Google Maps Lawsuit: Woman Follows Directions, Gets Run Over - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/05/30/google-maps-lawsuit/

<comment><USER2> It's a bloody shame she didn't end up as a Darwin Award contestant. On street view there is a walking path 20 feet from the road.

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/screenshots/streetview_29994....](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/screenshots/streetview_29994.png)

Upvoted just for the irony.

<comment><USER3> Really?> You're saying it's a shame she didn't die?

Come on, that's going too far.

<comment><USER4> Is it really going too far? With over-population being the root of most of our biggest problems, I'm starting to think things in general could be much better if we had many more people dying, why not start with the stupid?

<comment><USER5> For one, there'd be a serious danger of getting caught in a self-referential paradox

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The next lawsuit will be taking Google's directions to Japan.

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=San...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=San+Diego,+CA&daddr=Tokyo,+Japan&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=51.497523,-0.149002&sspn=0.050441,0.132093&ie=UTF8&z=4)

<comment><USER7> HaHaHa. I think this is quite funny: "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean." I wonder if this is humor from google...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Product of our compensation culture. Honestly, I think this is one of the growing problem areas for innovation - we are all too scared of being sued now.

It's going to cripple us as a society at some point.

</comment><comment><USER9> Eh...walking on a highway isn't a guarantee of getting run over. Nor is cycling. I biked from University of Utah to Park City once, and rode on the freeway for a few miles, because there wasn't any other way to get there without going at least 5 extra miles. It wasn't as scary as walking across the street at a four-way stop sometimes has been, when inattentive drivers are involved.

I was on the shoulder of the road, but I have ridden on highways (not freeways) without a shoulder, on a road bike, before. When I did, I often picked my bike up and stood on the dirt beside the road and waited for a wave of vehicles to pass. I've employed similar tactics while walking along highways. She may not have.

I don't think walking where she walked was necessarily stupid. I think she may have just been unlucky. Or maybe she wasn't far enough on the shoulder of the highway. I also think the lawsuit is frivolous, because it hinges on the idea that she did something really stupid with Google's help.

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe this woman followed the directions exactly so that she could pursue a frivolous suit against Google. Mostly, I don't want to believe that someone could look at the situation and not see reality.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hate that our nation seems to be developing the following motto-

Your Own Safety: Not Your Responsibility

<comment><USER2> It's not a very nice thing to admit but I wished more people died because of their own stupidity. (And part of me wonders if that would actually be a net benefit or loss)

<comment><USER12> It will be interesting how we evolve given that not many people die of their own stupidity before reproducing in modern society.

<comment><USER13> You're making the assumption that "stupidity" comes from our DNA. Do you have any evidence that even remotely suggests this? Everything I see makes me think "stupid" is a learned behavior (e.g. stupid parents with brilliant kids, brilliant parents with stupid kids, etc.).

I'm a little suprised on this site, of all sites, to see people subscribing to the idea that we are constrained by the intelligence of our parents.

EDIT: Spelling

<comment><USER14> Are you smarter than animals with brains a fraction of the size of yours? Why or why not?

If the answer to the first question is "yes", it shouldn't take much to extrapolate from there.

Now, how to divvy up that quality which we call intelligence into what is inherited and what is learned is an open, and difficult, question. I think it's pretty clear that both are important, and their relative weights probably vary from individual to individual. Still, is the idea that intelligence comes in part from our DNA "remotely suggested"? I think it's fair to say so.

<comment><USER13> I was talking about among humans. Obviously brain size has a direct relation with intelligence. Are you suggesting that people like the lady in question have smaller brains?

<comment><USER14> Forget the bit about brain size. It's a distraction from what I was trying to get at. Sorry.

To rephrase my question: are you smarter than most (and in all likelihood all) non-human animals?

The answer is yes, and in the case of humans vs animals, I deny that it's because of culture or upbringing or all the other stuff that gets lumped into the category of "nurture". If it were just that, well, my cats would by now be speaking about as well as human five year olds do.

It's clear to me that nature plays a role. How much of a role is unclear, and, as I said, I suspect it varies.

For historical reasons, we're stuck with both racist pseudoscience and politically correct pseudoscience to contend with. I bet the truth about these matters, if ever found, will be somewhere in between. (And, FWIW, closer to the politically correct side of things.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think she should win this lawsuit but it does make me think google could add a new feature describing the safety level of a route.

<comment><USER2> There is no safety issue here, it's a stupidity issue. She could have used the walkway I commented about instead she decided to walk on what is obviously a highway.

<comment><USER16> At first I thought and typed, "Yeah, exactly. They could add a safety warning about the health effects of eating the phone or laptop you look at Google Maps on too, but we don't because there is an assumed level of intelligence. I hope that she doesn't just lose, but is also penalized for creating a frivolous suit."

But then I reread the parent's post and now I think what they meant is that a nice feature would be one that displayed a route's level of safety. For example, if the route makes you cross a busy highway it might get a red label while a route that crosses no roads would get a green label.

<comment><USER2> I'm torn. I don't know if you saw the stop sign article but the more signage you put on something, the dumber people act. On the surface it's not a bad idea but then what happens if it's not accurate? Some of the streets in my city (Green Bay, WI) are safe most hours of the day and then you need to avoid them between 4pm and 5pm if you value your life.

It would be a nice feature but it might open them to actual liability for reporting inaccurate safety information.

<comment><USER17> I was thinking that too. The more Google attempts to provide safety, the more they become vulnerable to civil actions.

Who was it that said there would be no car accidents if we replaced airbags with spikes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> On the plus side Lauren Rosenberg's name is out there on the internet marking her as the person stupid enough to walk down a very busy highway and then sue others when she gets hit by a car.

This will doubtless come back to haunt her in the future.

<comment><USER19> Well ... she is from the USA !

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> if a human being looking at the road cannot tell that a situation is dangerous, how can a computer be expected to do it?

people need to understand that they're dealing with dumb mapping engines, not some all-seeing oracle.

if a situation is dangerous, you need to go back the way you came and get better information. if you plunge forward anyway, you do it at your own risk, just as you would be if you got directions from a human.

if your mama didn't teach you to walk on the left side of the road facing the traffic and to look both ways before you cross, it ain't google's fault.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ima be rich! Where my kayak at?

[http://geographicjourney.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/google- goe...](http://geographicjourney.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/google-goes-to- hawaii-via-kayak/)

</comment><comment><USER22> See, there's technological prowess, and there's common sense. We haven't reached that stage where we can totally rely on machines to guide our every move. We'd be robots by then.

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe I should sue Land Info NZ, I fell off a cliff that wasn't marked on their map. Wait that was my fault.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Man sues Church of Scientology shortly after death."

</comment><comment><USER25> Meh. Anybody can sue anyone for any reason.</comment>


Kiko guys back as reality tv stars - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/19/kiko-guys-back-as-reality-tv-stars/ <comment><USER2> I watched the dinner and aftermath, including all the pizza prank calls and various other abuse. I didn't see an easily-accessible feedback link (note to other startup founders: include this), so I'll post my feedback here:

1\. Congratulations. In two days, you have managed to create a community more fucked up than YouTube.

2\. I started watching _because_ of the outrageous stuff other viewers were doing. When you go to curb the abuse, be aware of this. Many of your viewers may be watching only because folks are doing stupid stuff like ordering pizza and making yCombinator pay for it. Lose the hassles and you may lose the audience.

3\. Reality TV shows succeed because they're _unreal_. TV execs hype up and dramatize all sorts of conflict, because that's what gets viewers to tune in. Nobody wants to see an ordinary person's life, because it's _boring_.

4\. Who do you want to be - Anna Nicole Smith or Paris Hilton. Your success in attracting viewers is proportional to how trashy you are willing to become. Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton remain media darlings because we can look at them and think "Wow, look how pathetic they are." It makes us feel good about ourselves. Unless you are similarly pathetic, people will not want to look at you. Respectable people like Tim Berners Lee or Steve Wozniak seldom end up on the news.

