Why one of cybersecurity's thought leaders uses a pager instead of a smart phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/11/why-one-of-cybersecuritys-thought-leaders-uses-a-pager-instead-of-a-smart-phone/ <comment><USER2> Geer is a pretty salient guy. There are several gems buried deep in the text here:

>> "For me, trust is the availability of effective recourse."

That's a tidy little definition, and quite pithy. And this next one might apply to engineering in general (he brought it up in the context of "fast/good/cheap---pick 2").

>> "I think security engineering are [sic] about tolerable failure modes -- are about what the tolerable levels of failure are."

<comment><USER3> >> " For me the default of "the data doesn't exist" seems more natural to me than trusting everyone to not abuse it."

I disagree, the data exists, this is fundamental, we are not going towards data impoverishment, we are necessarily living in an environment rich with data. I rather have accurate data by far.

<comment> UVB-76 > I disagree, the data exists, this is fundamental, we are not going towards > data impoverishment, we are necessarily living in an environment rich with > data. I rather have accurate data by far.

It may be an inexorable trend, but for the time being, individuals and organizations generally have a choice about the amount of data they collect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The discussion about "What is Public" was absolutely fascinating, and a bit frightening, to think about.

> Technology is changing what is public by changing what is observable, and > that's what I'm getting at. And I don't know the answer, but I do know that > if we don't answer it, things will continue.

We already see the excesses of things like this from the paparazzi and the effect it has on a celebrity's privacy; what happens when the long range lenses are compact and cheap enough to fit in phones, and easily combined with the technology to see through walls?

<comment><USER5> That's immaterial, frankly. The fact is that there's a growing ocean of data out there, collected intentionally, unintentionally, and as a side-effect of other activities.

More and more the difference between "public" and "not public" in the future will be a matter of processing, not of existence. Imagine the maximal capability if computing were infinite and free.

Every piece of data that was vaguely public (and remember that things like purchasing history is not necessarily always private) could be cataloged and collated together. Imagine if every picture you've ever been in could be pulled up by anyone on a whim, and then fleshed out with metadata as appropriate. Everything from that selfie you posted to facebook when you were 12 to your car in the background of someone else's picture on the street just last week. We will lose a lot of privacy just through things like this. Strangers will be able to track our lives and our histories just through the careful application of computing power. As computers get more powerful that capability will merely increase. It'll be possible to guess fairly accurately whether you are single or in a relationship, how much money you make a year, and so on just by observing things like a handful of pictures and collection of various other metadata, much of which is already out there.

Think about that in the context of someone who suddenly becomes famous, for example, such as a movie star or a candidate for elected office. If all it takes is pressing a single button to collect an enormous amount of information on someone's history. Now imagine all that data in the hands of people as callous and malicious as political opposition groups or tabloid reporters.

<comment><USER6> "It'll be possible to guess fairly accurately whether you are single or in a relationship, how much money you make a year"

Well, you could probably get a decent guess just by looking at the house and garage. Some things have always been easy to guess accurately, but one novel problem is that we need more and more effort to be anonymous, online and offline. Double lives may be desirable for some, and it's just getting harder. Now you can at least withdraw a wad of cash, leave all your cards and electronics at home and be reasonably anonymous. In the near future you would probably need face paint to avoid image recognition and even further on you would need to subject yourself to an electro-magnetic pulse to get rid of nano-robots you can't wash away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if we are experiencing the typical adoption curve of security. That is, a technology arrives, we rush to adopt. Then over time we become aware of the consequences of this new technology (eg. loss of privacy) and legislation/policy steps in to correct that gap.

This time however I am not convinced that the US will ever be ready to correct the situation (I am more bullish on Europe). It strikes me that the organizations (companies and government departments) gain to much by their new incursions into privacy and data. While these same organizations are also some of the most powerful, so they have the influence to ensure that corrections from legislation and policy remain only superficial.

<comment><USER8> I don't think legislation/policy is the solution. We have seen time and time again that when the government steps in they create ineffective and ridiculous boundaries that do little in practice. Problems like these need to be solved with technology, user friendly and default encryption would go a long way in most of these cases.

<comment><USER9> > We have seen time and time again that when the government steps in they > create ineffective and ridiculous boundaries that do little in practice.

Right now, there's no cost for having weak security. What you're talking about is the technocratic approach, which is often what industry lobbies heavily for – get the government to bless whatever you were going to do anyway and make it complicated to increase the barrier to entry for new companies. This is what we have in many cases coupled with laws which shield companies from the consequences of their mistakes (e.g. try suing a credit agency for spreading incorrect data about you).

It's not a given that it has to work this way – the other approach which many people in the security industry have called for is changing the laws to shift liability to the companies. That mandates the desirable outcome but allows companies to pick a level of risk which they (and their insurers) are comfortable with – which provides nice incentives to do things like not collect sensitive data if possible – and use whatever technology is appropriate to meet those needs.

> Problems like these need to be solved with technology, user friendly and > default encryption

This is a common misunderstanding. Solving these problems – and ensuring that they stay solved in the future – ultimately costs money. Companies will not spend that unless they have both a requirement and a reasonable expectation that there will be noticeable consequences for not meeting it. Without enforcement, you'll get things like those meaningless Verisign / McAfee banners on webpages which signals that they consider security as a marketing exercise.

Since the average person is utterly unable to compare different products in this manner and it's a difficult, ongoing job even for the skilled security practitioner, there has to be some outside pressure to make information available. Once you have that, the technology will follow.

<comment><USER8> That all sounds good in theory, but in practice I would argue you can't simply create effective laws like that.

I agree that companies will not spend on security unless they have a reason too -- but how exactly can you effectively legislate that? Helping people make informed choices with where they put their business is a much better solution, in my opinion.

You say that there is no cost for having weak security, but that is not because there is no legislation, it's in _spite_ of it. Legislation written by people who don't understand the technology they are regulating is not helping.

<comment><USER9> It's usually because legislation specifically _blocks_ liability, as requested by the backers. By default you could sue a credit agency for reporting false information but they specifically got that exempted, similar to the way companies have managed to establish things like EULAs or binding arbitration as alternatives to the legal system.

All we need to do is restore the primacy of the legal system over suborned alternatives but that requires undercutting decades of successful marketing the idea that government is inevitably bad or corrupting which has been highly effective at convincing people not to expect better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 'GPS built into cars, ... Do you care about that? As I'm sure you know, the most common reaction is "I live a good life, I have nothing to hide."'

Doesn't GPS lack reverse channel by design (i.e. receive-only)? I thought GPS is safe, as all it can do is receive satellite data and has now way to disclose your location.

<comment><USER11> Many modern cars combine the onboard GPS with so called "value added" services that uplink data over wireless networks whether you subscribe to the service or not: OnStar, and several custom manufacturer networks. In particular, Tesla vehicles do this. I know my Volkswagen does as well.

<comment><USER12> Note the EU soon to be mandated "eCall" system, where your car is supposed to phone the emergency services with your location in the event of a crash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, here's why I don't have a smartphone.

I (a programmer) spend 10 hours or so on my computer per day. Not having a smartphone prevents me from being always one step away from a computer. This lets me "disconnect" from everything else.

<comment><USER14> I left my phone in a cab 2 weeks ago and I'm still waiting for them to post it back to me. It's been extremely liberating being disconnected - I haven't missed it nearly as much as I thought I would.

I also spend about half the time I used to in the toilet ;)

<comment><USER15> I went to a camp for 4 weeks - no internet, tv, phone, books or newspapers. It was surprising how quickly I (and others) adjusted, and did not miss any of those. It was liberating to do physical work, and sit down and talk to people face to face.

I guess we need all this noise _because_

a)most of us don't do anything meaningful with our time and

b)most people can't be alone with their thoughts/sit still for 5 mins. They need a "fix" (internet, tv etc) and

c)true/deep friendships and relationships are less common, compared to 30-40 years ago (how many people even know the names of their neighbors, or recognize them?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> English is not my native language, but this is one of the few times I need help understanding the interview. Could you please explain what he means by:

"I testified actually twice -- once at the FCC, once in a congressional committee -- that if you required location tracking, I was going to give one up. ... I said I would give it up, and went ahead and did it."

<comment><USER16> If FCC and Congress required location tracking, the guy was going to give up his mobile phone. He stated this in his testimony.

FCC/Congress required location tracking. Greer gave up his mobile phone as a result.

<comment><USER10> "Gave up" as "stop using"? Did FCC and Congress require Greer to personally track himself? (Why?)

Also, I find it wonderful that in USA you still have an option to use a pager. Many countries don't have it anymore, because all paging companies went out of business already.

<comment><USER17> > "Gave up" as "stop using"?

Yes.

> Did FCC and Congress require Greer to personally track himself? (Why?)

I believe this is in the context of tracking cellphone users in general. This is used to support "Enhanced 9-1-1": When someone dials the emergency services, they can have a rough idea of where the caller is, even if the caller doesn't know where they are.

