Anyone interested in starting an HN blog network? - <AUTHOR>

I notice there are a lot of insightful, readable blogs from the HN clan.
I'm thinking our blogs should join forces into one giant armada. We'll bum rush the other big blog networks.
What do you people say about it? <comment><USER2> Why?

1\. to put ads on the giant armada site and collectively make a little money?

2\. to make sure your blog posts are read by people of like-minds?

It seems that Hacker News is already taking care of #2, so is the only reason #1?

I'd be glad to cross-post to the giant armada when they seem of interest to other hackers/entrepreneurs. But I'll still be posting everything on my own site.

This is what I do at MusicThinkTank - maybe a similar idea. Example: [http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/after-15-years-of- practic...](http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/after-15-years-of- practice.html)

There my music-focused posts get another audience that isn't checking my own personal site.

But then, if there was a Hacker News type site for "music think tank" type people, there wouldn't be a need for musicthinktank.com.

So is it just for the money?

<comment><USER3> I think a filtered/non-spammy PlanetHackerNews would be a good idea. It would include RSS from people like PG, you, Patrick, DGG etc. When I'm in the mood to read good article, I just go there and read it. Each of those blog entries links back to the original site comments and hopefully the HN thread. That way if I miss a really good HN discussion on some article you wrote because I was busy working that day, I still get to catch up on the article + discussion later at my disposal.

As a reader, I don't care how much money any of the syndicated bloggers make or don't make. Sure, I could just add you guys to my RSS readers but that means I have to find all the good hackers and manually deal with subscription etc. Plus I lose on the HN discussions. A PlanetHackerNews would take care of that. Hell, if someone makes it work well, I'll pay $5/month for it.

<comment><USER4> I'm doing exactly this. PlanetHN.com is officially registered. Will keep status updated. No Ads, No Fees.

<comment><USER4> Officially accepting nominations for blogs to aggregate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How about a "Hackers ring"? You'd have a "Hacker news" rotating gif picture on your page, with arrows that would point towards the next or previous homepage in the ring. You could also click on the gif to get the whole list. :)

<comment><USER6> This is brilliant! I'll make a web page on Geocities to advertise it. Just got this cool animated gif of an "Under construction" sign emailed to me on my Hotmail account, will be sure to include that on the page as well.

<comment><USER7> Sounds great!

That reminds me, I HAVE to forward you this hilarious email I got from my Aunt. Just make sure you really read all the way to the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Set up your own blog planet software and add RSS feeds for things you're interested in. You don't need to ask people if they like it. Just do it yourself. If people like it they will ready it. After a while you will know from your visitor count if people like your idea.

</comment><comment><USER9> This morning I was thinking wouldn't it be great if we had a yay query / diggnation style audio or video podcast breaking down the top stories on hackernews weekly or daily. Has this ever been done successfully? Would y-combiner get mad? If your interested in making a pilot episode, see where it goes let me know. firstname.lastname@example.com twitter@thomasreggi or cmt with your info.

<comment><USER10> I ran the left fold (<http://foldl.org>) for several months; it focused on the top technical stories from places like here. It was popular (a few thousand readers each week), but I didn't have time to continue it, and to be honest, the material gets very repetitive when you look at it hard each week to hand- pick articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just submitted almost the same idea 20 minutes after you, without reading this post. I think it is a great idea!

<comment><USER12> Ideas are worthless without good execution. ;)

<comment><USER11> I disagree, for without ideas there would be no executions. while they might have low value, they do in fact have a value of some type.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Love the idea. Something like liferemix.net.

Not all posts should be aggregated. There must be a manual filter in my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree wholeheartedly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be great if such a network helped startup entrepreneurs earn money through writing articles. It could mean giving technical / business advice to other people, or just doing reporting on the industry and markets within it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm in. I'm currently moving my technical articles to another blog so it can stay on topic. Will post link soon.

Enter the tech shovel: <http://thetechshovel.tumblr.com>

</comment><comment><USER16> Check out <http://roomcu.slinkset.com/> \- all these users were part of a friendfeed room I used to run.

\-- The best idea I can think of is this group blog I just setup: <http://hackerbra.in> (hackerbrain.com) and somehow populate it with the best hacker blog posts. It might have to be like Hacker Monthly, with someone spending time grabbing the best posts from a given set of blogs, and ask permission each time to cross post.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is a blog network?

<comment><USER18> It's like a webring, but with blogs. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Love it. I'll keep an eye on this thread for updates.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like user nuclear_eclipse just snagged PlanetHN.com and has it pointing toward a Linode VM. Hoping something awesome comes of this... :)

</comment><comment><USER16> How about a group posterous blog?

<comment><USER21> Or maybe a blog à la alistapart.com but for hackers.

<comment><USER18> alistapart is not a group blog; it's run actually quite like a print publication, with copy editors, style guides, _high_ expectations and 5-month (!) lead times between submission and publication. Aside from being published on the web it is nothing like a blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> oh and I write at <http://www.music-piracy.com/> in case anyone cares about my incessant rambling and general twenty something tech angst.

</comment><comment><USER23> Introducing the first blog -- LOLhackers.com

:)

</comment><comment><USER22> What is a blog?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any submissions to this new blog empire can be sent to email@example.com, or leave a comment and link below.

If we get a good response, we should get a team together to make this happen.

<comment><USER24> Sure, sounds like fun! I write at <http://coderoom.wordpress.com>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm getting a lot of submissions via the firstname.lastname@example.com email. I will review everything and respond to all emails.

Please allow me some time to look at the possibilities. If you are willing to invest time, resources and especially technical programming skills to this venture, communicate this to me in the email above.

Oh yes, and Thank You to everyone who has replied to this thread.

</comment><comment><USER25> sure great Idea, I'd be glad to have all hackers add their Blogs here: <http://www.gmbhnews.com/addsite/> under the category Hackers, it's my mobile blog network webapp.</comment>


Companies Want Access to Your Medical Files to Speed Up Life Insurance Purchases - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-want-access-to-your-medical-files-to-speed-up-life-insurance-purchases-11596965400 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/ttHx5](https://archive.vn/ttHx5)</comment>


Why haven't we seen more tech companies focus on small mom-and-pop businesses? - <AUTHOR>

I submitted this question on Quora, and got some nice feedback. Would love to hear the community about this?<p>http://www.quora.com/Small-Businesses/Why-havent-we-seen-more-tech-companies-focus-on-small-mom-and-pop-businesses-especially-the-Enterprise-Software-sector <comment><USER2> Its definitely possible to create a successful life style business for the founders and earn a good to great profit - but its hard to make the numbers work enough to grow past a few employees or get an exit.

Most small mom and pops are complacent about their problems. They either don't realize a solution exists, aren't actively looking for solutions, or are content with their inefficient work-arounds. This means you have to seek them out and sell them directly, whether its by phone, email or walking into their business - some products require a combination of the three.

You have to charge enough to pay a sales person, reinvest in the company and probably pay your own (and any other founders) living expenses as well.

If you're bootstrapped its likely you can only afford to pay a small salary (usually not even that though) plus commission. This means you cant pay enough to attract talented sales people, so you either get the bottom of the barrel or you get someone inexperienced who will leave the second they find a job that will earn them more money.

If you are charging a one time fee, its extremely hard. A subscription service is much more doable. Even then, you have to be charging $xxx-$x,xxx/month - and unless its a SERIOUS pain point its likely the small business could/should/will spend their money more wisely somewhere else.

\- I've started one b2b SaaS company targeting small businesses and worked at another in the same industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> My company mental improvement ventures is specifically trying to focus on mom and pop, "very small businesses", and anybody else who wants a compact service offering at a relatively low price.

I saw the lack of focus ion this sector as an opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER4> The product needs to be cheap enough that small business owners can afford it, simple enough for them to use it (many are not technologically savvy) and the value needs to be self-evident. It's a hard combination to crack.

</comment><comment><USER5> We sort of do this in <http://www.startupify.me/> where we work with existing businesses to find old problems that we can disrupt with new tech.

<comment><USER6> Just an FYI, I find the copy on your homepage to be a /bit/ confusing:

"We hire the best software developers in our community who are bored in their current jobs. We put them to work in partnerships with established businesses to co-create new product based businesses."

A lot of words there, could easily simplify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Because (most) mom and pop stores can't be bothered to actually spend money on technology, and then go and learn and implement it.</comment>


Wood Egg (my new company) - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/eg <comment><USER2> As a predominantly Asia-resident member of this community who has passed through many of the countries I find this post rather interesting. I suggest changing the title to make the subject more obvious - I nearly skipped it.

