famously understood to be well to the left of Liberal Democrats. Our actual "moderate" right wing would be illegal in Europe, since they had to deal with fascism, so won't countenance anything that vicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> @JT: People are getting off topic again but it sounds like your main concern is getting the documentary released to a large audience. It would be much easier to gain support from outside the bubble if the documentary was finished. Giving the cause more credibility. It's a step by step process. The main focus of the kickstarter page is to get the documentary finished. Just finishing the documenary will bring us closer to ensuring a free and open internet. Once the documentary is finished the main focus would then turn to distribution to as many people as possible.</comment>


Show HN: Easily share curated links in a newsletter - <AUTHOR> https://itemsy.com <comment><USER2> This is great. I've thought about making something like this myself.

One additional feature I thought would be useful is instapaper-like scraping of articles that get served in full in the newsletter. So I could share links to the article, the text would get scraped, and the newsletter would serve the full text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion! We've got it on our product roadmap, so stay tuned! ;)

In the meantime, I would love to hear what you think and how you use the product after testing it, either here or via email :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> How it works:

1\. Create account,

2\. Paste links to your public profile,

3\. Itemsy automatically generates meta cards and distributes all new links to your subscribers in a beautiful newsletter.</comment>


Ask HN: What mechanical keyboard do you use for MacOS? - <AUTHOR> <comment> m-j-fox Kinesis Advantage. Like the rest, it has no special functions so I leave an Apple keyboard shoved under the monitor in case I need to hit mute real quick or something. (Yes, Advantage is infinitely programmable, but I can't be bothered.)

</comment><comment><USER2> The WASD code keyboards work great with macs, they are the standard issue at my office for employees who want mechanical keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kinesis advantage with karabiner elements to remap caps lock to delete, backspace to control, delete to cmd. Makes using emacs a dream.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any keyboard. At first it's strange but I tend to have blanks anyway so I kind of just adapt.</comment>


Muscles may preserve a shortcut to restore lost strength - <AUTHOR> https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/01/25/npr-muscles-may-preserve-a-shortcut-to-restore-lost-strength <comment><AUTHOR> Original paper: [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.0188...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.01887/full)</comment>


Building China: Rise of the Superblock - <AUTHOR> https://radiichina.com/building-china-rise-of-the-superblock/ <comment><USER2> Little in this article meshes with my experience living in large Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Specifically, I have not observed the social problems mentioned "crime, ... social segregation, and destroyed community and neighborhood life". I believe a good description of the average large, Chinese city experience is: lots of cars and people but mixed development with plenty of shops, schools, markets, eating locations, parks, and public transport in easy walking distance. To me, the article comes across as an opinion piece - it was all bigger than the author would have preferred.

<comment><USER3> From my very short experience in China (just under 2 months) the cities feel super safe (excluding terrible driving). But this is just an anecdote, naturally.

My Chinese friends generally also feel safer in China than in the Western EU. What I noticed in Chengdu and Shenzhen, literally everyone walks with their nose glued to a smartphone (very frequently iPhone). Apparently robberies are not a common thing.

OTOH I've heard pick-pocketing is quite common in Beijing and Shanghai.

<comment><USER4> A friend of mine from Allwinner had his apartment burglared (despite living in a walled community,) a coworker had his money stolen out of his bag in a cafe.

Shenzhen was not always that safe. Back 10 years ago, the city had unenviable reputation, but it went from one of most unsafe to one of safest.

That was done at the cost of having a police post every 100 meters (quite literally,) and it is not cheap.

<comment><USER5> Shenzhen was almost nothing 10 years ago and now it has something like the GDP of Hong Kong. It has changed massively in a very short time.

<comment><USER6> Not 10 years ago. Maybe 30 years ago. There were a number of 40-50 floor skyscrapers being completed in the '90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read an article years ago about how urban design in China post-Tiananmen has deliberately incorporated features that prevent mass protests. Narrow, labyrinthine alleys are hard to clear out and control. With sprawling, eight- lane highways, it's relatively easy.

<comment><USER8> If you can find a link to the article about post-1989 urban deisgn in China, that would be great. I doubt any contemporary urban area anywhere in the world are built (or re-built) in the form of "narrow, labyrinthine alleys unless it's about preserving historical structures. The major roads of Beijing within the 2nd Ring Road were built mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly inspired by Soviet urban planning. Perhaps you were talking about Haussmann's renovation of Paris?

And no, many Southern Chinese cities still have complex layouts in their historical districts (e.g. Suzhou, Nanjing, Yangzhou). Just check them out on Google Maps. No one in their right minds will build anything without following a grid pattern at least loosely in the post-WWII era. Having reasonably wide roads to accommodate traffic is just basic urban planning. Many rapidly growing Chinese cities suffer from chronic traffic congestion because even the roads built in the 90s don't have enough capacity to handle so many cars. Maybe the "eight-lane highways" were needed because of that?

<comment><USER9> Funny how natural structures don't tend to grids. A grid indicates a uniformity of need, urban systems are diverse. With diverse structural need.

<comment><USER10> They tend not to be grids because a lot of cities were built before the advent of cars, and renovating would be basically impossible.

Cities that had the opportunity to rebuild (like Chicago after the 1871 fire) make use of grids.

<comment><USER11> Grid structure is not dictated by cars. Roman cities were based on a grid structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article doesn't really provide any arguments against superblock planning. Is she assuming that the failure of America's city planning is readily apparant? Why? And how would these failures not be explained by poor zoning laws in the US?

Why wouldn't I want to be able to live in a safe and efficient semi-arcology if I could afford it?

<comment> barry-cotter > Is she assuming that the failure of America's city planning is readily > apparant? Why?

The only walkable cities in the US were developed before the rise of the automobile, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, etc. Any city with areas that requires you to own a car to participate in civic life is a failure of urban planning. That describes more or less all urban development in the US since WWII.

> And how would these failures not be explained by poor zoning laws in the US?

Poor zoning and land lease dominated urban development are both failures of urban planning, though the mechanisms are different. Walkable, mixed use urban development is the ideal, whether you're talking about dense neighbourhoods of apartment blocks with ground level retail like central Paris or Amsterdam or decent suburban growth with detached or semi-detached single family homes where people can walk to an area with shops, pubs and restaurants, a town centre.

Car centric urban design makes living without a car a miserable experience, is a cancer on the growth of local communities and infantilises the young by making them dependent on their parents to go anywhere to do anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Beijing is a large city with 16,810 km² area. Building superblocks is a reasonable choice in Beijing. Local government and residents also benefit hugely from the land leases revenue. Transportation is not bad in Beijing, considering that public transit and bike-sharing are even more ubiquitous nowadays.

<comment> barry-cotter This does not jibe with my experience in Beijing. I've lived in Shanghai for seven years and visited Beijing for maybe two weeks but I've spent more time in traffic jams in Beijing.

Land leases are a red herring when it comes to superblocks too. There's no reason why local governments couldn't make money with smaller, more walkable blocks like you see in Manhattan or in central Paris. You need internal roads within parcels of superblocks to roughly the same extent you need them between smaller blocks. The government could have leased out the same area to the same developers and have had them build smaller blocks.

My personal bugbear when it comes to Chinese urban planning is the dearth of green space. Pudong was the countryside 30 years ago and now it's built up. If you compare it to Singapore the latter comes off incomparably better. The four or eight lane highways in between blocks in Pudong are just awful, car centric, an avoidable mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the Chinese "superblock" the same thing as a Soviet "microdistrict?