5\. If you _are_ respectable and still choose to go on reality TV, you're setting yourself up to be torn down. The justin.tv tagline is accurate: "An exercise in narcissism". Narcissism is going to prompt abuse. People think that since you've set yourself up on a pedestal, you've given them an opening to tear you down.

6\. I initially had logged in watch the yCombinator dinner. That proved impractical because of the technology: the audio quality was shitty, the video would randomly drop out, and you couldn't really see anything anyway. Part of the problem for attracting a decent community is there's nothing for _decent_ people to do. That leaves it as a festival for troublemakers.

7\. Have you guys not read Shirky? Almost all the problems tonight could've been predicted from his articles. <http://shirky.com/.>

8\. Lose the arrogance. Kyle was bragging about his 1337 MIT CS skillz in the chatroom. Emmett was talking about their being only a finite number of attack vectors, and he'd have them all patched in a week. In my experience, _never_ underestimate the clever things people will do to break your system. People will still be finding ways to abuse it a year from now, assuming it still exists. The arrogance is just an invitation for them to try harder.

9\. I won't be back, mostly because this is a complete waste of time. But I thought I'd give you the courtesy of telling you why I won't be back.

</comment><comment><USER3> Superb idea! This is the future of broadcasting! They will be able to license this platform and allow others to broadcast the same way. This will also allow people, who lead boring lives, to live through others. Reality TV is a big hit because of this and it looks like justin.tv is a huge step forward towards even a more intimate experience. I have a feeling that in the near future, some people will live someone else's lives. Scary!

<comment><USER4> Product placement will get them generating cash pretty quick. Could be difficult to scale up though, presuming there's only one Justin. What's the chance they've managed to file a patent for this as a 'business concept'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I initially thought this was a silly idea but I'm now strangly addicted to it.. Why live my own life when I can watch someone else!

<comment><USER5> Whoah, as the viewer numbers climbed rapidly the quality of conversation in the chat quickly dropped off.

I've seen this link posted far too many times in there: <http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The company that creates companies brings you the startup about being a startup. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER7> Their logo, incidentally, was done by Alexis Ohanian, who invented the Reddit alien.

</comment><comment><USER8> This could be a good way to watch startup school if you didn't get in or could not make it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yawn! Hasn't this been done already? Hello Jennicam, livecam, youtube?! I mean sure its neat, and its a polished website, but long term sustainability? Is it sticky enough to have me glued in day in and day out? I give it 3 months before it taps out. I mean its no trueman show here folks and ya don't even empower folks along the way. Why not tell people how ya did it? Share some real insight. How exactally am I living through their lives.. by watching them sleep? I did that sleep study last month, it wasnt that fun really. This is basically a short term startup biz idea, take 4 guys that do stuff, slap cameras on them, watch them make more stuff. Now I'd give them a bit more huff if they at least connected themselves to ambient like devices, nabaztag, or ambient orb, or something else other than forcing me to go to a widget to see if they ate a bagel or not today.. i dunno.

</comment><comment><USER5> Quite a few news.YC users are in <http://justin.tv/#justin.tv.1>

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I love the site. I got to say "hi to Jessica and Paul" and Justin mentioned my site, Shuzak.com, to them live! I am watching YC dinner atm (Paul's riding Trevor's invention) :D

This site definitely has potential to generate revenue. They could embed video advertisements or use sponsored food or cellphones, etc. Justin.tv might fail, but its model could be successfully extended to other reality tv shows. I believe that is the direction they plan on taking :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is an interesting adaptation of the notion of glogging / moblogging; I have to wonder to what extent these guys were inspired by the much more theoretical work done with eyetaps (amazing technology, but not really scalable). The interesting thing to see will be whether, since this is meant to be outward-facing (as opposed glogging's introspective bent), it will suffer from the lack of editorial control. Basically, does a person's life have a high enough density of interesting content that it is worth watching? If the answer is yes, then there is definite potential for radical developments in social media.

\me wanders off to check Joi Ito's moblog.

</comment><comment><USER12> Coincidentally, justin.tv succeeded in creating the only Web 2.0 chat room on the internet.

<comment><USER13> "chat powered by Lingr"

<http://www.lingr.com/>

<comment><USER14> Looks like a public version of campfire. <http://www.campfirenow.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It sounds like they're going to shotgun together some EVDO cards so they have enough bandwidth for a high quality stream? I wonder if they've created some kind of proxy to split up the stream and reassemble it with some hacked up cam-driver or something. Hopefully it's not too complicated a system.

Very interesting if it works out. Latency with EVDO isn't great, but mostly good enough. WiFi is pretty useless for mobile broadcasting because it's not very mobile.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, that can expand alot in the future with wimax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dunno if I'm willing to invest my time to watch these guys. Is the ordinary joe willing to watch this as well??

</comment><comment><USER18> I missed it when they went to start-up school. That would have been awesome! I am growing in my level of interest in justin.tv - mostly as a fascinating experiment.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is crazy, it's like that movie EdTV, only geekier.

</comment><comment><USER20> They mentioned "live polling" a few minutes ago. That would be way cool. Interactive entertainment at its finest.

</comment><comment><USER13> argh, I've just upvoted and now there's nothing I can do to undo it...

see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=4971>

<comment><USER13> whoa! where'd those 59 points come from?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fun idea. I like it.

<comment><USER8> Yeah. Surprisingly compelling. Especially in the context of YC News given that right now it's a bunch of guys monitoring a recently released site that's getting a bunch of traffic.</comment></comment>


Marked, A Simple Way To Share Markdown - <AUTHOR> http://marked.cc

<comment><USER2> This is certainly useful, but I wish there was a way to edit posts that have been shared with me.

History would be nice too, IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I'd like to see this supported as well. The project is open sourced at <https://github.com/gristmill/marked> so of course a pull request is always welcome but I hope to get to both these featured soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can save blank/empty posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed in my last push.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks sweet!</comment>


Subutai – A new way to think about clouds and devices attached to them - <AUTHOR> https://subutai.io/index.html <comment><USER2> Anyone else going insane from trying to scroll on that website</comment>


The Bugs in Our Mindware (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-bugs-in-our-mindware <comment><USER2> A lot has changed in the brief time since this article was written. Much of the evidence in support of priming was revealed to be based on weak research that didn't replicate. Don't rely on that section of the article.

[https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruc...](https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction- of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/)

[http://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry- judges](http://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hungry-judges)

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/25/devoodooifying- psycholo...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/25/devoodooifying-psychology/)</comment>


Americans Keep Getting Smarter About Sugar - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-11/americans-cut-sugar-intake-in-decline-worth-celebrating <comment><USER2> The data behind Bloomberg's article are about how much sugar is produced and sold, rather than how much each American chooses to consume:

> The agency does not actually monitor how much sugar we put in our bodies; it > measures "estimated deliveries for domestic food and beverage use" and > divides it by the population.

Bloomberg's graph rises and falls with the volume of high-fructose corn syrup. When I compare it to a graph of ethanol production in the US [1] I wonder if the "estimated deliveries for domestic food and beverage use" are decreasing simply because ethanol works out better - for growers - than high fructose corn syrup.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States#Production)</comment>


BatteryBox: Massive update – design changes, feature additions and shipping info - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getbatterybox.com/post/100598969661/massive-update-design-changes-feature-additions-and

<comment><USER3> The link to the patent 7,517,222 is wrong; it's to an application with the same title. Here's the key claim:

 _1\. A magnetic connector system comprising: a first connector having a first plurality of electrical contacts and a plurality of magnets; and a second connector having a second plurality of electrical contacts and a magnetic element, the second plurality of electrical contacts being adapted to mate with the first plurality of electrical contacts when the first connector couples to the second connector, wherein the plurality of magnets of the first connector are proximally located and are arranged in opposing polarities with respect to each other so that when the first connector is brought in close proximity to the second connector, magnetic field lines travel through the magnetic element of the second connector from one of the plurality of magnets in the first connector to another one of the plurality of magnets in the first connector, thereby increasing magnetic attraction between the first connector and the second connector._

All the magnets are in the laptop end of the connector pair, not the cable end. Selling only the non-magnet end might not be infringing, since that's just a metal plate around some contacts. You might be able to beat this. But it would be tough.