However, I am going to be honest: I think the horrible truth here is that there is no 'startup scene' in most of these countries, no 'serviced apartments' in the places 'to meet the post people'. The _claimed_ contents themselves betray a distinct lack of understanding of the host cultures through an American perspective.

Quite simply, these products look far too much like smoke and mirrors with external cultural baggage to boot.

As someone who as actually run a startup in China, for instance, the contents are a joke. No mention of the most important areas of consideration, overemphasis of things that are irrelevant.

So what the hell is this? They are hiring. Job description: "Find a few real estate people. Ask what's the best place for a new business to locate." ... subtext: publish that as fact.

Come on... this is lowly. Just because you have some money to spam-market quick-e-books with doesn't mean you are the arbiter of truth. Hire a real writer, do some real research, and be honest about it. Without quality, there is little point in publishing.

Fail.

<comment><USER3> There doesn't have to be a startup scene in all of the countries. The books were written for entrepreneurship, not Valley-level startup scenes.

Eiter way, have you checked out write ups of the recent Echelon event in Singapore ([http://e27.co/echelon/)or](http://e27.co/echelon/\)or) that 500 startups just set up a fund only for SEAsia countries?

As far as the spam-market quick-e-books comment, I'm pretty sure it was the absolute opposite of that. Did you read that after a year and a half of hard work he released these?

I don't see these books as a fail at all, but instead a step forward to good, actionable information that is useful to help bring and grow entrepreneurship to Asia.

I would love to hear what's important to you as I'm currently running a startup in Thailand and would love to learn more about all the countries, especially China.

Why don't you offer some advice as to what you see ont he most important areas of consideration and what is overemphasized?

<comment><USER2> Basic stuff: Stability, system of law, contrast available legal structures, different types of taxation, financial services, visa/immigration, shipping/logistics concerns, internal geographic breakdown, indicative service costings (utilities, advertising, etc.), nature of local human resources market, notable commercial events/tradeshows, trends over time with all of the above, etc.

<comment><USER4> Those things _are_ covered and if you would have taken the time to do even a cursory review before writing your baseless dismissal you would have seen this.

It's clear this is an evolving project. I don't believe Derek Sivers would do a project like you making it out to be and I don't think you have any basis to think he is, even if you don't know who he is.

Just to quickly address some things where you've missed the point: these are entrepreneurs' guides; these are targeted at an American and other non-Asian markets so it's important to answer questions from that perspective, regardless if you think they're irrelevant (you can't know what's irrelevant until someone tells you or you learn from experience); it's amusing that the "contents are a joke" when they address the things you have asked for.

And from above:

> Come on... this is lowly. Just because you have some money to spam-market > quick-e-books with doesn't mean you are the arbiter of truth. Hire a real > writer, do some real research, and be honest about it. Without quality, > there is little point in publishing. Fail.

Go look at the content before before making such claims ("lowly...spam...without quality") and advising them on their methods. After you've done that, how about focusing on the content?

Sorry for the tone but I can't stand these types of off-base dismissals and ending it with "fail" is just the icing on the cake. Derek Sivers is a respected member of the community that just spent the last nearly two years of his life on this and deserves better than these as the top comments on his announcement.

<comment><USER2> Are you suggesting that the table of contents does not reflect the contents? I suppose that's possible.

<comment><USER4> No, I'm not. I'm sure you can do your own search for "law", "tax", "immigration", etc.

If you had done that, I'd have no issue with a civil critique of the content but to dismiss ("fail", really?), insult ("spam") and patronize ("Hire a real writer[...]") the project of a respected member of the community (or anyone) to the extend that you did, with no basis (you haven't read the book and don't seem to have read the table of contents), has no place here or anywhere intelligent discussion is desired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The table of contents has entries like:

> _Describe the mindset of most people in Cambodia. Progressive or > conservative? Future-focused or present-focused? Work-focused or pleasure- > focused? Optimistic or cautious? Pressing for change, or maintaining > traditions? Strict or easy-going? Or, if the mindset is very divided between > groups, please describe the divide. (Feel free to just share your personal > opinion.)_

.. which doesn't look like a table of contents; it looks like the e-mail you sent to the person that you asked to write the book for you.

<comment><USER6> Good eye. I looked at that question so many times in the last couple years that I got blind to it. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed for future editions.

The books, instead of being written by one person, are written by 50 different researchers. For every question I had, I found 3 different people to answer it. One local, one expat, one other. That way the book isn't just one person's point of view.

Then at the end, an editor combined all the different answers into one, and I went through the final-final to clean it up.

I'll write more about this soon. Good lesson learned about making a robust plan versus a fragile plan. At first I thought I'd write all 16 books myself. Next I thought I'd hire one writer per-country. But this system turned out to be a much better way to get different viewpoints.

Anyway - thanks again for pointing out the error.

<comment><USER7> Just skimming through the linked post, it seemed like you would be writing all 16 of the books (admittedly, this could be my own reading failing), which seemed like a really ambitious goal.

Are you planning on writing about the entire process after you've completed your journey?

<comment><USER6> Yeah. I'll be writing about it very soon.

Made a lot of mistakes. Learned some good share-able lessons from the process. You know I always try to describe those, afterwards, in case it can apply to something you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just some feedback on your pricing: $50 is very steep for a kindle book, in fact I don't think I've ever seen a kindle edition so expensive. If this was around $20 I'd have bought it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Derek Sivers is one of our industry's truly interesting people. I like to think that if I had f-u money, my life would be like his. I'm almost certainly too lazy for that, though. Keep being interesting, Derek. Hope this project does well.

<comment><USER10> Yep. Awesome guy. Inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Derek, congratulations on launching!

(As cofounder of Leanpub, this makes me especially happy, of course :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Derek, Congrats on the launch! Just curious why you decided to launch with 16 books instead of just one or two? This seems to run counter to the Lean Startup/MVP approach. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you!

<comment><USER6> Because I'm especially interested in the _comparison_ between countries, I thought the most fascinating part of the project was to ask the same 200 questions of all 16 countries, and compare the answers.

This definitely isn't a typical MVP business. I didn't test the market. I doubt this will ever make money. It's just something I wanted to do, for my own curiosity. If other people can use it, that's just a bonus.

<comment><USER13> > I doubt this will ever make money.

Why didn't you do this more of a wiki/collaborative/open style?

<comment><USER6> I may. But to get it started, I want to help set the tone and focus. But once there's a precedent/standard/example to follow, an open style may make more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a great initiative. However, I'm missing the one emerging country in all of South East Asia, any plans for Laos?

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately not. I skipped Laos, Brunei, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and a few others. Having to draw the line somewhere, I picked countries where I either had an in, or had at least heard a lot of buzz and interest about (like Myanmar and Sri Lanka.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be interesting to get insight of least editor of all editions (if that is a sigular person) on rating of the the countries in this year's edition of these books, rating being general impression of handling a business in stated countries.

<comment><USER6> Check out [http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings](http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings)

That IFC "Ease of Doing Business" index is quite well-researched. That has better information than my books, for direct comparisons like you're asking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Derek, I like how you announced it only after actually doing it. This is much different than saying you're going to do it, which sounds obvious, but there is a big difference.

<comment><USER6> Thanks! It was SO tempting!

But keeping my mouth shut about it helped me slog through it and get it done, instead of basking in advance glory. It's too easy to slack off, if you've already felt the warm fuzzy joy from people's compliments on starting something. I didn't want to feel any of that until it was done.

More on that thought process, here:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...](http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)

<comment><USER17> This was a fantastic video. Thanks!

<comment><USER10> This is almost as if the question was placed in by Derek so he could plug that Ted talk! Saw that video a long time ago and ever since then I've kept my mouth shut. I've learnt a lot from you (another.. ideas are just a multiplier of execution :) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there a way to get a preview before buying? I'd love something like this. :)

<comment><USER6> Follow the link from any book's page to its page on Amazon. There you can do the "Look Inside This Book" thing on the book cover, to read a few pages.

Or just email me and offer to contribute. Then you'd get a free one. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Am I the only person that saw woodegg.com as "Woo Degg"?</comment>


De-Anonymizing Programmers via Code Stylometry (2015) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity15/sec15-paper-caliskan-islam.pdf <comment><USER2> I'm a coauthor of this paper. It was published a couple of years ago; pleasantly surprised to see it here.

The paper shows that programmers have distinctive styles in their source code that can be extracted to create a fingerprint of coding style. It's not just the obvious stuff like spaces vs. tabs -- parsing the code and looking at the Abstract Syntax Tree is what results in a powerful fingerprint.