Of course, there are plenty of more nefarious uses one can imagine as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This totally reminded me of the book Rainbow's End, where most things are essentially black boxes, made out of other black boxes. Turtles all the way down.

<comment><USER19> As was emphasized toward the end of that book, the apostrophe isn't actually present in the title. The title is actually a statement about rainbows, and about life.

<comment><USER18> I never noticed. I read it in 3 solid chunks within 2 days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm aware that GCHQ has a geolocation project for pagers, specifically, so... yeah.

<comment><AUTHOR> How would that be possible? The communication protocol is entirely one way. Even if it weren't, most paging sites are just a single, relatively high wattage transmitter, unlike cell services.

<comment><USER20> Specific details are hard to come by, I have no RF expertise myself, and I have no idea how deployed, operational or effective such a project may be, but it has definitely been an area of interest.

A source vaguely intimated it might have something to do with retro-reflection from receivers' local oscillators when illuminated by much higher-strength signals than designed for. They mentioned equipment provided by GCHQ to the Security Service (MI5) for operational triangulation of short-wave radio receivers in the 1980s-1990s (I can see why that might have been relevant to their interests then...) and/or pagers in the 1990s-early 2000s. Does that help?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid I'm not much of an RF person either, but that's interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

"" Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata"

</comment><comment><USER3> this guy sounds like an apologist.

</comment><comment><USER3> "And I don't go visit other people's apartments at random -- I could but I don't."

LOL

</comment><comment><USER21> Well that's pretty embarrassing. Looks like Dan did a Black Hat presentation with two dryer lint traps stuck to his face. [[http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/files/2014/08...](http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/files/2014/08/14666596867_cdd3efb92c_k.jpg)]

It's kind of ridiculous to think of paging devices as secure or private in any way. The main reason one might have to use one over a cell phone is they are passive devices, unless you use a two-way feature. But everything goes over the wire unencrypted and broadcast for between 10 minutes and four hours. An example is the famous 9/11 pager logs: [http://911.wikileaks.org/](http://911.wikileaks.org/)

<comment><USER22> >But everything goes over the wire unencrypted and broadcast for between 10 minutes and four hours.

'Everything' in transit to or from a pager is different than 'everything' in transit to or from, or at rest within, in addition to the current location of a smartphone. Not to mention the ability to change the code executing on them in order to use any sensors that you please.</comment></comment>


OwnTracks: Self-hosted, open source location tracking - <AUTHOR> http://owntracks.org/ <comment><USER2> I just packaged this up as a Sandstorm app, for anyone who wants to demo the HTTP backend:

[https://apps.sandstorm.io/app/cjv3p2a970vrm729x9x0v54k0nff6x...](https://apps.sandstorm.io/app/cjv3p2a970vrm729x9x0v54k0nff6x6s2xcgwvgpuzhgk56wum5h?experimental=true)

<comment><USER3> I dont know where to configure the URL in the android app. The description of the Backend says:

"Step 2: Configure the app

Tap the i icon in the top left and tap "Settings". In the URL field, enter:"

But there is no "i" icon and no Settings tap. There is a menu button and in the preferences I can choose a mode between public, hosted and private.

I tried to use the supplied URL in the Host setting, but the Owntracks app complains that the settings are incomplete.

Any help appreciated.

<comment><USER4> I see it referenced in the commits [0], so I assume documentation is ahead of the published version.

[0] [https://github.com/owntracks/android/commit/29b3604bcf021433...](https://github.com/owntracks/android/commit/29b3604bcf021433ade5a3156c43270c687397a7)

<comment><USER5> Indeed. As it says, I'm preparing HTTP mode for Android at the moment.

<comment><USER3> Looking forward to it. Thank you for your good work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > private location diary

> you can be sure your data stays secure and private.

By using the Google Maps API you grant Google the rights to your data to use as they see fit. You cannot have private or secure data if you use the Google Maps API.

(edits: however, I think if you pay Google for the premium or business access to the Google Maps API, then Google does not claim their rights to your data)

<comment><USER5> Hi,

creator of the Owntracks Android app here. I'm absolutely with you that you cannot have private and secure location data when using any Google services.

Indeed, Owntracks does use Google Maps and the Google Play Services location APIs and your location data is likely sent to Google when using the app and we're very clear that this is the case.

However, when using Android, it's almost impossible to not send any personal data to Google when using an Android phone (or to Apple if you're using an iPhone). Hence, we decided to not use any third party location or APIs and for several reasons:

1) Google likely has your location data anyway because you're using their operating system 2) I personally would trust my data to Google than any third party that's not that closely monitored by others. We tried to integrate Mapbox as Mapping provider for the 0.5.x release until they likewise started gathering user data. Thus the next version switches back to Google Maps. 3) The offered location APIs are _much_ easier on the battery life than any third party solution 4) We develop Owntracks in our spare time and receive no funding whatsoever. Hence, the time that we can invest into the integration of other Maps or location providers is very limited.

Besides that, Owntracks does allow you to store your location data on your own infrastructure. You are free to choose whatever you want with that data and you're not trusting a third party (besides Google) with your data.

Personally I think that this isn't a perfect solution, but it is as good as it gets for the majority of smartphones. If that isn't good enough with you that's fine and I totally understand that. In that case, simply don't use the app and build something that you can trust entirely. E.g. some people from our development team are happily tracking their cars with a hardware appliance that is Owntracks compatible [1]

[1] jpmens.net/2014/06/14/owntracks-in-a-vehicle-choral-greenwich

<comment><USER6> I'd be interested to hear about Mapbox starting to gather user data. Did they change their terms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's an excellent documentation, in my opinion. Extensive and complete.

As an example: It doesn't just say: 'Can use MQTT.'. Instead it details the usage of MQTT by the appplication and even how to set up an MQTT service on a Rasperry Pi.

It details common usage scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER8> This really is perfect timing - I'm about to embark on a worldwide travel adventure, and one of the things I want to track is my location.

Does anyone have any experience using OwnTracks?

<comment><USER9> Also check my "dwaler" arduino based project [https://www.koenschmeets.nl/projects/dwaler/](https://www.koenschmeets.nl/projects/dwaler/)

<comment><USER10> I didn't see a link to the code, do you mind sharing?

<comment><USER9> [https://github.com/vespakoen/dwaler](https://github.com/vespakoen/dwaler)

<comment><USER10> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you don't care about sharing this info with the world, what's the advantage of this over something like OsmAnd GPX tracking?

</comment><comment><USER12> Works great with cloudmqtt and [https://home-assistant.io](https://home- assistant.io) for home automation based on your location.

</comment><comment><USER13> The booklet provides a fuller description: [http://owntracks.org/booklet/](http://owntracks.org/booklet/)

</comment><comment> h-h Also see [https://github.com/HenryHoggard/OpenLocate- Server](https://github.com/HenryHoggard/OpenLocate-Server) [https://github.com/HenryHoggard/openlocate](https://github.com/HenryHoggard/openlocate)

</comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't google maps' timeline do this? I suppose OwnTracks isn't google so it's less likely to be data mined...

[https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)

<comment><USER15> I believe that's the entire reason this product was built:

> OwnTracks is open-source and uses open protocols for communication so you > can be sure your data stays secure and private.

I think OwnTracks was named because you "own" all of the data.

<comment><USER16> Except for displaying your location on Google Maps and using Google's APIs to do reverse geocoding...

Their definition of "private" doesn't seem to include "private from Google".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really like your forum theme. Do you use discourse? is the theme open source? Thank you!

[https://community.owntracks.org](https://community.owntracks.org)

<comment><USER18> Looks like [https://nodebb.org/](https://nodebb.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are there any command line tools for GPS tracking on laptops (for example if you are connected to a GPS via bluetooth) ?

<comment><USER20> It's trivial (~2 lines) to write a script that will get your location every minute and HTTP POST it to the OwnTracks recorder, if I'm understanding the docs correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been looking to move away from Swarm for a while. OwnTracks might just be the perfect solution.

</comment><comment><USER22> See also, [http://www.aprs.org](http://www.aprs.org)

<comment><USER8> I don't see how these are related?

<comment><USER23> It's a position reporting/tracking system from the 80s (but still going strong) that uses amateur radio repeaters instead of the internet. On one hand it doesn't have the privacy controls that you get with owntracks. On the other it doesn't require an internet connection and would survive the zombie apocalypse.

<comment><USER24> As a fairly frequent (at least formerly) APRS user and extra-class licensed radio amateur (W9TCJ), ehh, maybe. Pretty easy to find yourself in a 140-MHz- dead-zone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was thinking if you use that kind of name, maybe it could also be an app for ownCloud :-)

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks interesting, but is there something like this for fitness tracking?</comment>


Ask HN: Good python code for code reading - <AUTHOR> Reading good python code must be an enjoyable learning experience, any suggestion? <comment><USER2> I would definitely recommend sync'ing the python subversion tree and picking a few modules and reading through them. Doing so taught me some of the less obvious things within the language, and also taught me a lot about the various dunder (__foo__) methods for objects.

