Centralised DoH is bad for privacy - <AUTHOR> https://labs.ripe.net/Members/bert_hubert/centralised-doh-is-bad-for-privacy-in-2019-and-beyond <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071022)

</comment><comment><USER3> The one thing from the article that's new to me and I didn't see mentioned elsewhere:

> DNS over HTTPS offers additional tracking capabilities

> DNS over HTTPS opens up DNS to all the tracking possibilities present in > HTTPS and TLS. As it stands, DNS over UDP almost always gets some free > privacy by mixing all devices on a network together – an outside snooper > sees a stream of queries coming from a household, a coffeeshop or even an > entire office building, with no way to tie a query to any specific device or > user. Such mixing of queries provides an imperfect but useful modicum of > privacy.

> DNS over HTTPS however neatly separates out each device (and even each > individual application on that device) to a separate query stream. This > alone is worrying, as we now have individual users' queries, but the TLS > that underlies HTTPS also typically uses TLS Resumption which offers even > further tracking capabilities.

> In short, setting up an encrypted connection eats up precious CPU cycles > both on client and server. It is therefore possible to reuse a previously > established encrypted state for subsequent connections, which saves a lot of > time and processor energy.

> It does however make it possible to track an application from IP address to > IP address because this TLS Resumption session ID is effectively a cookie > that uniquely tracks users across network and IP address changes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Technological solutions only lead to centralisation of snooping. Whereas before it was possible for many players to snoop on your traffic, now a few big ones do the same and it has become even harder to prevent _their_ snooping because everything depends on them.

One wonders if the decentralised model wasn't better after all for the majority of us who aren't concerned about state level snooping since the state usually can control us in so many ways that online privacy alone isn't enough and besides implementing checks and balances upon the state can and should be done politically, since whatever individuals do technologically the state can also do, or do better, or in the worst case, ban it.

</comment><comment><USER5> IP is bad for privacy. You cannot fix it unless you are prepared to take a massive performance hit. Decentralization is very expensive and un-guaranteed.

The solution is to use plaintext HTTP/TCP/IP and encrypt what you need over that insecure (but simple/sniffable for development on live) channel yourself if you need performance.

Countries and large (telecom) companies have their own root certificates, HTTPS has never been truly secure. SSH is better, but only after the first connect.

Everything that tries to solve things in another broad manner will fall into this category of failure or low bandwidth, just need to select the right channel for the right product.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sure, adding additional trusted entities isn't ideal, I'll grant you that; all other things equal, I'd prefer _not_ having to trust CloudFlare in addition to the local network, etc. But the list at the end feels a bit defeatist:

>1\. Completely shut down plaintext HTTP

>2\. Use encrypted DNS

>3\. Deploy functional and downgrade-proof encrypted SNI

These seem like laudable goals to me. (Though is it _actually_ necessary to completely shut down plaintext HTTP? HSTS preload gets you there on a per- domain basis, right?)

>4\. Disable OCSP/make OCSP stapling mandatory, or replacing it by an alternate mechanism

So... if OCSP doesn't encrypt its requests right now, fine. But fundamentally, if you have a cert from LetsEncrypt, and you want to ask LE whether or not that cert has been revoked, is there any reason that request can't be encrypted? It seems generally tractable.

>5\. Host everything (every last widget) on large content distribution networks that are able to provide generic IP addresses, that have no discoverable link to the sites they are hosting

This one is difficult, yes, but I don't think this is the only solution. Couldn't something like Tor's onion routing also do the trick? (You can use onion URLs of course, but they're not memorable - a DNS record pointing to an onion name could be.)

And after all this, who's to say you have to use CloudFlare as your DoH provider? Pick one you trust.

</comment><comment><USER7> No log DoH.

The problems here are solved by the same solution that VPNs use. A VPN is a central point of failure, if their logs fall into the wrong hands or are misused they fail their mission.

That's why many VPNs don't keep logs.

The no log DoH already exists: ExpressVPN, for example, has Private, zero- knowledge DNS.

[https://www.expressvpn.com/features/dns](https://www.expressvpn.com/features/dns)

<comment><USER8> _" Just trust us bro"_ isn't a 'solution'.

<comment><USER7> To verify whether or not a provider keeps logs subpoenas are the gold standard, there's also audits.

[https://www.techspot.com/news/82259-keeping- private-5-vpns-h...](https://www.techspot.com/news/82259-keeping- private-5-vpns-have-verified-keep-no.html)

<comment><USER8> _" Just trust these other bros"_ is not a solution either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone please explain why there can't be a DHCP or RA option for which DoH server to use? Why are we going out of our way to make sure the sysadmin has to configure each and every piece of software on each and every single PC rather than just set it one in a centralized location, like every other networking option?

</comment><comment><USER10> DoH = DNS over HTTPS

<comment><USER11> I hate this acronym. Every time I forget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Centralized dns over http may be bad for privacy but unencrypted dns is much much worse.

<comment><USER13> Maybe EFF should offer members DoH. They could make some strong privacy guarantees and provide an incentive for more people to join the EFF.

After all if you are using a free service, you are the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Without a VPN sure, with a VPN,highly recommended even with centralized DoH.

Google,mozilla and cloudflare have open DoH resolvers. For a long time less than 13 orgs controlled the 13 TLD root zones. For such an infant of a protocol 3 stable open resolvers is not bad and even if it stayed this way it is noy centralized. What stops every ISP and company from hosting a recursive DoH resolver. I think people forget that open resolvers are provided at the generosity of the companies that host them. By design, your local network should provide name resolution recursively.

I really think VPN providers should also provide (open?) DoH resolvers,it helps with their privacy image and a good/fast resolver helps with their performance image.

<comment><USER15> > I really think VPN providers should also provide (open?) DoH resolvers,it > helps with their privacy image and a good/fast resolver helps with their > performance image.

And now you're 1 step forward, 2 steps back with the VPN provider having the sum of what was previously divided between your DNS provider and your ISP. Major VPN providers become one-stop-shops for snoopers and I'd bet some of the less scrupulous ones are happy to market your data.

There's unfortunately no free lunch but how's this? Run your own recursive resolver offsite (unbound is easy to set up), connect to that over private VPN, use DNSSEC when you can.

<comment><USER7> Change "VPN" to "no log VPN" and the problem is solved. Conveniently the most popular VPNs are no log.

It isn't a free lunch though, these are paid services.

<comment><USER16> How do you verify that they don't log?

<comment><USER7> Subpoenas are the gold standard. There's also audits.

[https://www.techspot.com/news/82259-keeping- private-5-vpns-h...](https://www.techspot.com/news/82259-keeping- private-5-vpns-have-verified-keep-no.html)

<comment><USER17> But this is one of the deals where when you find out, it is too late.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yes, the data the centralized provider collects is of immense economic value and this is entirely the reason this is being changed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Google / Cloudflare's centralized DNS offerings have definite privacy tradeoffs to be considered. And those tradeoffs need to be compared to the alternatives such as ISP hosted DNS or hosting one's own recursive server. This author failed to do any of that.

Should be marked 2019 - its not a retrospective of 2019, it was published in 2019.

> DNS is one of four ways in which such meta-data gets transmitted in > plaintext

The author makes the argument that because DoH doesn't plug every metadata leak, we shouldn't plug any of them. This is a ridiculous argument - by this logic, we should never fix any metadata leak because it would still leave 3 unfixed. So, I guess we'll just be stuck at 4 forever.

> Using DoH to move DNS to the cloud is a specific way of using DoH that is > damaging to privacy in 2019.

Why is a Google or Cloudflare server in "the cloud" while some ISP hosted server isn't in "the cloud"?

> One significant change with DoH is that the choice what to censor (or block) > moves from the network operator to the browser vendor (who picks the DoH > provider). If you are a privacy activist this is great, as long as you trust > your browser vendor (and its government) more than your own country.

If you assume that your browser vendor is out to get you, its not clear to me how any DNS solution is going to protect your privacy.

> Crucially, this auto-configuration (be it DHCP or PPP) is not itself super- > encrypted

I have no idea what "super-encrypted" means. But it sounds nice.