We have a follow-up to this paper showing that surprisingly, coding style survives in compiled binaries (even with optimization turned on and debugging symbols removed): [https://www.princeton.edu/~aylinc/papers/caliskan- islam_when...](https://www.princeton.edu/~aylinc/papers/caliskan- islam_when.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Looks impressive, now only one question remains: did you find out what is the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto?

<comment><USER2> I've been asked this a lot, especially since I also research and teach cryptocurrency technology [1]. I haven't personally tried to do that. Satoshi clearly wished to maintain their pseudonymity, and I'd rather respect that. I also think Satoshi's pseudonymity is a powerful statement about decentralized cryptocurrencies, namely that their viability rests on their technical merits, with no need to know or trust their creators.

That said, I don't blame people for trying to uncover Satoshi's identity, and it's possible that the techniques in our paper can help. The big caveat, of course, is access to a corpus that includes Satoshi's code labeled with their true identity.

[1] [http://randomwalker.info/bitcoin/](http://randomwalker.info/bitcoin/)

<comment><USER4> Tangent, but can your method be extended to indicate traits of a coder?

Eg, based on this sample, the coder is like American, with experience at X corps, went to school at Y, etc.

<comment><USER5> Even more tangent, this reminds me of a manga where there was a character who could guess your sexual personality based on your code (read right to left): [http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS](http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS)

<comment><USER6> Porn intros keep getting weirder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stylometry is a really cool field.

For example it was used to figure out if a subreddit was being manipulated by a small number of sock puppet accounts: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3hf5z7/determining...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3hf5z7/determining_manipulation_via_sock_puppet_accounts/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3dszzu/55_btc_boun...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3dszzu/55_btc_bounty_for_proof_of_block_size_debate/)

(and of course the people studying it the most are the ones hunting for satoshi =P)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how much this varies by programming language. In Go, gofmt ensures that most stylistic choices are similar for everyone (Go code tends to look alike) and patterns and rules are fairly well codified (Go variable and function names tend to follow certain rules). The more codified the code is, the less fingerprints each developer can leave.

It'd be interesting to see the most and least identifiable languages!

<comment><USER8> It is not about tabs, spaces and variable names. The main difference is how long your functions are, how many functions they call, how deep control structures within functions are etc.

<comment><USER9> Would be interesting to tie that to ratings. Have a diverse set of people read lots of code (samples from projects large and small, in different languages, etc.) and rate it on things like "easy to understand" and "easily extendible", then correlate that with styles. I'd be very interested in how I score and what I can improve.

<comment><USER10> It sounds like you're talking about cyclomatic complexity.

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

There are tools out there for most major programming languages for measuring cyclomatic complexity. They can tell you whether typical coders will be able to help you work on your program at its current complexity level.

<comment><USER9> I heard of this but haven't seen it used anywhere outside of school. Do you have any experience whether this correlates with how readable _people_ find code to be?

<comment><USER10> No, sorry. Actually, I feel like long functions are often clearer than refactored equivalents.

<comment><USER9> Okay, thanks for responding!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This could probably be used to do some sort of code analysis and give people ideas for how to structure their code differently.

Similar to how there are some automated tools to help you vary your writing more.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hehe, seems like we are all going to commit to GitHub using encoder to a blended, typical style and pull via decoder to our own unique styles in order to obfuscate who we are. Like those BlendIt extensions in Firefox to pretend we run on Win 7 instead of Linux etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey, I'm a TA at some CS courses, can this be used to find similar codebases? Maybe it useful to find similar programmers, find possible code copies and/or identify the author of a snippet. Any ideas?

<comment><USER14> There's only so many ways to do the toy problems that people get assigned.

Students code winds up looking like their sources because they copy the control structures because there's only so many sane ways to do those problems without introducing fluff.

At least this is what my friend's experience using plagiarism checking tools was.

<comment><USER15> _because there 's only so many sane ways to do those problems_

Indeed, that's been my experience too; if you assign something "Hello world" level, you're going to get a bunch of 100% correct solutions that look almost the same, and then the other... odd ones which are almost certainly incorrect in some way.

It's only when you assign something far more nontrivial, and with many correct ways to do it, that you will get more diverse solutions; and even then, the chances of the correct solutions being very similar are high.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Do you guys know any good resources on stylometry?

</comment><comment><USER8> (2015)

<comment><USER17> Thanks, updated.</comment></comment>


Bank Not Responsible for Letting Hackers Steal $300K From Customer - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/bank-ach-theft/ <comment><USER2> If my credit card company can manage to shut down my credit card and not reinstate it until they talk to me because I make $300 worth of charges on vacation, it should be reasonable to expect a bank to provide that kind of anti fraud protection on commercial accounts. The difference is who is liable - if the banks were liable like they are with credit cards they'd certainly be much more diligent.

Banks, after all, pushed online banking with minimal client protections because it was cheaper than paying staff.

The risks may have been minimal when online banking rolled out, but the world has changed significantly in the last five years. The client is not secure, and it is borderline unreasonable to expect them all to be in this day and age. Pretty much any client machine will fall to a persistent targeted attack. Two factor authentication should be mandatory for electronic transfers outside of the institution.

<comment><USER3> It's kind of crazy. I know that my battle.net account is more secure than a lot of people's online banking credentials: not only do I need a user name and password to access my bnet account, but my account is linked with a mobile app that gives me time-sensitive one-time-use 8-10 security code.

Recently I had to wipe my phone without being able to get the serial number information from the bnet app. It was kind of a pain, but I had to actually scan and send in an image of my drivers license for them to release the old authenticator from my account so I could attach a new one.

Think about that. An online gaming company is more secure about account authorization than a lot of banks are.

<comment><USER4> The law doesn't care about their game's fictional currency. They have more incentive to protect it than a bank has to keep real money as secure as possible.

<comment><USER5> See my comment. This is all in the above-and-beyond category. HOWEVER note that the profits Blizzard is seeing from battle.net may be more than the profits of that entire bank. They have more clients, need a reputation, and are in fierce competition. That bank may not be.

It is overall saddening that Blizzard, a game company, protects user data better than a bank. HOWEVER note that this happened in 2009. I doubt Blizzard was this secure back then. Also iPhone and Android were not as big then as they are today, and they were more up-and-coming than anything.

<comment><USER6> This is a tad off topic, but the iPhone authenticator was added early in 2009 (see: [http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/03/battle-net-mobile- authenti...](http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/03/battle-net-mobile- authenticator-hands-on/)) and the hardware fob was already in use well before that, with the same stringent identity verification methods in place in case the authenticator was lost.

Blizzard offers the best of both worlds in my opinion: the authenticator is cheap/free and optional so you can choose how secure you want your account to be. Though, as noted, it's expensive for Blizzard to restore all the hacked accounts so they have incentives (free Corehound pet, for example) if you opt- in to have an authenticator on your account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you actually RTFA, it was the client that was hacked, not the bank. The client's passwords were compromised, and then the bank's services were accessed normally with the compromised passwords.

The client's logic is that the bank should take the loss for this. I know we all hate the banks but seriously? You get hacked and suddenly the service I provide to you being compromised is my fault?

Sorry, the judge is right here.

<comment><USER8> Maybe banks should be responsible for stronger protection than a simple password?

<comment><USER9> Along those same lines, if a hacker took advantage of a vulnerability in the banks application, but only after gaining access to that vulnerability through credentials stolen from a client/customer, is the client responsible for weak credentials protection in that instance as well?

This is a slippery slope.

<comment><USER7> That would probably be awarded 50/50.

<comment><USER10> If the theft was abetted by a product fault in the banks own code, my guess is that the client would get 100 + legal fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is very common. By law, a bank is not responsible for theft from commercial bank accounts. Personal accounts however, are protected.

From what I've seen based on other cases:

#1. Never use a small/local bank. These guys are the worst and have generally pathetic or rarely enforced security policies in place.

#2. Do your banking off a boot disk if your not certain about your system's integrity. (Why are you using a questionable machine in the first place is a whole other story.)

#3. Try to avoid letting your business checking account get unnecessarily fat.

The fact is banks lose money. Going back to #1, most of the at risk banks in the United States are the small local ones (The FDIC is still regularly seizing banks.) Forget hackers, you could very well have $300k "stolen" out of your bank account if the FDIC shuts your bank down one Friday afternoon.

If you want to read more about this, I'd recommend krebsonsecurity.com. Brian Krebs has done a great job of covering this issue for quite some time -- in fact he has his own opinion of this court case written up now.

<comment><USER12> Clark Howard (the consumer radio personality) recommends that businesses use a separate computer for all bank related transactions. And that computer isn't used for email or other web access.