Additionally, I'd recommend reading through the PEP documents (<http://python.org/dev/peps/>) - there's a lot of great examples and rationales contained in those.

Finally, Doug hellmann has done an excellent job with his Python Module of the Week series (<http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/>) and a new project "The hazel tree" (<http://www.thehazeltree.org/>) is doing a great job at compiling the various examples, docs/etc together in one place.

<comment><USER3> This was a major eye-opener for me as-well. I jumped into various python modules and was amazed at what I discovered. Like the easter-egg hidden away in "this.py":

<http://pastebin.com/f25f08f20>

(Couldn't figure out how to get code formatting to work properly)

<comment><USER4> Ha. All that code at the bottom of the file could be replaced by "print s.decode('rot13')" - I suppose it's backwards compatible though...

<comment><USER5> Or forward-compatible, since encode/decode in py3k is between bytes and unicode only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's an essay that contains code, but this is one of my all time favorites:

Peter Norvig writes a spelling corrector in 21 lines of Python: <http://norvig.com/spell-correct.html>

<comment><USER7> Norvig's sudoku-solving essay is pretty awesome, too (100 lines of Python).

<http://norvig.com/sudoku.html>

<comment><USER8> Speaking of python code, are there any cool data structures and such that are better or easier to use than java's?

And here's my take on Norvig's sudoku solver and spell checker that people have posted in this thread.

I created a sudoku solver in java for a class a few weeks ago. It uses depth search plus back tracking, which means it is very efficient with memory. It uses a single matrix, whereas Norvig's solution has the possibility of creating more and more variations of the board in memory at the same time. This isn't a big deal for a 9x9 board, but my sudoku solver, which is probably also written in 100 or 200 lines of code, can solve sudoku problems of any size board, including 16x16 that I found on a web site, and even 100x100... which when I made up a puzzle for it with maybe 8 values filled in, thinking there must be a solution, I ended up ending the program after 20 minutes because I had to go to class. :) Also, I'm going to have to read what he did more carefully at a later point, as it seems he describes many cool approaches.

And I've also written a spell checker a few years ago when I was maybe 20 years old, based on reading the idea of getting rid of vowels and replacing consonants in words to their phonetic sound (there's like 9 possibilities), and comparing it against each of the phonetic spelling of the dictionary words. In other words, you would shrink the word to what remained the phonetic sounds, eg. words that might sound alike or very close. Find a list of suggestions based on how close the phonetic sounding of the dictionary words are to the phonetic sounding of the misspelled word (word that's not in the dictionary.) Order the list of suggestions by how close the actual dictionary word is to the actual misspelled word. It worked very well. I added endings like -ing and pluralization. The suggestions ended up being incredibly cool. Once again, I think this is more useful than Norvig's example because the spell checker I wrote could suggest words that aren't spelled even remotely close, but could be what the user meant, while Norvig's would only suggest corrections to a misspelled word that has a few letters transposed or missing a few letters, as long as most or all of the real letters were in fact there-- mine didn't require even a single real letter to match or be in the misspelling. Also, it didn't need training models.

Finally, Peter says he's amazed that others don't realize how a spell checker might work, and I'm amazed he didn't consider that google very likely harvests search queries to make logical assumptions based on user behavior, e.g. "a user had 3 results and corrected some words and now he got 20,000 results, and therefore those words are either related or misspellings of each other." I thought google might be doing this back in 2004, if not earlier, in order to be able to suggest alternative spellings to queries that might not even be dictionary words, like names of celebrities. That is way more obvious to me than just a spell checker.

I've even once googled for a theorem, and the #1 result was my math professor's web page describing it. The next day I searched this again and noticed that google was redirecting search results (links) to track them, which I noticed happened from time to time (i.e. the search results would take you to what I assumed was a google counter first, and then the actual page, instead of directly to the link like normal, so google was collecting stats or whatnot on their user's patterns from time to time, or so I thought.)

So I clicked on the 2nd link a couple of times, making sure I waited 30 seconds or so each time so that google believed it was a good search result (i.e. that I didn't press the back button right away, implying I hated the result--at least, I imagined might be happening and that's what it might be detecting and might have made a difference), and then refreshed the search result page. Now, my professor's page had swapped places with the previous #2 result!

So this shows that google does use user queries and behavior to improve their results. And right now, you can type in a search for Pauel Garahum and it knows who it is. It might be using a cool spell checker, it might use phonetic spelling methods, or even better and cooler, simply track that this is what a previous user searched for, got no results, and edited their search query just slightly before submitting for a successful query with 20,000 results, and then proceeded to go to one of the results and not come back to google for 2 hours--thus the other users were happy--so this means that we can suggest to this user, who is running a bad or misspelled search as others have in the past, the query that other users changed theirs to after not finding anything. (Then refine this until you can make logical conclusions on a regular basis, live, and don't need to have a page of no results to trigger this logic, etc.)

<comment><USER7> In my mind, Python's most important data structures are its set, tuple, dictionary, and list. While they are no more powerful than what you can find or make in Java, they are extremely convenient to use. Note that Norvig solves both problems exclusively using these structures.

Norvig's sudoku solver _is_ using depth-first search and backtracking, implemented in the function "search". I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that it is simultaneously using many more boards than the search depth.

Google could well be using every clever trick you can think of to implement their spelling corrector, but I think you're overestimating the value of tracking user variations over multiple searches. It's highly unlikely that someone searched for "Pauel Garahum" in the past, then corrected it to "Paul Graham". Likewise, you can search for "brootnenny spars" and it comes up with a good suggestion. More likely, they are using the search frequency as an indicator of correctness (P(c) in Norvig's article) and coming up with a better error model (P(w|c)), probably using phonetics as you proposed earlier. And once you have this, you don't really need to go through the effort of correlating search variations.

It is, however, well-known that Google tracks the links that people click on and uses this information to improve search rankings. They may well be tracking whether or not the user clicks on results and using this fact to improve their estimate of the correctness of the search.

...And I'm not sure if you know this, but the reason Norvig specifically mentions _Google's_ spelling correction is because he is Google's Director of Research. He didn't "not realize" that Google could be using search results to improve spelling correction; he intentionally left stuff out because the article is only supposed to be an introduction to spelling correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I learned quite a bit from web.py (<http://github.com/webpy/webpy/tree/master>). It's small enough to be fun to poke through, but has more than enough "advanced" Python tricks to be worth your while.

</comment><comment><USER10> BitTorrent <http://download.bittorrent.com/dl/>

<comment><USER11> <http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2003/7/17/pythonnews.html>

This article might help you along the way. Inside it is a link to Bram Cohen's blog post titled "How to Write Maintainable Code". I have never actually looked into the Bittorrent code myself but depending on your skill level, understanding whats going on in there might be a bumpy ride.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Cookbook (Amazon it, I'm too sleepy to link) contains examples of idiomatic code that you should use.

<comment><USER13> <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001674/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always found Django to be a very clean code base.

</comment><comment><USER15> Python ships with plenty of good python code. Just take your time and read through the Lib directory of your standard python distribution.

<http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Lib>

</comment><comment><USER16> Mailman <http://list.org/>

Things you should be looking at are queues and error handling in an asynchronous message passing architecture.

Also you'll learn that not every web application needs an SQL database for persistence.

</comment><comment><USER17> For performance and algorithms the implementations at <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/python.php> and pay attention to the different benchmarks.

Also all RPython code coming from pypy, sometimes shown in <http://morepypy.blogspot.com/>

They are reimplementing all the C modules and doing a great job. The new implementations are of course closer to current best practices in python.

Enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER18> pybloxsom is a nice project to hack on; you can read and understand the whole of the code in a day, and it illustrates the "request handler with filters" design pattern very nicely. <http://pyblosxom.sourceforge.net/>

</comment><comment><USER19> I enjoyed reading the code from "Hacking RSS and Atom" by Leslie M. Orchard (ISBN: 978-0-7645-9758-9). There's a lot more to it than just RSS related code and if you read the book you get the explanation too.

</comment><comment><USER20> twisted is very clean and readable.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Zope3 codebase.</comment>


U.S. rights group rethinks defending hate groups protesting with guns - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-protests-aclu-idUSKCN1AY06L <comment><USER2> While technically this may be the ACLU trying to set limits on acceptable free speech, they seem like pretty reasonable ones. In a world where they have ensured your first amendment right to be a huge racist in public, is it really critical you have a gun on you at that exact moment?

<comment><USER3> I didn't know that constitutional rights can't be combined!

Will the ACLU also refuse to defend your freedom of speech if the gov't is unlawfully seizing your property at the same time?