> I mention these two stories to show that our assumptions on oppressive > regimes may be wildly off, and not represent the reality on the ground in > China, Russia, Iran, Indonesia and Turkey. It is a lot of fun being an > armchair imaginary political activist, but things are remarkably different > if you actually live there.

The point that DoH may not solve the privacy problems of political activists in oppressive regimes may very well be true. But, in addition to being presented as just two anecdotes, the argument again boils down to: DoH doesn't solve every imaginable problem, so, we shouldn't use it to solve any problem.

> Additionally, that third party then gets a complete log per device of all > DNS queries, in a way that can even be tracked across IP addresses

What alternative is being proposed here? Using an ISP's server - the ISP is also a 3rd party. Running your own recursive resolver - in that case, you leak all of the plaintext DNS requests.

> And for actual privacy on untrusted networks, nothing beats a VPN, except > possibly not using hostile networks.

Except that a VPN provider is _even better_ positioned to spy on you than Google's or Cloudflare's DNS servers. And while Google and Cloudflare's DNS offerings have significant privacy considerations, a good chunk of VPN providers have unclear ownership structures often times in unclear locations and with unclear profit motivations.

</comment><comment><USER19> The biggest point in this article was that DoH doesn't fix all of the problems so why should we do it. We have to start somewhere don't we? Also, the user can switch their DoH provider in Firefox to a custom one if they have a PiHole setup locally or they don't trust Cloudflare. I'd argue that Cloudflare is probably more privacy-respecting than your local ISP.

<comment><USER13> Should Cloudflare is likely better than any random ISP. But maybe someone that puts a priority on privacy could run their own DoH. Like maybe the EFF.</comment></comment>


A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/a-loss-for-words

<comment><USER2> Should a dying language be "saved"? Preserving cultural heritage is all very well, but expending a child's language-acquisitive resources on a language which won't connect them to the rest of contemporary humanity seems far too high a price.

<comment><USER3> There is a particularly human egotism with respect to "saving" things that have outlived their usefulness and purpose, or preserving things that should be changing. If language can be viewed through its evolutionary purpose, these dying languages are simply experiments that did not pan out, and should be allowed to become extinct.

<comment><USER4> Many of these cultures (including their language) were forcefully banned, obliterated by law, lynching, displacement. discriminatory treatment, and the stealing of children. I do not exaggerate. So don't pretend they are dying of natural causes when the knife is still sticking out of their back.

<comment><USER5> To play the devil's advocate, maybe they deserve to die out. If they would have innovated and conquered first, their language could have lived and ours could be the one on its deathbed. Survival of the fittest, if you will.

<comment><USER4> The devil has enough advocates. Every time the words "to play the devil's advocate..." cross your brain, just punch yourself in the face instead. Soon the urge will pass.

<comment><USER5> Every time you feel like posting a snarky reply on Hacker News, go fuck yourself.

It's an honest question and I was hoping for some interesting answers. I was hoping someone would come along and have something interesting a la Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel"[0] that may explore what role languages had on development of cultures, similar to the aforementioned book's exploration of the development of civilizations and how that led to the fateful interactions that have shaped the modern world.

No, instead of an insightful answer, let's just let our liberal outrage fly at a comment that could not possibly have any good or real intent behind it. I'm clearly just a neo-Nazi posting up in here in HN, advocating the destruction of those damn Injuns! God forbid one uses a rhetorical device!

[0] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

<comment><USER4> If I thought you were arguing in good faith, I'd say something like: you are wasting your time running toxicology screens on a patient with the knife hilt still protruding. It's intensely unsubtle what happened: the languages were banned, boarding schools beat kids for talking anything but English, and so on.

However, I feel that nobody plays devil's advocate in good faith. In the worst case it's a shallow wrapper for "lets pretend my hate is a hypothetical" or in the best, "lets spend a few minutes kicking the skulls of innocents down the road, merely for idle argument's sake." Which evinces such a callous disregard it's hardly better than the former.

<comment><USER5> Not every dead language is a result of a genocide. My question stands on it's own, and there is more to it than what you imply. Yes, the most obvious, ready examples are what you say, but not all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To all the tourists that want to stop people from talking to each other in order to have the vague aesthetic feeling that "the world is diverse" or whatever floats your tourist boat: Why don't you go and do that with _your own_ child?

Go on, raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential. See how that works for them. Then have them tell us how that went. Oh, sorry, that won't happen so easily, now, would it?

"Linguistic diversity" Is just another way to say "Communication barriers".

Funny how is is always something that should happen to other people.

<comment><USER7> > raise them in a language that will limit their life choices and potential.

False dilemma. You can raise a bilingual child, in no way limiting their life choices and potential. In fact, there is evidence that suggests that bilingualism provides cognitive benefits later in life.

<comment><USER2> _You 're_ a false dilemma. Raising a child bilingual in English and Mandarin, good. Raising a child bilingual in Gaelic and Navajo, not so good.

<comment><USER7> Another false dilemma. Raise a child bilingual in English and Navajo, nothing bad. Gee, why did you omit _that_ combination?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm wondering if the people who are railing against saving languages are equally against organizations such as the Internet Archive? My thinking is that, as tech-savvy computer whizzes, many folk on Hacker News are happier to preserve something that makes sense to _them_ (media or website snapshots) than things that don't (languages and foreign cultural history). It's difficult to say what is useful without the benefit of hindsight, by which time it is a moot point -- the resource is long gone and will never be again. Anyways, just my two cents as an incredibly biased amateur archivist.

<comment><USER9> I see that as an apples to oranges comparison. When we say "saving languages," do we mean archiving them, backing them up, creating stores of references and recordings that can be easily recalled yet inexpensively preserved? If so, then I am definitely for that. If "saving languages" means accepting nothing less than the descendants of the speakers of a dying language needing to expend mental energy and time to remain active speakers of that language, placing them at a disadvantage when compared with those who have free time for other pursuits and contributing to segregating that group from others, I don't know if that's as beneficial.

In general, all knowledge should be preserved when possible. The question is whether it's better for it to be stored on hard drives or in brains.

<comment><USER8> Good question :) not sure I have a good answer for that one, although I'd like to point out that many people elect to expend mental energy on otherwise unproductive minutia (aka. hobbies) so perhaps the task of carrying on a spoken tradition is less onerous to some than one might expect.

Language contributing to group segregation is a very strong claim, however, and if you have any case studies (or, like, newspaper articles, this isn't academia) I'd be interested in seeing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just feel that the whole humanity should speak one common language. Now whether you like it or not that language is going to be English.

I just dont understand why do we need multiple languages anymore. If anyone says we need them to preserve the culture, I dont understand that either.

My native language is not English, just in case anyone feels I want to force English down your throat.

<comment><USER11> It may end up being Mandarin. Although Beijing, despite half a century of trying, hasn't been able to convert the Guangdong and Hong Kong areas. Only about 53% of China's own population has good fluency in Standard Chinese.

<comment><USER12> I doubt it. There might be more people with Mandarin as a native language, but English has far more adoption amongst non-native speakers. Most Europeans, for example, know some English.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >"Mohawk isn't just a form of speech," he said. "It's a holistic relationship to the cosmos."

What's _that_ supposed to mean? Apart from as a tautology because we're part of the cosmos.

<comment><USER14> It's just an effort to raise the prestige of Mohawk. Like all the disinformation about how English is just essential to everyone's economic future.

The prestige of English is wide but shallow: everyone's just in it for the money, and if something nicer shows up, the world will abandon English in a heartbeat.

If a language has spiritual value (like Latin, Sanskrit, or Classical Arabic), that's tapping into a narrower but deeper source of prestige.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The mother tongue of more than three billion people is one of twenty, which > are, in order of their current predominance: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, > English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, > German, Wu Chinese, Korean, French, Telugu, Marathi, Turkish, Tamil, > Vietnamese, and Urdu.

Arabic listed as one language? Can Gulf Arabic and Moroccan Arabic speakers understand each other? I've heard people speak to each other where one speaks Spanish and the other Brazilian Portuguese. The main difference between Hindi and Urdu is the different script. Don't those languages have more justification for being counted as one than those of Arabic? It's even a bit iffy to count English as one language -- put 3 people speaking Indian English, Ebonics, and Geordie in a room together and see how well they communicate!