You should also contact your bank and request double or dual authentication on any wires. If your bank doesn't offer this, then get a different bank.

[http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clarkhoward/business- entrepr...](http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clarkhoward/business- entrepreneurs/simple-computer-safeguards-for-small-business/nFD8/)

<comment><USER7> You could probably just use a bank that utilizes tokens or some other two factor authentication.

<comment><USER13> What if the malware on the PC lets you log in and then takes over the session? Yeah, it happens.

I develop on a system (PhoneFactor) where the bank now confirms the details of a transaction (amount, dest account number, etc) over an out-of-band channel.

I really think this is where the world is moving. The current concept of login sessions is going away, e.g., mobile phones keep browser sessions open practically forever. Login credentials will eventually only protect the viewing of data, things that could cost money will be subject to additional authentication.

But the party who's interests are most protected will be the party that's purchasing and deploying the authentication system. This is usually not the party with the most to lose, and almost never the end user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ACH is still stuck in the 1970's (along with banking mentality).

You should definitely be able to whitelist and blacklist ACH transactions on your bank account but nope, anyone can just take the magic digits off the bottom off any one of your checks and help themselves.

But why the heck doesn't a bank have software that sets off alerts when more than $100k is drawn from an account, even $10k transactions have to be reported to the government, so why not also notify the customer and bank management?

Also, why in 2011 does it take 5 days officially to clear ACH?

<comment><USER15> It takes 5 days to clear ACH because "hey we took this money, you have 5 days to let us know if that's okay" is the authentication.

<comment><USER14> Except when you transfer money into paypal, they make you wait 5 days but I see the bank clear the money in 24-48 hours

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> INAL, but in dealing with some banking software, the situation was explained to me as "Devil take the hindmost." In other words, no bank wants to be the one that implements the worst security, or security that is dramatically worse than "average," whatever that might be.

So for example if all the banks offer four digit PINs, there's not much need to offer six, eight, or ten digit PINs. But if a sufficiently large number of banks start offering ten digit PINs, no bank wants to be left behind, because at some point a customer will sue them and claim that they knowingly have lower standards.

This is purely anecdotal, but this is how it was explained to me when the product managers for a new product were trying to balance ease of use and accessibility against strength of security.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm ambivalent about this one.

On one hand, I hate banks. They treated me like shit when I was penniless, now that I have a couple to rub together they won't let me cash a check without trying to suck-up their way into some new type of account. Ocean Bank failed to protect their customer's money; I don't to see the difference between the FDIC protection afforded depositors in case of physical robbery and the protection that depositors should have from digital robbery.

On the other hand, there's no law, case or otherwise, that makes the bank specifically liable. So the judge has no basis on which to hold the bank accountable.

They "should" be liable, but it's an ethics issue, not a legality issue. I'm not about to expect a bank to be ethical.

This kind of thing makes me thankful for Wells Fargo. Their fraud/theft detection system is tops and has saved us from fraudulent charges in at least two instances.

<comment><USER18> > They treated me like shit when I was penniless, now that I have a couple to > rub together they won't let me cash a check without trying to suck-up their > way into some new type of account.

Haha, I thought it was just me. "Why are you people being so nice to me all of a sudden???"

With regards to the article, I think that they ignored the alarms is important. I once took out $5K cash for a transaction where I had to show some money and an internal this-is-not-normal alarm went off. While it was an inconvenience, I'm glad that the bank did not let me walk out with the money without checking up on me. So I think that the bank from the article was very irresponsible.

I hope that the soon-to-be-ex-customer of the bank publicizes this issue with the media even more. This is the only check on their carelessness.

<comment><USER17> > I once took out $5K cash for a transaction where I had to show some money > and an internal this-is-not-normal alarm went off. While it was an > inconvenience, I'm glad that the bank did not let me walk out with the money > without checking up on me. So I think that the bank from the article was > very irresponsible.

I agree 100%; I know it can be done because I've had similar experiences with WF. We have been traveling and I've gotten phone calls from them within 5 minutes of a transaction saying, "hey, we just want to make sure this is legit."

The fact that they ignored the alarms is important and I agree, negligent. But it doesn't look like it was enough for the judge to find them liable and more importantly, make it stick and not get flipped on appeal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's the bank's fault simply because this system has been broken for at least a decade, they know damn well it is broken, but they don't make as much profit if they invest in fixing it.

This won't change until it becomes more expensive for them to leave it unfixed - either by market forces, or by regulation.

</comment><comment><USER20> Mitchell and Webb have a great bit on this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E>

</comment><comment><USER21> Clearly the bank's customer has some responsibility here.

But it's not clear that the bank gave its customers the backup they needed in the event that an account is compromised. And accounts will be compromised.

Only the bank can improve the security of large electronic transactions. And if the bank is not held responsible, they have no incentive to do so.

<comment><USER9> Bank customers that hear about this have an incentive to change banks though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> IANAL, but I would suspect that the construction company has a mediocre/inexperienced lawyer. Maybe this could be covered by check forgery statutes or something that works by analogy. Back in the last century a friend of mine won a case in CA where he was actually negligent himself. He was remoddeling his house and set up an account that the contractor could draw on. The contractor took the money and ran. My friend sued the bank for negligence. He won because the contractor had pulled the same scam before at the same bank.

Maybe this guy sued in the wrong court. US District court vs Maine state court.

</comment><comment><USER23> US banks need 2 factor authentication. Do any banks on the east coast offer this?

</comment><comment><USER24> Some background: unlike PCI, which has very large specs for how to protect cardholder data, banks have very little mandated requirements for protecting online banking.

Really the only guidance they've received is the document "Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment", released by the FFIEC in 2005. [1]

The mandate boils down to: "Financial institutions offering Internet-based products and services to their customers should use effective methods to authenticate the identity of customers using those products and services. The authentication techniques employed by the financial institution should be appropriate to the risks associated with those products and services."

So, if a FI provides basic personal online banking -- with no money transfer abilities -- perhaps a username/password pair combined with pretend-MFA ("What's your favorite secret color?") is appropriate.

If you allow your customers to originate ACH or wire transfers, it's simply negligent to not provide true MFA, and their auditors should have caught this earlier.

[1] <http://www.ffiec.gov/pdf/authentication_guidance.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER25> Banks in Germany are required to use two-step authentification and one-time passwords for money transfers. Measures like this would have prevented that 'hack'.

I actually lived in the US for a while and the so called security of American banks was completely incredible to me. It is true, Steam, Battle.net and Google accounts are significantly better protcted than the US bank accounts I had access to.

</comment><comment><USER26> I actually find this ruling fair.

FTA: "But [the judge] nonetheless concluded that the law does not require the bank to implement the "best" security measures available and that the bank is clear to customers when they sign up about the level of security it provides and the amount of liability it will assume if money is stolen from a customer account."

</comment><comment><USER27> This was a bank robbery, and the customer is just out the loss for money taken from the bank? That's a novel legal argument.

</comment><comment><USER28> Of course (most) banks don't look very hard for suspicious money transfers - they don't share much of the risk if a business account is hacked.</comment>


Sexbots development: Ethical? - <AUTHOR> http://www.geeksnack.com/2015/09/16/sexbots-development-further-objectifies-women-and-children-says-ethicist-campaign-to-ban-them-already-underway/ <comment><AUTHOR> Where there's demand, there's supply. On the bright side, sexbots may force women in sex industries to study and pursue other careers.</comment>


Acer Travelmate 4150 retrofitting to Raspberry Pi Laptop, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> https://codeandunicorns.com/acer-travelmate-4150-retrofitting-raspberry-pi-laptop-part-1-lcd-cleanup/ <comment><USER2> I'm interested in the results of this, but I'd suggest holding off and posting this to HN (and elsewhere) when the task is done. At the moment what we've got here is a goal and a disassembled laptop with absolutely nothing hooked up to the Pi, which is not really that interesting.

I'd also suggest that sufficiently interesting stories about why you couldn't manage to do this would also be interesting. ("I couldn't ever get the adaptor"... probably not interesting. "So I had to 3D print it, which was harder than I expected."... interesting. "I tried for weeks to get the RPi working and it _almost_ sorta worked but it was only in monochrome and I couldn't figure out why."... interesting, and probably enough to trigger other people to want to help!)

<comment><USER3> Indeed not a very interesting read at that point, the idea itself is nice but pretty obvious. There is also nothing concrete about tackling the hard tasks like power supply or interfacing with the keyboard yet.