<comment><USER4> If the government is unlawfully seizing your property, why aren't you at your property defending it with your gun, rather than engaging in a rally downtown?

Besides, it's pretty clear that their issue is the 'intent on committing violence' bit, not the 'freedom of odious speech' bit. You're free to start your own civil liberties legal team though, and I'm sure the ACLU will give some pointers on how to set up.

Edit: more on point: 2nd Amendment advocates talk a big game about defending the 1st Amendment with it. How many times have we seen the 1st actually defended by citizens exercising the 2nd? Or any of the rest of the bill of rights? When has the US government backed down on a course of action because of armed citizens? Anything recently?

<comment><USER3> I'it's not defending the 1st amendment, but I'd say Ruby Ridge is a good example of some defending their rights via the 2nd amendment.

Of course that didn't stop the gov't from killing the man's unarmed, innocent wife.

<comment><USER4> The 2nd amendment didn't work for them. They got their 'victory' (money << couple of dead people) through the courts later on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title does not accurately represent what the ACLU said,

> ACLU: "We've had people with odious views, all manner of bigots. But not > people who want to carry weapons and _are intent on committing violence_ "

That last bit is important. From the Vice report,

> CANTWELL: "a lot more people are gonna die before we're done here" [1] [2]

This is the kind of statement that gets you arrested for inciting a riot.

[1] [https://youtu.be/P54sP0Nlngg?t=20m51s](https://youtu.be/P54sP0Nlngg?t=20m51s)

[2] [http://archive.is/eNUmW](http://archive.is/eNUmW)

<comment><USER6> Seems like the ACLU could have left off the part about "people who want to carry weapons" and just went with "people who are intent on committing violence" if they wanted to be clear about it.

I think the quote below shows this is specifically about carrying firearms, regardless of intent.

>"If a protest group insists, 'No, we want to be able to >carry loaded firearms,' well, we don't have to represent >them. They can find someone else," the newspaper quoted > Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director since >2001, as saying.

<comment><USER5> Can't it be both? Guns + intent to be violent = no ACLU support

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a big ACLU supporter but they've always held the position that gun rights are collective, not individual, and generally been in favor of restrictions on private ownership. I'm not super surprised they're taking this position.

<comment><USER8> They've always been selective about which civil liberties count.

In fact, they sometimes like to reach beyond what counts as civil liberties into broader "social justice" issues:

[https://www.aclu.org/issues/disability-rights/tell-senate- sa...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/disability-rights/tell-senate-save-our- health-care?redirect=feature/tell-senate-save-our-health-care)</comment></comment>


Immigrants are 42 percent of California's STEM workforce - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com/2017/07/14/immigrants-are-42-percent-of-californias-stem-workforce/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this is terrible for all the countries these people came from. I couldn't imagine living in a country where technologists flee at their first opportunity.</comment>


Ask HN: Systems programming – where should I start? - <AUTHOR> I want to get involved in systems programming, but don't know where to start.
My background is in developing web applications, and have used PHP, Ruby, Python and JavaScript heavily over the years. I don't have a formal education in computer science.
I've recently started looking at Rust[1], and have found myself having to learn about things like memory, pointers, lifetimes, ownership, (de)referencing and so on. I've found that I've been spoiled by dynamic languages over the years in not having to think/worry about any of that.
Where did you start in learning all of this? Can you show me any resources which would help me in learning this sort of thing?
What computer science concepts do you find most valuable when it comes to systems programming?
Thanks for the help in advance!
1. Rust - http://rust-lang.org <comment><USER2> I would highly recommend starting out by building your own linux distro by following the linux-from-scratch book or similar.[1]

You will learn a lot about what goes into making a distro actually boot, how the different pieces of software are interacting with each other, and how to solve and debug typical issues and kernel panics.

From there, I think many would recommend attempting to make some sort of Kernel Module, even if it's a very basic one that isn't of much use. The experience alone will teach you a lot of valuable skills and knowledge.[2]

Learning some assembler will help as well. There is a great free ebook from the gnu assembler (GAS) project [3]. Assembler will help teach you how the computer is really doing what it does. This is important if you are going to be working closer to the kernel and most of the critical subsystems, be in Linux or the BSD's (even Windows actually). There are many different Assembler languages, but learning some basics in one will help you understand how others work.

[1] [http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/](http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/)

[2] [http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses/kernel_hacking/less...](http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses/kernel_hacking/lesson8)

[3] [http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/pgubook/Programmin...](http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/pgubook/ProgrammingGroundUp-1-0-booksize.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I think it's worth spending a while with user-level C (maybe complete 1 or 2 nontrivial projects) before attempting to write kernel modules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, what would you consider a nontrivial project?

<comment><USER4> My first C class had Gameboy programming. There were no libraries to include, and most of the data manipulation was around scores and drawing pixels.

My second C class went into mutexes and things (producers & consumers of some data)

My third class that used C had kernel modules. Our kernel module project was to write a model of a parking lot. There was some user code that called our module saying whether it was a normal vehicle, a handicap vehicle, or an emergency vehicle. The parking lot also had 2 states, emergency or normal. In an emergency, only emergency vehicles could come in, everything else was rejected. The code ran with M floors and N parking spaces per floor, and returned the lowest floor in which you could park.

We also wrote an identical piece of userspace code, and compared how fast each performed.

<comment><USER3> My C education followed the exact same pattern (Georgia Tech). I'm really happy with it. The whole progression felt very organic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> C would be worth studying, as would some books around and about C. (Peter van der Linden's _Expert C Programming_ comes to mind.) Even if you don't actually _use_ C much, it's been a standard for a long time, with lots of interesting heritage.

[http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Programming-Peter-van- Linden/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Programming-Peter-van- Linden/dp/0131774298)

</comment><comment><USER6> You can start with learning embedded system from Edx: [https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx- ut-6-01x-embe...](https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx- ut-6-01x-embedded-systems-1172)

Then, learn Hardware Software Interface from Coursera: [https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface](https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface)

</comment><comment><USER7> I like this book: Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective

[http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/public/samples.html](http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/public/samples.html)</comment>


Only on the Internet: Get paid to wear a company's shirt - <AUTHOR> http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/08/04/only-on-the-internet-get-paid-to-wear-a-companys-shirt/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this idea could be expanded in a Mechanical Turk type site. Startups could get untraditional exposure by paying people from all around the country to wear their shirts. I'm sure there would be plenty of people out there who wouldn't mind getting $10 for just wearing a shirt, and that works out to be pretty cheap advertising.

<comment><USER3> That is an interesting idea to investigate. You could also have location specific advertising by distributing free T-shirts in areas that have you target user. It would be similar to colleges giving out free T-shirts at football games, but instead it would have your company's logo and website on it.</comment></comment>


When Papers Quit Calling Waterboarding 'Torture' - <AUTHOR> http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/the-legacy-media-and-torture.html

<comment><USER2> There's a reason for this, and it's cowardly and despicable, but it's not nearly so straightforward as the US press being lapdogs for US war criminals.

Newspapers have a journalistic duty to be impartial, or at least a marketing duty to appear impartial. (News outlets that seem partial lose prestige, and hence compete in a different niche--contrast the New York Times and the New York Post.) Who must they appear impartial to? Their audience, of course--and the primary audience for American newspapers is Americans. Now, when the American executive branch and one out of two political parties seriously claims that waterboarding is not torture, you suddenly seem partial to Americans if you openly contradict that claim, because the question of whether waterboarding is torture has moved from accepted wisdom to controversy. Clouding all of this, of course, is that the controversy itself is nothing more than a semantic argument. Another contributing factor is ignorance-- waterboarding went from an obscure torture technique which comparatively few people knew about to an active political issue, which means a lot of people who knew absolutely nothing about waterboarding until the administration said "we're for it and we're doing it" made up their minds at that instant, based on their opinion of the administration.

Weaker forms of this are seen when, for instance, news outlets give equal time to cranks when reporting on science, because there's "controversy" over whether evolution is real or whether the earth is really 4 billion years old. It's easy to find more examples if you look out for them.

<comment><USER3> _Newspapers have a journalistic duty to be impartial_

Actually, they don't: journalism's duty is to be _truthful_ , not impartial: if somebody lies, it's the journalist's duty to show that they're lying, not to do the he-said, she-said tango.

<comment><USER2> Journalism's duty is to be truthful _and_ impartial--truthful on matters of fact, impartial on matters of opinion. From there it gets complicated, of course.

<comment><USER4> Journalism's duty is to sell newspapers. Anything else is a tertiary concern.

<comment><USER2> Of course, but I addressed that in my original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The scare quotes in the title seem somewhat editorial, and should probably be removed by moderator.

Also, a link to the original report on which the posted article is based: [http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/papers/tort...](http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/papers/torture_at_times_hks_students.pdf)

<comment><USER2> How so? They're not scare quotes, they're actual quotes. It's a grammatical convention in English to quote a word if you're talking about the word itself, as the headline does.