<comment><USER14> Quantifying the difference between a language and a dialect is always going to be a problem. English dialects differ, but most English speakers also know well a standard variety of American or Commonwealth stock (which are mutually intelligible).

Distangling the Chinese languages is another huge problem, since the government of China sees them as all dialects of a single language, but any real comparison of phonology, syntax, or lexicon shows them to be quite distinct indeed.

My understanding is the syntax of Hindi and Urdu are very similar, but the lexicon is quite distinct. Since each has either a relatively more a Persianized or Sanskritized vocabulary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In Scotland, there is a big movement to preserve the teaching of Gaelic. Whilst I think it is important to preserve culture and to preserve history, I don't think, in terms of youth education, that should outweigh the utility of skills and languages necessary for the modern world.

It seems slightly obtuse to me that whilst do not teach computer science, programming, engineering or science particularly well in schools, we should worry about the preservation of teaching of old languages. That being said, I think it is extremely important to teach kids (and the public in general) about history as a way of avoiding past mistakes so I don't think we should eliminate it - I just think there are more important things we need to fix first.

<comment><USER17> The scots preservation of Gaelic is much less than in Ireland. When I was in school, I took Irish classes from when I was 5 until I left, as do the vast majority of children. Most Irish people have at least a handful of words and phrases they know. All of the road signs and government communications are translated into Irish.

<comment><USER18> (Disclaimer: I am Irish, and I do not agree with the mandatory nature of Irish lessons.)

The fact that 12-13 years of taking Irish classes daily leads to most Irish people having a few words and phrases is a _damning indictment_ of our education system. It is also a perfect example of how saving a language that has fallen out of use is incredibly difficult. All that effort teaching a language to a country and, because it is almost never used outside of the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking areas, mostly in the west of the country) it has been my experience that most people very rapidly lose their ability in Irish after leaving school.

I have long held the position that forcing children to learn a dead (or at the very least, on advanced life support) language is doing more harm than good. It instilled antipathy towards Irish more than love for Irish in my peers. Making it an optional subject would mean only people who cared would study it, and they would perhaps be more likely to try and use it.

<comment><USER19> Gealic is not mandatory. English-only schools in west of ireland are underfunded. Parents could sign their children into English school with 50 another kids in single class, or into Geelic school with 20 children in class.

<comment><USER18> Irish is mandatory. All primary and secondary school students are required to learn Irish, normally around one hour per day on average. Our secondary school graduation exam (the Leaving Cert) has precisely one mandatory subject: Irish [1].

My mother is a primary teacher in a non-Gaelscoile (school taught through Irish), so I am well aware of the institutional funding bias that exists and agree it is completely unfair. It is another ill-thought out attempt by our Department of Education to prop up a failing system.

[1] Many Irish universities require English, Maths and a second language (Irish, French, German would be the most common). However if you don't want to go to college you don't need to sit those exams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some descriptive YouTube videos about the Selk'nam people with English subtitles

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psJ5tg6Pqcc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psJ5tg6Pqcc) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgcA0JEQkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgcA0JEQkk)

<comment><USER21> Holy shit, they actually had a real Patriarchy: All the guys were in a secret conspiracy to keep the women down?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interesting blog post about the camouflage-style initiation paint and masks of the tribe this article is about:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_people](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_people)

</comment><comment><USER22> These articles appear from time to time but they never give any sensible reason. Just take it as given that languages must be saved. This one has a long diversion into indigenous medicine - not something that needs a language, but rather needs knowledge, using any language. Here's the closest thing I found to a reason though I only read half way:

"But the loss of languages passed down for millennia, along with their unique arts and cosmologies, may have consequences that won't be understood until it is too late to reverse them."

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be nice if the human mind were flexible enough to use different spoken languages the way that we use different computer languages.

Would we discover that like computer languages, certain languages are just better at expressing some concepts? Would we talk about love in French and about science in English or German?

Or would our easy use of language just encourage us to merge the best of all languages into some optimized hodge-podge general-use language?

</comment><comment><USER24> >> It is a singular fate to be the last of one's kind

Well, obviously.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can those who believe it's ok for languages (cultural diversity) to die out be saved ?

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe an artificially revived language is worse than a dead language.</comment>


Internet-Draft: A Convention for HTTP Access to JSON Resources - <AUTHOR> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pbryan-http-json-resource-01

<comment><USER2> This looks a lot as a JSON version of what AtomPub (RFC 5023) does for XML. Collections, resource manipulation... Maybe with a bit of coordination it would be possible to extract the common elements and have them a separate RFC.

Link to the AtomPub RFC: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023>

</comment><comment><USER3> If you subtract out "HTTP can be applied to JSON", what seems to be left is a minor specification of a standardized error JSON object. There's not much "there" there; everything interesting is "left to the server".

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I was really hoping that the document would get into some best practices around the structure of the JSON objects themselves, particularly in regards to self-documenting, such as:

1\. Requiring that the root of the application or domain contain metadata regarding the resources available to the JSON service.

2\. Providing a common documentation and structure for nested resources, including perhaps counts and a reference URI for accessing the nested resource, along with an alternate scheme when nested resources are embedded in the resource itself.

3\. Documenting how identifiers and references to other resources are included in a JSON object.

4\. A standard structure for how collections should be queried (how to reference fields, specify operators, provide values, etc.)

These sorts of concerns are the things in which there's tons of variation and lots of disagreement on standardization. Using HTTP verbs to describe operations in JSON services is well understood and doesn't require much in the way of standardization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like a good idea to formalize what everyone's already doing (though requiring PATCH implementation is a good idea). Am I reading it wrong or should the 5.7 Action section say that the REQUEST URI _MUST_ contain a query component instead of "MUST NOT"? The example contains a query component and is the only way to distinguish it from a Create operation.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I think it's a typo too (especially with the ?{query} there in the spec. Btw, do you understand the purpose of this Action?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pretty interesting. I already have a homegrown version of this service running locally and powering a few side projects.

It's really useful to use that "patch" method to combine knowledge from several sources into a single representation. Seems like that problem pops up a lot on the web.

Suppose I'll add it to the list of things I thought I invented.

</comment><comment><USER8> The "action" option is the most interesting one to me. That is not something that is a part of the general REST world. I've often thought having an rpc type interface for rest objects would be very nice but have the sense that it is very unRESTful. Is there a good balance to be had?

</comment><comment><USER6> Can someone elaborate on the "5.7 Action" please? What's the use-case?

<comment><AUTHOR> It defines a generic mechanism for performing actions that don't fit the GET/PUT/PATCH/POST/DELETE model on resources and collections. For example aggregations:

      POST /orders?action=sum&field=price HTTP/1.1

      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Content-Type: application/json
      {"sum": 9000}

Or actions with side effects:

      POST /orders?action=process-queue HTTP/1.1

      HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

Which is better than creating a specific resource for each of the "actions", such as /orders_sum_price or /orders_process_queue, because it keeps the URIs clean.

<comment><USER4> I like the idea of having a standardized way of dealing with actions (I run into this quite often when dealing with resources that are state machines), but I'm flabbergasted as to why something like a 'sum' action must be sent with a POST verb.

POST is supposed to be "used to request that the origin server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the Request-URI in the Request-Line.", which is nonsensical for querying information like sums from collections, and furthermore is supposed to be non- idempotent, which isn't true for a sum operation.

Ideally "action" would be seperated into two different methods, one for manipulating resources (like state machine transitions, or other processing), and one (utilizing GET) for aggregations and computations on collections or resources.

<comment><USER9> _Ideally "action" would be seperated into two different methods, one for manipulating resources (like state machine transitions, or other processing), and one (utilizing GET) for aggregations and computations on collections or resources._

They have done that. See 5.6. Query. Just a mistake by the parent.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. The aggregation wasn't a good example of an "action".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clearing Passwords in Memory with Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.codexon.com/posts/clearing-passwords-in-memory-with-python

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious how this is done in non-CPython land.</comment>


Rejected from an interview because first name is too short for internal IT - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jpatel712_seekingemployment-searchingjob-what-activity-6705265158039728128-bZ8X <comment><USER2> Finally a topic on HN I can actually speak about with professional experience!!! <3

I've done this job for years - putting new hires into Active Directory - (haven't quite got myself a professional programming gig yet, hopefully soon) and I don't know of any common system that would reject a three letter first name. Before I clicked I thought it would be two or one letters.