The author only briefly talked about the LCD driver board but didn't even mention which one he bought let alone share any experiences how it worked out. A "look the screen shows the output of the pi now, thats how I did it" or "I tried … and the screen is still black, not that easy as thought" would have been a better start for submitting such an article series to a wider audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat humorous in light of this comment on Schneier's post about the laptop ban:

"Get the 15" laptop, throw all the electronics away, leave just screen and keyboard. Put Raspberry Pi and three AA batteries inside. Voila - you are able to show TSA staff that this is really laptop, which executes some code, and have a lot of space inside to put in explosives.

Moreover, you have powerful processor and lots of program-controled pins to implement timer initiator."

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/the_tsas_sele...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/the_tsas_select.html#c6749022)

<comment><USER5> The problem with hollywood movie plots is people have been able to remove the optical drive or floppy drive from a laptop for decades, insert a baggie of weed or whatever criminal activity.

To some extent avoiding TSA scrutiny might be a goal behind the apparently meaningless quest for thin laptops at apple. No removable parts means you can't rip parts out and insert a baggie of whatever in the case. Also the laptop being lightweight means whatever you're sneaking in can't be too heavy, if a laptop is lighter than a derringer even if it physically fits its going to be weird explaining why your laptop weighs twice as much as a normal laptop.

Also I'm sure this looks fascinating on the xray machine.

<comment><USER6> > The problem with hollywood movie plots is people have been able to remove > the optical drive or floppy drive from a laptop for decades, insert a baggie > of weed or whatever criminal activity.

Indeed. And a decade or more before the movie's purported date of 2025, we realized that Johnny Mnemonic would be better served smuggling data by swallowing a toy balloon with micro SD cards in it. Today he could get away with just three or four cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This might be of help to you. The OEM version of this laptop seems to be the Compal LA-2601. Which is a very good thing, because the schematics are readily available [1]. So, getting the keyboard working with a PI3 should be a matter of rigging up a micro with enough pins to drive the matrix controller. Looks like an interesting project though, and I wish you good luck.

[1] [http://www.s-manuals.com/pdf/motherboard/compal/compal_la-26...](http://www.s-manuals.com/pdf/motherboard/compal/compal_la-2601_r1.0_schematics.pdf)

<comment><USER8> How do you know this and how did you find that?

<comment><USER7> Google diving. I got curious as to what the keyboard controller was, so I looked up motherboard pictures and specs and eventually found that it uses an ENE KB910 for the keyboard controller. Searching there for how things were set up was mostly fruitless, until I stumbled upon a russian forum which had a pinout for the KB910 [1]. A few more stumbles and I found a result that stated that Compal was the OEM for the laptop -- it's not uncommon for laptops to be made by a white box maker. From there, a search for the model number brought up multiple sites with the schematics.

[1] [http://bit.ly/2ob7YaG](http://bit.ly/2ob7YaG) Not the actual url, because chrome's history ate that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Impressive :) Thanks a lot for your dive into the subject. It's darn interesting indeed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fun project. Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

There are also a couple of build kits like [1] for people who don't want to mess with old laptops and weird connectors. I don't have one, but I saw it in Ben Heck's youtube channel and thought it's pretty cool.

[1]: [https://pi-top.com/product/pi-top](https://pi-top.com/product/pi-top)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this is a good idea but as mentioned in the article the connectors to keyboard and monitor are hard.

I guess there are XF86 standards and stuff for the keyboard but I still find it hard to think that it will behave exactly like the original.

Further, I would like to see more info on if the LCD gets working with the RPi because it seems like a great project.

Still, good luck with how the conversion works in the end!

<comment><AUTHOR> I was actually quite suprised how hard it is. The amount of different LCD and subsequent separated driver panels that are possible in configuration is absolutely huge. To be honest I am a lot less worried about LCD working then keyboard, since in the worst case I would need to rewire the whole one manually. But for LCD I will hopefully have everything needed after getting my specific LVDS driver board

<comment><USER11> A mapping for the keyboard matrix can be "discovered" by pressing all keys in sequence. There are lots of AVR-based projects that emulate an USB HID for a custom keyboard matrix or other input; for an example, see [1][2].

[1] [https://deskthority.net/wiki/Easy_AVR_USB_Keyboard_Firmware](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Easy_AVR_USB_Keyboard_Firmware)

[2] [https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51252.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51252.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I understand the joy of tinkering, but why do you want to downgrade a working Intel Centrino 1.73GHz to an RPi3?

[EDIT] See below, seems that the laptop is already broken.

<comment><USER13> Because, once it's working, you have an upgradable laptop: every time a new rPI comes out, you can swap it out.

Eventually you'll have a better/faster computer than the Intel Centrino, with potentially much better battery life, modern hardware (USB3+, better radio connectivity), better software support (for instance, mainstream Linux distros are now deprecating support for non-PAE CPUs).

I've been giving this some thought: I have a gutted MacBook Pro I plan to perform the same surgery on. Someone spilled soda on it, so the mainboard was already fried... therefore it's not even a downgrade. It's an upgrade from a brick.

<comment><USER12> Reason I'm asking is: I have an old Centrino laptop as well as an RPi2 and RPi3. The Centrino is so much faster than the RPi's, it's not even in the same league. And as long as the Raspberrys are married to Broadcom, I think it will take quite some time until we have an RPi that has similar speed like my old Centrino. Don't get me wrong, I love my RPis, and if my old Centrino breaks, maybe I'd do something similar, but I'd never trash it while it's still working. Just seems wasteful to me.

<comment><USER14> It could also be not only about pure speed - look at what even the RPi 1 can do in terms of media playback. My (working) Centrino laptop can just barely play youtube html 5 videos. If you want a small mediaplayer (remember those portable DVD players? :P) this sounds totally viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've got an old Asus L3000D from early 2000 in a bag. I took it out and looked at it. The keyboard is great, the screen is almost 1:1, a two buttons touchpad, floppy disk, DVD recorder, mic, audio jack, two 1394 ports (I forgot what they are), parallel, serial, VGA, two USB (1.1?), PCI express?, ethernet and modem :-) TV out, PS2 mouse and keyboard. Maybe without all the internal components it won't weight more that 1.5 kg. I remember I made it crawl with Ubuntu circa 2010. Perhaps I should give it a try as a Raspberry case.

<comment><USER16> I often think (dream) of a partial solution; using a rpi as a coprocessor, daughter card. My 2006 core 2 duo is fine for 90% of tasks, except for video decoding. Delegating that to a tiny gpu/vpu would release the main cpu for logic and IO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How much weights the gutted laptop? How much can it weight after it will be finished?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can update you on that. At the moment the heaviest part of the laptop is the display. But I think it may not be bellow 2kg, but above. I can update when I have a better estimate.

<comment><USER18> Sounds like you might have a balance problem after you get everything working. Might need to machine in a surface style kick stand

<comment><AUTHOR> After a bit more investigation while I wait for the parts... I think it should be quite fine, beacuse the battery will probably be the heaviest part, but it is quite possible that either left or right side of the laptop will be quite heavier. Hopefully I'll make it fit :D I found an interesting battery with 12V in and separate 12 out and another 5V USB out, so it should be fairly straightforward hopefully with that to power everything with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> RP3 laptop cases making appearance on Alibaba in 5....4.....3....

<comment><USER20> There's already the pi-top [0]. I've been considering getting one for work to use without a Raspberry Pi. It connects to the Pi using HDMI and USB so it might work as a portable, battery-powered version of a rack mount console.

[0] [https://pi-top.com/product/pi-top](https://pi-top.com/product/pi-top)</comment></comment>


Sony to link Readers with libraries, allow e-book borrowing - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/08/sony-to-link-readers-with-libraries-allow-e-book-borrowing.ars

<comment><USER2> What I find even more interesting is Sony's use of a standard book format (DRM appears to still be involved, however).

So very un-Sony like. I guess fear of Amazon Kindle has made Sony take a different path than usual. Or maybe just finally realized that tightly controlled proprietary "standards" don't fare well in a well-informed market (BetaMax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, BlueRay--which, despite "winning" the HD disc format war will never replace DVDs for the majority of customers, since we'll mostly go straight to digital delivery before that happens--etc.).

Good to see, since Amazon has taken the tightly controlled DRM-filled path. I wouldn't want the ebook market to naturally flow that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> _According to Sony's Haber, the new version of its online book store will allow users to enter their ZIP code and determine whether the local library offers electronic versions of its books. These books can be downloaded, at which point they'll have a 21-day expiration date—no late fees, as Haber was happy to point out._

Wow, these people are stupid. They're stuck using the constraints of the physical world. Amazing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Borrowing bits. Pointless.