<comment><USER3> Actually, to call something torture is substantially different in connotation than to call something 'torture'. I think the Atlantic headline writer goofed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is this sophomoric garbage on HN? Seriously, we're supposed to believe that the New York Times is a craven tool of the neocon puppeteers, rather than liberals who got mugged by 2752 object lessons in the difference between random homicide and harsh interrogation?

<comment><USER6> Why is this sophomoric comment on HN? Seriously, we're supposed to believe that hyperbolic assertions are considered a contribution to the discussion?

<comment><USER5> Yes. The most parsimonious explanation for the NYT's war attitude is that the destruction of the twin towers recalibrated their ideas about justice and reasonable response.

This is in comparison to the data-free explanation of the article, that an unspecified conspiracy in the NYT sold out to an unspecified faction in the Bush 42 administration under unspecified pressure. It's not even a conspiracy theory. Rolling Stone and Drudge would require better sourcing to print such vacuous trollop. HN is a poor venue for politics, and an even poorer venue for empty political traffic-whoring.

<comment><USER6> See? That wasn't so hard.

Now next time you are thinking about a useless post, imagine the downvotes, the reply, and then the bit where you actually post something useful.

But then just post the useful bit.

<comment><USER5> No, it has no effect. The votes on this issue appear to be based on political alignment, not content or logic. This does not bode well for HN.

<comment><USER6> Actually, it looks like the votes are right on. Top comment essays an explanation for why newspapers stopped calling waterboarding torture, your immature political signalling got downvoted, and an irrelevant straw discussion about waterboarding itself, rather than its treatment by newspapers, also got downvoted. Another top level comment that is half wrong and half reference sits at 1 point. Those all sit about where they should. If you seek converts, or even just votes, please post content and logic, not your political alignment and tear shaped raindrops.

<comment><USER7> My comment about waterboarding is not irrelevant in a discussion about an article whose topic was "how the topic of waterboarding was treated and when & why a change in the narrative occurred." And especially one in which said article took the stance that waterboarding is torture and therefore evil and therefore _always unacceptable by any party_ and then showed a photo of a Khmer Rouge torture facility _as if_ to imply there were a 1-to-1 correspondence and ethical parity between the actions of the Khmer Rouge (whom most international observers agree tortured _thousands_ of innocent people and murdered at least a million more) and the actions of the US government (in reaction to 9/11 in which Al Qaeda murdered _thousands_ of innocent US citizens) when any reasonable person could spot the _differences_ in the circumstances.

Also there was no strawman argument in my comment unless you make an assumption that is wrong going into the reading of it. I made an independent argument formulated based on how I perceived and analyzed the topic that the OA was addressing. I did not misrepresent the author's position, nor did I claim to refute the narrow point of his article. I was intentionally not addressing his narrow core claim (dealing with the change in mainstream media terminology, theorized to have been done in order to become more in alignment with a desired change in the public narrative by vested interests) -- _by intent_ \-- and _instead_ addressing the larger issue and assumptions made by the OA's article. And I put a lot of thought and care into what I wrote -- with no cursing, name-calling and with good spelling and grammar (generally) -- and don't think it deserved to be downvoted into karma penalty land.

Votes should be based on the quality of the contribution to a discussion, not on a mere I-agree/I-disagree or on emotional reactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Waterboarding is bad, of that there is no doubt. However, lots of things that society already accepts as being, in isolation, bad/evil, we already allow and accept and do not consider "evil" when done under special circumstances.

Take the case where someone is suddenly surrounded in the street, forced into a vehicle and taken away. That's normally called kidnapping. But if police do it, it's called an arrest. If a person is held against their will in a cold small cell and their movements and actions strictly limited, and treated like an animal or child most of us would consider that cruel and inhumane and label it as slavery. But if it is inside a "prison" and said person had violated a law and that is our justification for them being there then it is "okay" and not evil to be doing that to them.

And almost all societies have been doing this for thousands of years. Nothing new here. Move along.

But one day the issue of waterboarding comes up, as it relates to US treatment of some terrorists caught in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Is it unpleasant? You bet. Extremely? No doubt. But is the US government just showing up outside John & Jane Smith's house in Iowa, kidnapping the wife, a perfectly innocent suburban house mom, taking her away to a secret location and then waterboarding her in order to make her reveal her _secret cookie recipe_? Heck no. That's not what was happening. Far from it, according to the published reports. Instead, the US government used this technique only on "bad guys" -- and by that term I mean folks for whom there was enough evidence that any reasonable person would agree that he had been engaged in evil & illegal acts such is killing or planning to kill innocent US non-combatant civilians. Such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planning mastermind behind the 9/11 operation. Am I going to lose _any_ sleep at all over him being waterboarded IF the goal was getting useful information out of him to further fight/dismantle Al Qaeda and prevent future murders? Heck no. Do I think it is wrong for him to be waterboarded? I'm not sure. At best it's in some shades of grey area. I think _kidnapping_ is wrong, I think _slavery_ is wrong and I think _murder_ is wrong but every single day in this country and in many countries around the world citizens _already_ give their governments a free pass at doing _exactly_ these things. And we as citizens allow it (assuming democracies, people have ultimate control over laws, etc.) because even though in the general case we detest it, we generally agree there are special cases where it's acceptable because it's a choice of a lesser evil and also that some greater good is achieved because of it. This is exactly the argument behind waterboarding.

Do I like it? Of course not, I don't think any empathic, non-sadistic person would. But to call it torture and thus because it's torture it is inherently evil and therefore that there can _never_ be any _possible_ justification for it -- I find that an illogical and therefore invalid argument. At best, hypocritically inconsistent.

If anything I think the better case against waterboarding is whether it's effective. If it is not effective, either at extracting true and timely and useful information out of the subject, OR, in acting as a deterrent to other would-be conspirators, then that's a reasonable argument for dropping it. Another good argument is that it might drastically increase the chance that US soldiers, when captured by enemies, are themselves subjected to it. But at least with these arguments, there is nuance and there are trade-offs being considered. But to simply say X-is-always-wrong-and-should-never-be-done I find that to be a very weak argument considering all the other precedents that run in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER8> _But is the US government just showing up outside John & Jane Smith's house in Iowa, kidnapping the wife, a perfectly innocent suburban house mom, taking her away to a secret location and then waterboarding her in order to make her reveal her secret cookie recipe? Heck no._

Heck, yes. Or pretty close to it. Quite a few Gitmo inmates were completely innocent, they just were at the wrong place at the wrong time, or had the wrong surname, or had enemies who called them terrorists to get rid of a business rival, or to get the bounty that US was paying.

<comment><USER7> To clarify about your Gitmo point: the vast majority were not waterboarded. Going to Gitmo did/does not automatically mean being waterboarded. But point taken.

I thought of another good argument against waterboarding: the Geneva Convention. My understanding is that it is banned by it under all (or, well, proscribed) circumstances, and the US is signatory to it. I think part of the reason why the US wanted to do certain things NOT on mainland US soil was to be able to weasel around certain laws and international rules that address what they are and are not allowed to do.

<comment><USER9> > the Geneva Convention. ... the US is signatory to it.

There are several "Geneva Conventions". The US has signed some of them.

In general, the Geneva conventions only apply when both parties are signatories. Since the Taliban and such orgs aren't signatories ....

<comment><USER8> The USA has signed all 4 geneva conventions and all 3 amendment protocols, but not ratified 2 of the latter. Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Geneva_C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Geneva_Conventions)

And the conventions quite definitely _do_ apply to some degree when a signatory fights an opponent that is not a nation (and which therefore, by definition, cannot be a signatory). The details are a bit difficult, especially when a conflict is both internations and involves non-nation parties, but it's definitely not correct to say "our opponents are not signatories, so all rules are off".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oh, Fine, You're Right. I'm Passive-Aggressive. - <AUTHOR> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281542/posts

<comment><USER2> Acting passive-aggressive is not something you do very consciously. I must admit I'm guilty of it and if it really comes from fear of embarrassment or making mistakes then that is a real problem.

But I think passive-aggresiveness can also be seen as the result of being unable to vent your anger/frustration. This inability may not always be your own fault. As with the original case of passive-aggressive soldiers, they had no available normal outlet.