If so, the article is off the mark, the whole idea of the concept is a less car-centric life. You're supposed to commute to work by public transport and walk inside your "superblock" during leisure time.

<comment><USER15> And it failed spectacularly in mid-90s-early-2000s.

Every flat surface is parked over with cars, often for weeks, decomposing on kids playgrounds. All activities happen in the center of the city or in big malls anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "It's hard not to believe that gated superblock developments, which nauseatingly often include daycare centers, cram schools and other amenities for residents' children within the superblock gates."

I feel like I'm missing something here. Why is it even objectionable, let alone "nauseating", for these amenities to be available within the superblocks?

</comment><comment><USER17> Most articles in this website are somewhat anti-china and most are short.

<comment><USER18> I am glad I am not the only one who feel this way. Hacker News is a well-oiled pro-West propaganda machinery lately. Not sure if it is nationalism forcing people to be hostile towards China, Russia, India and anything not from the West.

I introduced a lot of people to HN, but they get turned off by these pro-West propaganda and leave. Such a turn off. I try to avoid news about China, Russia, India and anything from my beloved continent of Africa because I know comments will be mostly negative.

I am not a fan of echo chambers. I am forced to tolerate this echo chamber because of tech-related news. How I wish HN that can focus 100% on tech and related news. That was going to be awesome for people like me who don't like to be force-fed propaganda. Tech news is the only thing keeping me from quitting it altogether, but amount of propaganda being pushed to the front page will really push me to the edge.

<comment><USER19> > Not sure if it is nationalism forcing people to be hostile towards China, > Russia, India and anything not from the West.

I don't see a lot of negativity towards India on HN. Many people here are just anti-authoritarian, which hacker community has been from the beginning.

<comment><USER20> I'm oversensitive to this and my comment is sort of off-topic, but I've seen a fair bit of confusion, especially on China, where people fail to distinguish between the authoritarian government, nationals, and people of ethnic descent. This confusion has led to some awful comments, like "I obfuscate my code before sharing with my Chinese colleagues because they are here to steal." What does that even mean? Chinese by name? By accent? By passport and secret party membership? I'd almost prefer to see tropes, e.g. "Russian hacking" or "Chinese social credit score" than thinly-veiled attacks or blatant over- generalizations on entire populations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In a country with a fairly low GDP/capita, the form of development must have been heavily influenced by economics. The capital cost per dwelling unit and the cost of delivering utilities (electricity, communications, water, sewerage, etc) and transportation must be taken into account.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why does everybody insist on living in a huge single city? Why not just build more smaller cities interconnected with highways and public trains (for those of you who haven't been to Europe - trains can be very fast, capacious and comfortable)?

<comment><USER23> Transportation and other infrastructure is cheaper to build on a per capita basis. It's easier to find work and workers, especially more specialized workers.

With higher density, certain services become profitable. Food delivery, more frequent and lower latency package delivery. 24 hour stores. Wider variety of restaurants. Art museums, live action theatres, sports arenas all tend to be in or near cities.

A larger city also has less political squabbling because, at the end of the day, the mayor is (typically) elected at large. Look at DC and Arlington for nearby cities with arbitrary borders and the political struggles that can create. Not that big cities are immune to this sort of thing, of course, just not resistant.

This is why cities tend to annex neighbors. NYC took on Queens and Brooklyn, which already had towns and a city. Regional planning was possible then.

There are disadvantages though. Price, less green space, less space in general, likely higher pollution than the countryside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have doubt it being anything modern. Chinese city planning of rectangular grids of increasing order is very old. Some of oldest historical cities are built exactly like that

</comment><comment><USER24> Doesn't this happen with all major cities after an increase of wealth, living standard and industrialization? People sit in their living rooms with all of their (unnecesarilly) bought stuff watching Netflix instead of investing time, money and effort in neighbourhood commerce, families and local communities. We become much more individualistic when we see money can get us all our immediate needs.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure within a super block you still have cars inside, is just the roads are not as fast as the block roads leading to others.

<comment><USER26> No, they don't. They have underground garages for cars of course, but inside is just tall apartment buildings and a huge courtyard. For example this is the place I used to live:

UHN International Village

[https://goo.gl/maps/gJq8kLHckHBygWXK7](https://goo.gl/maps/gJq8kLHckHBygWXK7)

It is a huge complex that absolutely has no vehicle traffic. It is very unlike the older places next to it (as you can see on the map, they actually have roads).

<comment><USER27> One of the benefits of car-free superblocks is that outdoor spaces within the block become much safer for pedestrians.

Where in a modern city would you find an area 400 meters across with zero motor vehicle traffic? Maybe in a large park. Car-free superblocks bring that park right to your doorstep. It's even better than a real park in the sense that when you actually need a car, it's only an elevator ride away. It's an absolutely fantastic proposition for parents of young children or people with impaired mobility, especially in a country where drivers aren't known for being gentle.

Superblock development has many other pros and cons, but I think the car-free aspect is a very strong argument in favor of it.

<comment><USER26> Oh ya, I'm not really complaining about that part. Just that the traffic flow is exactly broken up into huge arterials around huge blocks as the article reported (which is accurate). I do prefer more urban apartment living if I don't have kids, meaning smaller apartment complexes that are more integrated into a diverse urban environment around them (Beijing is a bad example for that, but say an older stand alone apartment building in Shanghai Puxi).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Only tangentially related, but I really love Oscar Boyson's short documentary The Future of Cities:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOOWk5yCMMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOOWk5yCMMs)

</comment><comment><USER29> Superblocks suck. So what is the solution? I would appreciate the article much more if in addition to criticism to this model they proposed a better alternative to the problem of housing tens of millions of people quickly.</comment>


In defence of NATs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.apnic.net/2017/09/06/opinion-defence-nats/ <comment><USER2> It's a thoughtful article, and deserves to be read, but I think that his point about end users being okay with only having clients begs the question: they haven't had the opportunity to enjoy the benefits (and costs) of operating full peers.</comment>


Hackers Bled 118 Bitcoins Out of Covid Researchers in U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-19/ucsf-hack-shows-evolving-risks-of-ransomware-in-the-covid-era <comment><USER2> > _It would take the attackers almost two nerve-wracking days to decrypt, > transmit, and show they'd deleted their copies of the files_

Is there any transaction system that could guarantee that a hacker has deleted all copies of whatever data they stole?

<comment><USER3> If you solve this, you've solved piracy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN - When is right time to start using version control for a project? - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on an iPhone app for about a month and I'm waiting until I finish a key set of features before I put it under version control. I'm making so many big changes that I'd rather not keep track of them all yet. Regular Time Machine backups and archiving a copy of the code after implementing a key feature are the only things I'm doing at this stage.<p>I'm curious though, at what point in a project do you guys normally start using source control management (ie. subversion, git, mercurial)? <comment><USER2> Before you write your first line of code.

<comment><USER3> I'm probably not the only person on here who keeps any notes and planning documents for projects under version control. I also regularly import research notes into comments before I write the code in question, but I'm weird and I've been told I do too much design up front.

<comment><USER4> I'm firmly of the opinion that only 10% of writing software is typing code. I have all my text documents in git, experimental ideas, budget plans, everything. The only complaint I have is that I haven't figure a solid plan for doing encryption inside version control effectively yet, but I haven't tried too hard either.

<comment><USER3> Whole volume encryption works, although it can be a bit cumbersome.