99% of orgs are on AD, and most of the other systems pull info from that. I would guess that one of these systems pulls info and doesn't allow manual entry, but also assumes names > 3 characters (or they're lying).

I've known plenty of people stuck with a pre-marriage name because it was too hard to change everywhere, or people who chose a different preferred name as their real name is often mispronounced, and other stuff like that.

Worst case scenario you add a few letters to get him in the system, apologize, inform his coworkers, and put in a request to update/fix it/whatever. If your manager is aware you're using a preferred name and your legal name still needs to go on important forms and stuff, it should be business as usual. That stuff happens all the time.

There's definitely bias in these systems, doing things like assuming a first name is a given name and your last name is your family name (and that everyone has those). Works okay for anglos, but people from e.g. some Asian countries aren't accomodated properly.

But 3 letters? What about Bob? Jon? Amy? What about Amy?

This is just bizzare. Admitting it even more so. There's got to be something else going on here. I'm not a lawyer but surely you could at least argue discrimination?

<comment><USER3> Spoke about it with the better half with H.R. experience, and she thinks it'd be more likely that some other reason would be behind it, but they weren't willing to commit it to paper.

I have to wonder about all the Hsu's, Ngo's, and everyone else out there if it's really the case.

<comment><USER4> But saying this as a reason seems like they're opening the door even further.

At most, saying "your services are no longer needed" is about all they need to do in an at-will environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For funsies I filtered the wiki of prominent figures in SE/CS and amassed a list of those this company would simply not hire:

Per Brinch Hansen

Kit Cosper

Tom DeMarco

Zvi Galil

Ian Goodfellow

Ian Goldberg

He Jifeng

Les Hatton

Tin Kam Ho

Ken Kennedy

Adi Shamir

Guy Steele

Éva Tardos

Jie Wu

They look pretty darned dumb from here. Maybe is they didn't spend 6 weeks for the hiring process then they might have enough time to fix really broken things.

</comment><comment><USER6> My name, yes really! I have replaced it with the number of characters for obvious reasons. First Name : 12345678901 Last Name(three parts) : 1234567 1234567 1234567. Obviously I am not of Anglo heritage. Its a drama with everything I need to do from dealing government departments to drivers license to medicare to online forms. Yes IT systems are biased towards a particular heritage.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this has to be some attempt to "test" the guy to see how he would respond to a company policy that is not only wrong but could have serious legal consequences.

</comment><comment><USER8> 2020 at last has an issue just affecting one person, that we know of! This is insane, but so 2020

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems fake.</comment>


Show HN: Mix Opinions – maximize diversity at event mixers - <AUTHOR> https://www.mixopinions.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks, I'm the founder of MO and have dedicated myself to creating services that help bring people of different views together online or within physical spaces. It's particularly meaningful work to me when living during an age of heightened political polarization and our social spaces have degraded to echo chambers.

Mix Opinions is an service to allow event organizers to create mixer discussion groups that maximizes viewpoint diversity of each formed group. The system is pretty simple: the organizer defines a series of viewpoint-based questions that people at the event will answer on their phones (via URL/barcode). Once users have answered, the system uses a specialized algorithm developed with the help of UCLA to assign users to groups, such that each group is maximized in its overall diversity. Users are then informed of which table/location to go to for their group, and will get a graph description of the mix of views that are held within their group. The app then simply provides icebreakers to get the conversation going within the group.

We've hosted at events at schools, universities, and political events in US, Austria, Germany, and the UK. Would love to get more feedback on the idea on how to grow this project as we're not very financially sound yet, even for being micro startup.</comment>


FedEx reserves 20 Tesla Semi all-electric big rig trucks - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/26/fedex-reserves-20-tesla-semi-all-electric-big-rig-trucks/ <comment><USER2> It's becoming clearer and clearer that the main things preventing total EV takeover are lack of good products on the market and production capacity. I'm excited to hopefully watch both of these problems erode in the next 5 years.

Really really ready to stop breathing fossil fuels all day every day in the city.

<comment><USER3> Fedex has 14,500 trucks [0]. That will put tesla's at .13% of the fleet which sounds just like they are buying some to test the economic viability of them. I would hardly use this as a sign "that the main things preventing total EV takeover are lack of good products on the market and production capacity".

[0]: [https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/fedex- statistics/](https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/fedex-statistics/)

<comment><USER2> Fair point, but you have to take this development in context. EVs technologically outpace ICE vehicles on every axis other than refuel time, upfront cost and range. EVs can improve on all of these metrics, whereas ICE vehicles cannot. Therefore a complete switch is only a matter of time—it remains to be seen how quickly it will happen.

<comment><USER4> ICE still have a decent amount of efficiency headroom, so range and operational cost will continue to improve if auto and truck makers choose to spend the 80% investment to squeeze the last 20% out. Automakers seem pretty split - some are building initiatives to go full electric while others are focused on the ICE endgame. We'll see what large equipment and truck manufacturers do but I think the time horizon is quite long.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. For plain-jane passenger vehicles, Toyota is rolling out new engines with a different stroke-to-bore ratio, and a wider angle between the intake and exhaust valves to speed up combustion. With some changes to ancillaries they've increased thermal efficiency from 35% to 40% (41% in hybrid vehicles).

Mazda (of which Toyota has a fair stake) is rolling out their second generation SkyActiv which uses spark controlled compression ignition (SPCCI), in conjunction with a lean supercharger, to switch between spark ignition and compression ignition based on engine load. They've not thrown out a thermal efficiency number, but it's likely in the ballpark of 43-45%. They're targeting 56% thermal efficiency for the third generation of the tech, which is already well into its development, and we'll see sometime after 2021.

The current benchmark is Mercedes' Formula 1 engines, which are 50% thermally efficient, but understandably cost an arm and a leg.

This is excluding other things like Koenigsegg's FreeValve which uses pneumatic-hydraulic-electronic actuators (PHEA) to replace the camshaft. The only licensee so far is the Chinese manufacturer Qoros, which is a shame as Koenigsegg got pretty significant adoption of their FlexFuel tech by GM, Ford and Chrysler in the US (> 17 million vehicles sold).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to see Tesla demonstrate that their Superchargers are anywhere near super enough. A couple days ago, I supercharged at the "120 kW" Tesla factory in Fremont. For quite a few minutes, I got 23kW. After a while, it went up to 50kW or so. I checked the other car sharing my charger, and the total was well under 120kW. I suspect the station has an overall power limit. Also, there was a line.

For trucks, you need something like a megawatt to recharge on a lunch break, and a line blows the whole thing up.

<comment><USER7> Electric semis for true long haul will never be viable unless there is a major breakthrough in battery tech. 300 gallons of diesel fuel has so much more energy than even the best batteries could pack into a reasonable size and weight.

<comment><USER8> Major breakthroughs in autonomous driving may change that. If drivers are eliminated, the costs of waiting 30-60 minutes while charging becomes almost 0.

<comment><USER9> With the kind of infrastructure required for that, I can't help but think it would just be a lousy version of an electric railway. At least for long hauls with high throughput.

<comment><USER10> That's like saying that circuit switched networks are better than packet switched.

<comment><USER6> They would be if packets had enormous per-packet overhead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How is Tesla getting all these companies to put out press releases announcing that they are buying Tesla's products? Brilliant marketing. Maybe they offer discounts?

<comment><USER12> the chance to put out one of these press releases definitely factors into the purchasing decision for these companies. They're buying good PR almost as much as they're buying trucks.

<comment><USER13> And no doubt they have every escape clause in history in their contract. Great marketing for both companies, no risk for FedEx, and Tesla probably values the PR as much as the money at this point. They're not getting paid unless and until they can actually deliver the trucks, so why not get good press in the meantime?

<comment><USER7> Twenty trucks is really nothing for a company like FedEx. As the article noted, this is a very small pilot project for them.