If you are in a relationship which you feel you can not break, it is basically the same thing. When you're past the point that venting anger changed things, and now only harms things, passive-aggressiveness is the only road left.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please link to the original. [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/health/psychology/16pass.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/health/psychology/16pass.html)</comment>


One of these things is not like the other: Apple store, Microsoft store - <AUTHOR> http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=2077 <comment><USER2> I can confirm the same kind of experience with Microsoft stores with the one just outside Chicago. When I first saw it I wondered why they would even open such a store when Microsoftt products don't really lend themselves to a branded store. I speculated that they just saw how well the Apple store did and decided to copy just like they copy a lot of things competitors do (for better or worse, I'm not saying its bad/good, right/wrong). Then another more plausible thought came to mind. This could be a way to get people to believe there's no difference between Apple and Microsoft. In fact I have this creeping feeling they actually want to confuse people into thinking its the same store. In my case there was an Apple store on the opposite end of the same mall. Think about it. Both stores are eerily similar on first glance. They both have just a big logo outside with an open floor plan and a bunch of products on tables. My own mother who loves Apple products, owns a few, but is still not a tech savvy person asked me "Is that the new Apple store?". It reminded me of the way Samsung designed and packaged some of their phones and tablets in such a way that "moms who always buy the wrong thing for Christmas" are tricked into thinking a tablet is an iPad because it looks like an iPad. In this case it almost seems like the idea is to get people to buy a laptop/phome/whatever from the Microsoft store because it looks like the Apple store and therefor if it looks the same it must be the same.

But the problem with a dedicated Microsoft store is that You can buy a Microsoft product anywhere. There's no difference in terms of products between a Microsoft store and a Best Buy, Wal Mart, Target, any cell phome carrier's store, and electronics shops in general. The products in a MS store is just a subset of what you can get anywhere else. Now contrast this with the experience of buying an Apple product. There's a consistent experience and consistent branding across the board. There's the Apple store which is the ultimate controlled experience and even when you buy an Apple product elsewhere there's still consistency. For example, if you buy an Apple product from Best Buy there's a dedicated Apple area that is specially set up and designed like a mini Apple store even if it's a single table with an iMac and a MacBook. The table is the same table as the one at the Apple store and so are the tags (iPads with prices and specs) and there's even a little wall that looks like a chunk of Apple Store.

There's always consistent branding with Apple too. Even if you buy an iMac out the back of some guys truck! That's because all their products have a distinct look and the little apple logo. You can't buy an HP Mac or a Lenovo MacBook Air. If it's an Apple then it's an Apple from top to bottom and there's no other logos or branding anywhere.

This is why a Microsoft Store not only doesn't make sense but makes it look like an attempt to copy, confuse, mislead, or create a false equivalency between the Microsoft and Apple brands. Now that Microsoft looks like its going to start manufacturing it's own hardware like with the new Surface it would make sense but until they can fill a store with Microsoft manufactured products first and foremost with a few sections for third party accessories then it looks more like a cheap way to ride someone else's coat tails.

<comment><USER3> I first saw a Microsoft store at the Stanford Shopping Center (Palo Alto, CA), right next to the Apple store. At Valley Fair (Santa Clara, CA), I noticed a Microsoft store and my friend commented how it looked like an Apple store. I looked around and sure enough there was an Apple store 30 feet away. Microsoft isn't trying to be subtle at all, which seems to support your theory.

<comment><USER4> If you've ever been to the Mall of America, its even more blatant. The Microsoft store is directly across from the Apple store.

I was in there once when I got my 4s, and decided why not pick up Forza 4 while I was there. It was a bit surreal, the overall experience of walking in and telling an associate: I want X was markedly different. This store unlike the Boston store, was almost dead except for people playing xbox, and browsing the web on the computers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's summarize: Apple, a hardware manufacturer, had only Apple products in their store. Microsoft, a software company, had hardware from many manufacturers, which is apparently confusing to Apple customers. Oh, and Microsoft's store was smaller.

<comment><USER2> First off, it actually is confusing to Apple customers. It's way too easy in our little bubble to really understand how little a normal person cares about the things we care about. You have no idea how many people think that Googles search bar IS the address bar. I've seen people use the search bar of their browser and/or going to the Google homepage to search for "www.whateverSiteTheyKnewTheAddressOf.com" even though the address bar is literally 10 pixels from the search bar! This is the vast vast vast majority of people who use technology.

It's easy to scoff but these are your users (unless your users are just like you but that's rare).

I'd ask what is the advantage of having a Microsodt store? Why would it be beneficial for Microsoft to invest money in operating a chain of stores that serve the exact same purpose every other generic electronics store serves? To me there's no logic there unless the purpose is to confuse people or to try to make your brand seem like its equivalent in a "well this looks like Apple so it must be the same" kind of way.

<comment><USER6> Clearly Microsoft wants to develop a brand on an equal footing with Apple. There's no other way to survive against Apple. Building Microsoft retail stores (fronted with their rather lovely, modern logo) and staking out their own retail domain, away from the clutter of the big boxes, is part of that push.

The question here I think is about execution, not the utility of this strategy. Seems like they are making some very odd mistakes - because of lack of focus, or perhaps trouble keeping the OEMs happy?

<comment><USER7> _There's no other way to survive against Apple._

Android is doing pretty well without a dedicated store.

<comment><USER6> I was referring to the need for brand power, not the store specifically. Android has indeed developed brand power, but Microsoft's situation and needs are different from Android and I think a store is an absolute must. Android has successfully created a story that people like about power and choice in your pocket, and good on Google and the OEMs for that. But Microsoft is a much, much bigger entity than Android, and they have a proportionally grander and more ambitious vision (or need to have such a vision or are trying to develop such a vision) about technology, a vision they want to bring to people through a much more complex and heavily integrated suite of technology and services. And one of the best ways to do this is through a polished, exciting store experience (not sure if Microsoft is quite managing that, but hopefully the situation should improve.)

Microsoft's imperative is to distill its sprawling empire into something sleek and powerful. Android's imperative, should it choose to accept it, is to expand on its successful foundation intelligently without diluting or confusing the story it tells. Totally opposite problems IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've personally been to a few Microsoft stores and they all have that distinct cargo cult feel. They feel like a designer walked through an Apple Store once and then designed the rest from memory. The biggest difference I noticed was layout. Some things were organized by brand, some by type, and then the Xbox stations were just sort of thrown in-between things.

In an Apple Store there is enough room between each table for 3 people to stand comfortably: 2 to check out stuff and 1 to walk through in the middle. The Microsoft store was much more cramped meaning you always had to be pushing through a crowd. It certainly gave the illusion of a packed store. However, even when an Apple Store is absolutely packed, you never find yourself pushing through a crowd.

 _Shrug_ I don't think this is some blight on Microsoft though. It is there first attempt at a solid retail presence. Apple stores weren't always as great as they are now and I'm sure that Microsoft will iterate their store design to improve it.

<comment><USER9> "Cargo cult feel" is a pretty generous way to phrase it. The closer one looks, the more it looks more like Jennifer Jason Leigh's character in Single White Female. Check out how they mimic the opening ceremonies for a new store:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dStiYaxeQ4Q#t=4m51s> (Apple store)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Hk0ZCqRxg> (MS store)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would imagine the reason for the difference in purchasing would be Apple's consistent pricing strategy. The price of an Apple product seems to be set no matter where you get it from, whereas people will bargain hunt for a Windows machine.

</comment><comment><USER11> I enjoyed the Microsoft store, as well as the sony store in LA.

Personally, I've grown bored with the apple store and don't have a reason to visit any longer (Same old inventory and experience for years). Now, the MS & Sony stores had several things that I haven't seen in retail stores before (3d binoculars, high end cameras etc..) and was very engaging. If I had a need for what they were selling (and wasn't such a amazon fanatic), I'd have no problem dropping in. I think this is a good trend.

The Mac fans are being a little too precious, IMHO.

<comment><USER12> _Personally, I've grown bored with the apple store and don't have a reason to visit any longer..._

My family owns one Mac and two PCs. When the Mac needed some minor servicing, the value of a _local_ Apple Store became really apparent: we called, made a same-day appointment, went in, had the Mac serviced, and left happy customers in a very short period of time.

When a PC problem occurs, I call, wait on hold, slowly convince the technical support person whose first language isn't English that it needs to be shipped back for servicing, pack it up, label is properly, drive to a FedEx or UPS shop, ... it goes on and on, and it's a real hassle. Also, very stressful: who knows if you'll ever actually see your PC again? Even if you do, who knows when it'll come back?

My PC is due for replacement. Now that I'm older and have a family and many responsibilities, I'm willing to pay a premium for fast, hassle-free, local service. I'm not yet 100% sure I'll switch to Mac, but I might... and that's in large part because there's a few local Apple Stores near by.

<comment><USER11> I agree. This is a great reason to by a mac. It would be nice if the competition did this too.

I don't get why are so offended that another store is similar to one they like. It's just an electronics retailer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's pretty obvious why no-one bought anything: The Windows 8 machines were there to try only. Windows 8 hasn't been released yet. And the windows 7 phones are going to be obsolete in a couple of months when the win 8 phones come out.

<comment><USER14> I am with you on this one...even hardware manufacturers are promising a free upgrade to win8 as an incentive to buy now. I imagine the same is similar for the phones they are selling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes: Apple and Microsoft are different companies.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, _"one of these things is not like the other"_ really doesn't make any sense if you think about it when there are only two "things".

Either _both_ of them are not like the other, or _both_ of them are like the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I went into the one in the "Mall of Florida" in Orlando about a week ago.