<comment><USER5> You may laugh at the idea, but I had to wait to "borrow" a downloadable audio book from the Phoenix library until a copy was "returned".</comment></comment>


Company Culture Predicts ROI, Delays, Metascore, and More (Game Outcomes Project) - <AUTHOR> http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150106/233254/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_2_Building_Effective_Teams.php#comments

<comment><AUTHOR> This is part 2 of an ongoing 4-part series.

The first part is here: [http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20141216/232023/The_Ga...](http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20141216/232023/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_1_The_Best_and_the_Rest.php)

The most interesting result from part 1 was that the effect of different production methodologies (Scrum, Agile, Waterfall, etc) was nearly indistinguishable.</comment>


Postal Experiments - barry-cotter https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html <comment><AUTHOR> Reminded me of this [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/art/news/re...](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/art/news/return-to-sender-artist-puts-royal-mail-to-the- test-955499.html)</comment>


British teenager suspected of being mystery hacker who stole CIA boss emails - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12154592/British-teenager-suspected-of-being-a-mystery-hacker-who-stole-CIA-boss-emails.html <comment><USER2> I really hate these sort of laws, surely is on the CIA to not be easy to get access to this sort of stuff from a 15 year old kid.

It's the same with banks lending to countries who are unable to repay, or CEOs never going to jail for aiding and abetting Mexican drug cartels. No one takes responsibility for their own stuff any more.

<comment><USER3> > surely is on the CIA to not be easy the get access to this sort of stuff > from a 15 year old kid

Just because you can throw a stone into a storefront and steal stuff, does not mean you are free to do that.

Or are you arguing that just because it's the evil CIA, it's fine to hack them and leak tons of personal info (which potentially puts lifes in danger)

<comment><USER4> The argument is that CIA - which counts itself as part of the security services - ought to know at least a little about online security.

>Just because you can throw a stone into a storefront and steal stuff, does not mean you are free to do that.

There are parts of the world where tourists are warned about pickpockets.

Of course pickpockets shouldn't pick pockets. But that's not the world we live in.

Only a fool goes walking in those parts of the world without taking good precautions. And if you're an intelligence agent, that goes at least double.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but again, just because something is possible and seen daily around the world does not mean it's legal or should not be prosecuted. Like someone else said, that is like a rapist blaming the victim for making it too easy.

<comment><USER5> I don't think the argument is that they shouldn't be prosecuted for hacking the CIA, as much as that the CIA should _also_ be prosecuted for having such shit security on important data.

Personally I don't think drafting a new law for that is a good idea, but I can see how it could fall under gross negligence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> hell.. seriously.. if a 15 year old can hack your systems.. your systems are shit

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily. One of the first format string exploits was created by a 16 year old. Luca Todesco provides a constant stream of iOS issues since 17, I believe. I'm sure there are younger hackers around.

<comment><USER8> Are you arguing that _< string.h>_ isn't shit? ;)

<comment><USER7> Today it is. In '90s it's what we had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meanwhile, the pinhead using AOL for this stuff goes unpunished.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone else think this kid's a scapegoat?</comment>


The Declining Hotness of Flight Attendants - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-declining-hotness-of-flight-attendants/246610/ <comment><USER2> Incidentally, can anyone else believe that the American airlines let these unions happen to them? They can't even promote employees for good performance anymore; there is only one criteria that employees are evaluated on, and that's time in that job at that airline. Change jobs and you're back at the bottom. Change airlines, and you're at the bottom.

The end result is that the flight attendants that choose the "best" routes (longhaul international) are the ones that care least about their job: they're at the top and they don't need to do a good job to stay there. Ironically, that's where the money is spent, and the people spending that money therefore get worse service. It's no surprise that anyone who pays for their own flights chooses the Asian or European airlines.

(My experience flying international first class on AA is that it's barely worth the taxes on the free flight. OTOH, when my company paid $10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.)

<comment><USER3> I think you're conflating "poor service" with "declining hotness".

In fact, I think the original article is pretty sad. Does anyone really care if their stewardess is hot? I don't. I just want them to hand me a can of diet coke, a napkin, a cup and some ice.

>$10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.

Also, $10,000 ÷ 17 hours (SF to Singapore) = $533/hr. For that kind of money, the hostesses better be hot, naked, and willing to give a happy ending.

<comment><USER4> No, it's a proxy indicator. A 50-year-old can be hot if she takes care of herself (TV is full of people like this these days, hell the streets are too). Just as they have stopped caring about their appearances, they have stopped caring about customer service. If you doubt this, just try flying United long- haul.

<comment><USER3> I'm saying is "hotness" doesn't have a bearing on customer service.

I don't care if my cab driver, dry cleaner, and barrista are good looking. It's about as relevant as promoting programmers based on what kind of funny t-shirts they wear.

<comment><USER5> And yet... there's an awful lot of Mac users on HN.

<comment><USER6> The amount of jobs listed on HN that are geared toward Mac users is quite sad. Not that anyone is saying "Mac Only!" but, there have been quite a few posts that simply ignore that there are skilled developers using other platforms. When I've brought it up in the past it seemed that my opinion was quite unpopular though.

Ironically, I am the only developer at my job not on a Mac. Sure I get some jokes at times, but I am just as efficient as anyone else, and if I had made a switch to a Mac just to fit in, I wouldn't have been able to hit the ground running.

<comment><USER7> I'm puzzled as you seem to be. I've had to work on many platforms. Mac tools are immature, buggy and frustrating. The frustration may be due to my unfamiliarity, but the rest is not.

If so many use these tools, they should be more mature. I conclude that only a vocal minority actually develop on the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While the current "un-hotness" of flight attendants might be union driven, I'm fairly certain there's another dynamic that would kick in if unions go away: It's simply bad business to fire/not hire good employees because they don't live up to a certain aesthetic. As the first analysis notes, people probably aren't willing to pay much, if anything at all, for hotness, while competence might be valuable.

<comment><USER9> Throw in greying American demographics, the majority of college graduates being women, an understanding of the costs associated with hiring and training personnel, and the work environment changing from Pacific Clippers to Cattle Cars and the change is unsurprising.

Oh, and don't forget the rise of the MILF meme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "...as much as male customers might have enjoyed the eye candy..."

Statements like this, in the article, annoy me. Men aren't the only sex that prefers looking at attractive women to unattractive women. Men and women may have different motivations for our preferences of whom to look at, but we all have the preference.

<comment><USER11> I don't understand. As a man, would I prefer to be served by a hot man or an ugly man. Honestly, I don't really care. I can't say the same thing for women, however.

<comment><USER12> It's more subtle than that. Studies have shown that babies prefer gazing at attractive faces rather than average faces.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3631018.stm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From talking to senior flight attendants about how things used to be in the old days, I think the blogger is correct that strong unions are the reason for this change in the composition of the flight attendant work force.

As to why you see younger attendants on short flights, that's because long flights are more desirable for senior flight attendants. The way the flight bidding system works, a senior fa can fulfill their monthly flying hours quota by working 8 days of trans-Pacific flights at the start or end of a month, leaving the rest of the month free.

</comment><comment><USER14> Southwest Airlines is employee owned and operated, and service is a lot better (and friendlier) as a result. They love their jobs, and they care about the experience. That is much more important than physical appearance.

</comment><comment><USER15> So who else thinks Richard Branson read this and sees opportunity for Virgin Air?

<comment><USER16> Branson is just the type of owner that could use employee attractiveness to differentiate his product from the others. As I see it now, the airline industry is in a sad shape, expensive, homogenous, and bland, not to mention treating their customers like criminals. It needs something to make me want to get back on a plane. Attractive attendants might do it.

<comment><USER8> > It needs something to make me want to get back on a plane.

For me it's getting to my desired destination quickly and without too much discomfort. If I want to have hot women serve me drinks, I'll go to a burlesque club.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two thoughts came to mind: (1) WTF is this doing on Hacker News? (2) If people are so uncomfortable with unions and labor laws, are they willing to go the Soylent Green factory when they hit 30, fail to ship or have medical issues?

</comment><comment><USER18> I would be interested to see what makes the Asian airlines different... it seems as though flight attendants there are usually younger and quite attractive.

<comment><USER19> I used to teach English in a stewardess school in Tokyo. It is a VERY sought after position for young ladies just out of high school or short-term language school. Competition is so fierce, they even teach them how to do their make- up, part their hair, tie their scarf and ENTER THE ROOM and BOW depending on which airline they are applying for.

I'd guess it's: competition due to being seen as a glamorous job leading to a stream of young, attractive new recruits + it not meeting such expectations + (at least in Japan) girls wanting to get married by 25 and, having English under their belt and a "desirable" job, achieving this goal and stepping down to be a salaryman's wife rather than staying on until they're "less hot".