<comment><USER4> How is the performance? I have no experience with whole volume encryption, do you have any useful links?

<comment><USER3> There are actually several ways to do this I use encfs which uses FUSE to mount an encrypted directory as another directory, the advantages are that it works in userland and it's braindead simple. I wouldn't want to run a database off of it, but for a bunch of text files it's perfectly adequate. A lot of people are fans of truecrypt and if you are seriously concerned about devoted efforts to get at high-value data you probably want to just encrypt the disk partition you are using.

This post [http://www.debianadmin.com/filesystem-encryption-tools- for-l...](http://www.debianadmin.com/filesystem-encryption-tools-for- linux.html) has a fairly good introduction to the most popular flavours. It's going to vary depending on your needs.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the article, there is lots of great info on there. I need to figure something out where I can make secure backups to some remote server. I guess there is no real perfect solution, but TrueCrypt looks good. I ran across this one talking about some deeper security constraints with this that I think offers a nice insight. [http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/truecrypts_den...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/truecrypts_deni.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every single text file you use should be in version control! Git is great for this, handles large files nicely and it's very easy to setup backup scripts across multiple machines. The line about making so many big changes is total nonsense! Get your text files into version control and do it right now, I think you should really consider what kind of release engineering you are doing for your app. How are you doing code branches so you can do bug fixes on released versions of your software without including experimental new code if you're not in version control??? You should seriously look into branches for your software for this and automating your build process as much as possible, in the end you will be grateful for the meta-work done today.

</comment><comment><USER5> _I'm making so many big changes that I'd rather not keep track of them all yet_

For what other reason is source control used but to maintain track of code changes like this!

 _Regular Time Machine backups and archiving a copy of the code after implementing a key feature are the only things I'm doing at this stage._

Then your using rudimentary source control anyway :) I'd switch to something more structured asap.

Im with the others: at the start. :) With hosting so cheap now (my choice is mercurial and bitbucket) and with private repositories barely a few clicks away there is no reason not to IMO.

</comment><comment><USER6> It sounds like the source control you are using has too much friction, setting up a Git repo and keeping it up to date is quick and easy so there is no reason not to do it right away.

</comment><comment><USER7> Coding without source control is like using an editor without undo.

Use source control from the very start. Git is pleasant to use.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yesterday.

If your version control system has so much overhead that putting code under VC is a chore or something to be put off and planned for, then it has a problem - and you need a new VCS, or at the very least, a new set of tools and workflows.</comment>


An incomplete, but useful, model of ethical behavior - <AUTHOR> https://processmechanics.com/2015/07/31/an-incomplete-but-useful-model-of-ethical-behavior/

<comment><USER2> I think the 3rd paragraph is inacceptable.

"Good" or "Evil" are things that can only be seen by Humans. They are neither naturally "there" nor intrinsical.

Same with "value" and "harm". Your Model only works when people feel similar to you about whats "harm" and whats "good", thats why it won't be able to scale up.

</comment><comment><USER3> do whatever you want to do, so long as in doing so you will not prevent anyone else from doing what they want to do, now or in the future.</comment>


Continued Funding and Transparency - <AUTHOR> https://z.cash/blog/continued-funding-and-transparency.html <comment><USER2> The dollar value of those coins is oddly priced to inspire confidence, but it shouldn't matter since these units are always infinitely divisible. What I do wonder is what the market will value ZCash units as?

Pretty strange and phenomenal that there are futures markets for Zcash when the currency hasn't even launched yet, but these transparency updates should help with indicative pricing, as well as for the investors in Zcash private equity to hedge their bets</comment>


Why I sold to Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/sparkbuys-dan-shapiro-sold-google-puts-turbo-chargers-idea

<comment><USER2> "Why I sold...?" As if nobody would know that people sell something to get money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is it only about the team and the shareholders? What about the general public that you were trying to help out with your product? I think they're actually more important than the other two - it's millions vs. a handful. They lose out more often than not when products are killed in acquisitions like this.

<comment><USER4> There seems to be this complete disconnect for most people as to why a business exists. It exists for the owners and the employees. Helping customers, or creating something a customer wants may be a welcome side-effect but it's not the _reason_ a business exists.

Of course you get the "pageant-effect" when you ask a business why they exist. They always have some altruistic reason as the "official party line" just like "miss somewhere" wants world peace. But businesses are bottom-line driven, indeed they have a fiduciary responsibility to optimize share-holder value.

There are organizations that exist exclusively for the benefit of the customer. they're called "not for profits" or "charities". We even give them a different name to show they're not a business. In their case the side effect is paying employees, but their _reason_ is to help customers.

Every time you use a "free" service on the internet you have to determine if the provider is a charity or a business. If a business they _have_ to have some sort of payment strategy. (Or, if they don't they quickly go out-of- business and the free-users will moan bitterly about that too.)

If you are not paying for the service you are _not_ a customer. You are a _user_. Customers trump users every single time. (Of course users may turn into customers, that's the precept of most startups. Equally this is the point most of them fail at.)

>> What about the general public that you were trying to help out with your product?

The general public were being helped only in as much as they fulfilled the business' needs. Google filled the need better (with cash), and so they became the customer.

<comment><USER5> > Helping customers, or creating something a customer wants may be a welcome > side-effect but it's not the _reason_ a business exists.

For many small businessmen I know, that _is_ the reason a business exists. If they just wanted to make money, they would work somewhere on wall street and reel in bonuses. Why do they work longer hours for less money running their own business? For some, it's freedom and not having a boss. But for others, it's because they have some sort of vision for how they want to change an industry or society; and they want to leave a legacy of having done so, not just make money.

<comment><USER4> >> But for others, it's because they have some sort of vision for how they want to change an industry or society; and they want to leave a legacy of having done so, not just make money.

Absolutely, and if that is the prime motivation then they should start a charity not a business. It's more tax-efficient for starters, and also more likely to attract like-minded people to contribute resources (time and/or money).

Open-Source projects for example are often clearly "not for profit" and incorporate, or align themselves with not-for-profit structures. The FSF, Mozilla foundation and a score of others spring to mind.

For the small businessmen you know, who do not care about the money (beyond their salary), who are out to build a legacy, they _should not_ use a business structure. If they do, well that still doesn't make them a "business".

If they're aiming to start from scratch, and create a giant business, so they have "succeeded" (think Hewlett, Packard, Johnson, Ford et al) then that creation still serves the needs of the owner - those needs are just not cash. It might be good for customers along the way, but the business exists for the owners' glory, not the customers.

Of course the vast majority of small businesses are absolutely, 100%, businesses. A small business may fit a person better than a big business, but it's still a business. If you take away the money aspect from most small businesses, they close their doors.

It's exactly like the OP said - the business exists to fulfill the needs of the owner and the team (if there is a team). Those needs are usually cash, but include other things like flexible hours, and not-having-a-boss and so on. When the needs of the customer clash with the needs of the business, the business always wins.

And of course there are _bad_ business people out there. There are those that will take calls at 1am because the customer demands it (so they say) but they don't place a value on it, or require the customer to pay that value. That's bad business, and of course it's very common. But you can't use that as a data point for arguing that businesses exist for the benefit of customers. Some owners even use their relative lack of success as evidence of their altruism. In which case recommend to them that they start a charity, get a board to oversee their salary, and get out of the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think Sparkbuy was that great an app, although their concept of "technical searching" was interesting. Neither I think online shopping is a path Google may follow in the future. I think this is just how the higher level hiring process at Google works: build startup, get their attention, get bought out, app switched off, welcome to Googleplex.