I went right to the phones because, quite honestly, I've never even seen a Windows phone "in the wild". I picked up a phone and started poking.

The _very first words_ I heard were from a sales person who snuck up behind me and are as follows: "you don't want to buy that". No "hello". No "how may I help you" or "are you looking for something specific". Nope. "You don't want to buy that."

Further questioning revealed that I did not, in fact, want to buy much of anything in the store because "there's a new Windows coming out soon".

So I didn't. Buy anything. Or even hang out. It just felt creepy.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think they didn't buy it from the store because they went home and bought it online at a cheaper price whereas the luxurious apple supremacists have no problem shelling out lavish amounts of money for an apple designed usb drive.

</comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft went into retail not to actually make more money but to increase mindshare and build up the brand. That said though, I expect things to change a good bit come this holiday season.

</comment><comment><USER20> Microsoft have always been awful at marketing. The design of Microsoft stores seems like them admitting so, and trying a "fake it 'til you don't have to" approach.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Microsoft stores are going to be used to market the Surface line of devices. Microsoft figured that the Best Buy folks were not doing a good job and could probably steer people away from Microsoft products. So we will see this strategy come into effect in 20 days when Windows 8 launches and the Microsoft stores and the popup stores in the malls will be the only places where you can buy a Surface.</comment>


Fix for web encryption? - <AUTHOR>

Since the NSA incident I have been thinking about common encryption methods used currently in use on the web.
I was wondering if a rolling/hopping key scheme would work. Something similar to this is used in RF communications where they have frequency hopping.
I was thinking something along the same lines, where a visited site would give a unique key to the browser. The key would then be used to generate a rolling keys that would have to match that of the server for the connection to stay live.
Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> You mean SSL/TLS key renegotiation: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5746](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5746)?</comment>


Show HN: Cobalt2 theme and colour scheme for Sublime Text - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wesbos/cobalt2 <comment><USER2> Wait, I thought it's not possible to style the sidebar in ST (or at least not much)? I was searching for a plugin that would show Git status in my sidebar (as Atom does) but everywhere I looked people were saying it's not possible because of this limitation in ST.

Looks very good btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no sidebar API, yet. But in the latest ST3 release they allow for custom icons. Hopefully we will see more sidebar APIs so we can do things like color code files based on their git status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would love this for Ultraedit && Notepad++. PEople would probably pay at least a dollar for this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've ported it to Iterm and Zsh ([https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-iterm](https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-iterm)) as well as Atom ([https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-atom](https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-atom)). If anyone wants to port to another editor, I'd be happy to let you use the name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh and for Alfred too! [https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-Alfred- Theme](https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-Alfred-Theme)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great looking theme, although I'm a real fan of Brogrammer. Dodgy name, but very stylish.

[https://github.com/kenwheeler/brogrammer- theme](https://github.com/kenwheeler/brogrammer-theme)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wish there was a base16 ([https://github.com/chriskempson/base16](https://github.com/chriskempson/base16)) theme that fully skinned sublime like this does.

<comment><USER6> It's not too hard, I adapted Ian Hill's Soda (which clearly was also used for a lot of the UI in this theme) to Solarized for the same reason here: [https://github.com/jrolfs/sodarized](https://github.com/jrolfs/sodarized). I'd be happy to answer any questions about doing so for base16.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would greatly appreciate it if this made it into an Emacs theme, though a really good Emacs theme tends to be quite a bit more involved than a ST2 theme, since there's so much more to theme.

<comment><USER8> You can easily roll your own Emacs theme with this Emacs theme creator [https://github.com/mswift42/theme-creator](https://github.com/mswift42/theme- creator).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks cool, but this is still my favorite theme for Sublime: [http://kkga.github.io/spacegray/](http://kkga.github.io/spacegray/)

<comment><USER10> My favorite as well.

It's also a perfect match for the Numix desktop theme, which I find lovely: [https://numixproject.org/](https://numixproject.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love it. coffee / js icons in sidebar are very useful. :D

</comment><comment><USER12> Needed to restart before the Sidebar updated - but looks good!

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh man, I love those icons! Great stuff!

</comment><comment><USER14> Very nice, reminds me of the old Borland Turbo Pascal and Turbo C colors.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would love a darker variant of this theme. Everything is so bright... !

</comment><comment><USER16> Is it available for Atom?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've started a port - the sidebar icons aren't there yet but the code highlighting is - [https://github.com/wesbos/cobalt2-atom](https://github.com/wesbos/cobalt2-atom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmm. The left navigation stuff doesn't seem to update.

<comment><AUTHOR> Read the readme - you need to enable the theme (different than the colour scheme) in your settings file: `"theme": "Cobalt2.sublime-theme"`

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You did a great job bro!

</comment><comment><USER19> Very cool theme.

</comment><comment><USER20> I do not understand why people code on a dark background. I get the CRT retro aesthetic, but it is less readable on modern screens. Reflections on glossy displays become a problem. When was the last time you saw a website with a black background?

I can't tell if people coding on dark backgrounds are hipsters, or just don't know any better.

<comment><USER21> It's less tiresome for your eyes, eventually your eyes will demand you to use dark color schemes.

<comment><USER22> I can recommend f.lux. With it the whole environment becomes of about the same light. Without it, and with a dark theme in your code editor you have one level of light, and when you switch to a web browser you can bombarded by photons. :-/

<comment><USER8> > I can recommend f.lux

Or the oss variant redshift: [http://jonls.dk/redshift/](http://jonls.dk/redshift/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Now that Brackets.io is 1.0 and Atom is getting more mature, is Sublime Text really still relevant? It should go FOSS to stay competitive.

<comment><USER24> I don't really know that this is true.

Sublime is a zillion times faster than Atom, and brackets isn't something that enters into the same league as either. I don't see how open-sourcing will help it.

<comment><USER25> Sublime Text appears to be developed by someone who actively shuns his users, though.

<comment><USER26> Still better than a ho-hum editor from user-lovers like Atom or Brackets...

<comment><USER25> Are they really? User-lovers, I mean.

Just a few days ago I got an email from a plugin developer (Sublimall), anounching that they're stopping development. Quote from the email: "There is no community, no documentation, API is not well designed and there is absolutely no communication with Sublime Text developers.".

I don't know if I can recommend it, really. There's a real risk other plugins I rely on won't be maintained anymore.

<comment><USER26> > _Just a few days ago I got an email from a plugin developer (Sublimall)_

Well, that's just one developer though -- and who might be frustrated because of small adoption for his plugin. Haven't even heard of that one to be frank, but I see good movement in the ST plugin space for the stuff I use.

But my point was actually the opposite: I'd take a more fleshed out product like ST even if it's not user-friendly (in the community, developer relationship sense), over a user-friendly product thats not as functional, such as Atom etc.

If ST stops serving my needs (which it can serve as long as it runs in the current state, I don't need anything new, except for it to be ported to new versions of OS X), I'm OK. Else I can switch. I've used anything, and I'm a 15+ years Vim user too, so I can always go back to that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Creating signed GitHub releases - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.debian.org/Creating%20signed%20GitHub%20releases <comment><USER2> Or, alternatively:

1\. Tag your release with `git tag -s`

2\. `git push --follow-tags` (or `git push remotename tagname` in git <1.8.3)

3\. Upload your pubkey to github.

Much less effort…

<comment><USER3> Do the above steps generate an actual signed release, or just a signed tag?

<comment><USER2> A tag, not a release. I didn't realize there was a difference, but in hindsight, I'd argue it's superior anyway: I'm _much_ more comfortable to sign my local repository copy than signing an archive generated by github in a non- reproducible way.

I can verify the contents of github's archives, but I cannot, in good faith, say I've verified that the archives do not contain malicious code that triggers vulnerabilities in zip/tar/gzip.

<comment><USER4> Reproducing GitHub's archives locally is trivial. They just use a standard git command to do it anyway.

git archive -o project-0.5.tar.gz --prefix project-0.5/ v0.5

<comment><USER2> I think we have different standards for "reproducible". You can replicate the archive structure and naming, but the archive metadata – and thus checksums – will be different:

$ curl -sL [https://github.com/creshal/yspave/archive/0.1.0.zip](https://github.com/creshal/yspave/archive/0.1.0.zip) | sha512sum

375564f127b46f3d1208c30b4eb5c39725985ca09d7bacf940d346727e8bcf9362966f8523c39e6c4f6f1a86b52ceba8823c2f4b016fdedb5947cd6a6bafc930 -

$ git clone firstname.lastname@example.com:creshal/yspave.git

…

$ cd yspave

$ git archive -o 0.1.0.zip --prefix yspave-0.1.0/ 0.1.0

$ sha512sum 0.1.0.zip

aca1163d5270e8ad6796f10511f49b0cf5fe61007fed0786a6643ae522e59a6aa7d6b0cddf4e5b94a435da8d99aa09b2f2ebef7788a82d4c2e7d8d4ad79e0634 0.1.0.zip

–––––

So, I can verify that the contents weren't tampered with, but I cannot verify the archives themselves unless I happen to understand the zip/tar/gz… specifications better than most people implementing it.