<comment><USER14> UPS preordered 120. It's not the amount that is important, it's how many conservative logistics companies are interested that matters.

<comment><USER15> Less conservative than you might think: [https://sustainability.ups.com/committed-to-more/fuels- and-f...](https://sustainability.ups.com/committed-to-more/fuels-and-fleets/)

At 3 billion miles driven per year, there's a lot of room for experimenting with a few hundred/thousand new vehicles.

Anyway, electric freight works well for this business assuming the range is decent. There are lots of lower range freight routes with well forecasted volume, and controlled environments at both ends allows for installing charging infrastructure.

<comment><USER14> I agree entirely. I believe Tesla is quoting a _two year_ payback period versus traditional diesel class 8 semis, which means they will be sold out indefinitely until production ramps.

It's a smart move. Between passenger vehicles, stationary storage, and their semis, the Gigafactory should be fully utilized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The biggest issue with electric semis is that trucks have a maximum weight limit, and the battery is much heavier than fuel for the same mileage. As much as you may get the same range, if you can't carry as much cargo, you lose the benefits of price per mile.

Note that Tesla didn't mention the weight of the battery when announcing the truck. (Though I assume they believe they can get it even lighter before they release production models)

<comment><USER17> Do you think Fedex (20), Walmart (15), Anheuser-Busch (40), Pepsico (100), and UPS (125) would have put down money to buy hundreds of these without checking if they can actually carry a load?

They're being rated to carry a 80,000lb load at highway speeds for 500 miles - clearly the weight distribution isn't a problem.

The other thing you're forgetting is that it's not a battery vs fuel weight you need to compare it's battery+motor vs engine+transmission+gearbox+fuel+urea+etc.

There's so much less that needs to be in an electric truck.

<comment><USER16> True points - though I would think for at least FedEx and UPS carry significant amount of light cargo in some trucks (boxes with empty space around the actual contents, and other lighter contents) compared to other trucking groups which carry almost solid cargo (a truck carrying sugar for example). Pepsi specifically is an interesting one - because I assume that most of the cargo space is liquid, though I wonder how much empty space is in their cargo areas due to round bottles

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> FedEx had over 70,000 trucks 15 years ago. Obviously most of them aren't long- haul, but you'd want to know what percentage of the FedEx fleet this represented to judge how much the impact of this is about PR versus operations.

<comment><USER19> Total isn't a good number to compare against. The number of trucks they buy _per year_ would be a better number.

Even if the Tesla semi is the end all, best semi in the world by orders of magnitude, they still wouldn't be replacing an entire fleet in a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Those trucks look like beluga whales. I wonder if that's what their inspiration for the design was.

</comment><comment><USER21> FOMO is a powerful incentive.

<comment><USER22> What exactly do you miss out on, going forward its only likely these trucks will be cheaper and more in abundance. If anything its better to wait.

<comment><USER21> PR, or lack thereof, when these ship.

<comment><USER23> FedEx could be delivering my packages by horse as far as I'm concerned so long as they arrive on time</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Honda Shows Off new one wheel no hands motorcycle - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/10/21/vo.tokyo.motor.show.monocycle.cnn

<comment><USER2> It's very small and apparently light, which would also mean minimal battery space/weight. I wonder how many feet it can go on a charge?</comment>


China Is Poised for an I.T. Golden Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/kai-fu-lee-china-is-poised-for-an-it-golden-age.html

<comment><USER2> I think the article misses some fundamental issues with China

 _First, we are entering the age of open platforms, mobile computing, pad devices, open-source and cloud computing. These will create many opportunities for talented Chinese I.T. professionals._

That is all good, but so long as the verry network and the business around it are regulated by the whims of plitics no amount of open and free systems will correct the lack of free flowing ideas. If anything China should be a model to the US about how restriction of access will hurt our businesses globally, while China may be prevailing in their home market, they are not a global exporter of software, for the very reason that I highlighted. There is a lack of trust in the software that they produce. Until that is rectified they will be serving a regional software market at best.

 _Second, development costs are the lowest in history. On the open platforms, four or five good engineers can build an application and validate it in just a few months._

Development cost are not the biggist issue, if they where we would not be seeling the explosion in compensation in the US that we are seeing, talent in our field can be far more valuable that a team of mediocre, cheap developers. Please don't misread that as me saying Chinese developers are mediocre, that is not my intent, what I am saying is that the concept of development labor price is a none issue when one knows the dynamics of the software development market.

 _a Chinese e-book is free at first, but once you read half of it and get hooked, you have to pay a nominal charge per thousand words_

This is not a business practice that is scalable to other cultures, in America we call that a bait and switch and it is considered unethical and shady, not only would it not sell it would draw a lot of bad press from the media.

 _Chinese parents care deeply about education_

This is where I would say there competitive advantage is, they are heavily investing in their education system and actively encouraging investment in asset producing disciplines such as science and engineering. If they fix their sociopolitical issues they will be able to reap the full benefit of that investment, at which point we should all be concerned about their competitive advantage.

</comment><comment><USER3> China will clearly become a hot place for web development and IT support. But it must be said that web usages, concepts and-on a broader view- culture are quite different in China. Every occidental company has broken its back trying to breach into the chinese market. Local players and copycats still rule China, like Weibo against twitter.</comment>


JPMorgan software does in seconds what took lawyers 360,000 hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/jp-morgan-software-lawyers-coin-contract-intelligence-parsing-financial-deals-seconds-legal-working-a7603256.html <comment><USER2> anyone know more about this project or the sort of technology involved? is this just lots of pattern matching or something more intelligent?</comment>


Four beds ready to treat Internet addicts - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/health/internet-addiction-treatment-center/?hpt=hp_t2

<comment><USER2> In a weird way, stories like this remind me just how amazing the internet and games have become. The fact that people can become so immersed into the experience that their brain mimics chemical addiction is mind blowing.

<comment><USER3> It's an interesting phenomenon, but I'm not sure it has much to do with the internet or technology. People have gotten addicted to gambling on slot machines and poker tables, so the level of technological advancement needed to mimic chemical addiction doesn't even require entering the transistor age.</comment></comment>


Audi just created diesel fuel from air and water - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/audi-creates-e-diesel-from-co2/37130/

<comment><USER2> So... we create a fuel at 70% efficiency from electricity, which is then put into an ICE to be converted to mechanical energy at tops 40% efficiency for a combined 30%... instead of converting the electrical energy from the plug directly to mechanical energy at more like 80% (wall-to-wheel) efficency?

<comment><USER3> I think it's a problem of storing the energy. Oil is compact, easy to store, and even though it's far less efficient than a battery-electric-motor, a fuel- driven approach might still be more economical. Batteries don't come for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see this technology becoming dominant while oil is still used. However it is great to see manufacturers anticipate the oil shortage.

<comment><USER5> I see it becoming important if they can drive the price down sufficiently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is way cool. I recall the similar result where the US Navy was making something very like thin crude from air and water, using electricity: [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/04/08/u-s- nav...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/04/08/u-s-navy-can- convert-seawater-fuel/) That was at a cost of about twice conventional oil, so it's surprising and pleasing to see the cost of this sort of thing coming down so much.

Seriously, carbon-neutral gasoline will be hugely awesome. We have a century of technology for handling and using the stuff, making it not a climate disaster will be spectacular.

Also, note this is a large car manufacturer doing it - not an oil company. They're commoditising their complement.</comment>


McLaren's new car - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8238430.stm

<comment><USER2> Looks like an ugly version of Ferrari's F430 and 458 models. Not sure about those exhausts either.</comment>


Tutorials for Bootstrappers - <AUTHOR> http://bootstrappertutorials.com <comment><USER2> The article on sales is very informative / well-written. [https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/starting- sales](https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/starting-sales)</comment>


What's this? Secret.Google.com You are invited Enter only with - <AUTHOR> I was looking at my google analytics and I saw a strange spike in traffic. Under "language" I saw "secret.google.com You are invited! Enter only with this ticket URL. Copy it. Vote for..." All this traffic came from Russia. <comment><USER2> Well it's not in Google's DNS records... Is that G an actual "G"? Read this [http://mashable.com/2016/11/21/fake-google- domain/#EfEO7G8ZY...](http://mashable.com/2016/11/21/fake-google- domain/#EfEO7G8ZYaq8)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes this is exactly the same problem. Thanks so much.</comment></comment>


Is it OK for TM2 to require GPL forks but request dual-license patches? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/textmate/textmate/pull/1

<comment><USER2> What I am confused about in this whole thing is because you are developing these patches and fixes and additions using the gpl code doesn't that mean that your patches cannot be released under the public domain as per the gpl because of how your code was made.