<comment><USER20> It's not only a glamorous job, it's a very well-paid job in comparison to the average OL ("office lady"). In fact, the average stewardess annual salary is higher than the average (male) salaryman's.

So I doubt that the average stewardess is the type that is desperate to get married by 25 (which would likely imply marrying a guy who makes less than her!), though you have a point in that when they do get married they'll most likely retire.

<comment><USER2> I've always wondered about this, because I've been very surprised that people that can speak so many languages are serving me coffee on an airplane. But if the pay is better than sitting in an office and translating instruction manuals or whatever, then it makes perfect sense to me.

(FWIW, I've never been on an AA flight where all the flight attendants seemed to be able to speak a language other than English, but every flight attendant I've seen on Cathay or Dragonair has been able to speak English and probably Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese as well. I always found it very interesting that people even bother flying US-based airlines.)

<comment><USER20> (not sure if you're even gonna see this)

I think you underestimate the relative skills/responsibilities of flight attendants vs. female Japanese office workers. They former are trained in airplane security and first aid. The latter are just administrative assistants -- even the few ones that can speak English aren't trained to be translators, for instance.

For what is worth, I use US or Canada airlines because their Tokyo-N.America- Sao Paulo flights are _way_ cheaper than the good Asian ones (as in U$1500 instead of $2000).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I still find flight attendants young and attractive (a present fact, not some dream or whatsoever). The thing is, it's just not so happening in US airlines, but in Asian airlines. Policies on age requirement have let the state as is, even there are also unions in those airline companies.

</comment><comment><USER22> Risking to be downvoted. this article is worthless without pics.

<comment><USER23> Please, go back to Reddit.</comment></comment>


Set Theory and Algebra in CS: Introduction to Mathematical Modeling (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d106/6b6de601c1d7d5af25af3f7091bc7ad3ad51.pdf <comment><USER2> call me a mathematical hipster (new frameworks etc.) but i could never get into axiomatic set theory. algebra is already boring by virtue of being abstract but then make it even more abstract by dropping all models! at least in algebra you have applications like galois groups, lie algebras, crypto, etc. yes i know that complexity theory is basically in the domain of set theory (complexity hierarchy) but even that was so abstract. so does anyone know any really cool applications of this stuff (just to be clear i don't mean technology i mean concrete theorems).

<comment><USER3> Formal systems (like formal axiomatic set theory) are more in the domain of logic than mathematics (although there are things like model theory that lie at the intersection of the two). From their very early conception, they were designed to serve two roles: 1. Serve as completely precise languages, where no ambiguity is possible, and 2. allow for _mechanical_ reasoning. As role 1 is often in service of role 2, I think it's fair to generalize and say that the role of formal systems is mechanical reasoning.

If mechanical reasoning is not something that interests you, you have little use for these pedantic systems. Mechanical reasoning has two current uses: 1. mechanical verification of mathematical proofs and assistance in such proofs -- this application is very rarely used in practice, and is commonly the domain of a few enthusiasts who hold high hopes for improvements that would make it more mainstream. 2. Mechanical verification of software, including static analysis, model checkers, type systems and other software-relevant proof systems.

<comment><USER4> Axiomatic set theory isn't just for "pedantry" and mechanical reasoning, though that's an important application. It's also like a telescope array that allows us to see ever further into Cantor's paradise and the universe (multiverse?) of mathematics. The upper levels of transfinite set theory are especially breathtaking and somewhat scary [1]. Hugh Woodin spoke a little bit about this in a presentation on the Ultimate L conjecture:

"There's the other possibility: set theory is completely irrelevant to physics... That's almost more interesting because if this conjecture is true, we've argued there's truth here for set theory, and it's a truth that's not about the physical universe. To me that's almost more remarkable, that there could be some conception of truth that transcends truth that we see around us."

The presentation is called _The Continuum Hypothesis and the search for Mathematical Infinity_ [2].

[1] [http://cantorsattic.info/Cantor's_Attic](http://cantorsattic.info/Cantor's_Attic)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVF4N1Ix5WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVF4N1Ix5WI).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I learned this years ago and forgot everything. I'm curious - does anyone actually use linear algebra in their day to day, and if so, what's your job title?

<comment><USER6> Isn't it very important for machine learning?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is a source of endless wonder and bemusement to me that we did not choose geometry as our basis for logic and proof over the equality symbol. Many brilliant minds are barred from entry into the field of mathematics because of this error.</comment>


The Greatest Invention in Computer Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001129.html

<comment><USER2> "Routine" as he means it is a control structure with an implicit stack with a memory range associated with each JMP. (That is foo(int x) has four bytes on the stack devoted to x). If a language has no routines, they can be faked out if you can make a stack data structure, which would be a little difficult in basic, having no pointers or references. Hence, I'd say pointers are somewhat more "great".

</comment><comment><USER3> Instead of "routines" why not just say "functions" - which then opens another can of worms because functions were studied long before they were ever used in programming.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps-- but we need to be able to make a distinction between a mathematical function and the procedure which implements it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ...and here I was, guessing "recursion".

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok, I guess I'm officially grumpy.

"The routines in your code should be treated like tiny, highly polished diamonds, each one more exquisitely polished and finely cut than the next."

This makes no sense. _Each_ routine can't be _more_ exquisitely polished than the others. And if you try to make it make sense by interpreting 'next' strictly, to mean 'next in sequence', then it means your functions should get worse as development proceeds. Even if you replace 'next' with 'last', to try to turn it into a semi-coherent statement ("Each routine you write should be the best routine you've ever written") it's still bad advice: You should spend your time on the important questions, and not every function is equally important.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting choice with the routine. I'd argue for the CMOS, without which none of this would be possible...but let me know if that's too much on the EE side to fit the title.

</comment><comment><USER7> Backspace.</comment>


1982 Siberian Pipeline Blast Allegedly Caused by Trojan Horse (NY Times) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/the-farewell-dossier.html <comment><USER2> An opinion piece by Safire, as part of "a series of hardline columns denouncing the financial backing being given Moscow by Germany and Britain for the Trans-Siberian Pipeline, a major natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Europe. That project would give control of European energy supplies to the Communists, as well as generate US$8 billion a year to support Soviet computer and satellite research." \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Dossier#CIA_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Dossier#CIA_response)

Now quoting from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss#Sabotage_allegati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss#Sabotage_allegations) "it was caused by poor construction rather than sabotage ... Another point of criticism of the sabotage allegations is that, according to Prof. V.D. Zakhmatov, an explosion safety expert who has overseen the safety measures on many of the Soviet oil and gas pipelines built in the Eighties,[4] at the described timeframe Soviet Union simply didn't practice digital control of its pipeline system. Most of the control was manual, and whatever automation was used utilized the analog control systems, most of which worked through pneumatics."</comment>


Mountain View's Red Rock Coffee Asks for Community Support - <AUTHOR> https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2020/07/20/facing-closure-downtown-mountain-views-red-rock-coffee-asks-for-community-support <comment><AUTHOR> Back when they were not closed for pandemic I met a number of YC folks in the second floor area. They have established a gofundme to try and bridge their expense gap during Covid.

See [https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/save-red-rock- cof...](https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/save-red-rock-coffee)</comment>


Samsung's Galaxy S4 16GB version only has 8GB of usable storage - <AUTHOR> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-defends-16gb-s4s-mere-8gb-of-usable-storage-50011111/ <comment><USER2> I hate to say it, but remember the giant outrage and making fun of Microsoft everyone did over Surface Tablets with over half their HD taken up by the OS? Less than a year later now it's quite noticeable in Android space... :/ Either we need to really rip into Samsung or maybe we need to be less hard on MS on this particular topic...

<comment><USER3> Isn't that what the article is saying? People are complaining. It doesn't sound like Samsung gets a pass while Microsoft doesn't. 8GB remaining isn't going to last on a phone.

<comment><USER4> The difference is that the Samsung Galaxy has expandable memory. So, unlike the Nexus 4 which comes with 8GB ( _total_ , usable is less), you just pop in a microSD and have plenty of room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It wouldn't matter if you had control over it. but 3Gb of those are for useless S-apps (S-suggest, S-store, whatever) that you will NEVER open. in fact, those are the apps that if you do open, you curse the mistake and close.

samsung is the Acer of mobiles. Other brands used to do that to branded phones and you would find att or verizon bloatware. now you are not free even if you buy unlocked.

<comment><USER6> Woah, what? 3GB on apps that aren't games? That is incredibly poor.

<comment><USER7> They're all badly written bloatware like you'd expect.