If you really wanted to pull Apple's chain, you could make a better connector than Apple makes. You could fix the problem with their smaller magnetic connector, which is known to fall off too easily. Here's how.

There's an exotic device called the Correlated Magnetics MagPrinter ([http://www.correlatedmagnetics.com](http://www.correlatedmagnetics.com)). This is a CNC machine which magnetizes magnets. Not just ordinary uniform magnets, but single pieces of material with custom-designed magnetic patterns. With this, you can make one piece of magnetic material behave as if it is multiple magnets. You can create magnets with various self-aligning properties. You could probably make a plug for Apple's socket which didn't look like Apple's, didn't have a "plurality of magnets", mated with their connector, and worked better.

TechShop in San Francisco has a MagPrinter, and any member can use it. They also have the software you need to design the magnetic fields and create the files for the MagPrinter.

So get busy and out-invent Apple.

<comment><USER4> Animats, your idea is great and it's something we considered a lot when we were thinking about the connector. We almost went and did it. However there were a couple of problems with that patents (as a side note - my co-founder is actually a former patent troll, so we dug quite deeply into the patents). Our priority was to not infringe on any of Apple's patents, so we were as thorough as possible with our research.

Here are the main patents around the MagSafe: [http://www.google.com/patents/US7645143](http://www.google.com/patents/US7645143) [http://www.google.com/patents/US7901216](http://www.google.com/patents/US7901216) [http://www.google.com/patents/US8087939](http://www.google.com/patents/US8087939) [http://www.google.com/patents/US8177560](http://www.google.com/patents/US8177560) [http://www.google.com/patents/US7311526](http://www.google.com/patents/US7311526) (the key patent)

Here are the main claims (apart from the one you mentioned): (a) A first connector comprising: a first plurality of electrical contacts, the first plurality of electrical contacts to mate with a second plurality of electrical contacts when the first connector couples to a second connector, wherein the first plurality of electrical contacts consisting of a central contact to convey a signal, two contacts to convey a power supply, one contact on each side of the central contact, and two contacts to provide a return path, one contact on each side of the central contact, wherein when the first connector couples to the second connector, the first and second plurality of electrical contacts define a corresponding plurality of electrical paths; and a magnetic element, the magnetic element to mate with a plurality of magnets in the second connector that are proximally located and arranged in opposing polarities with respect to each other so that when the first connector is brought in close proximity to the second connector, magnetic field lines travel through the magnetic element of the first connector from one of the plurality of magnets in the second connector to another one of the plurality of magnets in the second connector.

(b - part of it) a plurality of movable first contacts to make electrically conductive paths with a plurality of second contacts in a second connector when the first connector is mated with the second connector, each of the movable first contacts biased by one of a plurality of first springs;

The biggest problem is with the claim that speaks about a magnetic field from multiple magnets (4 are present on computer side) traveling through a magnetic element (ie. metal) on the connector side, which the patent states creates a stronger attraction. We thought it would be possible to place metal bits on the connector side in such a way that the magnetic field would only be passing through one element - thus creating less of a magnetic attraction but being a different invention. Unfortunately, at this point it becomes a matter of proving wether or not that's what's actually happening (this was our biggest worry as burden of proof would be on us).

There were another 2 - 4 other claims that also made it hard to improve upon (also not infringe on any of their patents) and create our own connector - <USER2> to mention the design patents.

I was actually thinking of writing a blog post about this issue, it was extremely interesting to look into all of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "Recently however, we became aware of an Apple prohibition on re-using their > products - even when their devices are not altered. Because of this, we > decided it wouldn't be appropriate to continue forward with our original > plan."

...What? Can someone comment on the legality of such restrictions and the pros/cons of following/ignoring them? (To me it seems like first sale doctrine would be applicable, though that certainly wouldn't prohibit Apple from trying to constrain their ability to purchase...)

<comment><USER6> Apple has in the past sued other accessory makers that reused recycled Apple parts for patent infringement.

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/apple_sues_hyperma...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/apple_sues_hypermac_accessory_maker_over_magsafe_ipod_cables.html)

<comment><USER7> Didn't pg specifically call them lawsuit-proof?

Edit: s/lawsuit/apple/: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7460204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7460204)

Also, I believe that your link was specifically related to them building their own MagSafe connectors rather than they current business model that involves severing an existing charger.

<comment><USER8> > I believe that your link was specifically related to them building their own > MagSafe connectors

From his link:

> Instead of mimicking Apple's patented MagSafe connectors, Sanho's products > actually rely on recycled official MagSafe products made by Apple. "Our > charging cables use original Apple MagSafe connectors for maximum > compatibility," the company's website reads

The issue is that even if they're right, nobody can afford to defend themselves in the face of the financial might of Apple's lawyers. And Apple can just refuse to sell to them/their suppliers - that's fully in their right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you patent clipping a connector to a device?

<comment><USER10> I loved that part. "We're going to complain because Apple won't let us use their design, so we came up with our own design that we also won't let people use".

<comment><USER11> Patenting it doesn't necessarily mean they won't let other people use it. It could, for example, be for protection against Apple patenting it themselves and not letting anyone use it.

<comment><USER4> Our intention is definitely defensive rather than offensive.

<comment><USER12> So I assume you're offering licenses royalty free to anyone who wants one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like the course of action here would be to pay Apple the licensing fee rather than building your own, very odd, clip on connector.

<comment><USER14> AFAIK Apple does not license MagSafe for any amount of money.

<comment><USER13> Gotcha. I didn't notice that. That is a real shame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How come there's no test for the 15 inch Macbook Pro?

<comment><USER4> That would be my oversight - we tested it but didn't post it. Will update today!

With the test the 15" MacBook lasted for around 4 hours, BatteryBox on its own did about 2 hour 20min.

It's the equivalent of 58% of the battery, or 55Wh (the 15" MacBook has a 95Wh battery).</comment></comment>


Stealth No More: Here's How Russia or China Could Shoot Down an F-35 or F-22 - <AUTHOR> https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/stealth-no-more-heres-how-russia-or-china-could-shoot-down-f-35-or-f-22-76446 <comment><USER2> This isn't exactly news breaking news.

Swedish SAAB, whose fighter jet (Gripen) doesn't claim to be stealth, started selling radar systems back in 2015 based on custom-manufactured Gallium Nitride (GaN) sensors that can detect "some" "stealth" fighters.

[https://saabgroup.com/media/stories/stories- listing/2015-3/l...](https://saabgroup.com/media/stories/stories- listing/2015-3/leading-the-way-with-gallium-nitride-technology/)

[https://www.janes.com/article/83778/us-to-evaluate-saab- gan-...](https://www.janes.com/article/83778/us-to-evaluate-saab-gan-based- active-aperture-radar-under-fct) (Oct 2018)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's no reason, apart from extra weight to carry, that missiles/aircraft can't use more than one microwave band to track their targets.

High precision tracking is only required in the last mile or two. Low precision radar is plenty good enough to get the missile close enough for final high-precision tracking.</comment>


MySQL High Availability Framework Explained – Part I - <AUTHOR> https://scalegrid.io/blog/mysql-high-availability-framework-explained-part-1/ <comment><USER2> I've been using Corosync and Pacemaker with HAproxy, FTP/SFTP and a few other services in production for a couple of years now. I must say that I'm really impressed. Never had any issues at all. I still think the configuration is a bit weird, but usually it's more of a set up and forget kind of thing. Will definitely give it a try with MySQL as well!</comment>


Correcting statistical biases - <AUTHOR> http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/06/correcting-rising-morbidity-and-mortality-in-midlife-among-white-non-hispanic-americans-in-the-21st-century-to-account-for-bias-in/ <comment><USER2> Here is a followup update: [http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/06/age-adjustment- mortality-...](http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/06/age-adjustment-mortality- update/)</comment>


Disclosing the Primary Email address for each Facebook user - <AUTHOR> http://dawgyg.com/2016/12/21/disclosing-the-primary-email-address-for-each-facebook-user/ <comment><USER2> This bug could have been used to make _so much money_.