I'm thinking of this in the same way that wordpress themes/plugins have to be gpl if they use wordpress functions and such.

Wouldn't your patch have to be completely separate from textmates code to be considered eligible for anything other than being licensed as gpl?

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://producingoss.com/en/copyright-assignment.html>

<http://www.adventuresinoss.com/?p=1171>

[http://commons.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Open_Sources_2.0/O...](http://commons.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Open_Sources_2.0/Open_Source:_Competition_and_Evolution/Dual_Licensing)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I do not mean this to be a push-poll, I'm pretty ignorant here and just want to survey opinions. Personally I think it's the author's prerogative to release his work under whatever terms suit him as it's his work and no one is obligated to use his code or contribute to the project.</comment>


Parkinson's Law (1955) - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/14116121

<comment><USER2> Is there an online anthology of C Northcote Parkinson's essays?

My battered 1961 copy contains 10 essays of which the preface says 3 appeared in the Economist and "certain of the others" in Harper's and The Reporter.

My favourites are:

The essay on how to word a job advert: "the perfect advertisement would attract only one reply". Examples are given of job ads that hope to prove sufficiently offputting to the wrong candidates.

The piece about councils. Ideal number of members: 5; any council with more than 20 members is an ineffective showpiece. Illustrated with a historical look at the Privy Council and the size of Cabinets in countries around the world.

The piece on time spent per item in financial meetings, which introduced us to the bike shed. (In the original essay, the bike shed is not the most trivial item on the agenda -- that is the question of whether to serve coffee at meetings, which gets an hour and a quarter's debate, to the bike shed's mere 45 minutes.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just recently ran across Parkinson's Law when looking up Bikeshedding on Wikipedia (which redirects to "Parkinson's law of triviality"). Found some copies of his book on Amazon which I'd like to read through some time.</comment>


Learn Core Python in a Week – My Way - <AUTHOR> http://www.curphey.com/2011/07/learn-core-python-in-a-week-my-way/

<comment><USER2> I really wonder why no one mentions the official Python tutorial (<http://docs.python.org/tutorial/>). That is by far, the most concise and easiest to understand Python tutorial I have ever come across. For those who run after multiple sources and 400 pages books, give the official tutorial a read. You will not even feel at looking at another Python introductory book again. I speak from personal experience and based on the feedback from the people I recommended this -- they simply love it. As talk is cheap, don't listen to me and go ahead and give it the first few pages a read. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER3> ...is the tutorial any shorter than 400 page books?

<comment><USER2> With the tutorial, you just need to read till Chapter 9 as the continuing chapters handle the stdlib which serves more of a reference once you know the language. Point being, you start writing Python with the official tutorial much earlier as compared to any introductory book because the tutorial teaches you what you _just_ what you need to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find it telling that even though the entire article focuses on outlining a way to spend ~1 week to learn 'core python,' the only two comments so far focus on his choice of Python over Ruby, which is ~2-3 sentences in the entire article (and said in a very 'this is my opinion, ymmv' way).

</comment><comment><USER5> Stop debating whether Ruby or Python is better and learn both. They're both great languages and they're super similar, so once you've used an in-depth technique like the one outlined in the article to learn one, you can learn the other super easily in a lot less time.

If you know both, you can make an informed decision and choose the right tool. Even if you're using Django to write your webapp, you'll be able to use Chef for configuration management. If you're about to embark on writing a new project, you can choose the language that has the most mature libraries for your problem domain.

You also won't have to rely on all of the apparently subjective things people say in comment threads about which language is better when choosing one.

While you're at stop saying how bad C/C++/Java/Scheme/PHP/javascript/haskell/C#/Cobol and learn those too (ok, maybe not Cobol).

Remember a few years ago when everyone was all hating on javascript? Now, all of sudden it's the awesome lingua franca of programmers and the language hasn't changed a bit. The perception changed because some smart people learned its strengths and wrote good libraries and runtimes based on those.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is everyone making this Ruby vs Python? which is unproductive discussion.

I think the article has some good tips for people learning any new language(it can be python,ruby or anything). The tips most useful according me are:

1\. Dedicate fixed time for learning

2\. Find Good mentor.

3\. Use recommended development practices from Day1

4\. Learn Core Language first, then try frameworks

5\. Write Code(that's the only way!)

<comment><USER7> I think that Ruby vs Python is the most useless debate ever. They're similar enough in design and capabilities as to not matter which one picks, so arguing about it is moot. Just pick one and go with it, and if you want to learn another, try a lisp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great write-up, and nice to see another's experiences. Obviously these are all just tips and don't all have to be followed, so I do want to point out that I disagree with the idea of paying for an instructor–at least initially.

One of the nice things about the open-source community and having a great ecosystem around <insert language> is that you can hop on IRC (<http://www.python.org/community/irc/>) or find your way to the mailing lists and there will be at least a few very smart people overjoyed to help you learn–as long as you put in the initial effort, try the problem yourself first, and _then_ ask for help (and be willing to listen to their advice).

Then, if you go through all of that and try really, really hard, be patient, ask for help, and still find yourself lost, maybe seeking an instructor is a good idea. I'm just saying to beginners that I wouldn't jump to that right away.

Overall, nice writeup, and thanks Mark for sharing your experiences and being willing to push your own boundaries and learn more! Yay for not falling into the abyss of managerial stagnation!

</comment><comment><USER9> I took the UW course that Brian Dorsey taught, the professor helping the author out. He's a fantastic professor, the Think Python textbook is phenomenal, and I'm sure he'll do fine.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't use an IDE if you're learning, that seems like a mistake to me. Just use a text editor of your choice and the shell.

</comment><comment><USER11> ahhh.. he said, she said.

i really love to read very good illustrations of how ruby developers being arrogant for noobies.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's interesting what he said about choosing Python over Ruby. I made the same choice this past week. My friends and I are trying to start creating a web service off an idea we had months ago and while they were all talked into learning RoR, watching them struggle to even install Rails on their machines as well as horror stories about Ruby's constant version updates made me choose to learn Python instead. Zed Shaw's famous rant/article played a role in my decision too, and this article seems to support what Zed said a couple years ago about the community being "arrogant" and difficult.

(Now my friends and I are learning separate languages and planning to work on the same product, and I'm actually curious how/if this will resolve itself...)

</comment><comment><USER13> The problem with Python community is, when comparing Python with Ruby, Pythonistas give almost no objective reasons to prefer Python but give many highly subjective (provoking) opinions, like the following:

1\. Zen of Python. _(since Ruby doesn't adhere to it, it's bad)_

2\. Python community is less arrogant compared to Ruby community. _(painting millions of Ruby programmers with the same brush based on an IRC chat they had)_

3\. Google loves Python. _(is that even a reason?)_

4\. Zed Shaw said so-and-so against Ruby/Rails which I _want_ to believe/agree. _(fan mentality)_

<comment><USER7> What reasons do the Rubyists give?

<comment><USER14> They don't. They are busy having fun coding. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I design datavis but what is my job title? - <AUTHOR>

I work in the data analysis field. I have a background in BI but I specialise in designing ways to encode data to a visual format.
I'm not a Data Scientist because my mathematical abilities are laughable at best but I do work with statistics and data, especially in the communication of these.
I wouldn't say I have anxiety over it but I would like to be able to tell people my role in a one liner.
I know a rudimentary amount of D3 and various other JS libraries, smattering of Python and lots of experience with Enterprise BI stacks.
...WTF am I? <comment><USER2> Data Visualist

Or I'd go with a designer role. Designer within the Data group? Something like that

<comment><USER3> If $$'s a concern, I'd lean on the data analysis side more-so than design.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Worst response you ever got from a customer or lead? - <AUTHOR> What's the worst response/outcome you've ever gotten during your sales process, or perhaps with an existing customer?<p>How did you learn and overcome from the experience? What did you do differently in the future? <comment><USER2> "is it free?"</comment>


Homebrew's new feature: Brewfiles - <AUTHOR> https://coderwall.com/p/afmnbq

<comment><USER2> What would be the use case for this? I don't see it.