 _it looks like the startup's founder are joining Google as employees. According to Seattle Times, they will be working on Google's new mortgage, credit card, and bank account comparison site Advisor, which was launched last week._

[http://news.ebrandz.com/google/2011/4061-google-acquires- spa...](http://news.ebrandz.com/google/2011/4061-google-acquires-sparkbuy-a- search-engine-for-consumer-electronics.html)

I always wondered how these acquisition contracts are structured as far as the team goes, ie, if Dan Shapiro leaves before 2 years doesn't get to keep part of the money?

Anyone here with real experience on this kind of deals?

</comment><comment><USER7> "if you look at the big picture world that happens to startups, there are really three things that happen: IPOs, acquisitions and bankruptcy"

This is why you shouldn't spend all your time creating a short-term business with the goal of being bought out by a bigger entity.

I suppose everyone has different goals, but mine is to create a company that will evolve and last for many years. This wouldn't even be possible if I wrote the next service based on Twitter or Facebook.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. These short-term business acquisitions, while exciting to read about, are not common. Most businesses take years to build and if you're not in it for the long run you're going to get bored or bankrupt.

As much as I don't like to drink the 37Signals juice, they have a strong belief and commitment to their business. This is a lot different than being an employee where you should always be moving around every few years (unless you have a piece of the pie). However, if you're the owner, be proud of what you're building and who you're building it for.*

* Could be for investors, but hopefully it's yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> wow! that was a really quick sale right after the launch. Mixergy had an excellent interview with founder Dan Shapiro in April. <http://mixergy.com/dan-shapiro-ontela-interview/>

</comment><comment><USER10> >> What are you going to do inside Google? "I am still figuring that out."

This clearly states that I sold for money and reputation. But the bad thing is selling to Google is not like selling to Google in 2005.

</comment><comment><USER11> _When I am running a startup, I am running it really for just two constituencies: for the shareholders and for the team. And this was awesome for the shareholders and was awesome for the team._

What about the users? What about the users?

</comment><comment><USER12> i bet money was involved, too

</comment><comment><USER13> This isn't really a startup acquision - more like a talent acquisition. Google can easily create a similar service, and since they are the gatekeeper, they could just pump their site in front of everyone else in the rankings (like they do with YouTube).

Of course, I'd sell out too if I knew Google could accidentally punish me after a single algorithm change. No freaking brainer

<comment><USER14> "they could just pump their site in front of everyone else in the rankings (like they do with YouTube)."

Is there any proof of this? The same thing was said about knol/wikipedia, and that wasn't true at all.

<comment><USER13> No need for proof, just intuition.

Think about it: they can create any new website and instantly give it good Pagerank/TrustRank/whatever by internally linking to it from the Google.com domain. They dun even need to manually boost it.

<comment><USER14> I completely agree it's very easy for them to do that.

But no you definitely need proof, especially when there's evidence disproving you. For example: Knol/Wikipedia.

<comment><USER13> They dun even need to do anything except put a link to their new service on their main domain and it already gives them an instant boost. Which they already do for 99% of all their related services.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Could a startup beat Microsoft and Google to market with cloud OS? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=293 <comment><AUTHOR> I cut and pasted the title and it was displayed as "'cloud OS'?".

On a tangent, I thought it interesting that Google has been hiring up Plan 9 engineers.</comment>


How to pass "Null" (a real surname) to a SOAP web service? - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-to-pass-null-a-real-surname-to-a-soap-web-service-in-actionscript-3 <comment><USER2> This is terrifying.

Not because I am filled with empathy for all the Mr. and Mrs. Nulls out there, but because whoever wrote/designed this surely made more such mistakes. The stuff RCE is made of.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just had a participant with a surname of Null sign up through a piece of software I'm responsible for. It was initially shocking, but seeing Null capitalized seemed good. All this time I thought Bobby Tables was just a scary myth!

<comment><USER4> Like, this is why you use bind variables, right?

One of the fundamental aspects of the world being messed up, to me, is the prevalence and acceptance of in-band signaling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was dealing with XML via a REST interface the other day, and was amused by the fact that nulls are represented as an attribute named "null" with a value "true", but if not null, the attribute doesn't exist, which means it becomes an _actual_ Null, which means, of course, False. But not "false".

And by "amused" I mean it made my head hurt when trying to figure out a clear and self-documenting way to write a few lines to decode it.

</comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me of CP/M and MSDOS days when the OS imported a great deal of -invisible magic- to the name space ... three letter device names like CON, NUL, PRN ... and drivers could add their own.

<comment><USER6> These are still maintained in windows 10 for backward compatibility, oddly enough

<comment><USER7> I use "copy con file.txt" almost daily when dealing with heavily locked down systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is from 2010.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is terrifying.</comment>


Poland To Introduce Recyclable Subway Cars in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://crispgreen.com/2010/11/poland-to-introduce-recyclable-subway-cars-in-2012/

<comment><USER2> The simplest way is to just make the thing out of metal. Over 90% of metals (especially so if they're easy to extract) gets recycled. Metal recycling is economical and has been happening before the concept of "recycling" was invented.

Aside from that, did they also make the cars biodegradable? How about natural, locally-produced, hand-grown(hand-mined?) materials?

<comment><USER3> Using metal does seem to be the bulk of the strategy; the chassis and carriage will be aluminum.

I agree that the article isn't very clear on why existing cars aren't recyclable, and how this improves it. I could imagine that there are subway cars being produced in the past 10-20 years that are harder to recycle due to a bunch of plastic components, perhaps. Or, there might be issues in how the cars are constructed that make separating out the recyclable components unreasonably expensive?

It does seem to be the case that, whatever the reason, subway cars often aren't recycled. For example, New York repurposed a bunch of its old cars by sinking them to make artificial reefs: [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060818-subwa...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060818-subway- reef_2.html). Presumably they would've recycled them instead if the metal were easily reclaimable and had significant scrap value?

<comment><USER4> Aim of a transit authority isn't to get most of the metal back, but to dispose the vehicles as cheaply as possible. To conform with environmental regulations, labor safety, etc., is quite expensive. That's why you can find so many old German trams across the eastern Europe. German authorities eagerly "sold" their old trams for pretty much any cost (like 1 euro and pick-up), rather than scrap them, which would cost money and not bring that enough in scrap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why the hell would you want a recyclable subway car? I can understand bottles or shopping bags - lots of which get thrown in the garbage daily. But subway cars? Are they supposed to like break and be replaced after a week of use? WTF?</comment>


TJ Holowaychuk's Startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/apex-software/announcing-apex-software-inc-5008c454002#.twvfrvnrq <comment><USER2> Tried to check out the lambda tool as I want to use AWS Lambda for something I am building. Having a real hard time knowing what problems that it solves for me.

I am not going to download it, spend an hour or more figuring out how to use it only to learn it really isn't helpful for what I have planned. A video would have been extremely useful.</comment>


Joypad Turns Your iPhone Into A Remote Control - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/03/joypad-turns-your-iphone-into-a-remote-control-launches-new-sdk-to-bring-ios-gaming-to-apple-tv/

<comment><USER2> There's another start-up that does something similar to this called Brass Monkey. Their angle is turning the iPhone into a Wiimote-type controller.

<http://brassmonkeysdk.com/>

Both interesting concepts that could be even more disruptive to the gaming industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't get me wrong, it's neat and all, but I'd rather see something closer to iControlpad's physical controls. Only maybe "wings" with physical controls that you clip on, rather than their current full-sized device.