1\. Find a group on Facebook of users you're interested in.

2\. Do this bug to get all of their emails.

3\. Building a lookalike audience from these emails.

Goldmine.

<comment><USER3> I'd be willing to bet a five figure sum that this plan would work either not at all, or for less than a week.

The vulnerability itself is interesting, and more prone to monetization utility than the standard fare of bug bounty reports that get posted here, so I'll give you that.

However, Facebook has one of the most sophisticated anti-scraping/crawling systems I have ever seen in production. Automating this with any non-trivial scale would immediately alert several teams, especially in security, risk, QA and analytics.

This is assuming that you could realistically automate the act of inviting and uninviting non-friends without any penalization. In fact, what would probably happen is a rate-limit trigger that would temporarily knock out access from your IP address. There are also account-level rate limits, not just IP-level.

Realistically, I'd use this for targeting a specific person in order to get their private contact information. I suppose that could actually be worth something, like if someone wanted a well known VC's private email address. But it's an odd length to go to nowadays when most professional emails are pretty guessable.

<comment><USER4> > Facebook has one of the most sophisticated anti-scraping/crawling systems

Not only that, Facebook has a such a sophisticated security design that prevents leaking of private information in the first place. Oh, wait... /Irony.

I don't understand why FB can be so sloppy in one aspect of security and yet you claim that they are brilliant in another aspect of security. It's possible. It's possible that some guy never washes his hands, his hands are completely filthy, but his clothes are always impeccably clean. That's possible too. Just unlikely.

<comment><USER3> You started with two mistaken premises, which makes your analogy a poor comparison:

1\. Facebook doesn't have "sloppy" security. The company and its software are massive and have many, many participants involved in the product and software development loop. You have unrealistic expectations for a company of that size with a consumer-facing product. Facebook continually recruits the best available talent in the security industry and empowers them to do their jobs without shooting themselves in the feet or getting kneecapped by cavalier product design. They also produce some of the best security research and implement best practices wherever they can.

I want you to look through any of Facebook's main or subsidiary applications and tell me how quickly you can identify CSRF, XSS, SQL injection, or a logical ACL failure like the one presented in this report. What you are not seeing is the utter deluge of bug bounty reports Facebook receives as a company and the nearly impeccable track record it has. The company receives over 80,000 reports each year, and fewer than 10% are valid security vulnerabilities. A tiny portion of those could be classified as "high" or "critical" severity.

You are also not seeing the meticulous, continually running machine that is the overall Facebook security organization. Not only are bug bounty participants aggressively recruited at Facebook, they are frequently put in charge of maintaining one of the most successful and recognizable bug bounty programs in the industry. Have a read through Ryan McGeehan's writings and presentations for a bit of insight into how much investment Facebook has put into incident response and security tooling in the past decade.

2\. On a more technical level: rate-limiting is vastly simpler than overall security vulnerability resolution. It is comparatively straightforward to implement a rate limiting system with enough sophistication to combat a sizeable botnet attempting to crawl through a web application or automate user actions. Facebook does this using a variety of heuristics and even machine learning, with collaboration between the security (incident response), risk and data analysis teams doing the heavy lifting. While the work itself might not be easy, the deliberables and outcomes for such a system are very clear. In contrast, application security is a hard problem which primarily results from a software implementation that doesn't match the design spec (logical errors) or a design spec which fails to correctly incorporate a risk assessment. It is _not_ straightforward to eliminate every vulnerability, because you can't just write a script that proves immunity from the OWASP Top Ten and be done with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like you should have gotten more than $5k. Great work and nice write-up.

<comment><USER6> I had the same thought. Seems like the value of such an exploit could be a lot more than $5k to the right people in the open market.

The macro effect is that when someone with lower moral/ethical standards discovers such an exploit it's more likely the find will end up being sold for more money and ultimately used maliciously in the wild.

The more $fb pays the greater the incentive will be for shady people to responsibly report it to $fb.

Relying on good samaritans doesn't seem like a sustainable or particularly responsible solution to taking care of those trusting the Facebook platform to not leak their private information.

<comment><USER7> _Seems like the value of such an exploit could be a lot more than $5k to the right people in the open market._

Probably not. What would the buyer do with it? It's probably very hard to mass scrape FB (rate limiting would kick in), and there are other ways of getting a specific email address.

<comment><USER6> It's about more than just email addresses. This is the policy applied to all exploits for their entire platform.

<comment><USER7> How so? They paid a $15k bounty earlier this year.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps it's my mistake then, apologies. I didn't know it was a variable rate!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly off topic but you can search FB by using a phone number, kinda like reverse lookup.

<comment><USER9> at one time you could search by e-mail address, but that was removed years ago.

<comment><USER10> I think you still can?

<comment><USER11> You can, so long as the privacy setting "Who can look you up using the email address you provided?" is set to a value that exposes it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You censor an email address in the image but not in the URL.

Don't know of any other way than posting here to contact you.

<comment><USER13> It appears to be the researcher's own address. Also, the censoring in the image is Facebook's, not the researcher's - this discrepancy is exactly the bug they're disclosing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Beat me to the reasoning for that lol thanks! But yea as he stated, it's one of my work email addresses I use for testing so figured the less censoring I did the better to show the full impact etc.

<comment><USER12> Oh yeah of course, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are more bugs. Wrong password page will reveal facebook user associated with an email..

<comment><USER15> Facebook's Wrong Password page has a bunch of weird behavior that, as a lay person, I disagree with.

Entering an old password into Facebook will tell you as such [1]. I can't really think of a practical attack for this towards facebook, but I'm really weary of any system that reveals information about passwords, even though I somewhat feel I'm being overly paranoid. Password recycling just seems to be too prevalent to allow me to ignore this, even though it seems impractical to me. I guess I just don't like that it reveals password information.

Enough failed logins automatically sends a temporary login pin to the email on file. Again, I feel that in a practical sense this isn't a big issue since if you can get access to the email that has the login pin you also likely have access to the victim's machine that is already logged in, but it still feels like a weird practice to automatically generate temporary credentials without being asked.

[1] - [http://i.imgur.com/J7YTJqY.png](http://i.imgur.com/J7YTJqY.png)

<comment><USER16> Confirmation of old password isn't such a big deal. If you are concerned that a password was shared with another site and not changed, the attacker has an easier test: use the password at the other site.

On the other hand, major utility boost for users. "I KNOW this is my password!" Actually, it was your password before you changed it. "Oh right."

I know I do this quite frequently. Enter password. (Wrong.) Guess I have to change it. Reset. (New password must be different than existing password.) My "new" password is the one I changed it to last time, before forgetting.

<comment><USER17> This happens to me with arcane password requirements that only tell you the requirements after you reset it.

try various passwords -> "Invalid password" -> send reset password email -> click email -> "passwords require a special character AND a number AND an unprintable character" -> me: ooooh, its that one -> enter it -> "password already used" -> enter another password I'll definitely forget next time.

There are websites I need so occasionally that I'm sure that I have never logged in without resetting my password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Facebook doesn't even have my primary email address.

<comment><USER19> Why would you equate 'the primary email address' with _your_ primary email address rather than the one FB thinks of as the primary? You're like a guy who sees a sign saying 'beware of pickpockets' and boasts about how he's smarter than that because he keeps his money in his shoe.

<comment><USER18> > You're like a guy who sees a sign saying 'beware of pickpockets' and boasts > about how he's smarter than that because he keeps his money in his shoe.