<comment><USER3> It's sort of like `pip install -r` in Python. I used to do `cat brew_requirements.txt | xargs -L1 brew install`, but Brewfiles mean that that sort of thing is now standardized, and also gives support for things like tapping, linking, etc.</comment></comment>


Tim Cook Changes Twitter Name to 'Tim Apple' After President Trump's Name Flub - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/07/tim-cook-twitter-name-tim-apple/ <comment><USER2> Great to see a playful response to your president.

But you can only see the Apple logo in his display name and bio on an Apple product because they used a special symbol. The rest of us have to put up with a Unicode unknown character box. The arrogance of it.

Firefox on Android: [https://imgur.com/a/yEdfHB4](https://imgur.com/a/yEdfHB4)

<comment><USER3> Non-language Unicode characters are a tool of the Technical Illuminati to coerce us into using emoticons instead of native language words in literature and communications. Eventually they'll be able to issue font updates to 'change' published literature in place.

"We have always been at war with [0110 Eurasia 1001]."

[Unicode update]

"We have always been at war with [0110 Eastasia 1001]."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, timapple.com was registered in 2013 by a real Tim Apple. [https://dofo.com/timapple.com](https://dofo.com/timapple.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I just learned that.[1] I wonder why Apple hasn't apply it to be accepted into the general unicode code points.

[1]: [https://emojipedia.org/apple-logo/](https://emojipedia.org/apple-logo/)</comment></comment>


Single Women: There Aren't Enough College-Educated Men Out There - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/read/youre-single-because-there-arent-enough-men-253 <comment><USER2> To be frank, if there legitimately are a glut of women who aren't able to find a "college educated man" (and, frankly, I doubt such a phenomenon exists in reality) then maybe these people will have to _settle_ for men who are simply just successful, college educated or not.

However I highly doubt college graduation numbers has much to do with the women near thirty who are unable to find a partner. I'm sure their standards are just set in such a way as to reduce the dating pool significantly (and I suspect more than just academic background is listed).

PS - This interview gets quite sexist and generalising as you go. They give up even pretending that the numbers are influencing their opinion about halfway down and then it is just purely an opinion piece on "the problem with men these days..."

<comment><USER3> I really don't understand what college has to do with it. Are well-rounded interests and a high-paying job not enough to be ahead of the pack anymore?

<comment><USER4> No. They must also be tall. And willing to overlook any sort of weight issues or flaws on the other parties behalf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> After talking with a few friends about this, a kind of a non-consensus emerged - men say that women only aim "higher", want more successful, taller, handsome, equally or better educated, "alpha" men; women agree and say that many _other_ women want this, but not _them_. At the same time, women say that men "lower", and want a women that earns less, isn't more educated, and is submissive; men agree and say many _other_ men might think like this, but not _them_.

I'm not too sure what to make of this, except that each perspective is necessarily biased. (In the above, "men" and "women" refer to my friends, so a very small sample. Also, I'm only describing the heterosexual view.)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is because society dictates that men who aren't educated and earning lots of money are somehow less attractive. They call it dating 'down'.

Firstly we more women in college.

Secondly guys are less likely to judge their mates by whether they do attend college, so you end up with a dynamic where college educated men are dating both 'up' and 'down' whereas college educated girls only want to date 'up'.

This mentality of dating 'up' based on societies ideals of what 'up' is somehow feels like hypocrisy as many of these girls are staunch feminists.

Why are these non college educated guys not good enough? Are they bad people because they didn't go to college?

Oh well, as a college educated guy, im not complaining.

<comment><USER7> Somewhat related: The way men and women describe themselves on OKCupid [0]. Career/education is more a part of men's "character" than it is for women (or it appears this way).

[0] [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/men- wome...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/men-women-market- themselves-okcupid/407671/)

<comment><USER6> True, the girls are marketing themselves as 'girly' or 'sassy' \- this is against the ideals of feminism is it not?

<comment><USER8> Girls being compelled to do so by external expectations of their gender is against the ideals of feminism.

Girls choosing to do so because that's how they prefer to see themselves and the image they like to project is not, or at least, the idea that it is would likely be controversial among self-described feminists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem is probably exacerbated by college educated men being more willing to marry women that aren't college graduates. At least, that's something I think is happening.

This is a supply and demand problem. If the men are in high demand due to low supply, the women need to adjust, whether than means lowering that specific standard, doing without a spouse, or putting more work into the relationship (it's not fair, but I'm talking about reality here, not how we wish things were).

<comment><AUTHOR> The article addresses this, and it's not the case. Men are just as picky in this area. See my other comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299844)

<comment><USER9> More willing and more likely are not the same thing. Men aren't experiencing the same level of supply restriction, and you can't use their current behavior to make a statement about what they would do if they were in that situation.

More specifically, if men and women had the exact same size pool of peers, would men "date down" more? I suspect they would, but have no need to currently because demand is in their favor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know a woman medical doctor (a high school classmate of mine) who is married to a man who is a carpenter. (He owns a small home remodeling business.) She seems happy, and she certainly has been married to him for decades now. People don't always have to be matched in level of schooling completion to be good matches for love and for forming a family together. Anyone who has been looking for a spouse for a long time might be well advised to reconsider whether their spouse search criteria are too stringent to be practical.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of these two articles in the Atlantic. Both good reads:

"All The Single Ladies" [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all- the-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single- ladies/308654/)

"The End of Men" [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the- end-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of- men/308135/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I rarely flag a post on the front page, but this _really_ doesn't belong on HN. It brings nothing to the HN community, and is largely just a sexist uneducated highly ignorant rant that just makes women look stupid just for the hilarity of doing so.

</comment><comment><USER13> Go to San Francisco.

</comment><comment><USER14> Men underperforming women as students has been going on since at least the nineties. Now those students born in the 90s are adults and can't find men on their educational level to date, and suddenly it's a problem.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a non-college educated man, I am thankful that this subset of the dating population is not interested in me.

If you make relationship choices based on arbitrary criteria like certificates-of-education you are in for an interesting experience.

</comment><comment><USER16> Historically, successful men didn't need great relationship skills. They married a woman for that. She brought those things to the table as part of her contribution and he paid the bills. Division of labor.

Women who are college educated, good looking, etc. do not de facto have awesome relationship skills. In fact, you can sort of bet on the idea that if they put their career first, they have probably given short shrift to such things.

The assumption that women who are educated and have successful careers make "great catches" flips the historical standard that what made a man a great catch was his career (not just for the money, but also for the kind of lifestyle that came with the career -- the social circles you run in, among other things) and in order for this to work, men would need to take over the role of tending the relationship: the cooking, the cleaning, being supportive and a good listener, etc.

And that means women would need to start looking for men who invest in that more than their career. They would need to start marrying down.

In essence, the assumption that a woman is a great catch if she has a serious career only works if men are willing to take over the role of "wife" by the droves and the career women are willing to make that deal. Most women still want men who are their equal or superior in terms of career success and income, as the article makes clear.

This isn't a shortage of men. It is a legitimately hard problem to solve to have two career people hook up and also make the personal life part work. A two career couple with kids and a social life, etc. -- there are only so many hours in the day. So this tends to not work.

I have read many, many articles wondering how to make this work and, for me, I think the answer is "My kids are grown adults and I am hitting menopause, so no more babies for me." That means it gets a lot more realistic for me to have a career and also a man in my life with a real career. When you are looking to have a family and make sure all members of the family are properly cared for, it's wicked hard to also have both parents pursuing a serious career with the pedal to the metal.