Also, throw in a pocket-sized wifi dongle to attach to any TV/monitor for video? Golden.

<comment><AUTHOR> The tactile/haptic feedback is a good point/addition but the reality is that for gaming applications that require those features, users will always spring for a real controller (and should - touch devices wont kill all things, they'll just replace those use cases in which haptic/tactile feedback isnt critical). I'm working on bit.ly/watchandplay which is similar but more of a user first product (rather than developer first) and I think the real potential here is to connect every internet connected screen to the phone as controller, so that you never have to lean forward again.

<comment><USER4> Hey, thanks for submitting this. I subscribed to the Wanderplayer mailing list a couple weeks back and have been meaning to ask you something: do you really live in the apartments at 220 E 24th? I only ask because that is where I used to live when Todd and I started working on Joypad. Apparently there is something in the air there that makes people think "iphone game controller" :)</comment></comment></comment>


The Gutless Cutlass: Pilots had good reason to fear the F7U - <AUTHOR> http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/the-gutless-cutlass-12023991/?all <comment><USER2> 1950s jet aviation had a wide variety of new aircraft, and many of them were duds. Early jet engines were unreliable. Compressor stalls were not well understood. Materials weren't strong enough. Control systems weren't very good. Airframe designs good for a wide range of speeds and altitudes hadn't settled down yet.

Navy pilots of the era had about a 1 in 5 career chance of death, without any help from an enemy.

Then, suddenly, around the end of the 1960s, the job was done. The 1960s produced the SR-71, the F-4 fighter, the OH-58 helicopter, the Boeing 747, and the Concorde, all of which were quite good and were used for decades thereafter. Since then, most aircraft development has been continuous minor improvements.

</comment><comment><USER3> The history of military aviation between the end of WW2 and the end of Vietnam is really kind of fascinating. So many different designs were designed, produced, and put into action, often for just a few years until they were superseded by something else. Piston-engined -> straight-wing jet -> swept- wing jet, plus all the concept designs and oddities like this. I think my favorite is the Twin Mustang ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-82_Twin_Musta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-82_Twin_Mustang)).

I always end up on deep wiki-walks from these kinds of articles...

</comment><comment> cam- Pretty awesome how the Commander of the Carrier can order a type of aircraft off the ship for safety reasons.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was a good article about the realities of deploying an overcomplicated and fragile system from the political and practical point of view.

BTW, after reading the article, make sure you catch the author's byline at the bottom...

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty fun read...but would've liked to see more context and numbers for this:

> _Supporters say it was a necessary step in the advancement of naval > aviation, and that while the numbers were bad, so were the numbers of just > about everything involving jet fighters and aircraft carriers in the early > to mid-1950s._

Given the desire to show the Cutlass off at airshows, I'm surprised there weren't any massive disasters, though I suppose if there were, we wouldn't be reading about the F7U today...though apparently when a British prototype jet killed 31 people at a show, it still managed to make it into service after being grounded: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Farnborough_Airshow_DH.11...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Farnborough_Airshow_DH.110_crash)

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone else have the strange suspicion that, if we were willing to kill as many people doing it as we were in the history of aviation, we'd be wandering around on Mars now?

<comment><USER7> That suspicion would be wrong. Spaceflight isn't something that you can wing, even if you are completely callous as to human life. Missions over long distances with very low margin for error imply an attention to detail that doesn't have an analog in early aviation. Even more, each human you kill in spaceflight is the loss of a highly-trained, highly-skilled engineering / pilot. They aren't just goofs along for a rocket trip.

Similar story in modern aviation. Some things are just too expensive to get wrong. Some things are too specific to get wrong. Spaceflight is both.

<comment><USER6> You're probably right. A closer analogy would probably be sea voyages in the "age of discovery", but in that case you didn't need skilled people; you didn't even need _willing_ people.

On the other hand, all of the test pilots killed by the Cutlass (and most killed by aviation since Thomas Selfridge) were highly-skilled people.

<comment><USER7> Quite so. I guess it depends on where you draw the line at "modern". I was implicitly lumping anything past the jet age in as "modern".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> iso-8859-1 What happened to airframe 129554? Some random person claimed[1] on Wikipedia that it was sold in September 2014. Earlier, it was at the Museum of Flight Restoration. I'm wondering because I wan't to see a flight capable example.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vought_F7U_Cutlas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vought_F7U_Cutlass&diff=next&oldid=635671364)

</comment><comment><USER8> This sounds like too wide a gap between design and current state of technical aspects, such as higher yield engines and control systems. These were times when design had sort of a life of its own. I guess one can look at the Tomcat as the alignment of a similar design with a technology that can carry it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Consider that we work in an industry of innovation, and innovations are hard to understand and usually fail to be adopted. How wise is it to encourage know-it-all, shaming post-mortems? If we knew it all we wouldn't need to innovate. In fact, it's the know-it-all atmosephere that leads to shouting down innovators, who are necessarily people who see further than the know-it- alls, and that leaves us with 'faster horses'.

For every innovation there is a universe of information, some of which points to its success and some that points to its failure, and much that is uncertain and subject to interpretation. Also, many innovators envision novel goals and possibilities, but the public is stuck in the old mindset. To the extent the innovation is politicized, critics will emphasize one set of data and interpretations, and supporters will emphasize another, and most will be answering the wrong questions with misunderstood information. A realistic understanding of innovation, the new goals, and the technology itself is often left out of the conversation.

When the innovation is or isn't adopted (which might be due to market issues or politics - sometimes those critics are self-fulfilling - and have nothing to do with the technology) senseless narratives tell stories in hindsight where the result was obvious the whole time, as if the critics/supporters analyses were 'right' and more meaningful than coin flips.

A useful post-mortem would grasp the goals, uncertainty, and risks of innovation. What did they envision? What were they hoping to achieve? What was known and where were the risks? How were those risks managed and how did they turn out? Given the innovators uncertainty, what could they have done differently? Did the innovation fail to be adopted because of tech? Politics?

<comment><USER10> The OP did not attempt a pure technical post mortem, he was writing from the pilots' perspective. And I don't even think it is too biased - he admits that some old flying techniques just did not hold anymore with this new design.

Last but not least he still gave a pretty good technical reason for the failure of the design - the under-powered engines that delivered about 2/3 of what they were supposed to deliver and that could not be exchanged for more powerful ones.

All in all I think it is a pretty nice read for a lazy Sunday afternoon :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author blurb at the end is funny!

</comment><comment> michel-slm This plane sounds like the F-35 of its time -- with even worse reliability!

<comment><USER12> The F-35 arguably had a design philosphy that was the opposite of the one used for the Cutlass. It looks like the design started in 1945, and this story was taking place in the early 50's. The F35 took longer and cost more, whereas the Cutlass was killing people and being improved on the fly only 6 years from inception, so maybe this is a lesson in extremes of "agile" developement vs. extremes of big budget "waterfall" approaches.

I guess the developement philosphy for the Cutlass would be "fix it in production."

<comment> michel-slm F7U was an unusual design (cf F35 thanks to the USMC's S/VTOL requirements), and its development period was quite lengthy for its time (though nothing compared to some programs these days including the F35). The F-9F first flew less than a year earlier and was already serving in Korea in 1950, the F-7U finally made its carrier deployment in 1955 and it didn't stay in service for that long afterwards.