That's a beautiful analogy (and spot on). I'm stealing it.

<comment><USER19> Did you know that this behavior is widespread enough that pickpockets sometimes put up their own warning signs, so as to observe where people unconsciously touch their wallet through their outer clothes when they encounter the sign?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can we please skip this dance "I think this Facebook bug is worth more than XY dollars" next time, thanks.

<comment><USER21> Did I miss it? I don't see anywhere the author said "I think this facebook bug is worth more than XY dollars". It is obviously worth more than the $5,000 bounty given to someone willing to exploit it. Being able to harvest the email address of any arbitrary Facebook user would be worth much more than $5,000.

If bug bounty hunters are making a calculation of whether to report or sell on the black market, a bug like this would fetch a very large price. I hope people don't add shades of gray, or stripes of black, to their hats with the discrepancies that are regularly reported.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even at $5000 this set a personal high payout record for me. The easy legal money is better than taking a risk in a grey area such as selling exploits on the darknet. May not be as profitable this way, but I have no complaints and an extra 5k 2 days before xmas is a hell of a gift imo.

<comment><USER22> Also karma compared to selling the exploit to dodgy people on the darknet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. And with my past it is much better to stick to the right side and not venture into grey areas. Prison is not fun, so would really like to avoid it more in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Every Gadget Feels Like "Shark Dick" - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-every-gadget-feels-like-shark-dick

<comment><USER2> That's an absolutely brilliant headline -- it's total clickbait without using any of the typical clickbait patterns.

Shark dick! You won't believe what happens next!

<comment><USER3> One of my favorite headlines was about a library closing in the city of Ongar, Essex, England.

The headline?

"Book Lack in Ongar"

Absolutely genius

<comment><USER4> Just another chapter in the arms race between marketers and consumers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now because of this article I will always have shark dick in the back of my mind when dealing with these materials.

</comment><comment><USER6> I originally really loved this stuff, and I still like to find it here and there - it's great for nonslip stuff to put your phone on in the car, for instance, or for cases.

But for the actual device, give me some kind of durable semi-natural material if possible. Finished metal, wood, even stone have many excellent qualities and I'm willing to pay extra for them.

<comment><USER7> I don't mind it but the elastomeric paint that shreds up after a year of use is annoying. I've got it on the back of my phone and am hoping they've improved the process to make it more durable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If sharks actually had dicks, they'd probably be covered with dermal denticles.

[http://marinelife.about.com/od/glossary/g/dermaldenticle.htm](http://marinelife.about.com/od/glossary/g/dermaldenticle.htm)

This may not be something you'd want to line headphones with. To say nothing of sex toys...

</comment><comment><USER9> WTF is up with all of the vice links all of a sudden?</comment>


I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/15/executive-pay-salaries-carecentrix-senior-team-employees <comment><USER2> It's amazing this article even needs to be written. You'd think the executives pulling in these crazy salaries would be competent enough to know that paying their "team members" next to nothing is going to result in high turnover and be a bad business decision in the long run. This article frames his choice to actually pay his employees as some big discovery, but it's not. The fact is, execs already know, but they put their short-term greed over what is best for their employees, the company in the long term, and their communities.

<comment><USER3> It's more that they are out of touch, IMHO. They have absolutely no concept of how far $7.50/hr goes so they just say their employees need to budget better.

Perhaps if senior executives received minimum wage paychecks for two months (and no bonuses), they might gain some empathy.

<comment><USER4> You can't gain empathy when something is temporary. Most of the stress of being poor comes of worry about how to handle long term problems / the fact that life has no point except slaving away. That cannot be replicated without genuinely taking everything away from a person.

<comment><USER5> They need a show like undercover bosses, but instead the CEO must live on 7.50 for an entire year, and work as their own employee they have 0 access to savings, they cannot use credit either, and they are given 1 suitcase of clothes, a cellphone, laptop, and some feature comforts for their tiny apartment like a 32 inch tv.

<comment><USER6> 30 Days Season 1 Episode 1

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmSGEGOVI34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmSGEGOVI34)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was thinking the math didn't work out, but it does. If you ignore taxes and say a raise of +7.50 an hour for a working week comes to around $14500 extra a year, over 500 employees that's about $7.3m. If that were split into 20 executive bonuses, that'd be $365K each.

<comment><USER8> And if you're getting a $365k bonus you are likely already so rich that the money is only going for luxury things while for someone making $7.25 it's quite literally the difference between living in a car or not. I wonder if you could apply this to the rest of American society...

<comment><USER9> Yeah indeed. I wonder why more rich Americans don't feel shame and embarrassment at such purchases.

<comment><USER10> Most Americans have smartphones worth about as much as a monthly salary in Europeans countries. Should people feel embarrassment about that?

<comment><USER11> I think most Americans have phones that are used, and not Apple, and not flagship. Europe is pretty divers so I don't know if you mean Greece ~€1000 or Norway ~€4000 but it still seems like a stretch

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

When I lived in the US I thought more Europeans lived in gorgeous architecture and had excellent public transport. Living in Europe, I find a lot of people think Americans are wealthier than reality (though if they're thinking of tech salaries, they're probably right - that EU/US disparity is enormous).

<comment><USER10> There are twelve countries in the European Union with an average net income of less than 1000 euro. The two poorest ones (Romania & Bulgaria) are at 515 euro and 406 euro. So it's not that of a stretch that Americans have phones worth more than a European monthly wage.

<comment><USER12> It _is_ a stretch to say _most_ Americans do, though.

Also, your original post needs a qualifier on the scope of "European countries".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish redistribution to the very bottom was a bigger part of the political debate. Our politics is currently focused on redistribution from the very top to the middle class. (Stuff like free college or universal healthcare would primarily benefit the top half, because those folks are the ones who are in a position to be accepted to and attend college, and aren't already covered by Medicaid.) The math of that is tough, because 70% of all income is earned by households in the 50-99% income range (between $40,000 and $480,000 household income).

But the bottom 50% earns just 11% of all income, a little over $1 trillion. You could really improve their standard of living with even modest redistribution of the $9 trillion earned by the top 50% to the bottom 50%. But unfortunately middle class taxation is a complete non-starter in the US, even though that is how almost all European countries pay for their welfare states.

<comment><USER14> That's interesting. I've always seen the promotion of free college and universal healthcare as one of promoting equal opportunity to all.

While the lowest income groups have historically had low college participation, I saw it as a reflection of a class of people not even daring to dream an impossible dream, as it would cost too much. Making it free would of course change the idea around it.

<comment><USER15> > Making it free would of course change the idea around it.

For every good private college I know of (and almost every good public school) prices are free or enormously close to so for people in the bottom quarter of incomes. Making it free for everyone might change the psychology, but not the reality for lower-income people today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why does a company with only 500 regular employees even _have_ 20 executives in the upper bracket?

Are they just overpaid sales people?

If the upper 5% at my company earned enough to double the wages of the other 95%, I'd be pretty damn mad about those leeches.

Especially if the company is already struggling.

<comment><USER17> What they have on the website:

        * Chief Executive Officer
        * Chief Medical Officer
        * Senior Vice President, Human Resources
        * Chief Customer Officer
        * Chief Legal & Strategic Solutions Officer
        * Chief Financial Officer
        * President and Chief Operating Officer
        * Chief Compliance Officer
        * Chief Technology Officer
        * Chief Growth Officer

In addition their board has 8 members.

<comment><USER18> What the hell is even "Chief Growth Officer"? Asking for real.

Growth is either achieved organically or you are just forcing your way to a lucrative exit without bringing any value. Artificial and forced growth is toxic for the economy at large.

The rest of the roles mostly make sense although I believe some of them can be merged so further savings can be accomplished.

<comment><USER19> "Growth" is one of the most misnamed and misunderstood roles because, as you correctly noted, everyone in the company should be responsible for growth.