So I would say these women are choosing career over private life and the law of large numbers mean some of them will just have that career they put everything into. I get why women make that choice. I get why it is hard to be financially dependent upon a man, etc. I did the homemaker and full time mom thing. I know how hard that is. But when push comes to shove, if you just have other priorities, you simply may not get to this one thing that is lower on your list of priorities. Duh.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm going to get flak for this, but I've done a lot of online dating and in my experience the "educated women" on these sites tend to be third wave feminists/social justice warriors types who've studied either gender studies, political science, or some other unmarketable degree. I don't know what college does to them, but many are borderline undatable. The unshakable victimhood, the entitlement, the hatred of men makes it nearly impossible to maintain a functional and balanced relationship.

Men have also reached the peak of their disposability. It use to be that we would be sent to war, women and children first etc, now we don't even need to be there as part of the family. Woman can just have a child with male, and when she's done with him, can leave him and force him to pay for that child (which he may now rarely see). So what incentives do men have to make themselves productive members of society if their prospects are so poor.

Not to mention that college campuses have become truly scary places for young men with the ultra politically correct culture (though white men are open season) and the indiscriminate sexual harassment charges (which is deeply unfortunate for those who actually have been harassed since now people are becoming more skeptical).

</comment><comment><USER18> And when the men turn to social techniques that are proven to increase their sexual market value (aka 'Game'), they get excoriated in the public sphere as 'creeps', 'weirdos', etc. Then we get snarky articles about how 'boring' successful (read: technical/IT-career focused) men have become these days.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if the interviewer would listen to the interviewee and move to Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER20> Let me rephrase that as "There aren't enough 6'1 college-educated WASP men who look like football players and are charismatic and extroverted".

<comment><USER21> Heaven forbid a woman also has their likes and dislikes.

<comment><USER6> Likes and dislikes based on societies arbitrary ideals of what an ideal guy is like.

Whats wrong with non-college educated men?

<comment><USER22> If you asked one of these women, I bet they'd say it's because they want someone who is as educated as they are, claiming some sort of preference of higher intelligence.

Of course, the real answer is money. College educated men make more money, generally.

<comment><USER21> > Of course, the real answer is money.

Ya that's right, they're really just being gold diggers. No one actually talks to their SO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> College is a scam anyway...

</comment><comment><USER24> Very few things make me stop reading an article. But, this one won with:

"This isn't China or India where they have a man-made gender imbalance because of all sorts of horrendous things".

What a way to over-generalize 2.5 billion people.

A snide remark like that in a ultra-shallow article. Yeah, I have myself to blame but bleh.</comment>


Things You Should Know About Shaders (For 3D Graphics) - <AUTHOR> http://www.renderingwithstyle.com/post/74997233849/ten-things-you-should-know-about-shaders <comment><USER2> What they call "image based lighting" (rendering depth/normals into a separate image) is actually called deferred lighting / rendering.

Image based lighting is when you use environment maps (like a cube map) for lighting rather than individually defined lights. Typically you precompute blurred versions of the environment map so you can sample it directly at various apertures.</comment>


Apple's Climate Plan Is Even More Interesting Than It Appears - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/esg-investing-apple-s-climate-plan-will-cut-carbon-footprint <comment><USER2> The post reminded me about something a friend said to me once: sure, you can be a consumer with a conscious mind. But if you want to change the world, run a business with that same conscious mind. If we want to fight against climate change, do we stop at living sustainably and persuading others to live sustainably, or should we go further and build products that will make the world more sustainable at scale?</comment>


Drzymała's wagon - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drzyma%C5%82a%27s_wagon <comment><USER2> In case anyone wants to pronounce the name:

"drz" is unpronouncable in English, but probably closest to /j/ in "journalist", but with a /d/ in front of it (actually /dʐ/.) "y" is a slightly darker Schwa /ə/ (actually /ɨ/) and "ł" is the same as English /w/.

I'd render it in English as something like: djeh-MAW-uh.

Also worth reading is the Wikipedia article on spite houses in General: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_house) Lots of cool examples of malicious compliance and plain disobedience.

<comment><USER3> "George" is probably a better example for English speakers than "journalist", I think. The 'g' in George is typically a 'drz' sound.

<comment><USER2> Both of these should be /d͡ʒ/, which is an affricate. In some Polish dialects, "drz" is pronounced basically like that. But it seems to me (I'm not a native speaker, merely an observing linguist) that standard Polish does not in fact form an affricate here, but two _separate_ consonants. Compare "dżem" (with an affricate) and "drzem" (with two separate consonants.)

That's what's so hard to pronounce for English native speakers, who have trouble with word initial consonant clusters (compare the English pronunciation of "Dvorak" as "Duhvorak.")

An added difficulty is that the fricative part here isn't alveolar as in either George or journalist, but retroflex (not /j/ but /ʐ/.)

My favorite Polish word in this regard is drzwi (door.) A word initial triple consonant cluster with an alveolar, retroflex and labio-dental sound, all voiced. Fun times.

<comment><USER4> Another fun word: "bezwzględny". Five consecutive consonants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some homeless people get wheelchairs to circumvent "sit-lie" local ordinances.

</comment><comment><USER6> why is this here? as a pole I don't understand what's the connection between this and hackernews?

<comment><USER7> I may be under-thinking this, but getting a mobile house and moving it every 24 hours to peacefully circumvent "hostile" legislation against building houses, seems like a good hack.

<comment><USER8> There are more stories like that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Peace) In one case lutherans were not very welcome so they were only allowed to build three churches from wood, loam and straw, without steeples within time limit of 1 year, outside city limits. This was of course to prevent building of any large permanent structure. Lutherans built magnificent churches, two of them surviving to this day. [https://www.google.pl/search?q=swidnica+kosciol+pokoju](https://www.google.pl/search?q=swidnica+kosciol+pokoju)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> V-2 However oppressive the Prussian Partition could have been, they did recognize the law, in this case at least.

Under communism Drzymała wouldn't be unlikely to get threatened, beaten up or even killed by "unknown perpetrators" (secret police).

<comment><USER9> Prussia respected the slave permissions one had - hardly an excuse

<comment> V-2 I'm not excusing anything (especially being a native Pole myself), just pointing out a difference between a 19th century authoritarianism and 20th century ones.</comment></comment></comment>


Just 16% of U.S. adults use Twitter and only 8% get their news from Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/11/04/survey-twitter-users-tend-to-be-young-mobile-and-educated/ <comment><USER2> The problem with twitter is that it's 160 char limit is too short to be useful without an embedded link. That makes it useful for quick notes and as a pointer to actual news but not getting news itself. Since twitter restricts apps from accessing tweets in commercial volume, the usage of tweets to generate "magazines" full of news that are easier to read doesn't happen.

I use it as a subscription mechanism for my blog in addition to rss. But not much more than that.

<comment><USER3> I actually follow a decent amount of journalists, and they comment a lot on things in a sort of "preview" of what I'll see in tomorrow's paper. For example, with the Iran negotiations, there was a lot of chatter about people entering the building, making comments, etc. It's not the news, but it's like a high-level form of gossip, and pretty real-time.

Plus it's nice to be able to ask a person a question (there's a pretty high response rate when asking a writer something on twitter).

Interesting side-note though : 160 chars in japanese ends up being pretty big content-wise, which is probably why a lot of japanese users don't mind using it as their main social network account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But 100% of TV networks get their news from Twitter. So, ipso facto, 100% of US Adults get their news from Twitter.

<comment><USER5> That's no good for Twitter. That just means the TV networks are the ones who get to make the advertising revenues instead of Twitter.

<comment><USER6> How do these numbers compare to television (sincere question)?

My understanding that in the US, news programs get ratings in single digit percentages. This number is tied to the number of households with televisions (I'm seeing the number 115 million thrown around.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 8% of 190 million people is still a good chunk of people (especially considering that twitter is relatively new in the "social networks that are 'in' " category.

</comment><comment><USER7> A sentence is usually not a paragraph on it's own. A news story should be more than six sentences.

Why not share the actual research instead?

[http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news- consumers-...](http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers- young-mobile-and-educated/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting that. I just heard the stat on CBS, and thought it would be interesting to post here to see people's reactions. Do you use Twitter?

<comment><USER7> Everyday. For me, it is useful as an RSS replacement. It helps me stay in touch with professional contacts and friends. It also gives me access to restricted/famous people.</comment></comment></comment>