I'd point out similarities to teething problems with the F-35 -- the first time the USMC deployed it, didn't they find that the exhaust would damage deck plating, which subsequently had to be strengthened? Didn't happen when Harriers are taking off and landing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't get the blurb in the end. Can anyone explain?

<comment><USER14> There was a car called the Oldsmobile Cutlass (mentioned in the article) and, one imagines, "flying" it would lead to a broken axle.

<comment><USER13> Thanks:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Moral of the story: be careful what the name of your product rhymes with.</comment>


U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/30drug.html

<comment><USER2> Gene patents have not been a "problem" in the same way as software patents. And, unlike software patents, they are more likely to represent a significant R&D investment by the applicant.

(I am the author of the paper that showed how much of the human genome is patented. "Intellectual property landscape of the human genome", Science 2005. <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/310/5746/239> )

The brief filed by the government does not alter the law, it's just a letter to the court that says "this is the current, consensus opinion of the executive branch." The current law states that DNA (or any other naturally occurring chemical) cannot be patented unless it is significantly transformed from it's natural state. However, purification of the DNA is usually enough to render it patentable. That, of course, is not difficult with current molecular biology techniques.

But, like any other technology, patent applications covering DNA must meet many other requirements including non-obviousness and usefulness. Thus, the claims granted by the USPTO have become increasingly narrow as the field has matured and there is more prior art. That is, just like any new technology area the initially granted patents are broad, but they narrow over time.

So, that is a long way of saying, this might be a tempest in a teapot. Especially because most court watchers expect the Federal Circuit to reverse the District Court and keep the status quo.

<comment><USER3> Is non-obviousness actually applied in this sphere? In my corner of computer science, the non-obviousness bar is so low as to be basically non-existent. There are tons of patents where A and B each have significant prior art, but the completely straightforward combination "A+B" somehow gets patented.

<comment><USER2> It is applied, and it should also be in the CS space. But, as always, there are bad patents issued because they are examined by busy humans. In these cases, opponents of the patent have a number of options, most notably asking for a reexamination of the patent. During reexam, you can bring missed prior art to the USPTO's attention in an effort to invalidate the patent.

EDIT: I should have also mentioned, another option is to ask the courts to invalidate the patent (for obviousness, lack of enablement, or any other statutory requirement) if you are involved in a lawsuit. Even if you are not sued you can begin such a lawsuit by filing a "declaratory judgement" complaint against somebody who you reasonably feel might sue you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good.

DNA is just a sequence of bits, software is too.

Genetics has turned into a minefield because of patents.

Cross-licensing crap worse than even software.

It will probably take another decade if this ever changes, but I'm hopeful!

<comment><USER5> > _DNA is just a sequence of bits, software is too_

That's not the argument being made by DOJ. They're not saying that DNA sequences per se are unpatentable. On the contrary, they agree that _man-made_ DNA sequences are indeed potentially patentable (assuming they're not "obvious" in view of other pre-existing DNA sequences, including for example genes in the wild). The brief argues only that if a DNA sequence occurs in nature, you shouldn't be able to get a patent on the isolated sequence.

<comment><USER6> That could be kind of tricky. If we want to make custom proteins, for example, the most straightforward way to do it is to build up a protein from bits of naturally-occurring proteins for which we already know the folded structure.

I'll give a more concrete example. Certain zinc finger proteins can bind to particular DNA sequences. By chaining together a few of these units, we can engineer proteins that bind to a particular sequence of DNA and promote or inhibit its transcription into RNA -- obviously a very useful thing to be able to do.

Do these custom zinc finger proteins count as patentable? On the one hand, we're mostly plagiarizing from nature. On the other hand, there are a lot of tough issues to solve in order to get to where we can reliably use these things. Personally, I think the bioengineering challenges are a bigger barrier to competition than a patent could be: if someone set up a company that could sell custom zinc finger arrays at a reasonable price, their expertise would matter a lot more than any patent.

<comment><USER5> That's where obviousness analysis comes in. It's tough to do in hindsight. That's why courts look to "objective evidence." For example, praise from other researchers, or extensive citation of the published paper, could be indirect evidence of nonobviousness.

(One of my partners at my former law firm told a story about representing a major university in seeking a patent for a biotech invention. It took a number of years for the PTO to do the initial examination of the patent application. The patent examiner perfunctorily rejected the application, asserting that the claimed invention would have been obvious in view of the prior art. My partner responded that in the years that the inventors had been waiting on the PTO to examine the patent application, they had been awarded the Nobel Prize for that very invention. Result: Obviousness rejection withdrawn. Of course, I could well be misremembering, but it nicely illustrates the principle.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The government's actual position is more subtle than the NYT title suggests:

"While the government took the plaintiffs' side on the issue of isolated DNA, it sided with Myriad on patentability of manipulated DNA."

<comment><USER8> How long is a piece of manipulated DNA? Would claiming prior art be mathematically feasible on all manipulated DNA?

<comment><USER7> The first question is similar to asking, "How long is a string?" Arbitrarily long.

I think that "prior art" and "obviousness" claims for certain classes of manipulations should (in a world run by biologists) be useful. For example, if you discover New Gene X and manipulate its DNA to tag its protein product with a fluorescent protein, that's pretty damn obvious because that's what we do with every other protein.

<comment><USER9> It's all obvious in the natural world (and living things reuse code without regard for law.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am, frankly, amazed that gene patents are now ineligible where software/business method patents remain so. This _might_ be consistent with whatever theology the courts have sanctified, but it is the exact opposite of what makes sense for business and innovation.

Firms are forced to pay for their research toward FDA approval, and that approval is extended only to a very specific drug or treatment. The narrowness of this channel yields one of the only business situations where patent law, from an innovation perspective, makes sense.

Contrast this with business method patents and software patents: you can use a zillion different idea, each independently patentable, for any business or product, there is a much smaller barrier to entry, and there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. Patents go from being quite valuable for the innovator to being, at best, a distraction, and at worst, a minefield.

Oy.

</comment><comment><USER11> That's the first sane official statement about patents I've heard in a long time. There must be something I'm missing in this debate, because to me the fact that naturally occurring genes are not inventions is as obvious as that mathematical theorems are. (It's actually even _more_ obvious, the genes can be plainly seen around us, when you know they're there.) It's as if software algorithms were written on the leaves of trees around us, but we needed to dye them to see the source.

Whether a _synthetic_ gene is an invention is a different story to me. That's much more closely related to whether software is patentable. But no one would seriously argue that they could patent RSA if they turned a rock over and found the algorithm written down, no matter how many stones they had to turn to find it.

<comment><USER5> > _It's as if software algorithms were written on the leaves of trees around > us, but we needed to dye them to see the source._

Love the vivid analogy. But couldn't the same thing be said about any "method" invention?

<comment><USER11> Yes. It's not a black and white area. In principle, every method that works is just discovered, just like a theorem is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To play devil's advocate - one could argue that allowing gene's to be patented would result in a vast amount of resources being invested, immediately, to decode and determine precisely what each of them do - with the rewards from such decoding being secured for 18 years (patent lifetime) - at which point anyone would be free to use the information.

In the absence of a patent incentive, the alternative, then, will hopefully be large government and other large public investments making up the difference.

<comment><USER7> I won't do the full analysis justice in a brief comment, but this is an empirical question that has some evidence.

The draft human reference genome was published 10 years ago. Prior to this, dozens of genes were discovered and patented by Celera. Celera gave free access to these genes to academics, but required payment for any for-profit activity. By one analysis, genes that were ever controlled by Celera, despite these relatively loose restrictions, as of 2009 had 30% less research done on them than those genes that were never controlled by Celera.