I explain to everyone about my role that it's not the responsibility of the Growth team to deliver Growth, it's our responsibility to put Growth more under the companies control. We act like a team of scientists to empirically try and understand what drives our growth and then build out systems, tools and processes to measure & improve those factors.

YC has a good guide on what kinds of roles a Growth team is responsible for and what good Growth people do: [https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth- guide2017/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/growth-guide2017/)

<comment><USER18> What you say softens it a little but IMO growth still should be organically achieved first and foremost and not chased after to please investors.

Bringing real value for customers should weigh much more than the approval of a bunch of golfers.

"Growth" in the terms you describe should be more like "marketing": what other market niches can we fill, are our prices reasonable, can we expand to country X, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > My HR staff suggested that we re-think our recruiting and training – which > made sense – but I thought that we could do more. I thought we needed to > reconsider how we supported and paid our team.

Sounds like a situation right out of Yes, Minister. HR staff not being forthcoming with the obvious answer of increasing pay to lower attrition rates from 30-40% due to the attitude of the board/CEO and anticipation of their negative response.

<comment><USER21> I've always wondered if companies even need a HR? Especially when they are huge separate departments.

<comment><USER22> At some point every company needs someone to handle those duties. Payroll & benefits, recruiting, onboarding & offboarding, these sort of things don't just sort themselves out on the side and quickly become full time positions that require dedicated individuals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is insane -- paying a $7.25/hr minimum wage to people you call "teammates" and expecting them to stick around is preposterous. In anything but a terrible economic downturn, minimum wage says to employees that you just want a body doing a job right at this moment, but aren't willing to invest any further in them.

Why would anyone stick around, or care to do more than the most basic job requirements? These jobs are totally disposable to employees, just as the employees are disposable to the company. If you don't want your employees to leave, don't treat them as disposable, and don't belittle them by pretending you're a team.

This guy thinks he stumbled on some grand new lesson, and it's hilariously terrible.

<comment><USER22> I was watching a sitcom called Superstore a little while ago, features the employees in a Wal-Mart like store, and the protagonist got a promotion to the head of the store. There was a whole plot line about how her wage was now in the 6 figures, and I was incredulous until I did a bit of research - Wal-Mart store managers can absolutely make that much money while their employees live in poverty.

How you could make that much and expect loyalty and sacrifice from your staff who make a fraction of that, I won't ever know.

<comment><USER24> Supposes employer A chooses to pay their employees more than other employers. Employer B chooses to pay their employees less. Both employers are selling products or services that the purchaser finds the same, i.e. they have no preference for who they buy it from.

Employer B takes the money they save by paying employees less, and invests in newer, better facilities or R&D or whatever. Now employer B is selling a better product than employer A. Who will customers choose to purchase from? Who will lose business, and end up having to fire employees?

To be a successful business, compensation decisions can't be based on people's feelings. You have to consider when a new store or hotel or restaurant will come around and put them out of business, and stay ahead of the curve. You pay what you need to to get the job done. There are some good examples like Costco, but there are only so many people with sufficient disposable income who can afford to shop at Costco and similar stores, and they're not competing with Walmart/CVS/Dollar Store or other bottom tier vendors.

<comment><USER25> True, but Employer-B now has employees who DGAF about anything in the business, and often have an adversarial, even 'eff them! attitude to the business.

Employer-B's customer service and general care of its facilities & inventory will suck, and they will have much higher turnover costs, even if they have better products.

So, what is the relative advantage?

Moreover, the article was specifically about the tradeoff in executive pay vs low-end pay, and how a small sacrifice at the top made huge differences both for the low-level employees and for profits overall

<comment><USER24> There's a reason Walmart and Dollar General are crushing others, and it's because either their customers can't afford good customer service or they don't care for it and choose to shop there anyway. The proof is literally the fact that mom and pop stores and others like Sears went out of business, customers preferred saving $5 over good customer service.

As I prefaced above, this is true for business where customers aren't differentiating between vendors except on price.

<comment><USER26> Don't know about Dollar General, but isn't Walmart successful because they're big enough to dictate terms to their suppliers and simply squash their smaller competition with convenience?

<comment><USER24> They started small at some point, and there are many factors contributing to their ability to offer the lowest price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think it's great that this company did this, but this article is a puff piece. There's no real data here. He just states that the `business tripled`. What does that actually mean? Did it triple in revenue? How did increasing the entry-level pay result in that? And how did your non-entry level employees handle the lowest wrung earning far closer to their own pay? How many executives decided that the freeze wasn't in their own best interest and left? You can't just sacrifice and redistribute and expect it to be all roses. The details matter, especially if you're trying to convince resistant minds that it's a good thing.

<comment><USER28> It's a newspaper article, the aim is to raise awareness. People should read this and wonder if/how it applies to their company.

It's easy to forget how the lowest-paid in a company are often key people in having operations run smoothly. If they have trouble paying their bills, often on sick-leave, etc, it can have an impact on everyone else (causing delays, quality issues or security issues). Ideally, you invest in fixing both the technical and the underlying social issues.

<comment><USER27> With something this important, I'd expect something more substantial than the equivalent of "I stayed on this diet for a year and it worked! I shrunk by 1/3rd!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you take this at face value, those top 20 execs must have been extremely highly paid if freezing their wages allowed this to happen. (As math done by others shows - giving 25 people a 15K raise is ~350k. That means those top people were expecting raises of that much. Implies a crazy base)

I suspect there is more to the story. Either the raises paid for themselves via lower attrition, or perhaps came with added productivity. If you look up the company on Glassdoor, there is a lot of negativity towards management.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't understand something from this article:

 _" Our margins had declined and our revenue growth had stalled. ... I was becoming increasingly worried about our team and our turnover numbers. We are a people business and in some divisions we were losing 30 to 40% of our teammates within a year.

My HR staff suggested that we re-think our recruiting and training – which made sense – but I thought that we could do more. I thought we needed to reconsider how we supported and paid our team. For our entry level jobs – where turnover was the highest – we paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour (or less than $16,000 per year).

...

I took my concerns to my team. After many tough conversations, it became clear that we could not simply raise wages and hit our budget."_

This just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Recruiting and especially training has a very real cost for non-trivial jobs. Why would they pay minimum wage when they seem to be acknowledging that not paying minimum wage would increase their profits? This is something companies learned in the early 20th century. Henry Ford was the first employer to institute a higher minimum wage for his employees (doubling the average pay of the time). He didn't do it because he was a nice guy, he did it because he found that increasing the minimum wage reduced turnover which meant less spent on training and a general increase in productivity and profits. The same reason he would also go on to standardize what we now consider the normal 8 hour work day / 40 hour work week.

This seems very much like a story of a very poorly managed company. A minimum wage is appropriate when it's appropriate. When you're losing 30-40% of your employees, likely in meaningful part due to wage, and it's costing substantial amounts to replace and retrain for their roles - it's not appropriate. It seriously seems like at times that MBAs should be relabeled to masters of business annihilation because that's invariably where these incredibly myopic views on labor:costs:revenue seem to come from.

\---

edit: confirmed. Here [1] is their board. And indeed it's just an MBA pack.

[1] - [https://www.carecentrix.com/about- us](https://www.carecentrix.com/about-us)

<comment><USER31> I used to work for some of those guys (very indirectly) when they used to work at Medco as senior execs making millions. They are smart guys that don't need $$$ at this point. In their defense, operations/call center leaders are very metrics and cost-driven at most companies. 50% annual attrition rate is business as usual. Driving down call volume, average handle time, and increasing first-call-resolution are name of the games. Call centers are viewed only as cost center at most companies. This trend has been changing in the past few years, so I'm glad they are also in the right side of the fence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Relevant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs)

See also: [https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David- Graeber/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David- Graeber/dp/150114331X)

<comment><USER33> What a find! There are a lot of jobs that are complete bullshit, especially in finance and tech. That hot new app or device isn't a necessity, its decoration. Things got done before slack existed, so why are some brilliant people wasting their time and life working tirelessly to optimize slack? People might get promoted and pat themselves on the back for reworking some aspect of the snapchat back end, for instance, but are you gonna put that accomplishment on your tombstone? Will your project ever come up in university CS lectures, or even see the light of day to be cited by other researchers? The iPhone Xs doesn't do anything fundamentally different than the first iPhone, and people buy new ones every year to do the same emailing, texting and calling, and web surfing they've always done since their first smartphone. There are people who are striving daily to make missiles more lethal, advertising more addictive, consumption more rampant, the environment more polluted, and shareholder profit more exponential.