<comment><USER4> That's interesting. I'm not able to replicate your results. Cloning that respository and doing the same git archive command produces an identical file to what GitHub serves.

I'm on a fully updated Arch Linux with the latest Git. If you have an older version, that might be making the difference.

<comment><USER5> I can reproduce the result: The content of the file is identical, the checksum differs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They missed the bit about verifying the validity of the content of the tarball... Given that you're essentially guarding against GitHub going rogue, that's half the point right?

<comment><USER2> Verifying the content is one thing, what about making sure the archive itself isn't malicious and triggering tar/gzip/zip vulnerabilities? In my experience, github's archives are not generated in a reproducible way.

<comment><AUTHOR> github archives are definitely generated in a reproducible way.

<comment><USER7> They are now. They weren't 2 or 3 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > 4\. Go back to your "Releases" section and download the tarball > mysoftware-0.4.tar.gz automatically generated by GitHub.

If only. That's by far my biggest irk with GitHub releases because they only use the tag as name for the tarball (e.g. v0.4.tar.gz). Building RPM packages with those tarballs is a bit of a pain because RPM building tools expect all tarballs in one directory and you don't know which tarball belongs to which software. Maybe I'm just being ignorant here.

<comment><USER2> It's not github's fault that RPM's tooling is stuck in the 90s, to be honest. makepkg and others support renaming tarballs during download to cover this use case.

<comment><USER8> I don't disagree, but it just feels off to tell a packaging tool to rename a tarball because the default name is not verbose enough to even identify the tarball.

<comment><USER9> But even so it is designed to be likely to get accidental collisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's the threat model you are defending against here?

GitHub changing the binary being downloaded? They could serve a different signature.

Another committer changing the tag? They could equally change the signature....

<comment><USER11> Github doesn't have your private key, so they won't be able to serve a valid signature. The only thing they could do is to substitute an older signed version when you request a newer version.

<comment><AUTHOR> They could create a new private key using your name. Most people will trust 'Verified' on a web page more than the OpenPGP web of trust.

<comment><USER12> Not sure why you're being downvoted, this "what is the threat model here" was my first thought, too, and this comment is also correct, as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably my "Most people" quip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Signed releases should be required for any package management system. I'm finding Ruby to be lacking in this area:

`bundle install --trust-policy HighSecurity`

</comment><comment><USER14> There appear to be a lot of shots taken behind the basket - even as far back at the 3 pt line. Is this a mistake in measurement?

<comment><USER15> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11495374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11495374)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to wrap a CLI and make it an HTTP API? - <AUTHOR> As a hobby I've been participating in some bug bounty programs. A lot of the tools used are CLIs. For some of them I'd like to wrap the CLI and deploy it as an HTTP endpoint. Optionally, I'd like to extend the CLI (perhaps by combining with other tools). What's your favorite framework/pattern for doing this kind of thing? <comment><USER2> Set up node and when you make a request spawn a child process that executes your bash command/file</comment>


The Mobile Phone Addiction - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2015/02/the-mobile-phone-addiction/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29 <comment><AUTHOR> I also left this as a comment:

I've seen this too, and I notice in particular that phones and Facebook seem to be bad for relationships ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/facebook-and- cellph...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/facebook-and-cellphones- might-be-really-bad-for-relationships) ; "Facebook" now stands in for any number of other web communication platforms). Perhaps phones just accelerate the weaknesses of already weak relationships, but I'm not so sure: they seem to sap people of the ability to be present with their significant other, while simultaneously offering a slippery slope towards new relationships.</comment>


Informal equity agreements - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I'm doing a startup and I feel we need to establish a basis for equity distribution before we get too deep into the project. My partner is hesitant to sign a formal agreement before we get a good sense of who's putting in the most work, as we're all still in school in different places in the world. Would it be possible to sign an agreement that would establish a basic range of equity: like no one partner can get less than X percentage until we are about to get funding and sign an official agreement?
He's insisting we wait, but perhaps if we get something in writing it would be something that could hold up in court. I trust my partners - I do - but I think it's wise to establish something from the very start. <comment><USER2> The difficulty I see here, if you're not incorporating officially, is that you are assigning equity on future actions that neither of you know what the value will be. What I mean by that is that say for instance he is given 60% equity with the idea in mind that he will do x amount of work. If three months down the road you think he's not doing x amount will you feel satisfied in giving this type of equity. I understand you do not want to be taken advantage of in this scenario as much of the benefit from a start up is gained in the equity but attempting to decide the equity decision so early on especially if neither of you is bringing something particularly unique and/or valuable to the equation is difficult. For that reason I agree with your partner in that you are probably better of waiting until later on to decide the equity split. As long as you have the general agreement that you are both in a partnership and are going to execute on whatever idea I believe the equity question will more or less work itself out as the work is completed.</comment>


GovWifi: connecting your organisation is now easier than ever - <AUTHOR> https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2019/02/12/govwifi-connecting-your-organisation-is-now-easier-than-ever/ <comment><USER2> "How about you just log into my spying system?"</comment>


PBUI Project – Subset of GNU Coreutils Using Zig - <AUTHOR> https://pbui.codes/public/posts/2020-04-14_AndroidKitKat_PBUI-Project-Release-Party.md <comment><USER2> Didn't expect to see this posted here :D. If anyone has any questions about the project feel free to ask away.</comment>


Ask HN: No more than 3 articles on a topic on homepage - <AUTHOR>

Is it fair to ask moderators to keep it to say 3 or 4 articles at the most on the home page about a single topic? I feel like when a major event happens HN becomes overwhelmed on a single topic to the detriment of representing a broader array of current topics in technology. <comment><USER2> Visit new. Upvote interesting new submissions. Contribute to good articles. Ignore submissions that are not interesting to you. Consider flagging articles that you think do not belong on HN.

A plug in / extension / script to allow users to filter certain topics would be brilliant, I think.

Allowing mods to limit the number of topics would just cause a great deal of meta outrage. It's bad enough when people flag. It'd be awful if mods controlled the front page.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot of users seem to feel it's an important topic which still merits discussion.

Some sort of topic filter, or a tagging system might help (or use hnapp.com or whatever third party thing is available), but putting a hard limit on something that other people want to talk about is pointless censorship.

It's a discussion forum, and this seems to resonate with the community.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do not support this. Yes, there are "surges" around particular events... but guess what? They eventually end and that topic settles in with everything else. Just give it a few days - and maybe take heart in that fact that so many HN users are so obviously passionate about certain topics.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a filtered noPRISM-version of HN: [http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb](http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb)

I found it in a comment from a few days ago ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416) ). It's a bit outdated, you should add "Snowden" to the filtered words.

(hint: To read the HN comments, click on the points/comments numbers.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Quick question; do you remember when Aaron Swartz died? Pretty much every article on the homepage was about that. Would you have requested the same ruling then?

I think this is more to do with a persons engagement on the topic in question. Hacker News works by following the consensus of what the majority want to see. So I think it is working correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes on the Aaron Swartz question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I disagree, I think we can solve this problem without placing a hard limit on the number of articles on the home page. Consider:

1\. That to place a limit on the number of articles on a particular topic on the homepage you must be able to group articles into topics.

2\. If you can group articles into topics why not implement either: (a). a filter control which filters out topics based on user selection or (b). a second "diversity of topics" page HN which includes only the top articles on HN per topic (a log plot of HN).</comment>


Elon Musk: Failed Strut Caused SpaceX's ISS Rocket Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/news/a16531/elon-musk-failed-strut-spacex-rocket-explosion

<comment><USER2> ""This will cause some cost increase in the rocket," he said. "But nothing, we think, will increase the price.""

A further reminder of Elon Musk's commitment to disruptive pricing.</comment>


Python: x += 1 vs x = x + 1 - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15376509/when-is-i-x-different-from-i-i-x-in-python

<comment><USER2> The title here is neither the question being asked, nor the question being answered, and hence is significantly misleading given the fact that this is a detailed question about a detailed aspect of behavior.</comment>


Show HN: MyOnlineParty – Live streaming for direct sales consultants - <AUTHOR> https://myonlineparty.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Lenny from MyOnlineParty here.

Wanted to submit our platform and see if the hacker news community had any feedback on the look and messaging we are employing.

All feedback is welcome!</comment>


Show HN: Hustlejet – Prospecting assistant that helps you grow your hustle - <AUTHOR> http://hustlejet.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey people, I'm trying to see if this idea is any good, and I would really appreciate your insights!

\- Any feedback on the landing page? \- Is this product helpful for you? \- What similar products do you use on a daily basis?

Thanks, M</comment>