Plus even if you remove them you still get the pleasure of storing a larger than necessary backup/recovery image with them inside just waiting to re- infect your phone if you ever factory reset it.

I own a Samsung Galaxy Note 1. While I think the hardware is top rate and I am happy with Android, I think Samsung's bloatware ruins the entire package. I prefer the experience on my Nexus 7 with "virgin" Android and my next phone will be a Nexus phone too for that reason.

<comment><USER8> Why not just root and CM the G Note? Anything samsung-specific that stock android won't work with?

<comment><USER5> because i never bought one.

giving them my money would just signal i want that crap.

Also, it's not stable so far. so you'd have dodgy camera, reception, pen... i don't think CM supports the pen yet, but i may be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> PSA: check out the HTC One[0] before buying the Galaxy S4. It's as good, if not better, than the Galaxy S4.

0: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF75-HPdUfY>

<comment><USER10> I am still toting around a Nexus One, and finally going to get a new phone. I've been looking at both the HTC One and the Samsung S4.

The S4 has the huge advantages of having an SDcard slot (up to 64GB) and a replaceable battery. The HTC One has neither. I wonder how much of the internal flash on the HTC One is available.

The argument of the 16GB model not having a lot of internal flash space is pretty weak when you can get a 32GB SDcard for $20 (or less).

The HCT One does feel kind of nice with its weight and aluminum body, but I'm not sure it would do any better than the S4 in a drop test.

Speaking of drop tests, I've replaced the digitize on my Nexus One twice now, because I like to drop it. The S4 is difficult to replace the front glass, but it is not impossible. I do not know how the HTC One fairs in repairability.

On the CPU side, the S4 is faster, but they are the same CPU in both units as far as I know.

The HTC has a better screen color profile, and the camera does much better low-light/night shots. I have heard the the S4 camera does not do well in low- light conditions, which is really shameful.

HTC has a deal going on right now where they will give you a $100 debit card rebate. That could turn the tide in their direction if you are buying on price alone.

The top concern I have, though, is modability and community support, since I know that neither HTC nor Samsung will support that device once they have my money. I will immediately root it and install something like Cyanogen.

Both phones will likely have pretty good support from the Cyanogenmod project, but I am going to wait until the end of May and then go see what the community says. Whichever hardware has better support in the Cyanogen community will be the one I buy.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure about how the S4 is doing, but there are already CM builds for the One. Plus, it's super easy to unlock the bootloader by just going to htcdev.com (though not if you have an AT&T phone, I believe). To unlock the S4 you have to rely on hacks.

<comment><USER12> Steve posted a screenshot of CM on the S4 yesterday, I suppose it will turn up eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shame nobody has done a breakdown of exactly what is being held in this used up space.

From what I can find the system folder is 2 GB alone, but we're still well short of almost 5 GB of "stuff." We likely also have a backup image, and then just Samsung's bundled apps?

As a random aside: Why are they still selling 16 GB phones in 2013? I realise the chips are faster than what goes into SD Cards, but given the speed of SSDs and the relative price decrease year upon year, if phones were keeping up we'd be seeing at least 64 GB as standard!

<comment><USER13> It's just speculation, but I think Google is pushing indirectly for more cloud based storage utilization and getting OEMs on board is a way to do that via shrinking storage size (it's a trait with many of the new phones on more than just Samsung).

At the same time though, that clashes with the carriers limiting monthly alloted data more than any ever before. However, the carriers are probably going to push their own "cloud" solutions that won't use data that applies to a user's data cap.If that is the case, there will probably be some sort of clash between Google and the larger carriers in the near future where something will have to give. Probably goes with Google's recent venture into the wireless access realm[1].

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5110076>

<comment><USER14> This is pretty out-there speculation. I find it very difficult to imagine a meeting at Google where they collectively agree to increase the Android footprint in order to "increase Cloud storage usage".

<comment><USER13> Not the OS footprint, just reducing the internal storage size of devices (such as the Nexus 4 is only 8gb and 16gb while the Galaxy Nexus was 16gb and 32gb). There's a number of other current devices out there with a similar trend, such as the HTC Droid DNA (with only 16gb). Though it doesn't apply to every device, since the HTC One is 32gb and 64gb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If one ever looks at the various OEM firmwares, they're all ridiculously huge even for just being compressed images when comparing to vanilla Android. HTC is also similar in bloat, but just giving the S3 comparison since it was handy and related to the topic:

Samsung Galaxy S3 stock firmware: ~740mb[1]

Google Nexus 4 firmware: 327mb[2]

[1] [http://forum.xda- developers.com/showthread.php?p=33570269#po...](http://forum.xda- developers.com/showthread.php?p=33570269#post33570269)

[2] [https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#occamjdq3...](https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#occamjdq39)

</comment><comment><USER15> I just don't understand why these manufacturers are always claiming inaccurate storage amounts. It's easy to fix:

 __Storage = physical_storage_capacity - storage_used_by_stock_OS __

Doesn't the Surface Pro have some ludicrous claim of storage size too?

<comment><USER16> From Microsoft's site:

The 64 GB Surface Pro has approximately 30 GB storage available for user content

The 128 GB Surface Pro has approximately 89 GB storage available for user content

<http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/storage>

(Note that this information is not given on the Surface Pro specs page.)

<comment><USER15> Then sell it as a "Surface Pro 30 GB (tablet only)", not "Surface Pro 64 GB (tablet only)": [http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productI...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.275287300?icid=SurfaceProReferral&WT.mc_id=USHH)

<comment><USER17> This isn't standard. In fact, I don't know of a single device manufacturer that does this. Every iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows desktop, Windows laptop, Microsoft tablet, and Android tablets I am aware of states the _total_ storage space as the primary indicator of storage. Do you have any counterexamples?

<comment><USER16> A 64GB iPad has 57GB available storage space, that's 10% less than the name suggests. A 64GB Surface Pro has 30GB available storage space, that's less than half of what's advertised.

When shopping for tablets, consumers should compare the 64GB Surface Pro with the 32GB iPad.

<comment><USER17> But that's a different argument. You're arguing that there is some line that can't be crossed, like perhaps manufacturers can be up to 10% off in their advertised storage space. That's a reasonable argument in itself (although where to draw that line is tricky), but it's a much different argument than "all manufacturers should advertise only the available storage space."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I didn't think this was a problem, because the Samsung Galaxy S4 has a micro- SD slot. However, the article says that apps CANNOT be installed on micro-SD. Is this a recent thing? Does anyone know why they'd do that?

<comment><USER19> This is a general Android thing, not a Samsung thing. It has to do with the way Honeycomb and above handle internal storage and external SD cards. It just doesn't come up that often because so few new phones have SD card slots anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First off, it's 8.5GB of usable space of the 15.4GB of total space on the phone once we convert it from 'marketing' sizes to real sizes. So, there is 6.9GB of stuff taking up space on the phone out of the box.

Second, 8.5GB of space is just fine for most uses, at least according to Google. They sell a Nexus 4 8GB with only 5.5GB of space free on it.

Third, and this is the key point here, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has a handy microSD port so you can add all kinds of memory to it. Memory that is a lot less expensive than going up a size. You can get a 64GB class 10 microSD card for under $60, just a bit more than going from an 8GB Nexus 4 to a 16GB Nexus 4.

The one sad point is that Google is making it harder to utilize the microSD, harder to move apps to the SD card (unless you run CyanogenMOD like I do), impossible to store your music/video on the card (movies you rent/buy from Google can't be saved to microSD, in a vain attempt at preventing piracy), etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd be interested in knowing how much of that is android vs Samsung's crapware.

<comment><USER21> The system partition is 2GB on my 16GB Nexus 4

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> this is similar to ISP's claiming: Unlimited Internet/Download, and still saying "subject to Fair Usage Policy"

This is BS, I would not buy a Samsung phone, when I can do it. Company policy towards such issues, reflects it overall approach to quality delivery to customers.

My friend was actually asking my opinion the other day, I would tell him to choose Iphone5

<comment><USER23> you are aware that Apple devices are advertised exactly the same way right?

<comment><USER24> You're aware that a 16GB Apple device has far more than 8 GB of usable space right?

<comment><USER7> That didn't remotely answer his point.

His point was: "Why recommend Apple when they do the same thing?"

Your point about them using less space is irrelevant when the OP was taking issue with the very principle of misleading consumers with inflated storage claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe they could change the way they do advertising: the amount of raw storage and the amount of available storage, similarly to the way they do hard drives (raw vs. formatted).

</comment><comment><USER26> Who needs more than 8GB? /s</comment>