A lack of fulfillment in the majority of straight out of undergrad private sector career paths is what got me interested in grad school, to spend my time and effort working on a topic that's explicitly _not_ bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > last year we broadened profit sharing to all levels of the company

So... do executives think this means something to people? This incentive seems comically out-of-touch. I guess because CEOs live and breathe stock valuation- based bonuses they naturally assume that everyone gets motivated the same way. But it seems like a stretch that strains credulity to think that someone making $15/hr and getting a microscopic slice of revenue would develop a sense of motivation from the fact that their personal call-center interactions might _maybe_ increase their share of revenue by a few pennies a week through slightly happier customers.

</comment><comment><USER35> I really hate articles like this. The company provides home health visits, requiring a nurse. Nurses don't work for $7.50 hour. Reading closely, it was for entry-level positions, probably in a certain department. Skilled positions would require market rates.

Translation: in an economic down turn they killed the bonus, raised the pay for customer service reps, and are now claiming a moral victory as if the growth was caused by paying people more.

</comment><comment><USER36> This seems like the equivalent of a man walking up to a homeless person, kneeling and handing the man $5 while his wife takes a picture of the action... Oh! You have an ounce of humanity left in your slowly freezing heart, you want a cookie jackass? Had the top 5% cut their salaries in half and disbursed it equally to the bottom 5% then I might have been impressed but anything short of that and you aren't going to get me to bat an eye.

</comment><comment><USER37> And this is exactly how wage rises should work: business-driven decision without any government intervention. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER38> That's called being an startup, any other news?

</comment><comment><USER39> me thinks the shitty 7.25 an hour is to blame.</comment>


Republican-controlled Congress ordered destruction of vital sea-ice probe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/05/donald-trump-accused-blocking-satellite-climate-change-research <comment><USER2> I don't understand the gripe of the article and pointing out Republicans controlling Congress as some sort of bad guy deception. There is a new satellite for climate monitoring set to launch on the 10th. They wanted to store old technology for $500+ million and *maybe launch it? Something's missing here.

<comment><USER3> >> It should have been replaced with the F20 probe, which had already been built and was being kept in storage by the US Air Force. However it had to be destroyed, on the orders of the US Congress, on the grounds that its storage was too costly.

They destroyed the replacement.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Joint Polar Satellite System the replacement?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found this article from June 2015 provides better background on the F20:

[http://spacenews.com/senate-spending-bill-backs-house- recomm...](http://spacenews.com/senate-spending-bill-backs-house- recommendation-to-shelve-dmsp-f20/)

(It's also not editorialized.)

</comment><comment><USER6> All the global warming stuff is pseudoscience now. Trace whole planet climate is impossible, maybe if develop much powerful supercomputers or so.</comment>


Scala – The Simple Parts - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/Odersky/flatmap-oslo-presentation-slides?1m0rTry <comment><USER2> From most of the people I talk to, they rarely complain that scala sold out to industry, but instead talk about how complex the language is.

For truly widespread adoption, I'm talking PHP or Java levels, you need to have a totally different mindset. I don't think Scala is that language.

<comment><USER3> I think achieving PHP or Java levels of adoption is as much about timing and serendipity as it does language features.

<comment><USER4> Java(blue collar language [http://dfjug.org/thefeelofjava.pdf](http://dfjug.org/thefeelofjava.pdf)) is easy. Scala is not([http://blog.goodstuff.im/yes-virginia-scala-is- hard](http://blog.goodstuff.im/yes-virginia-scala-is-hard)). (I am a Scala fan.)

<comment><USER5> I wish they would get rid of CanBuildFrom

<comment><USER6> I write Scala production code on a daily basis and I've never had to even look at CanBuildFrom. I know it's there (I remember the API docs before they started hiding things), I just never have to deal with it.

I know it's a common complaint, it's just one that's never impacted me in the real world. Never comes up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A word of advice: if you move from the .NET platform - C# - to the JVM, then Scala is your language. Java was your language for a very long time, and Java 8 is pretty close, but I still believe Scala is the right choice.

There is a ton of complexity in the type system but you don't need to learn it all at once. If you approach Scala development like you approach C# development you'll go far.

<comment><USER8> I agree, if one can afford to be in a company that gives some freedom about which tools to use.

If we are talking about the typical enterprise, with mega projects, having out-sourcing and off-shoring components, then Java is still the king.

Since a few years I am mostly involved in such type of projects and I see how many of such developers struggle with modern programming concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Scala is great no matter what is the "true" answer to the question "is Scala too complex?".

If it's indeed too complex for the mass average developers, then I can use it to filter them out. I got a free way to hire better developers (I don't have to use Scala in production in order to use it in interviews...) Also if you do find a top developer who managed to master Scala's complexity, then the complexity is no longer a problem, it becomes a benefit, and they use it to create better libraries and APIs for the "regular" developers to use with more ease and type safety.

If it's not complex then I can easily hire any decent Java developer and provide Scala training (I think there is no argument that it's more productive / expressive than Java*, and remember in this "scenario" Scala is not more complex to learn than Java)

Win win

Now the real issue is compile times. If anything itches me toward trying Kotlin is having way too many coffee breaks ([http://xkcd.com/303/](http://xkcd.com/303/))

<comment><USER2> Productivity of a programming language is a tricky bit.

Definitely you can achieve more with less characters in Scala than Java. Are you paying by the character?

For me, legibility and long term readability is the most dominating factor out of any. This is really subjective, but saving on characters you have to type, only to make the code a lot harder to read seems like penny wise pound foolish to me.

And to pull out an expert who agrees with me, Linus slaps C++ around for many of the same reasons. He noted that it's a lot easier to review patches in C because there is no hidden features (eg: operator overloading) that prevent comprehension.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious to see how Scala matures. Right now the community is really into the FP side. So much so that they want to make everything look like Haskell. So we've got operators and types and nomenclature that doesn't make sense to the average developer. So the developers could mature/advance/become-academic or they could take the good parts of Scala and treat it as Java++. I, frankly, think the second is better.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that the community is on the FP side, or if there's just an extremely vocal FP community within scala drowning out all the other scala community members.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps that is true. But they seem to be in API vanguard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is all a preamble to Dotty, the new experimental compiler ("dotc" in the slides), making its way into Scala proper.

When it was first announced some Scalaz core members freaked out on Twitter (due to proposed simplification of the type system), but that died down, apparently the changes won't completely neuter the type system down to that of other JVM languages.

Presumably tooling and build times will improve, along with fewer ways to do the same thing, when Dotty comes on the scene (guessing a couple of years away).

For now, if one makes use of SBT sub projects along with incremental builds in SBT 0.13 (and turns off automatic builds in Eclipse/IntelliJ), one _can_ have a snappy development experience and decent compile times.

Have to learn the ropes though, as with any powerful language, out of the box there are hard yards to get through...

</comment><comment><USER12> Scala was the first ML family language I learned. I tried to love it, but found I needed help learning it, so I turned to Haskell hoping for a better understanding of some of Scala's type system and other ML concepts. Then I fell in love with Haskell.

Equally complex, if not moreso, and not any easier, but it felt simpler since it focused on a single paradigm instead of attempting to mix two big ones, and the whitespace-enforced readability and uniformity helped reduce cognitive load while learning and working with it. Great performance too, C-like in some cases with expert optimizations, and a range of concurrency and parallelization options.