<http://www.nber.org/~heidiw/papers/5_12_10a_hlw.pdf>

<comment><USER13> I worked for a very well known company who licensed some of the early genes that were patented by companies like Celera. It was such a painful experience and the arrangement caused tons of legal knots years later. When the license period ended I distinctly remember an email asking that in addition to surrendering all documents related to the genes, we had to "forget" anything we might have learned personally about them. By that time they were all publicly known, so it was a bit hard to tease out what was learned as a result of the patented genes vs. what you learned from a search at NCBI.

<comment><USER7> If you blog, I'd love to see that comment fleshed out in longer form. Your story sounds very interesting!

<comment><USER13> I don't have a blog because I have yet to convince myself other people would be interested in what I have to say. I might have to start one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure Ozzy Osbourne is relieved: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ozzy- osbour...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ozzy-osbourne- genome)

</comment><comment><USER15> Ugh, anyone seen Food Inc.? It still doesn't solve the problem of Monsanto and their genetically modified crop, bullying small farmers.</comment>


HTML5 Gameboy Color Emulator - <AUTHOR> http://gamecenter.grantgalitz.org/

<comment><USER2> so much awesome. though not entirely sure on the legalities.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was personally impressed by the all javascript full screen mode.</comment></comment>


Reading Is Forgetting - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/jun/26/reading-is-forgetting/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream&utm_content=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream+CID_869a7e4df211b9f2091810c10f23c98f&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Reading%20Is%20Forgetting <comment><USER2> Ever since my first year at uni, my reading has been transformed. The lectures forced me to read highly mathematical and algorithmic books, some of which took multiple hours per page if you want to comprehend everything. Now, my reading has slowed down drastically (10-100 times slower) but when I'm done with reading something, I understand it well enough to explain all the key concepts to someone else. Another thing is that I somehow memorize where things are, that is, when I remember some passage, I know where to look in the book almost down to the page (this doesn't work for PDFs which is one of the reasons why I avoid them). But I've lost the ability to read for pleasure, I used to be able to finish a novel in an evening.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious because once you have the ability to understand several-hour-per- page materials reading novels should be a breeze?

<comment><USER4> I suspect it's similar to my experience with many video-lectures: on one hand, they are almost always filled with enough new information to keep my attention. However, the pace at which this information is fed to me can be just a bit too slow, meaning that my brain has to do too little work to process it. This combination of keeping attention while not activating my own thinking has an ability to put me sleep in a very drastic fashion. As in, trying to pay attention to the lecture and literally falling asleep in the blink of an eye.

The only way to counter this is to download the lectures and play them back at an increased pace - 1.2x to 1.5x, depending on the difficulty of the subject.

Perhaps the novels have the same issue for Kenji: too little stimulation to keep the mind going, even if it keeps your attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've never read any book more than seven or eight times, but here's another view from a "centireader" (should that be "hectoreader"?): [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/centireading- fo...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/centireading-force- reading-book-100-times-great-idea)

</comment><comment><USER6> My sister will read a novel in about 4 hours, and I'll take 14 hours for the same. Afterward, I'll remember just about everything, and she will remember major plot points but few details. I don't know if the hours and retention rates are related, but I will say that reading and retention rates are not universal between people and should be separate as concepts from remembering and memory in general.

The artistic understanding aspects of the article are far more interesting to me, though I have little to add there.

<comment><USER7> I like to blaze through fiction. But I'm reading for the effects and emotions it stirs up inside of me, not the actual content. (I will note this is an issue for long running series if I ever have to take time off inbetween books.)

If I try the same with nonfiction/technical books, the retention is abysmal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how this concept ties in with my preference to be vaguely aware of as much as possible, filling in the blanks (via Google, etc.) only when needed?</comment>


Ask HN: Turnkey forum software? - <AUTHOR>

I'm running a SaaS but I notice that people ask the same questions or have similar problems. I want to publish these questions and solutions so that other customers can just refer to that. <comment><USER2> Forum != Knowledge Base...

For forums, take a gander here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9410250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9410250)

For a Knowledge Base something like Zendesk or many of the options out there... [https://www.zendesk.com/self-service/](https://www.zendesk.com/self- service/)

<comment><AUTHOR> what I'd love is a stackoverflow like clone for my website.</comment></comment>


How To Set Up The Ultimate At-Home Trading Station - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ultimate-trading-station-2009-11#what-makes-a-great-trading-setup-1 <comment><USER2> > A 50mbps pipe for $150 a month will do wonders compared to your ancient > cable modem.

Isn't it more about latency then throughput? If the machine->ISP->broker is closer network-wise (say 20 ms RTT) on a 1mbps DSL line, you'll execute trades faster than on a 50mbps FIOS but with a 80ms RTT.

And then, in general, after a couple of milliseconds the news have already been "factored" into the market by all the quants and their $100,000 hyper- optimized system.

I have always been suspicious of "get rich by trading". Sure there are a lot of successful day traders but I don't think we see all the losers so we get a skewed picture of the risk/return.

Now if I get my hands on that sweet 4 monitory setup, I'll attach a model M IBM keyboard to it and fire up some emacs windows with some Python or Haskell code in them instead of playing the lottery.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, latency is really important.

Good comment here: [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ultimate-trading- station-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ultimate-trading- station-2009-11#comment-4b169cc50000000000033b93)</comment></comment>


Another cryptocurrency similar to BitCoin - <AUTHOR> http://solidcoin.info

<comment><USER2> This doesn't seem like much of an improvement over Bitcoin. The main problem with Bitcoin as I see it is its inflation curve and fixed maximum circulation. This has a pyramid scheme-like effect where early adopters are disproportionately favoured, so that the accusation can be made that these systems are set up simply as a way of enriching their founders.

<comment><USER3> This is by design. I'm not sure early adopters are favored at all because their "investments" will gradually lose value as the number of Bitcoins increases. If anything it's the opposite, as I understand it.

I've read varying opinions on the matter but it seems that the idea of a fixed currency that inflates at a predictable rate was a design decision meant to keep Bitcoin usable for certain kinds of transactions, i.e. exchanging money between currencies at low rates or giving money to your friend or favorite cause without an intermediary such as a bank. It isn't meant to wholly replace the dollar or euro or yen as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER4> They only lose money if the number of bitcoins increases more than the demand for bitcoins. So far, the exact opposite has been the case, and the coins' value has increased by several orders of magnitude.

Bitcoins will max out at about three times their current number. If they were to scale to, say, VISA size, they would be far more valuable than today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Denial of service by malicious pool owners is not an issue AFAIK. Pool owners are encouraged to package outstanding transactions in a mined block to claim the associated transaction fees. The only reason a pool owner would deny service is if the transaction has no fee -- which is generally spam.

The real problem with bitcoin if anything is transaction scaling. With each transaction broadcast and saved by every node, it's questionable if the network could (or would be willing) to tolerate the load equal to, say, the Visa network.

      du -hs .bitcoin/
      870M    .bitcoin/

<comment><USER4> Scaling is exactly the reason I failed to buy bitcoins a year ago.

However, here's an argument that they could in fact scale up to VISA levels: <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How much time do I have to dedicate to solo mine any solidcoin with Radeon HD 6850 ?

UPDATE:

Seems like few hours are sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seriously? The market can barely support one of these, much less multiple.