<comment><USER5> yep. When I first tasted Scala it seemed great, but the having abstractions that leak less (haskell) is something I really appreciate.

And there's something about Scala using traits for everything that rubs me the wrong way.

Stuff like this I still find odd, mixing abstract classes with functions and inheritance.

            abstract class IntSeqBuffer extends SeqBuffer {
         	     type U = Int
    	}
    	object AbstractTypeTest1 extends App {
      	  def newIntSeqBuf(elem1: Int, elem2: Int): IntSeqBuffer =
        	    new IntSeqBuffer {
             	 type T = List[U]
             	 val element = List(elem1, elem2)
           	       }
      	  val buf = newIntSeqBuf(7, 8)
    	}

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty much if there is a slide with a title "Why not use a Monad?" then this is not the simple parts.

I tend to wonder why more people do not talk about Eckels book on Scala if they want a more basic intro to the language.

</comment><comment><USER14> The presentation is much better in person.</comment>


Oracle checks in -XX:+UnlockCommercialVMOptions in JVM - <AUTHOR> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/hsx/hotspot-rt/hotspot/rev/763f01599ff4

<comment><USER2> The biggest problem here is the risk of the JVM losing its suitability for large, scalable projects. Currently JVM on Linux is $0 in licenses. No matter what $N is, it's ∞% more than 0, and the added cost of scaling to X servers is X * N, not 0. Plus, of course, the ridiculous, soul sucking calls with a "consultant" who will try to sell you Oracle licenses and insists on being your pal and "how about I come out on Wednesday, these discussions are easier face-to-face" to actually procure the bloody licences - and then sends you an Excel sheet with 15 different term and payment options that you then have to spend an afternoon parsing. Better for a cash-strapped start up to go with something free instead.

This is _exactly_ the reason Microsoft has a BizSpark™ programme, and Ruby doesn't.

<comment><USER3> How exactly does an open source programming language compare to a cloud computing program from Microsoft? I don't really see the link, at all.

Or are you equivocating Ruby with Rails running in a cloud platform? Your last sentence doesn't really parse well.

<comment><USER4> BizSpark is a program to give software free to cash-strapped developers. He's saying that being free gives you a huge boost from grassroots support. Ruby doesn't need to do anything special to get this support because it is already free. The Microsoft stack is commercial, though, so they need to have a whole specialized program just to almost level the playing field.

<comment><USER3> Strikes me more as an equivalent to "first hits free" where the hidden cost is as you scale you'll just end up paying more.

But that makes more sense thanks, I don't normally deal with Microsoft products in that fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And so it begins.

While this leaves me with an icky feeling, being a java developer, I'm also cognizant of the fact that one of the major criticisms of Sun from the financial markets was that they could not monetize java very well.

It'll be interesting to look back in 10 years and see how Java has fared under Oracle.

<comment><USER6> Could it mean more money for us Java developers?

<comment><USER7> Probably not.

One way to look at it is like this: Previously, to increase performance of a production Java app you would pay the best Java developer you could find a lot of money to make it run fast.

Now, you might still do that, but first you will pay Oracle some licence fee so you can use their commercial JVM options (and good Java developers are likely to insist on using those feature because generally JVM tuning options work very well). That take money out of the budget for Java talent.

<comment><USER2> > That take money out of the budget for Java talent.

Unlikely: The C# runtime costs money, yet C# devs are as well paid as Java devs.

<comment><USER8> What?!!? When did they start charging for the runtime? Admittedly, it has been a while for me, but I remember the runtime and the SDK being free. Is my information out of date, or are you confusing it with Visual Studio?

<comment><USER2> I'm referring to Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The important thing to note from the source comments:

commercial flags support features for which Oracle charges a fee for production use, though they're free for development and/or evaluation. There's no enforcement mechanism in Hotspot other than that -XX:+UnlockCommercialVMOptions must first be specified in order to use them.

<comment><USER10> Should read " _Currently_ , there's no enforcement mechanism..."

<comment><USER11> There's no software enforcement mechanism in the flagship Oracle Enterprise DBMS either.

You can download it for free on the web.

From <http://www.orafaq.com/wiki/Oracle_Licensing>:

      A license is the "right to use" (RTU) the software and
      not the software itself. If you have a license, you can
      obtain a copy of the software through whatever means -
      order, download, use the CDs from your last project, etc.
      Please note that Oracle doesn't use software keys. You can
      just install the software and use it. It is up to you and
      your consciences to license the software before using it.

<comment><USER12> Does that means that I can legally use their software free of charge if my conscience doesn't prohibit me from using it unlicensed?

<comment><USER13> No. Every EULA you'll click through will include some clause restricting usage to 30 days for evaluation purposes, except in a few cases (db client, beta versions, XE edition, Technology Network stuff, Linux etc). And they do enforce that clause as soon as they find you're using any of their stuff. Plus, you need an account on their site to download pretty much anything, so they'll know what you download, and from time to time you might get a call to see how that "reviewing" is going, especially if you are not a customer yet.

It makes it very easy for people to get access to software and to learn, however, especially if they're covered by a company who is already a customer.

<comment><USER14> How does that play with the fact these changes seem to be checked into the GPL'd code? Wouldn't GPL itself give you a separate license to use the features regardless of whatever EULA Oracle comes up with?

<comment><USER15> Not if they are patented (and you reside in a country where software patents are valid).

<comment><USER14> I know there is a lot of debate about it, but as far as I understand it GPL is still regarded as including an implied patent grant. Fwiw:

<http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If nothing else, this proves that Oracle is serious about OpenJDK. If they weren't planning to continue to provide the commercial/patented features under the open source license, why have a gate/switch to disable them ?

</comment><comment><USER17> The -XX:+UnlockCommercialVMOptions flag has been removed from OpenJDK (<http://j.mp/u9gAJ9>). It was pushed to an open repository by mistake.

<comment><USER18> Not sure why this hasn't been upvoted more, especially as it is one of the most relevant posts I've read in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect for Java SE at Oracle, pointed out on Twitter [0], that patch was meant for Oracle's product VM, a minor fork of OpenJDK, which has "commercial features" just like other vendors' VMs. Since it was checked into OpenJDK by mistake, it has been backed out of OpenJDK again within 24 hours[1].

Some of the key points of Oracle's Java SE strategy[2] are:

* Oracle plans to contribute the results of the combined Oracle Java HotSpot and Oracle JRockit JVMs to the OpenJDK project.

* The Oracle JDK and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) will continue to be available as free downloads, with no changes to the existing licensing models.

If you'd like to learn more about it and the ongoing JVM convergence work, I'd recommend reading Henrik Ståhl's blog post from last year here:

<http://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/oracles_jvm_strategy>

\- Henrik is Senior Director of Java Product Management at Oracle and runs a group responsible for product strategy for Java SE, among other things.

Dalibor Topic, Java F/OSS Ambassador, Java Product Group @ Oracle

[0] <https://twitter.com/#!/mreinhold/status/142122264220008448>

[1] <https://twitter.com/#!/mreinhold/status/142102137130844161>

[2] <http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/173782></comment>


When software ecosystems die - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/01/02/when-software-dies/ <comment><USER2> I don't think "go with the market leader" is a viable strategy, since I'm sure we can all find examples of the market leader being upended..

So the real moral of the story is "Don't base your livelyhood on proprietary software because companies WILL go out of business and leave you in the lurch."

</comment><comment><USER3> >With Software-as-a-Service you're back in the realm of choosing between monopoly pricing and chance of software disappearing.

For some kinds of data, this is okay. Modern SaaS providers seem to be cognizant of the fact that we still want control of our data and so accommodate that with an API.

The example given hits home for me. There is still one piece of business- critical legacy software that I use that currently has no viable exit path. If the developer ceased to exist, I would be screwed. I know they won't give the rights to the source. I don't think I want to see it.

So I've been spending many hours over the past 1.5 years learning how to build the backup parachute.</comment>