<comment><USER8> I look at these extra chains as more like experiments, iterating on different ideas that are too dangerous to try on the actual bitcoin chain. At some point someone will hit on some good ideas and they might be fed back into bitcoin, or form the basis of a better currency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> fixed transaction fees? you've just crippled your entire operation from day one. your currency will never rise beyond a value where the transaction fees make sense.</comment>


ESO: "The First Direct Image of an Alien Star System's Planet" - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/06/eso-the-first-direct-image-of-an-alien-star-systems-planet.html <comment><USER2> Headline is wrong, there are many directly imaged extrasolar planets. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_directly_imaged_exopla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_directly_imaged_exoplanets))

The accurate news is near the end: this is the first star where we have directly imaged one planet (CVSO 30c) and found another by the transit method (CVSO 30b).

"Conclusions. Therefore CVSO 30 is the first system, in which both a close-in and a wide planet candidate are found to have a common host star. The orbits of the two possible planets could not be more different, having orbital periods of 10.76 hours and about 27000 years. Both orbits may have formed during a mutual catastrophic event of planet-planet scattering." ([http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/po...](http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/potw1624/potw1624a.pdf))</comment>


Show HN: Fe – A tiny, embeddable language implemented in ANSI C - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rxi/fe <comment> as-j Cool!

Something I wish project docs would always include is …why… and what. Why does fe exist? Why did the orignal author spend a span of 6mo on it? What can it do and what can't it do? Don't make people read between the lines. It can be just to learn and have fun! But please don't make me read between the lines.

The overview is interesting:

* Supports numbers, symbols, strings, pairs, lambdas, macros

* Lexically scoped variables, closures

* Small memory usage within a fixed-sized memory region — no mallocs

* Simple mark and sweep garbage collector

* Easy to use C API

* Portable ANSI C — works on 32 and 64bit

* Concise — less than 800 sloc

Since I work in embedded Linux systems I always like looking at small languages, using Lua at the moment. So it struck my interest, oooh this is interesting.

The single fixed allocation is interesting, and odd. It then has gc...so why On the not just use malloc the manage the pool? I wonder if the performance is that much better?

But beyond print there's no IO library, so I guess it's a "toy" language, maybe somewhere to learn a lisp flavor?

<comment><USER2> > Why does Fe exist.

Reply to one of the GitHub issues discusses it some[1].

>> What was the motivation to create fe if you already made aria?

> The same motivations I had writing aria: for the fun of programming it; > trying to make something terse but still practical. Every line of code has a > weight to it with consideration that would be unreasonable outside this kind > of project: a project that exists just to exist. Each time you write > something it becomes — or at least should become — more clear and more > concise than the previous time, and if you repeat this, the original version > is by comparison an over-engineered bloated mess. fe is a sequel to aria, > and as such ended up smaller, simpler and faster

[1]: [https://github.com/rxi/fe/issues/3](https://github.com/rxi/fe/issues/3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice. One of the things that always bothers me about "project" languages is (for lack of a better way to put it) the "look at how smart I am" bullshit that makes thinking about real problems hard and that authors of such projects seem unable to resist. At least from a cursory glance, this seems to avoid that. My first impression is that of a "more accessible Lisp". Interesting.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure exactly what qualifies as ""look at how smart I am" bullshit", but as someone making a toy language, exploring how a concept taken to its extreme in a language re-contextualizes other features is the main purpose of making it.

I have made a fair number of decisions against ergonomics in favor of less objectively important ideals because I don't plan to support people working on real problems. However, I do plan to make a self-hosting compiler though so I will have to deal with any issues I do make.

> that authors of such projects seem unable to resist

It definitely is very tempting to add things beyond the scope of a useful language (at a toy scale). I restricted myself from most such things by requiring strict C compatibility. You can't have a fancy type system and interop with C strongly.

<comment><USER5> > You can't have a fancy type system and interop with C strongly

ATS would disagree with this statement, strongly.

<comment><USER4> I haven't used ATS, but I don't think it interops strongly. Hows does calling a ATS function with fancy typed arguments from C work?

My idea of strong interop is not having to write any glue code at all and being able to call any function. I assume there are some types that don't interface with C well.

That said, thanks for mentioning it. I should keep it in mind as it does do some of the stuff I want my language to.

<comment><USER6> Grep for "Exporting Types in ATS for Use in C" in [http://ats- lang.sourceforge.net/DOCUMENT/INT2PROGINATS/HTML/...](http://ats- lang.sourceforge.net/DOCUMENT/INT2PROGINATS/HTML/INT2PROGINATS-BOOK- onechunk.html#Cinteraction)

<comment><USER7>
        typedef
        struct {
           int atslab__0; void *atslab__1;
        } int_and_string ;

very strong typing right there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fe is a tiny language with only a few forms ie: if, while, do, define a variable, define a function, define a macro etc.. It uses an embedded parenthesis syntax similar to Lisp or Scheme, with prefix functions.

I couldn't see (other than reading the code) if you have an expression (foo bar quux) if foo is first evaluated before calling the result. I seem to recall Scheme follows this approach.

Alternately, the name foo could be looked up in a global symbol table and the result (presumably a lambda expression) is applied to the list of evaluated arguments (bar quux). I associate this approach with Lisp.

I didn't see any error trapping mentioned in the documentation, so I assume if you try to do something like divide by zero, that Fe will crash. How much work does it take to implement a simple error trap strategy ?

I didn't see if the language supports a fluid let (any variable name is looked up at run time when the reference is encountered thru the stack levels until the name is found. Presumably each time new variables are created with let, they would be added at run-time to the symbol table.

The other choice would be that the variables are lexically scoped. Thus when reading in the code, variables are "found" in the order the program is written on the page, and there is no searching of the run time stack frames to find the "innermost" version of the variable name.

From what I can see, Fe is a good language to use if you are happy with the capabilities the implementor defined initially. There is a set of functions, named after mathematical operators, like "+", "-", "*" etc. and logical operators like "AND" "NOT" etc. The doc says these functions take a variable number of arguments, evaluate them, and then the operator takes each of the results, and does some operation using them, such as adding them together, or returning false if any of them are false (AND)

I see nothing in the docs suggesting how a programmer would create his own functions that function in this way.

It's not clear if the logical operators "short cut" on evaluation of the arguments. ie: with (or bar quux qide) does the value of quux even get evaluated if bar is true ?

Is there a short and sweet checklist to help describe a programming language you have never seen so you know how these types of issues are addressed in the implementation?

Thanks for sharing your code. I always learn when I read other people's work.

<comment><USER9> > I didn't see if the language supports a fluid let (any variable name is > looked up at run time when the reference is encountered thru the stack > levels until the name is found. [...]

These are called dynamic variables in Lisp. They're only really useful as a way of doing things like I/O redirection, and you can just shallow-bind them to make them fast (but then they need to be per-thread as well, and pushing a binding requires unwind-protect to pop on unwind).

> The other choice would be that the variables are lexically scoped. [...]

That's what the README says Fe does.

<comment><USER10> _fluid-let_ is a famous Scheme imitation of dynamic variables.

SRFI-15: [https://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-15/srfi-15.html](https://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-15/srfi-15.html) [1999]

<comment><USER9> Ahh, ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice to see another project from you! I remember you from the ludum dare a few times, but you kind of dropped off the map. Glad that you're still around and hacking on things :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell someone's side project Lisp!

</comment><comment><USER13> I smell a lisp

<comment><USER14> I thought it is ulisp in c</comment></comment>